My First Quilt with Karen Neary

This has been a crazy busy month, with the h+h trade show, Nathan's high school graduation (and family visiting for it), and then us traveling for Zachary's university convocation. With all of that, the last Friday of the month really snuck up on me and I almost forgot about the My First Quilt interview. Thankfully, I remembered late last night and was able to get the post ready this afternoon. Whew! This month Karen Neary is sharing the story of her first quilt.

From her home in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Karen Neary has been obsessively designing quilts full time for more years than she cares to admit. Her work has appeared in books and magazines, and her quilts displayed in shows around the world, including France and Japan.  Karen even designed and made a quilt presented to Sir Paul McCartney to mark his visit to Nova Scotia in 2009. She takes great joy in making, and teaching. Her particular love is New York Beauty quilts. Karen is a Canadian retailer for Aurifil threads and has a well-stocked online shop of threads plus her books and patterns.

You can connect with Karen at her website, her blog, on Instagram, on Facebook, and on Pinterest.

And now, here's Karen's first quilt!

What year did you make your first quilt? What prompted you to make it?

My first quilted project was when I was around 8 years old and made a Dresden Plate potholder, hand pieced and hand quilted. It proudly hung in my grandmother's kitchen for many years.  My first big quilt was a very traditional log cabin made for my eldest son's first bed, well over 30 years ago. 

What techniques were used in that first quilt? Did you quilt it yourself?

The quilt was pieced in red, blue and white scraps which included some of his baby clothes. The blocks were put together in a "barn raising" setting. Having no rotary cutter (and no patience for scissors) I tore the fabrics into 3" strips and sewed them together by machine using the 5/8" seam allowance I had learned from garment sewing. The squares mostly finished to around 12" and the quilt fit a double bed. After joining the blocks, I "birthed" the quilt by sewing it right sides together with the backing and turning it to the right side.  I then machine quilted it just in the ditch between the blocks. It's a wonder it held together at all. The batting used was "Mountain Mist" polyester, a popular choice at the time. 

Who taught you to make the quilt?

My grandmother Myrtle Davis was an avid quilter who taught quilt-making in her community, and I learned from her...although I sure could have used her help making that first one. I wish I had paid more attention to her instruction. 

Are the colours you chose for your first quilt ones you would still choose today?

I absolutely love the red, blue and white palette and use it often still. I get why so many world flags use this combination as the colours work so well together.

Did you fall in love with quilting right away? Or was there a gap between making the first quilt and the next one?

I was hooked from the moment that quilt hit the bed.  As awful as it was, it made me feel so good to think that I had made it.  All these many years later, I've never lost that feeling with each new quilt. 

Where is the quilt now?

Honestly, I was unsure this quilt still existed, but a search unearthed it shoved in the back of a closet.  Not only did this quilt spend many years on the bed, it was dragged around the house, attended many sleepovers, and always went to Cub and Scout outings.  It has many holes, some from wear, others from sparks from sitting too close to campfires. When it came time for this first son to head off to university, there was no way that raggy old quilt was going with him, so I made a newer version - same barn raising setting, same colours.  By a strange coincidence, the new school colours were red, blue and white. It was meant to be! This time I cut my fabrics more precisely with a rotary cutter and used 1/4" seams.

After only a few blocks in, I realized the quilt was going to be HUGE so I set those blocks aside and started again with 2-1/2" strips. It came out to a much more reasonable size, and got finished up with free motion quilting and an actual binding on the edges. Sadly, it did not survive the dorm room experience.  A year or so later, I found the larger blocks I had set aside and decided to make enough to do a table cover for quilt fairs.  I still use that one today;  nothing went to waste!

Is there anything you wish you could go back and tell yourself as you made that first quilt?

I think I would just whisper in my ear that this quilt would be the beginning of a journey that would bring great joy and creativity to my life. I have been so blessed to be able to pursue quilting as a career.  (And also I would say, pay closer attention to the seam allowance!)

Thanks for sharing your first quilt with us, Karen!

My Trip to h+h Americas 2026

I spent last week in Chicago for the h+h Americas trade show. It's like Quilt Market, but it's not exclusively for quilting businesses. There were yarn companies, garment pattern designers, embroidery kit makers, and more. There were also A LOT of quilting companies - fabric companies, pattern designers, scissors makers, sewing machine brands, notions companies, and on and on. There were gorgeous quilts everywhere and so many people I recognized from online. 

I arrived in Chicago Monday morning and Laura of Slice of Pi Quilts arrived that afternoon. We've been friends online for almost 10 years, but when she arrived at the hotel to pick me up for supper that was the first time we'd ever met in person. It was so good to finally get to spend time together without a screen between us! Here we are in front of her booth.

Tuesday was set-up day for everyone with booths. I chose not to have a booth for my first time attending, so that was h+h University day for me. There were classes and small group sessions and a tour of the show floor (which was still a work in progress, with booths being put together). When I got my badge that morning, it was a bit surreal to look around at the other people in the room and see so many faces I recognized from social media.

Wednesday-Friday was the actual show and I loved wandering and looking at all the booths. So many beautiful quilts, gorgeous yarn, threads of all kinds, and kits for so many fun things. I don't crochet, but had to take a picture of this kit for making Tairn and Andarna from Fourth Wing. I've always loved dragons and I love Fourth Wing, so this is almost enough to make me want to start crocheting!

