TGIFF! - We The North Since 1867

Welcome to TGIFF! I'm definitely doing the Carlton Happy dance with my finish this week. It's why I've been so quiet on the blog; besides our vacation, every spare moment was spent working on this quilt since early July.

I shared the finished We The North Since 1867 top last month. I actually designed this quilt last year, but then struggled with the motivation to start it. Fear is such a little bugger. Once I got started though, the obsession took over. Tea and Buffy the Vampire Slayer kept me company on many a late night.

I made We the North Since 1867 to celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary next year.  Yeah, I know I'm a little early to be doing a sesquicentennial quilt, but you gotta do what you gotta do. I love to travel and experience other countries and cultures, but I love coming home too. I feel pretty lucky to be born in this cool country so I wanted to make something to celebrate it.

Don't let the simple design fool you; it has a lot of meaning behind it (at least for me). It has 13 values of red (mostly Konas) for the 10 provinces and three territories.

When we typically talk about Canadian culture, we often use the term 'mosaic' to describe all the nationalities that now call this place home. I wanted the central maple leaf to convey that idea as well, but I wanted more of a glass-like feel to it to remind us that it is fragile if we are not careful.

I machine appliquéd 1867, the year of Confederation, to the lower right of the maple leaf.

For the quilting, I used two colours of Aurifil thread (Red 50 wt. 2260 and Charcoal 50 wt. 2630), representing our two official languages. The quilting is the walking foot technique that I learned from Heather Lair. The spacing is 5/8" between the lines. Done on my Bernina domestic machine, the quilting alone took about 30 hours. Yes, totally crazy, but worth it.

I outlined the central maple leaf with some hand stitching and included some hand stitched partial maple leaf 'watermarks' in the background.

I also hand stitched one small red maple leaf in the upper right to represent our 'little' country in 1867 (only 4 provinces and 3.4 million people at the time).

We the North Since 1867 is done and it turned out just as I had hoped. Bliss.

For those who like to see under the covers, here's the back (it's really hard to photograph red):

Size: 34.5" x 44"

I know I say this a lot, but this is now my favourite quilt. Sorry, Happy Canada Day, Eh! I still adore you too though.

An InLinkz Link-up

We The North Since 1867 - A Work in Progress

Well, I'm clearly on a red and grey kick right now. I designed this quilt last year in honour of Canada's sesquicentennial celebration, which will be next year, and I've been sitting on the design ever since trying to get up the courage to do the foundation paper piecing.

I'm not a fan of foundation paper piecing, or I wasn't until this project. ;)

The palette plus charcoal grey:

The first half - so far so good! 

Loving the value play. 

My 11 year old commented, "Those corners are 'tight,' Mom!" Thanks sweets! :) 

A satin stitched date. 

Ready for basting!

The completed top! I am so thrilled (and relieved) that the paper piecing worked for this design. It turned out as I had envisioned in my head. Yay!

Now for the quilting!

Hope you are having a fabulous weekend!

Anniversary Giveaway Winner and Quadruple Maple Leaf Blocks

And we have a winner for my 5 year blogiversary giveaway! Congratulations to # 119 Lori. Please send me your snail mail address and I'll get this out to you asap. Again, thank you to all who have supported and encouraged me over the past five years. I've loved meeting people through the blog and this great online community. Hugs to you all!

On the subject of giving, you've probably heard about the fires in Fort MacMurray, AB. Crazy! Well, Stacey from SLOstudio started up a great collection of Maple Leaf Blocks to make quilts for the folks in Fort MacMurray who lost their homes and have been displaced. She put together a tutorial that I used to make these blocks:

I'll be sewing up some of the collected blocks into tops this summer. If you'd like to see all the great blocks submitted so far, check out the #quiltsforfortmac or Katy @lethargiclass's feed on Instagram. So many fabulous blocks are making their way in. Thank you everyone who has donated them! 

