Wild Child crosses the finish line!!!

This vibrant (understatement!) quilt began its life in Sisters, Oregon at Quilters' Affair.  I took a class from Scott Hansen the day before the quilt show in 2012.  The class was called Fireworks and the pattern is out of the book, "Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin".  No kidding!  There is nothing 'grandmotherly' about this quilt which is based on the log cabin pattern.

I totally stepped out of my comfort zone with this project and ventured forth into the colourful world of Kaffe Fassett and his line of vivid fabrics.  I bought the fabric at Sisters Quilt Shop in Chehalis on the way down to Sisters.  I ended up hitting up my stash after I returned home as I moved towards finishing the blocks.  I needed to add a bit more value and different colours because the Kaffe fabrics I chose sorta all read 'medium' and there wasn't enough contrast between the blocks.

I had a total blast making this quilt and it is destined to hang in the Victoria Quilters' Guild 2014 Quilt Show next May.  And how cool is it that I already have one quilt ready to go for the show...12 months ahead of schedule!!!  I think I may just need to stand up and take a bow.  That has NEVER happened before and I'm quite chuffed with myself actually. Come to think of it,  I've actually got 2 quilts ready for the show and 1 left to do but I must not let this get to my head.

Oh yes, and before I forget to mention it, I've named this quilt "Wild Child".  I don't think I need to explain that one, do I??

Until next time,

Mavis

Trip Around the World

We did a small makeover on our queen suite in our B&B.  I had a hand-quilted quilt on the twin bed in the Queen suite.  You can see the bottom of it on the twin bed on the right.  But the queen bed in the suite has this quilt on it.  We've removed the brass bed and made a new headboard.

I wanted to make something a bit more 'country' looking and I wanted it to be quick quilt.  So I made a Trip Around the World for the twin, in compatible colours to the quilt on the queen bed.  And as of tonight this is it now done and on the twin bed.  I quilted it on my frame with my Janome 6500.

A photo shoot tomorrow and the website will be updated to show the new quilt.

 

And that's quite enough for one day!  

I have another quilt back from the long arm quilter so I have another binding to finish and then there will be yet another UFO off the list!  Woot woot!!  Stay tuned for more pictures of another finish in a couple of days.

Until next time,

Mavis

To Romania with love...

Our church, Lion of Judah, has a longstanding connection with Romania and the work of a few para-church organizations in Brasov.  One of these organizations, Firm Foundations Romania, ministers love and care to the children in the Brasov Children's Hospital.  As quilters, our natural inclination was to send some love and compassion in the form of baby quilts over for these children.  We were told that they don't cover the babies in blankets and that quilts would not be accepted by the Hospital.  So, a few years back, we sent a quilt called "Bugs in a Jar" to adorn the walls and hopefully bring smiles to some of those tiny faces.

Then last summer, the leader and some of the team from Firm Foundations Romania, stayed at our B&B and did a recording session (google Sarah Berchtold or look on youtube for more information about her music and their work in Romania).  Once again we talked about sending baby quilts but were told that things had not changed, and that for whatever reason, baby quilts were not allowed.  How sad.

THEN...one of the girls on the team said, "if you REALLY want to do something to bless the ministry, you could make quilts for the volunteer quarters".  We then discussed what that entailed.  5 twin sized quilts for the volunteer quarters.  They were just about to be painted and spruced up.  Brown and Purple she said.  Challenge on!!

Anyway, we committed to make 5 of these quilts and here is the pictorial story on their creation.  The quilts were delivered a few days ago to one of the volunteers who was in Canada visiting but going back to Romania.  I believe they have now arrived at their forever home, sent with our prayers for God's blessing on the volunteers and the work that they are doing with these unfortunate orphans.

Scrappy purples and creams/beiges are cut to create the Ohio Stars

Building quilt blocks

Pressing is SO important!

Putting the blocks together

Portable design wall - necessary to make sure all the blocks are in the correct order and orientation.

 

One quilt top done!

2 quilt tops done!

Working on number 3!

#4 ready for quilting

Rolling in on #5!

