If Something is Worth doing, It's Worth Doing Obsessively

Row by Row 2016 Home Sweet Home

May 2016 to January 2019

·         46 rows (including one that isn’t part of the quilt)

·         19 “extra” rows that are two sided

·         59 patterns, 15 extra patterns and one original (#YMM Strong)

·         3 rows were repeated for friends

·         1 weekend quilt rally to collect 20 patterns and drive 2600 km around Alberta

·         Uncounted friends and friends of friends who collected patterns for a crazy quilt lady

·         21 months (with 5 months off to travel) of planning, thinking, sewing and enjoying

A simple little project that had a mind of its own and grew into this crazy quilt to express the many ideas of what home is to me.

This quilt started with a picture on Facebook of a small interesting quilt with an inukshuk on it.  Reading more, I learned about Row by Row and the idea of visiting quilt shops to collect a pattern, and perhaps fabric or other goodies, make a small quilt of 8 rows and then perhaps win more fabric.  The perfect set up for a quilter.

Before I could actually start collecting patterns, I’d created my own first row for Fort MacMurray, created a list of patterns I would like from across North America and also the Netherlands. It became clear that following the rules – 8 rows done simply and quickly so you could win more fabric – didn’t fit with my idea of quilting, which is the more stuff you can include the better.  Instead, the plan became to collect as many as I could, somehow decide which ones I’d use and hopefully the quilt would explain how it was going to come together. Like many of my quilts, there are stories for why each of these views of home has become part of the whole.

I collected 22 patterns myself on a weekend quilt rally from Edson to High River.  There were other patterns that I purchased, either because they weren’t part of Row by Row, or because they were from too far away.  I still smile about consulting with one of the ladies at work about how exactly to phone this shop in the Netherlands (they didn’t include their area or country code) and whether she would translate if they didn’t understand my English).  The best part, though, was getting patterns from friends and family who went out of their way to stop in at a quilt shop and ask for a pattern. It sort of exploded when Kati discovered she was working with quilters who were more than willing to pick up patterns if I would share my finds with them.  Hmm, I wonder if there are other obsessively large quilts out there?

The name for this quilt is taken from my daughter, Kati, who used this expression to explain why it made sense to her that within the first year of learning to crochet she had completed five or six full sized afghans and was moving on to things more complicated.

It’s the story behind it that gives the quilt more than three layers.

(Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show Website)

I posted about my Alberta Quilt Rally adventures on Facebook.  Here's my Thursday adventures,  Friday (Day 1), some cool company in Red Deer Friday night, a description of Day 2 and photos.

Here's the story of how these many rows came to be.  They are in numerical order which is sort of when I made them, although some of the rows jumped position and others had to fill in the blanks.  Sometimes your quilts talk to you and the result is better if you listen.  The rows found their own places in the crazy obsessive whole - so row 1 is in the middle and one of the rows actually escaped.  I hope you enjoy the stories as much as I enjoyed creating this quilt.

Of course, a map of this quilt includes a bit of obsessiveness.  "Which row is this" is actually a 12 x 12 quilt with the row numbers embroidered in their right places (and the row that escaped on the back).

#1 Fort McMurray Fires #YMMstrong

May 2016

In early May, the city of Fort McMurray was surrounded by a wildfire and we watched the incredible actions of many to fight the fire, prevent it from destroying the city, and on one incredible day, evacuate 90,000 people along a single highway (with flames jumping across the road).  #YMMstrong is the hashtag that was covering the internet and has come to stand for that crazy time.

If Fort McMurray had a quilt shop (which they do) and they had a row pattern (which they didn’t), I would have driven up Highway 63 to support them. My first row was created to honour the people of Fort McMurray as well as the hundreds of others who helped to fight the fire, donated everything from water to baby diapers and generally pitched in like neighbours do when help is needed.  Against the background of ashes and flames, the fireweed (the first plant that will bloom after a fire sweeps through the northern forests) speaks of optimism for the future.

Coincidently, after living in Northern Alberta for more than 40 years, we had made our first trip to Fort McMurray the summer before.  We’d stayed at the Super 8 hotel that burned completely after the neighboring gas station exploded.  I’d worked as a swim official for the Western Canada games at the Recreation Complex that was the emergency center during the fire.  Cal had toured the oilsands sites that hosted hundreds of people (including the patients evacuated from the hospital) who couldn’t get south because the fire was on both sides of the only road out.  We had eaten lunch at the brew pub that was the first restaurant approved to open as people were allowed to return.  They had none of their own beer, but their sister pub in Jasper trucked in special #YMMstrong ale for the opening.

# 2 When You Drink from the Waters of the Peace

June 2016

While I was planning my quilt rally road trip, I found this pattern from The Enchanted Room in Glendive, Montana.  It was actually their previous year’s row, so I could order the kit right away. The autumn leaves against the background river reminded me of the Peace River that has been part of my home for more than 40 years – first when living in La Crete, and then when we moved south (or upstream) to Grimshaw.

I actually made this row twice.  The full size row I made for my long time friend, Martina, who was planning to move away from her lifelong home to central Alberta to be closer to family.  I first read the phrase “when you drink from the waters of the Peace, you will always return” engraved on the water fountain at the tourist bureau in Peace River as we were passing through on our way to see our new home in La Crete (June 1976).  At the time, we thought we’d be returning “home” to Calgary in a year or two.  The phrase is attributed to the local Beaver peoples.

On the back of both rows, I put photos of the Peace River valley.  The Dunvegan Bridge in winter is from a friend of a friend and borrowed from Facebook.  The Dunvegan in summer was taken by my friend Pauline (who also moved away from her lifelong home to be closer to family).  The first photo is my own and is the Peace River valley in glorious fall colours from part way down Brick’s Hill.

#3 Crazy Houses Around the Block, Beaverlodge

July 2016

I’ve meant to visit the Beaverlodge quilt shop for a long time – everybody said how great it was and it’s only half an hour outside of Grande Prairie.  Chasing row by row patterns gave me the excuse to go there.  It is a lovely and busy shop right off the main road heading to Dawson Creek (in BC). The shop specializes in those lovely detailed quilts that can only be done with paper piecing and their row uses the same technique, just simpler and with fewer pieces.  Not much arithmetic was needed to make this a small row, just scan and let the computer do the job.  I pulled out some of my crazy fabrics and had a lovely time making these wee houses.  The sky in this row is commercial fabric.  After, I hand painted (and let the sunny back yard help me) two meters of sky fabric for later rows.  Then I spent a couple of evenings embroidering flower gardens for them.  

#ifsomethingisworthdoingitsworthdoingobsessively

One of those intricate paper pieced patterns came home with me.  Hundreds of pieces, slivers of fabric.  Watch for a table runner with a Christmas theme.

#4 Homecoming

July 2016

I’d seen this pattern as well as the bolts of fabric in a number of quilt shops and finally bought it in Grande Prairie when I picked up my first row pattern.  The fabrics are from a Canadian batik company and the author of the pattern has created this and a number of other small quilts with a Canadian theme.  It was some time after that a friend explained that we were getting ready for our 150^th birthday and there were lots of commemorative items to be had. J

Homecoming was the first pattern that took some exercising of my math skills.  I had it in my mind to create some rows half size (so I could create more rows in the same space), and with a bit of figuring it became a little wider and slightly narrower to become two small horizontal rows.

The geese visit our home spring and fall.  They swim on the ponds/puddles and snack on the left over grain in farmers fields.

#5 Good to Bee Home (Cotton Candy Quilts, Grande Prairie)

July 2016

This was the pattern I picked up the first weekend patterns were available.  I really planned to just pick up the pattern, but the bee buttons were just too cute to pass up.  I also picked up the kit to create another row (# 4 Homecoming) some fabric, and the pattern for the bragging pole.  And on second thought, I had Kati pick up the pattern for Road Trip when she was passing through. Yes, Cotton Candy is my closest quilt shop, and fabric is addicting.

I’d just learned how to create dimensional hexagons, so the beehive is more elaborate than the simple striped beehive shape of the pattern (#ifsomethingisworthdoingitsworthdoingobsessively).  I also added a cheeky embroidered “eh!” to the tree trunk.

What I smile about is that when I was carefully adding information to the back of the row, I wrote “Patchwork Cottage”, which was my first quilt shop in Grande Prairie where I learned so much about quilting.  Sadly, Patchwork Cottage closed some years ago when the owner wanted to retire. 

In this picture, the top right leaves are pinned where they will be stitched after the quilt is completed and binding attached.

#6 In My Dreams (the row that escaped)

August 2016

In our yard, we have a number of bird feeders to encourage birds to visit.  The stories we can tell about the locals as well as the occasional unexpected visitor has our daughter talking about Mum and Dad and their Beatrix Potter village. 

I picked up this fabric for the fifth Saturday challenge at Lori’s Country Cottage in the midst of a marathon quilt rally – just over 2600 km in two and a half days to visit 21 quilt shops between Hinton and High River.  I arrived in Sherwood Park at 3:00 with two more shops to go before closing time.  With fabric and pattern in hand, I headed to Lamont, then Camrose (which had closed ten minutes before I arrived), then along the back roads with Mr. Google to Red Deer for the night.  With Mr. Google doing the navigating, I had a lot of time to imagine and dream about the patterns I had collected and the places I had visited. Of course I was thinking about what I could do with the fabric that would be different and interesting.  The final touch was when I picked up a pattern at my almost last stop the next day (My Sewing Room in Calgary) that included a bright, cheery parrot.

