Quilting in the Trees 2011

I belong to the Victoria Quilters' Guild and they have an annual quilting retreat held at Pearson College in mid-June.

Here's a photo of the view from the dining room:

Here's the class I was GOING to take (with Coreen Zerr):

but sadly I was lacking in the inspiration needed to choose the fabrics for this quilt.  I love scrappy quilts and it appeared to me that the fabrics needed to be hand-dyed or similar and I just wasn't 'feelin' it'.  So, I defaulted back to my comfort zone ~ mystery quilts.

The first day I enrolled in a quick quilt class called "Daystripper".

You may not be able to tell but I made an error in cutting some of the triangles so improvised with a straight green triangle and it turned out well.  The joke in our class was that I invented a new pattern.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

I had brought along some fabric to cut out the squares for a Disappearing Nine Patch for a baby due in August.  I had enough fabric to do two Daystrippers, why not??  Here's the second one.  This is for a very special first baby arriving in August for Karen and Stacey:

Here are some others:

Amy and Terry

Day Two and Three was the Kaleidostrata mystery quilt.  Let me start off by saying that I love the sample that Arlene did.  This is a modern quilt pattern.  Lots of them looked great, but not mine.  I chose traditional fabrics and for this quilt pattern it just didn't look right, in my opinion.  And since I'm the quilter creating this quilt my opinion counts.

Here were my fabrics.  I loved my focus fabric in the yellow and blue with hints of green:

Here's a photo of Shirley's at the beginning.  I love her colours!

And here's Beryl's:

And here's mine:

It's just not singing for me.  So I tried turning one of the blocks to do what my friend Shirley did to hers:

Still not feelin' it.  Next step ~ deconstruction!!  I'll keep the strata units to use for something else.  I have a plan!  I love the technique we learned for the kaleidoscopes (4 squares cut stack n whack style and then twirled to make the kaleidoscope).

Anyway, I'll post the blocks on another day.  For now, here is a photo of the mystery quilt that Ursula Reigel created for the 25th anniversary of Quilting in the Trees.  Isn't it gorgeous??  There were blocks revealed in the guild newsletter and the finale was done at Pearson.  I just love this quilt!

Now back home with 3 projects done (well 3 UFOs but who's counting?) ~ not bad for 3 days' work eh??

Until next time,
Mavis

Baby Quilt done!

At long last...off the design wall (which had to be packed up for listing the house) and into the UFO bin....and then finished!!

I had a wonderful day of sewing with my gal pals (aka Parks Girls) yesterday and managed to sandwich this quilt using fusible batting and then machine quilted it on my Janome Gem. I wasn't as easy as using my Janome 6500 with the room but I did it!

I finished it just before midnight last night (the binding and the label) and feel great that I can cross another one off the list. Dear little Olivia turns 1 on July 18th so I would love to get this to her while she is still a baby!

Quilty hugs,

Mavis

Something to ponder...

So, with our upcoming sale of Dayspring Farm can I really call myself Dayspring Quilter still??

Perhaps I need to reinvent my blog under a new name?

What do you all think?

Mavis

Quilting Hiatus (forced)

The word `forced` is a cruel word. And in this instance it`s probably too strong a word. Maybe `self inflicted` is a more accurate description of where I find myself.

You see, we are in the midst of getting our home ready to list for sale. This means that now that the thread is off the carpet in my sewing room and all the projects are neatly containerized, I need to put my energies into decolourizing my home. Neutral is in apparently...stark neutral. White. You know how quilters love colour? Well my green bathroom is now white; my oak bathroom cabinets, in all but one of the bathrooms, are now white with silver handles (they look stunning; I must confess!). My red walls in my bedroom with gold faux finish (think asian) will soon be white. The carpet is dark blue.

I still indulge in quilting blogs and magazine reads whilst relaxing (and those times seem too few and far between) so as not to lose my quilting inspiration.

But for now duty calls. We have a huge house and I will be thankful to downsize to something more manageable (three floors and health issues means we are now looking for a rancher). Less house to manage means more quilting time I figure, and that`s always good.

Please send me your pictures friends. I`d love to see what my quilting sisters are up to and to maintain some much needed inspiration.

The green and brown quilt that is in my previous post which was a twin will now be a queen so I`ve had to take apart the borders and add some rows to make it big enough. My DS will be getting a queen bed in our new house. And in my own way of justifying quilting time this is an allowable expenditure of time and energy in our staging process. Why? Because it needs to go on DS`s bed for staging.

Maybe I`ll post some before and after pictures of my bedroom. I think I`m going to love my white bedroom with my celtic knot quilt. Maybe it will go from red white and blue to white and blue with hints of red. I was done with the red anyway. No biggy.

Have a great remaining day of this lovely weekend friends.

Until next time - quilty hugs,

Mavis

Scrappy Happy !!

