Dimac Quilt

Happy New year Schedule for 2010

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The coming year will be an especially exciting and busy year for me as both sons are engaged. We spent a wonderful Christmas with them ,how great to have girls in the house.Attached is a picture of the 6 of us taken at our holiday brunch. I started off the new year by trying to spend 5 hours a day hand quilting the whole cloth wedding quilt for son Phil whose marriage to Laura is  Sept 3, in St john's ,Newfoundland. Laura and Phil are on the left.

 I started the new year by returning with Anna left back, to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts  on Monday to remove the quilted decorations some made 20 years ago by Courtepointe Quebec Quilts members. Note the spiral tree skirt designed by Lilly Lam and made by members of the Westmount Quilters who passed the tree decorating task on to our group this year.Shown here are Orion  also on left ,of the West End Quilters group, president Sandra Jones is on  the right , taken after decorating this years tree.  

I have also attached my scaled down schedule for 2010. in addition to wedding planning etc hubby and I are planning a trip to London in early spring so I can attend the Quilt Show at the V&A museum , the largest decorative Art Museum n the world. Two days in the museum will probably not be enough.ok signings,Appraisals,& lectures

           Friday January 22
     Open House Courtepointe Claire
     Bpok signings and Appraisals
     Boul Dagenais Ouest
    Laval Québec H7T 1P8
    (450) 628-9950

February 1
The Country Quilter   Richmond ON   appraisals
613-838-5541
 Ottawa Valley Quilt  Guild Ottawa
 lecture: What Comes around Goes Around. 613-838-5935
 
April 28-May 1
Quilt Canada- Calgary
Telus Convention center
 Show and walk up  Appraisals
Daily book signings at vendors Quilters Haven514-605-7845

May 18 St Jacobs ON     Appraisals
May 19   
25th Anniv      Waterloo Quilt Guild
Evening lecture
 Appraisal location to be announced

May 27-30
Salon 2010
College Andre Grasette
10001 Cremazie East Montreal

My January schedule of finishing UFO's is challenging as usual since I am also comited to doing two challenges, at least I have the design in my head, now to transform it with the given materials.

  This winter I hope to get to enough yoga classes to dump more weight, have to fit into those mother of the groom dresses. Hope to do enough down hill skiing to break in my new ski jacket a lovely purple and white cheater patchwork design ,after 20 years  I decided to retire my old ski suit. I promise pictures on the ski slopes lots of snow here.

Christmas has almost arrived in Montreal. The Christmas quilts are on the beds ,presents are wrapped and house and tree decorated ,just waiting for sons to arrive home with our future daughter-in -laws.To spread Christmas cheer I have attached pictures of some of my Christmas aprons,part of a lecture i gave at the Beaconsfield Christmas luncheon Have a wonderful Christmas and best wishes for health and happness

Christmas quilts

The Beaconsfield Quilters Guild had an exhibit of Christmas quilts the last weekend of November. A few of our members brought large and small holiday themed quilts to the display at the community center. This lovely heritage home was really decked out for the season as the Olympic Torch will be visiting there Dec 10,2009 .The center is heavily used so for security reasons we could only have the display on the weekend. Thanks to Julie  Tessier for organizing us. We took in $1000 which will be donated to The Gazette Christmas fund.

Pictured are the antique quilts which I provided . This necessitated the sewing of more  hanging sleeves ,at least they all had labels . I really try and get sleeves and labels attached to my recent acquisitions before they go to storage. Two of these quilts were at the NS exhibit this past summer and one was exhibited for the first time. The  red and white checked  crib quilt is a pre-printed panel ,machine quilted. Fun to know that a hundred years our grandmothers took short cuts too.

Schedule changes November already

Unfortunately my lecture  for Art Focus at Westmount Library, scheduled for Nov 12 has been cancelled . sorry that I did not have a contract.. more time to quilt on the white wedding quilt. Regarding schedule I have accepted an invitation to do a trunk show for the Ottawa Valley Quilt Guild on February 1 so will be appraising at the Country Quilter  in Richmond, maybe Tuesday the 2nd. 2010.

Finally have most of the star quilts packed away until the next time..lucky there are lots of closets in this house. Have posted one last picture of that exhibit.

