International Quilting Day - March 21, 2020

Celebration Day is almost here! International Quilting Day is always the third Saturday in March and this year falls on March 21st. The usual celebration you might expect to find is groups of quilters gathering together to sew on their projects or charity projects. Some join online challenges and mystery quilts. Others go to quilt shops to support the small businesses in their locations and their vacation destinations. How many times have you seen requests on online groups that go something like this: "I'm going to be visiting Las Vegas next month. Where are the quilt shops?" A time or two right?



Last year I had an idea that on International Quilting Day in 2020 we should celebrate by hanging quilts outdoors. I guess the basis of the idea came after visiting Sisters, Oregon twice for their annual Outdoor Quilt Show. It has become a vacation destination for quilters, quilting groups and some good natured significant others. Quilters get on board with events that focus on their passion of stitching with love. Quilt Shops organize shop hops under the banner Worldwide Quilting Day on the same day to encourage people to support local quilt shops.

I thought, "what if we hang quilts outside, and ask our friends to do likewise, and they ask their friends, and so on and so on. Wouldn't it create some curiosity? Wouldn't it add some colour to our yards? Wouldn't it tell our neighbours that we love our craft? And that is how it all began.

I then created a Facebook event so that there would be one place online where people could find out information about the event. From there I shared with some online quilting groups. I had very enthusiastic responses and decided I might be on to something. Then it went viral.

The idea has grown and taken on a life of its own. Then arrived the Covid-19 pandemic with social isolation protocols announced and social distancing becoming the new buzzword. School is out for spring break but then on hold thereafter. Restaurants are closed except for takeout. Grocery store shelves are bare. Streets are empty. While sporting events and other gatherings are being cancelled, including our Victoria Quilters' Guild 2020 Quilt Show the first weekend in June, this project suddenly became something that quilters could do, hang their quilts outdoors at their residences, to add some colour to their neighbourhoods, despite our new restrictions. My last week has been spent on promotion in our local media, producing a driving map for my city, and answering social media enquiries. By the number of pings on my phone, it seems the world has realized that we can still get in our cars and maintain social distancing and yet do something fun this Saturday.

Let's go see some quilts and take pictures and post them! You will undoubtedly see bed quilts, traditional quilts, modern quilts, baby quilts, and art quilts. You will likely see them on railings, in trees, on benches, on the sides of buildings and hanging in windows.

Here is the link to an interview on Tuesday this week which aired on our local news channel: https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=1924052

Here are the locations in Greater Victoria, British Columbia where there will be quilts hanging on March 21st:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/victoria-quilters-guild/international-quilting-day-2020-quilt-tour/2563512483933516/

I would love to see the Internet filled with pictures of the quilt spottings! (Hashtags would be appreciated: #internationalquiltingday2020 #internationalquilthanging2020 #hangaquilt) Let's brighten someone's day. Let's help them remember their friends and family members who may have quilted and gifted them one. Let's help the cancer patients and NICU parents remember the love expressed by these caring strangers who donated to them in their time of need. Let's do what we do to show tangible love and comfort in these uncertain times. Let's wrap the world in quilty hugs.

Mavis (aka Dayspring Quilter)

A funny thing happened in the wee hours ...

Last night was sleepover time for my grandson who will be 3 in July.  Since we downsized in 2015, my sewing room is also the laundry room which was converted from a bedroom before we bought this house.  It has great storage with two closets and a counter on top of the washer and dryer which was why I claimed this room before the ink was dry on the contract!

It also still serves as a bedroom for the wee man when we have sleepovers or naps during the day if I'm babysitting.  We use his playpen and put it in the middle of the room.  Trouble is his arms are growing in length.  Imagine me finally enjoying some peace and quiet last night when I then heard "thump, thump, thump".  That was the distinct sound of the wool dryer balls tumbling in the now turned on but otherwise empty dryer.  He's a smart kid but Grandma isn't too dumb either.  So after a chat I moved the playpen further away from the dryer.  Problem solved!   Slumber was enjoyed by all until about 2 a.m.  He doesn't cry (usually) when he gets up in the night but he does chat, laugh and jump in his playpen. Party time!   So I decided to attend to the little monkey to avoid waking the rest of the house (too late).  This is what I saw when I opened the door:

Apparently those long arms can now reach my closet where my scraps are cut and organized into boxes according to size.  This was the nighttime shot.  I didn't turn the light on. I didn't want to wake him anymore than he was already awake.  Apparently he does this most nights at home and eventually goes back to sleep without intervention.  I do not remember my kids waking up in the night as toddlers, but apparently it's a thing.   Little monkey.  I couldn't see what was under this pile.  It was soft so it was probably fabric.  What wasn't soft was the thumping sounds going through the floor to the lower level where someone was sleeping. So I made the rookie mistake of taking him out of the playpen and into Grandma's bed with the promise that he would go back to sleep.  As if!!  

