glitter, vinyl and thread.

i really like Habitat. it's weird, i know.

2012-02-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

but i do! it's awesome. there are a few prints in the line that i'm not into, but i never like the entire line anyway, so that's nothing new. i know a lot of people aren't that into it, but i love it, especially this one, the drop cloth print.

i made this a few weeks ago for a friend's birthday. Kalin loves this print too, so i used some of my scraps from the VMQG challenge to make her a little flex frame change purse.

and the inside is the same wine fabric as the top.

the front and back are different, cause what's the fun of matching? ;)

obviously, blog posts which require much writing aren't happening at the moment. however, i did take pictures of my VMQG Habitat challenge quilt, so i'll post that soon!

need a new project? or ten?

2012-01-23T23:17:00.000-08:00

can you believe that we're almost to february? we're 3 weeks into january! how did that happen?!!?

there are SO MANY THINGS going on in blog-land these days. i'm a little disturbed by it, to tell you the truth. how do all of these people have time? why aren't they spending their januarys finishing late christmas presents? did they all just throw up their hands in defeat on december 31st? that must be it. and really, good for them. if the presents are late, they're late, an extra month or two won't make a difference. or maybe they said screw the handmade gifts for 2011... i applaud that as well.

i was wishing that i had the time to do a quilt-a-long or two, but that's just not gonna happen at the moment. then i decided to keep track of the interesting quilt-a-longs so that i could go back to them when i DID have time, and there were so many of them that my list turned into this post. if you know of others, leave a comment with a link, please.

there are multiple scrappy quilt-alongs at the moment, and it seems to be good timing - enough people have been quilting long enough to have ridiculous scrap piles!

Jodi from Pleasant Home is running a Sew Scraps Along with tons of inspirational posts, links to tutorials, prizes and so much more.

Rachel over at Stitched in Color is doing a Scrap Attack Quilt-a-long, with weekly tutorials and/or interviews with other bloggers. and if you finish a scrap quilt by the end of March, you can win prizes!

justabitfrayed is doing a scrappy quilt-a-long with a specific pattern, and it's so pretty!

however, the most popular Quilt-Alongs by far are star or sparkle themed. HUGE trend for 2012, obviously! (and isn't my little group quilt cutting edge then?)

Chelsea from Pins and Bobbins is running a quilt-a-long for the Made In Cherry star quilt designed by Sarah Fielke

Faith from Fresh Lemons is doing a sampler style quilt-a-long that's all different star blocks, called Solstice Stars.

Jeni from In Color Order and Megan from Canoe Ridge Creations are coordinating a Sparkle Quilt Along that's super cute.

Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Fransson is running a quilt-a-long for her pattern Sparkle Punch.
here's a pillow top made up by flickr user GoingSewCrazy. isn't it gorgeous!?

Hannah from Heartbreak Homestead has posted the first block of her Starry Skies Sampler Quilt project, and it's very lovely.

and vintage sheet stars!!! Holly told me about this yesterday, and i'm so in love! Sheila at Thought and Found is creating a stunning star quilt, with blocks that she's designed as well as blocks designed by various guests. i know i totally don't have time for such an ambitious project, but oh my goodness!

if you're not into stars, you still have a few other options...

Jeni from In Color Order has started an HST block of the month for 2012, so you could do that instead!

or how about the Swoon-a-long that Katy from Monkey Do is organizing, using the
Swoon pattern by Camille Roskelley?

or the monthly mini-quilt sew-along that Randi at I Have To Say is doing for 2012? each quilt will start on the 2nd tuesday of every month, and the supply list will go up about a week before that. january was courthouse steps, don't they look lovely?

Sarah from Narcoleptic in a Cupboard is in the process of designing a really lovely quilt as well, called the Stained QAL because of the quilt's stained glass look. you can see the original quilt here.

Jenna at Sew Happy Geek is doing a modern/traditional mixed sampler style quilt-along that looks awfully cute. 3 blocks have been posted so far, and the flickr group is so pretty!

Kim's Crafty Apple is coordinating a House and Tree Quilt-Along that could be super fun! there will be 16 blocks total, all designed by different people, and each block will contain either a house or a tree, or both. Two blocks have been posted so far, and more are coming! i saw a sneak peak of the block that will be released on January 31st and it's GORGEOUS! seriously, i think i'd be happy making 16 of that same block.... as everyone in the VMQG knows, Terry's pretty amazing.

or maybe you'd rather focus on colour for your theme? Pantone released their official colour of the year, and it's "Tangerine Tango" Ali from a²(w) and Erin from Two More Seconds are hosting a Tangerine Tango Quilt Challenge, complete with two categories and awesome prizes! the flickr group is already starting to look pretty fabulous... and i'm not even an orange fan!

and if you're thinking that your freemotion could use some help,
Leah from the Free Motion Quilting Project has started a new project for 2012

and Sew Cal Gal is also doing a year-long Free Motion Quilt Challenge, with monthly prizes!

or how about something completely superfluous? QuiltJane is hosting a "Dress up your Roll" contest. Yes, THAT roll! it is possible to make toilet paper covers that don't involve ruffled dresses and half barbies - just think of them as mug rugs in tube form! you can enter as many times as you like, and the international prize is pretty damn fine. my toilet paper roll might be needing an outfit...

so. feeling motivated? you've got lots to start with!

apparently Fat Quarterly blogged about some of these the other day.... i'd say that this will be a lesson to me on getting my ass in gear and not leaving drafts in blogger for weeks at a time while i add to them - and on keeping up with other blogs - but frankly, i haven't learned anything! it just means that great minds think alike, that's all. right? ;)

what do you do when you don't feel like sewing?

2012-01-16T01:32:00.000-08:00

sorry for the radio silence folks.

i kinda lost my mojo for a few weeks after christmas. i still feel like i'm recovering from the entire month of december, but at least i've started sewing again. my sewing machine was unplugged for over a week!

i had to switch machines to hem a pair of pants for my little brother - i know, i said i wouldn't hem his pants anymore, but he suckered me in! he'd actually been acting like a real human being, and he gave me a sob story about how he was flying back the day before he started work, and wouldn't have time, blah, blah, blah. so i hemmed them, and since my brother machine does an awesome blind hem stitch, i switched out machines. after i'd put the brother away, my janome just sat there, not even plugged in, until i finally got motivated this past week. i was determined to finish my Habitat quilt before the FVMQG meeting, so that got me going a bit.

one thing i have been doing, since i haven't been sewing, has been baking. yay, baking!

while i was in manitoba i wanted to make sugar cookies, but i couldn't get my hands on the ingredients for my usual amazing recipe (whether you're vegan or not, they're AWESOME!). i searched and found a few recipes, and decided to go with this one, which i found on this blog, though i used margarine, not butter, and didn't have any cream of tartar. they still turned out great! i followed the suggestion to put the cut out cookies in the freezer for 15 minutes before popping them in the oven, and i think it made a big difference in the spreading.

they disappeared within 3 days, i think! isn't my platter neat? i think i paid $0.25 for it. totally a good score.

after christmas i decided to make another batch, again using margarine, but this time i didn't have vanilla, but did have cream of tartar! (i usually steal my sister's vanilla, but i made the dough late at night.) since i was at home, i had a lot more selection of cookie cutters, and i had fun using a bunch of them.

i made some simpler shapes, as well as some gnomes (which totally don't look like gnomes unless you do a fancy job of icing them!). i found this key cutter in my stash that i'd forgotten about, so i made a bunch of keys, and coordinating hearts. (aw. key to my heart. isn't that sappy?) i was so excited when i found the silver jimmies... but they're chocolate! i didn't realize that when i used them, and chocolate's kind of eh on sugar cookies. but it was okay, they were still yummy.

and then i made a tray full of strawberries, and had fun icing them. pretty, huh?

i also made a bunch of teensy-weensy cupcake shaped cookies, which i used to decorate cake cupcakes for a friend's birthday.

i didn't intend to match the icing with the tupperware, but they look pretty good together, don't they?

i'm craving sugar cookies now! why don't they sell sugar cookies at the grocery store like they do chocolate chip and oreos? there's obviously a gap in cookie manufacturing here.

happy new year and congratulations!!

