Carli The Quilter

I'm linking up with Amy's Creative Side who twice a year hosts this Bloggers Quilt Festival. In the photo below it shows the finished quilt that I made to commemorate our  northern Town of Smithers 100th Birthday! This is my story of what I learned. I have been learning more about quilting since I was 14 yrs old when I met my high school Textile teacher, Miss Hepburn, now Mrs. Summerskill. Unfortunately, she passed away earlier this year and she would have been so impressed that the scrawny tomboy of Gr. 8 had reached new opportunities of learning. I learned from Mrs. Summerskill that no one should tell me what to do. That I should take the time to 'think' and 'plan' and to just be yourself. This was very good advice to a young budding quilter. Sometimes though, we can get lost in the keeping up with all the other blogger's doing all sorts of lovely quilts. Sometimes, we lost in an illness that strikes you down and holds you cap...

Last weekend we took a well deserved break, driving out to Terrace all prepared for a camping weekend. It was really nice, relaxed and I even got to do a little machine embroidery at the Embroidery Club at Northern Vacuum and Sewing. I arrived on Friday, the ladies had already been going for two days! I say its almost like a retreat, but not quite, like a quilting gathering but not quite that either. It was fun and so much experience in the room! The ladies were busy with their own projects! I got this much done! These solid color chunks of 100% cotton are from my friend Pam at Mad About Patchwork! As you can see, I'm learning about stabilizer's, they are very important with machine embroidery. I am sure that I could have asked "The Ladies" for help choosing, but thought I had the right stuff. Learning is the natural flow of life.  I see these kittens, panda and rabbits in something fun very soon. I'm not concerned that they are perfect! I left at th...

I didn't think I had properly posted the full story of my journey on the Smithers 2013  Centennial Quilt.  Here are more photos close up so you could see some of the fine details of this quilt and some of my thoughts of taking on a huge project. It began because I had a dream.  I just couldn't fathom that our largest community in the Bulkley Valley would not have a centennial quilt when celebrating 100 yrs. We live very northern lifestyles. If we want opera, we must fly to Vancouver paying lots of dollars to get there. I felt we have so much to celebrate in our community that it was only fitting that we have an awesome quilt to represent the growth in the last 100 years of Smithers. I originally had discussed this idea with Heather Gallagher at our local Chamber of Commerce and she was inspiring, telling me of her idea of a train barreling down a line. Hence, the train became the lower focus of the entire quilt.  I took the projec...

Yes, you've heard it all before, but really this time its really done!! It was actually a hard feeling and a good feeling today when I dropped off the Smithers Centennial Quilt to Heather Gallagher at our local Smithers Chamber of Commerce. My mind ran over all the little details of how this piece came together, how many revisions I made, how many times I pulled out stitches and I even bled on the quilt ~ last night! Someone asked me how many hours I had put in, well, I just laughed! I started out trying to figure that out, but as deadlines approach, the details of tracking became fuzzy to say the least. The little gold colored threads are not threads, they are metal wire! I learned a thing or two from artists who don't normally work in textiles, their mind went somewhere else completely. These cute little curly cues were a #%*&@ to work with and to machine quilt around. But alas, I mastered the challenges one by one.       And like any good l...