New York, New York

Last year as part of a fund-raiser for the N.S. Fibre Arts Festival, Polly and I made and donated this quilt called, New York, New York.

It appeared on the cover of Quilter's Connection magazine, with instructions inside.  However, because of space requirements, the foundations and templates were printed at a reduced size so it was necessary to get them enlarged at a copy shop. The pattern is now available with all the pieces at full size so you can get started right away.

I confess it's one of my all time favourite quilts - bold, bright, and full of life.  It's pieced from gorgeous hand-dyed  Hoffman 1895 Bali watercolours, and heavily quilted with wild and crazy feathers.

Polly liked it too.

It's available from my website, pattern # 615. 

Mary's Meadow Song

Amidst all of the snow, here's a lovely version of Meadow Song by Mary Farrow-Sinclair of Amherst to make us think of spring.  If you click on the picture, you should be able to see the cross-hatch quilting Mary has worked in the background of the appliqués. It sets the motifs off so nicely and gives a traditional look to the piece.

Mary started her project awhile back (I won't say how many "whiles", Mary *-) in one of my workshops.  My original looks like this:

You can see that my version used a few more pinwheels than Mary's, but she has substituted plain blocks for her border very effectively. Meadow Song appeared on the cover of Quilter's Connection magazine.

Mary is one of the members of Amherst's Train Station Gallery and with this quilt she was chosen to be the Featured Artisan. 

Congrats, Mary, on a beautiful piece of work.  If you are interested in purchasing Mary's quilt, you can contact her here. 
The pattern for Meadow Song is available on Craftsy as an instant download, or in print version from Mrs. Pugsley's Emporium.

A Scattered Week

The wind is blowing a gale outside and with two cats in the house, I knew that even before I opened my eyelids this morning.  Gram always said the cats go crazy when there is wind and Polly is a wild woman today... she`s been into everything. 

Perhaps the wind scattered my week as well as it's certainly been off in many directions.  I had a great time at Mrs Pugsley's Emporium on Wednesday;  it was her first drop-in sewing day and it was a roaring success. I expect that will become a regular event as everyone had a very fun time.  (Linda S., thank you for the reminder to take my camera;  I did...but do you think I remembered to take any pictures?!) Yesterday I spent way too much time tracking down the perfect box in which to ship quilts and patterns...but I found it!  I am beyond delighted to say that my Quilt Of Learning and Rhythmic are both headed to Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh.  Both were made using Stof fabrics and they will be displayed in the Stof booth at Market. These are the two quilts:

It`s no small honour to have my quilts go and I am really pleased that there was opportunity to show both of them first here in Amherst, Nova Scotia.  They've been on display for the past month at Mrs. Pugsley`s Emporium.

I am home today waiting for UPS to come pick up the box.

While I wait, I will stitch on the latest design.  This will be the last I can show of it for awhile as I am pleased to say it will appear in the fall issue of Quilter`s Connection magazine, Canada`s premier quilting publication.

Look at Polly:  ears up, eyes intently focused, killer instinct engaged.. Be careful Maddie, I think she`s ready for another round!

Houston, Paducah, Quilt Canada: Somebody Pinch Me!

This has been some week...First, With Glowing Hearts was shipped off to Houston where it will join the travelling exhibit "O Canada". This show opens at Spring International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati. With Glowing Hearts is also currently part of a fun online exhibit through The Canadian Quilter's Association. If you feel inclined to vote, my "With Glowing Hearts" is #22, you can scroll to the bottom to click "yes" and keep scrolling to click "submit". Voting continues to March 20 and is just for fun. Yesterday, my copy of Quilter's Connection magazine arrived with a really lovely presentation of my quilt Fandango. Today...the mailman brought two large, manila envelopes which contained more good news than I ever dared hope for. I have a quilt accepted into the National Juried Show at Quilt Canada in London Ontario and also one which is a semi-finalist at the AQS show in PADUCAH!

Houston, Paducah, Quilt Canada... I feel like I'm running the Triple Crown :)

Fandango

Today the mailman brought the spring issue of Quilter's Connection magazine. Editor Heather MacArthur has put together a very interesting issue.
One of the projects featured is my Fandango quilt, which I have shown snippets of here while it was in progress. Now I am pleased to be able to show the whole thing. It is pictured here spread out on my great-grandmother Christina Patterson's treadle machine.

The soft palette chosen for the old-fashioned fan blocks are from Benartex's Forever Spring collection, designed by Nancy Halvorson. The fans are set together in diagonal pairs to form butterfly wings.

I love sewing curves, and my little secret to keeping the blocks true is to pin not just along the curve where you stitch, but also at each end to keep the background piece square to the edge of the blades. I use this method to sew my New York Beauty blocks as well and find that they come out (dare I say it?) perfect each time. You will notice a row of stay-stitching on the lower curve, and that's another little trick to keep your curves smooth. The top curved edge of the fan blades (under those pins) has also been stay-stitched before this background piece was added, about 1/8" from the edge.