In my dreams, surely, if there was a parrot visiting Northern Alberta, he would come and check out the best cafe with all the news.  And, in my dreams as well, the volunteer canola climbing the pole would be joined by fantasy flowers blown in from somewhere exotic.

I made this row as a complete quilt, fully intending that I would remove the border and add it into my row by row quilt.  But, sometimes your quilt talks to you and says “NO, I need my own space”.

#7 Comox Beach Houses (Huckleberry’s Fabrics)

August 2016

My friend, Lillian, brought this pattern back from her visit home to family in Comox.  My memory of Comox goes back to July 1984 when we visited Grandpa (my dad) for an afternoon sail on his boat with Kyle, almost 2.

I made my first “real” quilt this way in 2001 and have used the pattern dozens of times since to create a crazy background.  You start with a stack of fabrics, cut along the lines of the pattern, then restack the pieces.  So, although this looks a lot like row #2 (Crazy Houses Around the Block), it was made in a very different fashion.  With quilting, you can often choose to make something your way rather than the pattern way.

The fabric is some that Kier gave me for Christmas from his Fort St. John quilt shop. The houses are embellished with shells from walks along random beaches and hiding on one wall is a beaded croc from Australia that lost his back pin and needed somewhere to roost.

# 8 Regina Rowing Weekend (Peachtree Quilt Shop Regina)

September 2016

Kati picked up this kit when she was in Regina for the National Masters Rowing Regatta.  As I was starting to collect patterns, I had mentioned that if she was near a quilt shop and happened to think of it, could she see if they had row by row patterns. 

In typical #ifsomethingisworthdoingitsworthdoingobsessively fashion, she contacted all of her friends, including a few who were also quilters, and set them out looking for patterns.  On her trip to and from Regina, she stopped at every shop along the highway from Vermilion to Regina.  Thank you Kati and Ryan (who was the boat boy for the team).  What else could I call this row?

Part of the Row by Row experience is a selection of fabrics to tempt the quilter.  The center square of houses and shops has plenty of things quilty to go searching for and comes from a meter of fabric I bought on my marathon quilt rally.  The fabric of brown bricks for pathways or walls will show up in many other rows as well. The fabric that was provided in the kit is actually decorating the back of this row, combined with some vintage hand dyed fabric from my stash.

#9 Along Came Quilting, Calgary

September 2016

This was almost the last quilt shop I visited on the marathon quilt rally.  Coming from High River, I had planned my Calgary shops based on closing time.  I knew that I was cutting it close and thought I knew better than Mr. Google where we were going.  Wrong.

I visited this shop years ago and got lost on back streets just off Glenmore Trail before I had a cel phone to navigate for me.  I remember being enchanted by the Thai panels I bought with no particular plan about what I would do with them.  One piece made it into my Year of Travel Quilt.

The shop has moved a bit, but I still got lost L  Thankfully, a quick phone call to get straightened out (I was only a block or so away) and they promised to wait for me.  Five minutes after closing, I was in the door – the shop still had dozens of shoppers getting fabric cut – the row by row kits were in plain sight, and I was soon on my way to my next stop.  I must visit again to browse.

I might have been able to create this elegant reverse appliqué row by hand, but the laser cut prefused pieces took all the stress out of the process.  Sometimes it’s ok to go simple.

#10 Finally!! Creative Klutter, Irma

September 2016

I started this quilt in 2007 as a block of the month project with Patchwork Cottage and I think this was the last project before they closed.  I had no particular plan for this quilt, other than the excuse to go to Grande Prairie once a month and enjoy the company of other quilters.  So, with no excuse to go back the next fall and show off the finished quilt, this sat patiently on my shelf with the bindings cut and the bag of scraps ready for just that right opportunity.

This spring, I finally took the quilt top into Extraordinary Extras in Vermilion to have it quilted and this week I sat down to sew on the binding.  Nine years in the making and it’s place is on the guest futon (along with three other quilts)

I was really looking forward to the Creative Klutter row – loved the story as well as the shop name and the creative addition of their license plate.  It also seemed the perfect place to use all (or many) of the scraps from Finally.  As it turns out, the row was quite the challenge as the cutting directions missed a few pieces and the row was too big.  But, hey, it stretched my math skills and finally it, too, is ready.

 # 11 Love Laugh Quilt (Sewing with Class, Stony Plain)

September 2016

This is another one of the quilt rally rows.  Google maps led me along back roads from Drayton Valley, past beautiful farmland and the Genesee Power Plant, then along a number of residential roads to the parking lot with this very busy quilt shop.  I would have loved to stay to check out all the fantastic fabrics and quilts, but contented myself with the pattern (free) and a meter of black and white theme fabric which also shows up in some other rows.

“The love and support of family, the laughter and joy we share, time alone in my favorite space.”

#12 Butterfly House Bragging Pole

September 2016

This is an “extra” pattern from the previous year and was designed to be a place where you could collect the fabric license plates from shops you had visited.  Instead, I made it half size and decorated the front and back with mini plates from a meter of theme fabric that I had purchased at Lori’s Country Cottage in Sherwood Park during the quilt rally in June. The sky fabric is hand painted specifically for these rows to give some continuity.  My stash has a fat quarter or so of butterfly fabric which contributed the butterflies to this row as well as to the Lori’s Country Cottage row, which I was making at about the same time. There were dozens of license plates to choose from and I chose the ones that made me smile.  “Road Trip” was actually purchased full size and I scanned and printed it at half size. 

#13 Henhouse Textiles Hinton

September 2016

This was the first pattern I collected on my June marathon quilt rally.  Leaving work in Fairview at noon, I encountered construction all the way along the 40 south of Grande Prairie.   Several waits of twenty minutes while it seemed that nothing was happening meant that I actually arrived at the shop with less than ten minutes to closing.  As I came into Hinton, I was praying that Mr. Google knew where Henhouse Textiles was (and that they hadn’t moved since the last update).

After the crazy road trip, it was a lovely shop and they even gave me a great recommendation for dinner and pointed me in the right direction.  The motel I had chosen (exclusively on price) was awesome and was a great start to the Road Trip.

If I had turned right coming off the 40, I would have been heading toward Jasper, which has become my mountain home away from home.  From Hinton, you aren’t quite yet in the mountains, but you can certainly see them out your window on a clear day.

#14 Alberta’s Big Sky (My Sewing Room, Calgary)

November 2016

This was my last stop on the marathon quilt rally in June – stop #20 and with half an hour to spare before they closed, so I did a bit of browsing and picked up a couple of patterns.  From here, I picked up “the rocking chair” at my brother’s house, got some gas in Airdrie and was back in Red Deer for a bite to eat before crashing.  Next day, home again and 2600 km on the wee Vibe since leaving work at noon on Thursday.  Mr. Google and I had had a lot of fun tracing back roads and almost never getting lost.

A simple log cabin square turned on its corner becomes the Rocky Mountains that you can see from Calgary on a clear day.  In the foreground is the Alberta Wild Rose.  I haven’t lived near the mountains for 40 years, but they still draw me back. The darkest blue strip is actually of ocean and sea creatures – a subtle nod to the Burgess Shale and other fossils found in the area.  Back in the day, Alberta was by the ocean, perhaps why the seashore also draws me?

#15 Memories of Newfoundland Summer 2016

(693 pieces and counting)

When we were in Newfoundland, it was clear that everybody knit but very few people were quilters.  But with a bit of creativity, I’ve adapted a pattern from Fiberlily in St. John’s, added a whale from a row pattern from Oregon (through the power of connections), added some very unpuffinly puffins from fabric I picked up in Lamont on the epic quilt rally and used an inukshuk pattern from Labrador and then embellished with some mummers from Gros Morne National Park and shells from anywhere I was on a beach.

Rows 15 to 18 decided they didn’t like those numbers and wanted to be something else.  But Memories of Newfoundland is quite happy to be row #15 even though it is actually the 19^th row completed January 2017.

#16 Road Trip (20^th completed)

November 2017

The last project I completed before I left to travel in South America was a Road Trip quilt for my friend Pauline.  I planned, as soon as I got home, to make an identical but smaller one for my row by row project.  It wasn’t until November that I actually got back to quilting.  Like often happens, this project actually led me in directions that I hadn’t planned.

Last year, a Facebook post with Nico (one of our guides during the year of travel in Asia) had the hashtag #homeiswhereyouparkit which started me thinking about how you make home wherever you may be. Just as I was beginning this row, an almost forgotten bit of memory surfaced while I was doing a serious clean of all my things crafty.  These turned “Road Trip” into a double sided combination of road trips and home.

The front is a red headed, with silver highlights, driver of a little blue car (me) heading home from a road trip to collect fabric, or yarn, or perhaps other hidden goodies.  These days, a weekend trip will include checking out fabric shops AND yarn shops.  The samples actually foreshadow the other side of home – wherever you may park it – as the yarn is from Buenos Aires and Cuzco.