2012-01-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

hi all! happy new year!

i know lots of other folks have fabulous mosaics of things that they made in 2011, but frankly, i'm so behind on posting the things that i've made, i'm not ready to make a mosaic!

i've also been thinking new years-ish thoughts, but they'll have to wait until i've had more sleep.

did you have a good new year's eve? i went to a potluck supper with friends that was lovely, and fairly quiet, and then, for the first time in YEARS, i went to a house party with tons of drunk people. it was amusing for a while, especially since i was one of the few sober people there, but by the end of the night the amusement wore off and i realized, damn, i'm too old for this shit! it was still a good night, seeing people that i hadn't seen in forever (years, in one case), randomly running into someone who went to the same high school as me (and getting a great bit of gossip), cuddling with one of my favourite people for much of the evening (except when some drunk girl asked me to move so that she could hit on him - who does that?!).

i've told myself that the first week of the new year is all about paperwork and catchup, as unexciting as that it. it needs to be done!

but i wanted to pop in and tell y'all who won the Birthday Giveaway!

the winner is.....

that's Hadley, from Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle. Hadley came over thanks to Krista's tweet, which is kinda awesome, dontcha think?

thank you so much to everyone who entered, for your birthday wishes and lovely comments, but mostly just for visiting my blog and commenting. you're the ones who make blogging fabulous!

Hexie Coaster Tutorial

2011-12-29T23:52:00.000-08:00

~~(are you looking for my birthday giveaway? you still have time to enter!)~~

i promised you a tutorial!

here, it is, finally! wanna make some coasters?

they're easy, they're quick and they're cute, perfect for last minute hostess gifts! or maybe you're one of those always prepared people? whip some up for next christmas, while you're still in a festive mood - imagine that, having presents for next year before 2011 even ends!

you'll need:
- your main fabric
- accent fabric for the centre hexies
- fabric for the backs of the coasters, either a single piece or scraps to piece together
- cotton batting
- 505 spray adhesive
- thread to match the main fabric (optional)
- thread to match the accent fabric
- sewing machine with a walking foot

Step One:
- Print out the hexie templates available HERE and HERE. (right click on the original sized template to save it) You'll only need one coaster template, no matter how many coasters you make, but you need one hexie template for each coaster. i think 6 is a good set, but if you're a small family, you might only make two or three. or if things tend to get lost at your house, you might want to make more!
- Cut them out so that they're ready to use. note that the seam allowance is included on the coaster piece, but not on the applique piece - but don't worry, if you follow the directions, you'll be fine!
- Pin the coaster template onto your main fabric and cut out as many coasters as you'd like to make.

if you're using a directional or geometric print, you'll need to cut them carefully to ensure that they're all straight.

but if it's an all over print, feel free to fold your fabric and cut multiple layers at once.

Step 2:
- Pin the small hexie templates onto your accent fabric, spacing them out so you'll have enough seam allowance for each one.

Step 3:
- Cut out your hexies, leaving at least 1/4" around each template.

depending on your fabric, you might want to leave more than 1/4" for seam allowance. for these, i weas using a linen that is a bit looser weave than regular cotton, so i left a bit larger seam allowance. better safe than sorry, right?

Step 4:
- thread a hand sewing needle with any colour of thread, because you're only basting here, and knot the end of your thread. (it's the perfect time to use up the ends of bobbins!)
- baste the seam allowance to the back of each hexie. i leave the pins in from cutting them out, and start on an edge where i can fold the allowance over without having to remove the pins until i've basted at least 2 sides.

you don't need to do a ton of basting stitches, usually just the corners will suffice.

once you've basted all of the sides, make a small knot, clip the thread, and move onto the next one!

Step 4:
- press the crap out of them, and set them aside. if you're worried about scorching your fabric, use a press cloth, but make sure that you press them well.

i should note that this is just how i make hexies. if you google "english paper piecing tutorial", there are TONS of them out there, including videos.

Step 5:
- Grab your 505 spray (or some other brand, but honestly, i haven't found any others that compare), a piece of newspaper or something else to protect your table, your cut out main fabric pieces, and your scraps of cotton batting.

Step 6:
- Spray a portion of the batting, and smooth one of the coaster pieces onto it. Move on to the next piece, protecting the one you just glued down with another piece of newsprint or scrap paper as you spray. Continue spray basting until all of the pieces are adhered.

Step 7:
- Cut out the pieces that you spray basted onto the batting.

Step 8:
- Take the basted hexies that you set aside after step 4. carefully remove your basting stitches and slip the paper template out.

because you pressed the hell out of it, the folds should stay when you remove the paper template.

Step 9:
- Line a hexie up on the front of each batting and main fabric piece. you can eyeball it, but i use a quilting ruler to make sure that it's an equal difference from each edge.

once you're happy with the positioning, pin the hexie in place.

Step 10:
- Thread your sewing machine with thread to match the applique hexie. using a moderate stitch length, stitch the hexie onto the main fabric/batting piece. stitch close to the edge of the applique hexie, and backstitch a few stitches at the beginning and end. if you'd prefer to not backstitch, just pull your threads to the backside and knot them off, but i hate doing that unless i really really have to! repeat until all of the hexies have been appliqued onto all of the coasters.

i found it easiest to adjust the needle position on my machine so that the edge of the hexie lined up with an edge of the walking foot.

Step 11:
- Using the same template pattern that you used for the main fabric, cut out a back piece for each coaster. you can use a single piece of fabric for your backing, or you can stitch together strips of coordinating fabrics and cut your pieces out of that.

Step 12:
- Place a back piece face down on the appliqued front and pin around the edges.

see the yellow pin? pay attention that that!

Step 13:
- If you'd like, set up your machine with thread that matches your main fabric. since my backs were also red, i just stuck with the colour i used for the appliques. start stitching at least 1/4" away from a corner (start where the yellow pin is on the photo above!), and stop a similar distance from the other corner, leaving a space to turn the coaster right side out. use a seam allowance of aproximately 1/4", but it's not the end of the world if it's not exact. i lined mine up with the edge of the walking foot.

Step 14:
- Once all of the fronts and backs are sewn together, clip the corners of each coaster. we're doing this to reduce bulk within the seam allowance once the coaster is turned, but be careful that you don't cut your stitching.

