June 2015

Charity Quilts The Evening News

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Guild Raffle Report Quilt Show—The Art of Quilting

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Feature Quilter—

Dorothea Housworth

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Art Group Word Chal-

lenge

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KOOTENAY QUILTERS’ DAY GUILD NEWSLETTER

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QUILT EVENTS & WORKSHOP CALENDAR Thursday June 4—Chat & Sew

Wed. June 10—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Company

Thursday June 11—Art Group meets to do Rust Dying & Fabric Bleaching

Fri. June 12—Raffle ticket sales at Save-On

Fri. June 13—Raffle ticket sales at Save-On

June 13,14—Edmonton Festival of Quilts, Central Lions Rec. Centre Sat. 10-5; Sun. 10-4

Thursday June 18—Guild Wind-Up Meeting & Pot Luck Luncheon with special guests from

Kaslo

Wed. June 24—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Company

Thursday June 25—Raffle ticket sales at Kootenay Lake Hospital

Friday June 26— Raffle ticket sales at Save-On and at Market Fest

Sat, June 27—Raffle ticket sales at Save-On

Wed, July 1—Raffle ticket sales at Lakeside Rotary Park & Quilt Picture Colouring for Kids

Thurs. July 2—Chat and Sew

July 7-13—Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, Oregon

Wed. July 8—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Company

Wed. July 15—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Company

Fri. July 24—Raffle ticket sales at Save-On and at Marketfest

Sat. July 25—Raffle ticket sales at Save-On

Wed. August 5—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Company

Thurs. August 6—Chat and Sew

Wed. August 12—Raffle ticket sales at Nelson Trading Compnay

Friday August 21—Marketfest Raffle Ticket Sales

Thurs. September 3—Chat and Sew at 10; Quilt Show Committee meets at 9

Sat. Sept. 5,6—Affair on Main Street, Metalline Falls

Thursday September 17—Guild Meeting & last day for registration of quilts for the show

Friday October 2 & Saturday October 3, 2015—Kootenay Quilters’ Show at the

Prestige Friday noon—8; Saturday 9-4 $5

Fri.Oct. 16-, Sat. Oct. 17—10-6; Sunday Oct. 18 10-4—Washington State Quilters, Spo-kane Quilt Show “ Vive La Difference Spokane Co. Fair & Expo Centre, 404N. Havana, Spokane

Valley, WA www.wsqspokane.org

Oct. 29—Nov. 1—Houston International Quilt Festival at George Brown Convention Centre.

Classes begin October 26 in conjunction with the Quilt Market

Thursday Nov. 5— Chat and Sew and Photo Ornament workshop

June 16—CQA Guilt Canada will be held in Toronto; location to be announced

Help Needed

Raffle Ticket

Sales— let Sheila Hart know when you are available to sell tickets. All members are needed

for ticket sales.

Items for Raffle Baskets-Please bring items including fat quarters to the June wind-up & give to Irene Evanoff or Darlene

Hearn

CHARITY QUILTS Darlene Hearn of the Kootenay Lake Hospital Auxiliary has panels and backing available for Guild

members to sew together and is encouraging members to submit baby quilts as these are in hot demand.

Gerda Liebenow is now the GO-TO-GAL for all of the Day Group’s charity batting needs—both polyester and cotton. She has kindly agreed to keep BOTH huge rolls at her house. Contact her with your requirements, and she will bring the cut piece to the next meeting, or you could pick it up at her home on the North Shore, 1553 Hwy 3A

Phone 250-825-9601.

Quilts for Romania Team Members are always looking for volunteers to come to their weekly Tuesday quilting bees at the Baptist Church. The have a large stash of fabric. All you need to bring is your sewing machine. This is a

great place for beginner quilters to work on basic skills.

The Evening News from The Ladies of the EveningThe Evening News from The Ladies of the EveningThe Evening News from The Ladies of the EveningThe Evening News from The Ladies of the Evening The West Kootenay Quilt Conference is history. The West Kootenay Quilt Gathering is the future. Af-ter lively discussion it was voted on and will now be “Gathering” and will be held on the last Saturday in April each year. All-in-all, the day went will, many lovely quilts were shown and the merchant were kept

busy.

Many thanks to Kottenay Quilters Day Grup for providing coffee, tea and yummy muffins.

Our year does not wind up or wind down in June as we continue to meet every Thursday evening. Cur-rently some are working oon projects for the upcoming show in October, some are working on UFOs,

some are knitting and all are just plain enjoying the company of like minded people.

As a group the Kootenay Quilters Evening Group is 30 years old this year. We started in October of 1985 at Karen McKeev’s home. Some of the earliest members are Irene Evanoff, Denise Crowley, Nor-ma Vecchio, Judi Burley, Pompei Savarin and Lorraine McGregor. We’ve made a lot of quilts over the years and have seen quilting trands change, and have seen families grow up, grandchildren arrive and great grandchildren as well. We have also made many friend through quilting and I hope we will all be

quilting many years from now.

Our condolences go out to Audrey Stevenson, long time member whose beloved husband Henry passed

away on May 17, 2015 at the age of 99.

Keep stitchin’, Lorraine McGregor

APPLIQUE GROUP The group meets on the 2nd Wednesday of each month at Suzie Holmes. Phone 1-250-229-4250 or e-mail:

sholmes01@shaw.ca

NEED SEWING MACHINE REPAIRS? Valerie Swetlishoff & her husband services for all makes and models, vintage and modern; they keep the sewing going. Titani-um nitrate cutting blades; lint rollers for use on all boards; cutting services for various shapes and sizes. Contact Val at: out-dooranimal@gmail.com The Outdoor Animal Contract Sewing & Anything Sewn Repairs valeriediecutsforquilt-

ers.blogspot.com

2015 GUILD RAFFLE QUILT REPORT Tickets for the 2015 Guild Raffle Quilt are now being distributed by Sheila Hart and she is busy trying to complete the raffle ticket sales schedule; there are only 7 slots left to fill (hooray). If you are attending a meeting or gathering where you have the opportunity to show the quilt and sell tickets, please arrange with Sheila to borrow the quilt. The Garden Labyrinth quilt is receiving many “likes”, so hopefully all tickets will be sold and the Guild will easily donate $5,000 to the Kootenay Lake Hospital Foundation. Thank you to Joanne Niven who is organizing a kids interactive quilt colouring competition for July 1 at the park. Kids will colour quilt designs and there will be judging done at 10, 11,12,1,2,3.

QUILT SHOW 2015—THE ART OF QUILTING Planning for the 2015 Quilt Show, THE ART OF QUILTING, is well underway. We are thrilled to an-nounce that Janet Jones and Dorothea Housworth will be our feature quilters. Elsie Gates and Bonnie Chalmers will again be overseeing the “Hanging of the Quilts”. Darlene Hearn and Irene Evanoff will be put-ting together the fabulous raffle baskets and will be asking for donations for those. Sheila Hart has been plan-

ning out her advertising strategy for this show.

REGISTRATION FORMS are now available and the deadline for entries is September 17, 2015. If you submit an entry and then withdraw, it is essential that you inform Dianne Watts as pre-planning is done for the quilt displays. Please include a small photo of your quilt on each entry form this year. It will make the pre-planning of quilt hanging at the show so much easier. If you have submitted a Registration Form and discov-er that you won’t be able to show the quilt, it is imperative that you report this to Diane Watts by Septem-

ber 17.

Sandi St. Denis and night guild members will be co-ordinating the QUILTERS’ BOUTIQUE again this year, and will have a larger space at the show. Keep this in mind if you wish to sell any of your wonderful creations. Samdi has Registration Forms which need to be completed and submitted to her by September

17.

We have chosen PAINT CHIPS as our CHALLENGE for this year. You will choose an envelope with a paint chip inside, and will have the opportunity to trade it in once if you are unhappy with the colour. The challenge piece may include any tone of your paint chip plus two other colours. The maximum perimeter of

the finished piece is no larger than 120 inches around the edges.

SHOW POSTERS—Sheila Hart has a stock of the lovely posters made by Elsie Gates. They need to be hung at a variety of sites during early August. If you can assist with this, please obtain posters from Sheila

and identify sites where you will hang the poster.

RAFFLE BASKETS– Darlene Hearne and Irene Evanoff are creating spectacular raffle baskets for the show. Please bring any items that you wish to donate for the baskets to the June wind-up.

Thanks to our great planning team of Diane Watts and Leah Gray (Co-ordinators), Elsie Gates (Posters) and Bonnie Chalmers (set-up and vendors) and Val Swetlishoff (Night Guild Liaison), Rosemary Wallach (Book Marks), Laura McEachern and Sheila Hart (Public Relations & Raffle Ticket Sales).

I was born in Detroit, Michigan - my parents emigrated after WWII from Eu-

rope. On both my father’s and mother’s side there were artists. My mother’s

father sent letters hand painted with beautiful scenes both on the envelopes and

on the stationary, my mother’s and my father’s mother’s painting hang in our

living room. I have a collection of my father’s Aunt’s stencils she created to

make all the beautiful Hungarian hand embroidery work you can see in muse-

ums. My uncle (mother’s brother) was a house painter and created painted

“wallpaper” with beautiful handcrafted metal rollers with intricate designs. So

it is not surprising that I found myself able to express my artistic side in quilting - Fine Arts and textiles were in

my blood.

