TGIFF! - We The North Since 1867

Welcome to TGIFF! I'm definitely doing the Carlton Happy dance with my finish this week. It's why I've been so quiet on the blog; besides our vacation, every spare moment was spent working on this quilt since early July.

I shared the finished We The North Since 1867 top last month. I actually designed this quilt last year, but then struggled with the motivation to start it. Fear is such a little bugger. Once I got started though, the obsession took over. Tea and Buffy the Vampire Slayer kept me company on many a late night.

I made We the North Since 1867 to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary next year.  Yeah, I know I'm a little early to be doing a sesquicentennial quilt, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I love to travel and experience other countries and cultures, but I love coming home too. I feel pretty lucky to be born in this cool country so I wanted to make something to celebrate it.

Don't let the simple design fool you; it has a lot of meaning behind it (at least for me). It has 13 values of red (mostly Konas) for the 10 provinces and three territories.

When we typically talk about Canadian culture, we often use the term 'mosaic' to describe all the nationalities that now call this place home. I wanted the central maple leaf to convey that idea as well, but I wanted more of a glass-like feel to it to remind us that it is fragile if we are not careful.

I machine appliquéd 1867, the year of Confederation, to the lower right of the maple leaf.

For the quilting, I used two colours of Aurifil thread (Red 50 wt. 2260 and Charcoal 50 wt. 2630), representing our two official languages. The quilting is the walking foot technique that I learned from Heather Lair. The spacing is 5/8" between the lines. Done on my Bernina domestic machine, the quilting alone took about 30 hours. Yes, totally crazy, but worth it.

I outlined the central maple leaf with some hand stitching and included some hand stitched partial maple leaf 'watermarks' in the background.

I also hand stitched one small red maple leaf in the upper right to represent our 'little' country in 1867 (only 4 provinces and 3.4 million people at the time).

We the North Since 1867 is done and it turned out just as I had hoped. Bliss.

For those who like to see under the covers, here's the back (it's really hard to photograph red):

Size: 34.5" x 44"

I know I say this a lot, but this is now my favourite quilt. Sorry, Happy Canada Day, Eh! I still adore you too though.

An InLinkz Link-up

TGIFF! - Bubbles for Malcolm

Welcome to TGIFF! Boy, is this ever a TGIFF for me! Quilting time is at a premium these days with Fall activities in full swing. I was determined to finish this quilt for my turn to host TGIFF! though.

It took a few late nights, some early mornings and a lunch break here and there to finish this quilt, but it. Is. DONE! And I love it. This one is going to be a hard one to give away, but I'm so excited (dare I say 'bubbling' with excitement) to give it to Malcolm.

Hugely inspired by Janet Workman's gorgeous quilt, this baby quilt for my friend's son started out well, but had a few challenges along the way. It is a trickier quilt than it looks.

The last time I shared this, we talked quilting options. It's always so helpful to get other people's opinions so thank you for sharing your ideas! For the quilting, I used matching threads with the fabrics and did different motifs in the bubbles.

Love this one - asymmetrical swirl. :)

 I loved it so much, I did another.

In the light grey background, I broke up with negative space with some cloud sections. Each section has a different quilting motif (or two).

And definitely some large spirals and pebbles!

The backing is the IKEA numbers fabric I bought before it was discontinued.

Bubbles for Malcolm by a bubbling fountain. :) 

Ahh...so relaxing.

Finished size: 39.5 by 60"

An InLinkz Link-up

Heart Strings - A Work in Progress

I started this project back in the winter, just before or around the time my mom first got sick. I haven't shared anything about it yet so I thought I'd share a little about my process in designing this quilt. I actually took many more pictures along the way, but I summarized the major shifts in the process below.

My intent with this piece was to do something like October Sky, but with reds on the vertical. I'm also thinking about mounting this one on a canvas, but we'll have to see if that will work when it's done.

I worked on the layout back in March-ish. Given everything going on with my mom's health in the Spring, working on this quilt this actually became somewhat therapeutic, hence the name.

There it is on the vertical (please ignore the triangles showing through on the design wall, they are not part of the piece). Hmm...not quite what I had pictured. I found the big dark red strips on the edges were too thick.

One side fixed. Sort of. I'm not liking the portrait layout.

What if I cut it in half and made it a landscape composition? Yes, I like that more (I folded it over to test it out before cutting it).

Right side strip is now a little better, but not quite there yet.

More value changes were needed in the red.