The back is a collection of travel memories.  Mickey Mouse as world traveler is from our first trip out of country to visit Disneyland in 1993 and is the front of a very well worn tshirt that I finally had to stop wearing.  He’s bordered with a bit of the Columbian coffee dyed fabric that is also part of my Exploring South America project.  The side panels are created from the very worn scarf of aboriginal fabric that has been on my Tilley Hat since 2009 and traveled with me through many adventures.  I added photos of some of my homes in South America – my tent Ecuador who was home from Santiago to Cartagena and photos of my delight at the tallest summit on the Wild Andes Trek.  There’s my trekking poles that have become my friends on any difficult terrain, Juan who guided and cheered me through the challenges of getting to Machu Picchu, and the flowers on my hat that were placed there by our Shaman on the first day.  Initially, I think he was worried that I wasn’t going to make it and it took some reassurance that I was OK (just slow on the rough path).

# 17 Granville Island (#21 finished)

November 2017

Kati’s friend, Julie, picked up this pattern when she visited Vancouver and wondered if I could make one for her, too.  So, Granville Island has a very close sibling who is in Vermilion.   The sky is the hand painted fabric I made last year that shows up in a number of the rows, and I used the same process (and many of the fabrics) that I used in “When you drink from the waters of the Peace”.  No sense in doing something simply if you can have a bit of fun.  The backing includes a spirit animal from a panel I brought home last year when visiting the Canmore quilt shop.

My memory of Granville Island is where we first tasted sushi, before kids and before you could get it in Alberta.

#18 Big City Skylines (#22 finished)

December 2017

I was born in Toronto and moved to Calgary when I was 2.  The first twenty years of my life, I was a big city girl.  I was actually working on #18 and #19 (small town girl) at the same time, and used six different patterns to create two double sided rows.  Why do something simply if you can have fun making it your own?

The Toronto side is a pattern from Lens Mills Store of North York (where we lived with my grandparents while my dad was doing a surgical residency).  I remember phoning the number and getting the main switchboard who transferred me to “fabric” where I chatted with a lovely lady who had no idea what the price was for the pattern – she’d just pop it in the mail on her way home (hmm, small town connections in the big city).  Lots of buildings for the skyline, including the Sky Dome and the CN Tower, that I appliquéd onto some of the Row by Row fabric that also showed busy city streets.

For Calgary, I used the bargello fabrics from Dragon’s Heart Quilt Shop in Pincher Creek for the prairie sky.  This kit showed up on my back door (along with patterns from Lethbridge), thanks to Kati’s connections with her friend’s mum, Linda Becher, who now lives in Lethbridge and was up visiting. Calgary is represented by a skyline that was actually part of the 2015 challenge (water) thanks to My Sewing Room.  This was one of the stores I explored during the Alberta quilt rally – the last shop of the day.  The three key buildings are the Calgary Tower (I still think of it as the Husky Tower, once the tallest building in Calgary but now dwarfed by a number of the big new buildings), the Saddledome that was built just as I was leaving Calgary, and the Bow Tower (that was the pattern’s water connection along with the mention of the floods that summer) that I have never seen. 

 #19 Home Sweet Home (Small Town Girl) (#23 finished)

December 2017

 After growing up in Calgary, we moved to Northern Alberta “for a year or two”.  More than forty years later, I love being a small town girl.  I was actually working on #18 (big city skylines) and #19 at the same time, and used six different patterns to create two double sided rows.  Why do something simply if you can have fun making it your own?

The front of this row is from Runaway Quilting in Edson, while I used the cows and oil wells from a pattern from Sewing Sensation in Calgary.  During the Alberta quilt rally, after overnighting in Hinton, Edson was the first town I visited, just as shops were opening and a midway was being set up on the main street.  No worries, the two quilt shops were only a block or two apart and Mr. Google got me from one to the other with no problems.

The back of the row is from Quilter’s Quarters, also in Edson.  Shops could create a kit of fabrics for a ninth row (an extra) and I was drawn to the cozy homespun flannel fabrics, as well as the moose and trees.  The trees moved onto the front of the row.

For me, this is northern Alberta – agriculture and ranching, forestry, oil and gas, and an assortment of animals, sometimes on your doorstep.  Wrapped up in warm and cozy clothes to stand the long winters.

#20 A View from the Loo (#24 completed)

December 2017

I’ve never been to Fairbanks, Alaska, but they have some fantastic quilt shops that make me want to head north, just to browse in person.  I ordered this kit with the quirky cabin with the northern lights as backdrop over a year ago from The Material Girls, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized it was actually an outhouse!  They named the pattern “Fairbanks Facilities”, but it will be “A view from the loo” for me.

When traveling, the loo is one of those memorable experiences that I often take photos of.  There's a pocket on the back of this row with some of my favorite views if you happen to see this quilt in person. 

#21 (#15 finished) Rumpledquiltskins, Okotoks

November 2016

The Rumpledquiltskins row appealed to me from the first time I saw it.  My favourite colours, a unique design, and a great excuse to visit a store with a name that had fascinated me for years.

I got to Okotoks mid Saturday afternoon of my Row by Row quilt rally.  Mr. Google had taken me on some interesting excursions along roads I had never traveled so I didn’t question how he was getting me from Canmore to Okotoks – it did seem a bit odd to pass the turn off to the #22 and keep heading into Calgary then along the Deerfoot south before heading back west to Okotoks.  I actually came to the store the back way so got a bit of a tour of the town.  Had a great chat with the owners as I quickly looked around this heritage building and apologized for quickly purchasing my kit and heading out the door toward High River.  They laughingly agreed that Mr. Google had given me about a 20 minute longer drive to get there and gave me “people directions” for the most direct route to High River.

That night, after five more quilt shops and a quick stop to pick up a chair in Calgary, I was even more delighted with this pattern.  Birds singing at 4:00 am, fabric for the next project, soaky bubble baths.  Yup, that’s home to me. And I need an excuse to visit Okotoks next time I’m in the neighborhood.

#22 (#16 finished) Home Sweet Home, Internationally

Aljona, Schagen, NL (Netherlands)

Fall 2016

I have a warm spot in my heart for tulips – from the wee feral ones that poke their heads up through the snow in my yard every spring to the glorious noble blooms we saw in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2014.  Tulips were introduced to the Netherlands from Turkey, BTW.  The tulip connection from the Netherlands to Canada is that during WWII, the Dutch treasury (as well as the royal children) were carefully cared for in Canada and in thanks, they provide the tulips which grace Parliament Hill in Ottawa.  Hmm, perhaps a trip needs to happen.

It was great fun deciding which fabrics from my stash would create the rows of flowers.   Directions given were very basic – I think that the shop assumed that a quilter would have their own way to create this picture.

I remember getting help from one of my coworkers, whose parents are Dutch, to figure out what the phone number was as the shop didn’t list country or area code.  I couldn’t order online, but they were delighted to take my credit card information on the phone.  As it turns out, I didn’t need her translating skills either.  J

# 23 Home Sweet Home Sweet, Dawson Creek (#17 completed)

December 2016

This is the third of four rows that got ahead of themselves.  Kier picked up the pattern on one of his trips into Dawson Creek, Mile Zero on the other northern highway.

The Quilting Bee created this row of two traditional quilt blocks – Home Treasures and Sugar Bowl.  If you look carefully, the center of each block has its name embroidered in almost invisible blue thread. Any time the pattern includes 1/8” measurements and 57 pieces in a nine inch block, you know you will need a lot of patience and some more patience.  I wisely drafted the picky parts for paper piecing and accepted that I was in for a week of character building.  And a bit of humility.

All in all, it was great fun to create this row.  I’m trying to imagine creating an entire quilt of these blocks, cutting the pieces with scissors and sewing them by hand by candle light.  Patience, character building and humility.

#24 Bear’s Paw Quilts, Whitehorse (#18 completed)

 December 2016

Sometime in early May, I bumped into Row by Row on Facebook and it was the picture of this row that got me going on collecting patterns to create what is becoming a very big and inclusive Home Sweet Home quilt. I couldn’t find anybody who was actually travelling to Whitehorse this summer, so I waited patiently until it could be purchased and sent to me.  A lot of thought went into creating the pattern and the directions.  The fabric choices were perfect.  Thank you so much Bear’s Paw Quilts for your imagination, creativity and attention to detail.  If I ever make it to your community, I promise to drop in.

The Row by Row designed by Bear’s Paw Quilts, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory needs a bit of explanation.  The bottom part of the vertical row represents the log cabins that many of us live in, accompanied by our territorial flower, the fireweed, that grows wild all about.  The middle part is an Inukshuk, a man made stone landmark.  Originally made by people of the Arctic regions in North America.  The finished constructions vary in shape as they vary in meaning, but act as signposts for good hunting, fishing places and camps.  This one in our row is showing us the way home.  The top portion of the row is a bargello depicting the Northern Lights to light us home in the long dark winter nights.

Included on the back is the Indigenous legend of the fireweed that I found when at a workshop in Canmore.

#25 QE II Park (Red Winged Blackbird)

December 2017

QEII Provincial Park is practically in our back yard and it’s the place we walk, picnic, ski, showshoe, ride bikes, take photos... This row, from Tiger Lily quilts in Wolseley SK, is one of those from away that bring memories of home to me.  This photo was taken at “The Park” in the summer of 2015 while exploring the damage a mid May blizzard had done to the trees.

