Quilting for Calgary - Love in Action

I love to see people responding in love to those in need.  That can take a lot of different forms. The past two weeks have seen devastation to the Calgary area in the Canadian prairies.  Some people have lost everything.  Some people don't yet know what they've lost as they have not been allowed to return to their neighbourhoods.  Can you imagine the anxiety of that scenario?

We all respond differently to the needs we see.  Some people want to go and help on the ground with recovery efforts, or bringing aid.  Some people pray believing for divine intervention.  And yes, quilters want to send quilts.  They want to send tangible expressions of compassion and care.  

That is why I was so glad to see the formation of some online groups specifically for the purpose of  being a rallying point to coordinate sending quilts to those in need.  This totally chokes me up.  I'm not ashamed of my tears.  I want to help too.  I can't go and help, but I can certainly make a quilt, or quilt blocks, or help spread the word.  And I've heard countless stories like this the past two weeks and it warms my heart to know that this expression of love and compassion is reaching this devastated area.  It says, "we care".  "You're not alone".

I wanted to see if I could organize a group from my friends in Victoria to work on a group quilt to send.  We got together last Saturday at my church to work on heart strings which is a popular quilt pattern that multiple people can work on and no experience is necessary.  We had some sewing, some ironing, some cutting strips. Our goal was to send 2 quilts.  Here's a picture of where we got to on Saturday:

 

 

I was really sad that in the end I couldn't even go the event that I organized.  The reason?  On Friday, the day before, I broke my foot.  So the girls carried on without me.  But I was there in spirit and quite sure I could contribute something from my own sewing time alone at home.  On Sunday, I hobbled into my sewing room and added to the number of blocks.  This weekend I think I'll try and get the blocks put together and ready to ship off with the others from our area.  I know there have quilting ninjas working in groups for this great cause.  And thankfully it wasn't my 'sewing foot' that I broke so it still works just fine!

We will be sending this quilt top to Sparrow Studioz in Edmonton.  They have volunteered to quilt them on their long arm machines and then get them distributed.  They are opening their studio for the next 4 Sundays.  You can read about it on the facebook group page here:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/QuiltsforCalgary/.

I'm so proud of my fellow quilting family.  Way to spread the love!!!  God bless you for your giving spirits.  I know He loves it when His children love one another.  This is just awesome.

Until next time,
Mavis

Sew Exciting 2013 Quilting Retreat

It's been a week since I got home from our Sew Exciting 2013 Quilting Retreat at Pearson College in Metchosin, outside of Victoria.  I've been many years before but the difference this year was that I was the Chair of the Committee.  We had a hoot!  Early on we decided on a "Wild, Wild West" theme.  The theme is evident throughout the weekend from table decor, to events.

Here is our committee (minus one member, Terry, whose son was getting married on the Saturday so she couldn't attend).

A fine array of cowgirls dontcha think??

And Linda was a very good sport.  She taught the gals how to line dance on Friday evening!

A good time was had by all.

Our classes were Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Mine was a 3 day class - One Block Wonder with cubes inserted (from the book "One Block Wonder Encore").

Here's the teacher's quilt (Mae Petersen):

I have quite a ways to go and my layout is far from final.  I'm just finishing the blocks and putting them on the design wall for stage 2 - shuffling and getting the correct layout.

Here is a link to my Picasa album from the weekend.

Sew Exciting 2013

Enjoy!

Until next time,

Mavis

And the quilt lived happily ever after...

This is a post about why it's SO IMPORTANT to label your quilts.

I made this quilt for my dear grand-nephew and it goes everywhere with him.

And recently it went to a concert with him and his family.  For some reason all blankets were confiscated at the entrancd to the concert.  I cannot fathom why.  Anyway, the quilt was left and could not be retrieved at the end of the concert.  At the time, I didn't know what was going on. 

Yesterday I got a call from a kind stranger.  Her name is Katie and she lives in Vancouver where my family lives and where the concert was.  She saw the quilt and figured it was special and didn't want someone picking it up (ie stealing it) so she picked it up with the purpose of finding its owner.  Wow.

And this is where the label part comes in.  I ALWAYS label the quilts I give away.  I always use my first and last name (rather than from "Great Auntie Mavis").  I always date them and put the name of the recipient on them.  Katie saw the label and googled to see if she could find me.  She found this blog.  And on this blog was a link to our bed & breakfast.  And on our B&B page is our phone number.  And Katie called me.   And I called my nephew and his family and gave them Katie's number.  They were SO relieved to hear the news that the quilt had been found.

So because of Katie's 'random act of kindness', this quilt will live happily ever after with the family it was intended for and I couldn't be happier.

