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Creative Isolation
Gail’s “Japanese Spring”, created as part of the Guild President’s challenge in 2020 is being exhibited at the “Cherry Blossoms: A Textile Translation” show in West Vancouver. You can find out more about this interesting show here.
Original work by Gail. Uses Lorna Shapiro’s free form curved piecing, raw edge applique and thread painting.
TAGOR held its second online event on March 23 with renowned textile artist Susan Purney Mark. Susan treated us to a talk about her month long residency in Iceland, the places she mot enjoyed seeing, the art she produced there and influences still resonating in the art she is producing now.
Softly Spoken
Susan Purney Mark
Points of Contention
Susan Purney Mark
Spring at Brooks Point Susan Purney Mark
TAGOR held its first online event on February 23 with a showing of the Fibre Art Network (FAN) Circles and Lines exhibit. More information about FAN, their artists and artwork for sale can be found on their website here. We enjoyed seeing quality images of the many wonderful pieces inspired by the theme of circles and lines.
Gaia by Tracie L. Maryne $200
Circles and Lines Rust by Lilly Thorne. $150
Blood Moon by Judy Leslie. $150
Hanging in the Balance by Cindi Plant. $80
Christmas is over and members are back working on other projects.
Moreen is still using up her stash creatively.
Lots of fun colours in this split nine patch pieced and quilted by Moreen.
More fun colours but in a different pattern pieced and quilted by Moreen.
Amazing detailed piecing of tiny squares in a comfortable brown and gold. Pieced and quilted by Moreen
Sometimes neighbours sort their sewing rooms and find they have tried out patterns but don’t know what they would do with another quilt. Extra quilt tops are welcomed and quilted for our partners.
Trying out a variety of blocks. Nice relaxing colours pieced by Moreen’s neighbour and quilted by Gail
Beautiful batiks pieced by Moreen’s neighbour and quilted by Gail
Colourful Stack n Whack. Pieced by Moreen’s neighbour and quilted by Gail.
Sherry and Freda have been sewing and knitting.
A joy of quilting is figuring out how to use up fabric leftover from various projects. Sherry did a beautiful job with a box of blue scraps.
Freda loves to knit. These colourful fidgit muffs are ready to have tassels and buttons added for dementia patients to play with.
Attractive and practical toques for chemo patients to wear in cold weather by Freda
These four are the latest contribution to our partner Lion’s Manor.
Traditional star pattern pieced and quilted by Gail
Beautifully crafted butterflies in blue by Suzanne
Creative use of leftover fabric and half-square triangles from other projects by Gail
Flower garden pieced by a friend of TAGOR and quilted by Gail.
With Christmas around the corner and time to work on a project, Sherry completed this fabulous table runner with fabric that had been sitting in her cupboard for too long.
The table runner pattern uses the snowball technique. The little pieces left over make a delightful matching hot pad!
Just in time for Christmas are these quilts made for our community partners.
Moreen’s delightful array of patterns
Very cute play quilt with trains
With Anne of Green Gables medallion in the centre and PEI tartan on the back it is a delight for girls of any age.
Checkers anyone?
Monkey Wrench pattern in fun colours
Moreen’s wonderful eye for colour makes this simple pattern pop!
Creative use of donated blocks into a marvellous modern style quilt.
Corisande made fun quilts of interesting fabrics
Cute center picture with family on park bench
Interesting girls in costumes
Bright colours accent the black fabric
More cute pictures of people on vacation
Colourful medley of interesting fabrics
More fun fabrics and colours
Christmas means giving to family, friends and those who need cheer and a helping hand. These ornaments will certainly add cheer to the Turning Point recovery houses. The toques will go to St. Alban’s church for their outreach program to help replace supplies stolen and damaged in the November break in.
Suzanne made these delightful ornaments using a traditional log cabin pattern.
Freda knit these warm, colourful and unique toques!
This second lockdown has felt difficult but we’re not so isolated that we can’t have phone conversations with friends. We discovered other needs in Richmond. Moreen, Sherry and Gail were able to supply nine quilts to Richmond group homes in time for Christmas.
Sherry put her leftovers to good use in this colourful treasure.
Sherry’s imagination produced this delightful scrappy hourglass quilt.
Sherry used a square in square motif to make a dent in her scrap pile with this cheerful quilt.
Nice vibrant colours in this bed topper by Moreen.
Moreen had a bunch of pieces left over from a stack-n-whack. A little creativity produced this fun, colourful quilt.
Moreen used red, black and white to make this dramatic quilt!
Moreen shows us how a simple four patch can be quite elegant!
Moreen used shades of green sashing to nicely tie together a myriad of fabrics.
A friend gave Gail some larger pieces of fabric that enabled her to do some fun pinwheel blocks.
Linda’s daughter returned for a visit and busily used up more of her mother’s stash. Gail put her thinking cap on to figure out what to do with some donated fabric. Three quilts later with two of Moreen’s now all the beds at Elmbridge have a cheery bed topper. We thought it would take at least two years but we did it in 18 months!
Lovely fall colours pieced by Linda and Quilted by Gail.
Always fun to see what can be made of donated fabric. Pieced and quilted by Gail.
Perfect as the fall turns cool. Pieced by Linda and Quilted by Gail.
Armed with a mound of batting Moreen went to work quilting several tops she had worked up while organizing her stash over the isolation months. The first seven quilts are ready to brighten new homes. 🙂
Moreen made interesting motifs with the artful positioning of half-square triangles and square blocks
Moreen using up stash with a colourful scrappy four patch
Take one with black and white fabrics Moreen found buried in her stash.