The story of how this pattern came to me is a delightful example of connections.  My daughter’s best friend’s sister in law (or maybe her family) traveled from Ontario to a family camping trip in Saskatchewan stopping at quilt shops to pick up patterns for someone (me) they had never met. The pattern gave me a great chance to play with fabrics in my stash and the fuzzy bulrushes are bits of hand felted Kyrgyzstan wool that had been waiting for two years for just the right project.

# 26 Never enough puffins

December 2017

This is one of the Canadian Mystery Quilt blocks created by Shania Sunga for Cantik Batiks.  She designs the fabrics then creates a quilt to feature the fabrics.  Canada 150 has been a great reason to feature things Canadian.  Puffins have fascinated me for years and this is in memory of the incredible time we had in Newfoundland and Labrador the summer of 2016.  The pattern needed a bit of modifying to make it fit the row by row format – it was a bit wide for the half size row and needed a few more inches of water and land.

# 27 Birds eye view

31 December 2017

This is one of those patterns that got me thinking about collecting a number of patterns and REALLY doing this row by row.  Simple, cheery and with a different perspective – imagine a bird flying over your neighborhood and seeing the different roof lines.

Material Matters in Drayton Valley was stop #4 on the Quilt Rally.  I trusted Mr. Google when I was directed to turn off before the road that is signed for Drayton Valley, and went with the flow of a number of turns once in town and stopped to park when directed as the shop is actually on a pedestrian mall.  From Drayton Valley, my next stop was Stony Plain (block 11) along some interesting back roads past the Genesee power plant that I had never seen despite driving nearby on main roads for 40 years.

This row is half sized but not that difficult to convert as it was paperpiecing – which I have come to love for accuracy with small pieces.

# 28 Key to My Castle

1 January 2018

This half sized row is based on a pattern from Paula’s Fine Fabrics in Jacksonville Florida.  The shop advertises as the last quilt shop before the Florida Keys, which has always made me smile – emergency supplies comes to mind.

The original pattern had butterflies, but this one has pansies on a rich purple background.  In the middle of a brutal cold spell, I start to think about spring flowers even though I’m not much of a gardener.

#29 Quilters Dream Edmonton

7 January 2018

Quilters Dream/Johnson’s Sewing Center has two locations in Edmonton and each shop creates a row pattern.  Of course they needed to be together as another one of those two sided rows.  It’s one of my favourite quilt shops – my “does everything but brush its teeth” Janome sewing machine came from Johnson’s, as did my needle felting machine.  Taking a machine in for a service just obligates you to check out the lovely fabric, and patterns, and threads....

This row is half sized, so there was a lot of arithmetic involved (- ½, divide by 2, + ½, eek, not going to make a 1/8 inch strip).  It was a great Sunday play day, which was also Ukrainian Christmas.

# 30 Nudge a Deer (Dancing Quilts, 100 Mile House)

14 January 2018

This is another one of those quilt patterns from away that speaks to me of home.  Once again, I stretched my arithmetic memories to take the bargello pattern and make it work for a half sized row.  Many of the fabrics were hand painted in a class some years ago – and were actually waiting to be given away because I thought I wouldn’t need them.  It turns out that they were just perfect for northern lights dancing across the sky.

As I was working on this, I was remembering my nudge a deer incident earlier this winter (hence the title of this row).  A family of deer had been staying in one of the open fields part way between home and work.  I had narrowly missed hitting them on more than one occasion as they bounded across the highway from the trees on the other side – no one had ever told them about the value of looking both ways before crossing the street.  One dark morning, the car ahead of me braked and I saw a deer in his headlights, so I was already braking in anticipation of two more deer crossing where the first one had.  To my surprise, the buck came directly out in front of my car and almost made it safely to the other side – except for a gentle nudge of my bumper as I was almost stopped.  With a bit of a shake of his head, he kept going toward the field. 

The dramatic northern lights will remind me of the evening driving home where the entire sky was lit with the dancing auroras.  When they can be seen while driving and not really even looking, they are definitely not too shabby at all!!

#31 Family Connections

Undercover Quilts, Fergus ON

21 January 2018

It seems fitting that I should be making this row the week before Robbie Burns Day (January 25).  Fergus is a small town in Ontario settled initially by Scottish immigrants in the early 1800s.  One of the early settlers was James MacQueen who came as a teacher and even played a small part in defending the town from invasion by those nasty Americans during the war of 1812.  He was also Cal’s great great grandfather.  My grandmother was born in Fergus about the time that James MacQueen was helping to raise his grandson and I wonder if the two families knew each other.

The interesting family history story goes back to the early 1970s.  Cal was talking about genealogy with my dad and mentioned that his mum said her great grandfather had been a very important person in a small town in northern Ontario – and we all agreed that usually this kind of story benefited from a bit of creative writing.  As my family also came from northern Ontario, my parents wondered if Cal came from a nearby community – turns out it was the same town that my mum’s mum came from.  In the days before the internet, you researched your family by writing letters, or by visiting the family home town.  What happened is that my mum wrote a letter to an old boyfriend that still lived in Fergus to see if he knew anything about this teacher in the early 1800s.

To our amazement, he wrote a long newsy letter.  James MacQueen was a teacher in Fergus.  He married the daughter of the local blacksmith and had 13 children, most of whom still lived in the area.  He also was the postmaster, the notary public and (according to the listing in the local history book) “the most educated man north of Toronto”.  The high school is named after him.

The moral of this story is that sometimes the stories you hear about your ancestors being important people are not creative writing at all!

I made this row entirely of recycled bits of fabric from other rows.  I could have used a single piece of sky coloured fabric and stitched it to a single piece of grass to save a couple of hours.  Instead, I spent the day listening to the radio, stitching and reminding myself of connections.  Connections to other rows as well as family connections.

#32 Talk to me about reading

28 Jan 2018

This row came from a calendar that gave me a new block every morning at work in 2016.  It’s the last small row to complete the center panel of what is going to be a pretty monumental quilt.  Reading is one of those things that I can’t imagine not doing – whether it is curled up reading a great book, or figuring out how to fix something, or planning the next trip (or next quilt).

This row is paper pieced – the only way to manage accuracy when you are talking tiny pieces. I chose fabrics that played well together and then spent the morning deciding which of my many favourite books would get a place on the shelf.  In real life, when I run out of room, I can double layer, or place on top of, find room for another shelf, or stack on the floor.  For this row, the organizational system was “which book will fit this length of title” rather than by author or subject.  Rather like my actual book shelves.

From left to right, here’s my books.

Winnie the Pooh.  I still remember visiting my grandparents in Toronto for my sixth birthday.  My Grandpa Smallacombe gave me “The World of Pooh”, a huge hard cover book, and then read it to me chapter by chapter during our stay.  He said to me that we would enjoy reading it together this time but he knew I would be able to read it to myself very soon.  He was right – and the sense of accomplishment reading my first grown up chapter book is still with me.

Uttermost Part of the Earth.  An iconic book about growing up in Ushuaia in the 1800s.  I visited the homestead where Lucas Bridges was raised and even had tea with his great nephew last year.  This is just the latest in the hundreds of books I have been able to borrow through my local library and Trac (which allows me to request a book from any library in Alberta).

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures.  After reading the Headmaster’s Wager by Vincent Lam, I borrowed this from the library and enjoyed it so much that I added it to my ereader.  The title caught me and the stories kept me hooked.

Mystery.  My secret pleasure is murder and detective mysteries, usually with an international flavour.  My ereader is full of titles that you can’t easily find at a book store, and many others have come home from the library.

Avonlea.  Anne of Green Gables was too long to fit on a book, so I got a bit creative.  I discovered Ann in late elementary school.  Our local library wouldn’t let me borrow these “adult” books without my parents’ permission, so for a year or two I had to bring my mum to the library even though I was old enough to get there myself.  Our librarian at my Junior High School also censored our reading.  I know this contributed to my sense that reading was a guilty pleasure, and my decision that I would allow/encourage my children to read whatever they wanted to.

The Great Game.  Borrowed from the library.  One of the many books I read while planning our year of travel.  This is a classic book about the history of Russia, Britain and China in Central Asia.  The title comes from Kipling (which encouraged me to read his books, including Kim)

Outlander.  I read the first book in this series before it became the huge success it is now.  Time travel and swashbuckling in Scotland at the time of Culloden.  I read this before visiting Scotland.  And then again after.

Homemade Brass Plate.  One of the books by Dr. Mary Percy Jackson about the early years in the Peace River country.  When I think about traveling solo from England to northern Alberta in the 1930s, before roads or conveniences, I am humbled.  When I first came to the La Crete/Fort Vermilion area in 1976, she had just retired but I still was hearing stories about this incredible pioneer.  Ten years later, I was privileged to hear her speak about her experiences.  The title references the gift she was given by her husband – recognition and support that she would continue to “doctor” when women were expected to give up their jobs outside the home once married.

