My Quilts

This is a quilt I made for my brother, Doug's office.  He lives on a property near Georgian Bay and this is the view after you walk for about 20 minutes along a woodlands path.  The distant hills are the end of the Niagara Escarpment.  I chose to do a wintry scene because it will be hung on a medium-green wall.  Doug gave me one word to help me design this quilt: Zen.  I hope that it will evoke peace and tranquility to everyone who looks at it.

Machine pieced using Caryl Bryer Fallert's "applipiecing" technique, machine quilted (with inspiration from Leah Day's "365 Days of Free Motion Quilting". Every seam is couched with sparkly yarns.

Insanity
(24" x 21 1/2") Started September 2007, completed June 2011

It's called "Insanity" because everyone I've shown this quilt to as I've been working on it
(and that's a LOT of people!) have asked "Are you crazy?!?!?". 
There are over 3,000 1/4" hexagons in this quilt, all pieced by hand.
 It's a reproduction of the centre of a quilt from 1810-25
which is currently in the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. 
(The original quilt was not done in miniature.) 
Rather than quilting this, I used Colonial Knots as the "tying". 
The edge is finished with another row of hexes folded over to the back and appliquéd down.
 
I am VERY happy that this quilt was juried into the
Houston International Quilt Festival "World of Beauty" show in October/November 2011.
Also, VERY happy that it's finished!

Hand Pieced, hand tied.

I made this quilt for a friend in England, using my "Mock Mola™" appliqué technique. 
She named him, and gave me permission to take him along
on our four-month spring tour around North America.  
We took pictures of him in many locations
and he kept everyone up to date on our travels by writing the tour blog. 
Kass made the journey to his new home in July 2010.

Machine quilted.

Requiem
(41 x 35") January 2010

In the summer of 2009 I attended the Ricky Tims Super Seminar in Lynnwood WA,
where I purchased a piece of Ricky's hand-dyed fabric.
It's been sitting there, ever since, awaiting inspiration. 
Using my Mock Mola technique (raw edge reverse appliqué),
my thoughts were drawn to the tragedy of our pine trees here in British Columbia,
decimated by the mountain pine beetle. This piece is the result.

Judy Morningstar has reviewed this piece:
"The piece is very yummy and strong. Great utilization of a spectacular fabric.
I like the contrast between the squares and circles,
and the diagonal line the red makes connecting both sides".

Machine quilted.

Australian Shadows
(65" x 52") March 2009

I've been collecting Australian Aboriginal prints for some time, and decided at a January quilting retreat to finally do something with them. This quilt is based on Colleen Wise's "Casting Shadows" technique.

Leah Day http://www.daystyledesigns.com/ has made a quilt very like this and is selling the pattern for it. It will be available on this website very soon.

Machine pieced and quilted.

Through a Lens
(27x24") February 2009

I fell in love with the background fabric
and imagined what it would look like under a microscope.
The result is a beaded and French knotted centre,
appliquéd on top of the original fabric

Machine pieced and quilted, hand embellished.

Constant Hill
24" x 24", May 2008

This is my first commissioned quilt, made for Rob Young's CD, called "Constant Hill". 
He is a singer/songwriter in Toronto.

Machine "appli-pieced", some hand appliqué, machine quilted.

Black and White and Bright All Over
Single Bed sized, July 2008

I've been collecting black and white fabrics for a long time. 
At my quilt group's retreat in 2008, I decided to finally use them,
with some of the brightest hand-dyes in my collection. 
It was originally going to be called "A La Main Left"
(for the squares dancing, and because I'm left-handed),
but somehow I forgot that when it came time to make the label.

I gave this quilt to my granddaughter in January 2012.

Machine pieced and quilted. 

I took a class at the Satin Moon with my friend Susan Purney-Mark, and this was the result.
 I really enjoyed working with these complimentary colours, and working entirely from my stash. 
Susan's technique is called Shattered Angles. It is one of the quilts in her new book on this technique called "Accent on Angles".

Machine pieced and quilted.

Philately No. 1
77" x 91", February 2008

5,120 1-inch squares machine sewn together from my scrap bag.
I didn't buy any fabric for this, except for the back.
So, why is it my scrap bag is STILL overflowing???
Therefore, there are more scrap quilts in my future, perhaps even made
in this very old traditional style: the postage stamp quilt.

Thanks to Rosemary Stieg in Pennsylvania for showing me her technique,
and to Gord Stengel from the Satin Moon Quilt shop in Victoria,
for his donation of scraps to the cause.

This quilt is featured on the cover of The Singing Quilter Songbook.

Machine pieced and quilted.

