You Are Wanted at Quilt Canada 2016!

Canadian Quilters Need You! 

 In June 2016, Toronto hosts Canada's annual national quilt conference and volunteers are needed to help with Quilt Canada 2016! Now when you click on the links you will see coordinator positions. We need those filled but we also need positions that are not listed there, that are less of a time commitment, you just need to send an email to  quiltcanadavolunteer@gmail.com
We WANT YOU!

Why volunteer?  

We have a whole slew of benefits listed below to make it worth your while.  What we didn't list is that you will laugh till your face hurts, meet so many wonderful quilters you won't be able to remember all of their names, and you will make fantastic memories to last forever!

How could you not want to be a part of this?  Email quiltcanadavolunteer@gmail.com for more information.  And we offer some FREE workshops!!

We have all different opportunities at Quilt Canada 2016 for you to be a part of.
Want to be an angel in a workshop and watch our amazing instructors teach their unique methods of quilt making?
Think of perusing through the National Juried Show looking after the best quilts in Canada and helping people.
Email quiltcanadavolunteer@gmail.com and find the perfect place for you.

There are so many opportunities, that there will be a match for you somewhere!

'Clash of Colors' by Paula Jolly

National Juried Show 2015

Okay, here are the Benefits for volunteers:

Shift volunteers:

·        One day admission for 4 hours worked

Full day volunteers, including teachers angels:

·        Admission on day worked plus one additional day

·        Lunch on day worked

Coordinator/Coordinator Assistant Volunteers:

·        4 day admission pass with name tag

·        2016 Conference bag

·        2016 Conference pin

·        Shared hotel accommodation if needed

·        Meals during conference

·       FREE workshop or lecture ‘with conditions’

  

Conditions for FREE workshop/lecture

1. choose from workshops or daytime lectures available after April 1, 2016

2. must have someone to cover your duties

3. available on Thurs, Fri, Sat only. (everyone will be needed on first day)

4. two lectures equal one workshop

5. Jane Sassaman lecture not eligible.

6. Long-arm sessions are workshops. 

Are you enticed? Curious? Don't hesitate, email today at quiltcanadavolunteer@gmail.com and find out how you can be a part of this!

Counting Your Inches Across Canada - Part 1

You know the saying 'back by popular demand?'  YOU let us know that you did not want us to retire the counting of the inches.  You emailed, called, dropped in to our guilds, threw spools of thread at us,  followed us around with tape measures (may be a slight exaggeration here). But you told us you loved doing this national challenge!  You were heard, so the challenge is back and we are running behind so we need your help if we are going to make it!
Marilyn Michelin, a former board member, has kindly agreed to look after this project for us and she is excited!  Over to you Marilyn:


There’ll be no Lollygagging along the way this year! 
As we are a little late in starting, we still have managed to get enough inches from 10 guilds to get us to just outside Calgary, Alberta on our way to Toronto, Ontario, where Quilt Canada 2016 is being held.

After having had a wonderful time at Quilt Canada 2015, we leave the University of Lethbridge to travel north. 

What a wonderful group they were - welcoming, energetic, and amazing! We met lots of new friends at the show and now can’t wait to get to Toronto to see some of them again and make some more new ones.

Cactus Rose Quilters' Guild (Medicine Hat, AB) shared their October meeting on facebook - a wide variety of quilts and sewn objects were shown.





Keep sending in your inches to Marilyn  (marilyn_cqa@vaxxine.com) so that we can make it to Toronto for Quilt Canada 2016 - June 15-18, 2016!

Send along a picture or two of your guild meeting Show & Tell too. We like to see all the wonderful quilting that is being done by quilters across Canada!

Mystery Quilt for Canadian Quilters to Celebrate Canada's 150th Birthday!

We have a special post to bring you today!  We are super excited to have Cantik Batiks join our team at Quilt Canada 2016.

You may know them as the awesome company who sponsors our Youth Challenge, but they have stepped it up and are doing a Canadian Themed Mystery Quilt for quilters!
Let me tell you the blocks are simply amazing! Here is what they have to say:

Cantik Batiks, a Canadian owned company, is celebrating Canada’s 150^th Birthday.

Shania Sunga, our Canadian designer, has designed a 13 block Canadian Themed Mystery Quilt available at Canadian Quilt shops.. Every 6 weeks, a new Province or Territory will be featured until April 2017, in time for Canada’s Birthday!

Individual wall hanging kits of each Province and Territory are also available from your favourite quilt shop.

In addition, Shania Sunga has designed 13 different fabric collections to depict the colours and beauty of 10 Provinces and 3 Territories. Each collection will have Gemstones (2 ½” strips), Gemfives (5” strips) and Gemcubes (10” squares). Collect all 13 Canadian Provincial and Territorial Gems!

A Special commemorative fabric collection will also be available for Canada. Stunning projects have been created to celebrate Canada’s special day including Homecoming wall hanging designed by Shania Sunga.

All the Canadian, Provincial and Territorial fabric as well as the blocks and wall hangings will be available for a minimum of 2 years for consumers to create a commemorative project.

 “What does Canada mean to you” We challenge everyone to celebrate Canada’s 150^th Birthday using Cantik Batiks.

For the most up to date Mystery Block information, current images and block deliveries go to www.cantikbatiks.com

Come and visit Shania Sunga at the Cantik Batiks booth at Quilt Canada 2016. Bring your blocks/patterns to be signed!

