Divas' Day at Heritage Park 14th Annual Festival of Quilts

Dorothy, Karen, Dorothy's cousin Donna (Honourary Diva), Kristie and myself spent the better part of May 31 at Heritage Park in Calgary where we enjoyed the annual "Festival of Quilts." I am posting a mere sampling. There were many more quilts that aren't shown here - all were terrific. Enjoy the quilts and a few pix of the park.


Here we are - Dorothy, Karen, Donna and Kristie. I'm invisible.

The quilts were being shown in these tents, they were hung out along fences, from balconies, and displayed inside buildings. There were quilts everywhere! 443 quilts are listed in the program.

And of course the vendors area - also inside a tent. There was an unspoken contest to see who would make the first purchase, largest purchase, etc. I think Karen won on the first and largest category (she found an iron that would never shine fabric - she was very pleased with this discovery!). But we all bought stuff - yours truly came away with another pile of fabric - because naturally, there is never enough!

One more note before I go on - I usually crop the pix, but with so many pix and so little time, I decided not to.

Crazy Hearts by Dianne Wilson, Calgary

Memories of Bryce by Jude Schmitz, Calgary

Illusion for Paige by Linda Van Gastel, Calgary

Stars in the Window by Riske Quartero, Bragg Creek

The Embarrassed Zebra by Cindy Humphrey, Calgary

Playing with Curves by Nora Varga, Calgary

Asian Fabric Quilt by Bev Bertrand, Calgary

Wrens Nest - Prairie Designs by Olga MacFarlane, Calgary

Concerto for Quilters by Janet Rooke, Calgary (I love this one!)

One of several quilt guild displays.

Another.

Brenda's Quilt by Maureen DeRay, Calgary

High Country Hearts by Joanne Middleton, Bragg Creek

Seebe by Wayne Kollinger, Calgary

Bird of Paradise Wall Hanging by Dorothy Wichert, Calgary

Memories of Mozart by Lisa Weldon, Calgary

Painted Bowls by Beverly Patkau, Calgary

Bargello Garden by Claudette Miller, Calgary

Stars Wedding Quilt by Sandra Hand, Calgary

Starshine Delight by Barbara Roberts, Calgary

Alpine Wonder by Lil Mountjoy, Calgary

Here are a few shots of the other activity around HP. And of course some of the old buildings and artifacts.

Woven Log Cabin by Germaine Nelson, Claresholm

Diamonds From a Girl's Best Friend by Joanne Middleton, Bragg Creek (her triangles/diamonds are perfect!)

Sally Lightfoot by Linda Dunbar, Calgary

Divas in line at the Bakery.

Divas Dorothy, Donna and Kristie.

Dorothy and Donna.

Dorothy, Mary and Donna (not invisible here!)

OK - so I'm giving up on all the names - I'm not going to do the "group shot names" - I'm getting lazy.

But this green one is Tuesday Night Quilt by Cheryl Arkison, Calgary - this reminds me of something I would do!

Polka Dot Daisies by Sandra Krystalowich, Calgary

Kristie is inspecting some "antique" quilts upstairs in the Wainwright Hotel.

Here's the long shot of the Wainwright Hotel.

Jazz Cats by Margary Smith, Calgary

Part of Hunter's Celtic Turtles by Kyli Cahoon, Calgary

Links by Kim Morrison, Calgary

Southwest Memories by Sharon Anderson, Calgary (I love this one - applique)

Close up of Stary Night by Belinda Giles, Calgary

Brandon's Dragon by Kyli Cahoon, Calgary

Part of Civil War Love Letters Quilt by Diana Fisher, Crossfield

Kristie and Dorothy - amused!

Easy Moving by Dianne Wilson, Calgary

This one I recognize as "The Yellow Brick Road" pattern - this one was a late entry, not listed in the program! So sorry, no quilter name can be provided.

This is a late entry too - so no name available - but I like it - it's something like I would do.

Something Fishy by Gladys Serafino, Calgary

Monsters by Kay Hudson, Calgary

First Snow in our Garden by jane Turvey, Calgary

Can't read the number on this one, but I like the clever way the letters and numbers form the little houses.

Reach for the Stars by Pat Stratherrn, Calgary

Loon Call by Nora Varga, Calgary

Looking back at the Wainwright Hotel.

This is "Gasoline Alley" a new part of the Park.

As you can see - the weather was great and we had a lot of fun spending money, looking at quilts and spending time at Heritage Park.

Sunny Weekend

Well we're finally getting some decent weather! When we do, we like to be outside, of course. So this weekend I puttered around the yard - I'm not much of a gardener - Joe is the gardener in this house - but I do occasionally provide some slave labour of the weeding and watering variety. But when I've had enough of that, I plop my Princess self down on the deck. This weekend I was working on some hand quilting out on the deck!

Remember these guys?

Yup - the dancers - as yet unnamed - but I have a few ideas about that.

Anyway - I decided to try my hand at hand quilting (pun intended!). I had picked up a little quilting frame at the Red Deer quilt show.

This is it here. It seems to work pretty well. Of course as it's the only one I've used, I have nothing to compare it to. It's oak and the woman I bought it from said her husband made them in their garage. I thought it was appropriate to have a hand made oak quilting frame rather than a mass produced plastic one. Her son was demonstrating hand quilting technique, too - he looked to me to be about 10. I can't imagine my boys ever doing that!