Fannie Farmer.  My go to cookbook.  I got a paperback copy as a wedding shower gift and as it was wearing out, I purchased a hard copy in 1977.  It’s been rebound in the last year and is good to go for the next generation.  You don’t see this book anymore, but I loved that she had invented the idea of standard measurements so you could recreate someone else’s recipe.

Dying, Fingerweaving, Extreme Quilting and Textiles.  Four books that represent my fabric/fiber addiction.    Again, I’ve borrowed dozens of books from my local library.  It’s a great way to preview books that you might want to add to your shelves.

#33 Two of my favorite quilt shops (get another row)

February 2018

I didn’t need any more row by row patterns or kits, but I’d been away from quilting for six months and just popped in to a couple of my favorite shops.  What can I say, these two patterns just begged to come home with me and join the rest of the gang.  Both of them celebrate Canada’s 150^th in a uniquely Alberta way.  The front, from Lori’s Country Cottage, challenged my patience and my precision sewing.  There’s 53 pieces in the bottom wheat square, and just over 300 in the flag bargello at the top. I love the way that a creative designer can make their vision (the Alberta Shield) fit the theme of the  program – on the go for the 2017 Row by Row is the little car button heading out to the mountains.  The back is actually modified from a 12 inch square designed by Cotton Candy in Grande Prairie for another celebration of our birthday.

#34 Sometimes your quilt talks to you

18 February 2018 (Family Day Weekend)

Sometimes (ok, often) the quilt tells you what it is going to look like.  If I listen, the result is always a better quilt.  When my choice for the back wasn’t quite right, these houses stepped up and said “I will”.

The front is another pattern from Cotton Candy in Grande Prairie that came home with me – Sew Pieceful Skies (I love the play on words that happens for quilters in the Peace River Country) was simple to create and the background fabric made the geese flying past a sunrise (or sunset) as they journey through on their way to and from their more northern summer home.  My plan for the back was to use a pattern “from away” with an eagle cruising in front of a similar sky, but his outstretched wings were not prepared to become a long and narrow row.  I could almost hear the row shouting “NO NO NO, I’m a row not a column!!!”  So, plan A is on my wall waiting for another opportunity and I went searching for a pattern that would work with row #34. I don’t even remember getting this kit of bright modern houses from The Stitcherie in Wyoming, Ontario (near Sarnia), so they might have been a gift from a friend of a friend.  They were delighted to switch from row to column and play very well with the homecoming geese.

#35 Two Sides of Fort St John

March 2018

Fort St John is a little more than two hours from home – through the coulees of the Clear and Beatton Rivers.  My first memories are of cross country races, and of needing to phone the organizer to be reminded what time it was – Fort St John has its own time zone because it doesn’t do daylight saving time – half the year it is on Pacific (Vancouver) time and the other it is on Alberta time.  Thanks to Mr. Google, we now don’t need to phone anyone and can pretend that we actually know J

My youngest son, Kier, moved to Fort St John four years ago to work at the local radio station – 101.5 The Bear.  This gives us great excuses to travel there and have lunch and a visit.  The city has two quilt shops and they both had a row by row block.  Kier picked up the patterns for me – although he had not heard of the one shop which is down a bit of a country road to the north of the city – and had actually bought fabric for a Christmas present his first year there.  I enjoyed how different the two rows were, which is where the name for this row comes from.

The back is from Piece by Peace Quilts and is a very modern pattern that suited the fabric Kier had bought from there.  It makes me think of the one side of Fort St John – “big” city with all the resources you’d expect.

The front is the pattern from the Sew it Yourself Shop, which I understand is on the top floor of an old barn.  The directions were really basic, which let me push the creative envelope and make it truly my vision of home in the Peace Country.  The idea for the sunset came from a picture of Big Sky Quilts (Billings Montana) and I added some animals and the spruce tree from  another Montana Quilt shop.  Us westerners often talk about how we have more in common with our neighbors to the south in Montana than with our eastern neighbors many thousands of miles away.  On the right, I used dozens of prairie points (that’s the traditional quilt term for folding squares of fabric to make triangles) to represent the complex hills that you wind your way through on your way down to a northern river.  I still remember dropping suddenly from the prairie into the Peace River valley more than 40 years ago.  It’s the Beatton River just north and east of Fort St John that these hills represent.  I’ve added a bear and a deer (which uses the last bit of my dyed with Columbian coffee fabric) in the hills to complement the moose on the left side eating the sunflowers,  In between, an oil derrick, a grain elevator (with a bit of grafitti for the local radio station), and the aspen and spruce trees.  On the left, I can just imagine sitting on the porch watching the sunset.  To finish, a bit of embroidery for the hanging flower pot (marigolds or petunias I think) and a lilac bush by the porch.  The other side of Fort St John very much reflects the rural roots only a step outside the city.

#36 Rural Quilt Rally

March 2018

Great memories of day two of the quilt rally in June 2016.  First to Olds (Craig’s Store, est. 1896) and a real old fashioned General Store, then along the back roads with rural directions and a final cut line sort of path that the wee Vibe took in good spirit, to Beaver Creek Mercantile just outside of Caroline.

I’ve had a great time the last three weeks creating the front and back of this row.  For me, they describe the town and country sides of rural living.  Both were designed with love and a lot of attention to detail right down to the tiny pieces of fabric for the many pieces which created the picture of home.

I timed my arrival at Craig’s to be just as they opened. To my delight, it was a “you can get anything you need here” store, still in the original building which is now a provincial heritage site. The fabric department was tucked in with the clothing and included some of all the essentials. I could just imagine that Barb, who designed the row, had spent days deciding what to include in the row and what fabrics to use.  Once her sample was complete, she then went back and sketched the pattern pieces. It wasn’t an easy to follow commercial pattern, which meant a lot of thought and deciding how exactly to create this row and make it my own. I also took the liberty of adding a few scraps of my own fabric.

Where I live, we also have these great general stores.  My first experience was Midtown up in La Crete (groceries, clothing, hardware, records, you name it).  When we moved south, there was True Value in Grimshaw and Kinley’s in Berwyn (which everybody called Druckers) and Boyt’s in Fairview.  The first two have closed because there are no family members wanting to continue the tradition.  Boyt’s is still going strong with the third generation holding the reins.

When planning the quilt rally, I checked the directions to Beaver Creek Mercantile with Google Maps to learn that Google does not like rural addresses and just gives you an arbitrary location.  I’ve passed the sign to Caroline hundreds of times but never had a reason to turn off the main highway, but I was pretty sure that following the Google directions would end in disaster.  So, I did the small town thing – contacted the owner to confirm the directions from Caroline.  Head south, turn west at the grain bins, watch for the sign and turn left into our driveway.  The shop is in the barn.  I even had to do a bit of twisting and turning in Caroline because the main intersection was closed as they were repairing something.  I found a gem of a quilt shop with shelves and shelves of interesting fabric and quilts of all descriptions hanging from the rafters.  I had a lovely conversation with the owner, who took me to the front door to show me where the lake is that is central to her row. And, yes, all the locals fly fish for trout.  She apologized for the fact that my kit no longer had the fisherman – she’d already sold over 100 kits in the last two weeks (including 30 to a group of Calgary ladies who came on a bus) and couldn’t replace the fabric.  As I left, her directions took me cross country around the lake and heading to my next stop – Canmore – through more back country I’d never seen.

I just love the whimsy of the local animals sitting and watching the entertainment of the fisherman catching a large fish. My first thought had been to just collect the pattern and use my own fabrics, but I’m glad I bought the fabric pack. While making her row, I was astounded at her choice of fabrics – printed tree or grass fabric that was cut into tiny pieces and collaged together to make a three dimensional scene. It took one day to assemble this row and then another day to sew everything down with coordinating thread.

# 37 Humboldt Broncos #Humboldtstrong

April 2018

I’d decided a couple of weeks ago that these were going to be the next two rows to be created, with Letters from Home on the front and the interesting combination of classic quilting squares from Humboldt on the back.  Last week, the crash of the Humboldt Broncos bus was on everybody’s mind, and today this row has been reversed with # Humboldtstrong becoming the theme.  Today was a day of connections – fellow travelers posting on Facebook that they couldn’t get home because of a major bushfire on the edge of Sydney, which brought memories of Fort MacMurray in 2016 then on to this month’s tragedy of a bus of junior hockey players in a head on collision on the way to a playoff game. 16 dead and 13 injured.  Don’t wait to hug your loved ones.

Front: Haus of Stitches, Humboldt Sk “Wheat, Geese and Maple Leaves"  Back:  Modern Bee, Niagara on the Lake "Letters from Home".  The hockey player with wings is from Deanna Brown of the Estevan Mercury.

To turn the row into a column, I had to remove the flying geese block from the top.  Instead, if you look carefully, there are 16 flying geese quilting the row.

#38 In another life, I lived by the ocean

May 2018

Put me beside the ocean and I can spend hours playing with the water, beachcombing and collecting memories. It has always fascinated me that a girl from land locked Alberta can feel so at home by the ocean.  Perhaps in another life, I actually lived by the ocean?  To complement the Newfoundland harbor (#15), I’ve also created this row for Canada’s west coast.

