The Penultimate Lonestar

Just a quick share of this mini-Lonestar Circle quilt I recently finished up on a retreat. You've seen a few of these here before. This particular one has been lying around in my sewing room in pieces since the Alaska Cruise almost 2 years ago. It was time to get this UFO pieced, quilted and bound!  A friend once indicated that she wanted to make one, but she's a busy gal and I know she's got plenty of her own ideas brewing, so I gifted her this one for her sewing room wall.

You can find the pattern in my book Make It, Take It. The original quilt was designed by Lynne Goldsworthy and I've shared cutting instructions to make this mini version here.

made with Cotton & Steel, Essex Linen and quilted with Aurifil 40 wt thread

It just so happened that the chicken coop on the retreat property was painted a perfect colour as a backdrop for this quilt.  Lucky me!

This is the penultimate because there is still one more full sized version awaiting quilting in my sewing room. It's a Christmas one, so I have time....

Variegated Threads - A Modern Spool Quilt

About 18 months ago, I was asked by the MQG if I'd agree to publish my Chess on the Steps pattern in Simply Moderne magazine (produced in France by Quiltmania).  I happily agreed! Quiltmania editors were impressed by the free pattern of the month quilts on display at QuiltCon 2015 and enquired about running a monthly feature on MQG quilts and modern quilting techniques written by MQG Communications Manager Riane Menardi.  Soon the terms changed and the folks at Simply Moderne requested new, fresh patterns in lieu of the previously published free patterns of the month. I was so pleased for the opportunity to be a pattern contributor for a piece on Improv Quilting (although, as you know, actually writing a pattern for improv is a daunting prospect and sort of counter-intuitive to the process).

Hmmm, what to do? I knew I wanted to incorporate my Improv Under the Influence technique because I think it is such a fun gateway for quilters venturing into improv from a traditional quilting background.My inspiration came in the form of Oakshott's new Colourshott range. This gorgeous, luminous fabric had served me so well with Chess on the Steps, but I wanted to use more colours...in fact all of them! Looking at a unit of improv strips sitting on my design wall from another project, it came to me that it would make a perfect thread spool. There are so many ways to make spool blocks and I've long admired vintage spool quilts. I've even made several fun spool quilts using selvages in the past.  This time, I decided to take advantage of the colour range and create variegated spools, each with four different but related colours; just like you'd see on real thread display racks.

Ultimately, the pattern is part 'planned' improv (the thread units of each spool are built using my Improv Under the Influence technique) and part traditional piecing. Once trimmed, the thread units are pieced into the spool block, then joined together to form the wall hanging. One fun element of the pattern is that two rectangular spools sewn side by side form a square block, so the quilt could be laid out with alternating two horizontal/two vertical spools. That way, the light and dark grey backgrounds would zigzag, forming a secondary pattern.  I've also created a table runner sewing 7 spools side by side. I can't wait to use it on my dining table for Stitch Group days!

I had a lot of fun quilting this piece using my collection of rainbow Aurifil 40 wt threads that I'd initially purchased to finish this quilt a couple of years ago. That custom box of Aurifil thread (purchased from my friend Carola) seemed an extraordinary extravagance at the time, but I have used all of the colours time and again, so I don't regret it for one second!  In the background areas, I used a medium grey and quilted a swirling loop to resemble pooling threads. In each variegated spool, I tried domestic ruler work for the first time (sewing the straight lines with a darning foot beside a thick ruler) so that I could go back and forth in both directions without having to turn the quilt to avoid the dreaded 'fabric drag' between the quilting lines. Each spool features a coordinating or matching thread colour. It was a great success on my Juki!

I just love this little quilt.  It is a great introduction to improv work, which of course can evolve into a much freer, creative process where the maker begins with a toolbox of techniques and an inspired idea instead of a pattern. 

Want to make your very own? The Oakshott company has prepared full kits for the front and binding of the quilt, conveniently made with charm packs of their luscious new Colourshott range of shot cottons. If you are luck enough to attend the Birmingham Festival of Quilts next month in the UK, you can see my quilt in person at the Oakshott stand as well as purchase a kit - otherwise they are available online right here.  You'll also need a copy of Simply Moderne issue #5 for the pattern, available here.

The Nut House

Another first from my visit to Sweden: a quilt exhibit in a greenhouse!  As a special side-trip the day before the Rikstäcket annual meeting began, one of the guild members exhibited some of her work at a greenhouse/tea room called The Nut House close to Upplands Vasby (the town where we stayed for the meeting).