Even with the dragons and the amazing quilts, the people were my favourite part of the week. I didn't think to take pictures with everyone I met, but I did remember to get some. Here's Laura in her booth.

And Terri of Lizard Creek Quilting, who was right next to Laura.

I got to meet Brandy from the Quilter on Fire podcast. Did you listen to my conversation with her on the podcast?

Hilary of By Hilary Jordan was just as lovely as I thought she would be! She was also dressed in beautiful handmade clothes every day!

I did demos in the Oliso booth on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, sharing about colouring quilts with crayons. I had my brand new In Full Bloom quilt with me, along with my Grateful table runner, so I could show shop owners examples of quilts coloured with crayons. The technique has been around for a long time, but a lot of the people I talked with had never heard of it, so it was fun to share with them. If you've never tried it, either, I have a tutorial for it here - it's a lot of fun and really easy to do!

I spent time late in the day Thursday and on Friday taking special notice (and notes and pictures) of how different quilt pattern designers had put their booths together. How were they hanging quilts on the walls? How were they displaying quilts not on the walls? What else did they have in the booth? I'm dreaming and scheming for how I can display my own quilts in a booth someday (next year?). Since I have to fly to get to the show, I paid special attention to display ideas that could be packed in a suitcase, like this stand in the Sassafrass Lane booth that was made of PVC pipe and could be disassembled for transport.

I also loved how Kori of Olive and Grace Studios used embroidery hoops to hang some of her quilts.

After years of dreaming about going to Quilt Market, it was so fun to finally make the dream come true (slightly altered to be h+h Americas instead). Now to see if I can make it work to go again next year and maybe have a booth of my own!

In Full Bloom Mini Quilt Pattern

I'm excited to share a new mini quilt pattern with you today for TGIFF! This one was brewing for a long time before all the various elements came together and I really love how it turned out. Meet In Full Bloom!

Ever since I made my Grateful table runner, I've been wanting to design another texty pattern with the words coloured with crayon but I couldn't come up with the phrase I wanted to use. I've also been admiring the various home décor things I've seen with circles or partial circles with flowers and/or leaves along part of the circle. I wanted to translate that style into a quilt, but couldn't get beyond the basic concept.

Then last September we were in St. John's to move Zach back into his dorm for another year of university and the Airbnb we stayed in had a mug with the phrase 'Live life in full bloom' on it. I can't remember anything about what the mug looked like - what the font was, what colour the words were, even if there were flowers on it (though I assume there must have been) - I just remember reading the phrase and thinking, "That would be perfect inside a circle on a quilt!"

I design my quilts in EQ8, but the options for text in the program are really limited. I started playing in Canva instead, where there are a lot more font options and it's so much easier to manipulate the blocks of text. It took a while to settle on the combination of fonts, colours, and the angle of the words, but eventually the wordy part of the design was exactly what I wanted. I created the partial circle as part of the Canva block, too, then I could import that whole piece into EQ8 to add the flower appliqués. 

Actually making the mini quilt involved playing with different techniques. First, I coloured the words with crayons. I have a tutorial for doing that here, on another wordy mini quilt.

I love how colouring the fabric brings out the texture of the threads woven together to make it.

After colouring the letters, I used Aurifil 12 wt thread to embroider their outlines with a simple backstitch. I love how it gives extra definition to the letters. It also gives a little texture to the quilt. A simple tip to make your backstitched lines look neat - make the stitches shorter. Longer stitches tend to look more jagged or uneven, while short stitches make a smooth line.

Fusible appliqué flowers were next. As always, I had fun digging through my stash to find just the right fabrics for each flower.

At this point, Paul saw the quilt top on my design wall and suggested we hang it in our entryway when it was finished. We've struggled to find just the right thing for one small wall in the entryway, and he thought In Full Bloom would be perfect. There's something about having someone else look at what I've made and like it enough to want it displayed that just feels amazing. 

Once the flowers were fused to the background, I embroidered the partial circle with a chain stitch. I did that after the flowers were on because I didn't want any embroidery under the flowers, so this way I could stitch right up to the edge of them.

For the quilting, I used Aurifil 50 wt thread and started by stitching around each flower and leaf with matching thread.

I used white thread for the rest of the quilting. I outlined the letters. I was quite proud of myself for stitching very close to the edge of each letter and only catching the embroidery once! I outlined the edge of the embroidered circle, too. Then I quilted a dense stipple in the background.

I even went in and stitched the tiny gaps between the flowers (seen here from the back).

As usual, I love how all the quilting looks on the back.

I especially love the way the letters pop!

In Full Bloom will be traveling to Chicago with me on Monday, for the H+H Americas trade show. I'll be doing demos in the Oliso booth Wednesday and Thursday, showing how to colour quilt blocks with crayon and remove the wax, and showing off the wordy possibilities of the technique with both In Full Bloom and Grateful. It's my first time attending an industry trade show and I'm crazy excited (and nervous). I'm hoping to get my patterns in front of lots of quilt shop owners while I'm there!

The In Full Bloom mini quilt pattern is in my shop now, so you can make your own version to adorn whatever wall in your home is needing a bit of inspiration. It would make a great gift, too!

That's my finish for this week. What have you finished recently? Link it up below and be sure to visit some of the other links to celebrate their finishes, too!

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