The theme for this week’s virtual quilt contest is Patriotism. The quilts are fantastic. Thanks to everyone that entered.

The winner of this week’s contest will win a Zippity Doo Dah Fat Quarter Bundle Plus one Panel from Jojo’s Quilt Shoppe.

All Quilting Gallery guests can enter code PATRIOT to receive an additional 10% off their order at JoJo’s during this contest (excludes shipping, BOM, promotions, and cannot be combined with other offers). Start your shopping here!

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourite!!

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday @ 11:59 p.m.
• One vote per IP address (NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday!
• New: in the event of a tie at the end of voting, 5 random Facebook quilters will be asked to vote again to break the tie.

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Next week’s theme is Picnics. I’m looking forward to seeing the wonderful quilts. Get your cameras out!

Facebook, email subscribers and RSS readers: You need to visit the Quilting Gallery blog to vote: CLICK HERE

A glimpse into last week’s Canada Day celebrations here in Ottawa, Canada’s capital.

Please join me in welcoming guest blogger Sandy Hasenauer as she shares her quilting journey with us. Thanks Sandy for being a guest here at the Quilting Gallery.

"Hey, I’m Sandy, and I’m a quilter."

That’s how I start each episode of my podcast. It might sound like it’s just a flip way of introducing myself, but the reality is that it’s quite a statement for me—it took me awhile to feel comfortable calling myself a "quilter." For many years, I would just say, "I play around with quilting," or "I’ve done some quilting." But I hesitated to actually label myself a "quilter." There was something about that title that I didn’t think I had earned yet.

My mother taught me how to quilt. She had sewn clothes forever—I still have vivid memories of a spiffy red and blue plaid bell-bottom pantsuit she made me in third grade that I absolutely adored. Soon after that, though, I realized it wasn’t cool to wear homemade clothes and, as I was the youngest and probably the last of her children to come to that profound understanding, she turned from clothes-making to quilting. Most of my memories of Mom from that point forward involve sewing machines, lap hoops, and finding needles in couches the hard way. It took me years after I lived at home to get out of the habit of quickly running my hand over the seat of a couch or armchair before I sat down.

Mom quilting - circa late 1970s, I think

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