Closeup of lovely pantograph stitching.

Quilted and ready for binding!

The quilts were presented at Lion of Judah at both Sunday services on April 7th before making their way to Romania.  Here are a few pictures of that presentation:

Only 4 got shown at the first service somehow.  Need more hands to hold them!

Thankful for the extra hands to hold the quilts at the 2nd service

The big reveal.

Me telling the story about the project.

This pictorial representation makes it look like it was an overnight project.  No so.  We have a dedicated team of quilters and this took several months of cutting, sewing, pressing and finally quilting.  Our hearts were full as we sent these off and we hope they make the 'home away from home' for the volunteers at Firm Foundations Romania a little more comfortable.

Until next time,

Mavis

3rd UFO finish for 2013!! "SPRING GARDEN"

It feels so great to finally have this quilt finished.

It has a long story and it goes something like this:

This quilt began its life as a mystery quilt off of Bonnie Hunter's website, quiltville.com.  I have loved my journey with Bonnie.  Learning to steer away from the matchy matchy style of EXPENSIVE quilting and using what I have on hand to make scrap quilts has been a very liberating and fulfilling experience.  Thank you Bonnie for opening my eyes!  Some of my more interesting scrap quilts have much more character than those I've created from purpose-bought yardage alone.  Our quilting ancestors knew a thing or two!!

Anyway, this is Bonnie's pattern called ROLL ROLL COTTON BOLL (see her button bottom right column of my blog).  It uses strings pieced onto foundation paper and Bonnie encouraged us to 'throw it all in there'.  In mine is everything (except Y2K prints which I never owned - this is an inside joke because she has tons of Y2K fabric that she cuts up and puts in many of her quilts).  If the colour was neutral it didn't matter what the subject of the fabric was.  I have polka dots next to kiddie prints, next to batiks, etc.  I know!!! Liberated or what!!??  Anyway, this quilt and I have a story to tell as it hasn't been without its trauma.

The foundation paper I used for the string triangles was Ricky Tims' washable foundation paper.  It's wonderful stuff and I would use it again in a heartbeat.  But I did something very stupid.  After finishing all of the string blocks, I wanted to soak off the washable foundation but we were due to a funeral so I decided...wait for it....to put it in the washing machine on 'delicate'.  I thought the gentle agitation of the machine would just loosen off the foundation paper.  BIG MISTAKE!  You're probably rolling your eyes and thinking 'what were you thinking?'.  I know.  It looked like someone had emptied a whole Kleenex box into the washing machine.  The floor to the laundry looked like we were flying above the clouds.  And yes, I put them in the dryer and then had to iron them to make them behave enough to be pieced into the quilt.  Trauma #1.

Then I happily started piecing my string blocks together with the pieced blocks but put it away for whatever reason that I cannot remember at the moment.  But what I do remember is our decision to list our house for sale and the mad packing up we did to stage the house.  Into a moving box it went and I lost control.  I had people helping pack (mostly our kids and their friends) and most of my sewing stuff went into the garage but I lost track of what went where.

It was time for my annual November retreat and I really wanted to pick up where I left off and finish this quilt.  I started packing up my projects and looked in all of those garage boxes for my half-finished quilt.  Nowhere to be found.  Oh no!!!  Did it go to the thrift store by accident??  Remember we were staging and decluttering and I figured the worst had happened.  All those bazillion half square triangles that became the frame of those blocks and all those string blocks had left me forever.  Waaaaaahhhhh!!   But off I went to my retreat pining away for my Roll Roll Cotton Boll but managing to find something else to do.

Well, almost a year later I was looking in a hall closet into a box that I thought came from one of the kids' rooms when what did I see?  "SEWING ROOM".  I think I sucked all the air out of the room as I gasped.  Could it be??  YES!!!!!  There it was, safe and sound!  I am pretty sure I jumped up and down that day that the lost quilt had been found.  We were reunited once again.  The quilt WOULD be finished!  I was overjoyed.  And then it was time for another November retreat.  And of course, what did I take with me to finish ??  Yup.  My Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt.  I got it to the stage of getting the borders on which you can read in this post.  I've just recently finished the sewing the binding on and this quilt will now share the spotlight with this quilt which has until today been living in the Queen suite of our B&B.

