Carli The Quilter

Charlene is a sweetie, she is so enthused by all the crafting going on in the Bulkley Valley. She was our lucky winner of our door prize for our 1st. Annual Re-Crafting Fair on Feb 9th.  Her name was picked out of the hat and when I called her, she immediately said she was going to have me do a special t-shirt quilt for her son, Billy. So I started. By sewing down sashing on the sides as seen below to start attaching the same size  blocks throughout this t-shirt quilt.   The finished quilt hung in my woodshed. If you haven't made a t-shirt quilt, there are several different ways you can make a t-shirt quilt. I had the instructions for this quilt "It can't be too girly, its for my son and he's a skier" so this quilt became my opportunity to get to know Billy a little more. But I knew that some fun had to be instilled into these manly quilt despite the  need for a handsome quilt.  So I made the borders something special. This...

Sometimes you feel like your crawling along with so little progress. You know what I mean don't you? Then this past weekend I had two days off work and my mind, body and soul was in 'quilting' mode. But then my hubby reminded me had a trip to town to take care of and it wasn't until 2:30 we were home. My heart was sinking with the feeling like I'd never finish this mega centennial thinga-ma-jig quilt. I was on a rant! I am not angry or anything, just impatient. Suddenly, I had to retreat, go to my 'woom' and settle into a nice little rythum and all would be well again. And I did get into a nice little rythum. The pieced black/grey prints that form the background are good to do, they require patience and allowed me to get into a good rhythm.   So the "Flying Geese' blocks were coming along nicely and the bonus of my flying geese is always the triangle corners become a half triangle pieced block too! I always draw a second line and ...

Do you play Crokinole ? I do and I've been playing against my hubby for 28 years and recently had a moment to remember. I beat my hubby in a game to 100 points. I have the evidence here! He's the king of Crokinole no more....so sad... As you can see, my men are black colored and this is the last shot, I've got six men on board to his two legal ones, the white men on the far left is touching the line, so its a gonner! We love to play this and my hubby says that I'm the best Crokinole player next to him and one other friend. So that is an honor because Rick, my hubby began playing Crokinole early in his childhood growing up in a Mennonite family, lots of family gatherings and lots of Crokinole. Just sharing and grinning from ear to ear!!

My story as quirky as my life is with such a focus as quilting in my life, I'm so overwhelmed with the kind comments, the new followers and to be featured anywhere is such an honor! As you all know by now, the SCQP has been the main focus of my work over the past year. But I love to take a little break and do something that is well, how should I say, less taxing on my brain, my skill and not so stressful with real deadlines! So when my good friend and Bulkley Valley neighbor won the door prize at our recent 1st. Annual Re-Crafting Fair, I jumped at the opportunity to make a T-Shirt quilt. Here's a few shots of the progress so far. While these photos are not my best, you get the idea of the new techniques I'm using to finish a T-Shirt Quilt. If you've not ever made a t-shirt quilt, there are no mysteries  here, its straight forward with cutting the logo's back and front simultaneously in 12.5 inch or 16 inch blocks.  Notice the...

Last weekend, our crafting club held our 1st. Annual Re-Crafting Fair in Telkwa. Our mission was to educate locals and far away visitors about the many ways we've experimented to reuse textiles into new items. Reusing is an important task that all of us should be doing as often as possible.    We are just a small group of crafters who feel that our local communities and our local government need help in learning about this reality. We have a large number of people still throwing things into a Re-Use Shed with no one to care for these items on an ongoing basis. Consequently, we've learned that about twice a week, the workers drive a small bobcat front loader into the building and simply discard the clothing into the Knockholt Landfill that is about 45 km's away southeast of Houston, B.C.  We feel this is wrong. Education about 'how to reuse everything' needs to be done. We aim to educate everyone, including our local government. This blog posting docume...

Wow, I've come up for air! Literally, I'm sleeping, eating, working and quilting. These are the four things that I aspire to keep up with during this extremely busy time of my life. Yes, its way, way busier than I ever thought it would be, but so rewarding at the same time. Funny how life throws opportunities and if you're willing to experimentation, then the opportunity becomes something that is really good for you. I take heart in the natural surroundings of Telkwa and beautiful Bulkley Valley. This photo is looking west towards Roche' de Bule. Photo taken in lovely Hazelton, B.C This is how this whole centennial quilt project is for me. Growth in bucket loads!! I'v begun to take risks that I was too scared to do even a year ago! I entered my first competition in 2004, to the IPM & Quilt Show and won in the "Most Innovative" Category, I was very surprised and didn't quite know what to do next. After all, I'm a quiet, ...

When I started this blog in early 2011, I really had no idea of how much fun I'd have writing, composing projects and reading the comments left by followers. Followers? I had no idea if anyone might be interested in what I had to say and truly when I started, it was all about confirming in my own mind I could write an interesting blog entry on a regular basis. Now, I have 50 followers and I've written 150 posts! I like those odds! So I thought I'd start this post with a look back. Wow, as I started to compose this post, I realized I have a lot of photos! Looking is not always an easy thing to do and appreciate all the new followers I have discovered over this last two years. I am just getting started! All the best, Carli