I just finished putting the borders on a new quilt for my son's twin bed. I took this picture with my Blackberry camera so you may not be able to see the colours too clearly. Totally scrappy greens, browns and beiges. Ugly fabrics included. You find them! I challenge you!

Here's the quilt top before the sandwich:

As per my previous post, I have been living in stressville and it feels very good to know that I finished a quilt top. To the left of the quilt is the backing. The batting is hanging over the railing tonight to remove the creases. Maybe more therapy tomorrow night!!

I'd rather quilt than watch TV in the evenings. My son is kinda excited to see the quilt progressing so quickly. It was very satisfying to have a 19 year old guy ask me to make a quilt for him because it's the perfect temperature on his bed. His duvet is too hot and a blanket is too cold...a quilt is just right! He will soon be able to retire his Christmas quilt until next December when they come out of hiding.

Until next time,

Mavis

PIGS and UFOs and me on a Quilt Diet...

P.I.G.S. = Projects in Grocery Sacks

UFOs = Unfinished Objects

I have them and I'm quite sure you have them too. I need to make a new acronym for the stacks and stacks of ideas for new quilts in my head and on my worktable (magazines flagged, books marked, printouts from the web). Can you relate?

How about HIPS??
HUNDREDS OF IDEAS PILING SKYWARD
I like it!

I'm feeling quite overwhelmed with life at the moment, including my quilt life. I'm sure I'm not alone with the thought that quilting is therapy. I'm there. I find hand-quilting very therapeutic except for the fingertips afterward (I hate thimbles much like I hate gardening gloves). I spent about 4 hours in front of the TV with my daughter yesterday. She was knitting and I was hand-quilting my Super Bowl quilt. I love to see the fruits of my labour on projects like this. It's measureable; it's satisfying.

So why am I feeling so anxious today? Good question and simple answer...too much on my plate. Too many responsibilities and while I hate to admit it, too many PIGS, UFOS and HIPS.

The remedy? S L O W D O W N !!!! Work on one thing at a time. Don't start any new projects or sign up for any more mystery quilts (my weakness). Enjoy what I'm doing in the moment. Don't make quilting like WORK!! Don't RUSH. Enjoy the process.

I'm a driven personality. I'm not happy sitting still. I need to be doing something. Can't help it; it's the way I'm wired. Hand-quilting lets my body rest but keeps my mind busy. But sometimes it looks like so far to go because I'm thinking about it as a FINISHED project, ready to sell. Sounds like work doesn't it? I'm doing a studio tour in May and because I thought this quilt would be for sale I subconsciously set myself a deadline and put my headspace into RUSH mode. Does that create anxiety? I would say so.

As for the rest of life's responsibilities, it's time to take stock, do one thing at a time, shed what I don't have to do, and reward myself with some playtime in my studio, or in front of the TV again working on my hand-quilting.

But for now...No more new projects! There...it's committed in writing.

Until next time,

Mavis

Super Bowl Sunday Sew-in!

I'm a week late with my post about my sew-in on Super Bowl Sunday.  It started with an email newsletter from Planet Patchwork talking about a Super Bowl Mystery Quilt.  Here's the link:  http://www.planetpatchwork.com/squarecentermystery/squarecenter1.htm

I invited a quilting friend to join me.  We started at 10:00 a.m. Pacific time.  The first clue was revealed at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time so we had a few clues to catch up on.

I chose deep muted colours (almost Civil War-type colours).  My friend Pam chose bright summery colours.  I had a black background.  She chose a white background.  Our quilts couldn't have been more different from each other.  We had a blast!  I think we finished up the quilt tops at about 10:00 p.m.  I love quick quilt projects.  I'm now hand quilting mine.  Pam is going to machine quilt hers.  It will be interesting to see both quilts side by side, finished.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our progress that day:

Here's the first block ~ Mine above; Pam's below:

Aren't they different??  Here are some other photos as we progressed throughout the L O N G day:

Pam at her machine building blocks.



Me trying to decipher the instructions.  We made a few boo boos along the way, but thankfully they were easy to fix.  Both of us said that we don't ever remember reverse sewing as much as we did on these quilts.  But we got 'er dun!

Gorgeous summer colours don't you think?

At this point in construction we're beginning to put the pattern together and a few more colour placement boo boos are revealed...more reverse sewing...

Pam's top done without borders (total time = 12 hours!)

And my top done without the borders; time = 12 hours!

And finally, my finished top with the borders (Note:  I chose a different border than the mystery).

I'm currently hand quilting mine using Bonnie Hunter's hand-quilted (free hand) baptist fan pattern. I'm using a dark slate blue thread which looks great on all the fabrics in the quilt.  Picture to follow soon.    I'm loving it!  I was wanting to start another hand quilting project.  I love have handwork handy near the TV.  Pam will be machine quilting hers and maybe I can coax her to share a photo on my blog when it's done!

Until next time,