It was a lovely sunny afternoon and a few of the Board members took me to see the exhibit before the large bus tour of guild members descended on the place. Anna-Greta Lindstrom displayed several of her art quilt wall hangings and had this gorgeous watercolour quilt hung at the end of the greenhouse. This quilt was on display at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham (perhaps last year?) and with the sun shining behind it, the quilt took on the appearance of a stained glass window.

To celebrate a milestone birthday, Anna-Greta was selling lottery tickets for a chance to win one of 5 wallhangings she's made over the years. All of the money raised would go to Medicines Sans Frontiers - I thought this was a brilliant idea, so I bought a ticket. She promised to post a quilt to Canada if I won. Well, guess what?! I won! I don't have a photo of the quilt yet, but I'll share it when we get some light here and I can take a decent photograph. Here are two of her other creations that were on display:

"Energin Kommer Inifrån" I love the fun Kaffe Fassett swirls overlaid on the solid grid background 

Here is a great example of batik playing nicely with printed cottons in a beautiful forest abstraction.

Sweet stitched details and applique from the quilt above.

I took an opportunity to walk the property, look in the garden shop and take some photos from the working greenhouse, which was by now winding down for autumn.

This country estate was next door to the Nut House, but I couldn't find out any information - I was curious how old the home was, but the two properties are not linked according to the woman working in the greenhouse that day.

I've almost caught up and completed my Sweden posts, but the stories of my trip to the north, as well as photos from my workshops, are still to come. Plus, you still have to see the beautiful quilt my new friends gifted me!!

Pink45

Over 18 months ago I put this little baby quilt together at retreat just for fun. I had some leftover HST's from another project, so I grabbed some coordinating yellow, pink and orange stash fabrics to cut into charm squares.  Along with the perfect flannel backing, I folded the quilt top over a hanger where it's been resting comfortably for all that time just waiting for a baby girl.

Pink45 measures 31 x 40. Perfect for baby rolling over practice on the floor.

When I heard the news that my neighbour's daughter was expecting a girl, I was super happy (and did some patting myself on the back) that this little number was ready to go.  Naturally, I waited until the recent Vancouver heat wave to quilt it. Luckily, it didn't take very long...I'm super fast at this loopy swirl and it is my go-to all over FMQ pattern when I'm in a time crunch.  The baby is coming to visit from California later this week!

Quilted with Aurifil 40wt yellow 2115

It definitely makes me shake my head that I'm gifting a baby quilt to our former baby-sitter's baby!! She's a welcome first grandchild and I hope she uses this cosy quilt right up to the last threads.  Because it is always my wish that baby quilts will be loved, washed and loved some more, I usually attach the binding by machine so that it is extra sturdy.  In this case, I sewed it on back to front and completed the stitching with my Pfaff topstitch foot (which I LOVE!). It has a fence right in the middle of the foot that you can snug up to the fabric edge, and a wide needle opening so that you can move the needle over a few ticks to the left or right of centre (depending on what side of the fence needs the stitching). You can see what you're doing and it's a breeze to get a nice, straight topstitch line.

 

Donkey from Violet Craft's sweet Madrona Road line. Also pictures is some Lizzy House Castle Peeps & Pearl Bracelets and Happy Zombie Happy Mochi Yum Yum.

A Very Special Delivery - Blogger's Quilt Festival

Welcome to my Bloggers Quilt Festival post!  Some of you may recognize this quilt I've chosen to share in the ROYGBIV category because a very similar one made by Tracey and her friends was featured in the festival last year! I sent Tracey a block for her quilt and it became my inspiration - not only the design, but also the sentiment - for this quilt.

I had the great pleasure of delivering this beautiful quilt to a very special person earlier this week.

This is what I've been busy with over the past 5 weeks, with regular updates on Instagram. A mom in our school community received the worst possible news while on vacation with her family in March. She has a long road ahead to regain her health and she needs to know that we are with her all the way.  There was a sense of urgency to get a quilt around her brave shoulders, so I put out a call to my retreat customers and fellow members of the VMQG to help.  They responded as quilters do: with generosity and grace.

I also organized several sewing days around my dining table for mothers and friends in our community so that they could learn how to piece a scrappy sprouts block and put their love and strength into this gift as well. Several women had never sewn before and others hadn't touched a machine in years, but they patiently laid out their blocks and carefully sewed the patches together for their dear friend.  I had pre-cut squares and pre-pieced half square triangles from my stash ready for them to select.

