A couple of years ago, a group of Calgary members of the Fibre Art Network (FAN) in Western Canada were out in the backyard dying fabric. We decided it would be fun to do a quilt based on a slice of Calgary’s skyline.
Since Quilt Canada was in Edmonton that year, we thought we would depict part of Calgary. After all, the cities have always had a friendly rivalry.
I took a picture from Crescent Road, directly north of downtown Calgary, then printed it and sliced it into five strips. Next, I gave the pieces to each person so they could turn it into a faced quilt of 30 by 15 inches.
In the end, five of us, Sandra Melnik, Marg Jessop, Fran Sayles, Nan Williams, and Trudy Cowan banded together and created this quilt. Each section of the slice of Calgary’s skyline shows our unique styles.
A mix of styles
We used piecing, appliqué and collage, also some painting with thickened dyes. The fabric is men’s dress shirts – used, commercial, dyed and painted. It took months before we got together again with our completed quilts.
We took them home for last-minute adjustments to match the river and the sky better. I saw the flying geese in Fran’s piece so I added some to my section. Trudy had air balloons in her part so Sandra added some balloons to hers.
Ultimately, it looked pretty unified. I took all the sliced sections and sewed them onto a black mesh fibreglass screen to strengthen it and added a sleeve. This quilt was juried into Quilt Canada in Edmonton.
We also showed it at the Festival of Quilts in Calgary and the Calgary Stampede where it won two ribbons! It has been far too long, but we finally got together for a photo.
I’m pretty proud of this quilt and my talented friends, so I thought I’d show it off. The challenge now is to figure out what to do with it next!