The Scrappy Quilter

My blog has moved

Our website started anew yesterday and the blogs have moved to a new location:

Here is the new link: http://www.mykawartha.com/blog/156702

I hope to meet you there!

Lois

Who says patchwork has to go on a bed?

One of the tiniest pioneer houses at Kawartha Settlers Village seemed to hold all the "one of these things is not like the other" creations at the show in Bobcaygeon last month. You've already seen the table topper modeled after a Tiffany lamp and a pair of patchwork clown suits.

Now you're looking at something a little smaller.

Josephine Foot made this evening bag with a crazy patchwork design and it hung on a hook in one of the upstairs bedrooms at the show.

"This is for a friend's son's wedding, made from scraps of upholstery fabric and again another experiment," she wrote on the tag pinned to one side.She hand and machine quilted the small bag and added the charming button for additional colour.

Call it an experiment; I call it an original. Love it!

Tiffany's Copy

It's not often that you see a quilt and its inspiration side by side at a show. However, that's what we saw at the Kawartha Settlers Village show in Bobcaygeon last month.

Connie Salome created this table topper to match her friend's Tiffany lamp. A photo sitting next to this quilt shows how close this one is to the original.

Well done, Connie. What a wonderful, colourful accent to your friend's home.

What to do with those sweaty T-shirts?

Last weekend, I participated in my first community run in years, although I admit that I walked and that I took the shorter route. The event was a fundraiser for Homegrown Homes, organized by the congregation of St. John's Church in Ida, along with the staff at the Running Room. It was very well done with lots of support and delicious local cuisine at the finish line.
As usual, everyone received a T-shirt and a bag with snacks and other treats. In this case, the kit came with a bag of beans with a recipe for turning them into maple baked beans. But I digress.
If you're a runner, you end up with an endless supply of T-shirts -- the ones with the event name on the front and a list of sponsors on the back. What can you do with them all?
Another running supply store in town has one solution: T-shirt quilts!
Runner's Life will take 35 of your favourite race T-shirts and turn it into a bed cover with your choice of border and backing, all for $400. They welcome runners to stop by the store in Peterborough to check out samples.
To find out more, log onto runnerslife.ca or call 876-8960.
Perhaps I should share this tip with my friend Eloise who wants to do something similar with all her protest T-shirts. To each her own, right?

A taste of Japan

Not only is the Peterborough Centennial Museum and Archives showing its quilt collection over the next few months, its staff is also bringing in artist Helen Fujiki to speak on Nov. 8.

Entitled "Japan Through the Eye of a Quilter," the event is being billed as an inspiring and refreshing talk that will cover the original five quilt masters of Japan. Ms Fujiki will also share many of her own creations, made in a style she calls

Fuji Wa (a Broderie Perse technique that combines machine and hand appliqué), according to the event's poster.

Tickets cost $5 so order ahead of time at 743-5180.

It will definitely be worth it.

Quilt stories at the Peterborough museum

Last year, I was fortunate to catch a session where Marie O'Connor pulled several of the Peterborough Centennial Museum and Archives quilts from storage and showed them to a group of school children.
She had them going over the stitches with magnifying glasses and explaining the various patterns, plus the fascinating stories behind each quilt.
Now we all get to be those kids as the museum begins the exhibit Quilt Stories: A Stitch in Time on Sunday.
The show  features many rarely seen quilts from the Museum’s permanent collection.  Excerpts from the press release give a sense of the focus of the exhibit:
"Every quilt has a unique story.  Who made it?  What were living conditions like for the maker?  What was the significance of the pattern used?
Quilts are snapshots in time, reflective of their own history - where and when they were made and who made them.
Quilts commemorated and celebrated life’s major milestones.  They were handed down from generation to generation, preserving our connections to the past and reminding us from where we came.”
Now most quilters know that, but it's great to see that more people will get a chance to learn more about this art form. The quilts will be on display -- draped over bed frames and hung above them -- until Jan. 4 so make plans to get in to see them.
The museum's programming assistant Jon Oldham kindly shared a couple of photos from the exhibit's setup, so you can see there are some vintage log cabins, pinwheels and appliqués.

The museum is on Hunter Street East, at the top of Armour Hill. It's open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays, Sundays and Public Holidays, noon to 5 p.m.  Admission is by donation, with free parking and an accessible entrance.