I first started with the front, a pattern I ordered from Sechelt (on the mainland, north of Vancouver and looking out toward Vancouver Island) that they had created for the 2015 theme of water.  On the computer screen it looked lovely with the ocean and beach on the sides with mountains and a totem in the middle.  I thought the most difficult thing would be to create the totem (as I only ordered the pattern) but to my delight, included was fabric with a totem and also the shop’s sign for the lawn.  What was challenging was the miniature piecing that was used to create the details.  On the left side, a bargello used five different colours of sand and five different colours of water to create the sense of the waves creeping onto the beach. There were 99 pieces just to prove that I could cut and sew accurately to the nearest ¼ inch.  The middle was fairly simple, except for the curved paper pieced flight of geese – 18 of them – flying across the 9 inch square.  The right side used six traditional Storm at Sea blocks (how appropriate was that).  Each block had 28 pieces and thankfully they were also paper pieced, with the most challenging bit being the 1 ½ inch block that had 9 pieces.  Rather than following the pattern exactly (5 sand colours and 5 water colours), I actually included twice as many fabrics. Total bits of fabric – 172.   After all, the name of this quilt has become “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing obsessively”.

My friend Lillian graciously agreed to pick up the pattern from the Red Barn Quilt Shop in Campbell River, just down the road from her home in Comox.  What had drawn me to this pattern was the spirit salmon in the iconic style of west coast indigenous artists.    But, because she had also picked up the kit of fabric, I could create this row in the same colours the designer had chosen. I’ve been smiling as I sewed it because of the fabrics that make it look so much more complicated than it was. What I found so fascinating as I was putting this together is that there are actually two fabrics that I had taken from my own stash to create the front that matched ones given to me for the back.

The challenge when making a two sided row is to decide how to quilt it together so that both sides work.  For this, the choice of using the spirit salmon on both sides was just perfect.

#39 Tents and Trailers (Night and Day)

July 2018

This row was just a natural to work on during our summer season.  It seems as if everybody is talking about camping; where, when and with who.  So, I combined all the trailers together on one side of the row.  As I was working, it changed from just any collection of trailers, to a collection of quilter’s trailers and then the name just followed – the Trailer Quilt Guild.  A collection of ladies (and gentlemen) from all over western Canada meeting for a camping retreat and to compare their latest works.  From top to bottom, the trailers are from:

• A lovely vintage truck and trailer with ruffled curtains from Cottage Quilting in Kelowna.  Thanks Kyle for picking this kit up when you were living in Kelowna. 
• Peaceful Patch in Blackfalds.  I missed stopping at this shop on the Quilt Rally (although I did end up passing through the town on my way back to Red Deer on some interesting back roads) but one of Kati’s quilting connections shared her pattern with me.
• Chinook Fabrics in High River, complete with vintage Singer sewing machine.  Hearing the stories of dedicated quilters carrying their treadle machines with them so they can quilt while camping almost made me think I should try it…
• Extraordinary Extras in Vermilion, decked out in shades of purple for Kati, who lives in Vermilion.
• Homestead Fabrics in Barrhead provided a “home on the range”, which could either recognize the original Barr colonists, or perhaps the chuckwagons of the ranchers.  I couldn’t figure out how to make it to Barrhead on my quilt rally, so was delighted when this pattern showed up in one of the batches of sharing patterns from Kati.  

      Trailers may be many people’s idea of how to get out and enjoy nature, but I’m a tenting sort of girl.  The other side of this row has me lying in my tent (an Odyssey Overland dome tent rather than a Dragoman A frame) by the fire somewhere out and about.  My clothes are hanging from the line and the latest project is sitting by the tent door ready for tomorrow.  The pattern and the fabric are from Kathy’s Quilt Shop in Prince George.

#40 Birds of the North

August Long Weekend 2018

      I ordered three patterns from Northern Threads in Fairbanks, Alaska because I couldn’t decide which one I wanted.  At first, I thought they might not be part of my Row by Row quilt, but perhaps something else.  However, over the last two years, I keep coming back to them because they are so interesting and also reflect aspects of my idea of home.  As I was making the decision about which would be the last three rows, they all made the cut.  J  I’m thinking about a northern road trip, and Fairbanks definitely needs to be on the itinerary to visit this quilt shop.  This row reflects two of our iconic northern birds.  They don’t have the glorious plumage of the birds of the tropics, and might be passed off as just one more brown/black bird, but they are the lords of their surroundings.  I needed some white fabric for this and the next two rows but all the rest is from my stash. The purple flying geese are from hand painted fabric from my stash but everything else comes from a pile of bits from other rows.

     

     The front is Raven’s Throne.   We see ravens on our travels in Northern Alberta and they also have a strong Indigenous connection as a powerful trickster responsible for the creation.  I first read about Raven in a university class (the anthropology of indigenous peoples which also introduced me to agave/pulke and tequila) before I moved north.   I also have this memory of a book by Jasper naturalist, Ben Gadd, about how people become ravens when they die.  The other fascinating thing about this row, is the outhouse “throne” which connects to my other views from the loo.

      The back of this row has been waiting since February (Row 34) when it told me clearly that it could not be a column as an eagle must have room to spread its wings.  The pattern, Where Eagles Fly, is from Piecemakers in Hackensack, New Jersey.  The background is another piece of hand painted fabric that makes a perfect sunrise/sunset.  For Americans, the eagle is their national bird, but for me, it speaks to my northern home.  When we went fishing on the Kakisa River, we passed the nest of a pair of eagles to get to the best fishing hole.  The parents would soar to keep watch that we were not going to come near the nest and then settle back as soon as we had passed.  We also occasionally see eagles in flight in the Peace River country.

#41 Aurora (Northern Lights)

September 2018

     There is a very scientific reason for the pattern of lights that dance across the northern night skies.  I prefer the fables and legends and the mystery of looking up and seeing the streaks of light swirling.  The science is the reason why the Aurora Borealis is almost as common here in northern Alberta as it is high in the Arctic.  This row combines two visions – one from Alaska complete with moose and a snow bound cabin, and the other from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

     The front is the second of three patterns from Northern Threads in Fairbanks, Alaska.  I first remember seeing the Northern Lights as I traveled between home in La Crete and work in Fort Vermilion in the 1970s.  At that latitude, it was dark enough at shift change (nights to days or evenings to nights) for many months to catch them dancing in the sky.  Occasionally, I would catch the crackling as if they were talking to each other.  Here in the Peace River country, it is more special to see the Aurora – usually as I would drive home from working out in the evening. The photographers, who know how to set their cameras, will tell you that actually the Auroras happen most nights – you just need to be in the right place at the right time.

     On the back, is another expression of the Northern Lights – fabric sky that dances behind a family of bears and the iconic igloo of the Arctic.  The Quilted Raven from Yellowknife (note the raven connection to row #40) designed this row, then created the laser cut images.  Yellowknife is a “southern city”, at least when you are talking about the Northwest Territories that start at latitude 60, so I suspect that there aren’t many igloos or polar bears nearby.  It can lay claim to the other “Jewels of the Arctic” – the Auroras as well as the diamond mining and the workshops where indigenous artisans cut the raw diamonds and laser cut a polar bear to mark them as being Canadian NOT blood diamonds. The replica license plate brings memories of traveling north to fish – and collecting our own souvenir license plate at Enterprise, the first town north of the 60^th parallel, where you stop for gas and snacks before heading either east toward Wood Buffalo National Park or west toward Hay River, the ferry crossing over the MacKenzie River and eventually Yellowknife.

#42 My Eastern Neighbor

December 2018

      These two rows were part of the avalanche of patterns that changed my plans from a simple quilt into what has become “Obsessively”. 

     The front, “Home is Where you Hang Your Hat” from Maidstone, Saskatchewan, is one that I liked on first sight.  I remember asking Kati, curiously, if she ever had a reason to cross the border and perhaps be near that town.  This led to explaining why and then Kati getting involved in asking her friends to collect patterns for her mum.  She picked this up on the Master’s Rowing Weekend on her way to (or from) Regina.  I had thought this would have a blue sky background, but at the last minute, the last few jelly roll strips from a set that I loved but didn’t know what to do with gave this row a very different and earthy look.  A few butterflies and some interesting rocky beads completed the look.  Actual wee hats hang from the rack.  A touque (every Albertan has at least one), a baseball cap made of recycled jeans, a replica of my old Tilley hat, complete with the last bit of the band that traveled for 8 years wherever I was hiking and a crocheted fantasy hat, thanks to Kati.

     The back is from Piper’s Lake Quilt Shop, which is now closed, but was in a small town north of Saskatoon.  This pattern would have been picked up by Kati’s friend’s inlaws on their way to a family camping weekend near Prince Albert. It was great fun creating the Prairie Lilies, Saskatchewan’s provincial flower, and I smiled when I discovered that the colours for Saskatchewan Pool elevators are the same as my favorite jelly bean houses in Newfoundland (so the fabric I brought home from St. John’s has found a home in a prairie row). I had to add a few Alberta wild roses, visiting the neighbors, and the lettering is a scrap of silk that I bumped into in my stash – another treat from a workshop at my local quilt shop.

     Saskatchewan and Alberta have a lot of shared history and I have fond memories of holidays in and through the province.  After more than 40 blocks about the ocean, the mountains, the north and even Newfoundland, it is more than time to tip the hat to my eastern neighbor.  This is actually row #44, but a couple of other blocks got ahead of themselves.

