Pat Sloan Interviews Karen Neary

On Monday, Pat Sloan had Canadian quilt designer Karen Neary on her show.  You can listen here.

I have been a blog fan of Karen for quite awhile. She has inspired me to work outside my comfort zone. I have made 3 of her patterns.

In 2013, I made her Maritime Beauty pattern.

I did a test block first, and turned it into a mug mat.

I made the full pattern, but it took me quite awhile to actually get it quilted.

Just for fun, I also reduced the block and made it into a post card.

I actually cheated on that one and used fusible applique. The other two are paper pieced.

Next up, I made Polly's Posies.

I actually got that one finished in about 6 weeks. Miracles do happen.

Finally, I bought Karen's book quilting Beauties Come in All Shapes and Sizes.

I made "Thistles in the Heather" from the book.

Sadly, it has not yet been quilted. Obviously, I need a better list of my UFOs.

Eastern Beauty

It is finished! I saw this kit on Karen Neary's blog,  on March 13, 2013. I accidentally clicked the Buy Now button, and received the kit about a week later. I took it to retreat with me, the end of April, and finished the top in the time I was there. I even cut the binding, so I didn't forget what it was for, and use it for something else. I came home, and promptly got distracted by all the other wonderful things there are to make. (squirrel!)

Last week, I took it out, found the perfect backing fabric, IN MY STASH, and went to work.

Perfect Backing

In four days I had it quilted, trimmed and bound. What had I  been waiting for?

It looks good on my table.

The centre is quilted with Aurafil gold metallic thread, because it wasn't gold enough, and the circles are quilted with a variegated rayon thread that just happened to have all the colours in it, and was conveniently in my drawer of pretty threads. My free motion skills were not up to this, so I did some echo quilting with my walking foot.

It was worth the wait, but I feel foolish about how long it took.

I have Karen's lovely new book, and I have picked a project from it, for this retreat. My retreat buddies have challenged me to make it from stash fabric, and I am up to the challenge.

Okay, some Kitty silliness, for the cat fans.

It would be a lot easier to get at the chicken if the two legged ones didn't leave the mashed potatoes in the way!

Procrastination

Sometimes, I start a project, then it sits for a long time. When I finally get back to it, I wonder why it took so long.

Among my three things I had planned to finish in February (yes, I got  behind on that, too) was a wall hanging I started two years ago.

I pulled it out, and yesterday, I went looking to see if I had a suitable backing. There tucked into my stash was a piece of fabric, just the right size and colour. It has been in my stash for at least 5 years, so I have no idea why it took until yesterday to figure out it was the backing for this project.

I ironed the backing, laid everything out on the floor in the spare room and in under an hour, I had the whole thing ready for quilting.

It is my Maritime Beauty, a pattern by Karen Neary, made from a kit from Mrs, Pugsley's Emporium.
Both are in Amherst, Nova Scotia, and I discovered them through my son.

Aren't the fabrics lovely?

So, today, a clear but cold one, I am going to start quilting. I can't match Karen's lovely FMQ, so I will see what I can accomplish with my walking foot.

Circle Quilts

Over at the Quilting Gallery blog, I entered my Maritime Beauty Quilt Top into this week's Quilter's Show and Tell of Circle Quilts.

If you haven't seen it before, it looks like this:

The pattern is from Karen Neary and the fabric is from Mrs. Pugsley's Emporium.

If you get a chance to drop by the Quilting Gallery blog, perhaps you could vote for my quilt. You have until 6PM (EDT) Monday, June 10. Right now I am third from the bottom in the ratings, and I was hoping I could do a little better than that!

Maritime Cutie

Karen's Maritime Beauty pattern, that I made at retreat, lead to scraps. The scraps led to another inspiration, I call Maritime Cutie.

It is a postcard, 4" x 6". I used a half size copy of Karen's pattern, and fused it to the card. I was not crazy enough to try and paper piece those tiny pieces.

I hope you like it, Karen.

Spring Retreat - 2013

Take 13 friends (12 quilters and one needlecrafter), put them 2 hours from home (to far to go home at night), give them one large room to work in, 13 small rooms with bath for when they finally decide to go to sleep, feed them at 2 hour intervals, and you have Quilt Retreat.

We held the retreat at the Nav Centre in Cornwall, ON. The facility is beautiful, the food is good, and they give us lots of space to work. 

This was our quilting room.

I got a lot of exercise, just walking from one end to the other. It is hard to see, but at the other end are the design walls and the snack table.  Down the middle are the cutting tables, which are also used to lay out blocks. We each have 2 large tables, grouped in pairs, so we can share the extension cords.

 I am not the tidiest quilter, and as you can see, I was creating a new pile of scraps!

I started my project at about 3 PM Friday, and by noon Saturday, I had finished this much.

And by supper time, I had this.

It is my version of Karen's Maritime Beauty Table Topper. Of course I seem to have been unable to follow the colour placement suggestions that came with the quilt, but they were just suggestions, right, Karen? I cut the binding for it after supper, and packed it up to bring home and quilt.

This is my retreat mascot, Twila Rose. She has her own little quilt, and goes to retreat, even if I can't go. (She brings the JuJubes.)

The other big attraction in Cornwall, is a place called Ron's Fabrics, where they sell quilting flannels for $3.99/m. and batiks for $9.99/m. The fabric is somewhat dated, but good quality, and we all end up taking home as much unsewn fabric as we brought with us.

Now I need to make some pillow cases from the flannel.

I am linking to WIP Wednesday at the Needle and Thread Network.

Test Pattern

Karen , of Sew Karenly Created, featured a kit for her pattern "Maritime Beauty", and I just couldn't resist. It was in lovely shades of purple, and the look of it was wonderful. I didn't even think about it, I just clicked the link and bought the kit.

Now given that I haven't done any paper piecing since I took a class about 5 years ago, and I haven't done much curved piecing, I have to wonder why I would decide to do this. I think it was because the size of the project looked like I might be able to complete it.

I plan to take the kit with me, next week, when I go away on retreat with my quilting friends. I thought that today might be a good day to make a test block, with some scarps, before I cut into the lovely fabric.

I was excited to discover that I have not forgotten how to paper piece. I cut my scraps carefully, so that I didn't have any pieces that didn't cover. Karen's pattern is very precise, so the curved piecing goes together beautifully. I was so pleased with the result, that I immediately turned it into a mug mat.

The binding has multiple seams, because I was using up the last of that fabric. I think, for a first try, it will do nicely. Now to cut the fabric from the kit!

Karen has her hard working assistant, Polly, helping with all her projects, so I put Polly on the back of my mug mat.