More Lone Star Photos

Here are a few pictures of the Lone Star quilt at a quilt show. The other pic is when the quilt was being made. A cat used to come over to visit, I don't even know who it belonged to. It soon discovered that the quilt on the frame made a great hammock!

Lone Star

This Lone Star quilt was the other picture that was published in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine the same time as my Log Cabin quilt.
It took me a year and a half to quilt by hand. I didn't know that you were supposed to stitch through the little bridge intersections when marking with a quilting stencil, so I left those areas with no stitching, oops! I felt silly when I realized that those parts were just to hold the stencil together, not part of the design! The whole quilt is done like that.
Some of the diamonds on the star are made with satin, I don't recommend that- it stretches, doesn't wear well and shouldn't be washed a lot. I didn't have a very big stash at the time and needed another light coloured fabric, so I used the satin.

Hand Quilted Log Cabin

I must have been crazy, I hand quilted this double bed size Log Cabin quilt! I didn't know how to machine quilt something of this size at the time.
I sent a picture of this quilt and another one to Quilter's Newsletter Magazine and they published them in their Quilting Bee column. I was so excited that I was running around the house yelling :)
This quilt was used a lot and is quite worn out, now it's folded up and sitting on my closet shelf.

Lil's quilt

We had a supervisor named Lil at work for 15 years. Sadly, she was diagnosed with ALS and had to retire from work because her health was failing so rapidly.
We wanted to put on a retirement/farewell party for her, but keep the mood light and fun because we knew what she was facing in the near future. We wanted her to remember a good time.
The usual retirement gift at that time was a picture of Mount Seven, so I asked if she would like to receive one. Her response was "I don't want one of those damn pictures, all I want is one of your quilts!" With a request like that, how could I refuse? I made a Bear's Paw quilt with a prairie point edging. There is quite a colour difference in the two photos. One is taken at the high school textiles room where there are fluorescent lights. (We have our quilt guild meetings there) The other picture is taken in Lil's home where the quilt is on the wall.
Lil passed away about two years after her diagnosis, she was only 58 years old. I still get all choked up every time I think about it.

Log Cabin

Log Cabin is one of my all time favorite quilt patterns. This is a Log Cabin quilt that I made for my sister's in-laws for Christmas one year.

Snail's Trail

We had a few black and white challenges in our guild, this was the first one. Mine was a small wall hanging in the Snail's Trail pattern. It's hand quilted and has prairie points around the edge.
I've been collecting black and white fabrics for quite a few years, they aren't always easy to find. One of these times I want to make a bed size black and white quilt, but haven't decided on a pattern yet.

My First Quilt

This is the first quilt I ever made, the picture was taken before it was completed.
How do you like the background? It seems like ugly couches have followed me for my entire life! The cat's name was Beatrice Bumlichker.
I didn't know anything about quilting and hadn't joined the guild yet at this time.
I found the pattern in a magazine, a reversible Grandmother's Flower Garden.
You were supposed to cut a layer of batting in the shape of the hexagon piece, sew front and back hexagons, right sides together, then when they were turned right sides out, the batting was placed between them. Each little pillow was quilted 1/4" around the edge to hold the batting in place. I got the bright idea that I wanted my quilt to be really puffy, so I used four layers of batting! Each completed hexagon, was then zigzagged to the next one to form the pattern. By the time the single bed quilt was done, it was heavy and stiff as a board. My brother came to visit and asked "What's this thing on the bed supposed to be?"
It ended up being an insulating wrap around the hot water tank for awhile. I don't know what happened to it after I moved, I haven't seen it since.

The Ugly Quilt

This was a fun way to challenge myself, I purposely collected the ugliest fabrics I could find and put them all into one quilt. There were a few raised eyebrows when I asked sales ladies in fabric stores to show me the ugliest fabric in the shop.
Since I ended up with so much variety, I made the quilt two sided.
It was originally called "The Ugliest Quilt in the World" but the name was shortened to "the Ugly Quilt" after my daughter Lindsay claimed it and has been using it on her bed ever since. It now needs repair, back in those days I used invisible thread, not such a good choice. I don't use that thread anymore because after awhile it cuts the cotton thread that was used on the bobbin, comes undone and leave giant loops all over the place. It also wears away at the fabric. I'll borrow the quilt back one of these days and repair it. BOOO! to invisible thread!
The photos are kind of funny because there are people sitting on the couch and chair, all you can see are their legs. On the back of the quilt is my cat, Casper, who is getting close to 13 years old now.

