Monday, July 30, 2012

Quilts By The Creek



 I went to a  fabulous quilt show yesterday.  York Heritage Quilters Guild  www.yhqg.org/ partnered with Black Creek Pioneer Villagewww.blackcreek.ca put it on. What a great place to display quilts.  The majority of the quilts were hung outside (Thank goodness it didn't rain). 

I had two quilts hanging in the show.  The first one I call "There is a Snowflake in My Kaleidoscope"

There Is A Snowflake In My Kaleidoscope

This quilt is an original design that I designed in EQ7 using the traditional kaleidoscope block worked from the centre out. I made the quilt entirely of  Kaffee Fassett Fabrics (one or two Brandon Mabley fabrics might have slipped in).  The second quilt is made up of Northwind blocks.  The fabrics used in this quilt were from a fabric exchange where 3 women including myself exchanged fabric squares for a year.  I have seen beautiful  Northwind quilts made up with small  traditional prints, but these fabrics were mostly larger kind of funky prints, so I was a little nervous about how they would work.  Some of them had to be discarded, but the majority of them worked out quite well.


Northwind Block

Just seeing the quilts hanging from railings, blowing in the breeze just felt like you were stepping back in time.

The Doctor's House Pioneer Village
                                                                             
Quilt by Sandy Lindal


Beautiful Quilts Blowing In The Breeze
Quilt By Shirley Dawson

More Quilts

Black Creek Pioneer Village
Quilt By Linda Hemming
Quilt By Shirley Dawson
More Quilts
Quilt By Joan Lester
Town Hall
Cabinet Maker Shop
 Val Prideaux and Jane Cramer 
Thanks Val and Jane for making it happen, you did a great job!  There were many more quilts than I could possibly photograph.  It was a lovely show.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Lots of Hand Sewing

We really do take our health for granted.  I had a minor surgery on Tuesday and was told not to lift anything heavy for 4 to 6 weeks.  I must say not doing laundry or cutting lawns or shovelling compost onto my gardens hasn't broken my heart.  But all my DIY projects, longarm quilting, that is another story.  The bright side to all of this is I get to hand stitch.  And there is no shortage of hand stitching in my project bins.  This is where I am currently hanging out.


My Hand Sewing Station


Jaxy and Albert

And my two pals that I am hanging out with.  My latest project started out at work with this pattern.


It is so pretty when it is finished.  Because I am still in my Japanese neutrals phase, I thought I would use them in this project.  I also thought I would make more than the nine blocks that they called for.

Hexagon Blocks
    Changing the shape of the block to a hexagon  might  be a  little fussier to assemble but I think it will be worth it in the long run. Stay tuned, this is a long term project, I will keep you updated on my progress.


     I bought my very first jelly roll the other day.  I needed it like a hole in the head but it was so beautiful.  It is one of the Kona Solids.  I have a huge stash of solids and believe it or not only a few of my colours were duplicates.  I am not sure what I am going to make with it yet, but  I have wanted to make a solid quilt for a long time.  When I am not stitching I can be dreaming .....for the next few weeks anyway!