This row got built into the final quilt without it's hats

And here it is with it's hats, including a fancy crochet hat that Kati made.

The back (or the other front, if you wish)

# 43 My Northern Mountain (Dream) Home

October 2018

      I may have lived by the ocean in another life, but in this life, I grew up in Calgary with a view of the Rocky Mountains from my bedroom window.  Since moving to the Peace River country, Jasper has become my mountain home away from home. 

     I wanted to create a special row with many of the bits of memories from living near and playing in the mountains.  As I was collecting the various patterns, I was also thinking about how “living in the north” has different meanings depending on where you are.  I often say I live in northern Alberta, but also know that Alberta stretches more than 200 miles farther north.  And of course, Alaska as well as a huge part of Canada stretches to the North Pole.  In the other direction, Washington, Oregon and Montana see themselves as northern as well.  It didn’t surprise me, then, that I could see pieces of “my” mountains in patterns from many other areas.

     The back of this row is another pattern from Northern Threads in Fairbanks.  It uses the last bit of hand painted sky that I created two years ago for this huge quilt as well as a bit of the next painted sky I made this summer when I thought I might need some more.  There’s also fabric from the other two Northern Threads rows to tie them together.  Clearly, moose play a large part in the Alaska landscape, but they also are at home in Alberta.  Each time I pass one on the road, I am thankful that they chose to not run out in front of me.

     The front of the row was especially fun to create.  I started with the landscape around Canmore from Sugar Pine Company, including the Three Sisters which is so iconic of the view as you drive from Calgary toward Canmore and then on into the mountain park.  My memory is of taking a quilting course at Heritage Park in Calgary from Diane McGregor (who is the author of both the Sugar Pine Company’s rows) and I continue to use her method to create appliqué quilts.  My first visit to this shop was during our trip to Lake Louise in 2008 where I did my first challenging mountain hike then discovered how much I loved whitewater rafting the Kicking Horse River.  The next day, I had no desire to go caving so drove into Canmore to explore.

     The dream home and the mountain on the left that still has snow in midsummer come from the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon.  This is one of those places that I’d love to visit one day – it’s the site of the first outdoor quilt show and photos of incredible quilts hung on clothes lines in the yard with people exploring (and probably touching) just makes me smile.  This pattern came to me from one of Kati’s quilting friends during the summer of 2016 when everybody who knew her were looking for row by row patterns for her mum.

I    I then collected animals from a number of patterns to populate my dream home.  The bear with her cubs up the tree are from Canmore – and remind me of stopping to use one of the park outhouses on the way through BC in the 1980s and getting a warning to come carefully toward the car, because mama bear was walking past and had her cubs up a nearby tree.

     The deer walking across the lawn are from another Canmore pattern – deer that love to visit gardens and fields for tender greens wherever you travel in the Alberta foothills.  Walking the Fairview trails, I’ve come across a number of deer that just watch as I go past.  The yard details – lawn chairs, bird house, and the spruce trees – also come from this pattern.

     The elk and the bison are from Lamont, just outside Elk Island National Park (east of Edmonton), so not in the mountains, but elk and bison are also very much a part of my mountain memories.  Jasper townsite has a resident herd of elk that often make walking a bit of a challenge as the males definitely do not want you walking between them and their harem. My memory as a child was to go on “safari” when we visited Banff – drive through the paddocks where bison were kept.  Two interesting memories are of how determined bison can be if they really want to be somewhere else.  In the 60s, some of these Banff bison were transplanted to Wood Buffalo National Park – more space, less people, and I think there was a plan to interbreed the smaller plains buffalo with the wood buffalo.  Anyway, a family decided that they didn’t want to live that far north and started emigrating back to Banff- it took a couple of years (and some fears that they might bring diseases to the domestic cows along the way) but we would get regular reports of where they were and how they were managing.  This year, we heard of a group of bison in Banff that wanted to go somewhere else.  They’ve also just released a small herd into a wilderness/non fenced area and it should be interesting to see whether they like the new home or decide to move.

     Two quilt shops in Kelowna contributed ideas and fabric to create this row.  From Kelowna, you can look east toward the Rockies or west toward the next chain of mountains that cover British Columbia.  Visiting that province reminds me that I love living near the mountains and being able to visit, but would not want to be fenced in by tall mountains on all sides.  So, my mountain dream home is in the foothills with space to stretch out and where the sun is not blocked by walls of rugged mountains.

     Hmm.  Another case of rows wanting different numbers.  This is the 42^nd finished, but I wrote 43.

#44 Come Sing me a Song (my local shop)

November 2018

      For this row (which is actually a column), I combined the ideas of two quilt shops, changed them from rows to columns and then added some glitz and glitter to make it uniquely mine.  It's all about the music that makes me feel at home when I'm traveling and the music I find and bring home. In the same way that most of my quilts tell a story, there’s stories and memories attached to most of my favorite songs. As I was creating this row/column, I planned to write songs and artists all over the back side of the quilt, but a note about a workshop at my local quilt shop changed the direction entirely. I shamelessly copied the project Nan was showing and incorporated fabric, thread, Angelina, more thread, water soluble stabilizer, quilt spray... 

      The back side is now the front and instead of a simple set of notes (“be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home”), it’s layered with bits of metallic thread and Angelina, and then heavily quilted with some of my favorite things musical- songs, artists, events, and my favorite radio station.  A tip of my hat to my local shop that has given advice, provided fabric, accessories and other good stuff as well as great classes since I wandered in on my lunch break in 2002 looking for fabric to make a simple wall hanging.

      The front is based on the pattern from Ruby Pearl Quilts in Oshawa, ON.  I think I probably have relatives living there… The back is from Fibre Expressions in Seschelt, BC and is the second row from that shop – it’s on my list of places to visit if I ever get near.  And for the record, this is actually the 43rd row completed, but for some reason I missed # 42.  Another case of quilts telling me what they want to be, I suppose.

      This is what is stitched into my musical memory row:

      Some of my favorite artists

·         Chris de Burgh – I can sing along with all his songs, but Spanish Train makes me want to check out Guadalquivir and old Saville if I ever visit Spain and his Space Man Came Traveling is on my Christmas playlist.

·         Gordon Lightfoot, Stan Rogers and Ian Tyson are iconic Canadian singer songwriters and, of course, I can sing along to most of their songs.

·         Seanachie, a Calgary group that I first became aware of during the time of the CKUA shutdown in 1996.

·          Corb Lund, Matt Patershuk, Chris Stapleton and Colter Wall – all Americana singer songwriters with attitude.  Matt is my nephew by marriage, Corb is an Albertan and Colter is from Saskatchewan.  CKUA influences my tastes by playing local artists. I was introduced to Chris Stapleton on a long road trip to a family wedding. Thank you, Kier.

      Favorite home songs

·         The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.  I actually have three versions of this on my playlist because I can’t decide which I like best.  I like the story that Eric Bogle spent some time in Canada on his way between the UK and Australia and might have written this song here.

·         Hallelujah.  Three versions of this one, too, and I loved this long before Rufus Wainright made a name by singing it on the Shrek soundtrack.

·         Sounds of Silence – another threepeat.  I first heard this in grade 7 music class. The latest version is by Disturbed (a metal group) and their video is now branded on my brain.

·         1952 Vincent Black Lightening.  I’ve never ridden a motorcycle, but I love the attitude of this song by Richard Thompson.

·         Whisky in the Jar.  Debates at home about which version was better – Makem and Clancy or the Dubliners (celtic) or Metallica?

·         The Unicorn – one of many songs I remember growing up.  The Irish Rovers actually started as the band at the local pancake house in Calgary then had a local TV show.

·         What Child is This?  As a teenager, I learned that Henry VIII wrote this (Greensleeves) in between marrying and divorcing his wives.  It became a favorite Christmas song and is tied to my memory of the funeral for my son, Adam, 24 December 1982.

·         Navajo Rug.  Memories of singing this song on the way to daycare.  In our house, it was the “Aye aye aye Kati” song.  In junior high, Kati was horrified when she discovered what Kati and her rug were all about, then she got her own copy of the song, and in tribute, I made her her own Navajo rug for graduation from the U of A.  This was the first of many many songs of Ian Tyson to tell stories of the west.

·         Huron Carol.  Canada’s oldest Christmas song, written in 1642.  My favorite version is by Tom Jackson.  I was reminded of it when traveling through South America where the missionary priests also mixed local beliefs with the traditional Catholic message.

·         Tie me Kangaroo Down.  Australians won’t even say Rolf Harris’ name, but I try to separate the incredible music he created (and which first introduced me to Australia) from his behaviours.

·         The Christians and the Pagans, Planet X and other songs of Christine Lavin.  Political commentary with humour.

·         The Rising of the Moon and Killkelly, Ireland.  Two of many songs of the Clancy clan that introduced me to my Irish heritage.  The songs drew me into reading the history of Ireland and Scotland.

·         Go to Hell.  The song by Seanachie that closed off the last hour of CKUA before the board was turned off.  I first heard what had happened the next day including the list of songs that each announcer had chosen to play during the last hour of programming with no idea of how or if the radio station could be resurrected.  Twenty years later, the station is alive and well, but this song still screams at me about the insanity of bureaucracy.