In the end I was overwhelmed with the number of sprouts blocks that came in. I couldn't bear not to use every single one, so there's a lovely stalk of them holding up the back. Piecing 74 blocks made by over 30 different people has it's challenges but I was determined to let this project come together peacefully. This isn't perfection of technique, but it is absolutely perfect.  In the final layout, a vertical sashing between the columns and a slight offset of each stalk of sprouts keeps things interesting and hides the subtle size differences in the blocks.

A sweet purple Dresden just for Deanna - the four full stalks of sprouts represent her incredibly supportive husband and their three amazing boys.

The VMQG retreat over the first weekend in May was my opportunity to assemble the top and backing, sandwich this 78" x 82" quilt and complete the quilting.  It's quilted with an all-over swirly and looping meander using a gorgeous variegated Aurifil 28 wt in pale yellow/cream/lilac. The backing fabric is a Michael Miller print called Old Script with lilac-coloured cursive text.  It's bound with a V & Co. Color Me Happy green bead stripe cut on the bias, plus a little strip of purple Lizzy House pearl bracelets around the lower left corner. I used 3 strands of coordinating lilac embroidery floss to blanket-stitch the label on.

There's just something extra-special about this sweet sprout block that makes it the perfect choice for a group-effort comfort quilt.  I send a heartfelt hug and thanks to Tracey for allowing me to share her mini-tute for the sprouts block, and the same to every woman who had a hand in the making of this quilt. 

This quilt is so cheerful and full of hope; it is made with love and just plain feel-good vibes.    I know it's already working wonders.

Visit the festival at Amy's Creative Side and have a look through the festival links to see hundreds of amazing quilts made all over the world! Amy does an incredible amount of work organizing sponsors, categories and voting twice a year - it truly is the biggest quilt show online! Thank you Amy!

Stitch Science in Homespun Magazine

Last fall I received a lovely email from the folks at Australian Homespun Magazine asking permission to publish one of my tutorials (the Sweetheart Stamps over there on the left sidebar).  After some back and forth emailing, the focus shifted and instead they asked if my Scan Me QR code quilt could appear in a piece on "The Scientific Approach" to sewing by Janai Velez. Cool!! Sewing nerds unite!

The feature is in this month's (May 2014) issue of Homespun. I love the sweet thread spool on the cover!

Courtesy of Homespun 

Janai is kindly sending me hardcopies of the magazine, but passed along these images for me to share. The Science feature looks super geeky and excellent. There is a piece on this guy that you must check out, especially if you are an antique Singer fan. I'd never come across the Sewing Machine Orchestra before and I'm rather amazed by it all.

Here's the piece on my quilt (also giving some props to the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild here!).  This quilt will likely be hung soon at Vancouver's Mini Maker-Faire in June.

Courtesy of Homespun

A great big G'day to my Aussie friends! I just love it that a little picture of something I made is in a Australian magazine. I am so coming to visit one day!

Robot Patchwork Blankie

My traditional guild will host our bi-annual show in June. We're super excited about a new venue this year. It's getting more and more difficult to find suitable venues for large quilt shows that are (a) affordable, (b) available on weekends, and (c) have decent lighting!  This year we'll be at the Capilano University Sportsplex and it's going to be spectacular.

With that in mind, I've started turning my thoughts to putting my stash to good use. I coordinate the member's Boutique where we sell our handmade goods to show visitors, thereby earning ourselves and our guild some cash (the guild takes a small percentage).  While searching for something entirely unrelated in my drawers/bins/shelves/bags recently, I discovered a long-forgotten stack of 6" squares left over from pillows I made for my nephews a couple of years ago.

Presto: one little boy stroller blankie or playmat for the boutique! Pieced, simply quilted and bound in an afternoon-evening.

Backed with some Lizzy House Castle Peeps!

Winner, winner, Christmas dinner!

I felt so lucky (and for a moment, a little guilty) for winning the block lotto at my annual November retreat last month. I've been running this retreat for 8 years and never won, so I guess it was bound to happen. Can I just say how happy I am that it was this year? Happy, happy, happy!  Katy's Christmas scrappy trip inspired me to set the Scrappy Trip Around the World block as this year's lotto - it's a super quick make and everyone's got holiday fabric to use up!

Although I'd been sewing with my pals for 4 days non-stop, I returned home Monday night and put the blocks right up on my design wall. There were 30 blocks, so a 5 x 6 layout made the most sense. The odd number across the quilt meant I couldn't use the 'normal' diamond setting. As much as I love this block, I didn't really feel like making 6 more - I just wanted to get this thing together in time for Christmas! Using the strong diagonal reds, I opted for zigzags.

