Carli The Quilter

Some of my days of late have been drafting, measuring, pressing, sorting and the like. I stumbled on a very organized-Value-Village-COVID-19 in Nanaimo. I glove-masked up and went in. Lots of decent, reasonable priced for a retail market. Maybe I'm just forgetting prices but these prices in VV and other "thrift shops" are becoming unreasonable for many seniors and low income folks to afford. The pricing seemed higher than previous times. Leave me your comnents below. I felt suddenly without much blue or green in my stash. But the good news is that it means I'm using it up at least my green and blue stash. And this is the first really sized load of fabrics I've purchased since 2016. Not bad! And that the green and blue fabrics might just find its way into new family quilts that I'm working on. Plus, I'm starting another Canadian Flag quilt for my youngest son.He's been wanting one since I gave the first one I made and then gave...

A tool bag for my Arborist son. Made from med weight cotton duck fabric bought when I found a close out sale at Capital Iron shop in Sidney back in January. Things that are small but important like assorted sized wedges, clippers, etc are needed and its easy to lose them in deep grass or heavy ground cover. I am for sure opening my Etsy shop this summer. Hoping you are well and sewing away. Happy Quilting, Carli

This quilt is finally a real comletely finished quilt on my bed! We started using it Nov 30th,2019 as the coolness of wet air, brisk winds and rain began to come on often and for days at a time. Sometimes, I wonder what a monsoon is like? 😊 I wanted the scrappy old fashioned feel that took me to a thoughtful place. This quilt is my second personal king sized quilt to make. These blocks could write a romance novel. They could giggle like a school girl from the compliments of men. They were the remnants of a bag of fabric I bought at a thrift store many years ago. Perhaps in the Kootenay Country in the 1990's. Many of these were hand pieced while sitting waiting for my Skeema River fish bell to go off! Many blessed memories that now, my husband I look back on fondly.  These blocks were not "planned" to be scrappy, they just were, simple as that. Ideas, ideas and then moving twice was not fun. This poor quilt just kept on getting left in the b...

I love making my own clothes. 2019 was a year to celebrate with numerous makes of clothing. As it turned out, my favorite continues to be Megan Nielsen's Eucalyptic Dress and Top. Megan Nielsen's Eucalyptic Dress and Top This top was the 4th I'd made. I used repurposed wide shawl bought at a music festival years ago and just didn't get used. Hence, the top is super lightweight, perfect for hot summer days. Again, this one pattern has become a favorite. This one is very festive, a mid weight cloth similar to a vintage bark cloth. The white dangle trim is super fun and I get lots of publuc comments when I wear it around town. Viscose from years ago purchase is vety cool and this one I added a flouncy edge. Love it with jeans! This shorter dress is also the same, but a different type of fabric that I can't figure out what is. But its a slightly warmer dress, but still a summer weight. This was my first use of ...

Hi folks, I am feeling quite settled with staying home and washing hands and of course wearing a face mask out and about. Like many people I watch the news and read details of the various levels of loss our country is experiencing and those other countries facing a lot more sadness. The Unites States of America is not great. I doubt that their has it in him to be compassionate or demonstrate really good leadership quite frankly. With him it sounds as though its all about continuing capitalism. But in the doom and gloom of adapting the deadly virus COVID 19 and bright light has shown itself as the winner of global warming, our pollution is down by recod amounts everywhere.   Who knew that by just staying home we could have that huge impact on our beautful air around the globe? We have known for quite sometime that we were on the wrong road, that WE really were the problem and we are seeing total evidence of this around the world. Just by not driving places around the world we've not...

These times are stressful for sure. I've begun restricting how much news I read and watch! I am feeling like I need to just get on with some special people quilt projects. We are living in times that the prey sought by this COVID 19 is US!!! So telling the most important people how you feel. LOVE can be expressed in so many ways. Crafting, sewing and quilting has always been the way I express myself. So Rail Fence done using Sujuta Shah's method outlined in her fabulous book. The cover quilt is my favorite! So here goes, the happy, heartfelt Rail Fence big picks of lights and dark fabric for what will end up measuring 116 inches square. And gor thise if you not following me on Instagram @carlithequilter will not know about the County Clair hand pieced blocks I've also begun in next post. Happy Quilting!!

As you know, this fun quilt began coming together in the early days of 2017. I did start hand appliquing the Dresden Plates on to their respective back ground fabric in early 2014. Having made these colorful Dresden Blocks many years before this as I wrote about back in a post I auditioned the potential backgrounds. Some of the background block fabrics were shirt material from nearly new men's attire at the thrift shop and the red print was organic cotton from Cloud9 Fabrics. Many, many hours of hand appliquing the Dresden Plates to their backgrounds. I did some with new fabric and others in vintage fabric. But slowly but surely, this quilt is coming along and its been a nice project to realize is actually close to being a flimsey, I carried on, determined to get the blocks out of my drawers and into a project.  These Scrappy Dresden Plates were more of the scraps I've used up over several decades. I began cutting and storing small scraps into...