Canadian Quilters Connect & FIrst Giveaway

Thank you Patti (of Retired to Quilt) for including me in the list of Saskatchewan Quilt Bloggers. I feel like a bit of a poser among the others but I'm starting to feel more and more like a REAL quilter all the time!

And thank you Sew Sisters Quilt Shop for hosting this wonderful event and for including me. I'm very excited to find more Canadian quilt bloggers!

Welcome visitors. 

Obviously quilting hasn't been the primary purpose of my blog but I'm happy to say I'm moving in that direction thanks to knocking down most of my hurdles. Click on the "QUILTS" tab above to get some idea of the quilting I've been doing. Maybe you'll want to check back from time to time. I hope to have my Plus Quilt top done this weekend and soon I hope to undertake my first machine quilting! YIKES!

And, oh yes, my first ever GIVEAWAY!  The thing is I don't know what it will be yet. (Oh yes, I do ... scroll down to see what it is).

Meanwhile, just add a comment to be entered. International entries are most welcome.  In your comment, tell me something you associate with Saskatchewan or share a Saskatchewan experience. And feel free to say so if you had to Google "Saskatchewan".

I'll make the draw and announce the winner on November 25, after the tour has finished.

Good luck and enjoy visiting all the blogs!

Addendum:

Here's what I'm giving away - 5 fat quarters. I think they're lovely. They're all from one fabric line except for the lime green chicopee at the top. I took this photo at night since I hardly ever see real day light during the week except out my window at work (thank GOD I have a window), so the colours aren't exactly true. In the photo the chicopee looks yellow instead of lime green and that tone on tone grid is actually more red than orange. Click on the links below to see better online photos of each fabric. Darkness sucks ... just sayin'.

 

From top to bottom

1. Chicopee - Heatwave Stripe Lime
2. Restoration - Large Medallion Black
3. Restoration - Check Red
4. Restoration - Intertwined Lace Black  
5. Restoration - Stripe Black

Tag! I'm It!

Sam (from Eatonia, Saskatchewan) who blogs at Quilting Curve has tagged me in a "get to know the quilter" game. I feel a little sheepish even being considered a quilter since I'm really quite a novice but since I have actually finished a few quilts for real, I guess that qualifies me as a quilter ... even if I do feel like a poser!  

First, I guess, I have to list 11 random things about myself. Then I have to answer 11 questions Sam asked. And then I have to tag some other quilter/bloggers.

By the way, Sam's HERON QUILT - of her own design - is absolutely stunning!

Read more after the jump if you're interested. Just click the "read more" link below.

Exciting Vintage Fabric Development

In March of this year I posted about this fabric pictured here. Mom and I had discovered it in the bags of scraps Mom had brought to the city for us to sort through and cut into quilt squares. I didn't recognize this fabric and Mom thought it must be from Grandma Kerr's scraps.  There were some quite large pieces of it and it had obviously been used to make some garment.

I was fascinated with the fabric right away. It's a very high quality cotton to my mind and the design on it is so artistic and detailed and finely reproduced. 

And then, bonus, we found a piece of the selvedge that reads, ""A Signature Fabric, "Rubaiyat", created by Vincent Malta of Associated American Artists, copyright 1955."  I don't recall fabrics ever having information in the selvedge when I was a kid and since this fabric is from before I was born, I thought that alone meant there must be something special about it. I did some rudimentary Googling but didn't find anything. 

And then, On Oct 31, I got a comment on my blog post from someone named Ariele who wrote, "It is part of a large series created by other American Artists. Here is a link for more info. There is another I've seen from 1953 titled "Iliad", and she provided a link to a pdf article about this series of fabrics. My fabric wasn't listed in the table provided in the article so I Googled the author of the article, Karen Herbaugh, a curator at the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, Massachussetts. So I emailed her, sent some photos and asked her if it's of any interest or if I should just go ahead and cut it up into a quilt. She promptly responded that she would really rather I NOT cut it up into a quilt and that they would like to have some of it for the museum, which houses the largest museum collection of Associated American Artists (AAA) fabrics. She is currently working on a book about AAA fabrics in collaboration with Kansas State University and was unaware of the existence of this particular fabric, though there are some others in the series by the same artist, which explains why this fabric wasn't listed in the table in the article I read.

