Throwback Thursday: Frostbite

I saw this little lap quilt or wallhanging in a quilt shop in a mall in Lethbridge, Alberta, in 2003 or 2004.  Too cute!  Too unique! Sold! I bought the pattern, and the fabrics right there and then to create my own, which I finished in September 2004.  I have mainly used it as a perched-on-the-top-of-the-couch quilt.

The pine cones are ones I've found on my walks with Rocco around the 'hood. They come like that with the white tips!  They're on huge pine trees, trees with 14" long needles! I think they are Slash Pines, and native to this area, abundant before the Europeans came and messed with things...why do white men always need to mess with things... nvm I'll just stick with my white snowmen for now.

And thus began a love affair with wool appliqué, and wool felting.  I made a couple of table centre mats out of wool, and then designed one of my own.  I kitted and taught the class for the one I designed at a Professional Development Day for teachers back when sessions on personal wellness were on offer.  When I left teaching, only sessions pertinent to subject area and education-related were allowed (insert grouchy face).

Back to frost bitten snowman faces.  It's been folded up in the closet for more than a year, so excuse the wrinkles.  Most of my Christmas quilts are here in Florida, so since we stayed home in Kingsville for Christmas this year, it didn't get used. Insert sad face.

Isn't it just the cutest? Get it? Frost bite?

I hand-appliquéd all the snowman heads with a blanket stitch using #8 coton perlé in black.  I used real bandaids and machine-blanket-stitched them on!  The noses are appliquéd with a running stitch.  This was my first experience with brushed cottons.  I FMQ-ed the snowflakes on the snowman heads.

I wish the sparkle and shimmer of the thread showed up better

All the quilting is done with Sulky Holoshimmer thread on my Bernina. For the line of snowflakes under the appliquéd letters, I think I drew the line down the centre, and marked the centre of the snowflakes with a vertical line, and then just went for it.

Under the Ott-Lite, trying to show the stitching in the border

This is before Leah Day and Angela Walters and all the online fabulous resources. I did have Kathy Sandbach's book for inspiration, however.  I didn't have a clue how to do swirls, but I wanted swirls of wind look in the borders and bigger fancier snowflakes so hopefully you can kind of see them in the photo above. I drew the horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines of the snowflakes, then FMQ-ed them and the little swoops around each one.  I did a jigsaw-style meander in the block backgrounds.

The back.  I sewed pieces together for down the side edge as the one piece of brushed cotton wasn't quite wide enough, and sewed the label into that strip as part of the backing.  I also put a sleeve on it as I do hang it sometimes.

Close-up of label

Hmm, didn't have a lot to say on the label really did I?!

It's really snuggly and soft.

Afterthought to the photo below:  I realized the morning after writing this post, so the day it published, that right around the finishing of this quilt, in September, 2004, my life was not exactly taking a right angle turn per se, but was getting to the right angle turn with a bit of a sharp curve...  What I mean is that Dayna, age 16, went to Houston TX in August 2004 with her good friend for 2.5 weeks (that's a story for another time) and during that trip got taken to Anna Maria Island, FL, for a few days.  That sparked our first family "fancy" vacation (actually flying somewhere, not camping) to stay in that very same condo on Anna Maria Island at Christmas that year.  Here I am, 11 and a bit years after that fateful life-changing vacation, photographing the quilt, that now lives in Florida... Love it when the fibers tell stories.

I think it's kind of funny that I'm photographing it on green grass today, so I had to take a shade shot by one of our palm trees:

The quilt measures 44.5 X 50.5"

That's a new bed that MacGyver spent a good chunk of his day digging and planting.  He put a couple of new things in there and in an extension of the front bed he did last week.  He says digging in this soil is a dream: it's pretty much pure sand.  He moved the jasmine and bromeliads from the front to this side bed.

Interesting that I'm currently working on a wool appliqué project!  This is being blanket-stitched appliquéd too, with coton perlé #8 in ivory.  It is inspired by a quilt I saw hanging at a Creative Stitches Show I went to not long after the snowman quilt was either done or in the works.  I sketched it from my head (no smart phone quick snaps then) when I got home.  I have been on the hunt for a couple of years to find the right shade of white/ivory wool to felt.  I finally found some in Guildcrafters in Detroit last summer.

Note the Crinum lily behind the quilt.  It blooms all year and is HUGE and smells DIVINE!  I call it a Jurassic Park lily, ha.  Such interesting and different southern flora compared to northern...

