Quilt Canada is back in Halifax, NS this year after an absence of 18 years. The Mayflower Quilt Guild has hosted the event twice in the past, in 1984 (at Mount St. Vincent University) and in 1994 (at Saint Mary's University. This year it is being hosted by not one Guild but a group of dedicated quilters from the Mariners QG, the Mayflower Quilters Guild and there are representatives on the local organizing committee from several other Guilds in the Province.

Doris, Valerie, Ruth, Kathy and Cheryl dressed in our "aprons" ready to go to work The bib of the apron was a block called "Mayflower", everyone had a piece of a blue fabric that had flowers on it that resembled our provincial flower, the Mayflower. Everyone used an off-white fabric and the rest of the fabrics could be their own choice. We were easily recognizable! It was a wonderful conference. Every detail was looked after and all the workshops and events were held on campus.

Points East, raffle quilt made by members of the Mayflower QG, machine pieced, hand pieced and hand quilted. My apologies for the quality of the image, they are all scanned slides and are not the best quality! This year's will be much better. The centre block remains to this day as the logo for our Guild newsletter called Points East.

My quilt Perseverance was in the National Juried Show but the picture was very dark so this is one taken outside. It was inspired by a Frank Stella painting, it was machine pieced and hand quilted. It is now in the Nova Scotia Art Bank.

We had so much fun hosting quilters from all across Canada and beyond that we volunteered to host it again in 1994.

The National Juried Show had a theme that year "Heavenly Bodies". It was held in the Art Gallery at SMU. Both this show and the one in 1984 broke all the records for attendance at both university art galleries!

The Art Gallery was busy all the time!

Meredith Annett's Northern Lights Through My Window. Be sure and watch for Meredith's entry in this year's show, it is wonderful.

Linda Mackie Finley's Linnet's Dream. And Linnet, Linda's daughter is making quilts and other wonderful things for kids which you can find here. I am sure we will see one of her quilts at Quilt Canada one day soon.

I have met many wonderful quilters over the years at various Quilt Canada's. Some of them will be back in Halifax next week and it will be great to reconnect again. Though I am not on the local organizing committee this time, I am very excited to be teaching 3 workshops. I can't wait to meet my students, see all the many shows that will be around the university and at a few other sites close by and of course visit the Merchant's Mall.

Welcome back to Halifax Quilt Canada!

Quilt Canada 2012 will be in Halifax, Nova Scotia from May 29 - June 3, 2012 at Dalhousie University. This is the third time that Quilt Canada has come to Halifax, in 1984 it was held at Mount Saint Vincent University and in 1994 it was held at Saint Mary's University. At both the '84 and '94 conferences I was involved in the local organizing committee specifically with the workshop planning and teachers. Both times it was a gratifying experience. I met lifelong friends and learned so much.

This time I am thrilled to be teaching. I was unable to work on the committee due to family commitments, I missed being a part of all the planning but it is kind of exciting to not know and to be able to look forward to all aspects of the conference. It has been a while since I was last at a QC. I have taught at 3 previous ones, Ottawa, Saskatoon and Montreal.

This time I am teaching 3 workshops, all by hand!

I'll be teaching Stab Stitch Quilting. I was taught to quilt this way almost 39 years ago by Polly Greene.

Penny Candy (inspired by the traditional pattern Chinese Coins), machine pieced and hand quilted.

I will also be teaching hand applique.

Running Around in Circles inspired by Kandinsky's Colour Studies: Squares and Concentric Circles, machine pieced, hand applique and hand quilted.

The great thing about applique this way is that there are no templates, it is needle turned, hand stitched with a blind stitch.

The third workshop is based on a quilt in the Nova Scotia Museum collection.

The Waternish Star quilt is hand pieced and mine is hand quilted. It has approximately 4,000 pieces. The original quilt was found inside another quilt. When the original quilt wore out around the edges and became well worn the frugal maker used it as a filling for another quilt. Fortunately the interior quilt was discovered, the second outer quilt was carefully "unstitched" and removed. To date we have not found an original name for this quilt so it remains the Waternish Star, named for the small community of Waternish, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia where it was found.

Several years ago I purchased a copy of Quilts in a Material World by Linda Eaton which is about the quilts in the Winterthur Museum collection. Much to my surprise there are 2 examples of this quilt in this book. That is the first time I have come across the Waternish Star anywhere else! I have been in touch with Linda about the pattern but to date we still don't know anything more about it.

I loved piecing this quilt. It went everywhere with me and I stitched the diamonds into hexagons then sewed the strips together adding the connecting triangles. I worked on this quilt over many years. I jokingly would refer to it as "my life project"! I never knew when it would be finished!

Can't wait for May 29! Hope to see you at Quilt Canada 2012.

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