Hearts for Christchurch

 On March 15, 2019 during Friday prayer at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, a terrorist killed 50 people and injured 50 others. This horrific attack created huge shockwaves of grief around the world and Angels in Gumboots started #heartsforchristchurch in the quilting community to gather green heart blocks to make small quilts for survivors, family members of victims, and first responders. 

Check out #heartsforchristchurch on Instagram to see more.

I made a stack of blocks but put the call out to my guild members that I would assemble a quilt top if I got enough blocks.

 And boy did my quilt guild members respond quickly! The timelines were short because the mailing time to New Zealand from Canada is NOT short (or cheap- hence a quilt top but not a finished quilt which would be prohibitively expensive to ship) but I ended up with more than enough blocks!

First I made a layout with almost all of the blocks:

But the lime greens were standing out too much for my liking plus this was NOT the size they requested (6x7). So I pulled out the lime blocks, made the quilt the size they requested and checked for balance:

 Before sewing it all together and taking a quick photo. Then it got shipped to New Zealand. (Thanks to Susan for the extra financial support for the cost of shipping!) All of this happened in about a week which is pretty amazing.

 I also made a roll of binding from some Bonnie and Camille green fabric I had in my stash because I imagine it will be MUCH needed as they assemble these quilts.

I wish our community never had incidents like this that requires us to come together, and I wish we didn't have to say EVERYONE should be safe, EVERYONE should be able to worship without worry, and EVERYONE is important. But it does make me happy when I can see our guild, 20 hours by plane away, pulling together some hearts made with love to give a bit of comfort to some people who need a reminder of the love they shouldn't ever doubt is there.

A Quilt for an Owl and a Flamingo of Tigers

After making my younger daughter a quilt for her doll, she insisted her owl, Oscar, also needed a quilt. Because of course he did.

 She was very particular, laying out all these HSTs that I had leftover from another quilt (that is almost finished and I should be able to post about soon!) and then handing me each HST in the order she thought I should sew it. 

 She occasionally stopped to test my pieces against her owl to make sure it was the exact size that she wanted it to be. Adorable but slow work.

 The finished results is somewhat adorable, though that binding does not really work for me. It was chosen by my daughter out of my scrap bind for bindings because it has owls on it. Of course.


On a different note, at the West End Modern Quilt Guild in March we learned about making art collage quilts from Tish, one of our awesome members. Our exchange for May is a mini quilt using this technique. I decided that a flamingo would be super graphic and easy to tell from a silhouette and got to work. And I am DELIGHTED with the results!

Rotary cutter for size

If you look carefully you will see some Tula, some Elizabeth Hartman and some strawberries from Alison Glass as well as some TIGERS! PINK TIGERS from an old Cotton+Steel print. SHUT UP ISN'T IT ADORABLE?! I hope that whomever the recipient is as in love with it as I am!

BOM Update

The West End Modern Quilt Guild's Block of the Month is humming along so I wanted to share my blocks so far!

 This one was the February block and I HATED making it. The curves were awful to do and this was my take on the apple core block which was the challenge and which is not my thing. I don't know if I even like the end result but I don't hate it either so...yay?

 This was the March block, a smaller block, and I had fun fussy cutting the centre. I like it but it is a little traditional for my usual aesthetic. If you don't remember, I am trying to do all my BOM blocks with inverse print/background.

This is my April block and it is a take on a log cabin. I pushed it to be more modern and that big outer border on two sides I think looks pretty cool so I am happy. I do wish I had used a different print as my centre block but I was sort of making it up as I went so oh well.

Can't wait to see what my guild members come up with for the May block!

Neutral Summer: A Finished Quilt

This past summer (2018) I participated in the Summer Sampler 2018. I challenged myself to use mostly scraps and to do the quilt entirely in neutrals (black, white and grey) because I love to use colour and it would push me to think differently about each block in terms of contrast.

The finished result delights me and my mom claimed it almost immediately.

Here is Neutral Summer:

 The impact of the neutral pallet is, I think, pretty powerful. I had some trouble with those hourglass filler blocks at first because they were reading too dark so I switched some of the colours and was much happier.

 The backing is just a grey I found for a reasonable price at Lens Mills and though I usually like a pieced backing my mother does not. 

I quilted it using straight-ish horizontal lines which was simple but effective. Especially considering the size of the quilt (80" x 80") it made sense to be practical rather than too decorative. That is a big quilt!