Thank you Katie!

And THAT'S why we should label our quilts.  :o)

THE END.

Mavis

Wild Child crosses the finish line!!!

This vibrant (understatement!) quilt began its life in Sisters, Oregon at Quilters' Affair.  I took a class from Scott Hansen the day before the quilt show in 2012.  The class was called Fireworks and the pattern is out of the book, "Not Your Grandmother's Log Cabin".  No kidding!  There is nothing 'grandmotherly' about this quilt which is based on the log cabin pattern.

I totally stepped out of my comfort zone with this project and ventured forth into the colourful world of Kaffe Fassett and his line of vivid fabrics.  I bought the fabric at Sisters Quilt Shop in Chehalis on the way down to Sisters.  I ended up hitting up my stash after I returned home as I moved towards finishing the blocks.  I needed to add a bit more value and different colours because the Kaffe fabrics I chose sorta all read 'medium' and there wasn't enough contrast between the blocks.

I had a total blast making this quilt and it is destined to hang in the Victoria Quilters' Guild 2014 Quilt Show next May.  And how cool is it that I already have one quilt ready to go for the show...12 months ahead of schedule!!!  I think I may just need to stand up and take a bow.  That has NEVER happened before and I'm quite chuffed with myself actually. Come to think of it,  I've actually got 2 quilts ready for the show and 1 left to do but I must not let this get to my head.

Oh yes, and before I forget to mention it, I've named this quilt "Wild Child".  I don't think I need to explain that one, do I??

Until next time,

Mavis

Trip Around the World

We did a small makeover on our queen suite in our B&B.  I had a hand-quilted quilt on the twin bed in the Queen suite.  You can see the bottom of it on the twin bed on the right.  But the queen bed in the suite has this quilt on it.  We've removed the brass bed and made a new headboard.

I wanted to make something a bit more 'country' looking and I wanted it to be quick quilt.  So I made a Trip Around the World for the twin, in compatible colours to the quilt on the queen bed.  And as of tonight this is it now done and on the twin bed.  I quilted it on my frame with my Janome 6500.

A photo shoot tomorrow and the website will be updated to show the new quilt.

 

And that's quite enough for one day!  

I have another quilt back from the long arm quilter so I have another binding to finish and then there will be yet another UFO off the list!  Woot woot!!  Stay tuned for more pictures of another finish in a couple of days.

Until next time,

Mavis

To Romania with love...

Our church, Lion of Judah, has a longstanding connection with Romania and the work of a few para-church organizations in Brasov.  One of these organizations, Firm Foundations Romania, ministers love and care to the children in the Brasov Children's Hospital.  As quilters, our natural inclination was to send some love and compassion in the form of baby quilts over for these children.  We were told that they don't cover the babies in blankets and that quilts would not be accepted by the Hospital.  So, a few years back, we sent a quilt called "Bugs in a Jar" to adorn the walls and hopefully bring smiles to some of those tiny faces.

Then last summer, the leader and some of the team from Firm Foundations Romania, stayed at our B&B and did a recording session (google Sarah Berchtold or look on youtube for more information about her music and their work in Romania).  Once again we talked about sending baby quilts but were told that things had not changed, and that for whatever reason, baby quilts were not allowed.  How sad.

THEN...one of the girls on the team said, "if you REALLY want to do something to bless the ministry, you could make quilts for the volunteer quarters".  We then discussed what that entailed.  5 twin sized quilts for the volunteer quarters.  They were just about to be painted and spruced up.  Brown and Purple she said.  Challenge on!!

Anyway, we committed to make 5 of these quilts and here is the pictorial story on their creation.  The quilts were delivered a few days ago to one of the volunteers who was in Canada visiting but going back to Romania.  I believe they have now arrived at their forever home, sent with our prayers for God's blessing on the volunteers and the work that they are doing with these unfortunate orphans.

Scrappy purples and creams/beiges are cut to create the Ohio Stars

Building quilt blocks

Pressing is SO important!

Putting the blocks together

Portable design wall - necessary to make sure all the blocks are in the correct order and orientation.

 

One quilt top done!

2 quilt tops done!

Working on number 3!

#4 ready for quilting

Rolling in on #5!

Closeup of lovely pantograph stitching.

Quilted and ready for binding!

The quilts were presented at Lion of Judah at both Sunday services on April 7th before making their way to Romania.  Here are a few pictures of that presentation:

Only 4 got shown at the first service somehow.  Need more hands to hold them!

Thankful for the extra hands to hold the quilts at the 2nd service

The big reveal.

