Day 19 ~ Where I Slept

My wee colourful bed. The quilts on the bed are two of my favourites. The light coloured flannel at the foot was made by my co-workers at the Great American Quilt Factory when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. The quilt hanging on the wall was made by my friends from the Quilt Mavericks for the same reason. The log cabin quilt in batiks was a Ladies Choice. I chose the block and six wonderful women from an on-line quilt group made 4 blocks each. I pieced them together and my dear friend, Susan Geddes quilted it for me. She quilted the flannel one as well.

Surprise! I Really am Working on Some New Quilts

Many of you readers may not know that I have actually been a quilter far longer than I have been a knitter. How so ever, knitting has been a force of nature and pretty much taken up all my attention for the last two years.

Since I finally felt I was missing something in my life, I volunteered to be the Block of the Month (BOM) coordinator for the Piecing Partners Quilt Guild. This was as an incentive to get some quilting back into the rotation of things I enjoy doing. Keeping my hand in quilting is also the reason that I have been participating in the sorta annual Baggo Challenges and the Slice Quilt with my Fiber Pirates friends.


Last month, I designed a Columbine Applique Block for the BOM we turned in this month. Here's a picture of one of them.






This month, I picked a Simple New York Beauty type block from 101 Full Sized Quilt Blocks and Borders for the BOM. The guild block is going to be Red, White and Blue. Here's a photo of one of the R, W & Bs that I did for the sample board. The guild members each will make a quarter block with red, white and blue fabrics and then bring them back for a drawing and winner take all and they'll get a scrappy top and hopefully they learned something new in the process.



I have been a fan of this block for a while, so I really enjoyed revisiting it again. To that end, this is what I did today. I made eight quarters to make two circles. This may end up either as a wall hanging or a table runner. I do have enough of some of the fabrics to make some matching napkins. Most of the fabrics were sold to me as fat quarters which are 18 x 22 inches.


This one is an analogous colour run starting with yellow green and ending at blue red. This is now the second time I have made these blocks in an analogous colourway. Since I was having so much fun, I made a third analogous colour run starting with blue green and ending at red purple, this one used two fewer fabrics than the first one did.






Here too, is a photograph of the first one I did, complete with the quilting and binding. I made this as a class exercise for Heather Thomas' Infamous Colour Class back in 2003. It is in the collection of a friend of mine from the Quilt Mavericks as we did a trade for a piece of each other's art.






More to be revealed, so stay tuned, dear readers.

Collage Mania

I would like to suggest that you all go take a look. Most especially, as I have been the beneficiary of the American Cancer Society's good works.

http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CM2009Collages1.html

It's a reverse auction of art work in various medias, but primarily fiber related. I know a lot of the artistes from various art quilt groups I belongs to on-line.

You'll also see some of the Raven Challenge Postcards. I participated in this challenge as well. I blogged about it somewhere in the older posts.

I have been knitting more than anything for the last couple of years. I do keep my hand in quilting with challenges like the Raven card I did with QA and the Slice Quilt and the Baggos I do with the Fiber Pirates. Which reminds me I have to do a quilt for the Coffee Challenge with the Quilt Mavericks. It's due next week.

Here's part of a challenge we did over to the Fiber Pirates, it's my section of a slice quilt. Here's the Raven Challenge Postcard from the Quilt Arts group.

Gratitude for the Quilt Mavericks

I belong to an on-line quilt group called the Quilt Mavericks. Our motto is "My Quilt, My Rules." They are a wonderfully irreverent, bright, talented group of women and men who have inspired me and carried me through a horrible time in my life when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. They have caused me to think, laugh, love, learn and expand my quilting horizons. I just want to express my gratitude to all of the Quilt Mavericks for being a part of my life.

The reason I am writing this up is because one of our members has had the week from Hell and the outpouring of compassion, information and prayers for Luana (owner of eQuilter)and her family at this time of trial has amazed and humbled me. This is the evidence that makes me appreciate them all so very much.

Since I am not sure that I tell the people that mean the most to me how much I appreciate them, I am writing this post today as a public way of expressing how much I appreciate all those in my life who bring so much to it.

Thank you all for being there.

Let's Collect Old Calendars and Ceremoniously Burn 2008, Such a Year We Should Never Have Again.

The Title of this blog is a quote from my friend and fellow Quilt Maverick, Margaret Ball. It sorta sums up 2008 for so many of the friends that I love and admire.

I am that sorry for the delay in wishing you a great New Year in 2009. I for one, am very glad that 2008 is now behind us. I know it's been a rough year for so many. I am grateful that this year wasn't the absolute worst for me, but with the election and the economy crisis, I am very glad that it's over.

I don't do resolutions, they are more in the way of guidelines, as it were. I want to continue to learn something new everyday. I want to be a nicer person. I want to continue to de-clutter my life.

Take care of yourselves, everyone, I hope and pray that you have a better 2009.