my favourite mini quilt

Yesterday was my best friend Michele's 40th birthday!  I am sure she loves me sharing that with the world ;)  But hers is extra important to me- she survived a rare SCAD heart attack a few years ago, so after having had to face the possibility of losing her, I am all the more grateful to have such an amazing friend in my life.

For the big 4-0, she put in a request over 6 months ago- admiring the mini quilt I have at the cottage with and Emerson quote, she asked if I could make her something similar with a quote that has been a mantra of sorts for her since her heart attack:

"Do not let yesterday take up too much of today." 

For months I waited for my inspiration to strike.  How to make the quote and the fabric come together into something inspiring and beautiful.  It stumped me.  Then I got to thinking about life, and how we are all made up of these random experiences, some good and some bad, but how they all meld together to form us as a person.  How often it starts out one way and then takes on another path, a diversion.....about all the colours and textures that make up a life.  Kind of magical.

I set out without any end plan.  I just started piecing bits of neutrals together.  Got out some fabric paint and stamps.  Pieced some wonky letters in colours where I wanted impact.   Tried my hand at  some embroidery.  And slowly brought it all together. The more randomness I added, the more cohesive the piece started to look and the more I liked where it was going. And here is the end result!

The quilting included some new frontiers for me, and I went with the same carefree attitude I had with the piecing. I channelled my inner Krista Withers and started filling negative space with swirls, pebbles, lines.  The quilting is dense and the resulting texture is amazing.

Added sections of clamshells and waves and used touches of hand stitching to accent the stamped letters and to outline the pieced ones.

On the back, the London subway map fabric (to represent time she spent living in England). And some hanging sleeves with a birthday message :)  For the binding, I continued with the scrappy theme.

It was gifted yesterday, and Michele declared it was her favourite gift she received (which pretty much brought tears to my eyes).  Then we had a lovely afternoon at the spa....now I am HOPING this is indicative of life in our 40s?!?!

Happiest of birthdays, Michele xoxox

quilt journey: Angela's quilt!

The #quiltjourney continues, where a group of seven of us quilty friends are mailing pieces of quilts across the continent to be added to, eventually forming a whole quilt filled with love!  I wrote about the start of my quilt, and my addition to Cara's (IG: meamom) as well, and today I will share Angela's quilt so far!

Many of you know Angela- she blogs over at Cut to Pieces.  I love this girl.  So talented and more than that, just a sweet, loyal friend with a wicked funny sense of humour (my favourite!).  Anyways, I was sent these two awesome pieces from her and Cara as the start of her quilt.

Both with lots of colour, bold and graphic.  And both already pretty large!  I loved them both, but honestly was having a hard time visualizing how they would tie together, not battling each other but in harmony in the quilt.  So I decided to do a bit of a "bridge" to allow some transition.

First job: picking fabrics with my trusty sidekick ;)  I used lots of my hoarded favourites like Katie Jump Rope, Heather Ross and AMH.

Next was determining design. Angela has written an amazing book on curved piecing called A Quilter's Mixology which modernizes the Drunkard's Path block.  Not sure if it was a wise move or totally delusional one, but I decided to add some curves to the curve guru's quilt!  And while the other sections sent to me where predominantly colour with pops of white, I opted to do the reverse, but inserting curved stars of bold colours into a white background.

I began by making modified drunkard's path blocks in 3 sizes.  I trimmed them such that the edges of the coloured fabrics would feather together to form the stars.

I then came up with a random arrangement of them onto 3 sides of one of the previously made sections...

....and pieced them all together with white.

In the end, I didn't attach the strip of blocks on the right- I will send them along to the next quilters in line and they can decide accordingly.  But, I am happy with my "touch", and hope Angela likes it, too!

#quiltjourney

I am so excited about this project!!  A group of seven wonderful quilting friends have decided to do a Travelling Quilt Bee.  What is that, you say?  Well, each of us starts a quilt top, in their own style/colors.  The piece is then mailed to the next person on the list, who adds to it,  adhering to the general feel of the quilt but adding their own flair.  In the end, a finished quilt top is returned to you, passed from friend to friend and made with love- the ultimate Friendship Quilt!

