Quilter's Meet and Greet

Benita of Victoriana Quilts is hosting a Quilter's Meet and Greet. If you landed here from there, welcome! If you landed here from elsewhere, welcome to you as well.

Canada 150 by Canuck Quilter Designs.  2017

I am Joanne, a Canadian quilter and pattern designer currently living in Iowa. The quilt above was my little celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary last summer, down here in Iowa.

I have been quilting since the turn of this century.  Wait.  That makes me sound ancient!  I started quilting in 2000 when I needed a wedding gift for my brother's wedding in spring 2001.  I used the gift budget to buy quilting tools instead. Don't worry.  I gave the happy couple a quilt.  It was a little late (2002?) but it was my first effort and I underestimated the time required.  I'm sure you're familiar with this sort of thing.  I'm very familiar with this still. You can see my latest example in my previous post.

Eclipse Sky by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2017

I'm still not the speediest quilter, but I manage more than one quilt every two years now.  My kids are in their late teens, the oldest in university and the youngest in her last year of high school, and as they have grown up my sewing time has increased.  My sewing space has grown too.  Pop over here to see how that progressed!

My quilting style has changed over time.  While my earlier quilts were very traditional, I gradually began using traditional elements in more modern settings and colours.  How about some flying geese?

Wandering Geese by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2017

 Asymmetry and negative space snuck in as well.

Sparkling Trail by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2016

Starfall by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2018

Then out of the blue, every now and then I swerve back to more traditional designs.  How about this version of Starlight Wishes in progress? I am re-writing this pattern to include multiple sizes.  Stay tuned!

Starlight Wishes by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2018

Playing with color and fabric is my favourite part of quilting. I enjoy seeing how different fabric and color choices change a design.  Here are two versions of Fundy Skies (pattern coming very soon!).  The small stars pop in the first and are more subtle in the second, all due to how the fabrics play together.  Neither one is right or wrong, just different!

Fundy Skies by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2016

Fundy Skies by Canuck Quilter Designs. 2018

Look at what else color can do:

Lucky Bugger by Joanne Kerton. 2016

The background is entirely composed of a traditional ocean waves block.  Color placement makes the stars appear and marks the boundary between water and sky.

Snowdreams, my bestselling pattern

I started writing patterns for some of my designs in 2013, inspired by frustrating patterns.  My goal has been to write clear, accurate, well-laid out and easy to follow patterns, tested by quilters of various skill levels.  So far the feedback has been very positive on that front!

If you have made or ever make a quilt from any of my patterns, I would love to see pictures!  You can email me (joanne@canuckquilter.com), or tag me in posts on FB (Canuck Quilter Designs) or Instagram (@canuckquilter) or use the hashtag #canuckquilterdesigns in your posts.  And if you thought the pattern was well-written, I would really, really appreciate you spreading the word to your quilting community!  Patterns are available as PDF downloads or your favourite quilt shop can order printed patterns.

I hope you will take some time to browse this site.  You'll find tutorials for techniques as well as a few projects under the tutorial tab.  Let me know if there is a topic you'd like me to address in future tutorials.

Next up at Canuck Quilter, some small prairie point projects and re-imagining older designs.  Longer term, snowflakes will return (and not just because winter comes around every year). and butterflies will get quilted.  I hope you will visit again to see what else I come up with!

Please pop over to Victoriana Quilt Design to meet more quilting bloggers, and to enter their giveaway.

Quilting baptist fans

Starlight Wishes, grown up version, has been a top for several months now.  A year ago this month all it needed was final borders to be a completed quilt top.  Becoming a completed, quilted quilt has taken longer because I just didn't know  how to quilt it and it was being awfully quiet about its own preferences.

It finally started talking!

It wanted baptist fans.  I didn't jump right in. All those curves were a bit daunting, particularly for my rather orderly brain that likes to see nice even spacing and regular curves.  My freemotion skills were just not going to result in baptist fans that I would be happy with.

But wait, the second day of Westalee ruler classes offered by Quilting Connection here in Ames in June included baptist fans.  It's like the quilt knew!  I signed up.  You've seen my practice on the Cyclone quilt. It is in timeout while I brace myself to add borders to a partially quilted piece. Anyway, Starlight Wishes cut in line earlier this week.

Here is the ruler I'm using:  one of the Circles on Quilts rulers for domestic sewing machines by Westalee Designs.

I'll be honest, I'm still getting a few wobbles here and there from fabric tugging in directions I don't want it to under the needle, but overall I am getting very good results. I'm also learning how to repeatedly rearrange the bulk of the quilt so things go more smoothly. There is a little bit of freemotion backtracking required to stitch from one arc to the next in the baptist fans design, but I'm getting more accurate with practice.

I was worried about that backtracking, because I decided to use matching top and bobbin threads to avoid seeing little dots of bobbin thread on the top.  I tried adjusting tension to not see them, but when I finally got it right for the top, I had pesky eyelashes on the back of the quilt. Never mind.  Matching thread it is!  However, I really wanted cream thread on the top, and that does not blend at all on the navy blue back!

It's turning out much better than I feared on the back.  It's a little shakier in the center of the quilt, where I am dealing with more bunched up quilt in the machine's throat space, but overall, I can live with it.

I think I have quilted almost half of the center, one row at a time, with breaks to do other things in between rows. Maybe by the end of next week I will be ready to bind the quilt, then I'll start working on rewriting the pattern with additional sizes.

How about a close-up of the front?

All that scrumptious quilted texture!  I think the quilt chose well!

Magnitudes' debut!

Drum roll please!!!!  Finally, here is my newest pattern!

I think we all know by now that I am not a speedy pattern writer. I announced I was working on this back in October 2017, and here it is finally in August 2018!  I really think the result is worth it though.

Like Jelly Bean Stars before it, Magnitudes is constructed in such a way that you don't need to fuss with cutting triangles, and so that you cannot unintentionally cut off any points.  Unlike Jelly Bean Stars, it includes multiple sizes:  baby, throw, twin and queen.  It also gives you alternate fabric amounts for the multicolour version above, or for similar backgrounds for all the stars as in the EQ drawing below.

I strive to be accurate, to anticipate questions as I explain and illustrate every step of the block and quilt assembly so the instructions are as complete as possible, and to organize the pattern in a way that makes it easy for quilters to keep track of what step they are working on.

Once my fabulous proofreader has gone over the pattern (my husband is a man of many talents!) I send it out to generous volunteer pattern testers who let me know if I got it right.  They give me feedback about clarity and accuracy, and sometimes suggest various improvements.  I think Magnitudes was a good pattern, but I know it is better after I added in a few details and tweaked a few others following my testers' suggestions.

I extend a huge thank you to Elaine Williamson, Joanne Harris, Kathi Kivi, Sue Howe and Julie Sheehy for testing this pattern and giving me valuable feedback.  I'll share photos of their quilts later this week.

The pattern is now available as a download on both Payhip and on Craftsy.  For special savings through Labour Day (Sept.3) shop on Payhip and use the coupon code ASTRO2018 for 25% off this brand new star quilt pattern!

UPDATE JUNE 23, 2019:  All my patterns have moved to my Etsy shop.