Long story short, he finally fell asleep in my arms on the couch after saying Goodnight Moon to the bright orb making a guest appearance through our livingroom window.  Eventually I made my way back to bed at 5:00 a.m. after he was back asleep.

This morning I had to survey the damage.  Whoa!  That's 2" squares and 2 1/2" squares plus shoebox sized tubs of colours sorted appropriately.  

Together the little boy and I sat on the floor to clean up the mess.  I handed him the "big" ones for the "big" box and the "small" ones for the "small" box.  I hope he learned that when we make a mess we need to tidy it up.

But a funny thing happened in the process.  Grandma got inspired to dig out these squares and use them!  I'm going to design my next pattern based on this fabric vomit on my floor and see what kind of trouble I can get into.  Wish me luck!

Oh...and he's now napping (not in my sewing room LOL) and I'm writing this post.  And then back to sorting my scraps again.

Happy Sunday everyone!  I hope you are also playing with fabric. 💝😃

Until next time,
Mavis

New pattern release

I confess I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon in a big way.  But today I have something to share that warrants a post.

Today I'm publishing a pattern on my website and in my Etsy shop, the proceeds of which will go to a valuable work with children in Uganda.  Here's the story behind the quilt:

The Story Behind Terry’s Arc
a project benefiting Children Arise, Uganda

Terry is a long time friend and quilting buddy that answered the call to missions along with her husband Andrew.  They sold their home in my city and moved to Uganda to work with children and orphans.  Since their departure in 2014, they have just received news that their adoption of  two Ugandan children has gone through.  They have raised them since toddlerhood.  They are also actively involved in caring for other children at risk as well as single mothers.  They basically have left all the comforts of home to follow the Lord in caring for the “least of these”.

Terry came home on a well deserved furlough last March for about a month while her husband cared for the children.  During her time here we always carve out some sewing days just to hang out and spend some creative time together.  In anticipation of this visit, this quilt was an idea hatched by Terry to make for one of their helpers.  She wanted to make a bed sized quilt, so while I was anxiously awaiting her arrival, I pulled out a jelly roll I had been wanting to use and started playing around with her idea.  This quilt was the result (in a smaller version).  I told Terry that I would eventually design the quilt on paper (actually in Electric Quilt design program) and that I would sell it on my website with a goal to being able to send the proceeds of any sales to them for their work in Uganda.

Matthew 25:40-45 New International Version (NIV)

⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

My quilt done in Orange and White won a second prize in our local Victoria Quilters' Guild quilt show.

Here are the links to purchase:  

• My website:  Terry's Arc quilt pattern  
• My Etsy Shop:  Dayspring Quilter on Etsy

And here is the facebook link to Andrew and Terry's work:  

• Arise Uganda

Thank you for buying this pattern.  By doing so you have also helped this valuable work. Please share the hashtag #terrysarc so that we can view your finished quilts. And please share this post.

Mavis

What to do when a quilt backing is too short for your quilt

So this happened in my studio yesterday...math isn't my best skill and I readily admit seeking assistance from my math saavy friend when needed.  I had a customer quilt to load and it made use of some leftover diamond pieces to form a star on the back of the quilt.

Quilt back

I think I was so concerned about centering the star on the back of the quilt that I didn't really pay attention to  the measurements I had taken of the quilt back and the quilt top.  She had allowed 4" total backing to the length of the quilt which I know is about half as much as I needed.  But still I didn't catch it.  I knew it would be close but I thought we might have just enough if I was careful at the top.

Firstly to center the back this is what I did:

1. I marked the center line of the star on the left and right sides of the quilt backing
2. I marked the center of the top with tape on my takeup roller. So now I had a top and side markers for placement.
3. I then rolled the backing in the normal fashion.
4. I added the batting.
5. When it came time to load the quilt top (Note:  I float my quilt tops), I rolled the quilt back to the middle where my left and right markings were.  I centered the quilt horizontally from that point to see how high on the quilt back I would need to start.  It was going to be tight but I figured I could squeak it out. 

Loaded and ready to quilt!

I happily quilted away knowing there was really no way of predicting just how much backing I would have at the bottom and I told the customer.  I was more concerned than she was.

I got to the second to last row and realized I was about an inch short.  I called my customer to explain the situation and she brought me a six inch strip of the backing of fabric.  At this point you are probably envisioning me unloading the quilt and doctoring up the bottom of the backing right?

Wrong!  I really dislike reloading a quilt once I take it off.  I just find that it's very difficult to line up perfectly again so I pondered my situation over the weekend and yesterday I decided to do unroll the quilt partially so that the bottom was hanging over the front bar of my quilting frame.

This is the point where I realized ... oh oh!

I have a table which is the perfect height so I brought out my Janome, set it up on this high table and added the 6" strip to the bottom of the quilt.  I would sew about an inch and move the table forward.  Sew another inch and move the table forward.  It worked like a charm.

