quilt retreats at gimli

s we started tp plan for our Quilt Retreat for 2008, someone realized that this was our 15th year of quilting together. Normally we quilt at the community centre, the women are all great cooks so we plan out the meals and everyone brings something. The food is as much fun as the sewing. But the preparing and clean up takes time so we decided we would celebrate by letting someone else do the cooking. We went to resort in Gimli, Manitoba, right on the beach. They gave us a large conference room with nice window to use for sewing, brought us coffee and snacks and at breakfast, lunch and supper we just walked down the hall and enjoyed the food. We thought we would do this just once but we've been there 4 times so far, this fall will be the 5th.

At the retreat in 2008 I spent the weekend cutting and sewing the coloured blocks for this quilt, which I call Beach Glass.

In 2009 I bought all the fabric for this quilt in Vancouver and made this wall hanging. It's called Noriko, the middle name of a friend. I especially love the border fabric.

I had enough fabric left to make a second one, something I've never done. This time I only used 3 fabrics in each square.

In 2010 I decided I'd better sew all my squares together for my Beach Glass Quilt, so I bought white fabric with green dots and sewed it all together.

It's a really simple pattern but it turned out to be one of my favourite quilts. I had someone do the machine quilting and if you look closely you can see the flower pattern.

In 2011 I cut the fabrics out before retreat so I could get more done and I acually managed to sew the tops of a wallhanging and a lap quilt.

I call the wall hanging Amish lava lamps, since th Amish quilt mostly with solid colours.

This is the lap quilt, it is not named yet. I used fabrics from a collection called moonlight garden so that might become the name.

      I decided to free motion quilt this myself, as you can see it's far from perfect but not too bad.

These are some of my quilting friends at retreat.

                          

a day at the fair

Hi, my best friend Mona came in from Vancouver with her sister last week to visit their dad, who lives 3 houses down from my mom, that's how we became best friends! Anyway, besides the visit, she also came to enter some items in the St. Vital Agricultural Fair, which has been going on for over a hundred years. You can enter all kinds of things, vegetables and flowers that you've grown, baking and all kinds of handicrafts. So the three of us, plus a good friend entered some things and all four of us actually won some ribbons, and a little cash!

I won first place in the wall hanging category for this felt quilt.

I won second place in the fancy cushion category, you can see part of my friend's sunflower cushion which won third prize.

I won third prize in the watercolour category for this columbine that I painted last summer at Clear Lake.

Mona won first prize in the applique quilt category. When I took this photo she told me it better not end up on by blog, but the quilt is so beautiful it had to!

Mona's first prize quilt block, mine didn't win anything! Her's was much better.

Our friend's first prize cake in the cake decorating category, looks good enough to eat!

Mona's sisters honourable mention watercolour!

block of the month group

Many of the women I quilt with at our quilt weekends live in the same neighbourhood that I do. We had enjoyed getting together more often when we made the mystery quilt so we decided to each make a block of the month sampler quilt. In the fall of 2006 we got together at someone's home and they showed us how to make a block of their choice. We didn't sew that evening, but had some great refreshments. All of the quilting women happen to be great cooks and bakers! The next month we'd go to someone else's house, bring the square we had completed to show everyone and learn the next square. There were twelve of us so in a year we had enough squares for a wall hanging, or by adding borders, making a lap quilt. Everyone chose a completely different colour scheme.

This one is done by paper piecing.

I added a lace doilly to the "shelf" on this one.

The finished wall hanging! I entered it in the St. Vital Agricultural Fair last year and won first prize in the small quilt category! The square shown below was the hardest one, each petal of the hydrangea was folded and stitched on.

The following year we decided that each month the hostess would teach the group a square and then give instructions, and sometimes the fabric so that each person would make them a square or two. The wall hanging below is a version of the New York Beauty. Each quilter made me two of the inside squares and one border square. It is made from all batik fabrics and is one of my favourite quilts. It would have never gotten made without all the help! 