After the centres and background sections are added to the fans, each block is numbered and lettered to show the final placement in the quilt.
The butterfly bodies which are added by appliqué are simple to make, using freezer paper and starch to turn under the edges.

They are sewn to the quilt using invisible thread and a blind hem stitch. Fast and easy!

Basting is never fast and easy, as I spread the quilt on the floor and use safety pins. Masking tape holds all the edges taut and smooth before I begin pinning. The salvation for this chore is music, which needs to be loud enough to drown out my singing while I work...!

When I move the quilt onto the machine, the first part of the quilting is with the walking foot on. I outline all of the blocks and patches which form the design. We often hear that our work should look as neat on the back as on the front, and this applies to machine quilting as well. Outlining the patches makes the design discernible from the back, which it otherwise would not be if the quilting were only done to highlight various areas on the front.

Once the quilt is secured with this outline stitching, the safety pins are removed and the fun begins.

Without the quilting, these are merely fan blocks with an oval appliquéd between. Much as a butterfly emerges from a cocoon, these fan blocks morph into butterflies with the help of thread.

I wanted the quilting to be soft and light and springy so I chose curlicues to give a filigree look.

Antennae were stitched at the end of each butterfly.

A scalloped border of fan blades was added to the outer edge. Using a triangle at the corners made for easy turning...and binding.

Heather MacArthur added a bonus tutorial in the magazine with instruction on how to make bias binding.

Another bonus is that this pattern is Fat Quarter friendly, so if you have been collecting F.Q.'s, this is a great pattern for their use.

Quilting To Rest Your Eyes

Earlier this week my friend Lynn came to visit; she knitted on her thrummed mittens while I quilted. As we worked, we chatted about our approach to choosing what to quilt on a top. As stated in previous posts, I always think of the advice given by an experienced stitcher many years' back: "quilt what you what them to see." With that in mind, I have been stitching gentle, curly swirls on the main blocks of my quilt. What I want seen are delicate, lacy, filigree wings...even though the block itself has no resemblance to wings. As this is a bed-sized quilt, I am conscious of adding too much quilting; in my mind, there needs to be room left for a little "poufiness". For sleeping, one wants the blanket to have a soft hand, rather than a stiff feel. While I yammered away about "pouf", Lynn shared a different perspective on the quilting issue... but one which produces the same end result. She terms those open pouf spaces, "a place to rest one's eyes" and suggests that over-quilting a piece can be tiring for the viewer. I hadn't considered it in quite those terms before and I found that interesting.
Lynn was working a picot edge on the cuff of her mittens and I decided that would be a nice frilly addition to my wings.

To make the template to keep my scallops fairly even and regular, I traced the edge of the block on cardstock. A roll of tape worked like a charm to mark the semi-circles as it has the centre point identified on the clear dispenser. I just plopped the roll over my line and traced inside the small circle. Then I cut the cardstock with scissors.
A purple, air soluble marker was used to trace the scallops on the fabric.

Similarly, a cardstock template was made to mark the scrolls on a curvy line up the centre of the plain border.

The picots were repeated along the outer pieced border of the quilt, but other than that the wool batting was given space to plump and pouf and look invitingly soft. Hopefully, the amount of quilting on this piece has reached the perfect balance to rest one's body as well as one's eyes.

Now complete with binding and hanging sleeve, the quilt will wing it's way (pun intended) to Quilter's Connection for the spring issue. Once the editor gives the go ahead, pictures of the full quilt will be posted here.

On To The Quilting...

I bought a new gift for my beloved: a straight stitch throat plate.
The throat plate that comes with the Bernina (and on most multi-stitch machines) is a versatile one which will accommodate a zigzag or decorative stitch as well as a straight stitch.

Having been "raised" on a machine where I always switched plates, I can see the benefits of having the tiny hole for the needle to pass through. It makes perfect stitches even more... perfecter. (Those who know me will understand how I cringed when I wrote that, having been an English teacher in a past career *-) If you scroll back up to the top picture, you will see it comes with a bright orange warning to help you remember to change the plate when you are changing your stitch width. Otherwise, good bye needle.

I used the plate to start the free motion quilting on my spring quilt. I can't show you the front of the quilt yet, but here's the back. Can you tell what motif I am quilting? Only 32 more of these to do before moving on to the next section. So far, so good.

Out of Seasonal Sync

As I basted pastel fabrics for a spring quilt...... the Christmas cactus bloomed brilliantly in the background, a reminder that a different season is upon us. Outside everything is white from last night's snow.
It would be nice to think that I'm way ahead of myself but alas the opposite is true...!

Cover Girl

How cool is this? My "Meadowsong" quilt made the cover of the latest issue of Quilter's Connection magazine. Doesn't that just say "spring"? :) Check out the Quilter's Connection blog for more info.