Wednesday 29 May 2013

And the winners are........

Well, everyone's a winner actually! What an experience! Organizers did a fantastic job. The quilts were beautifully displayed. Welcome table staffed perfectly, quilt raffle tickets sold en masse and a successful sales table!

And the quilts, beautifully displayed. Row after row. For a small guild, members are very productive.

Wonderful colours, creative designs, varied techniques and excellent technical skills.

This fabulous quilt by fellow quilt artist Ariana won the Canadian Quilter's Association prize:


A photo and article about Ariana's quilt will be published in the Canadian Quilter's Association Newsletter http://www.canadianquilter.com/

Get more info about the Ariana and her quilts via:


A three dimentional floral quilt by Hélène won the Courtepointe Quebec Award. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of her quilt. Here is link to the CQQ: http://cqq.ca/home/

There were also 7 Viewer's Choice Awards (including my own, What a surprise. I still can't believe it!). Here are the ones I photographed:



Scrappy log cabin
A few of my favorite things

Dresden Plate





And my contribution at the end of the row:


Here's a close up of my Y2K Millennium quilt relaxing and enjoying it's ribbon:



Saturday 25 May 2013

Guild show opening night

Last night I volunteered for 2 hours and already my feet are aching! But I had fun meeting new quilt lovers and several of my friends stopped by for a look. Everyone's quilts are set up in rows on rented quilt hangers and the set up group did a wonderful job. It was a difficult task to choose three favorites from everyone's creations. What talent! My "job" was to provide information to guests and provide them with white gloves so they could touch the quilts if they wanted to. I was also there to answer questions. Tomorrow I have a 4 hours shift and I will take some photos to share with you.

Thursday 23 May 2013

Quilt Show Weekend



I've been a guild member for less than two months and I have a
quilt in this weekend's show! I am very excited! Everything is ready to go for set up tomorrow morning at 10. I'm showing the Y2K quilt and even though it's old, it looks spectacular. There was only one badly worn square which I replaced and then embroidered the quilting lines.


View photo.JPG in slide show
View photo.JPG in slide show


I wrote a text to accompany my quilt with examples of the exchange letters and "squishies". You can read more about this quilt in my Y2K +13 blog.

I'll be back with an update of "opening night"

Saturday 4 May 2013

Y2K + 13

Has anyone ever participated in a quilt fabric exchange? Squares or finished blocks? If you have I'm sure you will agree that it is an amazing experience. Quilters are fascinating individuals each with their own mix of dedication, perserverence and creativity.

In 1999 as a celebration of the upcoming millennium, I swapped "squishies" with quilters all over the world when I participated in the Y2K fabric exchange. A squishy looks like this:


 25 fabric squares 2.5 inches by 2.5 inches in a baggie. Just the right size to fit into a regular envelope and easy to mail. One fabric square is personalized with the name and location of the quilter. Often the envelope also contained a biography of the sender, description of her home state, province or country and other interesting facts or details.

I exchanged squishies with at least 250 quilters. Hailing from Quebec where there weren't an abundance of quilters at the time, I was a popular source for those wanting a "full set" of Canadian provinces.

In all, I received squishies from every province in Canada, every state in the US, every province in Australia, as well as the UK, France, Spain, Portigal, The Netherlands, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Japan, India, Thailand and many more. Enough squares to complete 2 queen size quilts each of which contains 2000 different 2.5 inch blocks, a true charm quilt. Another collection of 3 inch squares to make a king size quilt is a UFO on my "to do" list for this year..

This month, 13 years after the exchange, one of these quilts is about to be shown for the first time at a quilt show. It has been well used and loved over the last 13 years and may have faded a little but is still beautiful to behold. I am looking forward to sharing it's incedible story with others.



A quick search of the internet brought up other Millenium quilts made by fellow quilters all over the world. Hopefully some of these have my signature square in them. https://www.google.ca/search?q=millenium+quilts&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8Nh7UcPNI6rX0gHy34CoCg&ved=0CE4QsAQ&biw=1366&bih=622
 

Let me know what you think!