Purely Canadian Quilt Pieced by Shelley Zeleniak

Hi Everyone,

Woooo, two posts today!  I really hope you enjoyed my Technique Tuesday on Thursday post on pressing.  Man, it has been so crazy busy around here just lately getting the Purely Canadian pattern finished.  In fact, it is out at the printers right now and I get to pick it up later today.  I can’t wait to see it, very excited.  And just in time too, as they are all headed straight out the door tomorrow for CreativFestival at the Metro Convention Centre in Toronto.  Anyway, just a preamble to say that things should be getting back on track for this blog as I will have a bit less stress on my plate.

Anyway, what I really wanted to feature in this post is this absolutely fabulous iteration of my Purely Canadian pattern as created by one of my wonderful pattern testers, Shelley Zeleniak.  With a quilt pattern this detailed, it was critical that the instructions be fully tested before going to press with the pattern.  Shelley and Trudy Bickford, my other tester, put in some really long hours, too, putting my instructions through the wringer and catching many little errors and omissions so that the pattern is right when you get your printed version.  I just cannot thank these two women enough.  They really put in a great effort to get through the pattern and create their quilt tops under such a tight timeline.  Thank you ladies!

While my original design, and the pattern itself, was inspired by and created with fabrics from Northcott’s Oh Canada line, I really wanted to show that this quilt would look fabulous with any fabric choices.  When Shelley said she was going to use batik fabrics to create Purely Canadian, I was super excited to see what she came up with.  Especially seeing how I just love batiks and use them whenever I can!  Shelley did a superb job here, don’t you think?  I can’t wait now to see Trudy’s version.