The following year I got them to hand applique this one, first I had to teach myself, though many of the group already knew how to. I bought the background fabric and each person used their own fabric for the flowers. I love this wall hanging, too and of course I would have never done all of these myself!

I machine quilted this wall hanging, using free motion around the flowers and leaves on the border.

 The next year we had about 16 quilters so it took us a year and a half to get everyone's squares done. I haven't finished sewing this one together yet. I found a photo of this quilt in a quilting magazine but couldn't find the pattern, so I make my own paper pieced pattern, bought the fabrics and some of the group made more than one of these for squares for me.

After we finished this year many of the group decided it was time to do something else, but we haven't decided what yet. Several of the women have moved out of the city and some have gotten too busy to get together once a month. Each month several women brought completed quilts to show us, which was very inspiring. These are photos of our windup brunch.

felted wool quilts

Wow, we're having another cool day, so I'm back on the third floor working on this blog. Many years ago I became fascinated with felted wool, which is really dense wool that you can cut into shapes and it doesn't fray. I had seen lots of wool patterns in Quilt Magazines but after searching all of Winnipeg I couldn't find any. I think I first found some 12 inch sheets of it in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Over the years I've done many felt wall hangings and small pieces that could be framed. It's much easier to find the wool now, but still no one has it in Winnipeg. I always pick some up at Quilt shows that have out of town fabric vendors.

I use rust coloured embroidery floss to do the blanket stitching on black fabric and black floss when stiching on lighter coloured fabrics. For the backing I either use black wool fabric or flannel, which is less expensive. I bought the wool for this light coloured wall hanging in Vancouver, I bought tons, because they had tons, I was like a kid in a candy store. I think they even called it wool candy. The pattern in a scaled down version of a pattern a friend was working on. I really like this quilt.

I worked on this wall hanging one winter, during Taylor's swimming lessons.

This is the wall hanging I'm working on completing right now. It was a block of the month quilt that I signed up for. I paid $12.95 and each month I got a flannel background, pattern and felt to make a square. There were 3 of them I didn't like so I never made them. Sometimes I didn't like the felt colours so I bleached some, dyed some or used leftovers from my little stash. I thought I had lost the squares, but thankfully they were hiding on the third floor. I recently sewed the blocks together, now I need to add borders and quilt. I think I started this about ten years ago!

another mystery and hole in the wall

Today is cloudy and cool, at least for this morning. It's been a full month of 30 degrees and sunshine which is great, except the third floor where my computer is, does not have any air conditioning. I see the sun is peeking out so I better get this going.

In the fall of 2005 alot of the ladies in the quilt group worked on Santa Banners to hang on their doors for Christmas, but my sister was pregnant with twins to arrive in November so I made 2 baby quilts instead.

They were under 5 lbs each and very tiny, in this photo they are both lying on one baby quilt! They are now almost seven years old and their quilts are still being used!

I had been looking for quilt patterns on the internet and came across one that was for a mystery quilt that I really liked. It made a wallhanging size. I printed out all the instructions as we needed them, so each week was a mystery to me, too. The first step had the material quantities and the first sewing instructions, so I bought my fabric and sewed that step and then taught it to the group. We got together at someone's house from the group every couple of weeks and I would teach them the next step. My quilting friend from BC wanted to make it, too. So I sent her all the steps and she followed along with us and was able to join us for one of our last meetings, bringing her finished quilt top with her.

This is a photo of my finished quilthanging on the front porch. Below are a few of the others that were made. Some of the photos were taken before they were completed.

And this is our family photo taken that year with the mystery quilt hanging in the background.

In 2006 several iron on applique wallhangings were options we could make, or we could work on our own projects. I had seen this Hole in the Wall pattern and just loved it. So this is what I made at our community club retreat in 2006.

I always change the colour from the pattern, but I didn't this time, unfortunately it matches nothing in my house. But I'm glad I made it anyway.