Quilt Guild Show

People have been asking what happened to my blog, so I'm back at it.

I belong to the Waterloo County Quilters Guild, and we host a quilt show every two years. Our most recent show was a spectacular success. Comments were made about the quality of the display. We had quilts of many kinds, along with a nice variety of other quilted items like handbags, garments, brassiers, world globes, etc.

I myself entered 3 quilts, and all three were accepted. Very exciting. It is quite something to see one's own quilts hanging in a display like that. In this photo, the two larger quilts are mine, and the one in the middle is by another quilt goddess.

On the quilt on the left side, the hearts are all hand appliqued onto different denim shirt fabrics, then machine pieced and machine quilted. The one on the right is made from small patches of blues and reds grouped together into 16 patches. I machined quilted the sashing strips, and then hand quilted the blocks. I'll never hand quilt like that again! Hand work was never my thing, anyway.

A lot going on

There has been a lot going on, I just haven't been writing it down. I was on holidays last week, and I had a long to-do list for myself. I did most everything I wanted. I did some serious sewing, I went camping, spent a day adventuring with my family, went to a couple of quilt stores, went to an air show, went to my quilt guild meeting, spent some quality time on Georgian Bay. Feeling the water, the fire, the sky, the stars, the rain, was good for my soul.

From my tailoring training way back, I am able to draft my own patterns for clothing and other sewn items. This has always been easy for me. So one of the things I did last week was create a jean-jacket style vest pattern for myself. I've had an urge lately to make some clothes for myself. Tailoring my shirts for work hasn't been enough. Now I want something different when I'm not at work, something other than my usual jeans and t-shirts. Very interesting, this new desire to present myself in a different way to the world!

I've been also working on my printed fabric landscape quilts, too, though this isn't progressing as much as I'd like. I guess I need to focus more on it, but there are only so many hours in a day! I did get some printing onto silk, with fabulous results. The colours just seem so much brighter than on the cotton. There is a tiny bit of bleeding, and I have a couple of ideas to work out.

And anybody who knows anything about me knows I love raspberries. Strawberries are in full swing around here at the moment, and I'll go out picking at a local pyo, but with all the hot weather and rain we've had, the raspberries are coming already. Feels like berry heaven. I was just out today to check on the wild blackberries that grow around here, and collected enough to get a good feed. And now I'm wondering about blueberries, which are also excellent for health. Might have to go to the farmer's market to have a look-see.

So you see there is a lot going on.

Talk about Inspiration

Whew! I finally had a moment to sit down and upload my photos from Quilt Canada 2010. Amazing. I really loved seeing all the excellent quilts, walking amidst the energy of creativity.

Enjoyed the company of my sister and sister-in-law, who are also quilters, and my niece and ten year old great-niece. She's a budding crafty quilty little girl It was a treat to see the world through her eyes!

Spent a few dollars, toured Calgary a bit, collected a lot of ideas.

Success at Last

I've been working on something for a while now, and I finally have a result that I'm happy with. I've been figuring out how to use my photo printer to print on fabric, then turn the fabric into quilts, no colours washing out. I know, I know, you're thinking this is nothing new, this has been done before. Sure, many other quilters and fibre artists have successfully used this technique.

But for me it's new, and it's very exciting to see my own photos transformed into another artform. These are small pieces, 4x6", and have thread painting. I am thinking of other possibilities, like larger pieces, adding painting, embroidery, beading, applique, yarn couching, and many other embellishments.

Title Quilts

So, the two quilts you see in the title frame are made by myself, of course. The top one is made all from denim patches, each block about 5". Many many blocks, many many pieces, many many hours in the making! I had this one machine quilted at a local shop, Creative Sisters. It's such a big quilt, I didn't think I could quilt it on my home machine. I love the way it worked out.

The lower one in the photo is another one with a lot of piecing. It is all plaids, sorted into blues and reds, 16 patches, separated with a skinny navy sashing. I was crazy enough to start hand quilting, and had to finish it that way. It took years, but I recently finished it, and am happy to see it done. I love the way this quilt looks, too.

I am very good at cutting and piecing, once I get rolling. Finishing a quilt, not so good. I have a number of finished quilt tops ready for action, but they are not seeing much action. So I was quite happy to have not one, but two, full sized quilts completely finished this year.