piano?

It seems I've been missing for awhile! In January I discovered a new passion - piano. While shopping for a keyboard for my nephew I fell in love with the piano. Everything else has come to a grinding halt since then. So my old sewing room is now the music room.

 Now I haven't completely given up quilting. My piano teacher celebrated 40 years of music teaching today and I made her this quilt. The pattern is called Juxtaposition by Blue Underground Studios. The original patterns has the blocks oriented so that the little strips go the length of the quilt. I wanted to make this a signature quilt so changed the orientation.

 After doing a test block I found that the writing just looked messy when it was on the little strips so ended up inserting a 14" horizontal strip of light colored fabric about 1/4 of the way down the flannel back.  I used the serpentine stitch The quilting separated the signature strip into rectangles for easier signing (this was a pleasant surprise, not planned).

17 Quilts Done!

There was a fire in an apartment complex on Dufferin Ave. November 24th. It was on the news that evening. It was so sad to see the residents watching their lives go up in smoke. One of the residents was a young mother of 4 and a full time student at Red River Community College. As she stood there in disbelief, she commented that all she had worked so hard for the last 7 years was gone. It broke my heart. The next morning I got a call from my friend Arlie who was so saddened by the event and the young woman's words that she thought we should make a quilt for each of her kids. I agreed wholeheartedly. Later that evening I found out a total of 17 children were affected by the fire. Well, we couldn't just make quilts for a few could we??!? She agreed (great minds think alike Ha Ha).

We started with a list of the names and ages of the children. Between the two of us we already had 3 finished quilts that were a perfect fit for younger girls and our friend "L" donated a lovely Winnie the Pooh rag quilt. I had a couple of tops just waiting for the right recipients (Arlie appliqued some bright circles on the b&w jelly roll quilt - made it look so cheery!). It was easy to decide what to make for the girls, but what kind of quilt do you make for boys, especially when you don't know their interests? Rag quilts fit the bill perfectly (I know I don't want to make another one anytime soon!). We split up the workload and just started sewing! It actually went quite quickly. I think it was because it became a mini contest to see who could finish their quilt stack first! It wasn't me in case you were wondering.

The quilts were dropped off to the Bear Clan Patrol to be given to the families. I'm told the kids were eagerly anticipating getting their very own quilt. Hopefully we will get to see a picture or two once they have been handed out to the families.

Now it's time to get some quilting of my own done!

Happy Stitching!
Corina