She writes, "Between 1951 and 1957 artists belonging to the Associated American Artists strayed into designing textiles prints as a means to make extra money so they could pursue their art careers."

In my email to Karen I speculated on where my Grandma might have come across this fabric. Karen wrote, "AAA fabrics were sold at high-end department stores around the country. I have seen pictures of store window displays including Macy’s in New York City. Maybe your grandmother did get it on one of her family trips. I haven’t seen it  advertised in Sears catalogues but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t."

So I'm going to gift the American Textile History Museum with the largest pieces of this fabric and the intact selvedge and the smaller bits that I keep will go into a very special quilt square. I really do wonder where it came from in the first place.

I LOVE THE INTERNET!!

Blogathon Canada - Nov 19 - 24, 2012 (Canadian Quilters Connect)

I'm pretty excited about this event that starts today. I follow lots of quilting blogs but I get especially excited when I discover a Canadian quilting blog and even MORE excited when I find one really close to home. Recently I found a few Saskatoon quilt bloggers and even met a few of them over coffee, which was very exciting.  I'm not going to list them here because Patti of Retired to Quilt will be listing the ones she knows of on Wednesday. But on the other days quilt bloggers from all across Canada will be posting links to other quilt bloggers in their areas.

And there will be giveaways! If you're interested in sewing, crafting, quilting, you should follow along.

Click on the Blogathon Canada button above to see the schedule of bloggers.

The event is hosted by Sew Sisters Quilt Shop.

No Booze for ME!

Every now and then I need a reminder that drinking any kind of alcohol is not recommended for me and that it increases my risk of breast cancer. This is my note to self after having some drinks while in Vancouver and since I've been home. No more martinis for me ... for a while.

Healthy Diet Does Not Offset Heightened Breast Cancer Risk From Alcohol Consumption - Food for Breast Cancer

Now. Where Was I? Oh, Yeah ... QUILTS!

I haven't made much quilting progress lately. I would love nothing more than a week at home alone to just sew and sew and sew. I've been experiencing some "life interuptus" and now it's time to get back to doing what I want to do, which is SEW.

This mess of reds, greys, blacks, and creams will be a completed quilt top this week ... I hope. I got all 21 strips sewn and these are them overlapped in order on the dining room table.  Now I need to spend time pressing all the seams open followed by sewing all the strips together. And then the top will be done unless I decide it needs to be bigger, which would mean some borders. I'll worry about that later.  This pattern is called, I think, a "plus quilt" because it's a bunch of interlocking plus signs. I've been wanting to make one for some time.

Kevin and I went to Vancouver last week for 5 days to see Hannah and to get out of Saskatoon for a bit. We had both been very busy with work and a little vacation was required.

We stayed on the top floor of the Sutton Hotel in downtown Vancouver and it was a wonderful luxury.

We had lots of time with Hannah, Matt, and some of their friends. We shopped a lot and ate at some fabulous restaurants.

Matt, Hannah, and Leah cooked for us one night and we attended an art opening. We tried to go to the new James Bond movie across the street from our hotel but no luck. It was sold out.

I haven't posted for so long so I'm including a couple of extra photos from October. Here is the sad deconstruction of the Traffic Bridge (aka: the Victoria Bridge, the Iron Bridge, the Skinny Bridge).  I'm sad to see it go. I'm all for it being reincarnated in a simiilar style but as a pedestrian/bicycle bridge.  I know others would like to see it used for vehicles again but I'd prefer not.

I took part in the C95 Radio Marathon for breast cancer research again this year. I get better every year at not crying. I only cried a little bit this time, though I know my voice was pinched almost the whole time because I was trying hard not to cry.  This is me with Rob and Shauna. They are such genuinely nice people ... and I'm not just saying that just because they noticed how much thicker my hair is now than last year (which isn't saying much). I really don't know how THEY hold it together for the duration of the marathon. I'll bet they need a holiday after it's over.  There are so many other people that make the event happen and they do such a fantastic job. I will always remember how kind, caring, and encouraging Lisa was the first time I was on the radio marathon only a few weeks after my last chemo. RIP Lisa.

And this is a little bouquet that Sylvia gave me. So sweet!