front porch wall hangings

I received a beautiful Mennonite blanket box many years ago, I think it may be 100 years old. It is used as my livingroom coffee table, and inside it I store all my seasonal wall hangings that take turns hanging on my front porch.

These are some of them...

crazy quilting and mother/daughter weekend

Somewhere in the years of quilting as a group, we decided we needed a name and picked Riverview Crazy Quilters. Quilting had always been associated with the poorer classes of people, afterall the quilts were orginally made from old clothing. It became a popular pastime with the richer women in the early 1900's but they used pieces of finer fabrics like velvet, satin and silk. The pieces were sewn onto a muslin backing and often eleborate embroidery was added. 

On our quilting weekend in 1999 some of us attempted to do some crazying quilting. I made two pillows. Sewing those slippery fabrics was quite a challenge!

In the fall of 2000 we decided to do a mother/daughter weekend. I had found a cute pattern and volunteered to teach this weekend. We made wallhangings representing our families. Each gingerbread like person represents one of members in our family.

this is the one that Taylor and I made.



 These photos were taken twelve years ago, so all of our beautful daughters are now around 20 years old, but of course none of us mothers have aged a bit!

I made this wall hanging for Barry's dad and mom. I gave this in celebration of Dad's 70th birthday. Each of the three hearts represents one of their adult children and their spouse, the 7 gingerbread people each represent one of the grandchildren. On the back of the hearts I printed each marriage date, on the back of the gingerbread kids is the name and date of birth of each grandchild. 

bear paw, 1930, amish 4patch

At our quilt weekend in 1998 we each made a Bear Paw Quilt. Instead of making one large quilt I decided to made two smaller ones. I made a lap size quilt for my mother-in-law and a twin size quilt for my nephew.

The same year Taylor and I made a simple quilt using 1930's reproduction fabric. I cut the squares and she did the sewing, it was a lot of fun! I finished it with prairie points around the border and started to hand quilt daisies in the white squares. When I took this photo I realized I hadn't finished doing them, so I hope to complete all the daisies this summer. I haven't hand quilted in quite a few years!

If my memory is correct we made an Amish 4patch in the fall of 1999. I think I taught this quilt. Again we all used solid colour fabric as the Amish do. Traditionally one of the squares would be facing the wrong direction. As you can see that was no problem for me, I managed to mix up a few, not even on purpose. This is a wall-hanging size, I hand quilted it but never put the binding on it. That will be another summer project!

our big moves

One beautiful winter day, Barry and I took a drive that forever changed our lives. It was a beautiful snowy day as we drove for the first time through the neighbourhood of Riverview. We couldn't believe how lovely all the homes were! We had to live here. Fortunately, there was one two bedroom bungalow for sale, and a few months later in 1985 we took possession and moved in.

It had been neglected in the last couple of years, the yard was overgrown, and it needed some TLC inside. We had the oak floors refinished, painted the brown kichen cupboards and zbrick white, replaced the dingy kitchen linoleum with black and white IKEA tiles and it was home! The house had been built in 1925 for Mr. and Mrs. Williams and their sons Les and Don. Mr. Williams passed away a few years later but Les and his mom lived there for 58 years! There had been only one other owner before it became ours! We were thrilled that we were be able to meet Les and his mom, Les had the most wonderful memories to share with us.

In 1990 our TV room became a nursery when our daughter Taylor arrived. Barry moved our Graphic Design studio into the basement, that he had built, when Taylor was one. Eight months later we added another baby to the nursery when our son Carson arrived. This photo is taken in the backyard, Barry built the trellis in the back and I cut Bessie the cow out of plywood.

                                                    Carson in the side yard

the basement Barry built, Christmas Village wall hanging

Our livingroom with the 1930's couch I bought in 1977, the first piece of funiture I ever bought!

Taylor, in face paint, beside our first Muckle Plum tree

We had tons of fun in our dream dollhouse, birthday parties, tea parties and family meals. We were very blessed to live there, but finally we were feeling a bit tight. We loved our neighbourhood and neighbours, so much so that we bought a bigger house across the backlane. In the summer of 1997 we moved into our 'new' even older home, a four bedroom, 3-storey house built in 1916. The kids each got their own bedroom, Barry got an office with a view on the second floor and I got a quilting room on the third floor. But as every quilter knows the light is best for sewing in the diningroom , so the quilting room is not used as much as it should be. I'm working on changing that.

                             Our first family photo infront of the "new" house, fall 1997

quilt show

Going through my photo albums has really been alot of fun. These are a few of the photos taken at our first Riverview Quilt show in 1997. We really enjoyed all the quilt shows we went to and finally decided we were ready to host our own. It was lots of work transforming the community club into a quilt show, but we had lots of volunteers. 

We put an ad in our local newsletter asking people to drop quilts off to my house that they would lend us for the show, and we got a great response from the community. We had a variety of old and new quilts on display. 

We set up an area with tables and chairs and served angel food cake and tea. I wish I could remember more details but it seems to me we set up, had the show and took everything down all on the same day!

This is the beautiful pinwheel we made to for a raffle draw, the proceeds went to the club.