Step 15:
- Turn your coasters right side out. i use a pair of scissors with rounded tips to push the corners out.

to stop myself from pushing the tip through the fabric, i only push from the front, where there's batting to help cushion it.

Step 16:
- Finger press the coaster flat, and turn in the edges of the opening you left. pin the opening closed, and add a pin to each edge to keep the coasters flat and even.

Step 17:
- Using the thread that matches your applique and that contrasts with your main fabric, sew all the way around each coaster. try to sew close to the edge, to make sure that you catch the seam allowances of the opening and stitch it shut.

once again, i've adjusted the needle position on my machine so that the edge of the coaster lines up with the edge of the walking foot.

Step 18:
- After you've stitched the edge of the coaster, move to the middle of the coaster and stitch around the appliqued hexie, about 1/4" away from the hexie.

Step 19:
- Now we're going to fill in the remaining two lines of quilting. you might want to test this on one coaster, maybe even machine baste a few lines, because i really just spaced out my lines of quilting based on needle position. if you're really worried, you could use chalk to mark your quilting lines, but then you'll have to wash it out.

i did one line based on the outside line of stitching, and then centred the last line between the one i just did and the line that echos the applique.

(that sounds confusing to say, but i think it's pretty straightforward when you look at the photo.)

Step 20:
- Pour yourself a drink, cause you're DONE! Didn't i tell you that they're easy-peasy?

whew! did you follow all of that? it's been a while since i've written a tutorial, and technical writing is definately not my forte - which i'm a-ok with, cause technical writing is always a bit boring, don't you think?

let me know if you have ANY questions, and if you make a set of coasters, show me! i wanna see!

Patchwork Holiday Display - lots of pics!

2011-12-26T22:28:00.000-08:00

~~(are you looking for my birthday giveaway? you still have time to enter!)~~

did y'all have a good christmas, if you're the type who celebrates it? if you don't, did you have a good day-that-every-freaking-store-except-t&t-is-closed?

this has been a somewhat more stressful than usual christmas, since i got home a week ago, but it was still good. we had a huge brunch, which included my grandma's traditional pork pies, and the amazing farmer sausage that i brought home from manitoba (and then found at thriftys! i forgot that sobees bought them out. i'd be annoyed, but i'm too happy to have found a local source!). we talked to a million family members on the phone, had a visit from a family friend and met his daughter for the first time, and once we had enough room in our bellies, had a huge turkey dinner. we hung out for a few more hours, and then i came home. i was wiped and intending to go to bed until i saw that Home For The Holidays was on. it's one of my favourite movies of all time, and i hadn't watched it this year. despite the fact that i own a copy (or maybe two), i couldn't resist watching it. needless to say, i didn't get up super early and go shopping for boxing day!

i'm not a big boxing day shopper - i'm not a big shopper, period, unless it's a thrift or a fabric store! but i do appreciate the online sales that start christmas day, and i bought myself a new scanner/printer christmas evening. it scans way faster than my current scanner, which has been on it's last legs, or whatever it is that scanners have, for quite a while now, and officially died last night, so i'm excited to get it. that was good timing!

part of the reason i'm not a big shopper is that i HATE malls - which makes what i'm about to share a bit ironic. a few days before christmas i went to aberdeen centre in richmond to go to Daiso. they had a super fun holiday display, and i couldn't resist taking a bunch of pictures to share with you.

the display is where the mall's photos with santa were taken, and includes giant dolls, a mini gingerbread house, hella cute teacup chairs, christmas trees, a white picket fence and lots of stuffed dolls, clouds and birds hanging above. and everything is PATCHWORK! so cute.

once i was down on the same level as the display, i could read the signs set up around the fence, which showed that the display was display by Chocolate Rain. Chocolate Rain is a jewelery and accessories brand designed by Prudence Mak, a Hong Kong based artist. the name comes from chocolate, something that the artist loves, and rain, something that the artist isn't so fond of. she likes the contrast, and compares it to life.

there were several pieces that incorporated mail imagery - given my love of mail art, i was drawn to them first. they were designed as part of a collaboration with Hong Kong Post, and were what attracted the attention of the British Museum, who carry exclusive Chocolate Rain merchandise.

(there's another one here)

but there were also cute christmas themed illustrations to go along with the mail

of course, the main part of the display was the three large dolls. the dolls are all the same character, Fatina, whose name means "fairy" in Italian. the doll's eyes are always closed because she's always daydreaming.

the vast majority of the materials used are recycled, and that's a big part of Chocolate Rain. Prudence grew up in a low-income family, and her mother worked in a garment factory. her mother would bring home extra fabric, and her grandparents, who were trash collectors, would bring home what they found, and Prudence's mother would sew everything up into clothing and household items. Chocolate Rain also conducts classes using recycled materials to promote DIY, a listing of which can be found on the Chocolate Rain website (which is in HK$, before you faint at the prices!)

in addition to the recycled fabrics, there were also some fabrics that looked to be digitally printed, a la spoonflower, which showed images of Fatina with umbrellas and brightly coloured rain.

and where do you sit while visiting Santa? on patchwork teacups, of course! the furniture was a collaboration between Prudence Mak and a company called Giormani, and it's hella cute.

(those black and white patches on the mushroom pillows? they're the silkscreened patterns used in Chocolate Rain's doll making class)

in addition to the tea cups, the Fatinas, the pillows, etc, there were also a few giant giant teddy bears in the display. they were big and floppy, as you can see! (there's a second bear on flickr as well)

scattered among the trees and behind the main attractions were more illustrations on easels. there are more on my flickr too - here, here and here

so! wasn't that a fun display? much more interesting than the usual Santa's Workshop, don't you think?

more information on Prudence Mak and Chocolate Rain can be found here, here, here and here. The Chocolate Rain website has some english, and the Fatima Dreams website is almost all english, and both are full of info, as you'd expect. there's a fun little e-book illustrated by Prudence Mak that can be downloaded here, or you could check out the craft project worksheets and colouring pages on the english website. and if you're a local, check out the display at Aberdeen Centre, it'll be up until january 3rd!

Birthday Giveaway!!!

2011-12-23T23:18:00.000-08:00

hey! guess what yesterday was? my birthday!

do you give yourself presents for your own birthday? i usually treat myself to something, though more often than not, i end up getting cash from family anyway, so i can justify the treat.

this year i bought myself a cute vintage kitchen table. formica, of course, with a nice wide chrome band. it's still in my car, due to the plumbing issues/kitchen renovation that has yet to start, but i'm very excited! i started eyeing it as soon as i saw it, but it was more than i could justifiably spend on a table, especially when i already have a table, ugly though it may be. my patience was rewarded by a 50% off sale, and i snapped it up! it came back from manitoba with me, disasembled in the back of my car, and sofie seemed to enjoy perching on it during the trip home.

i also gave myself the gift of time - though it hasn't happened yet. my current bag is the one i made in the summer or 09, when handmade nation premiered in vancouver. i've replaced the straps twice now, and it's hanging together by threads.

