Happiness Is Contageous

In seemingly no time (at least for me) this Happy flimsy is now complete, and I love it! So does the Official Cookie Tester; he took a real shine to it.

The tan block centres and sashing sets everything off so nicely, though it and the other colours in the quilt are a little warmer than this photo shows.

The outer border is made from a check called Hello Autumn and is a nice fit, don't you think? It wasn't until I looked at the completed flimsy from a distance that I saw the larger pattern of squares made by the light green lines running though the pattern. Sometimes it takes me a while...😏

Still love that cinnamon fabric that started it all. These colours are truer to the real deal.

And that Kaffe print - ooh la la!

I finished the flimsie up about a week before Easter and shared it with the church quilters and they were taken with it as well. So much so that Jean has already made two flimsies using the same pattern! I'll have to see if I can get pics to show you.

If you'd like to give Happy blocks a try there's a tutorial from Adrianne at Little Blue Bell. It's a great pattern if you need a quilt in a hurry - so many wonderful possibilities!....M

Outside the Lines

About a week ago we marked 108 years since the Battle of Vimy Ridge in France during WWI (April 9 - 12, 1917) and it reminded me of a wonderful road trip that the Official Cookie Tester and I took to Ottawa last fall, just after Remembrance Day. We met up with friends for a special exhibit at The Canadian War Museum entitled Outside the Lines. This photo was taken in the Royal Canadian Legion Hall of Honour rotunda.

In addition to showcasing a spectacular maquette of our national war memorial that sits steps from Parliament Hill, it included this amazing hand embroidered quilt seen hanging to its left in the photo above.

I wasn't smart enough to snap a photo of the exhibit explanation, but it appears to be a quilt commemorating the four companies under the command of Colonel Kingsmill of the 123rd Overseas Battalion, 10th Royal Grenadiers. 

The names of every man in Companies A, B, C and D, and their commanding officers are meticulously stitched in red while the British bulldog waves the Union Jack. I cannot begin to conceive of how this was planned so that the maker fit everyone in.

Outside the Lines shone a light on two centuries of women’s art about war, beginning in the 1800s and finishing in 2024, and it was impressive. It included 70 diverse works. Only one was a quilt, which I will share, but I thought I'd also give you a glimpse of a few of my favourite pieces.

This painting was of women working in a munitions factory in Montreal and it was so very captivating. I didn't come close to capturing the incredible light in it, it was incredibly soft and warm. We spent a lot of time examining it.

I loved this painting but again, wasn't smart enough to capture any details about it.

And the same goes for this one. I will let them speak for themselves.

This painting spoke to the return of part of a family to Japan and the ultimate return of a few of the family members several decades later.

And here's the quilt that I mentioned. It recognizes one of the first black companies in the Canadian military, though I couldn't help but notice that their commander was white (top row) ...

It's interesting how the artist used camo fabric for the sashing to pull all of those photo transfers together.

Back to The Battle of Vimy Ridge. The Canadian National Vimy Memorial sits on a 250-acre portion of the former battleground in France, dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for 11,285 Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. 

The War Museum is home to the maquettes of the 20 figures scattered throughout the memorial so we got to get an up close look at them during our visit as well. 

These plaster casts of the original sculpted clay statues were used as a reference tool for the Italian carvers who worked on the memorial and they are impressive.

The figures represent themes such as strength, sorrow, and peace. If you look closely at the maquette you can see where the figures are placed atop the columns and throughout the monument as a whole, giving you a sense of its incredible size. A visit here is on my bucket list....M

 

Happy Hour

I live in hope of returning to some of my personal quilting projects soon but lately I seem to be very easily diverted to more and more Quilts for Survivors projects.

This is called the Happy block. It popped up in my Pinterest feed just about the same time that I had brought a few remnants home from the quilting group at the church. 

Jane, one of our quilters at the church, passed away last year and her husband donated all of her quilting fabrics and notions to us, so we've been sorting through and contemplating what we might do with them. That cinnamon print on the right was just too tempting not to do something with, and the tan in the centre of the block was from her stash, too.

I went for an autumn palette, adding in a few blues, oranges and a bit of brown and that orange Kaffe print just kicked everything up a notch.

This is a really fast block to make and is constructed as though you were beginning to make a Log Cabin block. Once everything is cut you can assemble all of the blocks in an hour or two.

There's going to be 12 blocks in total and I think a border or two. I like the blues in with all of the orange/brown colours, though they aren't showing up very well in this photo. 

There's enough of the solid tan to use as sashing and possibly a narrow outer border, too.....M

Happy April Fool's Day!

This post is short and sweet, but it speaks volumes. 

Had a bit of an incident earlier this year when I was doing some cutting; I have to admit that this is a first for me! Thought you might enjoy a little smile this April Fool's.