Quilt Canada 2017

Quilt Canada 2017 wrapped up mid June in Canada.  It is the nation's premiere quilting event with workshops, lectures and most importantly the National Juried Show!

I had the privilege, once again, of being a finalist in the show with my quilt 'Fractured'.

My artist statement is:

This quilt almost put itself together. It is called Fractured because life is beautiful—full of colour, wonder and love. When tragedy happens your world is shattered; sending the beauty into a million pieces. You are in darkness. The life and colour is there, but you have to find it and put it back together, piece by piece.

What isn't told in the statement, is it is a reflection of my life after my father died suddenly and unexpected a year ago. Only those that knew me well at the conference understood what the statement meant.  

If you want to see the amazing winning quilts, go here. To see all the quilts that were finalists in the show go here. 

I also had the privilege of giving tours of the National Juried Show for the second year in a row. It was so much fun talking about the quilts and the artists! What made it really special is my first tour had a group right from Holland!  They loved it so much, they came back and gave me these adorable Dutch shoes.  

One night while waiting for a lecture, 2 other quilters and I were laughing so hard we were crying! That is so typical of all the conferences I have been to, that you have such a good time with quilters you are in hysterics.  It was amazing to see so many old friends I have met over the years. It was definitely a conference to remember, thanks to the wonderful quilters that have become a part of my life. 

For now, I am working on some things that I can't show just yet, but soon!

Enjoy the summer=)

Chatting with Pat Sloan

What a thrill Monday March 27th is going to be as I have the opportunity to represent Canada's national quilt organization and chat with Pat Sloan on her podcast about our Big Quilt Bee. 

Our goal to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday is to make 1,000 quilts to go to kids in care at Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada.

At this point in time, we have 300 finished quilts and enough tops and blocks to make 200 more!

Almost at the half way point! If you want to help, please go here and see how simple it is to make a block and participate!

Goodbye May and June! Now onto quilting

I can't believe how time has just flown by! And life is full of surprises and unexpected events.
In May, there was a very unexpected death in the family and that shook life up to never quite be the same again. But I think that is one of those things apparently we have to go through, get through and somehow move on.

But this blog is not to make you sad.   June came in like a hurricane as it was all prep for Quilt Canada! Our national conference in which I got to play a small part in.  Up to it, my stomach was butterflies as I had some incredible opportunities to speak in front of quilters and of course was nervous.  

Quilt Canada arrived and it was unreal!   Literally. I designed and with the help of a great friend, set up our booth.  It won Best Booth award!  Ok, there wasn't really an award, but I know if there was an award it would have won!

 I used my Accquilt to cut out the circles... but still there are over 1,000 and I then had to glue and pin all those circles on! But really it is circles and I fell in love with it. 

See those cute lollipops out of pool noodles? Oh it was just the most delightful booth ever! Lots of people even took their picture in front of the circle heart! 

This quilt below is by Helen Fujiki and it won Best of Show.  All the winners are here. 

 Cinzia Allocca won an award with this fabulous black and white quilt!

Leanne Chahley also won an award with her fantastic blue circle quilt!

 I gave ten tours of the National Juried Show over the four days. One day had four tours, three of them back to back and 45 minutes in length.  It was tiring but it was so exhilarating being able to educate quilters on our National Juried Show and talk about how hard the judges work and the difficult decisions they have to make. 

I even lucked out and got to emcee the Juried Show awards night! Not the best pic of me but just wanted to show you that I was right up there where the action was! Really the best place to be when big awards are being given out! And it was a super fancy microphone, and the place was packed! Like standing room only! There is a chance it was because they wanted to see who won, but I secretly think they came to see me speak.   (totally joking!)

On the last day of show, the editors from 'A Needle Pulling Thread' give me the latest edition of the magazine.  Guess whose quilt that is?  Okay, did you guess me?  Yeppers, my quilt is right smack in the mag!

After two days of early bedtimes I think I am ready to head back into my studio and get quilting!

Quilt Canada 2016

As I write this, Quilt Canada is 7 days away! It is crazy how fast it has come up and how exciting it will be! The Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA/ACC) hosts an annual conference each year so that quilters across the country and beyond can come and learn, have fun and buy cool stuff=)

I will be attending and giving 10 tours over the course of 4 days through the National Juried Show. The tours have sold out and I would be lying if I didn't say I was a bit nervous. Here is last year's show.

Our national conference hosts lectures, workshops, evening entertainment, a huge merchant mall and the National Juried Show or NJS for short. The NJS is my passion. It is a juried show in which you send pics of your quilts and they are seen before a jury to determine if they are worthy to hang with the best in Canada, then prior to the conference they are judged. Oh ya, and we have a 5 year judge program and use judges from that program to judge our NJS, we really are just that good!