James A. Miller Quilt
70" x 81" (1905)
Made by Ladies Auxiliary, Childerhouse Presbyterian Church, Depot Harbour, Ontario

This is a 100 year old family quilt that was given to me by
my brother John for Christmas of 2006.
It has 833 signatures embroidered in white and red
on hand pieced "Double Anchor" pattern blocks. 
The quilt was a fundraiser to build the
Childerhouse Presbyterian Church in the now-ghost-town
of Depot Harbour, Ontario (near Parry Sound).
It has a number of my family's names, as well as hundreds more.
I wrote a song about it on "In the Heart of a Quilt" cd
called "My Grandfather's Brother".

A complete description of this quilt, including ALL of the names, can be found at
http://www.quiltindex.org/basicdisplaynew.php?kid=4-15-14

1519 silk hexagons, hand-pieced while we were driving on various tours between 2004 and 2006. I wanted to try the QuiltPatis technique of plastic re-usable templates, but didn't want to do a traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. Instead, I thought of Carol Shields' book "Larry's Party" and the hero's interest in garden mazes, and designed a maze of hexagons!

Thai Dupioni silk. Hand pieced, hand and machine quilted.

Music, Music, Music
Wall Hanging 48" x 48", December 2006

I have donated this quilt to aid my friend Marie-Lynn Hammond,
who was in a serious equestrian accident in 2006.
After having performed many benefits for others during her musical career,
she found herself in need of some benefit herself,
and her friends helped her out by staging a concert
and auction in January of 2007 in Toronto.
I thought it an appropriate use of my
extensive collection of music fabric. 
 I have more......

Machine pieced and quilted.
Commercially available music and guitar fabrics.

The last in the "5-Star" niece/nephew quilts.
This one is for my youngest nephew, Dan, who is the only other
musician in my family (a guitar player too,
as you can see by the upper right-hand block).
The quilt is inspired by a trip Dan made to Australia and New Zealand.
Three of the centre blocks are reproductions of photographs he took.
The bottom right-hand block represents the tree-ferns in New Zealand.
The outside border features Australian Aboriginal fabric
that I have collected in our travels.
And the song is the music and lyrics to his favourite Pearl Jam song:
"I'm Still Alive".  I LOVED making this quilt!

Machine pieced and appliquéd.

Devon's Volleyball Quilt
Queen sized, summer, 2005

My nephew, Devon, received his quilt at the
Queen's University Homecoming in September of 2005.
He was the Setter of the Queen's volleyball team,
something like the quarterback in a football game.
He provided a few of his championship volleyball t-shirts,
which I've incorporated with portraits of his dog Bruce
(see Robin's quilt, below, for the same block),
his cat Zoë, his favourite vacation spot: Cedar Lake,
and as much volleyball fabric as I could find.

The quilt is machine pieced and machine quilted
and appliquéd in a variety of styles, as usual.
Number 4 in the series of 5-Star quilts.

Machine pieced, appliquéd and quilted.

The Star and Plume Quilt
68" x 90", 2005

I made this quilt after I wrote the song (of the same name)
on my third quilting CD "A Quilter's World".
It tells a happy-ending story about our favourite quilt gal,
Sunbonnet Sue, who finds true love after
some dicey moments with an intruder,
using 46 quilt block names to tell the story.
Thanks to Barbara Brackman for her wonderful
"Encyclopedia of Quilt Block Patterns",
where I not only got the names of the blocks,
but also what they look like.  
If you have "A Quilter's World", you can "follow the bouncing ball"
and read along with the quilt as the song is playing!

I am writing the pattern for this quilt - If your are interested, send me a note and I'll let you know when it will be available.

Machine and hand pieced and appliquéd, machine quilted.
Each block is 9".
Finished in the car on our way to Texas, January 2005.

Robin's Quilt
Queen sized, 2004

This is the 3rd in the niece/nephew's quilts series, and it
reflects all the interests of a very interesting person.
In the central medallion style, it features a robin in the very centre
(my nephew's name is Robin),
and includes depictions of Paris, Sydney, Toronto
and Midhurst Ontario, basketball, snowboarding and volleyball,
sailing, canoeing, cedar trees, his dog, Bruce,
card-playing and chess.

That's Rob on the right!

Machine pieced, machine and hand appliquéd
using a variety of methods, and machine quilted.
 

Made for the SCQuilters New Zealand Retreat in April 2004 (I finished the quilt in January). Each of us was asked to produce a "postcard" from where we live. We live in a beautiful part of the world, and I'm proud to show it off.

15"x12" machine pieced and machine appliquéd, machine quilted. At the retreat, I traded this for one from Mary-anne Rooney (of "One Stitch at a Time" fame). It now lives in Dead Dog Gully, Victoria, Australia!