I thought those blocks were it for me until I saw this Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild Facebook post. Challenge accepted. But I thought "More." First it was going to be a triple, but then I figured out that I can do a quad, which would finish at 81". Yeah!

The minis finish at 3":

Doubles finish at 9":

Triples finish at 27":

One more layer to go!

Happy Canada Day, Eh!

Yes, this beautiful spot is the Rideau River in Ottawa

Happy 146th birthday, Canada!

If you are visiting with the Stamp On It blog hop with Sew We Quilt, welcome! Special thanks to Madame Samm and Thearica for organizing such a fun hop.

There is just something so interesting and beautiful about art than can fit on a piece of paper that is usually less than 1.5" square, don't you think?

I also find it amazing that you can send a letter across Canada, to the States or internationally for less than a dollar (well, just over a dollar for outside of Canada).

Happy Canada Day, Eh!

I used to collect stamps as a kid and I still have my collection...somewhere. I was a philatelist. I was that cool. I know you are jealous. I still can't pronounce philately, but at least I can spell it.

Quilting Detail

Since this challenge required us to have our country, currency and date on our stamp, I decided to take this opportunity to also do something from my bucket list, #10 in particular. Yep, I now have a wallhanging to celebrate Canada Day.

I wanted something very modern. My inspiration came from these stamps, but a maple leaf had to be my theme.

Even though the current cost of a regular domestic P (permanent) stamp is currently 63 cents, I chose $1 because Canada is known for its loonie and 1 is my favourite number. And yes, I now remember that the dollar sign should be placed before the 1. Um, design element, yeah, that's it. ;)

Quilting Detail

Simple quilting to emphasize the design elements. The wavy quilting on the background is for our water.

It measures 20" x 35".

Happy Canada Day, Eh!
Meets the Rideau River

So here is my Happy Canada Day, Eh! stamp quilt. And just in time for Canada Day!

Some notes about its construction:

• The low volume background are 2" pieced equilateral triangles. Used the HexNMore ruler - love!
• The maple leaves, letters, numbers, cancellation mark and stamp edge are machine appliquéd. 

• Quilting is mostly with Aurifil thread (#1103, 2260, 2612, and 2630). The cream on the stamp edge is Coats and Clark because that's what I had on hand and I was running out of time. My machine threw a hissy fit when I free motion quilted with it on the stamp edge and I was very close to making an emergency drive to Kanata for the matching Aurifil. Reason prevailed thankfully because I do not live close to Kanata. I did a major clean of my machine, changed the needle, rethreaded everything and managed to finish that section without too many more hiccups. Totally fabricated conspiracy theory: You know how people say that McDonalds puts something in their fries so people become addicted? I think Aurifil does something like that with their thread so our machines don't want other threads. Just putting that out there. ;)
• The quilt has a non-mitred facing to finish it off.

Oh, the back? I found this stamp fabric in my stash. Couldn't resist. :)

Happy Canada Day, Eh! - Back

I can't wait to see what my fellow Stamp On It blog hoppers come up with this week:

July 1

 Sew Many Yarns

Scrapbook-ChickADoodle 

Patchouli Moon

The Slow Quilter

A Loose Thread

Janes Fabrics and Quilts

Selina Quilts

Debby Kratovil Quilts

Dancing Thru Threads

July 2

Sew and Sow Farm  

fishkopp

Scraps of Life

Meadowbrook

Katie and Kwilts 

Em's Scrap Bag  

GrammieQ's

How ART you?

BumbleberryStitches

A Stitch in Time

July 3

More Stars in Comanche

Dachsies With Moxie

NotionNannyHeikesquilt’

Traveling Quilter

Jackie’s Art Quilts

What About Rheema?

From This to That

Sew We Quilt

 13 Woodhouse Road

If you've made it this far, kudos! Because it's Canada Day and I'm doing a happy dance right now, I'm going to share my favourite Canadian dance moves video with you to get you going too:

Thanks for stopping by. I always appreciate the company! Hope your day is fun, full of great stamp eye candy, and fireworks!