The Quilt Mafia Meets Again!

We are 22 quite diverse quilters, well mostly quilters. Several are knitters as well and we have a couple of doll makers (but not your usual dolls - these are one of a kind, collectable art dolls). Some dabble with paints both on paper and fabric, some use paper as their medium of choice. But what we all love best is just getting together for a day to stitch, knit, use threads and fibres, talk and eat! There are more pictures here.

Uta, Polly, Deb, Anne and Val

Penny Beren's daily "scratching". Penny started on January 1, 2012 to add a row and stitch/embroider every day something, a memory or an event from that day. I so admire her dedication to this project, the humour she stitches and the artistry.

Just how Penny felt the day after she visited the quilt shows and the merchant mall at Quilt Canada in Halifax!

I am always amazed by what everyone brings to show, finished pieces as well as works in progress. We are so varied by what we do from traditional to contemporary, from functional to "art" and Val shared some wonderful stitched pieces from her African Threads.

Linda explains her work in progress "The Habituation of Mr. Morris" inspired by "steampunk" - something I had never heard of. This is going to be a stunning piece when it is done.

But what also inspires me when I look at the pictures afterwards are how our hands always show up. I can remember as a child being awed by my maternal Grandmother's hands.

My Mom, Norma Mitchell Paterson and my Granny Mitchell, 1949

She had terrible arthritis in her hands but that didn't stop her, she was always knitting, crocheting, quilting or weaving. Despite the arthritis her hands were always soft and lovely, always busy, I don't remember her ever complaining. Luckily I have about 6 of her quilts, several placemats and a skirt she wove. Granny died when I was 17, I have always wished I could have talked to her about quilts, about knitting socks and I sure could use a crochet refresher!

Yesterday's gathering was just what I needed to get back to my needle and threads. I've found that after the busy-ness of getting ready for Quilt Canada and teaching at Quilt Canada plus just day to day family stuff I was not feeling like quilting or sewing. A rare time for me. So now I have a list - so much has to be accomplished by September 27, our MBQG bi-annual quilt show and then there is my Cove Quilters Challenge to start (an idea would be good!) and so much more. Time to get to work!

Catching Up Again

Life seems to be a lot of catching up these days! Hard to believe that I have been home from Quilt Canada for almost 2 weeks. It has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks too!

Quilt Canada was great! Thanks to the Local Organizing Committee headed up by Karen Henry and the workshop organizers Deanne Hemphill and Fiona Oxford.

Deanne managing her phone and her camera, a quilter of many talents!

My classes were great and I seemed to have students from across Canada, Newfoundland to the Northwest Territories and everywhere in between as well as Wales and the US!

High level of concentration in my Stab Stitch quilting workshop.

Learning to hand piece the Waternish Star, oh those tiny pieces!

Hand appliqueing Running Around in Circles.

It was great to see some familiar faces from past Quilt Canada's too. I was especially glad to spend some time with Kay Phillips and Nina Stahlsmicht.

Nina specializes in all things feed sack!

It was interesting being back at Dalhousie University, my alma mater. There were times when floods of memories came back and I just had to stop and remember and enjoy those great times. 

My only regret was there wasn't time to get together with the other teachers, I think I managed to speak to about half of them! I felt badly too as one of the NS teachers that we couldn't properly welcome our visiting teacher who came from across Canada, the US and the UK. Maybe next time!

After QC, Heather Stewart stayed on for a 5 day visit with us. Heather (from ON) is a member of the MBQG and comes to NS whenever she can. We had a great time visiting Avonport Discount Fabrics, our favourite lunch spot the Port Pub, our guild closing pot luck dinner and AGM and a lunch with our bee, the Cove Quilters. 

Thanks to my friend Cheryl Hughes in England we were able to decorate the table for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, had I thought of it earlier we could have had a lovely tiara as a centre piece!

Linda, Sandra, Sandy, Jane and Heather.

Thanks to everyone for their contributions, we had a delicious lunch!

Heather reveals her challenge, house paint with handpainted fabrics. Note her fascinator she is wearing, made by Linda Mills!

We had another reveal day for our bee 12x12 challenge. This was a challenge for many this time and everyone came through with flying colours! The theme was house paint. Everyone received 2 paint chips which were randomly chosen and had to use those to be inspired using the theme house paint, paint the town or painted ladies.

Top row, left to right - Heather, Linda H, Sandra; middle row - Linda M and Vicki; bottom row - Sandy, Barb and Donna.

We are entering our all our challenges in our MBQG Quilt Show September 27-30, 2013. The challenge will be just how to hang/show them? The next challenge is to be inspired by a favourite book, That is a tough one as there are so many! Those will be revealed in September in time for the Quilt Show at the end of the month.

Quilt Canada - Looking Back, Looking Ahead

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!