Machine pieced, appliquéd, and quilted.

Geese in the Garbage
 16 1/2" x 19 3/4", 2003

This is a little quilt.
I made it at the Door County Quilting Retreat in Wisconsin, October 2003.
As I didn't have much of a stash with me at the time,
 I raided the garbage can for my geese, hence the name!
As such, it is a wonderful memory of everybody's quilts
they were working on then, as well as a reminder
of the beautiful colours of the forest around us.
The pattern is by Shelley Burge from her book "Small Quilts".

This quilt won a second prize  in the Victoria Quilters Guild
"Land Sea and Sky" judged show in May, 2004.

Also featured in the 2007 "Through a Musician's Eyes" calendar
produced for the ArtsCan Circle
by Teakettle Press www.teakettlepress.com

Machine (paper) pieced and quilted.

Machine pieced, machine quilted in our RV during the spring 2003 tour, this one is the most traditional quilt I've made so far. It's a queen sized quilt for John's sister and brother-in-law in Cranbrook, who live at the foot of a glorious mountain range. The quilting is an intricate design of huckleberries, with a few hearts thrown in for luck. Bears' paw pattern in the middle, with Delectable Mountains on either end.

Machine pieced and quilted.

SCQuilters Sig Swap Nine-Patch
43" x 43", 2002

At the two Southern Cross Quilters (SCQuilters, for short)
on-line quilt group's annual retreats in 2000 and 2001
I collected a number of signature squares
with 6-1/2 inch pieces of theme fabric.
This wall hanging is the result.
 I made the theme fabric into 9-patches.
The back of the quilt has everyone's signature squares.
The quilt reminds me that I have friends
in Australia and New Zealand!

Machine pieced and hand quilted.

This large queen quilt was made for John's daughter Sara and her partner Joe and completed in 2002. Machine pieced and quilted, hand appliquéd, it has a decidedly Australian theme, with Aussie colours and animals (kangaroo, turtle, echidna, geckos, frogs, camels). Around the outside border are dog prints. Sara and Joe's dogs, Buddy and Strider, never saw Australia before they went to doggie heaven, so here they are, having a "walkabout" around the outside!

This quilt was featured on Alex Anderson's "Simply Quilts"
(I demonstrated the making of the turtle) on Episode #833.
It was also chosen for Quilt Canada's National Juried Show in Fredericton New Brunswick in 2003.
Included in Victoria Quilters' Guild 25 Year Commemorative Journal, 2007.

Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, machine quilted.

So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish!
Queen sized, 2001

Made for Pamela and Richard Hoblak-Bunge in 2001,
based on their love of dolphins.
The 130+ fish hand-appliquéd around the border
were sewn as we toured Australia.
Several quilter friends there (thanks Thea and Jasmine!)
contributed fish for the project.
And then we visited the Great Barrier Reef,
and it all made sense

Hand appliquéd, machine pieced and quilted.
 

The second of the "coming of age" quilts. I made this based on my niece Anna's wishes: coniferous trees, stars, a northern Ontario scene at night, her cat, camping (including a campfire with marshmallows and a tent that opens), and a rowing scull. She also wanted the strippy border with her high school, camp and university logos. The tessellated maple leaves are my idea. She's going to be travelling internationally in her chosen career, and I wanted her to remember where she was from.

This quilt was made using a variety of techniques: machine piecing, paper piecing, hand appliqué, machine quilting. It was made in Darwin, Australia, when I was writing the "One Stitch at a Time" quilting CD. I finished it in September of 2000.

Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, machine quilted.

Bali Stars
Queen sized, 2000

I made this quilt while we were living in Darwin Australia,
in April of 2000. All the fabrics were bought in Bali on our way there
- on Sulawesi Street in Denpassar.
Two blocks of nothing but fabric shops!
I took a central medallion class at City Fabrics
with Jenny Armour and each quilt made was entirely different
- start in the middle, and keep adding borders till it's done!

This quilt won Best of Show at the Fred's Pass Rural Show
in the Northern Territory, Australia in 2000.

Machine pieced and machine quilted.

Andrew's Quilt
Queen sized, 1999

Completed in March 1999 for my nephew, Andrew,
for his 20th birthday. This is number one of five
"coming of age quilts" that I will make for my niece and nephews.
They decide the important things in their lives at 19,
and I will make quilts reflecting these touchstones.
For Andrew, who is deeply involved in eco-tourism,
he wanted mountains with snow (he's a snowboarder),
sun, whitewater, his friend Joe's red car, and his two cats.

I had no idea what I was doing, and it still turned out okay!

 

Pieced and quilted by machine. Some hand appliqué.