Irie - Experiment to Quilt to Gifted Hug

Irie

51” x 68”

She likes to break the rules, go her own way. One day you see her a certain way, the next you can barely recognize her. It isn’t that she wants to keep you guessing. Rather, she just goes with how she is feeling, how she wants to express herself that day. What you think about it doesn’t matter, how she feels does.

What started as a sample block for an Instagram tutorial now lives in the home of a lovely individual who loves birds, keeps the sage, and shows incredible kindness to strangers. How do you get from one to the next?

I really just cut some fabric to talk about trimming and squaring up blocks when you are doing improv sewing. The block was sewn, the reel posted, and then everything was set aside for the rest of life to live. Shortly thereafter the donation opportunity came up. The block was still out, being bold, and I thought it was a perfect jumping off point for a full quilt. So I raided my solids, picked up a couple more fat quarters to round out the contrast, and made a full quilt. Simple, yet bold.

The bird fabric was an absolutely perfect contrast to the front. It was sweet and pretty and full of details. In the end, the quilt was gifted to an individual who absolutely loves birds. Did we know that when handing out the quilts? Nope. It was like it was meant to be!

Quilted on a rented long arm with a simple back and forth pattern, but done on the diagonal. Bound with one of my favourite solids, this bright coral. It is a great frame to finish off a beauty.

Gaia - Slabs from Scraps for Donation

Gaia

60” x 72”

She lives up to her namesake. Forever picking up bits of things - pretty stones, a fallen leaf, even the trash. Forever finding beauty in all of it.

In need of a new finish in a short timeline, I turned to some class samples. You see, I always have my class samples ready to go. In this case, the samples were piling up. In each Scraptastic class or each Slabs only class I make a slab. It’s a great introduction in to organizing your scraps, then seeing both colour and value as you go to use them with some improvisational piecing. I usually make my class samples so that they can eventually be put into a quilt, should I so desire. Well, I desired.

Combined with a simple white on white print sitting in the stash I took the slabs from 14 separate classes (with a few still left for teaching) and put them together in a generously sized lap quilt. She is destined for a specific donation opportunity so I needed to make her big enough for adult snuggles.

Quilting was pretty straightforward. A simple loopy free motion pattern on the rented long arm. I chose a turquoise thread because it looked good with the backing fabrics. With white and all the colours on the front I could have picked anything.

I have meters and meters of this black and white stripe in my stash because, well, it’s a rather perfect binding. You can’t go wrong with it when you have a multi-coloured quilt. My machine binding skills are finally in a place where I am happy with them (after many, many, many mediocre efforts over the years - you get better each time) so it was nice to finish this off quickly this way. I used a turquoise thread in my machine again to stitch the binding down, this tying it all together.

She was ready for a special giveaway. More to come on that soon…

A Blue Quilt for The Blue Gala

From one demo block in a quilt class to this finished top. Oops, I did it again.

It truly did start as a demo block in a string piecing class. Then my friends from H/W Ballet asked me if I would donate a quilt to a silent auction for a gala ballet event. Well, of course I would. The event is called the Blue Gala. And wouldn't you know it my sample block was from some blue scraps? Not to mention the event raises fund for Pancreatic Cancer research and guess what stole my father-in-law?

Truly, it was all meant to be.

The quilt came together in the morning hours. I could sew together strips and square up about 4-6 blocks in about 20 minutes of Morning Make. Every day I made a few more blocks and threw them up on the design wall. A few weeks ago I added a short yoga practice to my mornings so I would then stare at the blocks and make rearrangements when I was supposed to be in downward dog.

Now to get this quilted for the early February Gala. Should be plenty of time. Then it will be up for silent auction. Don't hesitate to shoot me a line if you are interested in bidding...

Quilts For Fort McMurray

With a heavy heart I write this post. I also write it from the comfort of my own home, surrounded by family, my quilts, our things, our lives. Sadly, for thousands that will no longer be the case.

If you are here in Canada you've no doubt heard of the wildfire ravaging the city, towns, and area around Fort McMurray, in the northern part of my Province, Alberta. If you are international you may have heard about it too. A city of over 80,000 people evacuated. Large swaths of the city burned to the ground - homes, businesses, hotels, even infrastructure. It is so damn scary.

As people do when faced with a community tragedy we come together. People drive the highway to give away water, food, and gas to evacuees stranded. Oil companies open their oilsands camps to let evacuees stay for free. Homes are open to people living on cots with nothing but their name to carry. And quilters, quilters do what we do best.

There are numerous individuals and group gathering quilts to be shipped north when the right time comes, whether that is in rebuilding or now for people in shelters. Demand will be high, especially for the people who will have nothing, absolute nothing to go home to. I wanted to share information on where you can donate quilts, time, and money. Here is Calgary we know this far too well, but we also know the joy and love that is translated in some cotton sewn together with heart.

These places in the Calgary area are collecting quilts for eventual donation:

My Sewing Room (Finished Quilts) 

Wonderfil Threads (Finished Quilts and donating time on their longarms to finish quilts.)

Erie Quilt Art (Finished Quilts) 

One of the best resources is to join the Facebook page Quilts for Fort McMurray. Under the Events page they have listings of people across the country and internationally volunteering to collect quilts and ship as a group. 

It is still the early days of the fire and it will be a while before details of distribution can be sorted. So please be patient with organizers. In the meantime, gather your friends, makes some slabs, or finish a quilt that needs a new home.

The last handful of the Just One Slab quilts have been waiting for donation and I will drop them off now as soon as I can sew labels on them. That outpouring of love from 3 years ago will still be appreciated. 

Please note that I am not relaunching Just One Slab at this time. The response was awesome and amazing and overwhelming. Finished quilts are what people need now.

It is stories like this one that make your heart break. If you've never lived through anything like this, it doesn't take a big imagination to picture the terror and heartache. But it only takes a little bit of our love to spread some comfort and joy back into people's lives.

And remember, you can always donate to the Red Cross too. Text REDCROSS to 30333 to make a donation.