i've been hoarding my ruby star rising stash to make a bag out of, and i finally decided to try using a pattern, rather than make it up myself. i purchased the noodlehead 241 pattern, which i'm sure you seen around the interwebs, it's ridiculously popular, and i enlarged it, because the original is much too small for all of my crap. of course, i haven't gotten to it yet - so that's my present to myself. i'm setting aside all of the things that i'm super behind on, and i'm going to sew just for myself for a few hours - after xmas, of course!

that's all very interesting, but i'm sure you're wondering "what about my present?" you're not? that's very nice of you! however, i did promise you a giveaway, didn't i?

i meant to get this posted yesterday, on my actual birthday, but i decided to sew up something else to include, and time got away from me. i sewed and relaxed for most of the day, then continued a tradition started last year and went into the city. i stopped by spool of thread and hung out with henry for little bit (still no kona medium grey though, it's backordered. so sad!), and then went to one of my favourite places, rhizome cafe, for dinner with some of my favourite people. my family came, along with treasured friends who i count as family, and it was a really wonderful evening.

and then i went home and sewed up some of the new fabric that i got at spool of thread, just for you!

so here's the giveaway!

you're eyeing the books, aren't you? i don't blame you at all, i was so excited when i found them!

there are three japanese quilting books. they vary in complexity, and are numbered 1-3. the first has simpler projects and the basics of patchwork, the second includes a bit about handquilting, and the third includes more detailed projects, such as hexies and blocks with y-seams. they all have super cute projects in them, and pattern templates printed in the back.

now, the books aren't in english, obviously. they have tons of illustrations, and the measurements for everything are included, so i'm sure you'll be able to figure them out. however, the measurements are in metric, and i know a lot the folks who follow this blog are american, so i'm including a little teddy bear measuring tape that's in centimetres. cute, huh?

i wanted to make something for the giveaway as well, so i went with something useful.

are you surprised? i'm kind of on a coaster kick! i'm still working for a tutorial for the xmas ones, by the way. if it's not up tomorrow, it'll be up right after christmas.

these coasters are a bit different, because i didn't do the appliqued hexies on the front, but i stuck with the hexie shape. i used some of my precious ruby star spring (are you seeing a pattern? i love melody miller's designs!), buzz, in the tomato vine colourway.

the back is part of the same fabric, and i purposely didn't make them all identical, i cut them from various parts of the print, just for variety.

and what did i pick up at spool of thread?

fun, isn't it? i was tempted by this print when it came in, but i wasn't sure what i'd use it for. the scale was perfect for this project, so i finally had an excuse to buy some. it's called love flowers, from the house & home collection by benartex.

i made a little flex frame change purse out of it, topped with black kona, and a matching blue kona for the lining.

i was so excited when i found the flex frame/internal spring frames, i had to use one for the giveway!

and what's a giveaway without sweets? i'm including some canadian chocolate too. i know that some of these can be bought in the states, but trust me, they don't taste the same. i always feel bad for you americans and your chocolate! if the winner is canadian or british, this isn't super exciting, i know, but i'm sure you'll still enjoy it.

so!! giveaway guidelines!!

- leave a comment on this post to enter. tell me something! what birthday traditions do you have? do you get stressed about your age, nervous when you hit the big ones? have you sewn anything for yourself lately? have you ever used a flex frame, or any other kind of frame for purses? have you seen any cool tutorials lately? share a link? are you a fan of melody miller's designs? are you as excited about ruby star shining as i am? typewriters!!!!

- leave another comment if you're a follower, old or new!

- and leave another comment if you link to the giveaway on your blog, on twitter, facebook, etc.

- giveaway ends December ~~30th~~ 31st at midnight, PST. that gives you all a bit of time after the holidays to get caught up on your blog reading. (i'm extending it cause i forgot how many days there were in December!)

have fun!

oh! wanna see my table? here's a peek, from when it was in my grandma's garage -

i love it!

Sew Mama Sew Winner!!

2011-12-18T08:36:00.000-08:00

i'm traveling this weekend, but i wanted to tell you all who won!

thanks to the wonder of random.org...

the winner is Kat!!

Kat's a member oif the FVMQG, and she makes lovely modern quilts. i think i posted one of hers a few months ago after my FVMQG meeting, it was grey with bright colours. fabulous!

you might notice that Kat is no-reply blogger... don't worry, i gave her the lecture! in fact, i gave her the lecture earlier on Friday, before i'd even found out who'd won! she was lucky, since we're in the same guild, i was able to contact her through the guild facebook. but it's a good lesson to anyone else who might be a no-reply blogger - you can't win unless we can contact you!!

go HERE to read more about no-reply bloggers, and to see if you are one!

thanks for playing everyone!

Handmade Ornaments - owls, crosses and paperpiecing (with pattern!)

2011-12-15T22:18:00.000-08:00

looking for my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway? scroll down, or click here!

speaking of the giveaway, ohmygoodness, y'all are leaving such lovely comments on that post! thank you! i'm definitely going to write up a tutorial for it, though it might not be until i'm home next week.

yes, you read that - i'm home next week! yay! i enjoy being out here, but i miss my friends and family, time to myself, and most of all - my own bed. i can talk to friends and family on the phone, and steal a few hours at night for myself, but there's nothing i can do about my bed! sofie and i will both be very happy to get back to it.

it occurred to me that i made holiday ornaments over a month ago, but i've yet to blog them. maybe that should be a new year's resolution.... hmm. anyway.

remember a whole long time ago when i mentioned the Trim The Tree Swap on flickr? i wanted to wait until my ornaments have been received before i blogged about them, but then i got distracted, obviously. and then i started making more, so i figured i might as well blog about them all at the same time.and then i contemplated writing a tutorial for some of them, but that's not going to happen, so i'm thinking i'll meet you half way and share my pattern. cool?

but wait! i'm getting ahead of myself here!

let's talk about the ornaments for the swap. i had three partners that i was crafting for, and because i think thaty's the best part of swapping, i always try to take my partner's likes and dislikes into consideration.

my first partner likes red, green and blue, woodland creatures, nature, and embroidery. after going through her favourites and checking out the mosaic that she made, i saw that she really loved owls. i spent a whole bunch of time looking at different owl projects, and pinterest'd a ton of them, and in the end, used a pattern that i've made before, because i love the end result, and it's totally mailable.

aren't they cute? i used red linen for the bellies, and a stripey green snowflake print for the owls themselves. i figured that way they can be christmassy or they can be wintery, however you prefer to look at it.

the pattern is actually for an owl garland, but i adapted it to make individual ornaments as well back when i made them in 2008. if you were on craftster.org back then, you probably recognize the pattern, they were super popular that christmas. the tutorial is by moonstitches, who also has a tutorial for cute little stuffy owls.

i posted them in the flickr group and asked which owl people likled best, and my partner liked the one on the bottom right, with the white eyes. i kinda think the upper right one looks evil, what do you think?

my second parter didn't make a mosaic of ornaments that she liked, so it was a bit harder to figure out what to make for her! however, she did say that she liked red and white, and after going through her favourites, i saw that she liked this cross pincushion made with teensy little wonky crosses.

i decided to use the red linen to incorporate a bit of contrast, and white kona. there's a layer of cotton batting, and as you can see, the backing is a neat red print that i found at the thrift. i made the ornament when i was out here in november, without rotary cutting tools or my own sewing machine, and i decided to embrace the wonkiness inherent in hand cutting strips of fabric.

