I wanted to make a quilt for my aunt, who has always been a very special person in my life. But time passes and things don’t get done and you know how it goes. (sigh)
So one day last spring I was sorting my sewing room and I came upon an unfinished quilt top. It’s one I started way back when. Before I had (mostly) mastered the art of matching corners, lol.
I’m not sure why I put it away and didn’t finish it. I think maybe I felt (at the time) that the colours were too bright, or maybe I didn’t like using grey for the background neutral. I really have no idea.
Anyway, it was spring when I pulled it out and all the spring flowers were in full bloom. I carried it out and took some pictures with the tulips. And oh my gosh…the quilt just sang!
Suddenly, every spring colour just jumped out at me, and I realized that every single colour was in the quilt. It screamed Spring!
That’s one of the things I love about Kate Spain’s fabrics. She really captures the colours in nature. 🙂
I looked at the grey background and thought of the soft spring rain that comes and melts all the snow, and makes the flowers bloom.
And I thought to myself, this quilt belongs to my aunt, whose favourite season just happens to be spring.
Mine, too!
This is a lap-sized quilt made from the Cuzco collection by Kate Spain. The backing is cream flannel and it was hand quilted in a clam shell pattern. I didn’t wash and dry it before I sent it, but when she does, it will shrink a wee bit and pull around the stitches, creating that wonderful crinkly look that makes a quilt so soft and snuggly.
Do you remember the Vogue wrap dress I made last year? No? Hahaha, I don’t blame you. That dress never really worked for me. The waist sat too high, meaning I was forever tugging it down. And the bodice had these odd little tucks …NOT flattering.
So rather than keeping a dress that I was never going to wear, I decided to cut it up and make it into something else.
I cut the skirt off. Yup…hacked it right off with scissors. Then I cut the bodice apart along the seams. No seam picking for me, nope! Scissors all the way.
I got out my Moneta pattern, and took stock. The two cross-over pieces became sleeves. The ties became a collar. I had enough fabric for the bodice front, but not enough for the back, as you can see in this picture:
That’s where my quilting brain started working. The back of the bodice is done in patchwork!
This is what was left over:Voila!All that’s left is the hem and I’ll have a dress I’ll actually wear.
You must have guessed that I did some quilting during my recent 2 months visit in the Yukon, right?
Well, of course I did…and I took some pictures, too. Enjoy!
I know what food will taste like when I get to heaven…it will taste like Dee’s trifle. So when the Moda Trifle Dish sew-along happened, I knew who I was going to make this for.
Each row was designed by a different Moda Bakeshop guest blogger. I found that to be a bit of a challenge…
…because I had trouble getting them to all go together smoothly. I ended up adding or subtracting spacers between blocks, jigging things to get them to fit. But in the end, they did fit and I was pleased with the result.
Trifle is a sweet, old-fashioned dessert, so I decided to use sweet, old-fashioned 1930’s reproduction print fabrics, along with a variety of whites and a little bit of grey for the background. Everything came from my stash.
And speaking of sweet, old-fashioned, this truck belonged to Dee’s grandfather-in-law. Yes, this truck – the one right here in the picture! I think she’ll be surprised when she sees this photo, don’t you?
I added a row of decorator trim to the top edge to simulate whipped cream. Because, you know…trifle.
The backing is adorable! Look, it’s all baking items in lime green and bright pink! Dee is going to looooove it!!!
Trifle Dish was hand quilted with a #10 John James needle and 40-weight ecru-coloured hand-quilting thread in a shell pattern. I did actually start to do it by machine, but then picked it all out and did it by hand instead. Crazy. I know.
I wanted the photos of this quilt to be meaningful to Dee, so some of the pictures were taken in Carcross, Yukon, where Dee’s in-laws hail from (Hi George! Hi Millie! Hi Donna & Heather!)
And guess what…so do mine! (Hi Cal & Norma!). Now you know it’s a small world when your good friend’s in-laws and your in-laws all come from the same place that has a population of under 300.
Carcross is the sweetest little teeny tiny town about an hour from Whitehorse, on the shore of the spectacular Bennett Lake. Keep going further down the South Klondike Highway and you’ll find yourself in Skagway, Alaska in about an hour.
I had some help, of course.
Other pictures were taken at the Robinson Roadhouse…a historic site on the South Klondike Highway, half-way between Whitehorse and Carcross. A convenient place to stop and use the outhouse (because I take pride in knowing where all the outhouses are… Hello! Yukoner!)
