Quilts at the Creek - Pioneer Spirit

Hello people! I survived the weekend and had an absolute blast sharing my work with people who visited Quilts at the Creek at Black Creek Pioneer Village. It was a beastly hot and humid weekend but the sun was shining and the quilts were absolutely glorious!

My talks were in the Town Hall. It was a lovely old building. It was nice and cool inside when I first entered but you pack a bunch of excited quilt makers into the space and things heated up pretty quickly!

Hanging in front were two gorgeous quilts. Both were made as part of a mystery quilt challenge. The name of the challenge was Pioneer Spirit Mystery and the quilt was designed by Sherri Hisey of Border Creek Station. Thirty quilters made and showed their versions of this quilt at the show. If you want to make your own the full instructions are available free of charge here.

Here I am standing at the front with my quilt Chop's Pick hanging on the right side.

I don't have pictures of my trunk show but I do have pictures of the quit show. Look at the quilts moving in the breeze! And right up front is yet another Pioneer Spirit quilt.

There were so many quilts to see but today I thought I would share pictures of many of the Pioneer Spirit quilts. Although it is a single pattern there were options: the blocks could be straight set or set on point. Backgrounds could be squares of a single fabric or pieced squares of four fabrics. Corners could be finished in several ways. To give you an idea take a look at these fabulous quilts!

Here the blocks were straight set. The colours in this one were so pretty and soft.

This fresh blue and white Pioneer Spirit was made by a member of my Guild and her blocks are set on point. Most of the quilts were borderless but she added a nice dark border and corner blocks. What a summery quilt this is!

Love the greens - it reminds me of 7 Up bottles!

The next two quilts are full of juicy goodness. Clearly these quilt makers are not afraid of colour.

A very soft colour palette - this one has a wintery look and feel to it.

This reminds me of old Roman glass or sea glass. 

Love, love, love the drama of this one. It reminds me of my friend Babs' hexagon quilts Yellow Bird and Yellow Bird's Sister.

Another quilt made with muted caramel colours with the blocks set on point. There isn't a strong contrast between the colours so it give the quilt a very soft look. This would be a great quilt to snuggle under!

Another fresh and delicate quilt. This is one I can envision on an old cast iron bed with the frame painted a fresh, crisp white!

The little red nine patches really pop on this one. The photograph just doesn't do this quilt (or any of them) justice!

Here we see dark nine patches set with pastels and once again the star is the nine patch.

Drama, drama, drama! There is strong contrast and and a varied colour palette makes for a very interesting quilt.

Again there is strong contrast but this time the maker chose to work with a limited colour palette and it created a very different quilt.

Another limited colour palette was used in this quilt. To my eye the nine patches appear to recede and this creates a totally different look.

Yellow, black, grey and white make for a honey of a quilt! Notice the corner treatment.

This one is loaded with grapey goodness. The makers fabric choices are so interesting. I see circles around most of the nine patches and that makes this quilt look very different from the others.

This is a another fresh summery quilt in cool greens.

This one really caught my eye. The combination of soft greens and caramels make for an all seasons quilt.

This would make a great quilt for a boy. The browns against the background are so fresh and crisp.

This is another quilt that was very attractive but just didn't photograph well.

This is another one where I can see circles surrounding the nine patches. A very interesting visual effect!

 Browns of similar value on a dark cream background give the quilt an entirely different feel.

Careful colour placement resulted in a quit that has a look that is all its own. The dark nine patches add drama.

There were more Pioneer Spirit quilts but unfortunately my pictures didn't turn out well. I'll have more show pictures to share with you in the coming days.

Until I post again keep cool and happy sewing!
Karen H