The Show is Over

The Grand National Quilt Show 2013, "Local Colour" has come to a close.
The exhibition ran for 9 weeks and I was absolutely thrilled to have my work included. 

"Going to Seed" is now back home and up on my wall. 

I have placed a link to the full catalogue on my side bar if you are interested in seeing the other works that made up this fabulous show.  (check out page 5 to see what the Curator had to say about my piece)

a huge THANK YOU! to the organizing committee,  judges, volunteers and sponsors......these show can't happen with out them.

Raffle ticket winners

I have drawn 3 names from the comments left on my last post. Congratulations to Sherri D, Cathy H, and Glenda. I will send you a private email for your personal info so that I can fill out the ticket stubs.

Thanks to everyone who entered .....I will do this again in a few weeks so be sure to check back

Did you know that Jaye over at Artquiltmaker posts a different word each week and invites everyone to be inspired by it in the way of a drawing, a photo, a short story...whatever you like.........it has been quite a while since I have participated, so I was definitely due, and since I needed an image for this post.... here is my response to #212 of The Creative Prompt Project.  "Ribbon"

A Chance......at a chance

Over the past few years, I have entered the annual block contest at Joseph Schneider haus. The Friends of Joseph Schneider haus, is a dedicated group, always striving to contribute to the growth and health of this historic site.  One of the ways they raise funds for various projects, is by holding a raffle, the prize is the quilt that is made from the blocks submitted to the contest each year.

My entry, 2nd row, 3rd from the left

I have tickets....I am going to purchase tickets and give them away here.....so you see, you have a chance...at a chance....to win this quilt.  You don't have to be in the region to win......if your ticket number is the lucky number drawn, the quilt will be mailed directly to you. It is a chance to own a quilt containing original work by 20 different Canadian quilt artists, expertly hand quilted by women from the local Mennonite community.

Hot off the quilt rack

here it is ready to be trimmed and bound

The draw for this quilt is not until early December, meaning, I have lots of time to have random giveaways in the coming months........So would you like a chance....at a chance?  Just leave a comment for me in this post. I'll draw a name.... or maybe a few, on the weekend

Please note that the winner (or winners) of this giveaway.......need to be willing to provide me your address and phone number so that I will be able to properly fill out the information on the ticket stub.....I promise that information will be used for this purpose only and NOT be shared. I will send the winner a scan showing the ticket and stub 

Wool Batting

A couple of months ago, I purchased some wool batting, I generally use cotton batting in my pieces but wanted to experiment to see what effect wool batt could give to my quilting.

I set out to pre-shrink a large piece of the batting ( first lesson learned...wool batting is extremely absorbent!)....oh Yes!, I learned this quickly, as I put a couple of inches of water into the tub and placed the hunk of batting into said water....at first I thought the tub had drained on me.....nope! The batting sucked up every bit of water instantly, so after much squeezing and squishing, I managed to get enough of the water out to be able to move the piece to a rack to dry.....the drying process took a couple of days....anyone have any advice on pre-shrinking wool batt?  I am fairly certain there is an easier way   :-)

I took a small piece to play with and I have to say I am LOVING this batting.
The following photos show the progression.....I began by stitching to define a few sections, added feathers, then used sticky dots to mark circle placement......and, as you can see, just had fun stitching a variety of patterns.

Hand dyed cotton on wool batting, stitched with Aurifil 40wt cotton

Before the Tweets

"Before the Tweets" is the title of this little quilt. It is just 11.5" square. This is my entry into the annual "Wee" Quilt Challenge held at McDougall Cottage. The theme this year was Greetings from the Auld Sod. The title and postage stamp look speak to the fact that before social media (email, Facebook, Twitter)  took over over lives, greetings from afar generally came with a postage stamp attached.

I always like to challenge myself in some way.....doing a technique I've not done before, the use of prairie points were new to me and for this piece, I told myself to leave the flaws, there were to be no " do-overs" ....that second part proved much harder to deal with....and of course things did go wrong.....but I left them be and carried on.
The quilt began with me drawing this bird outline.....from it, I would create my pattern.

