Congratulations to the Youth Challenge Winners!

Our young quilters have done it again! Some amazing quilts have been entered by 31 youth in our 2016 Cantik Batik Youth Challenge - My Favourite Game or Sport. 

To see these quilts, visit our website gallery.

A special thank you to Cantik Batiks for your continued support of promoting quilting in youth across Canada!

This year’s winners are:

Rachel Gelinas (JK-Gr 5) with her quilt “Fisher Girl”

Isabella Nie (Gr 6-8) with her quilt “Canada’s Hockey Night”

Sara Evans (Gr 9-12) with her quilt “Checkmate”

Laina Gold - Viewers’ Choice winner and her quilt “Tag, You’re It!”

Thanks to the wonderful quilters who worked with these young people to inspire and teach them about quilting.  I’m sure we’ll be seeing some of these quilters in our National Juried Show in a few years!

Thanks to Ann Perry who had the difficult job of judging all these entries! 

More details about these winners and their quilts will be featured in the next edition (summer) of The Canadian Quilter.

Youth Challenge 2016

It’s that time again!

This year’s Cantik Batik Youth Challenge - My Favourite Sport or Game, is now closed  and the voting for Viewers’Choice begins today! We have so many entries this year, with a lot of interpretations of the theme. You can view these on our website.

Members are encouraged to log into the our website and vote. We have also opened it up to family and friends. You will only be able to vote once per computer. Don’t forget to remember the number of your favourite quilt before you go to vote.

Thank you so much Cantik Batiks for your continued sponsorship!

Enjoy the collection of quilts by our youth inCanada!

Enter our Youth Challenge!

Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge 2016

'My Favourite Game or Sport'

Calling all Teachers, Students, Grandmas, Moms, Sisters and Aunts

(Grandpas, Dads, Brothers and Uncles too)!

Teachers, students  moms, grandmas, and neighbours are joining in the fun of helping a youth produce a creative quilt of 'My Favorite Game or Sport' for our Youth Challenge. Already we have run out of our first batch from Cantik Batiks who are graciously supplying more fabric. 

Make a quilt based on the theme 'My Favourite Game or Sport' The challenge fabric must be used in the quilt. It can be any size, like placemat, crib, whatever you want!

The student categories of entrants are - Elementary, Middle and High school students. Do not miss this exciting challenge and the prizes it will bring.

CQA/ACC members, you can sponsor more than one entry - so start today to plan with your school agers and get those entries rolling in.

This quilt may be art, traditional or modern but must include all or part of a fabric square you will receive from our Youth Coordinator Volunteer, Rolanda Tovey. Create your 3-layer quilt any size. You may use any technique and embellishment.

Deadline: Feb. 28, 2016 for the receipt of a photo of your quilt entry.

From March 3 -15, 2016 you will be able to vote for one of the entries to win the Viewers’ Choice award. There will be prizes for each student category, the Viewers’ Choice and for the sponsor of the Viewers’ Choice winner.

Click here for more info and to see all the rules.

Click here to view the photo gallery of all the Youth Challenge quilts from 2015. 

2015 winner titled 'Shelby's Aquarium'

Youth Challenge - VOTE for your favourite quilt

The gallery of entrant's quilts is now on the CQA/ACC's website.  There are an amazing number of quilts entered - 33 - WOW
Check out what our youth from all across Canada are capable of doing. 

This gallery is located in 2 places - under GALLERY on the top red bar and at the right with the Youth Challenge info. 

Once you've chosen a quilt that you like, and would like to cast your vote for the Viewer's Choice, click on the button at the bottom that takes you to the Member's Area. At the top there is another button that brings up the screen where you indicate which quilt you like.

Thanks to Cantik Batiks for sponsoring this challenge!

Thank you for helping us by voting.

Youth Challenge - Last Week

There is less than one week until the deadline for entering this year’s Youth Challenge.

Feb. 28th is the last day for entry...

If you need to know more about this, visit our website  - on the right side - Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge 2015 - My Favourite Animal and click on the link or click here. There are two links: one for all of the details about the challenge and the second takes you to the online form when you are ready to submit the quilt into the challenge

Every entry must have a CQA.ACC member to sponsor them.
So grandmothers, mothers, aunts, cousins and just about everyone get those kids' entries in this week.

There are fantastic prizes as well.

But most of all we'd love to see what your kids can do!