We have named the project "Quilt Journey" and I am sharing it with some people I have come to know well and love dearly over the past few years: Angela (@cuttopieces), Kaelin (@theplaidscottie), Michelle (@ilikeorangetoo), Cara (@meamom), Cherie (@wright_cherie) and Rene (@luv2kreate). On IG we are using the hashtag #quiltjourney.  Each of us has done our first part and mailed it on, and I have also done my section of Cara's quilt.  We have a month or so with each....I am already impatient to see it develop!!

Very exciting, but also very scary.  Because this Type A girl has to relinquish CONTROL.   Yes, no Ms. Bossy Pants allowed in this project, gotta go with the flow.  And also, for the other quilts, I am going to have to try new things outside of my comfort zone to be true to the style and wishes of my friends, as we all have our own styles and tastes.  And the added pressure that they are all going to see my crappy seams and piecing, lol!

This is going to be GREAT. :)

My first job for MY quilt top was to pick a colour palate.  I had fun going through my stash, and decided on purples, pinks, navy and shots of lime green, with lots of low volume fabrics mixed in:

Next, it was time to pick a STYLE.  Hard one.  After much debate (and with the song "Let it Go" from Frozen on repeat in my head), I decided that if I was going to relinquish control, what better type of quilt to start than an improv style one??  I made some paper pieced blocks in the "x" style I used for my latest Epic Bag, and put them together in a wonky manner, irregularly spaced:

To this, I added a side border, using some of the same fabrics.

I love some of the cheeky (very ME) details....like the words in this bit of text fabric added (designed by my friend Berene @happysewlucky on Spoonflower).

Can I just say how much I am loving this so far?!?!  Ultimately, I hope everyone adds chunks of improv blocks in their own fabrics and styles and adds their signature to my quilt top!  I am sure it will be fabulous.

I think one of my FAVORITE aspects of this project is that we also send along a journal.  Inside, we can write whatever we want, really- inspiration, fabrics, colours.  What we are doing in this season, the weather. Thoughts about the person the quilt top belongs to. And so on. A little bit of a diary of the process to look back on for years to come!

So now, whatever the outcome, it is out of my hands and in the mail to its first destination, Rene in Texas!  Have fun with it, friends!  xoxo

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Spectacle quilt

It's that time again- the fall edition of the Blogger's Quilt Festival has begun over at Amy's Creative Side.  I have mine listed in the baby quilt category! Can't wait to peruse the quilty goodness in Blogland!  Welcome to any newbies to my blog, and thanks for stopping by :)

A newly finished quilt to share with you today.  Isn't it funny that when fall hits and everything around me starts to wilt and die, I always seem to get a surge of creativity?  Lately I have been ON FIRE, people!  Sewing this and that, knitting my brains out, and a bunch of quilts coming together.  Lovin' it.  Just wish there were more hours in a day!

And I THINK this may be my new favoritest quilt of all time!!  (Yes, this is the part where I start to get all braggy.  But seriously.  Check this out. )

I can't think of a single thing I don't like on this quilt, or that I would do differently if I had the chance.  Which is rare for me (overanalyze much?).   I made this for a baby boy on his way into the world, but I am thinking that he may get a Gap gift certificate instead ;)  It all started with inspiration from this quilt, by Blue Elephant Stitches.  Now I am usually a girl who digs symmetry...total Type A personality, like to control everything, so on and so forth.  But that said, my favorite quilts to make, or look at, for that matter, are often the ones that have very little rhyme or reason.  

This one was just like that.  I took some scraps in blues and greens out of the overflowing bin, cut them into triangles, and decided to use two tones of grey to piece them together randomly.  I used Kona-something (charcoal?) and Alexander Henry Heath.  I had no plan, just assembled the top row by row, and had so much fun in the process as I slashed and hacked and stitched away.

