Welcome to our June Edition!

This shorter edition was originally planned for May but due to a sudden major health problem in our family, it has been necessary to take a month off from writing this issue, creating new patterns, and working on my websites. The introduction of two new patterns was meant to be a part of this issue as well, but work on them had to stop too. Watch for a special announcement about them in the hopefully near future.

I hope everyone is enjoying sunny skies, warm weather, and the "lazy, hazy, days of summer."

Happy Quilting,

Maria

Although most quilters are aware of the fact that men quilt, the general populace is not. It is my privilege to introduce you to one of the many men who do quilt.

Ivo Camilleri is 73 years young. He was born in Malta and received his education there during the World War II years.

Ivo states, “ Malta, the George Cross Island, suffered very badly during the war, but, we made it and, maybe, because of it, we have accepted life a little bit more humbly.”

His entire family emigrated to Australia in 1951. In 1957, at the age of 23, Ivo made a short visit to Canada. “I joined the Canadian Bank of Commerce (now the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce) as a joke, and only stayed with the Bank for 40 years.”

Ivo and his wife enjoyed taking a variety of night classes for the fun of it. He has taken macramé, stained glass, woodworking, computers, photography, and more. In December of 1999, they were looking through the list of night classes being offered for the winter months and his wife thought that the quilting classes would be interesting. He thought so too and said that he might take the class so she decided to take something else.

He goes on to say, “ So, my first encounter with quilting was attending a quilting evening class course at a local high school. The teacher was Marjorie Towers who at one time had been president of our local guild, the Mississauga Quilters Guild. On the first night, she came in, looked at me and suggested that I was likely in the wrong classroom. Ha! Ha! Did I ever tease Marjorie about that remark for quite a while! We were supposed to work on a sampler quilt, completing approximately one block every week. This was a bit too slow for my liking so I asked her to give me the instructions for all of the blocks, with the result that I was way ahead of everyone. I finished two or three blocks a week. Show-off!”

Ivo continued to learn about quilting by taking some of the seminars provided by the Mississauga Quilters Guild, attending several free demonstrations at the Hobby Horse (a quilt shop Georgetown, Ontario) and some seminars at the Sew N Serge (a quilt shop in Brampton, Ontario) which included a block of the month for the quilt Beyond Color Purple designed by Jenny Haskins.

This quilt just won the Member's Choice Award
at the recent Mississauga Quilt Guild Show
Off the Wall and Under the Covers.

“The trouble with me is that I am most impatient. I soon found out that this block of the month business was definitely not for me. I attended "just" two lessons. Instead, I went to the internet to buy the book, which was not available here, and started doing a block or so every week.”

“Mostly I learned more about quilting on my own and little by little. I am a great reader, am quite precise in my work, and am a highly organized person. I learned quite a bit from quilting books from the public library. I have practically all of the Perfect Patchwork Templates sets from Marti Michell. I learned a lot about quilting from these sets.”

Ivo has tried a little bit of all types of quilting and particularly likes paper piecing. He finds it it very precise and challenging. While he does not design his own patterns he does make his work unique by combining elements in different ways, but mostly for his quilted pillows.

One of the magnificent quilts he has made and of which he is most proud, is Fractured Crystals which was taught by Linda Ballard on Alex Anderson’s Simply Quilts show. The original had 25 panels. Ivo made his with 49!

I asked Ivo what challenges and advantages he has faced as a male quilter.

“In some cases I see expressions of awe and bewilderment, which of course, makes me quite proud. Some of my quilts are really quite beautiful and some people are amazed by the work involved, but more so by the fact that that they were made by a man. I can honestly say that I have not, to my knowledge, faced any kind of challenge. I have been made most welcome in any group of female quilters I have joined and have been admired for my work. Being the only male member in my quilt guild, I do stand out. I am a sort of happy go lucky kind of person with a friendly personality which has helped me to get to know all of the ladies in the Guild. When I had my operation for colon cancer I received over 90 get well cards, books, gifts and other greetings from my friends in the guild. I will never, never forget that and the amazing effect it had on my well being and on my life, in general.”