Small quilts at the auction

I'm back and thank you to everyone for the lovely emails I received. All is well but with the upheaval of renovations I kind of lost my blogging mojo. The renovations are for the most part complete. There are a few small jobs left but they won't require rearranging or packing up. The big job now is removing all the dust from the renovations. I clean it up and the next day it reappears! Oh well, I have a lovely new kitchen and bathroom.

My Guild has does a fundraiser every two or three years. Members make small quilts which are then auctioned off and the proceeds are donated to a local organization. This time we chose 416 Community Support for Women.  416 is a warm and welcoming place located in downtown Toronto. The staff provide a wide variety of programs and services to women who are dealing with mental health issues, addictions and social isolation. Several years ago I visited the centre; the place radiated warmth, caring and respect for all who entered through the doors. This organization gets no government funding and so relies on events such as our Silent Quilt Auction and donations from the general public to fund activities and services.

My Mom (Anne H) made three pieces for the auction. The first she called "Spring 2016". She dug into her stash of hexagons to make the small quilt. She tells me that the tall stalks are hollyhocks and you can see that she added a variety of embroidery stitches to "jazz them up". I don't know what the hexagon rosettes on the fence are supposed to be other than pretty! The centre of each is embellished with French knots. I machine quilted it for her and then she bound it with a facing.

The second piece was an orphan block made by a guild member in 2005. It was hand appliqued and machine pieced.  It was machine quilted and bound with a facing. Mom called this one "My Little Chickadees".

The third piece is an African themed quilt. Mom called this one "I hope I'm not late!". I love the little baby in the sling. This small quilt is machine quilted and once again finished with a facing. She really likes the effect of a facing because it she thinks it makes the quilt look like a page torn from a magazine.

There are lots of tutorials on finishing quilts with a facing but a really good one is available at Terry Aske Art Quilt Studio. If you are interested you will find it here. It included an updated method of reducing the bulk of the quilt at the corners.

I know you are all itching to see more of The Empire Quilt which will be my next Quilt Along design so I am sharing the middle section with the sides attached. I sure hope you like where I'm going with this quilt! I repeated the green fabrics from the centre panel in the outer borders of the quilt. My plan is to attach an narrow solid green border to the quilt once the other two sides are attached. Although it is a scrap quilt with lots of different colours it reads as a green quilt because I've repeated the fabrics in the centre and the borders.

I'll get back to work on the pattern shortly so that you can start sewing up your own Empire Quilt! Until I post again, happy sewing!

Karen H

A great marking tool, quilting baskets & nine patches and chickadees!

Marking dark fabrics is challenging but this tool solves that problem! It is a mechanical chalk pencil made by a French company, Bohin. The pencil comes with a little package of six refill chalks. The chalk makes a lovely fine line. It was expensive (I think it was $15 Canadian) but it works so well that it was worth the investment. I especially like the fact that I use it with a stencil and the chalk does not come near the stencil because it is protected by the silver cap. When I use a chalk pencil I find that the edge of the stencil rubs the chalk and makes problems for me. The Bohin mechanical chalk pencil solves that problem!



I’m mking progress quilting my baskets and nine patches quilt.

 

 

The quilt is anchored vertically and horizontally with stitch in the ditch. I discussed this technique in my April 23 post, machine quilt a big quilt on a domestic machine my way. The solid squares have feathered wreaths quilted but haven’t decided what motif I will quilt in the centre. Maybe I’ll just stipple but I'm open to suggestions! I have some really pretty gold Bottom Line thread (made by Superior) which I think I will use.

I envy quilters who know exactly how they are going to quilt their piece in advance. I am more of a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of quilter. I like to let the quilting evolve organically which generally means I don’t have a clue what I will do but just hope that I’ll know when I get to the point where I have to make a decision! And that is what happened with the baskets. I figured out what to do with the setting triangles and am quite pleased with the result.

 

BUT I still had no idea about the baskets. The solution for me is to set the quilt aside for a few days and do nothing. At some point I just start doodling on paper to see what happens and the answer eventuall comes to me.

 

The quilting design gradually evolved from the doodling. I am satisfied with the result. I think it has just the right flourish! I could have quilted more but the white fabric has a finish that makes it very difficult to quilt so I think that I will stick with this simple design.

 

Once I've finished quilting the baskets (I'm about a third of the way done) I'll bind the quilt and then I’ll go back and finish the centre and that includes quilting all of those nine patches. I did a few with a neutral colour Bottom Line thread. This is what they will all look like when quilted. I have my work cut out for me!

 

I leave you with a picture of a little embroidery done by my sweet little Mummsie!  You may recall that I appliqued four of them in my quilt Flora and Fauna, Parts of the Garden. Looks like Mom also loves these little birds! This little chickadee measures a tiny 2 ½”! My Mom does such lovely embroidery. I'll be showing you much more of her work in the coming weeks.

 

 

If you haven't visited Quilting Gallery's Show and Tell please do so. There are some really interesting wall hangings to see - there's loads of inspiration to be found. Mine is titled Flying Fish School. So pop on over and vote for your favourites before Monday at 6:00pm EDT.

 

Flying Fish School

 

Until I post again, happy sewing!