#curved piecing

#oursongquilt:I made the star block, above (with improv curved piecing), to participate in a new project that Andrea from 3rd Story Workshop launched last week. Andrea collaborated with songwriter Meaghan Smith to create the Our Song, Your Reflection project, which celebrates community. See the last photo above for her beautiful lone star swan quilt! 

She asked quilters to make a star block and to share a little about what the quilting community means to them. For me – I started making quilts in 2014, when I had moved far away from family and friends (from Toronto to Edmonton). Finding the quilting community - both online and in real life through guilds - has brought me many friends, inspiration and motivation.  Especially during these years where I’ve had to move across the country (again), new city, new job, new everything - the community has been a constant network of support and encouragement, for sure!

You can pre-order Andrea’s quilt pattern, hear the song and share your story in the music video through this project! Check out 3rd Story Workshop or the Indiegogo campaign for all the details.

KAPOWski quilt - Finished! 

This week, I finally finished a quilt that I started way back in the fall of 2016. I called this one “KAPOWski” - which was Cheryl Arkison’s suggestion - because we were joking about how the colours and design turned out feeling really 1990s and like the intro to the show, “Saved by the Bell” (which was one of my faves as a kid!) 

Quilty Details: 

• * 48″ finished size
  
• * Improv curved piecing, started during a workshop with Cheryl Arkison hosted by the Ottawa MQG
  
• * Various fabrics in Kona solids and prints including Lecien First of Infinity, Carrie Bloomston, and Anna Maria Horner’s Loominous
  
• * Backing in vintage border print fabric I found at a discount fabric shop 
  
• *Straight line quilted with a walking foot on my domestic Janome 8200 QC machine
  

I’m so glad to have this one done, after it sat around for months half-quilted. It feels like a pretty big accomplishment, in a way. It’s been a lesson for me in letting go of perfection a little bit – and accepting that not all of the things I make need to be like “show quality” or “magazine quality.”   I can just make things for fun, too!  I think I’ll keep this quilt for me!

Linking up this week again with Finish it up Friday.

* * * 

For more on this quilt, you can see previous posts here:

• * Cheryl Arkison workshop
  
• * Finished quilt top 
  
• * Basting quilt and vintage fabric 
  
• * Quilting progress 
  

Slow progress on quilting: A long time ago (well, back in October of 2016), I took a class on improv curves with Cheryl Arkison. I finished my quilt top, which I started calling “Kelly KAPOWski,” shortly after. I picked out the backing fabric a long while back - and even basted and started quilting it.

But, then I stopped. And I had the half-quilted project just sitting around for months and months! It wasn’t a conscious decision to stop halfway though, but I think what unconsciously made me stop was some quilting that I wasn’t happy with (some pulling, that I would have to rip out), and the threads that I didn’t want to bury. 

Anyway! I decided a couple weeks back that “finished is better than perfect,” and I got the quilt back out to finish up. I did complete the rest of the quilting, and am slowly now burying the threads. I still have to re-do a few lines of quilting, but now that it’s close I think I can get this one done soon… finally!