Youth Challenge - Alexa's Idea

Alexa Kalist, one of our 2014 Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge winners, had a wonderful idea for teaching youth to sew.  Make a simple stuffed animal (stuffie).  They’re easy, fun, and quick.  They can be stitched by hand and/or machine and the project is suitable for all experience levels. It’s a great way to unleash their creativity and build confidence.
Alexa designed an original stuffie and wrote the following tutorial.  I’m thrilled to share it with you.
I made my own stuffie, using Alexa’s pattern.  You can see him below and in the step-by-step photos.  His name is Mulligan.  He likes to collect lint and has a knack for finding lost pins and needles which makes him a handy fellow to have around.

Mulligan

I’d like to challenge our youth to make a stuffie.  They can use Alexa’s pattern or design their own.  Send your photographs, and the story of your stuffie, to youthprograms@canadianquilter.com.  I’d love to share them on this blog.
Please leave a comment at the end of the post so Alexa can see how much we appreciate all her hard work. 
Jo Ferguson 

How to Design and Make Your Own Stuffie

By Alexa Kalist

Alexa's Stuffie

Have you ever wanted to make your own stuffed animal but didn’t know where to start? Well if the answer is yes, then this is a project for you. This is a step-by-step guide to designing, making a pattern, and sewing your very own stuffed animal.                                                    
1. Start by figuring out what you want your stuffie to look like. You might want it to be big, or really small. It’s totally up to you.
2. You can use the pattern that I’ve provided or you can make your own. Here’s a link to my pattern:



 

Here’s how to make your own pattern: 
STEP 1:  Start by folding a piece of paper in half.  You can use a simple sheet of printer paper if that’s the size that you want your stuffie to be, or you could use a bigger piece if you want a bigger stuffie.                
STEP 2:  Starting at the folded edge of the paper, draw half of what you want your stuffie to look like. 
STEP 3:  Keep the paper folded and cut out your ‘half shape.’ 
Now, when you unfold the pattern, you’ll have symmetrical shape that looks like what you want your stuffie to look like.  




 

 3. With the paper unfolded, pin the paper to the wrong side of your desired fabric. Draw around the shape, take off the paper, and with an adults’ help, cut out the shape. You can now repeat these steps on the fabric that you want for the back of your stuffie.







4. Now you’re going to want to make some eyes for your stuffie. Cut our some round white circles, the size that you want for the eyes, and some smaller black circles for pupils.                                                                
*TIP:  You can use the lid from something in your fridge to make these circles.
5. Sew the white circles onto the piece of fabric that you want to use as the front of your stuffed animal. Put another piece of fabric on the wrong side of your stuffie shape under where you want to put the eyes. Make sure that you’re sewing the eyes on to the right side of the fabric.
6.  Now that you can sew the black part (pupil) on top of the white part. You can also sew on a smile with some red thread or embroidery floss.  You can add any other embellishments you’d like.                                

*TIP:  You can use a glue stick to help the whites and pupils, of the eyes, stay where you want, while you are sewing them on.


 

7. You now get to sew the two sides of your stuffed animal together. Make sure that you face the fabric right sides together while you sew, otherwise, your stuffie will be inside out! Use a simple running stitch, and leave a gap of about 2 inches un-sewn.
8. Now that it is sewn all the way around, except for the gap that you left open, turn your stuffie outside-in, and stuff with polyester filling, or whatever you have on hand to fill it with.                                          
*TIP: You can use the end of a pencil to get the stuffing into all the tight spots like arms and legs.
9. You’re almost done! Just sew the gap closed that you left open with a needle and thread, and voila!!

You have yourself your own personally designed stuffed animal.

Youth Corner

 I’m excited to announce that you’re going to see regular postings about youth and quilting on the CQA/ACC blog.  We’ll keep you up to date on news, shows and events that affect youth.  You’ll meet young quilters and the quilters who teach them.  We’ll have Show & Tell to celebrate the successes of our young quilters and to let them know how important they are to our quilting community.  We want you to share your creativity with a young person so we’ll offer tips and project ideas to inspire you.  
 

Let’s start with a link to a tutorial on “How to Get Kids Loving Quilting at a Young Age”.  It’s written by our President, Jackie White, and offered free on Craftsy.  You can find it here.  It’s a wonderfully, simple project using crayons and markers. Don’t forget to send me a photo of your child’s block(s).

 
Now, let’s have Show & Tell.  You met Daniel Vincent, in the current issue of The Canadian Quilter.  You can see how much he’s enjoying the quilt he made with his mother during March break.