 This week I am focusing on preparing  quilts for my Fringes and Frills lecture. Somehow I always seem to have more quilts needing hanging sleeves and or labels seems that is the only time I get to my sewing machine.. This also gives me a chance to renew my scrapbooking skills as there are more samples to add .

Almost a dozen members of our Beaconsfield Quilt Guild made the trip to Quilters Mecca , Houston  Texas recently. Marion shared pictures of the Canada exhibit where Karen's Log Canada quilt featured on page 40 of  our book Canadian Heritage Quilting was part of the display.

 
  

Fall in Quebec

One of the highlights for quilters in Quebec is the opportunity to get together with other quilters in the province to attend to the Annual General Meeting of  Courtepointe Quebec Quilts( CQQ) association. This group formed in 1988 meets on the first Saturday after Canadian Thanksgiving. During the business meeting which is transacted in the two official languages we make quilt blocks for a specified design.  By the end of the day we have enough blocks for next years raffle quilt and  have all practiced our hand piecing . In the part 21 years we have gone from 5 to 48 quilt guilds .

Each guild brings their quilted  banner to  put on display some of which are pictured below. To the left of the banners you can see one of my Star quilts displayed in the corner where I was doing appraisals and selling our book. During the meeting bursaries are awarded to guilds to help with costs of charity work and costs of instructors. I was delighted to sign a complementary copy of our book given as one of the door prizes,for  dedicated member of Loose Threads Guild,Roz Agulnik . Information was given out about our biannual exhibit Salon 2010 which will be held  May27-30 at College  Andre-Grazet 1001 Boul. Cremazie Montreal. The workshop co-ordinators  Karen Desparois and Arians Hipsagh took advance registratations , pictured below holding a project. When quilters meet food is necessary ,we brought our own sandwichs and the dessert goodies were wonderful with crisp apples fresh from Cassidys orchard on Covey Hill.

Part of the fun of the day is Show and Tell where we get a chance to display our recent projects. I was delighted to see a selvage tote bag made by a member from Crompton using co-author of Canadian Heritage Quilting, Karen Neary's pattern,  published in McCallsQuilting, October2009.  

Quilts at an Art Gallery

When I visited Mount Allison in Sackville ,New Brunswick for a book signing in September I also gave a lecture on the History of Quilting in Canada at he Owens Art Gallery , the oldest University Art Gallery in Canada .Is this also the location of the first quilt exhibit in a Canadian Art Gallery ? When I studied Home Economics there ,many moons ago I was lucky enough to be taught a course in Interior Design  at that gallery by Alex Coville. In press release for the lecture participants were encouraged to bring quilts. These quilts were arranged in a gallery featuring the new collection additions. If you look carefully you can see a very early self portrait of my famous professor. Seated on the far right is Marjorie Crawford who chaired the Quilt Exhibit in April 1970 .  We are holding a Grandmothers Flower Garden with names inked  in the center hexagons along with the date 1859, This was the  only quilt that was in the original exhibit. Incidently the name now used for the quilt design was popularized in the 1930's . When it was totally hand made of muslin and turkey red it was probably called a mosaic design.There were over 150 quilts in the gallery in April 1970 and five people at my lecture had attended that original exhibit. Peter Laroque came from Saint John NB where he is a curator at the NB Museum.  John Corey traveled with him and they have since shared some of the pictures that John took at the 1970 show. I hope to find more quilts that were in that exhibit and examine the ones that are at local museums.

Mayflower Quilters

In September before leaving Nova Scotia I was able to go to Halifax for the meeting of the Mayflower Quilters and participated in the Show and Tell by displaying the Mystery workshop quilt which is now in Calgary and was pictured on my last blog .The designer of the Mystery quilt Rhoda Moore of Pfaff was also at the meeting. I was delighted to see the baby version of Ship of Dreams fro
m our book . Pictured below is Davida McKay's version using ginghams for the sailboats, she used the pattern especially designed by co-author Karen Neary for the Spring 2009 Candian Quilter newsletter.

