An Afternoon With Hilary Rice

Well, actually, I had an afternoon with Hilary's exhibit, called Rare Reflections. currently in display (but only until Sunday) at the Mississippi Mills Textile Museum.

Cathedral Woods - Picture from the Artist's Website

Her work is wonderful. She uses a variety of materials, and techniques, put together to make these incredible works of art. I have seen her work on her web site and I even have a couple of her patters, which I have been too chicken busy to try.

If you want to see more of her work, check out her web site, Mother Earth Studios.

Maritime Cutie

Karen's Maritime Beauty pattern, that I made at retreat, lead to scraps. The scraps led to another inspiration, I call Maritime Cutie.

It is a postcard, 4" x 6". I used a half size copy of Karen's pattern, and fused it to the card. I was not crazy enough to try and paper piece those tiny pieces.

I hope you like it, Karen.

Serve Others - Part II

The Serve Others banner is together, hung and dedicated! I was still frantically sewing the binding on at 1 PM yesterday and I needed to hang it before 6 PM.

Here is how it looked at 2:30.

A closeup of the banner:

The members of the group traced their hands on Heat and Bond and fused the hands onto a background square. After I sandwiched the squares with batting and batting, and serged around them, they all quilted around their hands with 6 strands of embroidery floss. They added trims, sequins, beads, or buttons to make the blocks their own. I then added the sashing, and the borders with the words. The young women in the group were amazed at how wonderful their blocks looked, set into a quilt.

I had such fun, helping them learn something about the needle arts, while creating this. Perhaps some of them will do more, later.

Lessons learned:
1. When working with young people assume that it will take twice as long as you expect, then double that number.
2. These young people were at an age when "can't" hasn't fully entered their vocabulary, so they would gamely try anything I asked them to do.
3. Modern 15 yo's do not know how to sew on a button.

I hope they give me the opportunity to make another banner with them. The 100th anniversary of CGIT is in 2015. Maybe if we start the banner in September...

Spring Retreat - 2013

Take 13 friends (12 quilters and one needlecrafter), put them 2 hours from home (to far to go home at night), give them one large room to work in, 13 small rooms with bath for when they finally decide to go to sleep, feed them at 2 hour intervals, and you have Quilt Retreat.

We held the retreat at the Nav Centre in Cornwall, ON. The facility is beautiful, the food is good, and they give us lots of space to work. 

This was our quilting room.

I got a lot of exercise, just walking from one end to the other. It is hard to see, but at the other end are the design walls and the snack table.  Down the middle are the cutting tables, which are also used to lay out blocks. We each have 2 large tables, grouped in pairs, so we can share the extension cords.

 I am not the tidiest quilter, and as you can see, I was creating a new pile of scraps!

I started my project at about 3 PM Friday, and by noon Saturday, I had finished this much.

And by supper time, I had this.

It is my version of Karen's Maritime Beauty Table Topper. Of course I seem to have been unable to follow the colour placement suggestions that came with the quilt, but they were just suggestions, right, Karen? I cut the binding for it after supper, and packed it up to bring home and quilt.

This is my retreat mascot, Twila Rose. She has her own little quilt, and goes to retreat, even if I can't go. (She brings the JuJubes.)

The other big attraction in Cornwall, is a place called Ron's Fabrics, where they sell quilting flannels for $3.99/m. and batiks for $9.99/m. The fabric is somewhat dated, but good quality, and we all end up taking home as much unsewn fabric as we brought with us.

Now I need to make some pillow cases from the flannel.

I am linking to WIP Wednesday at the Needle and Thread Network.

Spring, At Last!

We thought the pile of snow in our yard would never go, but at last, it seems to have vanished. We haven't seen snow flakes for about 5 days. Yesterday, the temperature got to 21C. Do we dare suggest that spring is here?

My Bridal Wreath Spirea has tiny leaves.

The Forsythia has come into bloom, in the yard,

Small signs, but I think it may really be spring.

More Scraps Used!

Yesterday, when I should have been doing lots of other things, I decided that my new camera needed a case. Quilt retreat is this weekend, so I wanted to take it, and I didn't want the screen to get scratched.

A Sensible Person would take a couple of pieces of fabric, put some batting in between, sew it together, and done.  Sensible is who I am in my paying work life. In my sewing room, I am a Creative Person.

So I gathered those scraps, from the other day, added a few more that were calling out from the discard pile on the cutting board (I really need to tidy) and a scrap of batting, and I was off.

If I was making this for someone else, some of the sewing would have been a little tidier, but it passes the 3 foot rule.

Of course, a little kitty sneaked onto the back.

I wanted some flannel for the inside, and this guy was waving at me.

Sorry, the picture is a bit fuzzy.

All packed and ready to go!

How Small Is Too Small?

In 2010, a friend went to Quilt's Canada in Calgary. She brought me back a lovely package of 10 fat eighths. They were in my favourite colours, purples, mauves, turquoises. For 2 years, I admired this lovely collection of fabric, enjoying how well they went together. I tried to think of a good thing to do with them. They were little, just 9" by 21". They didn't seem big enough to make much with.

Last year, I finally cut into them.

They were a perfect match for yarn of my Duetta sweater. I made the sweater to help Grandma Coco test the pattern, so it didn't have a baby to go to. The friend that gifted me with the fabric, had a granddaughter in March, and the sweater was a perfect gift for that baby. (It just seemed right)

Next I used the same fabric in my Cozy Quilted Mittens.

Then I made the fabric into Disappearing 4 patch, with a twist.

And finally, I made a test block for a project I am going to do next.

The binding has 5 seams in it, because the piece of fabric I was cutting the bias from was rather small.

Now I am left with a pile of scraps.

Not bad for fabric that was only 9" wide.

Is it time to toss the scraps, or is there one more project waiting for them?