Adventures of Voodoo Duck: Charity Sew In

It's not every day that Voodoo Duck leaves the confines of my sewing space but every once in a while I jam him in a Jack Daniels tin and take him someplace exciting.  Yesterday he was carted off to the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild's Sew-In, the one where we'd assemble the charity quilts that we've been working toward for months.

The guild collected 8.5" HST blocks from members all year. All the squares had a solid grey on one side and the other side had to be one of (I think) 6 colours. I took a bundle of 80 blocks home quite a long time ago and placed it on the proverbial back burner, you know...like you would when there's lots of time to do the job. Somehow the months flew by and left me only days, where does the time go anyway? So, Wednesday while the Robot was working away putting beautiful leaves across Ellies batik flimsy I jumped in and stitched up my bundle of blocks.

Ellies batik quilt being quilted with a design called Trillium.
It's a gorgeous pattern, but it's a very slow one to stitch out.
All the time it took the Robot to complete a row though gave me time
 to sew up the Charity flimsy...so no complaints here! 

There really is nothing quite like a deadline to suddenly kick your butt in gear! I had a real mish mash of blocks...prints & solids and not enough of any one to come up with any really exciting layouts. With the Robot limiting my time for head scratching, it quickly dawned on me that I could do some diagonal stripes of sorts and this is what I came up with...

Then, on Friday between hairdoos I managed to get it quilted up and ready for binding. I quilted it with Apricot Moons design called City Windows, I really love the modern simplicity of this quilting pattern.

Saturday morning with all my gear and a duck in a tin I set off for the Sew In. Lot's of hands were on site to put the quilts together and it was a lot of fun to part of the energy in the room. I got a scrappy binding put on my quilt, pieced a back for another, and helped with some basting. The quilts are being donated to The Lodge That Gives in Halifax. This is a place close to the hospital where people can stay while they are having treatments for cancer when they don't live close enough for a daily commute. It's a very special place. My uncle stayed there when he was battling lung cancer. When we were brainstorming to come up with the recipient of this years quilts one of our guild mates suggested the Lodge as she herself stayed there while she was waging her own battle. I know that the folks who eventually rest under these quilts will feel the good wishes, healing energy and love that has been sewn into each of the 10 quilts that will be placed on the beds there.

I wish I had thought to take pictures of the quilts as we were building and finishing them but I didn't, I was too busy trying to keep Voodoo Duck in line. He was having a good time visiting some of our favourite bloggers...Adrienne, Linda, Lesley, Kathy and Jen...if you're looking for some quilty goodness check these gals out! Then pop on over to the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild's Blog to see lots of pictures of the charity quilts...I think four or five were complete by days end!

The Gravity Project: All Finished

At long last the time came to get this project completed. Nothing quite like an upcoming Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting with show & tell to fast track a project to the finish line. I bumped up The Enablers "Retro Girl Squared" in the line up so she would have a finish for show & tell and once it was done, I promptly loaded that giant flimsy full of Kona Kandy on the frame. I really tried to get Gravity done in time, and did manage to complete the quilting but the finish wasn't meant to be, I guess.

Retro Girl Squared, by The Enabler

The Robot stitching out Marmalade,
 designed by Lisa Farnsworth 

Floating Gravity...a contradiction in terms?

Things have kinda gone to hell in a hand basket at home in Newfoundland with regard to the health of my father and I made a rather quick decision to go home for a week. My flight left on the evening of our guild meeting and so all I had time for en route to the airport was the quick stop to swap For Ale with Linda. Knowing I wouldn't be there for show & tell made it easier to push aside Gravity's binding to make room for the shuffling and cramming of many rescheduled hairdoos. Once I got home and as things settled within and around me I set to work to complete the project once and for all.

(drum roll please.....)

I give you Gravity, in all it's glory...quilted and bound at last.

And, my father about a year ago, in his glory...happy, healthy and fishing, just the way I hope to one day see him again. 

Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts for my last post in the Gravity Quilt-A-Long! 

Thanks to Myra for hosting...it's been a fun first experience for me!

Swappin For Ale

This little project was released from Quilters Protection Services last week. It's been in the works for a couple months and was my mini quilt for the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild's summer swap. This whole swap thing was pretty fun. You had to fill out a questionnaire about your abilities, likes and dislikes and then the fabulous Amanda (the guilds swap momma) matched each of us up with an appropriate partner. I got teamed up with my pal Linda over at Scrapmaster! (No pressure there....sheesh!)

Now, our wee Linda hails from a little coastal community called Prospect not too far from me. I've been there plenty of times and I knew I just had to make her a treasure from her home town; her fathers fish store seemed like the perfect choice. I practically disregarded everything she wrote on her questionnaire and blazed a trail to my own idea of what she might like...have I ever mentioned I like to do things my way? Poor gal never stood a chance of getting something with Alison Glass fabrics in turquoise  and aqua once my brain caught fire!!  I had so much fun with this free pieced fish store and have been sitting on hot bricks for a whole month just waiting for the time to come to give it to her because I finished it up early.

I pulled fabrics that whimsically spoke to me according to a photo I found of it on her blog post, For Ale and set to work. I wasn't setting out to build an identical representation of the stage, I wanted it to be fun! A quick sketch, some slicing and stitching, more slicing, more stitching, some head scratching, a little ripping, some cutting off and some adding more on led me here....

And last week, even though I was on the way to the airport, I had to make a quick stop in to Patch where the meeting was being held to do our swap. I couldn't stay long enough to see all the gals swapping and we had to do ours before the meeting even started but I wouldn't have missed this for anything.

SHE LOVED IT!


I couldn't wait to see what she had come up with for me. I might as well admit here and now that my old buddy Jack Daniel had a hand in the filling out of my questionnaire. Poor Linda. I don't think she had much to go on but man-oh-man, somehow she nailed it! I just love my mini! She even put in some free pieced fishes on the back and you all know how much fun I had with those this winter! Linda is the free motion quilting queen in our little guild and she pebbled out her little heart. There are so many bits and pieces of me in there...wonky houses, lots of purple, free pieced letters and even some fabrics we traded at a workshop once! It's a treasure for sure...

It's perfect. And it's me.

Gravity Project: The Complete Flimsy

Aah yes...the finished top for the Gravity Project.

Had to dig back thru a lot of photos to find these! Finished this flimsy up in early June and have been just coasting along waiting for the weeks to pass to link up with the Gravity Quilt-A-Long. Why is it the weeks seem to be suddenly picking up speed?

Those 18 blocks of Kona Kandy and a pile of greys became sections, which worked their way into halves. Halves got joined together in that final seam to make an explosion of colour.

For no particular reason I couldn't resist taking a photo of the last 2 inches of stitching on this top...at the time I guess it seemed monumental or something!

Linking up with Busy Hands Quilts for the Gravity Quilt-A-Long!