Schedule Fall 2009

       SCHEDULE  2009-2010

       Book signings,appraisals, lectures

         

 

September 26-10:00-5:00

September 27- 10;00-2;00

Laurentian Quilt Guild Show*

Mt Habitant Saint Sauveur QC

 

October  1-4

American Quilt Study Seminar

San Jose California  USA

 

October 17

CQQAnnual Meeting

MOnkland center  West Hill NDG

%14-605-7845

 

November 4  Plattsburgh Ny*

November5 Workshop

 

 

November 12  Art Focus lecture

Canadian Heritage  Quilting           

Westmount Library Quebec                      

514-937-6391

 

December 1-7  pm

December 2-10 am

Aprons as textile documents 

of Womens History

Beaconsfield Ouilters Guild

QC  info at 514-605-7845

 

 

 

End of Summer

Another summer has gone. at least this one brought better weather to Nova Scotia.  It is always difficult for me to leave family and friends to return to friend and husband  in  Montreal. As I closed the cottage and packed my unfinished quilt projects on the last day of summer I had the wonderful experience of a farewell salute form a bald eagle. He flew over the cottage  gliding on the updraft along the bank and to my delight turned around and repeated his flight..My quilting time was kept to a minimum ie, sewing sleeves on quilts and making a few pillows for the cottage. I did manage to get last years Mystery Quilt completed , started at a Timeless Stitches workshop during River John days in 2008 it was machine quilted by Gerene Chisholm on a state of the art Gammil The pictured quilt will travel to Calgary in October so almost lawyer eldest son Phil can use it as a donation to fund raiser for the Children's Legal Education and Resource Center.   

The Century of Stars quilt exhibit was well received at such a lovely facility. During the summer I  attended a number of Book Signings for Canadian Heritage Quilting  the last in  the east was held at my alma mater Mount Allison as part of their homecoming, 
September 20.

Part of my apron collection was displayed at the Northumberland Quilters show in Pictou in early August. I was also to give a brief talk at their Sept. meeting where I gave the last gallery talk at Museum of Industry about the quilt collection as it was being professionally photographed and closed the meeting with a brief explanation about the apron collection.  Although i promised to take August off I also had a small display in Wentworth as part of the Blueberry festival This time with the help of my cousin Ellen we mounted a display about our grandmother Annie Giles and the family quilting traditions.
Please note that during the summer some of my fellow appraisers worked very hard to get a new web site up on Appraising Quilts please check  quiltappraisers.org   for information about the appraisal process and locations for certified appraisers

    My fall schedule is also posted here and I am looking forward to seeing many of my Quebec quilting friends at the annual meeting of Courtepointe Quebec Quilts. This year I will have a table and be there signing and selling the book. Nicole will join me as well so we hope you bring your quilts to the Monkland Center  NDG on Saturday.

Currently I am getting ready to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving in Calgary with our son Phil and our daughter- in -law Laura and her parents. i am en route home form a wonderful seminar in San Jose where I visited the oldest quilt Museum n North America and listened to great research papers presented by like minded Quilt researchers. it was great to see so many of our AQS Appraisers. I am pictured here with Juie Siebler one of my favorite California Quilt dealer who shared some amazing California made quilts with us , unfortunately no pictures of quilts allowed.

I will soon be back in Montreal where I will be completing appraisals on the amazing quilts made by the Laurentian Quilters group as an exchange with an Abbotsford BC the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

Book Signings, Appraisals, Lectures

A century of Stars Quilt Exhibit

July 1- Sept 7 Hours- Daily 9-5

Museum of Industry, Stellarton

 NS. 902-755-5425 Exit 24 -104

 

August 7  12:00-6:00

August 8-  10:00-6:00

Quilt appraisal and apron display*

Northumberland Quilt Show

Decoste center Pictou NS

 902-351-3033

August 19-20  10:00- 5:00

Wentworth United Chirch

Quilt exhibit & Luncheon Wentworth

 Wentworth      NS  902-548-2289

 

September 20.

Homecoming Mount Allison Univ,

Sackville NB    Owens Art Gallery

 

September 26-10:00-5:00

September 27- 10;00-2;00

Laurentian Quilt Guild Show*

Mt Habitant Saint Sauveur QC

 

October1-4

American Quilt Study Seminar

San Jose California  USA

 

November4  Plattsburgh Ny*

November5 Workshop           

 

November12  Art Focus lecture

Behind the pages: Writing the book         

Canadian Heritage  Quilting           

Westmount Library Qc

514-937-6391