April Showers Bring May Flowers - Member Challenge

It was a wonderful challenge with some fantastic prizes thanks to our great sponsor, Claire at http://www.courtepointeclaire.ca/eng/home.htm. 

Note: the three prize winners will be featured in the upcoming issue of The Canadain Quilter.

Trilliums
by Ruth Quinn

It depicts the Trilliums that grow down the lane where I live.  The background is pieced and the Trilliums are machine appliquéd onto the piece.  Both the flanges and the quilting depict the pine trees that have fallen on the ground as well.  There are also brown and blue beads sewn onto the piece depicting rocks and the sky coming through the forest.  I used a photo I had taken to make this wall hanging.

by Beulah Caswell

This wall hanging was started in a workshop given by Anna Hergert of Moose Jaw. The original hand-drawn designs are done in reverse applique. Free-motion quilting is done with cotton and metallic threads. Water-colour pencils and beads are the finishing touches.

A Little Bit of Spring
by Joyce Heard

This little quilt was inspired by  a tulip block by Jayne Turner in a Miniature Quilts magazine, issue #59. The quilt measures 6 3/4” x 8 3/4” and is displayed in a 8” x 10” picture frame on my mantel.   

Singing in The Rain
by Mary Hopkins

My thread painted robin sits on a branch made of multi coloured cords and wools twisted together and stitched to the background. The leaves and flowers are snippets of ribbon anchored into the cord. The rain tracks are threads of blue and silver.

 

 Flower Power
by Linda Schmidt

This is an original design drawn by Shirley Tracey, stitched and inked by myself.  The technique is from the book “Bold and Beautiful” by Judi Dains.  It was such fun to play with the inks on this piece and I love doing the free motion stitching on my domestic machine. 

by Linda Schmidt

This was my first 3 dimensional piece.  Techniques used include couching, fusible appliqué, foiling, semi-attached leaves/petals, seed beads. The pattern for this quilt was in Quiltmaker magazine, Winter 2006 issue.  

by Hélène Blanchet

 I am relatively new to Calgary, having moved here 2 years ago from the East Coast. I  got a job as a gardener. Little did I know what the spring season is in the Prairies: from warm Chinooks in April and gale force winds in May to thunderous inundations in June to hail in July.  Yet despite the many challenges the Prairie garden is as lovely as any – if you’re stubborn enough. This is a picture of my boss’ place in the centre of Calgary.

AH SPRING TWO
by Pat Golem

This is a digital photo of crocus taken in my flowerbed, printed on fabric, thread painted, beaded and quilted.

 

The Promise of Spring

by Carol Swinden

This quilt depicts a snowy bank along a cold, flowing creek on a rainy day near the end of winter. Down the creek float some fresh, brightly- coloured spring blooms as a promise of warmer weather to come. 

by Betty Johnson

I tried a Ricky Timms transvergence background & then appliquéd my whimsical flowers on top. Lots of fun to fiddle with these small pieces.

Spring Bulbs
by Karen Menzies

An unusual and very heavy April snowfall forced my bulbs to retreat back into the ground.

It Was A Lovely Warm Summer Day
by Susan Taylor

It is based on an illustration in a charming 1922 Norwegian children's book "Kalles Eventyrferd" (Kalle's Adventure) by Sofie Voss, which belonged to my mother.  I achieved the gradations in the pink fabrics by discharging with bleach.

Sunshine's Coming
by Christine Reid

 It is based on Ricky Tim's Convergence Quilts book. I used four fat quarters and added the umbrella as raw edge appliqué.  It was fun to do.

Harbingers of Spring
by Mary Katherine Hopkins

This is the sight we all look for after the long winters -  those brave Crocus poking through the snow. A little modern and a little traditional. Cotton and chiffon.

 

Spring Fling
by Heather Chapplain

I thought I would enter this challenge has I just finished an original piece called" Spring Fling". It measures 15" x15". I used commercial batik  fabric and hand dyed fabric I dyed myself. I also used angelina fibres and metallic threads. The sparkle is swaraski crystals. The fabric weaving was based on a technique from the book "Fabric Embellishing" The basics and beyond. By Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heather Thomas and Lauren Vlcek. This is a great book with many wonderful techniques and ideas. Thank you so much for this opportunity. 

 

Party with Patrick

by Kaaren L. Biggs

This is a wall hanging I made as part of a Party With Patrick group a couple of years ago. It was a fun way to learn fusible techniques and simple free-motion machine quilting with a group of friends, each of us making a new wall hanging monthly for one year.

 

 

Sunbonnet Sue - April Showers
by Lynn McEachern

Sunbonnet Sue stands in the rain under her umbrella, admiring new flowers and a young robin.
The design was done by myself using EQ7 graphics; the fabrics, threads and beads were from my stash.  This project was designed for this challenge, June 2014.

 

Baby Quilt 

 by Anita LaHay 

I decided to combine the CQA Spring Challenge theme with sewing a baby quilt for my new baby due in September. This baby quilt has raindrops and umbrellas fused and machine appliqued onto a low volume patchwork background. Some of the background fabrics have raindrop prints too. The umbrellas and raindrops are made using a combination of Robert Kaufman Chevron fabrics and Bonnie & Camille for Moda's "April Showers" line. The quilt is hand quilted with a variegated Valdani pearl cotton thread to show dotted lines for the raindrops falling. The binding is a scrappy binding of the chevron fabrics used for the umbrellas and is machine sewn to the front and hand sewn to the back. All threads other than the handquilting thread are Aurifil. The quilt measures: 30 by 40 inches. 

Spring Forward

by Maggie Butterfield Dickinson

This quilt was inspired by one of my photographs of a tulip in its final days of glory. Many fabrics were auditioned for the petals and some of the "rejects" became the inner details. The technique is from Jane Sassaman where the individual pieces are embroidered on the background fabric before the quilt is batted and machine quilted.