Deep thoughts for a wintery Thursday...

There are few things I enjoy as much as a leisurely morning, drinking coffee or tea, and surfing the internet. It's important to "create new neural pathways" and expand your horizons by thinking about new things. LOL!
So here is what my morning surfing has me thinking about this week...
On one of my Yahoo groups, there was conversation about the 'F' word quilt. If you are easily offended, don't even continue to read my post or click on the link to follow! But if not, you can see the 'F' quilt and read about it here. I personally dislike the quilt and really don't understand why someone would put so much creative energy toward such a project as this. 
It lead me to do more research on subversive text in quilts, Here is a definition of subversion:
"Subversion refers to an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, and hierarchy. Subversion refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place, are contradicted or reversed."

I also came across a really interesting article on the use of political messages in quilting (BTW... there are many interesting articles to read at the Quilt Index).
And here is a really interesting blog post I read about a quilter in Norway with some very meaningful quilted statements.

Here is my subversive text quilt... making visible the virtues that are increasingly part of a bygone era.

I thought it was a finished quilt, but when I hung it on the wall, it didn't hang straight.  Hmmm...
I decided that I will keep working on it until the waves settle down!
Right now I am sewing on purple buttons.
And then I'm planning to stitch some french knots and ....well, we shall see what happens after that! 

In Your Words

Welcome to the "In Your Words" blog hop! If you are new here, take a look around and see what's going on in Kathy's quilty world. 
I am excited to share my "Words to Live By" quilt.
About two years ago I learned to sew letters using Tonya's  wonderful book called Word Play. I was inspired by the Virtues Quilt over at Nifty Quilts to learn how to make words from the Virtues Project list of words. To read more about the construction process of the words, and the decisions made along the way, click here. 
In my overly optimistic mind, I envisioned sewing all the virtues, but then lost interest in this project as I do "from time to time" (really laughing out loud!) When I saw the "In Your Words" blog hop invitation, I decided that this would be just the incentive I needed to finish my virtues quilt and here it is!

I put the 6 words I had sewn together with some scrappy hearts, and a few triangles here and there just for fun.
This quilt was made in a totally "liberated" way - no patterns, points chopped off, no logical construction, no thought given to colour planning, and nothing lines up very well. The process of sewing it together was SO FUN! And I feel happy when I look at it, so it's my favorite quilt so far!
I machine quilted it last night as part of a quilting demo for the quilt guild...yep...nothing like finishing a project at the last minute!  That's how life goes around here!

Well, actually "finished" is a relative term for a quilter! The binding isn't actually on the quilt...let's just say it's near the quilt!  And the quilt was whispering something about some embellishments and some hand stitching to add, so I've realized this isn't "finished yet".
A big thanks to Madame Samm over at Sew We Quilt for all the fun blog hops, and to Linda for organizing us!
Here are the blogs to visit to see today's "In Your Words" projects:

Wednesday, January 9

Kathy's Quilts (That's ME!)

Sunshine Quilting (Martina S.)

Sew Incredibly Crazy (Amy)

Quilt Doodle Doodles (Cindy S.)

Doodling in My Mind (Darla R.)

I Like to Quiltblog (Bente)

Michelle's Romantic Tangle (Michelle M.)

Grammie Q's (Charlotte M.)

Dancing Moon (Carla B.) 

The Fuzzy Hat Quilter (Laura Ann)

Virtues Quilt

When I saw Jean's blog post about sewing UnRuly letters, I just got a craving to sew some letters. There is something about that process that is more relaxing and creative than other kinds of sewing for me.
But what to sew??? I decided to add to my Virtues quilt and went to the master list of words and guess which word I picked to sew next?!?

After spending almost every non-work moment this past month with my brother, the only word I could sew was "DETERMINATION". The definition of determination is  - "You focus your energy and efforts on a task and stick with it until it is finished. Determination is using your will power to do something when it isn't easy. You are determined to meet your goals even when it is hard and you are being tested." 
My brother's determination to continue to live through pain, has been always been inspiring to say the least.  Here he is on his first outing (outside of hospital or his apartment) in over a month, at his favorite tea shop. The lung drainage tubes are cleverly hidden in the shoulder bag...it was an ingenious solution.

