|
Welcome to the website of Hall's Harbour Handcrafts, located close to the ruggedly beautiful Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia, on Canada's East coast. My quilt studio is in my 1820's heritage home, surrounded by trees and wild gardens. Enjoy the peace and serenity which inspires my work. Visit the nearby fishing village of Hall's Harbour where you can observe the action of the world's highest tides. Visit artists' studios, hunt for antiques and sample seafood and lobster. If you wish to stay a while, there are several bed and breakfasts in the village and lots of other things to do and see nearby. If you cannot visit my studio in person, rest
assured that my custom quilts are made in the traditional way - entirely
by hand every step of the way. They are made of the finest available
100% cotton materials in a smoke-free home, and are truly one-of-a-kind.
|
Thursday, September 07, 2006 handcrafted quilts - a variety of choices  Talking with a prospective customer the other day I realized something about my particular skills in quiltmaking. Many quilters express a lack of confidence in their colour choices when making a quilt and tend to rely on quilt fabric shops to choose their fabrics for them. This often results in a stiffness or formula-like use of colour. Colour choice is a particular skill that I can use to your advantage in helping you to arrive at fabric choices for your quilt - I have a very strong colour sense. Another area where I feel that I excel is in my self-imposed demands for total accuracy - for me,every seam and point and corner must line up, and to do this I often find that hand rather than machine piecing results in the highest level of accuracy. Shown above is a queen sized jacob's ladder variation made recently for a jewellry artist from Seattle. We arrived at the final colour and pattern choices by a combination of email and snail mail and the customer was very pleased with the resulting quilt. When you choose a keepsake, handcrafted quilt from me you can choose from several different sources: I can design and construct a quilt totally from start to finish - a contemporary classic or a quilt strongly influenced by my respect for the quilters of the nineteenth century; or I can complete one of many different vintage and antique quilt tops in my collection - I collect vintage tops using the criteria that they must be carefully constructed and strong enough to withstand being handquilted and used, which includes the occasional wash. Finally, you might choose to have me make up one of the classic kits I have collected by Yours Truly, Hearthside Quilts of Vermont, Progress, Tobin, Doublestencil and Paragon - these kits include wholecloth quilts, applique quilts and cross stitch quilts from the exciting American Bicentennial period around 1976 and before, when the huge resurgence in the popularity of quiltmaking crested in North America. For quilters who woould prefer to purchase these kits in original condition, that can be arranged - just email me with your requirements. The definitive statement about my handcrafted quilts is made when one of my customers comes back to have another quilt made - this happens frequently and some customers are on their 4th or 5th quilt. All quilts are made of 100% fine cotton fabrics, using top quality Quilter's Dream cotton batting for ease of care - just wash and dry on gentle/warm cycles in your machine, using an oxy-clean type, non detergent washing agent. Quilts vary in size from wallhanging, through crib and youth bed sizes, snuggle/lap quilts, single, double, queen and king and are priced according to a combination of size and complexity of patrern and quilting stitches. Hand quilting always.9:40 AM
Comments:
Post a Comment
|
Recent Posts: a map to get to the quilt show Hall's Harbour 2006 Quilt Show: Quilts at the Harb... about ship diorama, vintage cross stitch quilts, v... Yoyo quilts, fish decoys and quilt retreats A treasure-trove of yoyo quilts Something New A one-of-kind hand-appliqued queen sized quilt Quilts at the Harbour 7 Show and Sale I promised you some pictures...now I can post!!!! This is a sweet little hand appliqued quilt top a... Archived Posts: July 2005 August 2005 October 2005 December 2005 June 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 March 2007 July 2007 |