Wheel of Mystery

In 1992, our guild had a quilt show. I received the CQA ribbon for viewer's choice.
My double bed size Wheel of Mystery quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted. Large print fabrics were in style at the time, I used a lot of them in the quilt.
Back in those days, we only had 12 members in our guild, but we managed to put on a pretty good show!

Rainbow Cats Baby Quilt

Several years ago, I ordered a package of fat quarters called the "Rainbow Collection" from Quilter's Newsletter magazine. I made this quilt for my friend, Cathy when her son was born. The hearts are hand appliqued and the quilt is hand quilted. The pattern came from the Debbie Mumm book, "Quick Country Quilting".

Churn Dash With a Nine Patch

I made this quilt for a Christmas present for some friends many years ago. It was hand quilted, I didn't know much about machine quilting in those days. Please don't use bleach on quilts, folks! I saw this quilt a few years later and it looked like it had been washed over and over with strong bleach, the colour was just about completely stripped from it. Bleach not only takes out the colour, it weakens the fibres and the quilt will be ruined in no time flat. I know we're not supposed to
check up on the things we make after we give them away, a gift is meant to be given with no strings attached. I probably should have included washing instructions.
It's kind of a dilemma.

Around the Twist

Here is another quilt with the dramatic background of horrible red carpet and tacky blue flowered couch.
My sister sent the fabric for the quilt, then I made it for her. The centre of the Round the Twist blocks have fussy cut cats. It was on her bed for years and now is retired. Quilts do wear out, but they serve a great purpose for their lifetime.

Quilt With Wool Batting

Many years ago I bought a wool quilt batt from a person who raised sheep. She took the wool to a place in Alberta that cards the wool into batts. I was able to make two quilts out of it, one double bed size, the other single.
I used the quilt on my bed for so many years that it wore to a frazzle. It kept
getting patched over and over again. It has a final use as a bed for my dog.
I'm happy that I took a picture of the quilt after it was first made because it sure doesn't look like that now! If I could get a fluffy wool batting like that again, it would be great, it was so nice and toasty to sleep under. The wool batts that are made commercially are nice, but are thin and compacted down.
There are a lot of pictures of my quilts that have the horrible red carpet and a blue flowered couch in the background. I lived with that for many years before finally getting laminate floor installed and a different second hand couch. My redecorating budget has always been $0.00. When I win the lottery I'll have a professionally decorated background for my pictures :D

A Blast From The Past

A journey back to 1987, when I was expecting my first and only child. This was a week long summer class I took at the Red Deer College. The instructor was Judy Vilette, the class was on Seminole patchwork and other techniques. It seems like a couple of lifetimes ago!

Hearts

Happy Valentine's day! It seems appropriate to have a quilt with hearts on it today.
This is a baby quilt that I made for a friend. The hearts are hand appliqued. It looks like the binding wasn't finished being stitched on at the time the pic was taken.

This quilt had a name, but now I don't remember what it was.

A few of these quilt block patterns came from the Debbie Mumm book "Quick Country Quilting". I arranged the blocks my own way and added extras. Each lady has a different colour of skin, representing the hope of unity in the world.
I'm kicking myself because I sold the quilt for $125. Is it worth putting all that work and energy into something to sell? A person can spend that amount of money in about 5 minutes in the grocery store. I always mourn for years after selling a quilt! But giving one away for a gift has a different feeling, it's like blessing someone with good energy (as long as they like the gift and it doesn't get flung with disgust into the corner).

Batik Bento Box

This is a queen size Bento Box quilt that I made for my guy for Christmas a few years ago. This pattern goes together quickly because the pieces are quite large and there aren't a whole bunch of seams to line up. I didn't do any kind of fancy quilting on it, just in the ditch. I want to start getting more adventurous with my machine quilting.

