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.

Tag! I'm It!

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!!

Exciting Vintage Fabric Development

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.

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

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

No Booze for ME!

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!

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

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012 - 90 Squares of a Curious Nature

Anyone who regularly visits my blog will already have seen and read all this but since Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival is going on, I'm telling the story for new visitors as part of the festival.

Category: Throw Quilt

This is one of two largish quilts I made this summer. In fact they are my FIRST largish solo quilts EVER!  I'm kind of new at this.

This quilt is for Uncle Reg (my mother-in-law's brother) who turned 90 this year. He's quite the inspiration with his good health, energy, humour, and attitude. He's had a really incredible life that has taken him from a modest Saskatchewan farm, through World War II as a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force (remarkably surviving several crashes), family life with three daughters, and now grandchildren. He still golfs and curls and both cheers and curses the Roughriders (our professional football team). He's also famous for his gardening expertise, roses in particular.

I won 6 one yard cuts of this fabric. It's Curious Nature designed by David Butler. When the fabric arrived I liked it so much that I bought fat quarters of the complete line. It's very masculine fabric and, for whatever reason and before I even realized it was Uncle Reg's 90th birthday this year, the fabric reminded me immediately of him. So ... good reason to make the man a lap quilt. I picked out the blue/oyster/cream/black toned fabrics from the line for this quilt. I envisioned photos on the quilt so I undertook figuring that out. It turned out to be challenging and time-sucking but, ultimately, I'm very happy with how the photos printed onto fabric. What I learned about that process is a whole blog post on its own.

Auntie Eileen volunteered to embroider the strip with the words, poppies and roses. She has a fancy embroidering machine.

I had the quilt longarm quilted by Lynette Hankewich of Ladybug Longarm Quilting. She just quilted in the ditch so as not to quilt over the photos. She did a great job considering "stitching in the ditch" is not so easy on a longarm quilting machine. Perhaps I could have quilted this by myself on my little Pfaff Tipmatic but I've never machine quilted before and I didn't want to start on this particular quilt.

I pieced the back of the quilt using what was left of the six 1 yard cuts that I won.

I used all the fabric scraps pieced together for the binding and I included a strip of red fabric with fleur de lis on it for a touch of red. I do like a touch of red. And this is Canada after all, so a nod to the French is always in order for we English Canadians.

The above photo (the one on the park bench) shows the colours in the quilt more realistically than in the other photos, which make the quilt look overall more "blueish" than it really is.

I was very lucky to have Sean stop by to hold the quilt up for me. Sean's Mom is a quilter, too. He and his brothers and his Dad are all closer to 7 feet tall so they are every quilter's "best friends". Prior to that I tried to take photos of it all by myself at various places at the University of Saskatchewan campus.

Quilt Stats:

Name: "90 Squares of a Curious Nature"
Size: 54" x 69"
Fabric: Curious Nature by Parson Gray (David Butler), one charm square in the middle of the quilt that has various synonyms for "home" on it and is from Sweetwater's Hometown fabric line, and Kona Pepper for sashing and borders.
Inspiration Quilt: Chrysalis by Heather D at the "Crafting ... Blog"
Longarm Quilting: Lynnette of Ladybug Longarm Quilting in Saskatoon
Particulars: The quilt has 90 squares representing 90 years. Photos were printed using an Epson laserjet printer and Epson ink and I used cotton inkjet sheets from Electric Quilt Company available at Periwinkle Quilt Shop in Saskatoon and PeachTree Quilt Shop in Regina.
Best Category: Throw Quilt

I didn't use a pattern but, after looking at the "inspiration quilt" and knowing charm packs were used to make it, I used 5 inch squares (a good choice because I could get two 5" square photos out of one cotton photo printer sheet), and 1.5 inch strips of Kona Pepper cut to 5" and 6" lengths. The squares have black borders on 2 sides only and then you just turn every 2nd square to get this jiggy look. If it hadn't been for struggles with my first attempt at printing on fabric, this would have been a very quick and easy quilt to put together. It's worth noting that if you decide to make a similar quilt, prepare all the fabric squares first and then lay the whole thing out and figure out where you're going to put your photo squares because that will determine where you put the two sashing pieces on those. You don't want to end up with upside down photos!

