On a Sea of Blue

The second of Sigrid's quilts is a beautiful Ocean Waves bordered with Flying Geese. 

It's another scrappy bonanza, but what really appeals to me about it is the way that the pinks skip along through a portion of it, rather than trying to be integrated evenly throughout.

And those hits of turquoise are an added bonus.

At the centre of each border strip she reversed the order that the geese were flying in, which created a square-in-a-square block. The blocks on the top and bottom of the quilt are identical, as are the blocks on either side.

This one needed a backing, so back into the stash we went. This time we pulled two blues that I had actually found while doing a little klepto quilting in Linda's stash a couple of years back (ah, the stash - the gift that keeps on giving...). There wasn't quite enough, so we integrated a very soft green of the same vintage. The colours are a little brighter than what is shown here.

The scrappiness of this one is like a walk down memory lane - so many prints that we recognized!

Roberta has this one in hand as well and tells me that she expects it to be quilted sometime this week, which will be wonderful. Bill is planning to travel this way in October so we'll have plenty of time to get them bound before he arrives....M

Sentimental Stitches

I've written before about Betty's friend Sigrid and her passion for quilting. She loved to stitch by hand and was a master at mixing lots and lots of prints before it was really a thing; I learned a lot from her and continue to see her influence in my quilts to this day. Sadly, she died very unexpectedly in 1995, but recently a couple of her quilts are back on our radar.

Her husband Bill has two flimsies that he would like quilted so that they can be enjoyed by their sons so Betty encouraged him to ship them here and we'd help take care of that. Well, the box has arrived!

This is the first one, which I am calling a variation on a Drunkard's Path. It's beautiful, but a little on the small side, so we decided to see if a deep dive into the stash could offer up something suitable for an additional border.

Wa-la! This Hoffman print, also circa 1990, was perfect. Not sure if this was mine or one of mom's, but it felt really good to find it such a wonderful home.

And it's a terrific fit for the rest of the quilt too.

Betty had so much fun pouring over the blocks and discovering many prints that she had shared with Sigrid and I have to admit that I recognized many of them as well.

Seeing Sigrid's stitches again after almost 30 years was like visiting with an old friend. Very touching.

You can see her attention to detail in this perfectly mitered corner.

To ensure a nice, even margin of the green where the first border fabric meets the floral, I stitched from the back of the stripe and it worked out quite well.

While we were stash diving we also pulled a pretty green print for the binding, so Betty will start work prepping it and I will get this off to Roberta for quilting.

It is more than a little surreal to not only see these quilts again, but to help move them along to the finish line. A truly sentimental journey....M 

Fun In The Sun

In my last post, I mentioned that a black and white quilt would not be for me, but that's not to say that black in a quilt is out of the question. I remember an interior designer once saying that a little black in every room was a good thing, and so it is in this quilt that Jane hand pieced.

The flimsy has actually been finished for the better part of a year (it's amazing what you'll find on your phone!). She started it last summer and when I first saw it last August she was well on her way; it was a perfect project for stitching on the deck.

The square-in-a-square block is built using a nine patch for the centre block. The corners are a collection of verdant berries, veggies and blossoms, including that fabulous coleus in the bottom left. So beautiful.

The tiny red and white print is used throughout and the remaining squares of each nine patch are a collection of reds, greens and blacks. Her sashing is a low volume black and white and she used randomly placed prints for the cornerstones.

To me this is a great summer quilt. I think that she was toying with making it to use as a tablecloth but given the final shape it looks like it will be a throw....M

We Are Responsible For Our Dreams

Is this not one of the most intriguing quilt photos? It is a  21' x 21' tessellated blanket fort in an almost magical woodland setting and it was made by Kevin Clancy for a month-long slumber party tour called We Are Responsible For Our Dreams, a nomadic platform for collective dreaming and shared experience. Besides the image pulling me in, that title resonated with me and all of the quilts that I dream of making.

It's story is one of many reasons that I have been spellbound by Quilted. The book is Volume Q in the UPPERCASE Encyclopedia of Inspiration, an ongoing series released in whimsical order on all manner of creative topics (UPPERCASE  is a quarterly magazine for the creative and the curious published by Janine Vangool in Calgary, AB. She started the magazine in 2009 as a creative challenge, to push herself beyond what client projects could do and to fill a void in the magazine space.)

Every time I pick up Quilted I find something new to pull me in, in large part because there are so many wonderful ideas for using those leftover bits to make fabric and then integrate it into traditional patterns.

From improv...

to very, very structured.

So many ways to expand your horizons! For years, I have wanted to try framing quilt blocks on stretched canvas but I totally love the idea of an improv creation rather than just a single block.

Most amazing to me is that despite piecing together this fantastic collection of quilters from professional connections and friendships that Janine has made over her years of publishing and designing three fabric collections for Windham Fabrics, she is not a quilter! 

I have been selfishly hoarding Jane's copy for the better part of a year now so I finally broke down and purchased my own. It looks like it is sold out on the UPPERCASE website but Janine lists several shops that carry her books and magazines and I was able to find one at Soul Paper. Guess Jane might get her copy back after all!....M