Tumbi: A Finished Quilt

I have a new nephew arriving before the end of March and he has an elephant themed nursery. When I heard this I thought of making a paper pieced elephant. Fresh off my success with the butterfly I made using the Take Wing pattern, I jumped in and bought the Elephant pattern from Tartan Kiwi. The pattern was not as well written as the Take Wing pattern, and thank goodness I was fresh off another paper piecing project so I could troubleshoot. I still had to pull out some seams and come up with some creative solutions, but the end result is one dapper elephant!

He is two feet by two feet (so, HUGE!) and I bordered him on either side using the free tutorial for Rectangles Squared by Film in the Fridge. My sister-in-law was not decided if she wanted navy or teal or turquoise as the accent colour along with the grey in the nursery, so I used all of them and knew it would all look good together! She has not seen this quilt or pattern, and even on Instagram I have been doing "secret sewing" so it will remain a surprise. (She doesn't read my blog). I can't wait to meet my new nephew and gift him his elephant quilt!

I named it Tumbi, a Tamil word for elephant.

This quilt is actually quite large for a baby quilt, probably more of a crib or lap quilt. I hope it gets lots of tummy time use.

All of these fabrics were from my stash. Hooray for that! The inevitable Pearl Bracelets from Lizzy House, some subtle Tula (who knew that existed?) from her Fox Field line, Cotton+Steel and some other ones that have been floating around for awhile just waiting for a project like this! The binding is Art Gallery Squared Elements in a dark grey that I had from another project. It was ideal for this quilt!

I added this organic straight-ish line quilting so it looked like the elephant was walking around on a hilly landscape. I'm not sure if that it the effect, but I like it none the less.

The back is all one print, which my husband loves but is not my favourite. I think my sister-in-law will prefer it, though, and I had lots of this print so I went for it.

I bought this on clearance some time ago and don't remember who made it, but I do know this colour is "blueberry" because I thought that was a fun name for this blue.

I also have a stack of flannel baby blankets ready for him. My sister-in-law is 38 weeks pregnant, so anytime now would be great since baby is cooked!

I hope she really loves this quilt and appreciates all the work that went into that sweet (giant) elephant!

Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts for Finish It Up Friday!
Also linking up with TGIFF over at A Quarter Inch from the Edge with my bloggy friend Jenn!

Um, what?

There are some discount fabric stores in a sort of local distance from me called Len's Mills. It has a mishmash of weird items (mostly home sort of things) that I think are leftovers from other stores that this store then sells off. It is a jumbled mix of low quality things with the very odd addition of a fabric store in the back. The fabric section is equally bizarre- lots of low end and weird items mixed in with awesome finds like the occasional Cotton +Steel or OOP fabrics from Lizzy House. The prices are amazing, but you really have to hunt.

I ended up at one of these stores recently and had to take some picture of fabrics that made me say "Um what?" As in, how did these fabrics get made? Who thought "This is a great fabric! I'm sure there are so many great projects that people will want to make with this!"

This is the exterior of one of the locations. It is not  like it gives any indication as to what is inside!

Exhibit A: Spanish/English panels? Is this supposed to make a little book, or? And why is it in Southern Ontario? An odd, ugly bolt of fabric to be sure.

Not a lot of donkeys around here. And why do the children look deformed?

Exhibit B: This terrifying frog watching you from this bolt while wearing his chef hat. Who is buying this fabric?? For what purpose? Maybe you are looking for fabric with a french chef frog. But a terrifying one like this guy? *shudder*

 I think this frog has been into the wine.

Exhibit C: Religious fabric with what I presume is the Virgin Mary. What is getting made with this fabric? Is there a religious grandma somewhere who really likes the Blessed Mother to be on her quilts? And in these colours? I don't get it.

These are huge, too. So, giant Virgin Marys. For some reason.

Exhibit D: Patriotic AND ugly. Okay, so this store gets overstock from the United States, obviously. Because this patriotic little girl is probably not a big seller in Canada. But even if this was in the United States, what project is this fabric involved with? Why do you need giant American flag makers on your quilt? Help me understand a situation when this would be the obvious choice of fabric.

Couldn't they make this fabric just slightly more American?

The friend I was shopping with found this shiny monstrosity, which I will call Exhibit E. Um, what? Who is wearing this fabric? Or curtains maybe? Is it sheer. And gold. And purple. And scratchy. And explain why this would ever be a good choice?

Classy.

All of this ugly fabric was matched by some ugly wool I found:

When, WHEN is this a good colour combination? No. Just no.

Now, some of the intentional ugly and cheesy fabric is awesome. Like Exhibit F: Super awesome Star Trek the Next Generation fabric. I kind of wanted one. But I couldn't imagine this in a quilt. Like, ever.