I like how Sean's sneakers peak out from under the quilt.

For the quilt label I used the corner of a handkerchief that features red roses since Uncle Reg is famous for his rose gardening.

The quilt was delivered and, with blessed happenstance, the quilt colours match Uncle Reg's decor perfectly! I'm so pleased about that.

Click on the photos if you want to see them full sized. 

Blogger's Quilt Festival Fall 2012 - 90 Squares of a Curious Nature

Such a Good Salad Recipe

I didn't get a photo of this salad so here's the photo from the recipe blog where I found it. Note that this doesn't look at all like the salad I made from this recipe, but that's okay. I think mine looked better and it was SO good. We had it 2 days in a row. The dressing was even better the second day. It had a little snap that I didn't notice the first day.

You can find the recipe at the blog, Taking on Magazines One Recipe at a Time. This is one of my favourite recipe blogs. The "Mom Chef" makes recipes from magazines and reviews them. She comments on the process, gives recipes a verdict, including the impressions of her husband and daughter, and writes about what she would do differently next time, if anything. If a recipe is a dud, she says so.

Kevin and I love this salad recipe and really like the dressing. And it's all SO EASY! You can follow the link to the recipe if you're interested. I'll just tell you what I did differently.

General ingredients are sliced tomatoes (a great use for all those fresh garden tomatoes - the recipe calls for 2 kinds of tomatoes but we just used the ones from our garden), sliced avocado, grilled corn (which I'd never done before but was easy and worth it - it's so easy to cut it off the cob), some bacon (I used bacon bits I already had on hand). We used 1 cob for 4 servings.

The dressing is so quick and easy, too. Just some buttermilk, which I usually have on hand, a little bit of mayo, fresh garlic, cider vinegar, fresh chives (I used green onion instead), fresh basil (I used dried), and fresh ground pepper.

I did what "The Mom Chef" said she would do differently next time and I thought the salad looked very attractive.  Instead of stacking, I just arranged the tomato and avocado slices on plates grinding some sea salt over all, I piled the corn in one place beside them, drizzled the dressing over all, topped with bits of bacon and then added some ground pepper.

SO GOOD!

We also enjoyed the Chicken with Honey-Beer Sauce from the same website. Very quick and easy and I'm surprised at how much flavour there was in the sauce for so few ingredients. The only thing I would do differently next time with this recipe is cut up the chicken into smaller pieces, especially when not using organic chicken breasts. Non-organic chicken breasts aren't so thick (with what I imagine to be added hormones that our human bodies don't need to absorb).

I'll try this one again, too.

Such a Good Salad Recipe

How A Michigan Library Was Saved

This is such a cool little video about how the citizens of Troy, Michigan used a reverse psychology campaign to save its library. I love it!
 

How A Michigan Library Was Saved

This Weekend's Garden Tour

This Weekend's Garden Tour

Quilt Lables Done!

 Now these two quilts are really ready for delivery.

For Alyssa and Tyler's wedding quilt, "Hugs and Kisses", I used 4 half square triangles that were left over from the trimmings and then, because I've made the inclusion of a "hankie label" my signature, I added a little embroidered corner from a hankie in the middle. I wish I'd had a hankie with a teeny tiger lily on it, but nope and I wasn't prepared to embroider one myself.

For Uncle Reg's quilt, "90 Squares of a Curious Nature", I used the corner of a hankie that featured red roses, since Uncle Reg is famous for his rose gardening. If you're wondering about the name of the quilt, it refers to the fact that there are 90 squares (for a 90th birthday) and the fabric line I used is called "Curious Nature". Fittingly, Uncle Reg just happens to be a curious guy ... so perfect!

ALL DONE!!

Click on the photos to see close-ups.

Quilt Lables Done!

Hugs & Kisses - My First BIG Solo Quilt

I'm linking this post up with Craftbuds "Craft Book Month". This quilt I made was based on a pattern called "Coming Home" from Camille Roskelley's book, Simplify. Camille's pattern was for a table topper sized quilt and since I wanted to make a queen sized quilt, I adjusted up the size of the pieces a bit.

