Blogathon Canada 2013

blogathon_badge_2013Welcome to my blog!

Many Canadian quilters are participating in Blogathon Canada from November 18-23, 2013. Blogathon Canada is hosted by a wonderful Canadian Quilt Shop in Toronto–Sew Sisters Quilt Shop.  I personally can speak to both the quality of the fabric and service provided by Sew Sisters as I placed my first order with them recently.

We are kicking off Blogaton Canada on the West Coast in the province of British Columbia.  Today’s blogs are hosted by Holly at Holly’s Red Bike in Vancouver.

Adventures in Life

What comes next?

Stacey in Stitches

CReate the PoinT

Quilting Fun

sew bossi

the zodiac quilter

aRt by Rhonda Forbes

there & back

Eclectic Gnome

Sit back and enjoy visiting my fellow Canadian Quilting bloggers!  Such talent!

Visit Sew Sisters’ blog page to link up with the links for this week.

Crumb Blocks Find a Home

I had a large pile of crumb blocks that desperately needed to find a quilt home.  These blocks have been sitting on the shelf in my studio for years collecting dust.  As we all know, blocks on a shelf do not do much for warming a body or soul.

So, recently, I took that stack of 40 crumb blocks off the shelf and transformed them into two large lap size quilt tops. (62″ x 74″).

At one point I had all 40 blocks sewn together into one large quilt top without sashing and cornerstones.  I wasn’t happy with the chaotic look of that top and so I picked out the seams and stacked the blocks back on the shelf.  The blocks sat for a few more years without being touched because of the memories invoked by all that reverse sewing that I did!

crumb1 crumb2Each crumb block is pieced together from 4 smaller, 6″ square crumb blocks.  There is everything in these blocks–nine patches collected from a guild nine patch block exchange many years ago, scraps of fabric from leftover quilts made for Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter, floral, and other themed quilts.  These quilt tops are truly a trip down memory lane.  It always surprises me how much emotion and memories can be triggered by looking at the scraps of fabric in one of these quilts.

Fabric requirements for each quilt:

20 crumb blocks – 11.5″ square

Sashing – 34″ WOF cut into 17 – 2″ wide strips, subcut into 49 – 11.5″ strips

Border – 35″ WOF cut into 7 strips – 5″ wide

Backing – 4 meters

 

Guild Retreat

It has been a long day, but a great day!  Today was our guild’s retreat.  Quilters from our local guild met from 10 am to 8 pm in a local school’s multipurpose room and sewed the day away.  It was a perfect day to be inside sewing as the weather outside was cold and wet.

IMG_0009 IMG_0010 IMG_0011 IMG_0014 IMG_0015 IMG_0016We had several activities to break up the day–fat quarter toss, guessing the correct number of buttons in the jar, and a fascinator contest.

Fascinators are headpieces recently brought back in vogue by The Duchess of Cambridge.

IMG_0013This is two of our guild members proudly sporting their fascinators.  The gal on the left with the sewing themed fascinator won the most votes for her creation and captured the honour of “Most Creative”.

Although we all went home tired, we were all thrilled for a day to sew together with our friends.

Today was the first day I sewed with my Featherweight, Charlotte.  I was thrilled with her performance and I can see many sew-in’s together in our future!

…Sorry I can’t show you a picture of what I worked on for the day as it is a secret project–to be revealed later once complete.  🙂