i did a bit of hand quilting inside the crosses, and machine quilted on the linen. i like the combination of hand and machine.

and then because i LOVED how that one came out, i made myself an ornament with just one wonky cross. i bound them both in strips of white kona.

i combined hand and machine quilting in this ornament as well.

i was really happy with how they turned out, though i think that my binding was a bit too wide.

and my third partner! i struggled a bit with hers too, just because i really didn't see any patterns in her favourites or mosaic, any particular thing that she really loved. she said that she liked teal, burnt orange, and red, and that her tree was very eclectic tree. she preferred ornaments that are a bit funky, and is attracted to modern and scandinavian designs.

i decide to use one the shapes commonly used for vintage ornaments, and make it a little funky by (somewhat) freehand paperpiecing it. i made two ornaments using shades of orange, both solids and prints, and white kona, and again posted them to the flickr group asking which people liked best. she was super busy and didn't have a chance to comment on it (which i sooo understand), so i sent her the one with the most burnt orange in it.

i used christmassy fabric for the back of one of them, and the same folky red print as the cross ornaments for the second.

i didn't do hand quilting on these ones, just machine quilting, but i really like how the quilting emphasizes the curve of the shape.

so those were the swap ornaments!

and then i decided to make some more paperpieced ornaments. i have three more started, but these are the only two that i've finished so far. i wanted to try using a single fabric for the ornaments, and i like how that worked too.

i fussy cut the ornament fabric so that the snowflake would be centred, and i like the little bit towards the "neck" of the ornament too. i backed it with a super cute mitten print that i think is from the same fabric line... maybe. i might be wrong. robert kaufman, a few years ago? i'm not sure.

speaking of the "neck", i changed how i did the little hanger portion too. i used silver fabric, to look more like the usual ornament top. it's the same fabric used on ironing boards, and it worked perfectly. i also used white yarn, but that's just because i forgot my white ribbon at home and raided my grandma's yarn stash out of desperation!

i fussy cut the second one as well, and this particular print had the benefit of the stripes giving the appearance of piecing even though it was a single fabric.

i backed it with fabric from the same line, which is a bit more peachy than it comes across in the pictures.

so! do you like my ornaments? do you want to make your own?

here's the template i drew up -

if you open a word file, change your margins to narrow and set it to landscape, you can fit three upright patterns across the top of the page, and two sideways patterns across the bottom, with plenty of space around them to cut them out. and here's a sideways version, for anyone who doesn't have photo editing software to turn it themselves.

you can see that the ornament has four distinct sections - the top, the centre, and the two sides. piece the centre, then add the solid strips along the sides. piece the top, then sew it to the bottom three sections. does that make sense?

when you're piecing the background, you'll need to use multiple pieces, each with a slightly different angle, to maintain the curves. if you're not sure, click on any of my pictures above and go to flickr, where you can see the photos larger by clicking on "actions" then "view all sizes". clear as mud, right? on that same note, if you'd like to download the original size pattern, view all sizes and click on "original", then right click and save.

i wouldn't suggest these for your very first paperpiecing project, but don't be intimidated by the curves either!

if you make one, i'd love to see it!

Giveaway Time!! Xmas Coasters!!

2011-12-13T20:20:00.000-08:00

it’s giveaway day! or rather, giveaway week, which i gotta say, makes me SO happy! i really like the changes Sew Mama Sew has added this year. a whole week to visit blogs, and a set ending time? so awesome!

(Sew Mama Sew is facilitating hundreds of giveaways, you definitely have to go check it out. they have six separate lists, Handmade for the Home, Handmade Baby + Kid Items, Handmade Bags, Handmade Accessories, Sewing Supplies, and Other Craft Supplies (Non-Sewing). all the lists are organized with giveaways that allow international shipping first, and giveaways that are host country-only shipping second, which is super handy for those of us who aren't in the US.)

so hi! if you’re a new visitor, welcome, if you’re a regular reader, you already know that you’re loved, don’t you? but welcome to you too, in case you were wondering.

i’m amy dame, and this is glitter, vinyl and thread. i’ve contemplated changing the name, since i haven’t worked with vinyl in a while now, but who knows, i might find time to get back to it one day. besides, i hate thinking of names, i’m terrible at it. new guests and regular visitors might like to check out my "about me" page, over there on the right. it's kinda long, so feel free to skim. i tend to babble.

i do a lot of different things, but for the past year and a half, i’ve been obsessed with quilting. i’m on the exec for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and a member of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild, and i love it! i also do hand and machine embroidery, make clothing, and occasionally do more art focused pieces. i've been blogging here for more than 4 years now.

i also think it’s awesome that the Sew Mama Sew giveaways didn’t have to start on monday, because i’m obviously late. that’s really no surprise, but i have an excuse this time!

i’m away from home, again, halfway across the country, hanging out with my grandma. she’s been having some health issues, and shouldn’t really be alone, so i’ve spent much of the past 6 weeks here.

my sewing time has been limited, and my internet time has been even more so, so i totally forgot about the giveaway until blog posts started appearing in my inbox yesterday morning. i contemplated skipping it, but really, what’s the fun in that?

so i decided to sew up a set of coasters, which was the perfect excuse to use this kickass Alexander Henry xmas print that i picked up last month. i made a set of these last week for a swap, and when i made this set, i took a whole bunch of pictures, thinking that i might do a tutorial for them....

if you're interested. would you be interested in a tutorial? i guess you have to see what they look like before you decide, huh?

like 'em?

here's an action shot.

(disclaimer - the winner doesn't get my grandma's christmas mug, that was just a prop. you probably didn't want it anyway, but just in case...)

there are 6 hexagon shaped coasters. they each have a red linen hexie appliqued on the top, and cotton quilt batting to protect your furniture.

the backs are made up of the red linen, the green owl fabric, and a darker red Kona cotton.

see?

wanna win them?

here's the rules!

* this giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY! yay!

* you must post a comment on this thread to enter.

* the winner will be chosen via random generator, though i'll give you fair warning - if your comment is just something along the lines of "pick me!", the random generator might be chosing a different winner... cause that's boring. i know you're going to hundreds of blogs, but half the fun is looking around a bit!

* you don't have to become a follower or tweet or anything fancy like that to enter (though you could become a follower if you wanted to! or sign up for the handy-dandy e-mail feed! check back soon for another version of the coasters, and another giveaway for my birthday next week!)

* if you're participating in the Giveaway Day/Week and doing a giveaway yourself, leave me a second comment with a link to your giveaway. you get two entries because you're special!! yay!

