Elle's Unicorn: A Finished Quilt

A colleague whom I cherish recently gave birth to a precious baby girl. This Lisa the Unicorn quilt (an Elizabeth Hartman pattern) seemed the perfect choice. The background is Kona UltraMarine. 

For the unicorn's mane I used all Alison Glass Sunprints and I LOVE how it turned out. The unicorn's horn is Tula Pink.

The backing is an old OOP Aneela Hooey print that I find charming, in a light pink.

I did organic straight-ish line quilting.

The wee bub (and her mom) loved the quilt!

Spunky Stack: A Finished Quilt

My younger daughter was in Junior Kindergarten this year and had an ECE (Early Childhood Educator) in her classroom along with her classroom teacher. My daughter has no idea which teacher has which role just that she loves them both and they encourage her and love her. So OF COURSE I needed to make a quilt not only for her teacher but also for Ms. S, her ECE.

I really liked the Stack Quilt pattern by Modern Handcraft and thought this would be a great opportunity to try it out. Then once I did my fabric pull...oh man, I was jazzed (I even cut two because I think I want to make another one with the same fabrics!)

And thank goodness that Cyrus also did a fabric inspection. Look at that Alison Glass! And the Tula! And the Lizzy House! And the Sarah Watts! 

The pattern is really well written and comes together quite quickly. I then added lots of white space at the top and did some simple straight line quilting. Here is Spunky Stack:

The backing is Lizzy House mini Pearl Bracelets (can you tell that I both love Lizzy House AND that Sew Sisters had this fabric on for $10.99/m??). I think this is the Aqua colour.

Ms. S LOVED her quilt and I hope she gets lots of love out of it. My daughter wrote the label for this one, too. Giving quilts to teachers seems super satisfying!

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!

Rainbow Radiance: A Finished Quilt

When my scrap buckets were overflowing I decided to make several colour-block slabs and then make one gigantic scrappy quilt using those blocks. They were a blast to make and when I found myself lacking in some of the colours (beige and lavender in particular) my quilty friends jumped into action. If you check the lavender block there is some very precious Tula Pink Parisville from my friend C. That's friendship, people.

The plan because of the size and shape was to make the quilt an outdoor quilt, designed for the many picnics and play events my eldest daughter engages in all summer long. I chose a colourful and inexpensive thicker weight (and looser weave) fabric from Ikea as the backing and used (mostly) polyester thread to make the quilting stronger. I also did machine binding instead of hand binding (which I hate because it doesn't look as good as hand binding but it would make it much more secure for heavy play).

For the binding I used up bits of leftover binding from other quilts and it worked out perfectly!

Here is Rainbow Radiance:

I am tempted to take an individual picture of each block so you could revel in the gems in each and every colour block. It is a delight for me to remember each fabric and point out "There's Lotta! There's Lizzy House!"

This is the backing. I was worried about the brown that was in this print but I find this picture reassuring because you really don't notice the brown.

This shows you the binding a little bit more. It is colourful and perfect.

Doesn't it look perfect for a summer picnic?

Here is the thicker weave that is the backing fabric.

I opted to not use batting for the first time ever. The backing is thick and heavy already so I wanted it to not get too heavy and I thought it would dry more easily when it gets damp in the grass. I feel mixed about the end result. It is already VERY heavy as a quilt but the batting would have prevented the colour of the backing from being seen through the lighter colours. It also would have kept the stitches more even.

I also opted to quilt each block with a different pattern, some free motion and some with the walking foot. The size and weight of this quilt made that a giant pain many times but I powered through. I'm happier with some blocks than others in terms of quilting. It adds an interesting texture to the quilt for sure.

I am also glad that I have another WIP off my list!

Fishy Friends: A Finished Quilt

I started a new job in September, teaching at a brand new school with many new co-workers. One of these new colleagues has become a treasured friend already, and though I did not know her when she had her son, I knew within the first few times meeting her that I would be making him a quilt.

Her husband is an avid fisherman, and when she told me the story of how she really wanted to order HBO for their TV package and she lost out when he ordered the Fishing Network instead, I knew which fabric from my stash to pull out!