Me telling the story about the project.

This pictorial representation makes it look like it was an overnight project.  No so.  We have a dedicated team of quilters and this took several months of cutting, sewing, pressing and finally quilting.  Our hearts were full as we sent these off and we hope they make the 'home away from home' for the volunteers at Firm Foundations Romania a little more comfortable.

Until next time,

Mavis

3rd UFO finish for 2013!! "SPRING GARDEN"

It feels so great to finally have this quilt finished.

It has a long story and it goes something like this:

This quilt began its life as a mystery quilt off of Bonnie Hunter's website, quiltville.com.  I have loved my journey with Bonnie.  Learning to steer away from the matchy matchy style of EXPENSIVE quilting and using what I have on hand to make scrap quilts has been a very liberating and fulfilling experience.  Thank you Bonnie for opening my eyes!  Some of my more interesting scrap quilts have much more character than those I've created from purpose-bought yardage alone.  Our quilting ancestors knew a thing or two!!

Anyway, this is Bonnie's pattern called ROLL ROLL COTTON BOLL (see her button bottom right column of my blog).  It uses strings pieced onto foundation paper and Bonnie encouraged us to 'throw it all in there'.  In mine is everything (except Y2K prints which I never owned - this is an inside joke because she has tons of Y2K fabric that she cuts up and puts in many of her quilts).  If the colour was neutral it didn't matter what the subject of the fabric was.  I have polka dots next to kiddie prints, next to batiks, etc.  I know!!! Liberated or what!!??  Anyway, this quilt and I have a story to tell as it hasn't been without its trauma.

The foundation paper I used for the string triangles was Ricky Tims' washable foundation paper.  It's wonderful stuff and I would use it again in a heartbeat.  But I did something very stupid.  After finishing all of the string blocks, I wanted to soak off the washable foundation but we were due to a funeral so I decided...wait for it....to put it in the washing machine on 'delicate'.  I thought the gentle agitation of the machine would just loosen off the foundation paper.  BIG MISTAKE!  You're probably rolling your eyes and thinking 'what were you thinking?'.  I know.  It looked like someone had emptied a whole Kleenex box into the washing machine.  The floor to the laundry looked like we were flying above the clouds.  And yes, I put them in the dryer and then had to iron them to make them behave enough to be pieced into the quilt.  Trauma #1.

Then I happily started piecing my string blocks together with the pieced blocks but put it away for whatever reason that I cannot remember at the moment.  But what I do remember is our decision to list our house for sale and the mad packing up we did to stage the house.  Into a moving box it went and I lost control.  I had people helping pack (mostly our kids and their friends) and most of my sewing stuff went into the garage but I lost track of what went where.

It was time for my annual November retreat and I really wanted to pick up where I left off and finish this quilt.  I started packing up my projects and looked in all of those garage boxes for my half-finished quilt.  Nowhere to be found.  Oh no!!!  Did it go to the thrift store by accident??  Remember we were staging and decluttering and I figured the worst had happened.  All those bazillion half square triangles that became the frame of those blocks and all those string blocks had left me forever.  Waaaaaahhhhh!!   But off I went to my retreat pining away for my Roll Roll Cotton Boll but managing to find something else to do.

Well, almost a year later I was looking in a hall closet into a box that I thought came from one of the kids' rooms when what did I see?  "SEWING ROOM".  I think I sucked all the air out of the room as I gasped.  Could it be??  YES!!!!!  There it was, safe and sound!  I am pretty sure I jumped up and down that day that the lost quilt had been found.  We were reunited once again.  The quilt WOULD be finished!  I was overjoyed.  And then it was time for another November retreat.  And of course, what did I take with me to finish ??  Yup.  My Roll Roll Cotton Boll quilt.  I got it to the stage of getting the borders on which you can read in this post.  I've just recently finished the sewing the binding on and this quilt will now share the spotlight with this quilt which has until today been living in the Queen suite of our B&B.

They will both be used on this bed.  I find it's just nice to switch up the look from time to time.  You will see that we've also done a bit of a makeover on this room, getting rid of the dated brass bed and adding the wooden DIY headboard that my DH created from an idea on Pinterest.

Anyway, I told you it was a quilt with a story.  It was worth every single frustration along the way.  I've named the quilt "My Spring Garden".  Roll Roll Cotton Boll makes total sense for those who live in North Carolina where Bonnie is from.  But for those who live in Canada and have rarely seen Cotton fields, this name made more sense for my quilt.

This has been an unusually long post for me so with that I'll sign off for now.  Thanks for listening to my quilt story.

Until next time,
Mavis