* the giveaway is open until december 16 at 5pm PST

(the rules are almost exactly the same as the last giveaway, cause that worked!)

that's it! same as last time, leave me a comment about something fun... tell me what your last project was, tell me what you listen to while you're sewing/quilting/crafting/creating. tell me what you're excited about making next, what awesome book you just read, what new blog you just discovered, or what new fabric line you can't wait to order. tell me if you'd like a tutorial for the coasters! tell me what else you'd like to see a tutorial for. tell me something that'll make me glad that you stopped by. ;)

good luck!

xo,
amy

WIP Wednesday and Stress, Stress, Stress

2011-11-30T23:55:00.000-08:00

i started to write a post, and it turned into a whole long page of ranting, and i thought, you guys don't want to read that, i don't even want to read it!

so short form (well, as short as i can get) - the grandma that i originally went out to visit in the hospital was doing well, but the day she was released, my other grandma fainted for the second time in 5 days, so we took her to the hospital. she shouldn't really be on her own at the moment, but the hospital sent her home after one night because they needed the bed and because my uncle was supposed to stay with her, but then he decided that she was fine and went back to work, so i've come back out here to stay with her for a few weeks. i'm the oldest in my family, and the oldest grandchild on both sides, so care often falls to me, and given my health stuff and my disability status, everything thinks i'm free to handle it, whether it's true or not!

my dad and i were supposed to come out together, but he was stuck way up north in a mining camp where the satellite phone costs $12.50 a minute for over a week, so i had to wait for him. the roads were terrible, it was storming, the friend he was with had to be taken by ambulance to the closest hospital, 10 or 15 hours away (very very remote!), andf it was generally a giant pain in the ass. they finally made it home on friday, thank goodness, and after a few days of scrambling to get things done, we left home and headed out east.

in addition to all of the above, i'd also had a plumbing nightmare which no one in the building seemed to know what to do about, and the guy who lives above me refused to stop using his kitchen pipes because it wasn't "his problem", so one day he ran his dishwasher and flooded my kitchen purposely. so then i had to empty out my entire kitchen before i left, including furniture, and find room elsewhere in my apartment for my refrigerator, because my kitchen floor has to all be pulled up, "biowashed", whatever that means, and relaid while i'm away.

ao basically, i've been super stressed for weeks now, and i'm massively behind on a million things. i had my Trim the Tree Swap ornaments finished before the deadline, but didn't manage to mail them until they were a week late. (but they're mailed now!! yay!!) i have the potholder swap between VMQG and FVMQG to start and finish asap, and i'm behind on my blocks for the Unscripted bee, as well as lots of other little projects (like Habitat, which is totally late). i haven't caught up on blogs in ages, and i have tons of e-mails and messages to respond to. i tried to switch over to the e-mail client on my laptop, since i have it with me here, but for some reason it'll receive e-mails but can't send them, but i'm going to ignore that issue for the night!

but would you like to see something i've been working on? since this is supposed to be WIP Wednesday, not Whining Wednesday?

hexies!!

(that looks blurry, doesn't it? i uploaded a small sized photo because i keep losing my wifi connection... maybe tomorrow i'll be able to upload the bigger file!)

i started working on these at the beginning of our trip, and by the time i arrived tonight, i had 35 done. slow, yes, but i slept a lot on the way out here too! i printed out a few sheets of hexagon templates before i left, (from the first link on this page) and have been puttering away. i'm not sure if i have too many or too few, but i'll start laying them out tomorrow and i'll figure that out then. for now, i'm just admiring the little pile i here beside me, with their cfrisp little folds and corners. aren't they pretty?

i'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced, and hopefully tommorrow the neightbours wifi will be strong enough to let me check out some of the others!

Wonky Rainbow Stars - WIP

2011-11-24T14:32:00.001-08:00

hey, remember last week's WIP Wednesday?

thanks for all your feedback everyone! i decided to go with the layout on the right, though i switched the order of the colours around a bit to provide more contrast.

what i didn't mention last week is that this design is actually for a bee-style quilt, with multiple people making the blocks. since it's not just me, going with the flow, i've spent some time this past week drawing them out and writing up instructions, and then testing them to make sure that my math was correct!

this is an example of one of the blocks -

i've pasted that image into a word document, and then added written instructions below, and hopefully it's understandable...

the background fabric for the blocks is Kona Medium Grey, and i picked up all that Spool of Thread had left last week (they should have more now). it’s a pretty common colour in modern quilting, which is why i've never used it (on a similar note, i still haven't seen the titanic, and i refused to watch friends until years after it ended. i'm perverse, i know.), but the rainbow colours really pop nicely against it.

the blocks will be scrappy, made up of tone-on-tone prints. i hauled all of my tone-on-tones to the VMQG sew-in last weekend, and spent a bunch of time piling up fabric and deciding what colours should go where. it was fun to be surrounded by such cheerful fabrics!

since then, i've stitched up some blocks to test my instructions, and i've gotta say, i'm loving how they're coming together.

orange. since this is the only orange block in the quilt, i could use more shades in the block. for the greens, blues and purples, there can't be as much variety or the blocks won't have enough contrast compared to the other blocks of the same colour. however, my oranges are not really that yellow in real life, i did keep a bit of contrast!

yellow. there are three of these big stars in the quilt, and they're a super quick block to whip together!

aqua/turquoise. for this block, i really tried to stay away from the true blues and the light, sky or baby blues that the other two blocks will be, but i also switched the colours around a bit in the quilt itself so that the darker block will seperate the two lighter blocks.

plummy purple. going through my stash, i found two very seperate shades of purple - one with a blue base, like a rich royal purple, and one with a red base, plummy tones like i used in this block.

and pink. since there's only one pink block, like the red, orange and yellow, i was able to use more shades of pink. this block has some of my favourite prints in it, like the pink woodgrain.

don't they look yummy together?

i think i'm obsessed with rainbow quilts right now... i keep thinking of more to make!

not much to update for WIP wednesday!

2011-11-16T18:55:00.001-08:00

hello blogland!

so, what's new? what did i miss? i highly doubt i'll manage to get caught up right away, so if you posted something fun that you think i should see, pop me an e-mail, kay?

like i said in my last post, i've been away. i actually stayed with relatives who have internet for part of my trip, but i didn't find much time for the computer. i visited one grandma in the hospital most days, did a little bit of thrifting, spent time with most of my relatives, but especially an aunt and uncle that i don't usually get to see much of, ignored my grandfather's incessant nagging and grouchiness, went to a mini reunion with second and third cousins who i haven't seen in years, searched my grandma's house for family photos to scan, and on the day that i was supposed to leave, took my other grandma to the hospital, rescheduled our flights, and sat there all day waiting for test results. it was an eventful trip!

i also managed to sew quite a bit, which is really the biggest reason why i didn't use the computer - when i wasn't spending time with family or sleeping, i was sewing. i tried one grandma's machine, which was an annoying singer that was high shank and took weird bobbins, so none of my supplies would work, plus it had crappy tension, then i hauled my other grandma's machine out of the basement, an old kenmore that will probably work well if it was serviced, but is all seized up now, and finally borrowed a cheapy brother from one of my aunts. it was very basic, and occasionally skipped stitches, but was my best bet by far.

i finished up my ornaments for the Trim The Tree Ornament Swap on flickr, and a few others beside, and i'll post them soon. i'm going to go mail them tonight. i also started on a mini quilt, and worked on a couple of hand work projects, but none of them are finished yet. which is okay, because today's wednesday, which means WIP Wednesday!

this is one of the hand projects that i'm still working on -

before i left, i was working on a tree skirt for my parents, based on Monica Solorio-Snow of Happy Zombie's tutorial/quiltalong posted on Sew Mama Sew back in october. i have the top finished, and need to spray baste it. it's made using a vintage holiday tablecloth, and red linen, so i think it needs the added stability of spray basting.

i'm pretty happy with it so far, and impatient to finish it up.

i had a few finishes before i left, the Bleach Discharge Bats wall quilt, and my Outfoxed "Improv is Foxy" quilt. as for the rest of my WIPs.... nothing to report!!

as for recent finishes, i plotted out a quilt today. i started doing it on the plane, but got tired of the guy in front of me leaning back and making it impossible to open my laptop entirely! i finished it up this afternoon after a nap in my own bed with my Sofie-bean (sooo good!).

which do you like better?

i'm linking up to WIP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced - don't forget to go check out some of the other projects linked up!

i'm stressed. just a bit. and babbling.

