Three cheers for the Vermont Quit Festival! I never would have thought that day-trippin’  via bus tour would be so much fun. Well, whaddaya expect with 40+  quilting gals cruisin’ down to Vermont together on a luxury bus? Getting up at 4:30am wasn’t so much fun, but other than that, it was a smooth ride down and a great day all together.

Unfortunately going to Vermont meant that I had to miss my lqs’s quilt show. I had three quilts in the show:

Holiday Sampler BOM

Angels Watching Over Me BOM

Spruce it Up!

I could have entered a bunch more, but time wasn’t on my side and I’m just happy that I managed to get these finished up in time.

Where does time fly? Well, I’ve been busy in the garden:I also got dad’s table runner done in time for father’s day:

I just love making runners!

I’ll update later with some of my recent purchases, including what I got in Vermont.

Kudos to Amy of park city girl blogspot for creating/organizing this online quilt festival! What a terrific idea.

This lap quilt is my submission to the festival:

It is not my best quilt. It is not the prettiest or nicest of my quilts. There was no pattern for it.  It started as a store challenge with a small scrap of yellow rooster fabric. The fabrics I added were scrappy and uncoordinated, and mostly leftovers from some other quilts.  I never even met the person I gave it to. But, this is a special quilt, and I feel that it deserves to be shown and acknowledged.

This quilt is special because it was given as a comfort quilt to a lady who had terminal brain cancer. The process of  giving it to her, and knowing that she used it in her last year of life, and knowing that it brought her some joy, makes me proud to be a quiltmaker.

The quilts that I make are made to be used and loved. My quilting career so far has been fairly short - I basically learned how to sew 5 years ago, and quite often I still feel like a novice quiltmaker. But, every quilt I’ve made since I started  is either used in my own home, or has been given to family & friends. I am always so pleased to give someone a quilt, but giving  the comfort quilt made me the happiest.

No - not in Ottawa.

What’s with this crazy weather?? Snow…cold….I refuse to go back to wearing boots.

With Easter weekend coming up, I’ve dug out some of my spring-y quilts. This is a little stitchery that I made a couple of years ago:I love the little carrot fabric that’s the border. I can’t credit anyone for the pattern, as I cannot recall  - it was from off the internet as a free download.The daffodils are part of an interchangeable quilt - each season the panel changes.

This little bunny will work for chocolate!

We had our monthly Friday Fun Nite class at my LQS,  The Country Quilter, last night, and we made these wonderful tote bagsThey make up lickety-split (after quilting your fabric). I’m not sure where the instructor got the pattern from, but it was very easy to make and I learned a new way to make handles - which I will use with other bags from now on. The diamond on the front is actually a little slanted pocket.

The fabric I used was from my stash - it is authentic Japanese fabric that I picked up at International Fabrics at a quilt show in Lancaster, PA several years ago.

Finally completed the Thimbleberries Bear Paw runner. It’s  fairly large  (24″ x 52″) - but our table is long and narrow, so it works out fine. The woodsy lodge colours, the pinecone applique, and the bear paw block coordinate quite well with our our log home living style (can you read “relaxed & casual”?).

Thimbleberries Bear Paw runner

This pattern is one of the four patterns that make up the 2008 Thimbleberries BOM Club “Lodge & Lakeside” queen size bed quilt. The bear paw centre of this runner –>

bear paw block

is actually one of the blocks in the bed size quilt.

Of course, I chose to make the “Lodge” colourway quilt (Queen size) - but, I’ve yet to get the borders on. They are all cut and ready to go, I just need to psyche myself up to sew a large bed quilt. Am I the only quilter with this problem? I can get all the blocks done for a bom or, a bed-size quilt, but then when it comes to putting on the borders, I freeze. Once they are sewn on, and I get it back from long arm quilting, I then freeze at the prospect of putting on the binding. I actually need to set aside an entire day to get the binding on a queen size quilt.  One more goal for 2009 : get over it!!

In 2007 I took a class at my lqs, The Country Quilter, called “Tracy’s Quilt” — not sure what the authentic name of this pattern is, but the instructor’s name was Tracy, hence “Tracey’s Quilt”.

Chopsticks

I made this lap quilt for my son, Chris, and I thought that the pattern looked liked chopsticks, so I call this quilt Chopsticks. It was given to him Christmas 2007, the Christmas that we spent on the Sunshine Coast of BC.

This is a really fun technique. Felt a little crazy chopping the blocks up. The initial block is 4 squares sewn together - then you slice them up and sew in the wedges (chopsticks).  The blocks are then trimmed square. Although there is sashing and cornerstones to deal with, I love that there are no borders to sew on.

A couple of years ago I joined a redwork club at my local quilt shop, The Country Quilter. It was a lot of fun. We incorporated baked goodies into our meetings — ymmmm….stitching and goodies (mostly chocolate). In the beginning, we mostly got our patterns off of freebie redwork sites online. Then, I discovered some Australian quilting magazines — one of these is Australian Homespun. A whole new exciting world of projects opened itself up to me, and I discovered stitchery designs from Bronwyn Hayes of Red Brolly. Living in Canada and trying to get my hands on her stitchery books was not an easy feat.  With a lot of web hunting and corresponding with some shop owners in Australia and New Zealand, I managed to get my hands on some Red Brolly books. Now, at this point, I’ve gotten my hands on quite a few — but, not all of them — but close to it.  I am still looking for the elusive “In the Red”.

In the Red (I AM LOOKING TO BUY THIS BOOK - CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ONE FOR SALE)

Aside from trying to find these books,  I subscribed to Australian Homespun, and another fav Australian Country Threads, and there, each month, wonderful stitcheries, some from Bronwyn Hayes, others from other fantabulous australian stitchery designers, plus some months are special stitchery issues.

This is the first redwork/stitchery quilt that I completed:

redwork quilt from Bronwyn Hayes' book "Cotton Country"

Red Brolly's Cotton Country

On a cuteness meter, the little chickens, pigs, kitties, sheep etc. go beyond the top of the scale. I just love this stuff!

From Bronwyn’s book “Sunshine Blue”, I made this little wall-hanging:

kitty from Sunshine Blue

closeup of kitty

The book from Red Brolly (Browwyn Hayes):

Sunshine Blue

Today, I have just started “The Wish Quilt” - again, by Bronwyn Hayes — not a book, but rather a series featured in Australian Homespun Magazine, over three issues (number 62, 63 and 64).

Australian Homespun magazine issue No. 62 (vol 9.7)

The first block is Santa

Block # 1 Santa Block

Isn’t he cute??

FYI, the North American distributor of these magazines is Stonehouse Publications, right here in Ontario, Canada. I am in no way affiliated with Stonehouse Pulications, nor the magazines, or Red Brolly, in any way — just a big fan of this style of redwork/stitchery.

Stitch on ladies! Stitch on….

Hey Diddle Diddle

At the Country Quilter retreat in January I started making a baby quilt for friends Jen & John (from Burnaby, BC). I finally got around to finishing it, and the baby is not even born yet!  The flannel fabric is a kit — Hey Diddle Diddle — from Connecting Threads, and on their website I found a matching label. Sweet! Now, just to get it packed up and mailed to them.

quilt label for Hey Diddle Diddle

Back of baby quilt