I busted out the wiggly stitch on my Pfaff for diagonal quilting lines through every second square. The wiggly stitch is excellent for diagnonal lines on a quilt with 2" squares because you don't have to mark the quilting lines!  Just aim for the corners of each square and you're all set. The wiggly line doesn't have to hit the corners dead on like you'd want to do with straight-line stitching.

I considered a flannel backing, but also had yardage of this super soft Kaffe Fasset shot cotton in green that's been lying around for years. Using up stash won over buying new flannel and I framed in this extra block with some Kona red so that there's a sweet little present on the back. The binding is a sweet candy cane stripe that was printed on the bias that I've been saving for just this kind of quilt (JOY by Kate Spain for Moda).

All washed and cuddly and keeping us warm on the couch!

Craftivism for Calgary

When Berene envisioned To Boston with Love, she and I learned a new term: Craftivisim. Making bad situations better by making stuff (that's my own definition). However you want to define it, I'm in.

I think everyone living in Canada and a good portion of you living elsewhere will have heard by now that record-setting rainfalls brought unprecedented flooding to southern Alberta last week.  Alberta is our neighbouring province, and while those prairie cowboys and girls are incredibly resilient, having your entire home filled with water, mud and debris is a shocking loss and overwhelming situation to handle. At least three people lost their lives and countless others their homes and belongings. Smaller communities like High River, parts of Canmore and Exshaw are still no-go disaster zones. For an overview, this collection of 20 photos will give you a clearer picture than anything I could write.

So, Craftivism. How can we as a creative community help? Canadian quilter and author Cheryl Arkison has information on her blog here for those of you that may have a finished quilt that you'd like to donate. Others looking to contribute a quick, easy block: read this post and get slabbing! I'm heading into my sewing room to do just that right now.

Thank you for participating. We all know the comfort quilts bring, and there are many in need of comfort in Southern Alberta

Cosmic Connection

The whole Blog Universe is such an interesting place and an interesting community. Friendships via ethernet cable are every bit as meaningful and real as ones nurtured in person. I have made many, many friends through writing Poppyprint and reading blogs and flickr and now Instagram. When friends ask for help, or a favour, I try to oblige because I know the day will come when they'll happily return it.

Back in the fall I got lucky when two such requests came in almost simultaneously: a pattern test and a fabric test.  Tracey asked me if I would test her amazing new Cosmic pattern and Lynne asked if I would like to try Oakshott's new Lipari cottons (shot with black for a lux luminescence) and share the results on my blog.  I had been staring at the beautiful fat eight stack of Lipari's sent my way, wondering what to do with them when Tracey's request came in.

Lightbulb moment: a Lipari Cosmic block! Finding the right background fabric from my stash to surround that star was tricky. The Lipari's are so rich and vibrant, flat cotton solid would not do. Only this black tone on tone batik seemed up for the task.  You can see by the rotary cutter that this block is a behemoth, measuring about 28" square. This quilt design fits in perfectly with the popular craze of giant one-block quilts. Tracey's design was inspired by a vintage scarf and she worked up the pattern with EQ.

Now the quilting. I'm afraid my FMQing skills are rather rusty. I used to FMQ with abandon years ago, but I've been straight-lining it lately.  I just couldn't see laying down a bunch of straight lines of one colour thread all over this star. No, I was envisioning a more traditional, formal quilting treatment. In a continuation of sharing the blogland love and asking for help, I turned to fellow VMQG member and friend Janet. She is amazing at quilting feathers and that's what I wanted on this wallhanging. Lucky me, she agreed to do a trade and is now working her magic on my Cosmic star (and don't worry, I'm enrolled in an advanced FMQ workshop in two week's time to kick start my mojo and get back in the swing. I want to FMQ my current scrap quilt - it's the perfect pattern to hide a rusty quilter's work!).

Tracey's excellent instructions and templates made this a surprisingly quick make. Even though it looks potentially complicated, the star sews together without y-seams. Just standard piecing! Tracey  now has plexi-glass template sets available to help with cutting out and pre-trimming the triangular corners to make it even easier. I know that a full-size 88" quilt of this pattern is in my future (and I just ordered a set of templates to help with that. Bonus is that Tracey is working on a second pattern for the same templates!).  

Shame I don't have a massive piece of farm equipment for a photo shoot! 

This really gives you an idea of the scale of this quilt.

So there you have it, the Cosmic Connection that brought 4 bloggers together over one 28" square wallhanging. That's happy-making for me.

Disclosure: I'm not making money here people, but Oakshott supplied the fabric & Tracey supplied the block pattern. I bought the templates to support my friend because I think she's a fantastic quilt designer and her patterns are incredibly detailed and well-written.