I knew the quilting should be unstructured as well, and decided on a wonky free flow grid, somewhat mimicking that in the Heath. I used a light blue cotton thread, which of course I ran out of half way through the vertical quilting.  Le sigh.

Well, as often is the case for me, unexpected mess ups stimulate creativity (i.e. being too lazy to go to the store to buy more matching thread, I came up with a Plan B).  So, I decided to add some turquoise and goldenrod thread lines to the grid to fill in the spaces, and a small segment of hand quilting as well.  In the end, I think this adds so much to the finished product, we are just going to pretend it was a product of genius instead of laziness, okay?

The binding- I used a Sunkissed Sweetwater texty print cut on the bias.  I am normally one for hand stitched binding, but have dabbled in machine sewn too, with little success.  But this time- total triumph!  I used a WALKING FOOT, people...geez, whey haven't I tried that before??  Made all the difference.  It turned out perfect.

Last but not least- the backing!  How fun is this?

What is it?  It's a piece of a sheet, bought at Winners (Canada's equivalent to TJ Maxx), made by Colin and Justin.  What can I say?  It makes me so happy. Perfect amount of funky fun for this quilt. And I have plenty left for another (or two!).

This quilt measures in at about 40" by 50".  Annnnnnd I think that's all I have to say about that.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Kristie :)

it's a good day for making quilts....

It's about minus bazillion degrees outside, and all I want to do is curl up under a quilt, knitting or making another quilt, with a big cup of tea and the fireplace on!  Here is the dreadful forecast for "Winterpeg" this week:

For those unfamiliar with the Celsius system, -30 C is about -22F, i.e., colder than your deep freezer.  There are only really a few choice words to describe it, and most of those have four letters.

But, on the "plus" side, I have managed to finish my wonky "plus/cross" quilt top, which is especially fitting as I am "crossing" my fingers that the temperatures will return to the "plus" side of the scale one of these days!  I sliced up a bunch of scraps and fabrics, no measuring, and made blocks of all sizes, which I then spliced together using neutrals.  I absolutely love how it turned out, and it was pure joy to make.  And I know just who to gift it to when it is all done.

It seems to be popular with the furry people, too.  It took all of 20 seconds on the floor before Bailey the Wonderdog claimed it as his own. Smart pooch!

Happy Monday.  Keep warm! ;)

what I am working on now....

It has been a slow crafting start to 2013, just busy with life in general, but I always have my hand in something, or else I would have no excuse and have to clean up my tornado of a sewing space ;)

Quilting-wise, I am really excited about the newest improv top I have started.  I am using a bunch of my favorite fabrics and slashing them up, no measurements, and then am piecing them together as I go, adding bits of neutral scraps here and there.  I came up with the idea and had a rough sketch drawn in about 3 minutes, and usually my favorite quilts start that way, just done for the love of stitching.  I have a recipient in mind for this, but no timeline, so I will pick at blocks here and there. Here is what I have so far.

In the knitting arena, I decided a new year warranted casting on a new sweater!  The pattern is the top-down cable yoke jacket by Cotton and Cloud, and has the sweetest braided cable yoke and a hood. This will be a longer term project, and is for The Middle Child, who is so sweet and my biggest crafting cheerleader.  She was asking for a purple sweater and this yarn, Malabrigo Rios in Purpuras, is knocking me out with its softness and gorgeous tones.  Might need a big-girl one!  It is coming along quickly thanks to my latest obsession, Downton Abbey.  I treated myself to seasons 1 and 2 as an early birthday gift and so that has planted my arse on the couch with my knitting needles more frequently than normal.  In fact, I have named this the "Downton Sweater" and have joined up with the Downton Abbey Knit Along over at luv in the mommyhood.  Good fun!  Just started Seaason 2 and really enjoying it!

I have a couple other quilts to finish up, and a swap project to work on, so I am hoping to get some time to get at these!  In the meantime, my sidekick and I are likely curled up on the couch like this.... :)