2011-11-01T07:03:00.000-07:00

it's 6:20 in the morning, and i'm wide awake. i know WEIRD, right? i am so not a morning person.

however, since i've been lying in bed for hours stressing out, i decided i might as well get up. i'm leaving on a trip in oh, about 48 hours, and i am so far from being prepared that it's frightening. i'm not worried about clothes, i'll throw them all in my suitcase at the last minute, and inevitably i'll have to do a walmart run for something i've forgotten, or because my socks aren't warm enough, but i do know that i have a winter coat out there, so if the -3 projected turns into -30 (as it did one trip in march! brr!) i'll be covered. if it sticks with -3, i'll be boiling my head off, as the aforementioned vintage coat is wool with fur lining. yes, wool AND fur. there's a reason why it's never come out to the coast to live! but really, -3 is hoodie weather out there anyway, because it's a DRY COLD. people from the coast have no idea what we're talking about when we say that because they're so accustomed to the damp cold that soaks into their bones and doesn't let up until june, but really, wet and dry colds are very different.

anyway. wow, i'm rambly this morning. i'd edit, but i'm kind of amused by it.

(it's okay that i tell the internet that i'm going away, because someone will be house sitting the whole time, and besides, sofie is a ferocious guard cat, didn't you know? ha! she'll be hiding in the closet, i'm sure. however, the house sitting part is true, even if the guard cat part isn't)

back on point! i'm not worried about clothing, but i AM worried about projects. i don't know what to take! i don't know how much time i'll have to work on things, it might be very little time, or it might be a ton of time, depending on how much time i'll be sitting in my grandma's hospital room bored senseless. though i suppose i won't be as bored as she is, since she's already been there for a month and has 2 more weeks to go. i feel like i should bring multiple projects, but that means prepping multiple projects, which requires time. i have a couple of never ending projects that are somewhat prepped, but there are more urgent things on my to-do list. and i have to bring the supplies for christmas ornaments for the Trim the Tree Swap on flickr, but they require a sewing machine, so they're not as portable as handwork.

i've also been thinking about a mini quilt that i'd like to work on that will incorporate embroidery, but it also requires that i find my copy of Word Play Quilts, and i have no flipping idea where that is.

plus, there's always the "do i really want to explain this project to family members?" issue, which is why i won't be stitching the bloggess sampler while i'm there!

or the personal letters project. or the feminism project that i'd been planning. or the imagery from the Collective Tarot that i've been dying to stitch. or Andrea Zuill's fat lady. thankfully, the Louis Riel portrait is finished, because that one SO wouldn't have been family appropriate!

jeez, my family's a pain in the ass when it comes to picking embroidery projects. at this rate i might be making hexies for two weeks straight.

but anyway, i've rambled long enough that i can get dressed and go to the grocery store now, so i'll stop. however, everyone knows that a post without a picture is pretty much the most boring thing ever, so here you go.

this is my inspiration mosaic for the Trim the Tree Handmade Ornament Swap. i'm not going to tell you how long it took me to narrow all of my "favourites" down to those. trust me, you don't want to know. but aren't they fun? i can't decide what my absolute favourite is, but i have to tell you HOW FREAKING EXCITED i was to find that holiday themed typewriter advertisement. that's bloody cool, even though it's for an electric typewriter. maybe i'll find a new typewriter while thrifting on this trip!?! that would be awesome, since the typewriter luck wasn't with me this summer. let's hope that the pyrex/fire king luck isn't as good this time though, cause it's a bitch to bring home on the plane.

hey! i just looked at the weather network and snow is only forecast 2 days of the 12 days that i'll be gone! that's no fair! does that it mean it's not worth the suitcase space to bring my fancy new winter boots? damn. last year i decided to suck it up and be a grown up and buy a pair of real winter boots - no platforms, no fake fur, no high heels, practical, warm, winter boots that will probably last me my entire life if i don't lose them first and won't kill my back to wear. since i usually wear my crocs slingbacks with thick socks as long as the snow isn't too deep, the winter boots are a definite step up. maybe i'll compromise and bring hightops.

(also, i JUST figured out how to do spellcheck on blogger! jeez, that was easy! i always write my posts in the "html" setting, because i'm so used to writing my own code, but if you write it in the "compose" setting, there are so many options available! my goodness. maybe i should start getting up at 5am more often!)

Bleach Discharge BATS!

2011-10-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!!

i've been saving this to post today!

this quilt isn't really my style. for one thing, it's brown. weird, huh?

but i just couldn't resist playing with this technique.

this entire quilt front is one fabric. just one. not two colourways of the same print, the exact same fabric.

i precut the squares for the front, and then used a bleach and water solution in a regular household spray bottle to remove the colour. i used rubber bats as stencils, and because they didn't lay entirely flat against the fabric, the bleach hit each fabric square differently, depending on the angle i held the spray bottle at.

for the words, i printed the letters out onto freezer paper, cut them out, and ironed them on before spraying. you can tell that i didn't rinse the fabric well enough before i sewed it together and pressed it, because the heat of the iron made a bit more colour discharge than i'd really wanted.

i sandwiched the wall quilt with cotton batting, and i didn't think, but i should have used a synthetic batting so that it wouldn't shrink as much. oh well!

i quilted free hand around each bat shape and around the letters. i really like how you can see how different each bat is from the back!

i did zigzag quilting through the sashing, and quilted in the ditch around each square and the larger sashing. i used some of the extra bleached fabric for the hanging sleeve, corner bits and the label.

as usual, machine embroidered label. note that it says september 2010!

i did the majority of this quilt last year, but i never got around to binding it. somehow, as months passed, the extra fabric for the binding got separated from the quilt itself, and they were put away into two different WIPs bins (yes, i have two. it's ridiculous, i know) when i did a big studio clean up a few months ago, i came across both, and took them with me to Krista's retreat at the beginning of the month.

i managed to get the binding attached at the retreat, and fused down, and a few weeks later i added the hanging sleeve and stitched it all down. it's finally done. yay!!

i'm linking up to {Sew} Modern Monday. this doesn't feel super modern to me, but i think that the discharge technique is... so i'm including it. modern's subjective anyway, right? i probably should have linked up my Sherbet Pips quilt instead, but come one, it's HALLOWEEN!! you should pop over to Canoe Ridge Creations and check out Megan's pumpkin!

i'm also linking up to Maniac Monday over at Sew Happy Geek! Jenna's had some great guest posters while she's been recovering, along with some fabulous tutorials. my favourites are Sarah's paperpieced spider web placemat tutorial and Jess's patchwork Terrain skirt.

Sherbet Pips Strips - Bloggers' Quilt Festival!!

