Tooting my Horn!

The Etobicoke Quilt Guild is holding a quilt show in a few weeks, actually less than a few weeks on March 24th and 25th. The promotional ads are now on facebook, instagram and in quiltshops near you. I hope you will be able to take an afternoon and enjoy the beautiful works of art. It is so great to finally get out and see quilts in person.

I was honored to have my quilt be chosen to be on the promotional literature for the show. Just yesterday I was in a sewing machine repair shop and I found some postcards for the show and felt very proud that my quilt was chosen, although I am sure you will find many quilts at the show would be worthy of this honour. I named the quilt Heartfelt, I better hurry up and make the label.

Let me tell you how this quilt came about, its a long story! During covid lockdowns I was asked to run a block of the month for the guild. Rather than look up what other quilters were offering I decided to recycle a project of my own and revamp it with great instructions. I made this neutral quilt as part of a block exchange that I organized with 9 other quilters.

I had always wanted to do this quilt again, but in color. Doing it as a block of the month for my guild forced me to get busy stitching and writing new instructions. I called it the Scrap Sewciety Block of the Month. I was kept on my toes to finish up and get the instructions out every month. This is the exact same quilt as above but in color. After my guild finished I approached a few other guilds and offered it as a guild-run program. I have a video of the resulting quilts, it is about 10 minutes and has some amazing quilts.

I have a video of the resulting quilts, it is about 10 minutes and has some amazing quilts.

Needless to say I had a few blocks left over and lots of stash to use so I decided that I would teach myself how to do custom quilt layouts in EQ8. Learning to use that program tested every bit of patience I have. I squeezed many of the same blocks into a heart shape and then I raided some of my friends low volume stash for the background- thank you Val and Helgard. For me the quilt really came to life when I added the quote around the outside. I had been saving this quote for years on my clipboard with a plan do do a “word” quilt”.

The quote reflects how I feel about the stash we accumulate and how I feel about consumerism in general. I feel that quilters (myself included) buy too much and I am really making an effort to use my old stash and even trying to modernize it. I know there are amazing quilts waiting to be made from your stash if you just dare to dig in.

I hope to see you at the show and if you think your guild would like to do a Block of the Month please contact me for details, I would be thrilled to see you use your stash.