 


 

Alexa Kalist was the Middle School winner of our 2014 Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge.  I know you’re all familiar with her winning “Green Eggs and Ham” quilt.  Here’s another quilt made by this talented quilter.




 










The 2015 Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge is underway.  You can read about it here.  Did you know that, as a CQA/ACC member or member shop, you could win a free one-year membership renewal simply by sponsoring the entry that wins Viewers’ Choice.  The theme this year is “My Favourite Animal”.   I’d like to thank Cantik Batiks/CSM for donating such generous projects prizes?
 
 



Here’s Alexa with the Cantik Batik prizes she won this year.  Alexa has been a huge help to me by offering ideas on how we can interest young people in quilting.  We’ll be sharing those in future postings.



 


I’m always looking for stories about youth and quilting.  Do you have a photo for Show & Tell?  Would you like to honour someone who teaches youth or a young quilter who is passionate about quilting?  Do you have tips and project ideas to offer?  Does your shop or guild work with youth?  You can write it yourself or have me write it for you.  Whatever the story, I’d love to know about it. 
Thank you for taking some time from your busy day.  If you have any questions about this post or the 2015 Cantik Batiks Youth Challenge you can contact me, Jo Ferguson.

Jo F

Stitch Across Canada #4

Here you have it!  Fresh in from the New Year, and we have the results in our Stitch Across Canada Challenge for last month.   It seems that Canadian quilters took a much needed break in the month of December as we didn't get quite as far as we would have liked.  We have stopped just before Regina, Saskatchewan for the month. Let's make it our New Year's resolution to ramp up our stitches.  We only have 2 months left to meet our challenge of going right across the country and we are going to need every stitch we can get.  Let's go quilters!

Here are members Arlene Johns, Hazel Mark, and Donna Gonek measuring Arlene's quilt from the High River and District Handicrafts Guild.

Donna Schweda  from Quilting Corners in Alliston writes,"We're a busy guild with 54 members who make regular contributions to our local charities. Twice a year we have a presentation of comfort quilts to My Sister's Place. In December we also present stockings for their holiday efforts. At our December meeting, we were happy to offer 40 comfort Quilts and 43 Christmas stockings. As you can see, it makes quite a display !'

One fantastic way to make some stitches count is join in our Youth Challenge - with the theme of  'Your Favourite Food'.   What better way to  have fun quilting then to do it with a younger person.   It can be the size of a postcard, placemat, or wallhanging,  size doesn't matter!  Northcott is sponsoring this wonderful challenge and that means fabulous fabric!  Check out the details and get stitching, as it ends February 28, 2013, the same time as our Stitch Across Canada Challenge.

Challenge Time

This is the post where you are going to be inspired, motivated and encouraged to jump into the fun and pick a challenge to try.  Have you ever participated in one?   If you are a newcomer to challenges, our pin cushion challenge is the perfect one for you.   

Pin Cushion Challenge

Do you like the idea of a challenge with a chance to get published, win some fabric and not spend a year creating the project?   If so, this challenge is for you!   Every quilter uses pins, whether it be to hold their piecing together, attach sashing, or accidentally sew them into the binding!  This challenge is super easy, you get to use your imagination, scraps of fabric and you don’t even have to mail us your entry!  If you have never entered anything before, why not give it a try?  How thrilling it would be to see your work published in a national magazine!  This challenge is due December 10th, 2012, so get started!

Your Favourite Food  - 2013 Annual Youth Challenge

Are you a wonderful quilter who wants to ensure this craft continues on for generations? Of course you are!    CQA/ACC has the perfect challenge for you.  Teach a young person to quilt.  There are so many rewards in this challenge, you will encourage a youth to learn a new skill, they have the chance to win fabric donated by Northcott Fabrics, and you have a chance to win a year renewal of your membership.  This challenge closes February 28, 2013, find all the details here.

TREND-TEX CHALLENGE – 'Sunshine and Vines'

Join the fun and assist with CQA/ACC’s major fundraising effort. Create a small wall hanging to be auctioned at Quilt BC 2013.  Trend-Tex Fabrics Inc. has again generously donated the fabrics for the challenge kits.  Find out all the details.

Why not try one of our challenges?   You have nothing to lose and will have fun, create art and maybe win a prize!

'Serenity Point' by Susanne MacDonald

Viewers' Choice, 2012 Trend Tex Challenge