This fabric is not my favourite, honestly, but my husband saw it on my Pinterest board and ordered it for me before the days of me sending him direct links to the fabric bundles I want. Turns out it was a good call because these fabrics, combined with some special Alison Glass, Tula Pink and other bits from my stash, are a lovely little combo for this little boy.

I went with a simple tumbler block using 5" squares. Her son is just barely one, so he is still pretty little, and I made a fairly little quilt to match!

There are fish...and lures and seaweed and narwhals!

I did straight-line quilting, stopping to pivot at each "bend" so that the quilting echoes those tumbler lines.

The back is mostly a blue with a green polka dot with a little bit of green narwhals and a touch of under the sea print from Lewis and Irene.

This quilt will be given to her at the end of the month, right before we leave for Winter break. I hope she loves it and her son gets lots of use out of it!
(I kind of also hope she cries!)

Quilt Canada

So, for the first time ever, I attended the international quilt show for Canada, Quilt Canada. Quilty friend A invited me. She and C attended when it was in London, Ontario last year (about two hours away) and this year it was my luck that it was in the neighbouring town (where A lives!) so it was super close.

I wasn't sure what to expect, honestly, but I figured it would be fun even if I just saw some cool quilts and hung out with A.

I really don't generally like quilts of this kind, with the multiple pictures and all the applique, but this Canadian one appealed to me, especially the totem on the far left. I didn't think ahead to get the information, though. Oops. Not like I see applique anytime in my future!

This was pretty nice.

Here is A. She loves #QuiltCanada. :)

This quilt is called Sew Many Scraps and was made by Nina Stahlschmidt without any chain piecing. Those are also all vintage feedsacks, not modern fabric anywhere. Those squares finish at 3/4" which is small!! It was for sale for $1800.

I liked this use of small squares but I didn't take a photo of who made it. Obviously I need to pay closer attention next time.

This is Ile aux Coudres by Brigette Villeneuve. Holy. Crap. This is TINY little bits sewn on to make this picture. See below for a close up!

Amazing to have that kind of vision!

I loved this one, Lazy M Sweat Lodge by Patti Morris.

This one is pretty darn cool. It is made of all clothing labels!

It is called From the World to Canada by Anita Payne. She collected clothing labels for 10 years!

Sisters by Ilene Atkins was another landscape one that was just amazing in the detail.

Thread painting at the finest level. Incredible.

Swoop by Terry Aske was really striking from a distance. I was drawn to it for sure.

Not Now, Maybe Never was definitely my favourite of the "traditional" quilts. Joan Dorsay made this for her daughter who requested a red background and no batiks (the no batiks thing had me laughing...I, too, HATE batiks). After finishing it she decided her daughter's cat might ruin the applique and decided to keep it. Good for you, Joan!

How are people this talented?

This close up shows how the effect is created. It is called Eyes of Innocence by Carol Cote.

Though this quilt, Friends of Baltimore by Kerry Burke, was not to my taste, I was in AWE of the skills needed to create it. Just wow.

Walking around all these amazing, award winning quilts can be very humbling for a somewhat new quilter like myself. I took a picture of one part of one of the quilts because her points don't match. Hah! That made me feel better. It was a stunning quilt, and did it matter that it wasn't perfect? No! I feel vindicated as a "good enough" quilter.

Breathe by Leanne Chahley was one of my favourites.

I loved the quilting on Leanne Chahley's Spin quilt as well. It was inspirting to see all the variation without having any of the more traditional feathers or swirls.

I totally want to make a quilt like this one, Cotton and Steel Trees by Jennifer Johnston. I love the scrappy low volume texty background with the bright pops of colour.

Stunning from a distance? Yes but...

Even more stunning close up! It is called Blue Heron for Mom by Patti Morris.

There was a separate area for the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild that had some cool quilts. Like George Michael here:

Every Little Hungry Schoolgirl's Pride and Joy by Rebecca Burnett

Kaleido by Jeannie Jenkins.

Hundreds and Thousands by Berene Campbell and the Fab Bee

Overall I enjoyed the show, and I did buy a bit of fabric including a metre of my FAVOURITE Tula Pink from Salt Water (original blue octopi) for only $13. I would say, though, that it was not as elaborate as I quite expected for a national show, and I would not travel all the far to get to one again. It was worth the experience!