Quilt Mafia Gathers Again

I missed our last gathering and was so happy to make it there yesterday. We met at the very lovely Gaspereau Valley Fibres a farm yarn shop in the very beautiful Gaspereau Valley. I it was a beautiful day and nineteen of us sat around an array of tables and stitched all day. I can't think of a better way to spend a day!

Leslie, Cathy, Laurie and Alex

Uta's wonderful Leopard Who Hides His Spots

Margi's wonderful stick puppets of herself and Brain and four of their grandchildren

Celeste, Kate and Linda

Val's wonderful embroidery that she brought back from her recent trip.

Linnet's vibrant animal quilt

We were watched over by various characters!

I loved all the various textures around us from our own work to the beautiful years and the wonderful old barn boards.

It was really quite wonderful to be surrounded by such inspiration not only in the shop but in the scenery around us. The Gaspereau Valley is fast becoming known for its vineyards, we past three on our way there. It really is a unique spot in Nova Scotia.

The members of the Quilt Mafia are all doing such interesting things. Penny and her amazing dedication to embroidery, Margi and her dolls of all sorts, Alex and her stitching and daily drawing in her journals that are amazing. She dedicates part of her day to drawing and I think she said she had over 2,000 entries!

I wish we could get together more often, we all travel a distance to get together. Plans are in the works for another day soon and perhaps a sleepover! Can't wait. Be sure and see more pictures on my Flickr page.

Inspirations and Connections

Way back in the mid 1980's I decided to work through Roberta Horton's book "An Amish Adventure". I had used very few solid colour fabrics up to this point in my quilting career so this was a real challenge for me. I had also discovered and was fascinated by Amish quilts after hearing a lecture by David Pottinger, author of "Quilts of the Indianna Amish". I was hooked!

After working through many of the exercises in Roberta's book, I decided I needed to take an existing traditional quilt and "make it Amish". I had been using and had saved my copies of the Quilt Engagement Calendar and I came across a crazy quilt that I thought would make an interesting Amish quilt. Many thanks to my friend Polly  Greene who found the picture of the quilt and to Bettina Havig who was able to tell me that it was in the 1979 calendar. Sadly these wonderful calendars which were edited by Cyril Nelson and published by Dutton are no longer being produced. I am so glad I kept so many of them. I must see if I can find the few I am missing to make my collection complete!

The caption for the above very handsome and unusual example of Victorian needlework  reads, Pieced quilt, silk and embroidery, c. 1890, New Hampshire. 56"x51". The photograph was courtesy of Thos. K. Woodward: American Antiques and Quilts (private collection).

Here is my "Amish" version.

"All Things Bright and Beautiful" machine pieced and hand quilted. The name and quilting design was inspired by a photo in David Pottinger's book "Quilts of the Indiana Amish" of two children looking up at the sky. The photo didn't show that they were looking at hot air balloons flying overhead. I imagined if they were Amish balloons they would look like this! I also wrote about this quilt here is this blog post.

Now, jump ahead to 2014, the internet has exploded and we are consumed by Twitter feeds, Instagram, blogs and Facebook to name a few. I follow Australian quilter Sarah Fielke, I have long been fascinated with her delightful patterns and her wonderful use of colour. Sarah collaborated recently with American quilter Amy Lobsiger to write a book called "Little Quilts" published by Cico Books.

I believe it was through Sarah's Instagram feed that I saw a picture of a quilt from their book of a quilt that Amy had made that she called "Cocktail Shakers".

"Cocktail Shakers" by Amy Lobsiger is machine paper pieced and machine quilted. It is slightly different from mine, it has five units in each section of the shaker and mine has seven. I have been in touch with Amy, she sent me the image of her quilt and gave me permission to write about it, thanks Amy!

I think it is wonderful that the quilters of today have such great resources they can use to be inspired to make such wonderful quilts. Be sure and check out Amy and Sarah's book and be inspired!

Summer is Slipping By...

Here we are enjoying our first summer in our "new" house, enjoying all that Mahone Bay has to offer and continuing with smallish renovation projects. Nothing too ambitious that it won't get in the way of Peter's golf games or sailing plans! 

The flowering crabapple just after a rain, it is now full of very tiny "apples'.

The garden continues to surprise us every day. The rhododendrons and roses have been wonderful though they suffered from the high winds and rain of post tropical storm Arthur. Thankfully all the huge trees on and around our property stayed up! Lots of leaves came down and small branches. The town came through pretty well compared to other parts of Nova Scotia and we only lost power for 3 hours, lucky us.

Looking from the PEI side, it sure is an engineering marvel. You can read about it here.

We took a day trip to Prince Edward Island, on the hunt for some upholstery fabric at the Bargain Fabric Outlet in North Bedque, just across the Confederation Bridge. I had never been to PEI via the bridge so that was pretty cool and it was a beautiful day. And I found just the fabric for the two chairs that are desperate to be reupholstered. Now to fins a new smaller sofa and then tackle redecorating the den. But that is too bi a project for right now, maybe in the fall. Right now Peter is painting the downstairs bathroom, which used to be a pantry and enclosed staircase to the back (maid's?) bedroom.

I haven't been doing much quilting, I desperately needed some inspiration. Something or someone to give me a good swift kick and say "just do it". Well, that person just happened to be Kaffe Fassett! I heard last winter from a friend that Kaffe was coming to Nova Scotia for workshops in Amherst at Deanne Fitzpatrick's rug hooking studio. 

Yes, that's Kaffe Fassett getting his microphone adjusted.

We just knew that if Kaffe was willing we could get a bunch of quilters together and bring him to Halifax for a lecture. Long story short the three local Guilds did just that, we asked and he came! We booked a wonderful lecture theatre at Saint Mary's University and sold all 171 tickets. Suttles and Seawinds set up shop with a lot of Kaffe's fabrics and the university bookstore sold Kaffe's latest three quilt books. terrific co-operation from all involved and all without a meeting...just over 150 emails!

So I am back to "work", I have almost finished piecing my challenge for the Mahone Bay Quilt Guild's bi-annual quilt show in October, I have been quilting my redwork quilt as well as hand appliqueing a border for my Antique Flower Vase quilt and I have one last challenge to finsh ( a year later!) for my bee challenges that will hang in our quilt show. 

And then there is the garden, it is a beautiful day here today so I think I will head outside!