Enjoy!

I love it, yeah, yeah, yeah

Each Thursday, a dozen women meet over Diet Coke and decaffeinated coffee at a Peterborough restaurant and munch on snacks as we catch up on each person's news. It's an eclectic group of retired teachers and nurses, plus the rest of us who still work -- a bus driver, home daycare operator, clerk, etc.

Four of us quilt, so the topic comes up regularly. Back in July, we were celebrating non-quilter Charmaine Prole's birthday when Cathy Tweedle presented her with an extraordinary gift -- a Beatles quilt.

If your children went to James Strath Public School, they will know that Mrs. Prole is a huge Beatles fan and would run off with Paul McCartney any day, if only he would ask! She taught music for 30 years and just retired three years ago with no regrets.

This gift left her speechless and overwhelmed with gratitude. She ran her hands over its various themed fabrics and marveled at its colours. Cathy bought the kit while visiting family in the United States and assembled it over several months. The centre panel mirrors a Beatles album cover (I'm not enough of a fan to know which one!) and the other fabrics all relate to the band's movies and music.

Charmaine displays it proudly in her home. Her only regret is that Paul McCartney's image appears on her husband's side of the bed, not hers. She always says that with a deep sigh. Then she smiles and talks about how happy she is to have such a kind friend as Cathy. She is lucky indeed.

Hankerchieves given new life

I had to leave the Trent Evening Quilters October meeting early, so I only heard this story briefly and literally snapped a photo while going out the door. I didn't get the name of the woman who did this work, so if anyone could share it, I would like to give her credit for this wonderful creation.

Here's what I caught: an elderly woman gave a set of beautifully stitched hankerchieves to a Douro quilter. She finished the embroidery on some of them and wondered what to do with them to preserve them. Of course, a quilt was one of her options.

However, the cloths were all different sizes and didn't fit together right. The artist overcame the challenge, added borders where needed and created this masterpiece.

Pretty impressive!

A few upcoming shows

Get out your calendar and mark down the following dates:

• The Peterborough Centennial Museum and Archives is hosting  "Quilt Stories - A Stitch in Time" from Oct. 25 to Jan. 4, showing quilts from its collection that usually remain in storage. More details on that once I learn more.

• Kate Hyde has a show entitled Journeys with a Stitch at the Art Gallery of Peterborough from Nov. 6 to Jan. 3 in the stairwell gallery. According to fellow artist Sabine Scanlon, Kate has taken quilts and embellished them.

• This Friday night, the same art gallery is hosting its Mystery Art Grab event, describing it as zany and new. You can buy 10-inch art pieces without knowing who created it. I was asked to enter a quilted item at the last moment and didn't have time to get one done. However, I am going to see what did get submitted!

• And the ever-popular Trent Evening Quilters' quilt-in at Trent University will be held March 27/28, 2010. Now that's looking ahead. It's the annual show where you can watch the sewers assemble their projects as they camp out at Champlain College's Great Hall for two days. It's always fun.
Looking forward to seeing you at any or all of these events...

Donna's got attitude alright!

Flashing back to the Trent Evening Quilters' meeting of Oct. 1, Donna Carnrite surprised us all when she showed us her 'attitude scarf.' Yup, that is a pair of fabric breasts at the end of a scarf.

She turned to a corner to put it around her neck then spun to face us and our laughter. What a statement!

Donna and others learned how to make this 'scarf' at Birgit's Sewing Stop on Water Street in Peterborough. (That's where Birgit's Brigade meets each Tuesday to make quilts for children staying at the Peterborough hospital.)

The workshop prompted quite a discussion between the ladies about their breasts, Donna reports. If you look closely, you'll see the detail in the design includes a reversed suction cup for a nipple. That is a new way to embellish fabric art!

Donna shared a couple of stories about how a couple of the designs didn't work out as planned. One woman embroidered 'Patriotic Gramma' around her 'nipple' however the P got sewn into the seam allowance and she laughed when she realized the wording could have been misinterpreted to sound like 'erotic Gramma.' That was not the effect she was looking for.

Another sewer stitched a pattern onto her cloth breasts that came off looking like a bizarre tattoo. Oops.

When Donna was done modeling her creation at Show and Tell, the next quilter didn't want to follow such a presentation. Can you blame her?