collected quilts

I'm up on the third floor working on this blog before it gets too hot up here. There are lots of good things about living in a hundred year old home, but the bad part is no central air conditioning! It's been about 30 degrees celcius everyday for the past three weeks so it can get pretty hot up here!

Over the years I have collected a few antique quilts. Unfortunately, none of these quilts have any info on the back, a good reminder for me to remember to include name of quilt pattern, quilter's name and year made on a label on the back.

This one is machine pieced and hand quilted. It was in perfect condition when I bought it. It now has a few nibbles on the binding from when I had the hampster cage too close to it. The hampster is thankfully long gone!

This one has some damage on it but I love the colours!

This quilt is all hand pieced from strips of satin, something I would never attempt because it's so slippery.

This one is just stripped of fabrics from the 30's and 40's that someone has sewn together.

clear lake

Hi, I took a break from quilting the beginning of July for 10 wonderful days in Riding Mountain National Park, in the town of Wasagaming on Clear Lake. We stay in a two bedroom motel unit with with a full kitchen, living room and eating area so we have lots of space. This year the weather was so warm we didn't spend much time indoors, we were either in the pool or by the lake. My husband bought an IPhone this year and is enjoying taking photos with it, so I am posting his pictures, which turned out much better than mine.

 We've been coming to Clear Lake for holidays for 13 years, the kids were 8 and 6 the first time.

 There is a flea market every weekend and I was hoping to find something to add to my turquoise collection, I found it, but it was too large to fit in the car. It would have looked great in our house!

When we walk out our back door, in the evenings we usually stop for an ice cream cone and walk across the road to the lake. Isn't it beautiful!

                                   The beach on Canada Day, usually it's not that full!

My sister and her three kids stay in the unit next door so we do lots of crafts. In this photo they are adding the finishing touches to some tie dye shirts. 

 

The group wearing the finished tie dye shirts and showing off their latest craft!

Pool time!

Deep Bay 

kaleidoscopes, jeans and mayville

In 2001 the group of us made a "stack and wack" Kaleidoscope quilt. We were to look for fabric that had a repetetive pattern, which for some reason took me to every quilt store in Winnipeg. Most of the women chose a bright floral pattern, which worked out quite nicely. Not me, I ended up choosing tropical birds.

It's hard to tell but when I stacked, wacked and then sewed each pinwheel I ended up with mutilated birds, nicknaming this quilt Buzzard Butts and Birdie Beaks. I did quilt it but as you can see never did bind it. It is without a doubt the ugliest quilt I have ever made.



You can see the buzzard butts in this one!

During the year I made a jean and flannel picnic blanket. I had a bunch of our old jeans and purchased some nice flannels on a trip to Grand Forks. Using a patch from one of my son's jeans that had the little pocket makes it special.

The backing is flannel, too but I didn't put any batting in it, it would have been to hard to sew.

By 2002, we were meeting for out 9th weekend and we had many new women quilting with us so we decided to repeat the Log Cabin. Kathy and I taught this weekend. I made this Log Cabin Queen size for our bed.

This one has been on our bed for quite awhile and has faded somewhat. I made the flower and leaf pillows to match.

There was a class taught on paper piecing in 2003 and I think that was the only year that I missed the weeked. The following year the Rag Time Flannel quilt was taught. I used the same basic pattern but did not have the hand cut fringe parts, too much cutting for me.

This my favourite lap quil,t it is very soft and cuddly. I used chenile, and regular cotton on top and flannel backing. I bought the fabric in Mayville, North Dakota. It's a really cute little town with a huge quilt shop, Faye's Hen House. The pattern reminded me of the fields of canola and flax that were in bloom at the time, so I have called this quilt Mayville in memory of a wonderul trip.

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