Since 2005 I have been entering the NJS, I have got my fair share of rejection letters but that didn't stop me, I would just keep entering.  I love it that much. In 2014 I became Vice President of the organization so part of my job was to sit in with the judging of the NJS, and I had to do it again as President.  Don't get me wrong I wouldn't have traded that experience for the world, but it meant I had to wait 2 years before I could enter again.

In 2016 I entered, and got 2 quilts accepted! I am over the moon excited to see them hanging there.  Everything about the NJS is amazing, the jurying by experts, then if you get in or not... man those acceptance emails are the best! Then the quilts are judged and there is so much anticipation as to who won Best of Show and all the other categories. And you don't get to see the quilts beforehand, it is all so secret and mysterious.  Finally, all is told at the Awards Ceremony for the NJS entrants and sponsors.

Don't even get me started about the sponsors... they are simply out of this world. Yep, they are brands well known in the quilting world, but it is so much more than that.  They sponsor the awards because they care about Canadian quilting and want to promote it, just like we do.  And they go out of their way to help CQA/ACC.  

So this year, not only do I get to have two quilts in the show, but I get to emcee the NJS awards nite and be right there when all the winners are named, well I get to name all the winners!  Oh the excitement and suspense will be thrilling!  And then over the course of the conference I get to take people through the NJS and tell them all about the quilts and quilters and share how awesome the NJS is.   It really doesn't get much better than that!

If you want to see the quilts and everything that is happening at Quilt Canada, you can download the app 'Quilt Canada 2016'.  Here there is an activity stream that everyone will be posting tons of pics of quilts and fun times!
As well follow us on our fb page.

See you on social media!

Prepping for Quilt Canada!

May and June are my crazy months!  Have been for the past four years. This is when I get ready for Quilt Canada and have the honour of representing the Canadian Quilters' Association at the conference.

This year someone thought it would be fun to see if people would like to tour our National Juried Show with me while I gave a short lecture as we went around and looked at the award winning quilts.  Despite my huge fear that no one would sign up, they did. So much so, that I sold out! And they added two more tours, and those sold out!

Needless to say, I will spend alot of time in the National Juried Show floor.. which is fine by me, it is my most favourite place to be at Quilt Canada, well that and the Merchant Mall!

I also thought it would be fun to have a really crazy booth for CQA/ACC.  You know, not one where you just hang quilts in.  Something that people would remember.   That may or may not be a good thing.  Regardless, I got put in charge of booth decorating.
To date I have pool noodles in use and 1,000 circles cut of various shapes and sizes.   Yes, there is an excellent chance I won't get put back in charge of booth decorating next year=)

Besides that I have discovered how to make tassels and have got it down to 90 seconds per tassel.

Uh huh, slight addiction happening.  And yes, they are showing up on my quilts in the very very near future=)

Spring, sunsets, and circles is what my weekend was all about. Finally I think spring has arrived to my little Northern Ontario town in Canada. I only spotted 2 piles of snow left from winter on my drive back home this evening. 

I have been playing with some solids and strips to create different blocks, as I show below. 

I have a big project due in 7 weeks that is requiring a couple hundred circles in a rainbow of colours! It is a huge undertaking and I am just getting started now, I know a little late=)

Each night of the weekend ended with this. I am so thankful for so many things.

Have a super week!

Promoting Quilting in Canada

I had a wonderful weekend in Toronto ON doing what I love best!  I was able to talk about quilting in Canada for two days at the very fun Creativ Festival.   The Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA/ACC) was there promoting our Quilt Canada conference this June in Toronto, in which I am on the Board of Directors.

We were given a huge booth and we filled it with some beautiful quilts and our information. When attendees came by and they did fill our booth, we were able to have a chat, offer them a chocolate and tell them about our amazing organization and upcoming conference.  It doesn't get much better than this!

Having attended this show in the past, you get to know the vendors and see friends again, which I love doing. As the Social Media Director for CQA/ACC, I had a sign made up and sent a copy to all my quilting friends across Canada. This sign is showing up everywhere to tell people to come to Quilt Canada.   I brought it with me and took a picture of the sign peeking out in all the vendors booths that will be at our conference.   Here is a picture of it in the WonderFil booth.

I have had a blast seeing the pics come in with people and this sign. Currently it is on it's way to England as we speak.  It will be in Germany next month.   Quilters are such a fun group of people. If you want to see all the places this sign does end up, just follow our facebook page and be ready to be entertained!

This was a very pleasant surprise. I was walking through the festival and looked up to see two quilts I was very familiar with! Below is my denim quilt that was featured in the last issue of ANPT magazine (A Needle Pulling Thread), and the one beside it called 'Pulse' is in the upcoming issue. Thank goodness it hung straight and flat!   

Now I am just waiting to go to our conference where I will see so many more of my quilting friends. Can't wait!