·         Lament for a Warrior.  I don’t even know who does this, but Andy Donnelly played this on April 18, 2002.  The night before, Canadians had been informed of four deaths in Afghanistan by friendly fire and we sat by the phone waiting to hear something.  Anything.  Until families were notified, we couldn’t get any information of whether Kyle was safe. Finally, the phone rang and it was Kyle – “I can’t tell you anything, Mum and Dad, but I’m OK”.  It was all we needed. We put in a request for a pibroch in honour of the dead and injured, and this is how Andy started his Friday night show.  No words, just the wailing of the pipes.  There’s been other occasions when it’s been played, but I still remember that Friday night and how I felt. *Andy Donnelly played this song on his last show of 2018 and I’ve finally caught the correct name.  Allan Reid (of the Battlefield Band) The Sleeping Warrior, which actually refers to a mountain south of Glasgow.

      Songs I’ve brought home

·         Red Gum’s “He was only 19”.  At the start of our first big trip out of country, our guide out of Alice Springs started the trip with a playlist of iconic Australian songs.  This is about the Vietnam War, but it still hits home.  Also on that playlist was Paul Kelly and Rock Wallaby (a local Alice group that introduced me to the didgeridoo and Banjo Patterson’s poetry)

·         Sigur Ros.  I already knew about them from CKUA, but hearing them in Iceland (as well as on Icelandair on the way home) connects memories of Iceland.

·         Fat Freddy’s Drop.  A Kiwi reggae group that I first heard overlanding in central Asia.  It seems that when you travel in a group, somebody always has something to share.

·         Shanneyganock. Cruising Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park (a land locked fjord in Western Newfoundland), the captain had a playlist of Newfoundland artists, some of whom I knew.  The song that I remember is “The Islander” and I went looking for a CD when we reached St Johns.  Songs of life in Newfoundland, the challenge of having to work elsewhere.  Memories of finally seeing this incredibly beautiful and different part of Canada. Their song honouring the 100^th anniversary of Beaumont-Hamel (Newfoundland’s Gallipoli).

·         La Bomba de Tiempo.  A drumming group in Buenos Aires.  An incredible night out with a lot of people.  This group opens their Wednesday night practice and then leads everybody in a parade to one of the late night bars about 2:00 in the morning. My introduction to the rhythms of South American music.

·         Despascito.  Everywhere we went, this was playing, and to this day, I want to dance down the street to it. Memories of a boat cruise in Mompos, Columbia.  Locals were teaching us how to properly dance to Despascito and our group reciprocated with some line dancing.

·         El Condor Pasa.  Another favorite Simon and Garfunkel song.  I had always wondered why it was subtitled “If I could” as there were no condors in the song.  After hearing this played by local military bands throughout Peru, I finally learned the story – the music was originally written for a Peruvian musical in the early 1900s, but when Paul Simon heard a group singing it at a music festival, the group said they had written it and gave him permission to use it.  Of course, as soon as it was released, Central and South Americans let him know his mistake.  The result, Robles is listed as the writer, his title is added, and his son wrote the Spanish words to the song.  Win.  Win.  It’s the Peruvian anthem, I’ve been privileged to see condors soaring on the air currents and listened to it played on traditional instruments as well as the full military bands.

·         Tenacious D “Tribute”.  Memories of sitting on the beach in northern Peru with Duncan playing this song on his guitar.  A totally great night of everybody calling for favorite songs and then singing along.  I thought that this was a Kiwi group (Duncan was from New Zealand), and posted it to Facebook.  Kier promptly informed me that this song was on all of my children’s playlists and that I had been listening to it for 15 years.  Sigh.  It’s a fun song, and it reminds me of a night on a beach in Peru.

      Other things musical

·         CKUA.  My radio station since I discovered it in the 1970s.  You’ll hear anything but top 40.  The announcers get to choose their own music.  I may not like it all, but I’ve been introduced to an incredible amount of cool stuff.  Artists know that they can come to Alberta and have an audience that already knows their music passionately. Local artists get a chance to be heard.

·         Bear Creek Folk Festival.  I’ve always wanted to go to a folk festival and I finally made it this summer.  The weather was great, I got to hear some old favorites and meet new artists.

·         Miramichi House.  On a whim, I attended a house concert here this summer and had a great time.  Then I went to the Crooked Creek Opera House to listen to Matt and Origami Army.  I think I’m becoming a folkie.  If I wasn’t already.

#45 Six Degrees of Separation (and a mystery package of fabric)

Christmas 2018

      In  the fall, I did some serious sorting and deciding about which rows would complete this obsessively huge quilt.  There were a number that I liked (and may make as a simple runner some time) but I just couldn’t include them all.  This row has two of the patterns from southern Alberta that mysteriously showed up at my back door in the summer of 2016.  They are both patterns that I loved when I saw them, and I thought about whether the quilt rally could extend down to Lethbridge and then on to Coaldale so I could pick them up.  Instead, an old coworker and the mother of a friend of Kati’s now living in Lethbridge, dropped them off when she was up visiting family.  Thank you Linda and thank you, once again, Kati, for helping to track down connections to patterns.

      Both these patterns were designed as rows, but were willing to modify a bit and become the second last column of the quilt.  On the front, a tall slender tree with almost 100 small leaves gives shade to some sheep – townies resting in front of a busy quilting street. Sheep fascinate me and these three are made of fleece left over from Christmas gifts. The original pattern, from Village Quilts in Lethbridge, had a majestic but wide tree with barns on each side to hang two traditional quilts on. My quilts are hung from a clothesline in town.  Whether you are a town or country quilter, you find ways to display your quilts.

     The back is a pattern by Chicken Feed Quilts in Coaldale.  Simple but dramatic and the chicken at the bottom makes me smile.

      The fabric for the quilts on the front and the letters on the back are from a package that came from Cotton Harvest Quilt Shop in Seaforth, Ontario.  I don’t remember ordering this pattern and it has no picture to jog my memory, so perhaps this comes from Kati’s friend’s in-laws on their trip to camp in Northern Saskatchewan.  The fabric is gorgeous and gets to play a mysterious part.

      While working on this quilt, I’ve had a lot of time to think about connections and how home can sometimes be a lot broader and more abstract that at first thought.  People you know connect you to the people they are related to and become part of the family. People you have met continue to cross your path in ways you never expect. No more than six degrees of separation between us all.

#46 Fathers Day Fly In

(A tip of the hat to my new home)

New Years Eve 2018

     Over the last year, my home has changed from the house I raised my children in to an apartment in a different town.  It’s a change that was a long time in coming and has turned out to be full of interesting experiences and offers of help and encouragement from many people.  One of the first events I attended was the Fathers Day Fly In at the airport.  The community has been abuzz for years with the idea that these “crazy Fairview farmers” had rescued an old plane up north, brought it home and were going to make it fly again.  This was the first anniversary of its maiden flight.  Almost everybody in town was out to get a chance to see the Canso up close and hundreds of pilots flew in for breakfast and a chance to show off their planes and gossip with friends. Everybody was more than willing to stop and chat, to answer questions about how you get hundreds of planes on the ground when there is no air traffic control.  (The answer is that everybody had been planning for weeks what time they’d arrive and started talking to each other on the same radio frequency miles from the airport.) Check out www.savethecanso.com for pictures and the rest of the story.

     I found it interesting to talk to one of the pilots for the Canso a few weeks later.  He’d seen me at the fly in but hadn’t had a chance to say hi. As one of the pilots, he mentioned that he had just been approved for his license renewal (he is in his 70s), so knew that he could fly for the next year.  “I know there will come I time when they say I can’t fly anymore, but every year they approve me, it is pretty life affirming”.  This, for me, is the essence of my small town home.  Everybody knows everybody else and you have interesting conversations where and when you least expect.

     I've been thinking about the last row for some time.  The idea came from wanting to include the airplane from Creative Clutter (Killam), with the modern farmer flying home after a long day somewhere else.  Distance and being away from home is a theme all too familiar to families where I live. I began to imagine that perhaps the Killam plane had come to the fly in to visit.  I found a photo of the Canso to add to the quilt and then started thinking about what other flying things might have come.  I added two pterodactyls from Drumheller, or maybe from our nearby dinosaur area at Wembley, soaring high above the crowds.  An owl is sitting near the ground watching the goings on.

      As I began making this row/column, which was going to be two sided with houses on the back, it just seemed perfect to include my street (the big apartment, my smaller building and a duplex beside) looking out at the walking trails and the interesting old house across the street that is slowly being taken apart and moved out.

      These quilt shops provided inspiration:

·         Spoolz,  Drumheller (pterodactyls)

·         Creative Clutter, Killam (airplane)

·         Sugar Town Quilts, Cranbrook (owl and the idea for the background)

·         Katja’s Quilt Shoppe, Kelowna (houses)

      Here's some candid photos of Obsessively as I was putting it together.  It's almost impossible to even see a 9 foot square quilt all at one time. I'm on the hunt for a spot with a nine foot ceiling - or perhaps a second floor balcony.

Back side of right strip

Front middle strip

Back middle strip

Counting the last few feet of hand stitching (23 + 7 + 12 + 12 yards)

Most of the front 

and the back