Cantik Batiks thanks the CQA/ACC for supporting quilting in Canada and sparking the passion in all age groups. Fabric begin as fabric. Quilters turn  fabric into love.

Now if that isn't enough to get you running to your quilt store to pick up the blocks or wall hangings, they are releasing the pictures each month here! 

Here is Block 1:

New Brunswick 

Hartland, New Brunswick is home to the World’s longest covered bridge. The bridge is 390m long (1,282ft). The Black-capped Chickadee is the Provincial Bird. 

Block 2

Nunavut 

Nunavut is Canada’s newest Territory established in 1999. The Inukshuk are monuments of unworked stones that are used by the Inuit for communication and survival. The traditional meaning of the Inukshuk is “Someone was here” or “You are on the right path”

Mount Thor (image to the right) Located in Auyuittuq National Park on Baffin Island, is the World’s greatest vertical drop of 1,250 m (4,101ft) with an average angle of105 degrees.

The Rock Ptarmigan is Nunavut’s territorial bird.

Stay tuned as the blocks get released to see the gorgeous creations they produce!  You don't want to miss joining in on this fun adventure with Cantik Batiks, as we gear up to celebrate Canada's 150th!

Quilt Canada 2016

Are you ready? Are you as excited as we are?

Quilt Canada 2016 broke the mold! We changed things up, made it bigger, made it better and we did it to make every quilter like you HAPPY!

How you ask?  First we found some pretty amazing sponsors! Check out this incredible door prize!

We are offering a slew of workshops. 

Janome has once again given overwhelming support to provide domestic machines for all workshops that require them.

Handi Quilter is supplying Sweet 16's for classrooms,  and a long arm machine for lectures!

The workshops are so varied and so fantastic! And guess what?  We did not make them all the same price this year!  We have priced them so that there are workshops for every budget!

We added lectures!  Yep, that's right, we have our incredible teachers offering lectures throughout the four days too!

Don't freak out but we are having a Quilter's Night Out!  We can't say too much right now, but Jane Sassaman is going to be giving a talk!  

Okay, our Merchant Mall is insane!  We keep getting more and more merchants so we keep making the shopping area bigger and bigger! We will be releasing the names of vendors very soon. 

We haven't even talked about the quilt shows yet!  Our National Juried Show hilights the best in Canada, our concurrent shows demonstrate the incredible talent our country has in quilting. 

The fact that we are at the International Centre in Toronto ON is the icing on the cake.   The place is huge! All one level and minutes from the hotels, and tons of parking!

Seriously, if you haven't booked your workshops, lectures, hotel... don't wait too long.   This is going to be the conference of all conferences! 

Remembrance Day Quilt

Remembrance: A Tribute to Sacrifice

Size: 57” wide X  53.5” high. Perimeter:  221”

Techniques:  

Hand painted poppies, pieced poppies are a variation on the pinwheel design, and machine stitched.

Quilted by: Machine Quilted on a domestic sewing machine.

No other participants have contributed in the design and execution of this work, however, credits are to be given for the poetry and photos.

Credits:

Poetry:

In Flanders Fields, by John McCrae 

‘In Flanders fields, the poppies blow,

Short days ago…

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow.’

The Question, by Rudyard Kipling

‘If it be found when the battle clears,

Their death has set me free,

Then how shall I live with myself through the years

Which they have bought for me?’

Death in the Mud, by R.W. Adie   (used with permission)

‘Know why, when wrong is wrong, and right is right, and how to play a noble part.’

Tipperary Blues, by R.W. Adie  (used with permission)

‘The days I treasure are shaped by….

The agony of brothers I’ve lost…and the sisters, oh so fair.’

Machine stitched drawings based on Photos:

Cpl. Andrew J. Eykelenboom, used with permission by the Eykelenboom family

Gunner Allan Adie, used with permission by the Adie family

Quilt Images taken by: Bill Jorgensen

Date completed: January 2008

Artist’s Statement:

For the ultimate sacrifices made on our behalf this innovative wall quilt is a tribute to Canada’s soldiers.  May they rest in peace.   

In his poem, The Question, Rudyard Kipling challenges us most profoundly: 

‘If it be found when the battle clears, their death has set me free,

Then how shall I live with myself through the years which they have bought for me?’

We will remember.

Hennie Aikman

Quilts of Valour

The (QOV) organization is an amazing one for Canadians to be a part of.
Taken directly from their website, 'they support Canadian Armed Forces members past and present with quilts of comfort, in their time of need.'

A Quilt of Valour™ is a Tribute to a CAF Member

A Quilt of Valour™ is a "hug from the nation" to a CAF Member who serves and makes sacrifices for our country. The quilt standards must reflect the level of gratitude that we want to demonstrate to the recipient. Quilts of Valour™ can be made by individuals, social groups or quilting bees. In all cases we request that the standards we have established are followed to ensure that a high quality symbol of gratitude is presented.

The quilt specifications are 55" x 70" symbolizing Canada.  All the details are here.

One idea that a member came up with is that up to and on November 11th start working on a Quilt of Valour. Do it by yourself or with some friends and let us know about it.   The hashtags to use are #rememberthem  #quiltofvalour. 

We encourage you to do this on your facebook, twitter or Instagram accounts and use the hashtags above and we will pick it up and repost.  Alternately you can email socialmedia@canadianquilter.com any activities you are doing around this.

Let's support our Armed Forces and pay tribute by what we do best - quilting!