Anyway - here are a couple of close up pix of my first hand quilting attempt. I'm actually pretty pleased with it. The stitches are a bit long - I'll have to work on shortening them up. But for these guys, I think the long stitches are actually OK. It is sort of in sync with the rustic look I'm going for.

I sustained a "quilting injury" - I managed to cut my finger when I was snipping a thread. Talk about being a spaz! I've never done THAT before in over 40 years of sewing! And I resorted to using a thimble today when my finger just got too sore. And I have a rather impressive looking blister on my index finger - same one I cut - so altogether, my fingers are a mess! I'll need a few days off now!

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Now here are the Navajo blocks that I have finished so far - four. I'm liking them better now. I thought at first they might be too dark, but it's growing on me. I had enough of the orange print for one side of triangles for six of nine blocks. I'll put the orange down two outside rows - it will be three by three. These blocks are very large - about 16 inches square.

The other thing to note is that all the pix in this post were taken outside in the sun - no flash - so the colours look more like they actually are.

Orange with red.

Red only.

So that's it for now.

I'm still working on getting the Heritage Park quilt show pix up - there are quite a few of them. Maybe by next weekend.

Have a great week in the meantime!

Southwest

Navajo Block

My sister Chris is very fond of orange colours and has a number of "southwestern" artifacts (I gave her a number of them!). She's recently moved into a new-to-her home that has a large "bonus room" above the garage (who ever thought of that name, anyway???). So I've told her that will be her "southwestern" room and that she'll be getting a quilt for it. Here is the first block - it's the Navajo block from the Blocks Galore website - it seems appropriate.

I've been collecting all these southwestern prints and actually intended for the quilt to have a bit more orange in it, but the orange stuff I have didn't seem to work for the block - the designs are too large. I'll have to find a different quilt to make with those ones.

As it it, I'm not sure about my colour choice - now that the block is together, it might be too dark. But I will forge ahead because I have most of the block pieces cut out. Live and learn. I think it will be OK - just not stellar. My excuse is that I'm still learning.

Below - the southwestern fabric laid out on my NEW sewing table. Yay!

And a few shots of the NEW sewing area now that I've started to move my stuff in. I expect this is a temporary arrangement - still need to get some shelving.

Because these book cases are needed elsewhere for actual books! But in the meantime, I've put my growing fabric stash on the bookshelves. This is not a bad stash considering I just started this quilting nonsense back in August!

I must get sewing and "stay away from the fabric stores"!

This very computer is on the left - it's also an "office" space.

I'm still very excited about my new space! I have big plans for it!

Another Divas Day!

Another Divas Day. This one on a Sunday and I think we were all a bit "Zombie-ish" after our respective busy Saturdays - at least I was! But oh well. We still managed to put the better part of two more quilt tops together and finish off our Christmas quilt top from last time. So here we go again with fun on the floor.

And we have a new Diva, Joan!

Joan, Dorothy with George the cat assisting.

George and Dorothy.

Susan.

Karen.

Kristie.

Joan and Dorothy - the block layout Queens.

Here is the Christmas quilt top all finished. It looks pretty good considering we're using up "scraps."

Susan's food contribution - we won't come if Susan doesn't come!

Joan.

Dorothy, Kristie, Susan and Karen.

Kicking back after our lunch break.

Here's the next one. I need a close up of the blocks because the dark ones are actually four "half square triangles" - the colours don't show up in this pix.

Dorothy and Kristie in action.

I think we'll actually be able to open up a quilt store by the time the company auction rolls around! We seem to have a continuous supply of "scraps" and ideas.

Like a Cat

I had my trip to the coast May 15 to 19. Took Pam and Amy their quilts. I told Pam I felt like I might be a cat giving her people a dead bird or mouse as a gift. I have often given good friends things I make but never really sure that they like the things as much as I do! It's the price you pay for being my friend - you have to get stuff that I make! Anyway - I like the quilts and they seemed to like them too!

So here is Pam with Goodtime Girlfriends in Abbotsford.


Mary and Amy in Surrey. Amy was my teacher in grade 7 and 8 - waaaaay back in the stone age. She's great! She's in her late 80s now and you'd sure never know it. She had a couple of Obama bio books on her coffee table and is totally up on all her politics. She's a staunch NDPer and as recently as June attended a function where Stephen Lewis was a speaker. She has a fabulous pix of herself with SL and her daughter up on her kitchen wall. She's pretty amazing!

Amy and Mary with Amy's Galaxy.

To see more BC pix, switch over to Amble Rambles - maybe in a month or so I'll be caught up there and the pix of my girls' weekend will be up.

Amy's Galaxy

I've settled on "Amy's Galaxy." It doesn't look at all like a comet, but galaxies sort of swirl around with masses of stars. Milky Way is the name of our Galaxy, but Amy's Way isn't right, so Amy's Galaxy it is.


I still have to do a label for both Amy and Pam's quilts, will have to get to that this week. I leave Thursday night for Abbotsford, so they MUST be all finished for my trip.


Anyway - here is the Galaxy!

Stars are appliqued.