Carli The Quilter

Sometimes, in my neck of the woods, I feel alone on the Internet. I discuss many wonderful things with folks all over the world, but locally, we are little bit behind. But recently, I discovered this local shop and she has a blog online. Pam has this delightful shop "in the back forty of her property " walking along a raised dirt path along the frog pond is super natural! This little shop is not far from my home! Go to http://institcheshouston.blogspot.com/ Then I thought Then you must meet up with Sonja at http://artisania.wordpress.com/ this gal is a paper piecer extraordianaire! Fabulous gal with much talent, I think she's just getting off the ground really, even though she's been working away for several years, she is a must check! http://cathy-blueberrypatch.blogspot.com/ This  new blog to me is pretty interesting, Cathy has a real nice way of putting things together. She's a BC Mom of two grown kids and has some really nice links on her bl...

Over the holidays, I read through various quilting magazines as I usually do when kicking back and sipping tea while the snow falls outside. It hit me like a ton of bricks, I was left with a profound feeling of the "sameness" in each magazine.  For a look at some awesome new patterns from my friend Laurraine, click the link below. http://patchworkpottery.blogspot.com/ The sameness I speak of is the constant over use of single collections in each pattern. Do you know what I mean? I see this as "homogenization" in our global quilting arts community. But do we all want to be the same, look the same, feel the same and behave the same way? I dare say that we don't want that. I recommend creating without a pattern. I'm writing several tutorials and individual posts on creating without a pattern for future posts, stay tuned! Lets start at the beginning shall we. Making quilts began with simple tools. How do you do that? You can...

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?

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 ...

You know, sometimes it just good to get together and play with fabric. Many of my friends agree. Some of my friends are pictured here with their quilts from a quilting weekend a few years ago, but  had not posted anything about it. What's with that, Carli? The first photo is Joanne with her crazy pieced quilt. Great idea to take the 'crazy star' and make it really crazy in her original style.  Nancy's quilt is part of the Round Robin exchange we did that year. We each started with a 12.5 in. block and sent along one prominent fabric and Nancy's quilt turned out really awesome. Her theme was Winter.  I was the instigator of the RR and so talking about it here, with the Telkwa Mayor's wife in the photo, I'm talking about how RR's can be done, swap blocks, swap rows, swap all sorts of things. My quilt is in the theme of Country Cabin. I'll post a better photo of this one now its all finished in another blog.  Joanne's lovely "...