Carli The Quilter

Fweuf! Its done.  My kitchen renovation mosaic project took one full week. This is what my kitchen looked like before I began the taping, trimming, mudding, glueing (oh my aching back!) As you can just barely see, there is a row of off white tiles above the sink. These were put up unbeknownst to my hubby last year! Its been a trial run to see if we liked tiles in the kitchen. When we first moved here, we the discovered that our front door on the cottage was not a 'normal' size of a door....more like made for a hobbit than my guy's 6 ft plus stature. It worked fine for me, cause I'm a shorty, but the first summer I went crazy with mossy's in every corner of our cottage and like any good women made of good rural stuff, I found a plan online to make a screen door! What? I should let someone experienced make a screen door? What may be a trying idea to some is common place for the 'maker' in me! Well, girls I not only made a screen door, I ma

I'm so excited that our community has finally grown to want to an actual real quilt guild. Our community really is spread out so far that its actually takes in 7 communities Fort Fraser , Fraser Lake , Burns Lake , Houston , Telkwa , Smithers , Moricetown and Hazelton . Our fledgling start up guild is holding it second "Quit In" in Telkwa on March 31, centrally located, at the Telkwa Christian Reformed Church, across from the One Stop in Telkwa. We'll start at 9:30 and play with fabric until 4 pm. Its a brown  bag lunch, so we're not making extra potluck stuff that usually is too much for all of us and its takes more work.  Reuse is a  big deal with us. We all were really focused to figure out how to hold a mini workshop for 3 hours at the upcoming Farmer's market on June 16th? Fortunately, we have received funding to hold such an event like this and we're moving ahead. This pink quilt is one such example of a baby quilt made from sweaters,

This simple designed flag is my one symbol I have that I can say belongs to me and every other Canadian. This flag hanging outside a typical northern Canadian lake campground reminds me of the pride I felt when Trudeau opened Expo 67! I have lived a quiet rural life with intermittent rebellious youthful times spent in cities, just like thousands of other Canadians. Many of us returned to the country to find our roots and revive rural farming communities. Its not just me that thinks that we're seeing and living a return to the basic country lifestyle. For us to get down and have some good clean rodeo fairing good times is often held at a small local rodeo or fall fair . We eat up all sorts of dripping corn on the cob and wrestle back a few bugs while taking in our communities agricultural offerings. I love checking out chickens, rabbits, horses and goats and sheep. Sometimes its the flavor of our version of "hippie concert in the bush" festival and that for me wo

I love to make crazy quilts as some of you  know already, so this special blog is part of my contribution to all the fun. Yes, I'm giving away a hand picked kit of fabrics, lace etc. for a 16 inch crazy square pillow. Deadline to enter ends March 31, 2012 Yep, its too much fun to hang around in my studio for long without learning that I love improvisational quilting and crazy quilting often fits the bill for me. This little green number is called "My Secret Garden" made in 2009.  My Purple Crazy 2008, in a private collection now. So as you are drooling over these lovely crazy quilts and thinking about if you are brave enough to play with fabric improvisational, then you must read further and decide. This is the size of crazy quilted pillow that you can make too! Your kit will include all the fine lace, embroidery threads, ribbon and fabrics to make a 16 inch. Just for fun, make an Oh, Canada Flag quilt! Like mine, soon you'll be throwi

 In 1997 I began thinking about writing a book. By this time I'd had so many interesting experiences with quilting with recycled cotton harvested from shirts and dresses, I'd become quite good at it! This little pillow above is one and you can see the beginnings of a modern quilter with all that abstract negative space. But that darned addiction of mine to crazy quilting began sending me off in all directions! But still my need to express myself with different ideas about quilting took me back and forth for the most of the last decade! OMG I'm dating myself, but oh so what, anyone can find me on Google if they really have a burning desire to know more about me. My desire to express innovative ways to reuse kept me on track for becoming a modern quilter. I didn't even know what a blog was in 2003 when this Butterfly Ring took shape on a scrap of graph paper. I was deep into learning about blogs when in the summer of 2008, our little hamlet had two dev

Why not celebrate ways to reuse, refuse and reignite our world passion for conserving cloth! Here's you opportunity to speak green, demonstrate green and make a new pair of jeans from old ones. " Upcycle Your Jeans 2012 Challenge "   1. Follow my blog and tell me you've done so in your comment to join us in the challenge! 2. Take a pair of worn out jeans and decorate them in whatever way you want so long as you can still wear the jeans as jeans! We're not making a quilt or other projects, must be a completely wearable pair of jeans when you are finished. (This photograph displays a changed pair of jeans to a jean skirt. Please don't do this, for this challenge keep the jeans intact) 3. Photograph the jeans before and after, send these photos and brief history of your project to my email address, carlithequilter@gmail.com so I can further blog along as our new jeans get done! 4. Write up your Upcy

Sometimes, life is so fragile and so lively all at once! The phone rang, I picked up the receiver and heard my fellow Quick W.I. member's voice. Auktje is on the other end of the phone and has something to show me. I decided that is must be important as this 89 year old wouldn't call just to chat. Its not her style.  Our matron member Auktje Oosteroff, her years of active involvement with Quick W.I. dates back several decades, she was a member in Holland before immigrating to Canada.   I dropped what I was doing and drove over on a sunny day to have tea and gluten free cookies in her lovely country home. This lady may look elderly, but we are all going to be there someday. I missed a prime photo hung on her wall, her prize she pointed to on the wall, a lynx rug! The photo of her holding her prize and the dead lynx speaks volumes of the kind of life many W.I. women live in rural Canada. Auktje is a crocheter extraordinaire, her home is well