Langford quilt show, 2007

This was the second last quilt show that I had a vendor's booth. This time it was in Langford (next to Victoria.

Former Quilt Shop

I used to have my own quilt shop, but it didn't work out and now I have to pay for it for the next billion years- groan! Once a year, I would have a vendor's booth at a quilt show somewhere. This is the last show I went to, in Abbottsford. I'm sitting on the left side of the table and my sister, Linda is on the right. Being a vendor was fun and hectic, but was kind of frustrating when somebody would have a bad credit card.
One of the funniest times was when somebody bought a book that I hadn't been able to sell for 5 years. This lady kept picking it up and looking at it. I was trying to project suggestions into her mind that she should buy it, lol! Then finally, she said
"Oh what the heck, I've always wanted this book, I'm going to buy it". I was so happy that I had to restrain myself, then when she left, I did the victory dance!
Now I have enough fabric left from the store to sink a battleship. I think I have a hoarder's complex, not wanting to get rid of it because I'll use it someday.

Fractured Stars

This is a stack and slash method of making these blocks. I hand quilted it when I was on vacation one summer. I figure it's a waste of time if my hands are idle, so it's good to have something to work on when I'm riding in a vehicle, not as the driver, though. :)

Bug Village

One time when my sister was visiting, we decided to experiment with making freeform houses with no patterns or templates. I made a set of crazy looking buildings, then put them together to create "Bug Village". It was a lot of fun, I'd like to do that method again sometime.

Another Nickel Quilt

This is another Nickel quilt, this time from the "More Nickel Quilts" book. The name of the psttern is "Windblown Clover". I made a variation of another quilt from the book last year, but it ended up being given away and I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it :(

My Inspiration

Aunt Alma was the one who inspired me to start making quilts in the first place, more than 23 years ago. We would go to visit and I would look at her latest projects and see photo albums of quilts she made in the past. She always said that "making quilts kept her out of trouble". She left this world quite a few years ago, but she'll always have a very special place in my heart and memories.

Trip Around the World

Going waaaay back to 1989 now, this was the first queen size quilt that I made.
It is Trip Around the World, It was a Christmas gift for my brother. I didn't know how to quilt something that big on my machine, so I tied it. He still uses it on his bed to this day, I think the binding is getting quite frayed now.

Nickel Quilt

This quilt pattern came from the "Nickel Quilts" book. Couldn't take a very good picture of it at a quilt show because there wasn't enough room to stand back directly in front of it. I still collect five inch squares for future projects from the book and also the other one "More Nickel Quilts". Good books!

Mom's quilt

This is totally off my beaten path- a pink and white quilt. My mom doesn't like bright colours and a billion different fabrics put together, so I had to restrain myself. Did end up sneaking in a little green and purple, though. Pink is my least favorite colour. I don't mind it when it's in a bold batik. Mom has been using this quilt on her bed for quite a few years now, I made a pillow and wall hanging to go with it. There isn't a place to hang the wall quilt where she lives now, so she gave it back to me.

Mystery Quilt

Our quilting guild works on a mystery quilt once a year. I haven't made one of the projects for a few years now because I'm working in another town and can't get to all the guild meetings. A few friends from work and I have started a new guild in a little
town that's close to here. The new guild is called "Steamboat Mountain Quilters".
We'll have to see if any of the ladies are interested in making a mystery quilt sometime in the future.
This is a picture of one of the mystery quilts that I made. I tried making a machine quilted cable border, but the cables look a little squished in some spots. They probably don't show up in the picture.

Blue and Yellow

My sister and I were exchanging blue and yellow blocks over the period of several months. We noticed that we kept using bright yellows and dark blues, not the usual paler blue and yellow colour scheme. Then we started adding bits of red here and there to try to balance things out. We quit making the blocks when it seemed the colours were too bold and they would knock the eyeballs out of one's head.
I looked at my stack of blocks one day and put them together into a quilt that was smaller than the bed size one originally planned. Linda used her blocks to make placemats.