Carli The Quilter

I'm a member of a wonderful ladies organization called Women's Institute. Our Quick WI branch has been pretty active, with new members joining all the time. Recently, like many of us, one of our members has to begin cancer treatment.We thought of our dearest friend going through this process. We knew immediately what we had to do, make her a "friendship quilt" to snuggle under when at the hospital.  We all work outside the home or in the home studio and its so close to Christmas, but what the heck, we're on for two Sundays. We laid out the sandwiched 12.5 inch blocks, ready for quilting. We placed a random sewing machine drawing of a 'heart' in each block, then stippled inside the heart on each of the 42 blocks. As we went, we planned and talked, a real quilting bee!  This event was held at Nola's house and we used her husband's pool table to lay it all out on, thanks Ed! Nola was up and down the stairs, keeping us in

I started this quilt in 2001, worked in the method of 'quilt as you go', I completed each block independently with an intact sandwiched block. Hand embroidery in my opinion is the only method for a 'real crazy quilt' and this was no exception. What made this quilt so special, its like I was stepped back in time. Everything except the outer binding was 100% reclaimed silk linings from jackets and coats. Batting was worn toweling, green outer  border was from a fall mid weight dress. Labels are taken from reclaimed clothing. This quilt is 42x42 and it won first prize in 'Most Innovative' category at the IPM Quilt Show in Southern Ontario, Canada in 2004.

I went through a stage in life where all I did was crazy quilts. Small ones mostly, purses, pins and even fridge magnets. I'm going to post a tutorial on fridge magnets coming up soon.  I love to do three-four combinations of stitches. Such as this CQA Trend Tex Challenge that I didn't get finished until six months after the challenge was over, missed that one! I love the soft pastel colors with the brown fabric, its called "My Secret Garden"  I have  been crazy quilting since 1997, when I started the "Silver Linings Crazy Quilt and didn't stop since. The next posting is more of my crazy quilts. Some of the stitching below and above are combinations of a minimum of 3 combo's, sometimes some of the stitches are 6 stitches on one seam. Over lapping and accentuating each other. I am a real enthusiast of Carol Samples book Encyclopedia of Crazy Stitches.  Enjoy! Tell me what you're obsessed with?

http://youtu.be/NJPjoWzJ5Nw This scarf gal has got it all figured out. Wow, she is so good on making your scarves look fabulous on her video. This video is my personal selection of her various ways to tie up a scarf. I had to share this, its so cool, you'll love it.

These pillow are all hand appliqued and hand quilted. Sometimes, you meet a quilter and they have done a few quilts, they are always beautiful and lovely even if only a few have been made. Then you meet by complete surprise a very special lady who has quilts till the cows come home. These are some of Emmi's quilts. I was overjoyed to see her quilts, but had no idea that this lady is a serious quilter. Her sewing room is full of finished quilts. Here are more of Emmi's quilts.  And these are just a few of her quilts. I feared that the photo inclusion on this posting would be prohibitive if someone lived with dial up, like many of us do here in Northern BC. Hope you enjoyed these special quilts hand made by a special lady.

When I walk by a thrift store or see a garage sale sign on the side of the road, I have to stop! I pick up all sorts of discard pottery and make new things with it. Yep, that's it, no real plan of it, just to reuse a reclaimed item into a new life. These little pincushions are just that, hand picked finds of pottery that I've remade into a pincushion. I encourage anyone to do the same, they make ideal gifts and are a great seller at a craft table. Plus, there is just no end to what is out there to reuse. Let your imagination go!  I'm sure that these pottery finds are in your area and what an original gift for a quilter or sewer? I came across some of these cute little egg cups that the potter wasn't too happy with and I bought them all from her. What do you think?  This tea cup and saucer sets were discards at the Reuse Shed. Not cracked, chipped or wrong in any way, so they found a new life!  All of the fabrics used are reclaimed from

I first started playing around with sewing with corduroy in the late 1970's. I did most of my sewing by hand because my transient lifestyle didn't allow me to pack my sewing machine. So to start with, its much easier for me to work with corduroy if I sew it by hand, its amazing what you can do with an ordinary needle and thread.   I made several hats, no pictures of them and sold a few to freinds. Then I made a skirt which was well admired by my hippie friends and then came the first corduroy quilt. I don't have any pictures of that either  but it made me start using more corduroy in general. All the corduroy I had been using at that time was completely all reclaimed from clothing. This quilt above is the one I made for a book I was writing in the early 2000's and its combined with denim, the biege, blue colors are denim with the butterflies cotton reclaimed from clothing. The backing of this really toasty quilt is an emergency blanket from one of those car k

In our house, once it gets chilly outside, the wood stove is lit everyday, we start talking soup! Really, we do. One of our favorite soups is a healthy, low fat farmer sausage soup. We don't just use any farmer's sausage first of all. We use only Farmer's Sausage made in Rempel's Butcher Shop in Abottsford, BC. This is the source of great Mennonite traditional foods and this Farmer's Sausage is legendary! Its really lean, yummy cold or hot, goes with all sorts of other meals and is also easy to take when you are hiking or fishing. Its the original fast food. Carli's Farmer Sausage Winter Soup 1 (10 inch) chunk of Farmer Sausage 1 quart of beef broth, plus 2 cups water 3 stalks of celery, diced 6 medium sized potatoes, peeled and diced medium 1 onion, diced 6 cloves of garlic, diced 3 medium sized carrots, diced  1 (3 inch) chunk butternut squash, chopped 1 tbsp vegetable oil 1 tsp each dried parsley and basil seasoning to taste