I cut scraps of fabric that had been prepared with wonder under. My fabric choices revolved around a single piece....a little scrap donated by a friend.....I saw a perfect eye.....actually, I built the bird around it.  Note the plaid at the under wing and legs.....The quilts for this challenge must be no larger than 24" square and MUST include a piece or 2 of plaid

The bird components were simply cut, placed on the background and fused. I stabilized it, did some quick thread painting, the text was added using transfer paper, the piece was machine quilted, the prairie points were added and the quilt was faced to finish it off.
This one was a quick and easy...no muss..no fuss project.

I liked the bird so much, I just had to create a doodle as well.....so, you see, in this case, the quilt was kind of sandwiched in the middle......between the outline drawing and the doodle.
Curious about the saying around the perimeter?.....I want to extend my thanks to Kay at Borderline Quilter as she helped me find a lovely old Scottish greeting.....Lang may yer Lum reek!!!!

Pecking Order

Which came first?

The Doodle?

or the Quilt?

All about the Colour

As many of my readers know, I LOVE challenges, there is just something about challenges and themes that drive me to create.
Each year, one of those challenges is a block contest held at Joseph Schneider Haus......a theme is chosen, criteria laid out, blocks are entered, a quilt is made, hand quilted during a day long quilting bee by amazingly gifted Mennonite ladies...said quilt will be finished and then later raffled off to raise funds for many of the ongoing projects at Joseph Schneider Haus.  I really need to practice my hand quilting skills, the ladies offered to allow me to take a place and the frame and add some stitches but I declined.....my skills are not on par with theirs....not even close  :-).....but maybe one day...maybe

Photo snagged from The Friends of JSH facebook page

This coming week is Quilt Festival time in the St. Jacob, Kitchener, Waterloo area....if you are, or will be in the area, you can find a long list of wonderful events here

For this year's block contest, the theme was "From the Stash"  at least 50% of the fabrics used by the maker were to come from the "stash" also, the colour Orange needed to be incorporated.

I chose to use up prepared bits and pieces leftover from an earlier applique project. 100% of the fabrics in this block came from my stash. I created a small bowl for the flowers added a little hand stitching and called it      "Bowlful of Leftovers"

I was delighted and quite honoured to learn that the block earned a first place finish.  I am sorry that I don't yet have photos of the actual quilt as it was still on the quilt frame, nearing completion  (I hope to get and post one here later) 

This is the 6th year that I have participated in this block contest, if you are curious about some of my other submissions you can find them here

Finished

My little Janome inspired quilt is finished.....I decided to call it "In Stitches"

 

It is just a small scrappy sampler style quilt. It all began with that embroidered pin cushion design, the rest of the piece sort of grew around it.  I am not used working in a manner where measuring and cutting needs to be accurate.....I am much more comfortable making quilts I can "eyeball"   so I must say I learned quite a lot playing with this.

I had fun with the quilting and then finished it off by using all sorts of buttons, pins, snaps and other sewing related bits as embellishment.

Giveaways.....gotta LOVE them!

Can you believe the amazing items some companies give away?  have you noticed this growing trend? Do you enter? 
Recently I came across a giveaway for Aurifil Thread......well I absolutely LOVE Aurifil thread, it is my thread of choice, so of course, I was sure to leave a comment for a chance to win. At that time, the prize was a collection designed exclusively by Michele Scott of the Pieceful Quilter.  Yup the entire collection! 12 full size spools of deliciousness!.......and guess what?  I WON!!!! it arrived by Fed-Ex all the way from Italy, Thank you VERY much! I just may have to come up with a special project for this wonderful collection.

It seems that Aurifil has giveaway's going on all the time......look for them and enter.....btw....if you have not yet tried this thread, you are missing out.

Another amazing giveaway that you HAVE to check out, is one by FaveQuilts......they are having a month long contest that will end with a lucky LUCKY winner receiving a Janome MC9900

oh yeah!!!!...that IS the machine that contains a few of my designs.....you KNOW I am entering!!!!
It is SUPER easy to enter......you can find the giveaway here 

This is one of the designs built into the machine.....my own doodle.....this Bee

aren't these stitches beautiful!?

Are you still here?  Go enter!  :-)

My little Janome inspired quilt

A few weeks ago, I showed you the start of this little quilt..........at the time, I was just working out the design/layout in this post.

Here is a look at some of the stitch lines I used in the quilting.

Once it was all quilted and bound, I added some common sewing room items as embellishment......I'll grab some photos and show that soon. I still need to create a label, but first, I need a name for it....any suggestions?