Here are the virtues I have sewn so far. I have no colour co-ordination for this project and have just been gathering dotty fabrics that I have found on my travels. To sew all 52 virtues would make a humongous quilt, so I think I will pick my favorites and soon decide how big of a quilt this will be.

Design Wall Monday #28

This is what is on my design wall this morning....two Unruly letter projects.
Lynne is hosting a letter quilt along...what's not to love about that?!? I have been trying not to start new projects, but I couldn't seem to resist this one. I can just hear you saying "doesn't she already have a letter/word project in the works"?? Yes...at the top of the design wall are the first 4 words of my Virtues quilt project and I am still enjoying it and wanting to make more words, so the letters are just a quick little irresistible side diversion.
I have been watching Jean's and Judy's adorable letters appear and they have worn me down (I have to blame someone for my lack of self control!)
I got out an old Laurel Birch fabric and cut it into colour strips and I'm going to make each letter from one of these strips.
Here are my first 3 letters:

Either 'B' is too small or 'C' is too big! I was supposed to be putting the spacer strip on the right of each letter...I changed it on the 'C' and hope I remember for the rest of the letters!
Are you looking for some relaxing web surfing on this long summer weekend (it's the civic holiday in Ontario today)?

Here are some ideas:

1) Vicki's Web Field Trip

2) Lee's W.I.P. Wednesdays

3) Quilter's Home Magazine's list of 55 best quilt blogs to visit ( a little harder to access because it is an article and you can't just click to link)

4) Quilting Gallery's list of 5,410 quilt blogs (no...I haven't visited all of these!)
5) Design Wall Monday

There now...that should keep you busy for the day!

Scrappy Saturday - Pink

If you're looking for the quilt auction report, please come visit tomorrow...I haven't even had a nap or downloaded my pictures yet!

Today is the last Saturday in May for the pink Rainbow Challenge. I was able to make 2 words this week using the letter patterns from Word Play Quilts for my Virtues Quilt. Thanks again to LeeAnn for the inspiration for this project!


My first pink word was only 5 letters and was made with scraps from this quilt.

"Trust" was quick and easy to make. If only the virtue was as easy to build ..."Trust is having faith in someone or something. It is a positive attitude about life. You are confident that the right thing will happen without you trying to control it or make it happen."

The second word I picked to sew is joyfulness:
"Joyfulness is an inner sense of peace and happiness. You appreciate the gifts each day brings."
This is a generally an easier word for me in my life, but to sew it was quite challenging and used almost 2 fat quarters!


Here are my first 4 words together... 2 from the purple month and 2 from the pink month.


It really tickles me that I spelled 'Joyfulness' wrong! I can't decide if I want to change it or not! Would you?

Scrappy Saturday - Purple

I'm late in posting my Scrappy Saturday post...I didn't actually sew anything on Saturday this week, since we were celebrating my mother-in-law's 86th birthday. But I did work play this week with my purple scraps for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and I also started a new project...whoops!
The inspiration came from LeeAnn at Nifty Quilts when she posted her new project on the UnRuly Quilting blog.  She is making a word quilt, based on the Virtues Project. I was looking for a project to practice making letters from Tonya's book Word Play Quilts which I got for Christmas, and this seemed to fit the bill perfectly!
I decided to combine this project with the rainbow scrap challenge and got out my purple scraps. Then I checked the list of virtues and picked out some of the shorter/easier words. This word seemed to be the easiest one to start with, and the perfect word to post on Easter Sunday!

I decided to select the background fabrics from my collection of dotty fabrics, and tried my second virtue (with the Canadian spelling, which generally follows the British spelling!)

These were fun words to sew and I am always amazed that the process outlined in Tonya's book actually produces words - like magic! It's a great start to my virtues quilt. I don't know how many words I'll sew, or how big the quilt will be. I'm sure I won't make all the words in purple, but am very happy to have used up these purple scraps. To check out what other quilters are sewing with their purple scraps, hop over to SoScrappy's blog.

Today I will be sewing star blocks for the border on this quilt...here are a few stars made from my purple scraps: