Scraps in Spring

I have been working on hexagons all winter long. I have plans to make a bag. I am close to having the 2 halves done. I will have to layer and quilt, so still lots to do. 

I have gone to Quilt Canada in Vancouver BC this week. I packed a few more to baste and sew while I am away. I have a quilt in the National Juried show so I have to go check it out in person. 

A big step on the string scrap quilt got done this week. I made my map of colours. I also have key as to how many blocks of the colours I need. So now it will be quicker to get to the sewing. 

The yellow strings got done. Now with the key I can match up the other colour too. 

I am a little behind. Yes, still on April's Yellow. I have so much more pink for May still to do. Now for June we are going Teal/Turquoise , love that colour and I have a lot of scraps in it. 

I also did some 6" poverty piecing blocks too. I was close to getting some pink ones done but they are not ironed and ready for photos yet. Next week. 

I will add this to Soscrappy's link when I get home. 

Monday Design Wall

I have enough blocks to still do 2 more slab quilts. Here is the 3rd quilt. I hope to get the top together in a day or 2. I am working on Charity quilts for the CQA Canada's Big Quilt Bee. They asked us to make slab blocks, quilt tops or finished quilts. Then the finished quilts will be given to Ronald McDonald House for sick kids. The quilts are due by the end of the month, so I have lots left to do. 

I have added this to Design Wall Monday

Canadian National Juried Quilt Show

I have just found out that they have posted the winners and photos of the winners in the CQA  National Juried Quilt Show (NJS) .

My quilt Bounce Ball is in the collection. Some of the other winners I have known for year so it is great to see what their quilts look like too.

I am waiting for my quilt to come home still. I got word that it is in the mail. Please come home safely.

Now to come up with a new quilt for the NJS 2013. It will be 25 years. The show will be in Penticton, BC May 16 to 18 2013. I think I might have to go to the show that year as it is in driving distance.

Bouncy Ball

Bouncy Ball by Cathy Tomm

This week is Quilt Canada and it is in Halifax N.S.. I got a quilt finished and entered in the Canadian National Juried Show back in February this year. The show opened to the public yesterday (I forgot) so now I can show you my quilt. I named it Bouncy Ball. Only my quilt is going to the show not me. I am home on soccer duty.

Artist statement: My Dog and I have discovered the joy of competitive agility together. Our new found passion, that is as fun and fast as a bouncy ball. His favorite toy to train with is a Hol-ee Rooler, a ball with large holes made in a rainbow of colours. I chose the traditional block, the Greek Square, to convey the round ball shape with its many holes. Pieced with scraps and freehand quilted on my long arm machine. Hol-ee Roller is a resisted trademark of the J.W. Pet Company, Inc.

Width 72" and Height 96"

 I used a wool batt and did lots of different quilting patterns on it. I have not hear if it won any prizes, I have a few friends at Quilt Canada so I think they would have told me if I had gotten any.  That is OK. I have gotten many prizes in the past years. I think this was my 12th year I have quilts at the Canadian National Juried Show. Friday night update: my friend Kathy says she saw a ribbon on it today. Now to wait and see what. Thanks Kathy

Now some of you in blog land maybe thinking 'did I see you start this'. Yes. I did a few blocks in January and February for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge 2012. I was loving it so much I keep sewing and did the quilt very very quickly. I may have to add this to our Saturday Scrap links that we do each week.

Just a sample of some of the quilting I did.

Lex and Cathy getting there Agility Dog of Canada title.

It was only last month that Lex and I got our first title in Agility. This weekend in Medicine Hat many Agility friends are competing in the Regional for Alberta and NWT. I wish them luck and know I am thinking about you, keep on course fast and the rails up.  We are not ready do that level of competition.

Good News Day

Blue Days of Summer 2011

I just got some very good news from Kathy Wylie. I have a new quilt accepted into the Canadian Quilter Association's  National Juried Show. This photo is my entry from last years National Juried show.  I can not show you this years quilt yet, you will have to wait till May 29th. The National Juried Show opens May 29 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. You can go check out more about Quilt Canada. I have a good friend who moved to Halifax last year (her husband got transferred) but I do not think I will be going to see her or the National Show.

Now you know, I have been working on something and not showing you. Sorry. I also have started my Edmonton and District Quilter's Guild year end Challenge. I will not be able to show you that till mid June. It is so hard not to show you the bits a pieces as I make it. I have been taking photos as I go and can show you later how or why I did this or that.

So, if it looks like I am not getting much sewing done, maybe it is a competition quilt I am working on. Or I am busy with the dog and horses.

Flower Box Quilt

I missed showing off this quilt. I made this quilt this past summer and fall and I was not keeping up with blogging at the time. I forgot to show you this quilt. I called it Flower Box.

I bought many of the fabrics at Quilt Canada in Calgary in May of 2010. There was a bundle of fat quarters. I was not sure what I was going to do with the fabric - while make a quilt, but what?  I decided to frame the floral with some strips I had already, in the attic windows block.

                                       

Quilting close up.

Here I am around Christmas all rapped up in my quilt. The dog at my feet. 

Mail and Quilts

My Blue Days of Summer quilt should be on the way home in the mail. BUT we are at the beginning of a mail strike. They plan to do rotating strikes but I am worried. Wishing my quilt was home already. My quilt was at Quilt Canada this past week and is normally mailed home on Monday. In past years it has made it home by Wed or Thru by express post. Thur is here and going and no quilt yet.

Help wish it home.

Blue Days update from yesterday

I have an update on my Blue Days of Summer quilt. My friend Dawna is in London ON at the National Juried Show and tells me, my quilt got a ribbon. I got third place in the class it was in. Wow, I like this quilt but I really did not think it would get a ribbon.  I will have another ribbon to add to my wall.

OK now to work on next year's quilt. Not sure I have time this month to start something new but maybe this summer.

Blue Days Of Summer

 This quilt is currently on display at the Canadian National Juried Show in London ON this week. The National Juried Show opening was last night. Today it is open to the public to view. I can now show my quilt to you.

I named the quilt Blue Days of Summer, it is about 60 by 80 inches. I did most of the indigo dying in the summer of 2001, when my youngest was a new born. He is now 10 this year. This winter I got digging in a box of fabric and found all my Indigo fabrics. I had hand stitched many of the fabrics when I was pregnant. A few fabrics were folded and clapped to get the patterns. Others were hand stitched to get the pattern into the cloth. The hours of hand stitching I did was enormous, and all the hand stitching comes out after dying it.   

 This piece was rapped with large broccoli elastic bans, then dyed. I did the small pebble quilting around the hole. I think of these as Pot Holes in the Garden Path. I have a name for almost all of the pieces of fabric.

This piece of fabric was folded once and hand stitched. I think it looks like Garden Trellis, you know the diamonds.  I quilted it with a curly vein that I like to do on my long arm.

Thank You for viewing my quilt. I want you to know this quilt is one of the quilts that got my back on track this winter. When I found the fabrics in the box I just got them out to play. In a matter of a day I had desired to sew them together and make a lap quilt. So over the Christmas holidays this is what I worked on. I got it quilted in early January in time to still enter NJS.

PS I do not know who won yet at the National Juried Show. If you find out let me know. Other else I have to wait til my quilt is home to find out or till the CQA posts the winners on their web site.

Quilt Canada Booth 2010

My good friend Sharon took some photos of me and my friend Margie Davidson at our sales booth in Calgary. We had the best booth with lots of colour packed in a little space. Back in Aug last year Margie asked me if we should share a booth to sell our dyed and painted fabric. Well we did it. We had an incredible amount of fabric packed in to our 10 foot booth. We always had a people in our booth.
Here is both Margie and I. Margie is wearing one of her scarfs that she has dyed and block printed. Behind Margie and I is some of her fabric.

I am not sure if I will travel to another Quilt Canada to sell fabric. This time it was close to home (3hr) next time it is far far away and I would have to fly. Not sure it would be worth it to travel that far. You may see me at more local Quilt shows.

Quilt Canada 2010

I got home from Quilt Canada yesterday. My Van is not yet fully unpacked. I drove down last week and was a speaker in the Pre conferance on the Monday and Tuesday. On Monday afternoon I did my talk about my long arm quilting business and then had to rush off to unload my van for the Merchants Mall. It all went well but there was hardly time to breath. Tuesday I spook again but this time it was about being an artist. We had four of us speaking and not alot of time each. As many of the other ladies had said some of the same things I was going to talk about, I decided to touch on getting out of a artist funk.
Tuesday afternoon, I spend my time setting up my booth. My mom and friend Deb were great help as they finished putting price tags on my fabric. Above is a basket of snow dyed fabric, it is one of four baskets I took with me. I had many other things to sell as well.
This is a photo of some of the pole wrapped fabric I dyed for my booth.

So the booth went well. We always had people in our booth. Some of the other merchants were asking why we were always busy. We did have a very brightly coloured booth with lots to see. I guess we did OK. I had one day I did not sell very much. Not sure why. The others days were better.

Here is a photo of dollies, napkins, thread, cheese cloth and other cotton bits, I dyed for a fiber kit. Here is some wool I dyed for the booth. I use Fast Acid dyes for the wool.

I did not take a photo of the booth but a friend did. I hope to post the photo later. I took many photos of some of the art quilts but these are for personal use only and I am not able to post the photos. At the National Juried show we were not allowed to take any photos but we could buy the catalog which is great and I got my copy. The art quilts were all great. There was so much to see. It was hard to get away from the booth so that I could see the quilts.

Thank you to the Calgary people that worked so hard on a great show. Thank you to the CQA and it's people to support this show. I had worked on the Quilt Canada back in 2002 when it was in Edmonton and I know what it is like to work for weeks preparing for the shows. You all did a great job. Thank You