Pictures were also taken at our cabin on Fox Lake, because that is where Dee’s and my friendship takes place.
I mean, we’re friends wherever we are, of course. But here at Fox Lake is where the magic happens for us. Back in the day when we were full-time Yukoners, she and George used to come out on a Saturday afternoon. Dee would always bring her knitting or her sewing along, and would sit on the deck and have a good old-fashioned stitch & bitch while our guys fished off the dock or did whatever guys do together when they’re at the lake.
All those good times were stitched into this quilt along with every delicious yummy bite of Dee’s trifle I ever ate.
Here you thought I wasn’t sewing anything during April. Silly you!
I’ve been seeing this dress all over the internet and finally decided it was time for me to make one. This is the Monetta dress from Colette Patterns, and INDY designer.
I have a lot to learn about sewing stretchy knits. I think this crazy striped fabric is called ITY (interlock twist yarn.) I’m still learning what the different types of knit are and what they look like. The fabric is really stretchy. It drapes beautifully and is Very Comfortable to wear…like wearing pajamas except its a dress, lol! But not the easiest thing to sew…slippery and I couldn’t press a crease into it, so it was hard to make a nice hem.
I sewed it on my domestic machine (I don’t have a serger, though would dearly love one!) and used my walking foot and a ball point needle. Oh, and I also used a twin needle for the first time.
I don’t know what I did, but I stretched the neck out somehow. It comes dangerously close to falling off my shoulders, though it hasn’t yet. I hope it survives the washing machine. I’ll be more careful with the neck next time. And I couldnt find clear elastic so used regular elastic instead. I liked how the skirt is gathered directly onto the elastic. It was so easy to do! The hard part was sewing the gathered bit into the bodice – I caught a bit of the skirt up into the seam here and there, making puckers (not too noticeable). BUT… The regular elastic is stiff compared to the clear stuff, so there is a hard ridge that IS noticeable, which is why I’m wearing a belt.
Oh, and I put a button on the front for decoration (not really…it’s so I’ll know which is the front when putting it on!)
And this dress has pockets! …though I’m not happy with the job I did on them. They kind of stick out a bit. And really, I prefer not to have pockets in a dress, so I won’t put them into the next one. This is version 2 of the pattern. It’s a great pattern, I recommend it. Three sleeve options, lined or unlined bodice, collar or no collar (and you can download a booklet containing a big handful of different collars to use when you pay for the pattern – bonus!) I’ll make the next one with the lined bodice version and a collar.
Next one? You bet! My friend Dee and I will be having a Monetta day together later this month! You can be sure to see the fashion show right here!
I traced the pattern from a little book called Embroidery pour le Jardinier by Sylvie Blondeau that my son gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.
Let me introduce you to The Friendship Garden Quilt!
It comes by its name honestly, because it started out life as a bee block!
I am part of a Flickr group quilting bee with 5 other ladies. We call ourselves We Bee Canadian. We each make 2 blocks for the month’s Queen Bee.
When it was my month to pick a block (a couple of years ago!), I asked everyone to please make me two bow tie blocks using garden-themed fabric.
Because we were all pretty much beginners, nobody’s 1/4″ seams were very good and the blocks didn’t square up very well. There were an awful lot of mismatched seams.
Then I had an idea!
I decided to cover some of the wonky seams with English paper pieced rosettes. Perfect! Before you knew it, I had hand-appliqued a flower in every single blank square, wonky or not!
Because a garden should be an absolute riot of colour, don’t you agree?
I used a bed sheet on the back. I think it would qualify as a vintage sheet. I remember having sheets like this on my bed in the 70s.
The quilt is hand quilted in circles.
I don’t think I’ll try to do hand quilting through a bed sheet again. I actually bent needles and had to use pliers to pull the needle through the layers. Ouch!
Mr. C. did a marvelous job behind the scenes, don’t you think?
I used black for the binding to set off the colours. Oh, how I love this quilt! It is so cheerful and bright and sunny! A bit of summer in the depths of winter.
I hope it will be as loved in its new home as it is in mine 🙂
These photos were taken at the sweet little Notch Hill Community Hall and Church on the only sunny day in January.
I looked at the grey background and thought of the soft spring rain that comes and melts all the snow, and makes the flowers bloom.