Must be season one if Tasha Yarr is there.

I did manage to find some fabrics worth purchasing:

Those Star Wars fabrics are for an upcoming quilt for a kid, and those typewriters were calling me. That Robert Kaufman fabric is too cute and was pretty darn cheap.

So, explain to me. How do some of these fabrics get made? When would they ever look good?

P.S. Here are some bonus fabrics that I simply cannot imagine in anything attractive, courtesy of the Sale section of a LQS.

Um, for your farmer friend?

For people who really, really like broccoli?

WIP Wednesday: Variety Reduces Boredom

With the little snippets of time I can carve out for sewing with little people underfoot, I have been back and forth between working on a Greek Cross baby quilt (tentatively named AirPlus) and assembling the Quilt of Belonging. 

I was feeling unmotivated to work on the Greek crosses because it involves lots of monotonous chain piecing (to be efficient). So I made one block to motivate me...and it worked!

How cute is this block? Greek crosses look awesome.

Stacks of blocks to press and then get back to chain piecing.

Piles growing as I plodded along.

And I actually got all the blocks pieced in a fairly short amount of time! Here it is laid out on the floor. I now have all the rows pieced and the first three rows assembled. But that was getting boring.

I love how this quilt is bright and cheerful but not too baby.

So because the repetitive piecing was getting boring, I laid out and selected the solids for the Quilt of Belonging blocks. Being in the Sew Sisters Kona solid of the month club sure has been useful for having a wide selection to choose from.

Since the photo was taken I have finished the reds and oranges. I'm hoping to get yellows done today. There will also be Kona Black in between each block to mimic the original quilt.

And for a fun bonus, I'm sharing another example of all the help I get when I'm trying to sew.

He didn't understand why lying on top of the blocks wasn't helping.

I can't link up to WIP Wednesday because Freshly Pieced has stopped doing it, but since WIP Wednesday motivates me I'm posting anyway!

Birthday Bonus Club

Thanks to the initiative of one of my favourite bloggers, Jenn from A Quarter Inch from the Edge, I was invited to participate in a Facebook group called the Birthday Bonus Club which has people from across Canada shipping each other 50 2.5" squares based on a request during their birthday month.

My birthday isn't until August, so I will have a long time to wait for my many packages of fabric loveliness from across the country, but I've been having so much fun selecting fabrics to send to the birthday queens each month.

In January we had one birthday queen and she requested solids of any colour. Now that is an easy request! I dove into my scraps (one of the best parts of the Birthday Bonus Club!) and put together this playful, bright combination of solids:

This was for the January Birthday Queen, who requested solids of any colour. I dug into my scraps and put together this lovely warm stack. (All Kona, of course).

There were two February birthday queens, one of whom is the organizer herself, Jenn. She requested low volume, a risky ask because there are different interpretations of this and there is lots of room for disappointment. I wanted to pull out true low volume prints so some of these came from stash instead of scraps to make sure they were what I would consider low volume.

February Birthday Queen Jenn requested low volume. I had fun digging around for these. I tried to go with ones that had crisp white backgrounds and read very white.

The other birthday queen wanted 3/4 bright and 1/4 white. I dug into my scraps to pull out a rainbow of beautiful prints that I thought met her request.

The other February birthday Queen asked for 1/4 white and 3/4 brights in prints or solids. Wow, with those loose guidelines you can go wild! I tried to put together a really pretty rainbow for her, plus so Kona white of course!

The club has been so much fun, and being within Canada means that postage is not going to kill me every month. Plus I'm already drooling in anticipation of my birthday month when I get, I think, 28 packages or some such number? Ridiculous. And awesome!

Eagerly anticipating March 1st to find out what the next birthday queen wants!

Lynn

Canadian Wilderness: A Finished Quilt

My husband's cousin and her husband are expecting their first child in March. They have opted not to find out the baby's sex, and thinking of the interests of this outdoorsy (and patriotic) couple, this line I've had floating around seemed like the perfect fit to whip up a baby quilt.

I went with a tumbler pattern because it is visually interesting yet simple (especially with my tumbler template for 5" squares from the Missouri Quilt Company) and I thought it would look nice with this line.

This is a Birch Fabrics Jay-Cyn line (maybe early Elk Grove?) that I think I ordered from Fabricworm about three years ago.

Here is Canadian Wilderness!

This quilt holder is a little shorter than my usual 6'1" hubby, but she complained a lot less about standing in the woods holding up a quilt for ages than he would have. The binding is a tone on tone Pearl Bracelet in gold that has this slight shimmer. I totally love how it frames the quilt.