As a little girl and into my early teens I watched my paternal grandmother help my mother with mending on

Sunday evenings. Out would come Mom's large sewing basket a dresser lamp and a pile of clothing and there

Omama would sew at the kitchen table. Often you would see a needle between her lips as she would look for

something in the sewing basket - glasses perched at the end of her nose. In writing this, I can still see her bent

snowy white haired head tilted so as to capture the best light totally focussed and each stitch so finely crafted.

“So fine”, she would tell me in her broken attempt at the little English she spoke, knowing that she was speak-

ing to each stitch being sewn.

By the time I was eleven my desire to sew blossomed. I have always been of a mind to always tackle big things

and very willing to teach myself and failure not dissuading me but rather challenging me to try that much hard-

er to succeed. Collecting bottle money I rode on my bike to the 5 and Dime and bought fabric and a pattern and

so began my first attempt at a pattern and sewing. Not having a clue about patterns, I sewed the pattern to the

fabric and my grand project of a scooter skirt was a total disaster. Later that summer I sought out my girlfriend

Denise's mother a sewer herself and she taught me about sewing and reading patterns (made a poncho) and so

my appetite for fabric and creating began. The late 60's and early 70's was a time of bold fabrics, bell bottoms,

embroidery on clothing and fabric embellishments. I turned scraps of denim into little drawstring purses em-

broidered with my own creations of butterflies, flowers and swirls. I converted straight legged pants, into beau-

tifully multi-coloured panelled flared bell bottoms.

Years later I would earn a degree in Science from ST. F. X. University, Antigonish, NS. in Foods & Nutrition

and part of my requirements was courses in Textiles and so I took courses in flat pattern design, construction

and tailoring and clothing- fibres and fabrics. Being a student in the mid 70's it was a time of things folksy and

so as a course requirement I made this Vogue pattern dress that had two quilted insets in the body of the dress

and so I got hooked on applique work, handwork and quilting. I will have the dress on display for the Koote-

nay Quilter's Quilt Show 2015.

I graduated from University in 1979 and moved to Terrace, British Co-

lumbia. During a two year stint in New Aiyansh, BC. I took several

outreach courses from Emily Carr and from there to Abbotsford, BC. I

made a beautiful quilted and appliqued baby's quilt for a girlfriend’s

first baby. Busy with three children I spent those early years making

outfits for my daughter and me and copious amounts of Halloween

costumes.

I now live at 7 Mile in Nelson, BC on Kootenay Lake. In November

2009 my autoimmune disease got the best of me and it took several

years - lots of tests and many different kinds of medication for me to

be able to have some kind of normalcy in my life. I think I rather

learned to live with day to day pain and found a way around my new

life. To take my mind off of things I began hand sewing and reading

quilting magazines when I physically could. Sometimes when life hits

you square in the face you think about things often too deeply – at

least I did and still do. I got it into my head that I wanted my children

to have a piece of me that would outlast me and could flow down the generations. My ahha moment was to

make quilts, each stitch made with love, each design chosen just for them. Quilting became my yoga, my

meditation.

My sister thinks quilting is a waste of time - taking perfectly good fab-

ric, cutting it up and sewing it back together. I see it so different-

ly. From the very step of seeing a pattern and having someone or

something come to mind is the beginning. Then you think about the

person, colours and patterns that define them, what might give them

joy. Next is the task of cutting each piece with accuracy so that the

finished piece will be perfect. You might even find yourself needle

perched between your lips as you contemplate, life, the person for

whom the quilt is for, or the love and wisdom you would like to pass

on with each stitch. And so, when you look at your next quilt, or at-

tend your next quilt show and view all those gorgeous patterns and

fabrics, take a peek beyond - because therein lies the heart and soul of

the quilter and so much love.

Dorothea Housworth

Post Script: One never walks alone, I am blessed with a beautiful

spirit of a husband, his love for me, and constant support and en-

couragement are ever present and my children who give me such

joy in the beauty of the lives they have created for themselves and

their families.

Art Group meets every second Tuesday to come together and ‘play’ as Laura McEachern describes it. This year we have done dying with rust, marbling using shaving cream, printing on gelatin, playing with thread, and painting fabric for landscapes. Ideas come from within the group and we decide what we will do in the next session, usually after an email discussion. Inspirations come from sources like The Canadian Quilter mag-azine, books, internet, and tutorials to name a few. Another aspect of Art Group is the ‘Challenge Word’. Heather Myers has a list of words and each month one is randomly selected. That word or phrase is a spring board of inspiration for a small project (e.g. 8x10) to bring to the next session. It is always fun and exciting to see what each other has come up with and to discuss the creative process and techniques we used. So far we have had ‘Light and Dark’, ‘Midnight’, ‘Itch’ and the word for the June 11 meeting is ‘Ring of Fire’. We wel-

come and encourage you to come to our play sessions and/or take part in the monthly challenge word.

Itch by Joanne Niven

Itch by Rosemary Wallach

Itch by Heather Myers

Light & Dark by Joanne Niven

Midnight by Joanne Niven