Mom and I made a big quilt for Josh and Noelene last year. Mom did all the machine sewing on it. I mostly did pattern and fabric selection, cutting, marking, pressing, and hand applique. Many years ago Mom and Dad helped me make a quilt for Cheryl and Richard for their wedding. I did all the hand applique and a lot of the hand quilting but Mom did all the machine sewing and she and Dad did a lot of the hand quilting. Kevin even quilted a whole large rose by himself, too! Mom has always been key to the little bit of quilt making I've done ... until recently. It's time, don't you think?

This is the first large-sized quilt I've made ALL BY MYSELF ... well, except for having it longarm quilted by Lynnette of Ladybug Longarm in Saskatoon.

I'm very pleased with it and it was a good learning experience. I struggled with matching points and learned that my quarter inch seam was not quite exact. For Uncle Reg's quilt, which I made after this one, my quarter inch seam was much more accurate, making things a lot easier.

Can you see all the X's and O's in the quilt? I liked the idea of hugs and kisses for a wedding quilt and that's what this is. The bride's wedding colours were orange and pink so I picked a bunch of random fabrics from my collection in those colours and threw in some purples and a little yellow. With the colours being so "girly", I tried to pick fabric designs that weren't otherwise "girly" and I tried to tone down the overall effect by using Kona Tan as the background fabric. I used scraps to make the pieced border and I bound it with a purple fabric I found after the top was finished. The back is just a sandy colour with an overall large white modern flower graphic.

All I have left to do is add the label and deliver to the bride and groom. The wedding was at the end of June so I'm only a little late. I'm quite sure they don't read my blog so this will be a surprise for them even though I've shown it to the world ... or the eeny bit of the world that might think to check my blog. Ha!

The first photo (the one at the top) shows the colours most true, I think.

Quilts Stats:
Quilt Name: Hugs & Kisses
Size: 74" x 84"
Fabrics: A random mix of quilting cottons, most of which I can't identify by designer, and Kona Tan for the background fabric. I don't recall the names and designers of the back and binding fabrics. Sorry.
Pattern: A variation on the "Coming Home" pattern by Camille Roskelly found in her quilting book, Simplify. Ultimately, I "winged it" when it came to my cutting dimensions. I wanted my squares to be bigger than those in the pattern since my finished project would be much larger as well.
Surface Quilting: Lynnette of Ladybug Quilting. She did an overall swirly design that gives a lovely texture and movement to the look of the quilt. I like what she did very much. I chose a thread colour for the surface quilting that closely matched the background fabric colour. After Lynnette started, she felt that a darker thread would be more effective and I'm glad she went with that. She was right.

I'm so very pleased with this quilt and I hope the newlyweds are pleased with it, too.  Well, of course they will be, if for no other reason than I made it just for them, though I think it's very pretty, too.

Next? Wee Robert's quilt. He turns 1 right away and I still don't have his quilt made. I hope to get it done pronto and then I have two other quilts I would like to get done before Christmas.  That's certainly ambitious for me ... work gets SO in the way of my quilting progress ... but I'll see what I can do.

I'm taking a free motion quilting class starting this Monday at Periwinkle Quilting. I'm excited to learn how to do the surface quilting using my own little Pfaff Tipmatic that I've named "Jo" after Joanne who was its original owner and for which I've been MOST grateful. I don't think I'll ever tackle a large quilt using my own machine but I hope to be able to do my own surface quilting on smaller quilts.

As always, just click on a photo to see a bigger version.

Addendum No. 1:

I finished the label for Alyssa and Tyler's quilt so I'm putting the photo of it here to keep all the photos together. For the label I used 4 half square triangles leftover from the trimmings and then, because "hankie labels" have become my signature, I added a little embroidered corner from a handkerchief. I wish I'd had a hankie with a tiger lily on it but I didn't and I wasn't about to embroider one myself.

Addendum No. 2:

The quilt has been delivered into the hands and hearts of its destined newlyweds.

Hugs & Kisses - My First BIG Solo Quilt