Take two with black and white fabrics Moreen found buried in her stash.
Tan nine patch pieced and quilted by Moreen
Cheerful Red and white nine patch pieced and quilted by Moreen
Blue nine patch pieced and quilted by Moreen.
Social isolation doesn’t mean we are isolated from our sewing machines. Over the summer we worked on quilts for Lion’s Manor, the intensive Care Nursery, Elmbridge Supportive housing, Turning Point for Women and Family Place.
In a cool trick, Eileen made strips of orange and blue into diamonds of colour.
Eileen’s take on railroad tracks.
It’s a girl! A lovely preemie quilt by Eileen complete with sheep for counting.
Jennie took some donated hexagons and turned them into a wonderful lap quilt.
Colourful squares made by Eileen, Jennie and Pat were quilted by Jennie into a fun play quilt.
A prolific quilter, here are some of the dozens of preemie quilts made by Joan.
Joan stitched a delightful array of colour into these play quilts.
A bunch of colourful play quilts by Joan.
Gail decided it was time to use up as many of her 1.5″ and 2.5″ squares as she could.
Gail’s neighbour gave her some colourful, lightly used kimonos to give new life to.
Linda pieced this delightful zig zag and Gail quilted it.
Creative juices have been flowing!
Pam was approached by a woman who had found lots of lace handkerchiefs among her mothers things. A few photos and lace turned them into a wonderful keepsake wall hanging.
The patience of Joan to make and stitch together hundreds of 1/2″ hexagons. But what a beauty!
Joan’s Jacobean Applique panel
Joan’s Jacobean Applique panel
Joan’s Jacobean Applique panel
Elly likes making Preemie and play quilts. She has been sewing steadily over the last few months.
Elly took assorted fabrics and turned them into colourful Preemie quilts.
Elly had some fun fabric for a couple more Preemie quilts and lots of blues and greys to make into play quilts.
Our members are creative thinking beyond quilts and blankets to other items our partner organizations would find useful.
Sherry made these wonderful tote bags from ‘fish’ motif donated fabric.
Some donated brocade fabric too heavy for quilts was skillfully turned into tote bags by Sherry.
There is no end to imaginative use of scraps. Sherry used donated zippers and leftover scraps of fabric and batting to make these awesome cosmetic bags.
When you can’t sew any more you can take up knitting!
For something different Freda started knitting and made dish cloths in a variety of patterns. She was surprised and delighted at how easy the round one was.
On a roll with knitting Freda made these face cloths to go in the bags Sherry quilted.
Vickie knitted this cute blanket from a pattern called Bunches of Bobbles.
Time is flying by and quilters are looking ahead to Christmas.
Suzanne’s festive Christmas Star Table Runners and log cabin ornaments.
Moreen found too many pieces of black and white fabric in her stash so she got busy 🙂
Blocks on the diagonal add interest to this one.
What you can do with black and white squares and rectangles1
With a wedding in the family and a son and daughter in law moving to new digs Gail has made a couple of quilts to celebrate.
Adapted from George Boe’s Swirling Star Quilt pattern. Sewn and quilted by Gail for a housewarming present for her son and daughter-in-law.
Gail’s nephew and his fiance met in the scouting movement. He loves cats and she loves golden labs. Hence cats and labs enjoying the camping experience!
Ruth has been experimenting with techniques new to her. The first is 4 strip blocks becoming half square triangles. The second is “bias petals” from “Improv Handbook”.
Ruth experimented with four strip blocks split diagonally with plain and other strip blocks to make an interesting modern quilt.
Bias Petal technique from Sherri Lynn Wood’s book “Improve Handbook” Ruth has pieced and is hand quilting with Sashiko stitching.
Brenda and Sherry have been sewing and knitting.
Brenda’s cute baby quilt
Sherry’s elegant disappearing pinwheel.
Sherry made these fun and pretty fidget muffs for people with dementia.
Linda’s fabric stash needed some reduction so her daughter Linda Mae worked on a few quilts while visiting her mom.
Lavender and yellow. Cheerful Easter colours.
Hints of circles make this an attractive pattern.
When Gail’s grandson moved into his new room he had a built in bed that was a different size than the old one. So out came quilt patterns and this one seemed to look good for the new teen who enjoys red as his favourite colour. Pillowcase of red with starry trim 🙂
Free -form Stars pattern by Lynda M.H. Faires QNM March 2001. Pieced and quilted by Gail Newell.
Moreen’s grandson sent her a picture. She liked it so much she was inspired to make a pillow covering. Having a stash has been good while stores are closed. 🙂
Moreen’s Grandson’s picture
Moreen’s pillowcase
During this time of isolation many of us felt like we were running around in circles both modern and traditional.
Gail started this lap quilt in Lorna Shapiro’s free form curved piecing workshop. It was fun working with curved pieces and quilting more circles through the layers.
One set of circles led to another. Gail had never made log cabin circles and with lots of scraps at home this was a good top to try.
It is good to exercise not only our fingers but our brains. Ricky Tim’s convergence quilting book has interesting techniques for making beautiful quilts with fabrics of the same dimensions. But what if your fabric is different sizes and you want a rectangular lap quilt? Time to experiment!
Gail’s first experiment was with two pairs of fabric, one set longer than the other because donations from Irene and others are of course not cut to order. 🙂 Otherwise the techniques from Ricky Tim’s Convergence quilting book were the same.
For the second experiment Gail adapted Ricky Tim’s convergence techniques to use six pieces of fabric converging to the center (vertically) and out again.
