Carli The Quilter

Hello readers, friends and followers from far and wide. This year I'm hosting a Crazy Quilt Along 2014. Its going to be an awesome fun time as I teach Basic Crazy Quilting for a group of quilters who signed up in early December of last year. I was slightly surprised by the immediate response of interested quilters. I have begun a 2015 waiting list, so leave me comment if you want to be involved with 2015. Crazy Quilting is not a process that I plan out, get busy on the sewing machine and have my quilt done in a few days!  My Purple Crazy Quilt took me several years to complete. Now that is not constant work on the same quilt. I get carpel tunnel syndrome if I don't pay attention to varying my activities. You may too, if  you don't take care of your fingers, hands and wrists. Machine embroidery enthusiasts might love to make crazy quilts on an embroidery machine. Like this rose I did with an embroidery machine on teh Smithers 2013 Centennial Qui...

You know how Smitty works heh? What? You must have a Smitty in your house, he's the little mischievous invisible little bugger who comes along, like clockwork, just when you think you have yourself organized? This time he's in the form of a new computer.  Well, its really about transferring everything from a Mac to the new PC. These two manufacuturers really have to form a better relationship for consumers, really! I am bravely trying to post my first post on my blog since the surprise new computer for Christmas! I wanted to show you the late 2013 gift made for  a friend of mine. But alas, I'm  am not finding photos   about the process of building this "Burgundy Beauty" am I,  no, I'm wondering around inside the world of PC's with different Microsoft versions. Now if I was posting about crows on the other  hand, this one is also a beauty! But not the Burgundy Beauty? And if I was writing a post about the process of some ...

I had a Christmas present arrive early and its a new computer, new windows and Photoshop!! This is my first post using my new computer system courtesy of our oldest son, who so kindly made this possible and now I'm playing around trying to find all my stuff. So this collection is not complete, maybe next year I'll show a complete photo montage of all my Christmas quilts. This Christmas message is meant to be short and sweet!  So Merriest times at your Christmas and all the very best for the new year! See you again in 2014. Carli

I love using my "Two Hour Slice and Dice Table Runner" and this time, I used Christmas fabric instead of the photo colors as seen below. Which you'll just  love and you can carry on to make dozens of funky and wild quilts from full size bed size to tiny minis too! More on those another time. These are where you end up in about 2 hrs of your time. Its a Christmas Puzzle! I decided on the size that ALL blocks would become the same size. 15 1/2 inches sq to be exact. And there you have it, 5 blocks from 5 FQ. Ok, so were do we go now with these, up next is the finished table runner! Yes, it turned out totally lovely and its on its way to a friend for Christmas who has this enormous dining table, this runner was 85 inches long, it has a lovely snowy fabric border and machine quilting. I forgot to get a photo, you know how it goes, you're running around finding wrapping paper and just the right size of box and then its wrapped and done. On...

So pleasant to sit down and read my first email that I had one two lovely patterns over at Geta's Studio! I've been really intrigued with her patterns and wanted to try something, but I thought, "Darn, I'm not buying anything new until my challenge is over on June 30th, 2014. So delayed and then she  had a giveaway posted and I entered myself with my gmail address in the post as I'm a no-reply blogger. I fell in love with this pouch purse and so its my first choice of two patterns that I could pick for free! Then I also really saw possiblilities in this one up next! If you haven't found this Romanian Studio , then you are missing something! Geta's work is impeccible and her insight into sphere styled quilts is remarkable. I recommend her work and hope you can find the time to visit her blog.

Almost every year, at Christmas time, my hubby always makes a batch of "Almond Roca home made style." Its not like the purchased stuff. Its much better. I only have the before photos because I took them before I went for a trip into Smithers and when I came home it was all wrapped up and hidden. So I know when ever I find these again, they will lovley!

So , you all know that my life is filled with quilts and recently I decided that I'd return to knitting, but so far that has been a disaster. So I picked up my crochet hook and made a touque if you are Canadian and its a warm winter hat  if  you are not. I faux cabled the outside of the touque! Such fun and fast to make. My able bodied head wanted to pretend that she was in a movie! I just love it and its so warm, if I can get  a minute for my hubby to take a photo of me wearing it I'll post it too!.

OK, now some of you may feel that buying things at the thrift store are not for you and that's OK. If you are one of the CQA2014 participants, this blog posting is "a must read." I think that if you want to get really motivated to improve your crazy quilting skills, you may just find awesome buys for a $1 or less for a huge zip lock bag with all sorts of stuff in it. Sewing and quilting stuff, that is! Lace, laces, buttons, bits and pieces from clothing, zippers are just some of what you already know of, its just really good to have confirmation of fact.  Really, girl, I've got my hands on my hips and I'm wagging a finger at you! We all 'must' start re-purposing fabrics from clothing and related items made from fabric more often. I have read 'The World in 2050" by Laurence C. Smith and I can see the changes we all must make and I have begun making my changes! If  you are interested in making crazy quilts or you are signed up f...

Crazy stitching is really only a space in your head where you decide how you interpret the stitching along seams whether this is done by hand or machine. Check out the meandering zig zag stitch from my Janome or my Baby Lock machine to top stitch the strips over the sweater 5 inch squares. Its a crazy made quilt for sure. Crazy Quilts are very personal, they are your expression.  Crazy quilts in my opinion are not meant to be done with the traditional format we've seen in dozens of examples. In this blue crazy quilt for a baby is a good example of a crazy quilt made modern. Just as these following examples are. This pink, green, yellow and blue soft colours had had the finish embroidery work, beadwork comes later. Remember all of my projects between January 2014 and June 30 will be done without buying any new fabric. Its such a freeing process to simply use what you have! Join us and make the commitment to not buy any new fabric f...

Just a tickle of whats to come with this block, what do you think?

So all of these are little bits and pieces that are still not finished. These are my UFO's for completion in 2014. I promise not to buy anything to finished these except batting and backing. This is my lovely Sockeye Sashiko Bowls I did last year with a quilt along using the pattern of   www.reginagrewe.de This is the swirley method (below) I used in the making of Sir Alfred Smithers that went  into the Smither 2013 Centennial Quilt  Now these Dresden blocks below are about to change radically. This is the first block I made after deciding this the block for my new King size quilt that will be used for summer on our bed. We've had the same bed frame for 29 years. I have some of the little pieces stashed in a cookie tin.  This is a long drawn out wool piece ( below) that was an experiment and I started about 10 yrs ago! These poor little rail blocks were my way of getting myself back into the "real world of quilting ealier thi...