Carli The Quilter

I love a fast and easy way to sew strips and make interesting blocks. This tutorial is a short demonstration of how we can make the process of block building in a modern, fast way. This tutorial will help you step out of the box of traditional thinking about always having everything straight and even and time consuming. This tutorial is just the beginning of using this technique to make fun bags, quilts, table runners and gifts of all kinds. Step 1: Start with three fat quarters, don’t trim, just lay them on top of each other on a cutting mat. Step 2: Using a long enough ruler to reach both sides of the fat quarters, make two off center kind of cuts in the way I’ve done in this photo. The secret to this technique is about going out of the box. Step 3: From the first stack on your left, take the top piece and put it under the same stack. Then on the next stack, take the top two pieces and put them at the bottom of the pile. Leave the third stack intac

I worked for a long time in the public school system. I saw all sorts of children with mild to severe allergies, teachers with constant runny noses, always attributed to their allergies. Over the years, I began questioning the status quo on things like cotton. Why were alternatives being discussed? Why had the market for organic food grown to the point that even in our small town of 5-7,000 we have a health food store, 3 supermarkets that sell organic food, produce etc. I found this link very interesting! I hope you do too! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_cotton Organic Cotton Solid Collection-Hazelnut, check out my other solids that I'm playing with here

On this past Sunday, women met at the Multiplex Centre in Moricetown to learn more about how to turn clothing into quilts. I arrived, set up and got busy as the women filed in with their gear!    Charrine worked hard on her new bag, applique, pressing so carefully, measuring, all the things we do as designers. Her cape which I forgot to take photo of is gorgeous!  Betty sizing up her new feasting  bag!  Lucy, got right into it and began following my instructions so well, she was done by the end of the day. Making a sweater baby quilt in this manner is so fast, its incredible! Lucy Gagnon, Band Manager was so kind and donated many new fabrics to blend with recycled clothing and donated the lovely conference room for the day. Thanks Lucy! One man Todd Lace, joined us to learn how to make a custom drum bag. This was a first for any man to show up at any textile recycling workshop. I was real  happy to have Todd along for the day, he's a k

Tomorrow, Sept 25th in Moricetown, a thriving Aboriginal community north of Smithers, I'm teaching a group of quilters and crafters who are interested in learning how to turn recycled sweaters into a  baby quilt.  Show up at the Moricetown Thrift Store behind the Gas Bar in Moricetown at 9:30 Sunday morning so you have time to set up your sewing machine etc. Bring a bag lunch, we'll wrap up by 4-5 pm. Bring anything textile that you're dying to know how to recycle into something fun. This event is sponsored by the Kitimat-Stikine Regional District and the Eco-Prise Initiative to improve recycling of all consumables. This program is designed to enable interested and knowledgeable community members to submit funding proposals to them here. http://www.rdks.bc.ca/ . Plus, if baby quilts are not your 'thing' then you can also learn how to make an awesome bag with lots of interesting recycled fabrics to be the fine diva of coming winter with an awesome bag!

I eluded to the length of time this quilt took to get done. I also eluded to the full story on its beginning, the technique and why it took so long to get the darn thing done, even to this point! Its still needing the corner triangles and the border, stay tuned! This photo was taken at the main lodge at Loon Lake www. loonlake .ubc.ca This quilt will be king size when complete. I bought the whole chunk of fabric, I think it was around 6 m. back in 1997-1998. ( I think it was around a $125 for the main fabric) The print that I chose was a limited edition wildlife print called Canadian Endanged Species. My husband is a wildlife/habitat biologist and he was the reason for the print. I wanted to finally make us a quilt for our own king size bed. I needed a large chunk of fabric because the Stack and Whack Dresden Plate does take a large chunk of fabric for all the various fussy cuts for the Dresden Plate Fans. The class was taught at the Moody Blue Quilters workshop space in C

As many of you, who know me personally, know of my love of crazy quilting! This one started as an exercise to see how many little snippets and big chunks of purple I could use in a crazy quilt. I've used cotton, silk, upholstry fabric, satin, slippery lingerie fabric mostly from recycled clothing in my own closet.  I went through a purple faze in my life, thank goodness it just one color I love now. I don't always start in the middle or the side or have a five sided block start as done by others. I just start with something that grabs my attention, like this African print fabric in the center.  I had a birthday that year and still working on the hand embroidery over a couple of years this quilt was made. Here, our neighbor Dave Gillespie sends off my birthday candle float on the river and we sing to till the wee hours. This quilt was sold to Leslie Crane last year.

We were at first stumbling around trying to figure out what went where. How to design a booth is a very important step. You need to consider that people will want to come and take a look at whatever you sell or make or both. In the photo  below, Nola and I set up the Bulkley Tweedsmuir Women's Institute's BV Fall Fair Display area. Then we rushed back to our booth and continued. We tried to consider space for movement, selling area for payment and cutting of organic cotton at the booth. 8x16 ft. might look big at the beginning, but you know how quilters are, we take everything but the kitchen sink.   We were happy with how it eventually turned out, but little things like the uneven rough wood flooring, even though rustic, was a challenge to prevent my shelves from falling over, spilling new organic cotton bolts all over the place. My Rooster was made the night before, just the top was on display. I have another blog posting on its continued progress.

Life has been up and down, all around, spinning sometimes and lost in the wilderness of life at other moments. I never know when something good is going to enter my life. I can plan well, execute focused attention on those plans and even sleep well too. Sometimes my world is touched by light and goodness. I can see dark clouds coming and I take shelter. This little quilt came into my life one of those times I sought shelter. The rain poured for what seemed like weeks as I played inside with the technique of stacking and whacking, slicing and dicing whatever you call it, in a totally different way. Designing; whacking and joining away I went. My task was "purple" the favorite color of Jennifer, Violet's Mom.   Playing with stacking and whacking is almost second nature because as I play with integrating recycled fabric from clothing into quilts its takes a different frame of reference to work with even the most challenging of recycled fabrics. 100% cotton

 We started here on Wed Morning August 24th. We had to sweep and vacuum the whole booth. Unloaded and moved around several times as cleaned. We really like the booth we had this year and will secure it for next year. On Tuesday night, I was inspired to make "Mr. Rooster" and determined that the back of the Bulkley Valley Fall Fair Guide Book was just right for me to start.  I began with free hand drawing the chicken's head parts on the paper side of fusible interfacing. I had turned it over from the side you iron it on with.  As I began cutting, the shapes of his comb and wattles took shape. This photo was really a hen, but I went with gusto into a larger, more prociding kind of demeanor, he who rules the kitchen  house wins, kind of thinking to really get into the head becoming transformed onto the background. This comb and wattles shape on the red fabric "Nature" collection from Cloud 9 Fabrics . He's coming along nicely.

Congratulations to Undomesticated Scientist for entering our little fat quarter draw. Your help was invaluable in assisting me make a decision to use brown as the background color. We're really pleased with all the entries for this competition and please check back for more as time goes on. Happy Quilting!