Carli The Quilter

OK, remember my big mega project? You know I must be a glutton for punishment or something. I am the lead quilter on the Smithers Centennial 2013 Quilt Project. No photos yet of the entire quilt because that is still 16 months away!! But I did have a deadline of June 30th for the blocks to be handed to me from the other 9 artist participating. Then in May one of the artists couldn't commit, then today another one decided that the deadline was not happening in her life either. So there I was in a  moment of heart pounding shock. I stayed calm on the phone, but inside my insides were turning around and exploding! I thought happy thoughts and calmed down. Its still 15 months away and well, I'm up for the challenge. Then I opened my email and there was a nice post from Funky Junk's blog and she posed a question to her readers.   As I read  her post, I found this challenge, I realized that yes, I'd make three blocks for this quilt and I'd do...

A special hello to all my followers! Thank you so much for reading my  blog and being interested in learning more about how to be a green quilter! I'll be posting all the finishes I'm currently working on as they are done. This little quilt is actually my own quilt. Yep after the dozens of quilts I've made over the years, even before this blog, I didn't make any quilts for myself. You know how it went back then, I didn't think about taking photos, that was before I became a blogger! I started this quilt in the 1990's, hand sewing the various log cabin blocks from random scraps. I took this scraps along in a special back pack when I went bar fishing with my hubby.  Then we moved three times since starting this. Then the inner off white muslin border became stained, then I had to wash the unfinished quilt. Again, absent mindedly, I didn't think of the mess of snags from the fabric on the back side. So then I had to hand snip all those ...

I made the suggestion of an "Upcycle Quilt Category" to the board of directors of Canadian Quilters Assn in 2005. It was rejected. Thank goodness to all of those quilters and crafters out there that have embraced reusing and made lovely new things from reuse items. Society today needs more events to celebrate how we can individually deliver a smaller footprint on the world.  We have many of these types of ways going on, such as with the " Bicycle to Work " Being green never was easier! Being green today for quilters has never been easier either. Thousands of mature quilters are hanging up their massive stash and moving to less taxing activities. Not to say that some handwork or hand quilting might still be going on with our elders who remember what it was like before we had fabric stores in every town and city. http://www.csnf.com/designerstyle.html Would you like to enter a competition for "Upcycled?" Tell me you will enter so...

One of my favorite colors is purple. I love deep dark purple, burgundy and deep rust colors. In 1985 I created quite a stir for my own wedding dress that had deep rust colored velvet in the bodice. Meadow flowers danced on beige background cotton, low bodice with laces on the front of the bodice. It was not white! So how I came to be inspired to make the Purple Crazy now in a private collection  here in the Bulkley Valley. See the center of this block with the "winged dancers" with a multi colored background? The slight purple colors in this background was the start of the choices I made along the way towards the finished quilt. As I have progressed with crazy quilting, I have become less focused on following the seams with embroidery or other embellishment. I tend to let go and fall off the seam into the main area. Following your bliss is an excellent start, reusing embellished clothing items is a handy way to import some embroidery without the time to do ...

1. Start with 3 Fat Quarters, 1 focus fabric, 1 complimentary and 1 sparkle fabrics, lay each on top of each other in a stack.  2. Make two slightly off kilter cuts across and through the whole stack. 3.  Take the first one from the bottom of stack #1 from the left side, place it on top of same stack. 4. Take the bottom two from the center stack and place on top of center stack. 5. Leave the last stack alone. 6. Sew each layer as the fabrics are laid out and make into slightly off kilter blocks.   7. Trim the blocks to whatever size the layered stack is, making sure to use as much of the fabric as possible. You may have to peak into the layers to be sure you've got all three layers.  Once the blocks are sewn together, they form a nifty, fast table runner! Yeh for fast when you're called upon to make a fast donation product or as a last minute gift!    I used about 1.5 m. of one of the same fabrics for the backing. W...

 My whole Mother's Day weekend was a total distraction and blast of back-roading fun and adventure! Here's how it all panned out.  I thought I'd take along some hand work to maybe play with if fishing was going good for Rick, but as it turned out, I didn't even get to it. Living here in Northern BC, we always have a check in a friend, just in case we aren't seen again, someone can at least know where we went. We headed out after breakfast down the Lawson Rd and onto the Houston Mainline, which is a very fast, almost smooth main logging truck highway. Its gravel and you can actually drive at speeds of 100km's on this gravel highway. As you can see from these two photo's, we ran into not just one blow down across the road to Poplar Lake, but 4 times, we lugged the branches and logs out of the way. But then came this one! It was a doozey! My hubby had brought his chain saw, (just in case of this) and on this last one, his patience of the w...

I invite you to think back to any time you've seen a crazy quilt? Most people are drawn to the 'crazy' way these special quilts look or maybe the hand stitched embroidery or the other multitudes of embellishments you can buy these days were the creativity that drew you in! Personally, I love the look of the old time crazy quilts with lots of bold colors, endless amounts of hand stitching that really spells out "hand made" and you won't need a rotary cutter etc! For those of  you who have already made one or more crazy quilts, this little tutorial can be a gift to a special friend.  Carli's Special Effects Supplies:  Used top quality evening wear clothing, even flimsy stuff upholstery fabrics of a light texture labels from clothing ribbons, lace, buttons Welcome to this first tutorial of four on how you can achieve a fabulous one of a kind crazy quilt! Starting point! Foundation muslin cut into 12.5 in.squares (Be...

Its quick and so handy for saving money and we all need to do that these days! Check out my new tutorial in the "Sewing/Quilting Tutorials" link to that page on my top bar. All the best, Carli

This little quilt became a winner for me! It was made a really stressful time of my life. Without going into all kinds of this and that of why it was a stressful time, trust me, it was! I was struggling to find solace in my life. I don't have daughters and sons were only so interested in quilting. My husband married me without knowing the quilt addict that lived inside me would erupt and take over many parts of me.  This quilt is special because its one of the first quilts that I made using only cotton fabric. Most of the cotton fabric had  been hand me downs from wealthier quilters than myself. I could buy new fabric and make lovely quilts as is evident in my batik paper pieced center piece below. It was 1997 and I had had a major run in with the Quilt Police! I admit it, I was a newby and committed a big crime in my new quilt guild at the time. I had used thrifted cottons! "You can't be a quilter using thrift store crap" one whispered! ...

Victoria of Bumble Beans Inc. from New York City lists this lovely tutorial of a star block paper piecing called Triangles Galore! on her blog. I fell in love at first site! I was inspired to paper piece again, just like that, I was busy photocopying again. Victoria is a very generous person, as she inspires quilters new and experienced to embrace our inner voice to find peace and calm. She teaches others to quilt that need a comfort hobby to sooth their tangled nerves.  I can relate to this philosophy, stitching after all was my literal salvation as a child. My mother was often away at hospital. I grew up for many years thinking hospital was a holiday place for "Mommies"! My mother was always happy again after a visit to the hospital. She taught me to sew by hand. I grew into embroidery and started with making doll dresses. I was intrigued from the beginning of sewing and have never left it. Playing with fabric was and remains to be an important c...