I then used the front roller to press the seam, reloaded the quilt and I was back in business.

I don't know if I broke every rule in the longarmer rule book, but this worked for me and the result was great.  And the bonus was that I only had to reload the bottom of the quilt which kept it straight during the reload process.

Here is the quilt finished.  And a shameless plug:  This is my original quilt pattern called Amish Block Party.  It's available as a download here:  Amish Block Party pattern.

I taught this class in a local quilt store called The Cloth Castle and this is one of my students' quilt.  She did a fabulous job and I had great pleasure in adding the quilting to finish it off.  The panto I used is called "Pearly Weave" and the thread was Glide Mulberry.

I hope this tutorial helps you think outside the box when you need to fix a problem on the fly.

Until next time!

Mavis

Hand Quilting - Choosing your quilt top...lessons learned

Would you say you are a patient person or an impatient one? I think I tend to be more impatient than patient but I’m working on it. .

About this time every year Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville gets ready to release her annual mystery quilt. I always say I’m going to resist, but I never seem to be able to muster up the self-control to do so.

In 2014 Bonnie released her Grand Illusion mystery quilt.  I love Bonnie’s designs, but if I was really honest I’d have to say that this was not my favourite pattern. I ended up doing my own borders because the other ones with the pattern just didn’t ring my bells. 

I was thrilled when I actually finished the quilt top. This was before I had my APQS millennium.  

And I love hand quilting so I decided that I would hand quilt this one.

 Hand quilting stencils and thread are ready to go!

 All pin basted  and ready for the hoop.

I’ve been placing the flowers randomly over the course of the last four years.

When I look back I really wonder why on earth I decided to spend so many hours on a quilt that would be difficult to quilt because of all the intersections and on one that I really didn’t love. I just kept telling myself I would patiently add the stitches and it will be a lifetime project with no deadline in mind. Right?  Wrong! Along came and impatient moment recently where I had enough of staring at it and having it stare back at me nagging me to work on it. Don’t get me wrong; I love hand quilting but I just think I chose the wrong project this time. So after a lot of debate and actually asking for advice from some online hand quilters I made the decision to finish it on my long arm. I really wondered if I would regret this decision. I found a motif that I could continue in a random fashion across the top of the quilt which I had hoped would have the same feeling as the motif that I had chosen to hand quilt. Loading the quilt onto my long arm was not as difficult as I thought it would be and before long I was happily quilting away adding  flower motifs to my quilt top.

It only took me a little bit over a day to finish it. As I continued quilting these randomly placed motifs I could see that there were some spots between motifs that  needed something in them but I didn’t want to put in a full motif as it would have stitched over an existing one. As it is there were a couple of close calls in fact boo-boos where there are stitches overlapping but I’m not letting the quilt police in the door and I warned my daughter who is  the recipient of the quilt that she would have to let go of some OCD tendencies to really enjoy this quilt. 

I found some cute little motifs of butterflies and ladybugs that I could make smaller and I also made some of the flowers smaller just to fill in those little spots that needed a little something to tie it all together. 

Above is a mixture of hand quilting and machine quilting. 

The end result is that I was able to finish the quilt and give it to my daughter to finish binding because she loves doing that, and the quilt is now living on her bed and she cherishes it. 

I’m delighted to have it done and out of the UFO pile. 

Bonus: I had in my closet a whole cloth quilt that I really wanted to work on but I couldn’t give myself permission until this project was completed. So now I have pulled out my whole cloth quilt and I’m happily adding my stitches to that project. And no intersections! 

I didn’t start this quilt from scratch lest you think I’ve done all of this stitching. I actually purchased someone else’s UFO and am finishing it off. And Cooper is enjoying our time together. 

So that’s the story of how I finished my Grand Illusion mystery quilt UFO. I’m so happy to cross another long-standing project off the list.

Until next time, I’ve got some slow stitchin’ to keep me busy. 

Mavis 

What if scenarios for the stash...

It all started with me staring at this:

This is my humble stash.  Not shown are the strip bins in my closet containing ample strips in a variety of widths. For the most part those strips are neglected (moment of honesty!).  I do love scrappy quilts and fully intend on putting them to good use some day.

But the challenge of the week is to use up the yardage on the shelves in the top picture.  It sits at the back of my cutting table and I am constantly reminded that these fabrics, most of which I really love, really don't match with the other fabrics in my stash.  Oh dear!  I usually buy something because I love it, not because I have a plan in mind.   So when you want to use them in a quilt, it makes it a bit more difficult to figure out just what to do with them.

I decided to start here with this fabric.  I don't LOVE it, but I LIKE it for sure.

But what the heck am I going to do with it??