They will both be used on this bed.  I find it's just nice to switch up the look from time to time.  You will see that we've also done a bit of a makeover on this room, getting rid of the dated brass bed and adding the wooden DIY headboard that my DH created from an idea on Pinterest.

Anyway, I told you it was a quilt with a story.  It was worth every single frustration along the way.  I've named the quilt "My Spring Garden".  Roll Roll Cotton Boll makes total sense for those who live in North Carolina where Bonnie is from.  But for those who live in Canada and have rarely seen Cotton fields, this name made more sense for my quilt.

This has been an unusually long post for me so with that I'll sign off for now.  Thanks for listening to my quilt story.

Until next time,
Mavis

Clutter busting start

I figured rather than stashing this away in a bag that I would load it for quilting. This is the 4th quilt in this pattern that I've quilted. We are sending 5 of these to Romania to the Brasov Children's Hospital. Almost done!!

Well the ironing board has one less thing on it. Moving forward with the sewing room clutter. Love this feeling!

Mavis

Sunny Saturday...

The sun is shining in my neck of the woods and I think that it's a great day to get the leash, the dog and her sweater and hit the pavement for a walk with my friend.

Later I plan to spend some time tidying up the plant pots outside the front door.  After that, I'm hoping I'll still have some energy to tidy up my sewing room.  My DH said the other day, giggling as he entered my sewing room...sure is getting cluttered in here.

Can't deny it.   When it gets this bad, it sucks any creative urges down the drain.  See for yourself!  If Bonnie Hunter can show you her messy studio, then I'll do the same.  I'll show the 'after' picture too.  But before I can sew with a clean conscience, this mess has to be addressed!

So, check back later.  Let's see how far I get today.

Until next time,
Mavis

Amish Block Party quilt finished!!

Yippee!!  This is my second finish for 2013.  I posted the story behind this quilt here.  And tonight I finished writing up the first draft of the pattern.  I'll be uploading it to Craftsy soon so you can purchase it there by download.  You can also purchase by emailing me.  Price will be available soon.

I quilted the black areas with a medium spaced meandering stitch.  I stitched in the ditch for the hexagons so that every diamond and the setting triangles are outlined plus they have one quilted line in between the purple and the black rows in the diamonds/triangles.  I used my Janome 6500 for all the quilting.  For batting I used Warm & Natural.  I have two reasons why it's not overly quilted.  Firstly, experience tells me that if you quilt too densely with Warm & Natural, it doesn't drape very nicely.  My DH also suggested minimal quilting so as not to take away from the striking design.  I backed it in a soft charcoal flannel, also at the wish of my DH, who happens to also be the recipient of this quilt. 

You see, it's just the right size for the bed in his camper van.  Pictured here is the beloved "White Wonder".  Isn't she pretty?  This home away from home has been a part of many a camping trip of my DH and his best friend (not to mention our honeymoon).  They have been venturing out to the woods together for at least 30 years and they have it down to a fine science (from the solar shower to their gourmet camping dinners).  You can't see in this picture his buddy's rig but between them, I don't think they suffer too much at the hand of mother nature.   You also can't really see it too well in this photo but the interior of the White Wonder is teak and the bench seat, which you can almost see, folds out flat to become a bed.  DH did the work himself many years ago (like before we were married which will be 25 years this August!).  Add to her beauty the Porsche engine in her belly and this baby is a camping dream machine.  And since these guys go out in October, not in the heat of the summer, the flannel should keep him warm.  They are usually chasing fall colours and they always come home with tons of beautiful photographs. Maybe if I ask nicely he'll take my quilt on a photo shoot in the woods.  :o)

I'm very pleased that one of my quilts will be accompanying DH on his next trip out to the woods.  And for me, now I'll move on to the next UFO.  I'm not sure which one will call to me the loudest but I'm quite sure I will figure out which one is next.

Until next time,

Mavis