Right side fixed. Also started inserting different greys to get more depth.

I'm liking the subtle shifts in the greys. It still needs a lot of work, but the top is almost there.

Happy quilting!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - October Sky

It's one of my favourite times of year -- the Blogger's Quilt Festival hosted by the amazing Amy Ellis.  I'm entering my October Sky quilt into the art quilt category. There are a number of gorgeous quilts already linked up so check it out when you get a chance. Even better, enter one of yours!

My October Sky quilt had quite a journey. It evolved quite a bit from the original design, then there was a lot of deliberation over the colours, and finally undergoing a lot of hand stitching and machine quilting.

The quilting is about 1/8" to 5/8" max. I'm thrilled with the movement that the quilting and hand stitching gives it -- like air currents.

Hope you don't mind a LOT of photos. ;)

This quilt is going to Lethbridge, Alberta for the Quilt Canada 2015's National Juried Show in a couple of weeks. Woo hoo!

Final size: 24" x 44.5"
Fabrics: Kona solids
Threads: DMC embroidery threads and Aurifil (50wt.)

I'm entering this one in the art quilt category.

Happy long weekend!

TGIFF! - A Place for Each Child...

And each child in his place. That's the idea, anyway. It's been awhile. Sorry about that. There's some not-so-fun stuff going on around here.

Before the not-so-fun stuff started though, I did finish the boys' placemats so that is what I'm going to celebrate today!

Each boy picked out the colours he wanted for his placemat. The two older boys helped with the design and improv piecing. I did the quilting and the binding. Love these collaborative efforts!

Daniel went for a monochromatic look.

Micah (with a little help from Mama) went for these colours.

And chose a Star Wars backing.

Patrick went bold with this colour palette. In making his placemat, we talked about dominant and accent colours for the colour palette. He chose blues to be the dominant colour and red, salmon and purple for the accent colours. The salmon is looking kind of dominant though. I guess the next lesson will be about proportion. Lol! 

Think having these nice placemats will curb dinnertime chaos? Yeah, me neither. But I can dream... ;)

An InLinkz Link-up

TGIFF! - Night Flight

Oh happy, happy TGIFF! all! I'm thrilled to be sharing my finished Night Flight quilt. This quilt started with the scraps from Quilt Fix.

I used the leftover triangles from the 45 degree seams from Quilt Fix to make half-square triangles (HSTs) and then paired them into flying geese units. These flying geese then begged to be put into rainbow formation. Who am I to say no when they lined up so nicely?

We discussed how much negative space was enough and then the quilting options. The 'quick' part of this quilt ended when we got to the quilting though. I really love this walking foot technique, but it definitely doesn't fall into the 'quick' category. I think I spent more time quilting Night Flight than all the other parts of the quilt process combined.

It was so worth it. I'm so pleased with the finished look and the flow of colours in the quilting thread (different colour for each flying geese unit). The walking foot quilting in moon ray formation has all the precision I was hoping for.

Finished Size: 24" by 29"
Fabric: Kona Charcoal, Scraps from a Kona Dark Jelly Roll
Thread: Aurifil (2630 for the grey and many other numbers for the flying geese), Guterman, Coats & Clark

An InLinkz Link-up

Modern Block Monday - Leggings Block

The moment I saw Elizabeth Hartman's Knee Socks block, I was smitten. It's a block that finishes at 24" though, a little too large to be asking my OMQG Bee mates this month. I decided to do a cross between her Knee Socks block and the blocks I'll be making for this Fibonacci Flow design.

I give you...Leggings. ;)

It's a 12" finished block, fun for stash picking. I couldn't rightfully say stash busting because it just doesn't use all that many scraps, but it is fun.

Wanna make one yourself?

Cutting Directions:

Background fabric (charcoal grey in this case):
A - Four (4) - 1.5" x 6.5"
B - Six (6) - 2.5" x 6.5"
D - Two (2) - 2" x 6.5"

Scraps:

C - Ten (10) - 1" x 6.5"

Layout:

1) Sew the pieces together in each of the columns according to this layout diagram.

2) Sew the two columns together.

I'll be providing the charcoal grey for my bee mates and asking them to scrap bust the scraps so I can get a good variety of fabrics. I'll also be asking them to keep the columns separate so I can mix and match them with other blocks.

Here are a few designs I've been playing with for this block:

All About Those Leggings: 

I Just Need Some Space - Lap:

I Just Need Some Space - Twin:

Enjoy!