UFO's

I don't think I know a quilter who doesn't have a few ufo's (for the non-quilting readers, a ufo is an un-finished object) just waiting to be finished, given away or thrown out. At our Quilter's Retreat we have a fund raising auction every year and we all take stuff to donate - fabric, books, patterns and ufo's. As I was making a pile of stuff to take I found a bag with about 30 pineapple blocks, lots of cut fabric and some flannel squares. As much as I loved this project I knew it was way down my priority list to finiah. So into the auction it went.

I was thrilled that my good quilt friend Anne Morrell Robinson "won" my ufo. Anne is one of the most dedicated and disciplined quilters I know. I knew she would finish it and she has!

I just love the touches of turquoise and how they add some "spark" to the quilt. I hope Anne will bring it to this year's Retreat so I can see it in person.

This has inspired me to dig out another ufo and really put my mind to getting it done. Several years ago Anne came to the Mahone Bay Quilter's Guild to teach a workshop on her "Antique Flower Vase" pattern. I loved the applique and decided that this had to be a full queen sized quilt. I finished the centre, added a couple of highlight borders then a hand pieced border. The next border would be an applique vine. I have one finished, one almost and then 2 more to go.

The triangle border is hand pieced and had to be "fudged" in to fit! 

I used this ruler, Terry Thompson's The Vine Line to draw the vine and it is wonderful, makes the drawing of the vine for the placement so much easier.

The applique border is hand appliquéd, the flowers etc on each side will be slightly different I will add another pieced border but I am not sure yet what that will be. I just want to really at least get the top finished to take to the Retreat in September.

The beige background fabric is a Jinny Beyer print. When I started this project I had no idea it was going to be a full sized quilt. The centre piece was pretty much all I had. Once the vase and flowers were appliquéd I soon realized it wasn't quite big enough so I took out the stitches around the bottom of the vase and added the border print for the vase to sit on, a tablecloth perhaps? I had just barely enough of the beige for the triangles. I looked on Jinny's website to see if they still had the fabric, there it was but there were 2 or 3 that were similar. In the meantime we had decided to go on a raod trip to the Virginia and Washington DC area to meet up with our friends from England. Cheryl, who is also a quilter, was keen to go to Jinny Beyer's studio so I took my quilt top with me in hopes of matching the fabric. Long story short, I was able to get another 4 yards, lots to finish the quilt! Now to get back to work. Thanks Anne!

Catching Up Yet Again!

Every two years my Guild has a quilt show. It is held during the Scarecrow Festival weekend at the end of September. It is a busy time getting ready, not only for my entries but I do the show labels and signs or I should say I do it with a lot of help from Peter. He is a whiz when it comes to using Pagemaker, much easier and quicker than me struggling with it and asking him questions all the time! More pictures from our quilt show can be found here.

All ready for visitors.

Peter and Brian helping to hang the show.

 Molly's quilt Pinkalicious Parade, all ready to be mailed to Calgary where they already have had snow!  

Blessings my challenge, a table runner

My bee, the Cove Quilters have taken on the responsibility for the Silent Auction of the Guild Challenges. This year the money raised is going to be donated to Christmas Daddies, a charity that makes Christmas happen for needy families through donations and a telethon to be held early December. We put together 32 kits of 5 different fabrics, all were sold and we got back 21 finished pieces. Despite the lower number of completed challenges, we made more money than we ever have before, over $1700. All in all a very satisfying Silent Auction. 

Cheryl in front of the fabric barn at Suttles and Seawinds in Mahone Bay, NS.

Inside Suttles and Seawinds

Just before the Quilt Show we had a visit from very dear friends from England who were on a cruise that took them to Norway, Iceland, Greenland, NS and then on to New York. They were supposed to go to the Hebrides and St. John's as well but the weather and the small detail of a hurricane axed that plan and they got in to Halifax a day early. So we had a wonderful dinner at the Wooden Monkey then the next day picked them up for a jaunt to the South Shore and then lobsters and a visit with 2 of our Grandchildren here. All in all a most wonderful and treasured couple of days! I don't think we stopped taking for a second. Lucky for us it was a picture perfect day and warm.

At Pier 20, Halifax waterfront, on to NYC!

Then last Thursday I was asked to do a trunk show for my "city" guild, the Mayflower Quilters Guild. Mayflower is kind of the "mother guild" for NS with about 10 chapters around the province. They began in 1974, just a year after I started quilting. I jumped right in and joined, so happy to find a group of women who also loved to do what I did. Over the years I served on many committees and did my bit by doing the program and workshops and serving as President, as well I was on both Quilt Canada committees in 1984 and 1994. So when I was asked to do the trunk show I was thrilled to gather up my 39 years worth of quilts and share them with the members of Mayflower. I was pleased to see some familiar faces in the audience, several who go back as far as I do. I felt like I was in a race - 39 years of quilting in one hour! Many of my quilts and wallhangings have been given to family and friends or sold on commission but I think I gave them a good cross section of what I have done and several quilts in progress. I just can't work on one thing at a time! If you go here you can see some of the quilts taken by the Guild's photographer (I hope that works!). Just click on the right hand side of the picture, in the middle, to see the slide show.

Oldies But Goodies

Several weeks ago I did a trunk show of my quilts at the Mariner's Quilt Guild. As I went through my quilts, deciding what to take from an almost 39 year "quilting career" I came across some favourites from many years ago.

Windowpane" (machine pieced and hand quilted) for Kate, my first quilt after many pillows and wallhangings. I started small, I didn't want to get discouraged. This was made in 1973, there weren't any quilt stores here then, I bought fabric wherever I could find it. Remember Woolco? They had one of the largest fabric departments around and a few cottons. This pattern came from an early magazine MacCall's Quilting. The quilt is starting to show it's age. It has survived a crative daughter who loved to draw (with markers) in bed! It has kept 2 rough and tumble grandsons cosy and is now frequently found wrapped around the base of a Christmas tree. I love seeing it being used, worn and all.

Amish Pinwheel (machine pieced and handquilted)was made in 1987 after having worked through the exercises in Roberta Horton's Amish Adventure book I made this quilt. In keeping with Amish style I used several different blacks (at one point I had swatches of 27 different blacks!). I loved making this quilt. There is something wonderful about pinwheels. While I was making this quilt, Kate put her name on it, she loved it and it has been graced a bed in her home ever since. I must go back to the Amish style. I still have a good collection of plain fabrics.

Underwater, a small wallhanging (machine pieced and handquilted) in the style of the traditional pattern Chinese Coins. I have used this pattern before. Again I found this in Kate's collection! Good thing she lives close by.

I loved sharing my quilts with the quilters at the Mariner's QG. It was a good exercise to go through, putting the quilts in a bit of order chronologically for the first bit then by type - applique, contemporary and bed quilts and I finished with a few WIPS. It also gave me a chance to take some new digital photographs of the quilts.