It takes a good 45-50 minutes to drive to yoga in Sarasota, so I can get one petal stitched on the way up and another on the way back home.  Don't worry: I'm not stitching and driving! LOL

I had to wait until things calmed down a bit around here to take these photos.  I was dog-sitting while Brandy's human, John, was at a Spring Training ball game with MacGyver.  Not a lot of sewing got done, needless to say, but we did all soak up some rays while I read my book and had my tea!

Panting pibbles, cooling their tummies on the tile

We girls (well Rocco may as well be a girl, he can be such a little princess) had a good afternoon together!

Linking up with Jen at A Quarter Inch From the Edge.  Lots of blasts from the past with great stories, so be sure to pop over there.

Christmas Blast From the Past

It rained overnight so I couldn't haul the Christmas quilt on our bed out onto the patio for a photo shoot; therefore the throwback is this wallhanging I started in 2001 and finished in 2006:

It measures 36 3/8 by 37", not quite square.

It is from Quilter's Newletter "Quilt It For Christmas" 2000.  I started the embroidery in 2001, according to my label, and finished the quilt in 2006.  The original in the magazine was done in redwork; I prefer blue, and besides I had quite a few scraps from my Snowmen and Mittens quilt I made, with each of my daughters doing the mitten strings embroidery on it, in 1996.  This one:

Love everything about this quilt. That pillow, you ask? Started stitching in 2004, finished in 2005. Yep, sneaking in a couple other Christmas throwbacks here, bahaha.

Back to the main subject:
I clearly remember where I was stitching the embroidery:  a bunch of it on a July camping trip to Touchwood Lake in northeastern Alberta with our daughters, my husband's brother and his wife, and their son, daughter and two little kids.  Although it poured rain nearly the entire weekend, we had a terrific time, lots of hilarity.  One of my all-time favourite photos is of my girls, fully clad in t-shirt and jeans (it was pretty cool in the bush where our campsite was), once I gave the "oh what the hell, go for it" answer they wanted, running Mach 6 into the lake!  By the time we'd walked down to the beach and we were in full-on sunshine, it was HOT!
Update!  Well, I had to find that photo, and here it is!  How I love it.

Ha: a photo of a photo.  Good memory: it was July!  Brianne was 15, Dayna 13. Good times.

Here is the back:

A Debbie Mumm print I have always loved.  Pieced back even back then! This is a scrap from my tree skirt (too bad I can't slip in a pic of that, but it's in Florida), and the label, pieced right into the backing.

I quilted it as the pattern did, putting the cross-hatching behind the embroidery (well worth the extra effort) and echoing a quarter inch from the edge along two sides of the triangles.  The pattern has 5 borders after the stitching; I had to make 6, adding in a 1/2" extra one so that the outer two triangle borders would fit.  I used a ton of different whites and ivories, now known as low volume prints, for the white triangles.  I have loved scrappy quilts from the get-go, and it shows.  The more fabric in a quilt, the better, IMHO.

The label:

In the bottom snowy layer of two of the trees on the label, I wrote "Embroidered 2001" and "Quilted 2006".  So happy I am a label-nut!

I brought this baby home in my carry-on from Florida, as that is where the bulk of my decorations are, since we haven't been in Canada for a Christmas since 2004, except for once in 2006!  The pillow was carried in my arms on the plane.  Yes, I was one of those annoying people I love to hate, who had 3 carry-on items, not TWO as they kept saying was federal law...my purse, my carry-on suitcase and that pillow.  Oopsie.

Of course, as soon as I laid the quilt down on the floor in front of the patio door for natural light photos, someone parked her furry butt on it within seconds, no lie.

Linking up with Jenn at A Quarter Inch from the Edge for TBT.  It's all Christmas over there so check it out!

I'll be back tomorrow with a new finish (or two if all goes to plan, well, not really plan, squirrels)...eeep!

Harvest Melody

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here in Canada it is a long weekend because today, Monday, is our Thanksgiving. Although not as big a holiday as is the American Thanksgiving in November--our favourite and biggest is Christmas-- we do still celebrate a time with family, good food, and giving thanks for so many many things.

I had another post all ready to go but then thought this quilt, a blast from the past, would be more appropriate for today.

This was a quilt on display in my former LQS, Lori's Country Cottage, in Sherwood Park, Alberta.  Lori's was one of the Top Ten shops in Quilt Sampler, Spring 2012.  The centre is a panel, and I believe they gave you a pattern sheet with instructions to complete the checkerboard and piano keys frame.  I remember collecting fat quarters and quarter metre cuts of various flannels in several local shops in and around the Edmonton area.  I made the quilt in 2005.

