Mill Town Block

It is September! So much is happening around here, but first thing first: it is time to share the block I designed for Sew Sisters Canadian Sampler Quilt!  I was so pleased to receive an invitation to participate in this BOM project. Not only do I love Canada, but I share a birth year  and month with my country (albeit 100 years later, but who's counting?) AND I've always wanted to make a two-colour red & white quilt. Canada's 150th birthday seems like the perfect occasion to finally get busy with it. In addition, all of the blocks in this quilt were designed by fellow Canadian blogger/designer/quilters, many of whom are good friends and sewing buddies of mine. It truly is the best celebration of quilting in Canada for me.

MILL TOWN

I don't really consider myself a block designer, but this design is something that I'd been playing around with when my friends at Sew Sisters sent out the invite to play. Read all about my Canadian inspiration for Mill Town Block on their blog here. 

A new round of BOM is starting up soon for this amazing quilt, so if you missed out the first time, you've still got a chance to receive two exclusive patterns per month for 10 months, BUT you have to be quick. Registrations close this month! To see an image of the entire quilt with all of the wonderfully unique blocks, check out the program details here.

I'm regretfully behind in making my blocks every month as the patterns arrive. Luckily I have a retreat coming up next weekend and I'm looking forward to catching up. I already have a setting idea and I can't wait to see if it works out...time to fire up the precision piecing engine. For sure I'm going to tune-up before I begin.

Have you made a special quilt commemorating Canada's sesquicentennial? Tell me about it!

The Canadian Sampler Start

Last year I was invited to participate in a very exciting and patriotic project organized by the clever people at Sew Sisters, a long time partner here at Poppyprint. Having been born in the summer of Canada's Centennial year, it has always been easy to keep track of my milestone birthdays because there's typically a national event around every biggie.  So you can easily guess the whopper of a birthday I'm celebrating this summer!

The Canadian Sampler celebrating Canada's 150th birthday is 100% Canadian designed (by designers from coast to coast) and administered by the folks at Sew Sisters*. You can still sign up! While not generally keen on BOM's or sewalongs because I always lose interest before completing these projects, I have the extra incentive of always wanting to make a red and white quilt. At first I considered going all scrappy red, but most of my stash leans towards orangey reds. Instead, I chose Karen Lewis' Flowerbed print (on gorgeous "Chinese Red") from her first line of commercially screened Kona. The unique block designs don't scream Traditional Sampler to me. I like it.  I'm making it.

Here's the first block, designed by Daphne Greig. It is called Pacific Stars.  The beginning of this work coincides with a short lecture I'm preparing at the request of the VMQG board on the importance of accuracy. As I mentioned on IG the other day, sometimes it feels good to try hard (after a lot of improv work!).

One of the tips I'll be sharing is to piece with geese points on top, to ensure you don't cut off your points with the seam. You can see on the left white point, my seam fell just outside the point (yay) and on the red point, my seam fell exactly on top of the point (which will require a good press). Both worked to preserve the point.

The second block designed by Sandy is so cute. A very appropriate element of the Canadian winter uniform, the toque! We've been wearing way more toques than ball caps out here on the west coast this winter. People are so tired of the snow, but not me. I find it much easier to get through this time of year when the ground is white and the air is crisp. I love snow and always will.

I'm not sure what month will feature my block design, but I'm looking forward to it because I've designed a very cool quilt with it that I'm eager to share. 

*I would like everyone to know that Sew Sisters very fairly compensated all of the designers who worked on this quilt, which is much appreciated in this industry that constantly asks designers to work for free.