This quilt has stories to tell! From the creative hands of maker Kathleen Heslin, I was given free reign to work some magic. The quilt is all about Going Green - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
The most amazing "cherry on top" part of this story - the evening of the Quilt Canada livestream of the awards for their 2023 show, I got to see this quilt awarded Excellence Machine Quilting Framed for the show!!!!
Here is Kathleen accepting the award.
OMG oooooommmmmgggg! How freaking fabulous is that! I had no idea this was happening! I was watching the ceremony as I knew other quilters with quilts in the show. I'm still doing happy dances!
With all the interesting geometric shapes, my favourite, ruler work, was everything for this quilt.
The quilt came to me shortly after my knee replacement surgery last summer, and my intent was to work on this as I recovered, for short periods as I could. Fate had different plans for this quilt.
My longarm, a Bernina Q24 that had just over five years and 56 million stitches, was no longer stitching reliably. I did a whole bunch of testing, and my dealer made numerous attempts to resolve the issues. However, it had to go to Bernina Canada for their expert service. Between that and the dealer working on the machine, it was there for the longest 40 days ever.
While my machine was down, a *very* good quilty friend, who also has a Q24, let me work on this quilt when she wasn't working on her quilts. We both use zipper leaders, so it was easy peasy unloading hers and loading mine, unloading mine and loading hers. I love the quilting world for this, for the amazing and generous people you meet. She's also my birthday sister - we have the same birthday, although a few years apart. How fun is that!!!
After a number of sessions (and a Covid case to make life even more complex), my Bernina came back and I was able to finish this up on my own machine. The following few pix are the quilt on the frame.
I love the fun skinny strips. I used many rulers on this one! Created so many shapes.
Thread was colour matched, all in Hab 'n Dash Glide thread. The purples were quilted in "Haze", the red in "Rhododendron", and the greens in "Limerick".
The quilt was double batted - Quilters Dream 70/30 for the base layer, and Quilters Dream 100% wool on top. That's some awesome dimension from the wool!
The backing for this quilt is a fabulous Libs Elliott print with awesome geometric shapes.
Having this quilt awarded Excellence Machine Quilting Framed (as in, quilted on a longarm where the sew head moves and the quilt is mounted to the frame), is an incredible honour. For the Quilt Canada 2023 show - this is a juried show for quilters all across Canada.