I straight line quilted on either side of each seam which is practical and I think suits this pattern. It does involve a lot of starting and stopping, though, to turn the quilt in line with the tumbler blocks. I also added a Kona solid (I think this might be Teal Blue? My Kona card is still missing) that I think breaks it up visually.

I've had this backing in my stash since I first began sewing. I've looked at it many times and was starting to give up hopes I would ever use it. It was perfect for this quilt!

You can see the echo of the quilting on the reverse, and this more clearly shows the pretty trees that appear in these fabrics.

Since it is called Canadian Wilderness, I thought a shot of it "in the wild" was called for. Note that this "wilderness" is actually a tiny patch of forest right next to my house. I won't tell if you won't!

This quilt should be shipped this week, and though the recipients have been seeing it on Instagram they have no idea it is for them. I hope it is a welcome surprise!

Off to my next quilt adventure!

Welcome to Canada: A Finished Quilt

Check out the hashtag #quiltsforrefugees on Instagram and you will see the efforts of some local quilters who pooled their resources and had a sew in, as well as collecting quilts from around the Toronto area, to give to newcomers. With the Syrian refugee crisis looming in the media I wanted to do something to contribute and when @happysewlucky posted a call for quilts I got to work putting together something beautiful and scrappy.

Here is Welcome to Canada, a twin-sized quilt heading off to a new Canadian in the near future!

I've had this "design" in my head for ages now. I've often looked at my pile of scraps and wanted to make something just like this. #quiltsforrefugees made it a reality!

There are a lot of gems in there: Lotta Jansdotter, Honeymoon from C+S, Heather Bailey True Colours, Carolyn Friedlander Architextures, Alison Glass Bike Paths, Tim and Beck and on and on. I also used up some of my "not sure what I would ever do with these" scraps because it a scrappy quilt like this they look like they belong. This was especially true for the white-on-white scraps I had remaining from my Candy Cane quilt.

The backing is a Kona red, not sure which one, generously donated by quilty friend A. You can see the grid quilting I did in white Aurafil. Red and white- very Canadian, eh? (Plus you can really see how badly it needs a lint roller before I gift it-thanks, cats). My friend A also donated the batting, a twin-sized pack that was a really good quality.

 Berne, the woman who organized this drive, also printed Spoonflower labels for each quilt, and they're beautiful.

I was hoping for more snow in my picture but it is warm here today and all the snow from yesterday melted!

The binding is a very scrappy rainbow collection of leftover bindings from other quilts. It worked perfectly for this colourful quilt, and makes the back a bit more interesting because the binding pops against the red.

I feel good that I could take something I love to do and use it to help someone who is new to Canada adjust to their new home. I hope there is lots of snuggling underneath it, knowing they are welcome here!

Linking up to Finish It Up Friday with Crazy Mom Quilts.

#QuiltofBelonging

There is an amazing Canadian quilting project that truly captures the Canadian spirit called The Quilt of Belonging.

The project began with the idea of having a quilt block representing each culture or country that make up the Canadian mosaic, a project that ended up taking years, having 263 blocks and being 36 metres (120 feet) long and 10 metres high. The first row of the quilt is made up of blocks created by the First Nations, Inuit and Metis people of Canada, the country's first people. 

Here are some pictures of the stunning quilt:

I can't begin to express the detail in each individual block, made up of the most diverse materials. It is true "textile art." Here are a few favourite blocks:

Libya

The Central African Republic- made up of butterfly wings

Iran

Dakota (First Peoples of Canada)

There are so many, and they are attached using black fabric and then have this woven cord between each block with the colours slowly changing and interweaving as you go. The top of the quilt is a rainbow slowly melding into each colour, just as everyone becomes part of the Canadian fabric when they arrive. How cool is that??
Some local First Nations communities put together a kit for students about the Quilt of Belonging to spread the word that we all belong and we are all part of one big community, unique as individuals but beautiful together. I worked on this kit with an amazing Grade 2 teacher, her teaching assistant, and the First Nations Metis Inuit Resource Teacher for my school board.

The kids learning about diversity and belonging, touched sample blocks and taught others about their blocks and then got to make their own blocks, which I will now sew into a big #QuiltofBelonging which will go on display in the school's front lobby.

Here are the blocks that these little sewists constructed:

Aren't they AWESOME!?!? Some kids brought fabric or materials or beads from home. Others used what we donated. They each are currently 7.5" x 7.5"

This is one of my favourite blocks, meticulously traced, cut out and "sewn" on (note the black embroidery thread on the one side) to represent the khanda, a Sikh symbol of faith. He was SO proud!

So sweet!

There was lots of "quilt block surgery" that I had to do to get them even close to being able to add sashing, and I certainly didn't need another project right now, but I am so inspired by this project!

What do you think? Isn't this so super cool?