I FMQ-ed around the motifs and the frames in the panel, and then did ribbon-like swoops à la Kathy Sandbach, pumpkins and leaves in the piano keys.

I was known in my guild at the time for interesting backs, whether they were pieced with leftovers as was this one, and/or with interesting and as good a quality of fabric as on the top.  I still love to do both; I always check out the sales section in a quilt shop for potential backings.  I will buy 3-5 yards/metres depending on potential and price, no matter if I have a quilt in the works that needs a backing or not.  This was the first quilt that was 100% flannel front and back.  It is so cuddly!

I pieced the label as an integral part of the backing.

Closeup of quilting detail

I absolutely am in love to this day with the rich colours in this quilt.  You can see how well it has laundered, albeit pilled (flannel will do that).  It is on the couch each Fall for both Thanksgiving and for Fall.

One of my favourite blocks in the panel

Sadly, I did not record the designer information.  I do know that some of the flannels are Debbie Mumm, others are Nancy Halvorsen.  The quilt measures 43.75" X 61.5", a good cuddle size.

Speaking of Debbie Mumm, here is a little quilt made in 2003 from a pattern in one of her books.  It is hanging at my front door. I thought I'd include it today.

I was into the Sulky rayons and metallics back then (still love 'em).  The leaf blocks finish at 3"!
The quilt took longer than I anticipated for being so small, just 15.5 X 17.25".

Laid it in the morning sun so the quilting shows up better, all FMQ and embrodiered by hand

The back, a fun Halloween/Thanksgiving-esque print I believe from Fabricland:

And the label:

Hmm, had some tension issues with my FMQ then too!  Maybe it's not all Avril's fault! (I know it isn't)  I was taught that it's better to have your top thread pull slightly towards the back however, but areas of this are not so good...think my hands and foot speed were not in sync always by the looks of the sizes of the stitches.

I wish all my Canadian friends, family and followers a peaceful and happiness-full Thanksgiving, and for my international friends, the same wish for the first day of another week in October!  Now I'm off into yet another glorious Fall day here in southwestern Ontario to walk Rocco.  Above the sumac trees in the photo below, is, I believe, a huge Silver Maple.  I just love how these trees turn:  it looks like Mother Nature has dipped their tips into orange icing!

Blast From the Past

I brought a couple of quilts home from Dayna's last week to wash in our front-loading, large capacity washing machine.  Hers needed a little repair: four places, each about 2" long, had come undone in the hand-stitched binding.  So, after washing it, putting it in the dryer for 10 minutes to dry a bit, and then laying it out flat to finish drying, I repaired those places.  Only one outside pic today as it's raining.

This is the second quilt I have made her, and it has been well-loved over the years.  Our dogs and cats have slept on it, (she has slept with an animal since she was 3, maybe less!) and now her two cats sleep on it every night.  One corner got a little extra loving by one of her cats and is a tad chewed. . .

but thankfully, that has stopped.

I finished this quilt in March 2005, but spent the majority of 2004 working on it.  It's from WedgeWorks II, by Cheryl Phillips.  Our guild bought the book, a friend of mine came over one day, and we each made a block.  It is a way to make a 3-D Mariner's Compass block using folded wedges of fabric.  I still have that original block, ahem, yep another UFO, or orphan block!

Dayna has always loved purple.  I knew I wanted to use the pansy fabric as a focal fabric.  On a guild bus trip shop hop, I got some of the purple as well as the black.  The backing is a gorgeous brushed cotton.

SO much texture, love, love, love it

I quilted this quilt in thirds, see my post on that here, and I used a quilt basting spray.

I wanted some bling on the stars, so used Sulky metallics and holoshimmer threads.  I used Sulky rayon for the purple and the black areas.  My Bernina Artista 180, relatively new to me then, (bought on Grey Cup day, 2003) handled them all wonderfully.  It's quite heavily quilted.  I edge-stitch quilted the floral star, and then did a wavy line down the points of all 16 so the edges of the two purple star points "float" and can be lifted a bit.

A flower design of my own!!  Way back then!

I have loved feathers pretty much all my quilting life...

Trapunto would have helped the motif to "pop" more

Although I have not named all my quilts, I have labelled every one.  This one shows how long I have been piecing in the label as a part of the backing!! 

I did a fairly loose flower with some random leaves meander in the black border areas of the quilt.  I saw it in American Patchwork & Quilting magazine, can't recall what issue, but around 2004!

Ahh, quilty lushness.

I've loved looking after this quilt for a week, but it will go back home to Dayna tomorrow.