I found these comrades close by and thought that perhaps if I made a column quilt I could cut bigger pieces thereby making a baby quilt quickly and using up a lot of this fabric.  So here's what I did:

Maybe a bit of applique to break up the monotony?

Not liking the heart.  All I see is that the lines in the heart don't match up with the strips.

Better!  This teddy bear fabric brings out the blue and uses up ancient stash/scraps.  Bonus!

And so it kinda went like this:

Quilt top complete

Enough fabric for the backing! Yippee!

Then it was time to load the quilt on Millie and finish this quilt!  I chose a meandering heart pantograph to stick with my theme.  I think it works nicely.

And it's done!  I left the binding for another day.  This quilt accomplished a few things in my studio:

1.  I used up some of my STASH!!  I do have a bit left over which I now don't mind chopping into strips and squares for the scrap bins.
2.  I made a baby quilt in a day (from concept to quilting).  Cutting big pieces was the key.  And I used my GO cutter and heart die with steam a seam lite to do the applique.  I then stitched around the hearts and inserted these blocks into the alternate strips.
3.  I had a great feeling using my stash and it did kind of release what was bogging me down so the end result was FREEDOM!

If you would like to make this quilt with some floundering stash, here are the directions.  Free that stash!  Free yourself!  Make a quick quilt to give away.  You will feel good!

You will need:
 4 x 4 1/2" strips by width of fabric of focus fabric (my striped one) (approx 44").  It doesn't need to be striped.
7 x 2 1/2" strips of a lighter coordinating fabric by width of fabric.
3 x 2 1/2" strips of a medium/dark coordinating fabric by width of fabric.
6 x 4 1/2" squares in the lighter coordinating fabric for applique.
6 appliqued shapes of your choice cut from a scrap of another coordinating colour.

Start by joining one light strip to one strip of focus fabric for the left and one light strip to one strip of the focus fabric for the right.  These actually create the side borders of your quilt.

Now make three strip sets with one light and one medium/dark fabric.

Lay out your fabrics as follows but DO NOT sew them together.  Note that the position of the light and dark fabric alternate to frame the focus fabric.

Layout: Left focus fabric, one strip set with light on the left, focus fabric, one strip set with  dark on the left, one focus fabric, one strip set with light on the left, the final focus fabric with the light strip on the right.  You are constructing this quilt top in columns. Don't sew them together just yet.

Making sure all the tops are even, measure down 12 1/2" and slice the strip set to insert the first applique block.  Sew the top and bottom of the applique  square making sure that you don't mix up the order of the strip sets.  Space them second cut another 12 1/2" from the bottom of the applique and repeat the slice and insert of the second applique block in your first column.  This will be the same procedure for the third column of strips/applique.

For the second column of strips I cut 6 1/2" from the top to stagger the placement of my applique block, and then 12 1/2" from the bottom of the first applique in that column.  Once your applique is done and inserted into these strip sets, you can now sew your columns together.  You will have extra strip set fabric at the bottom of the quilt which can be chopped off to match the bottom of your focus fabric length.

Once your quilt top is together with the side borders already attached, it's now time to add the top and bottom strips to complete the borders.  Measure through the middle of your quilt top and then cut the remaining 2  2 1/2" strips into two strips at that measurement.  Now ease in those strips to the top and bottom of your quilt top and voila baby quilt!

Options:
You can hand applique down your pieces;
You can omit applique and fussy cut a pattern from other fabric to insert.
You could make scrappy columns to use up strips that coordinate (hmmm why didn't I think of that earlier!!??)
If you machine applique your blocks, you can either use a raw edge and just sew them down with a straight stitch, a button hold stitch or a blanket stitch (which is what I did).

Here is my finished quilt (except for the binding to be sewn down).

Until next time, I encourage you to go look for a treasure in your stash and try this!  It's fun and quick. :)

Mavis

Colour Intensity and Playtime

I was very fortunate this month to receive cataract surgery on both eyes.  Wowsers!  Who turned all the lights on?!??  The clarity...the depth and intensity of colour...the crispness...I had no idea what I was missing.  Of course, as a quilter working with fabrics, this only made the experience that much better.

I played with some bright colours the last few weeks and here are a few of the samplings of what I've been working on.

First of all, I quilted this On Ringo Lake variation on Millie.

Then I quilted this adorable baby quilt:

Panto:  Butterfly Swirls; Thread: Glide Pink

 

And I ended up diving in three months late on the Good Fortune mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter of Quiltville (slightly amended).  Two of these fabrics are scraps of backing fabric which were just what I needed to complete my pallette.  I'm loving it so far.  I don't know yet how big it will be.  I expect that will depend on how far the stash fabric goes because I'm not buying anything new to create this quilt.  For real!!

There was also some playing with more subdued colours, namely the dark and medium blues in my 365 Quilt Challenge by Kathryn Kerr.

It was a very SEWful week. <3


Until next time,
Mavis