Opal - More Adventures with Improv Applique

Opal

43” x 38”

A sweet soul, always there for others, full of love. Opal is a kind women, volunteering for her church, providing extra bandaids for the neighbourhood kids as they ride their bikes by her house, and always with a batch of cookie dough in her fridge. She loves a good cup of coffee and isn’t opposed to a little gossip on the side. Nothing mean hearted though! And you can always count on her for potato salad at the picnic.

A year ago I was teaching Improv Applique at the Edmonton District Quilt Show. I made up a new sample for the show - piecing a background of low volume scraps. With the guidance of the participants I cut this bowl shape to demo the techniques I teach. It was a fun shape and the impact was strong. Come fall, I would add another bowl, as I called them, here and there. During the depths of winter I finished the top and it sat patiently, waiting its turn for quilting. It’s me, so it could be waiting a long time for that!

But then I realized I did make a baby quilt for a recent addition to the extended family. Like, I totally forgot. As I consulted my Quilts Under Construction list looking for something appropriate, this applique treasure came up. It’s absolutely perfect for the recipients! Maybe it was meant to be?

I quickly made a backing. Birds and more birds! I know that the baby’s Mamas love to watch the birds in their yard, so it was perfect. And I think I used the Charley Harper fabric on the back of a doll quilt I made for their first kiddo. With some simple straight line quilting it was a quick finish - once I decided to do it!

To bind the quilt I raided my green stash. I’ve used green in their wedding quilt, the first baby’s quilt, and a doll quilt. Plus, the dark green went well with the one darker purple bowl.

Ready for all the baby snuggles. Well, once summer is over! Unless I make a quilt out of a mosquito net or rubber boat, I doubt it’s getting used this summer.

Almost There on this Epic Quilt

Years ago - I don’t even remember when - I started marking the places I’ve travelled to for quilting. They started as samples for my Improv Lettering class, and have continued to be so. Folks, I am so close to finishing the Canadian place names. Just one more left to do: Carseland. After that, it’s the challenge of puzzling them all together for a quilt top.

Not too long ago I put them all up on the design wall, just to see what they looked like. As a single quilt it would be massive. Bigger than king sized. And frankly, I don’t want a bed quilt of the places I’ve travelled to for quilting. Not the bedroom vibes I am going for. That being said, if I split up the Canadian places and the international places I will have a generous quilt top, and a smaller one that I can add to for a backing. A double sided quilt!

While I only need one more Canadian location, I need at least a half dozen on the international side. Just a little bit more sewing to do.

When a Professional Hockey Player Makes a Quilt

It all started with a simple text. My nephew had asked for a quilt to gift to a teammate. We’d done this a few times before, so it wasn’t odd. Then, one day, I was playing with scraps in preparation for the Quilters’ Playcation Adventure Sewalong and sent him a pic of the slab in progress, with a little tease. Instead of just handing over a quilt he should come and help me sew it.

So one day, a few months back, he showed up at the studio and sat down to sew. His mom, my sister in law, is also a quilter. Along the way she’d already taught him how to use the sewing machine. Phew! I pulled out the scraps, did a quick reminder, and he went to town on his very first slab. We chatted and sewed. It was an absolutely wonderful break in the day for both of us.

To be perfectly honest, I thought that would be it. He made one slab, about 16” big or so. His job done I assumed I would make the rest of the quilt.

How wrong I was!

In between games and training and road trips and rest and visits with a new girlfriend he showed up to the studio and kept sewing. Very quickly he realized that the time with fabric and our time together was an excellent stress reliever. We were having fun, and as I’ve said to anyone who will listen (and many who won’t) learning a new hobby is a great way to have the rest of the world melt away.

In our second session together he added to the first slab and made an excellent design decision. I promise, it was all his own idea. He thought to break up the slab by adding in a band of a colour. We auditioned a few choices and he went with the orange. A perfect choice. After that we made more slabs and assembled the whole top. By that point he was keen to be involved in every step of the process.

Except the quilting. He said he wasn’t ready for that yet.

We were getting close to our deadline (baby being born and the end of the season) so he missed out on basting the quilt. Honestly? I think he was a little sad, but they were on a road trip and I needed to get going on the quilting. After I basted it I settled in for some time with my free motion. He went home one night with a collection of my machine quilting books and picked pebbles as the doodle of choice. It ended up being a nice contrast to the angular nature of all the piecing. For thread I used my go to colour choice on a multicoloured quilt - Aurifil 2882, Light Fern. Olive Green, Aurifil 5016 is pretty good too. Whichever one is handy, really.

It was down to the final minute when it came time to bind. He really liked the idea of using the same fabric as the orange band for the binding. Unfortunately, we used all I had for the band and no local stores had it in stock. It’s not actually a solid, but a textural print from Libs Elliott. Thankfully she confirmed the colour for us and I found it in a Canadian store. Did Canada Post cooperate though? Not so much. But Lucas showed up to the studio for a chat and the hope that it was here and boom! It arrived 15 minutes later. We got the binding cut, pressed and attached that day. Then it was time for a hand stitching lesson. He wanted to finish it with some big stitches, instead of invisible and I had the perfectly matching Valdani thread. I tried, folks, but he would not go for a contrasting thread. With a little sewing kit I put together he went home and finished it.

Don’t worry, it’s labelled too. He actually signed the back before I quilted it so the label was already on.

He finished and gifted it in the knick of time. All throughout the process he let me take pictures of him because he was sure his friend wouldn’t believe it - that he actually made it.

Folks, I was totally impressed by this kid. I can say kid because he is my nephew, but he is in twenties and towers over me. He dove in, taking a real interest in the design process, enjoying creating something from nothing. He now looks at my quilts and even colour a bit differently. Ho notices potential in the real world. Will he make another quilt? Who knows?! We don’t know where he is playing yet next year. If back in Calgary I am sure I will have him in the studio again, if he wants. And he’s told his mother he would like to quilt with her too.