2011-10-30T00:13:00.000-07:00

hi! welcome to everyone who's popped over from Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

new guests and regular visitors might like to check out my brand new "about me" page, over there on the right. it's kinda long, so feel free to skim. i tend to babble.

the short version is - hi, i'm amy dame. i've done almost every type of craft imaginable, except knit, but through it all, there's been sewing. about a year and a half ago i got back into quilting hardcore, thanks to the MQG. i'm on the exec for Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and i'm a member of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild, and the quilting bug doesn't seem to be waning! i also do hand and machine embroidery, make clothing, and occasionally do more art focused pieces. i've been blogging here for a bit more than 4 years, and i'm terribly embarassed by the quality of the photos in my older posts. remember when we thought those were good?!

thank goodness digital cameras have improved!

unfortunately, technology doesn't always guarantee good help.

(what a wimp, it wasn't raining that hard!)

i kind of wanted to use my Foxy Improv quilt for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, but really, i JUST posted it! i know that's okay, but i figured something that i hadn't shown yet would be more interesting for regular visitors.

so Sherbet Pips it is!

this is a simple quilt, but i wanted it to be. this summer i felt like i'd been working on too many stressful, deadline based projects. (the largest one being my quilt for the art show, obviously). i'd purchased quarter yard cuts of a bunch of Sherbet Pips prints for no other plan than to make something for myself. (i'm sure most of you can emphasize!) i never used to make quilts that were all the same fabric line, but i fell in love with how cute this line was, and i just couldn't resist!

i knew i wanted to make a strip quilt. i originally plotted it out in photoshop and it was a very fancy strip quilt.

impressive, but damn, i so didn't have the energy for all that. by this point, i wanted EASY!

so i redesigned it.

i thought about adding solids, but none of the Konas actually matched very well, so i stuck with white. this is actually the first quilt i've made with this much white. it's commonly used in modern quilting - that's exactly why i've avoided it! (i have a tendancy to be perverse)

i love the quilting on this quilt. i did enough straight line quilting to remove the basting pins, and then i went back in and did the curved, swervy lines. i like the contrasts.

i used Aurifil 50wt for the quilting because i didn't really want the white thread to stand out on the prints and it worked perfectly.

someone in my guild told me later that my quilting on this had inspired her when she couldn't decide how to quilt something, and it was so awesome to hear. it wasn't super fancy quilting, but it was perfect for her project. we need to tell people when they inspire us more often!

i saved one of my quarter yard cuts for the binding, and i'm so glad i did. the scarf print gave a fabulous stripey effect.

before i made the back i plotted out another strip quilt pattern, for a baby quilt this time, and set these strips aside. then i pieced the back using what remained of my scraps, a large section of one print (i accidentally ordered two quarter yard cuts of the same fabric - the perils on online shopping!), a teensy bit of white and a large piece of red flannelette from my stash.

ignore the fact that my sister is attempting to use the quilt as an umbrella, though not quite as obviously as in the photo at the top. focus instead on my AWESOME BOLER that's finally home!! it's still a disaster inside, but it's fabulous anyways! cleaning it out and fixing it up is my winter project.

i love the way flannelette quilts up, it's so yummy.

i made one of my usual machine embroidered labels for the quilt. pretty simple, just the title of the Quilt, my name, location, date; and the snail.

i've never had a label go this wonky before. hmm. of course, i didn't realize it until AFTER i'd quilted it all.it doesn't look that bad in the photo, it's really only noticable on the left side, but it's definitely wonkier in real life.

a bit of a close up. i scanned a piece of one of the fabrics and digitized an embroidery design based on one of the tiny little snails. isn't it cute? that's also the first time i've tried one of the fill stitch patterns that are in my digitizing software (the design sewn into the snail shell), it was fun. i included a portion of selvedge in the label, since the entire quilt is one fabric line.

i hope you're enjoying the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! make sure you go over and check out some of the hundreds of amazing quilts being shown, and maybe you'll find yourself a few new blogs to fall in love with!

{edit to add}
i'm also linking up to Maniac Monday over at Sew Happy Geek, just for the hell of it!

Glittery Top Hats

2011-10-28T23:47:00.000-07:00

thank you so much for the expressions of sympathy on my last post, and the sweet messages and phone calls. both of my parents read that post, and that means they read the comments as well, so thank you from them too. yesterday we spent some time looking through photos and remembering the stupid things that Hemi used to do. tears are a bit easier to take when they're interspersed with laughter.

i thought i'd post something a little more upbeat and festive today. and what's more upbeat and festive than RED GLITTER?!!??!!

i posted my skeleton stuffie last week, and you all got to see his dapper little hat, but what you didn't know is that his was a mini version of my mini hat.

(this lovely photo was taken by Holly at the guild meeting. i was purposely keeping my mouth shut!)

i found this awesome tutorial on sheblogssheblogs and thought WHY did i never think of that? it's so easy and cute! totally a project that you can whip up quickly, if you've left things to the last minute. (who me?) i was only going to make a hat for myself, to wear to our october guild meeting, but then Krista was rather upset that my skeleton was going to be naked, so i decided that he needed a hat too. so we matched.

his

mine!

so, we don't have Hobby Lobby or Jo-anns here, and the prices at canadian Michaels stores are a good 2-3 times higher than they are across the border, minimum, which annoys me to no end, and means that i avoid going to Michaels unless it's totally necessary.

for this project, it was totally necessary! i found a whole pack of glitter foam at Dollarama for $2, enough that you could probably make 10 hats in all different colours. but i really really wanted bright red glitter! so to Michaels i went, and i used my 40% off coupon for a $2 or $3 sheet of foam, which seems kind of ridiculous, in retrospect... but hey, 40% of $3 covered the little glitter spider that i used to decorate it, so don't knock it!

i couldn't find glitter foam that wasn't self adhesive, and that, frankly, felt like a curly haired nightmare, so i carefully stuck the foam to very lightweight black lining material before i cut out the pattern pieces. i thought about felt, because i had some in my stash, but it seemed like it would be too thick, and i was worried that quilting cotton would fray, but the lining was perfect. if you had lining that matched the foam, you could use that instead of black, it just seemed easier to use a colour that wouldn't show up against my hair, rather than trying to match the exact shade of red.

the tutorial calls for hair clips, and i actually went to multiple dollar stores searching for clips like the ones shown, and then i got home and thought "why don't i just attach it to a headband like that fascinator thingy i made awhile ago?" duh amy. so i cut a piece of black grosgrain ribbon, singed the ends, and glued the edges onto the bottom of the hat. i can slide a thin headband through it, and it fits perfectly on my head.

it's not too pretty, but it worked.

i dug through my stash and found some halloween ribbon (from michaels maybe, or fabricland? can't remember), a couple different kinds of feathers that i ordered a million years ago when i was doing burlesque costuming (from here, i think), black sequins on a string, and one of 6 glittery spiders that i picked up at a dollar store. i swore at my glue gun quite a few times, but things finally did what i wanted, and i'm pretty happy with the outcome!

and for good measure, here's another action shot taken by Holly. thank you so much for your awesome pictures Holly!

sad post.

2011-10-27T01:04:00.000-07:00

it's been a rough 6 weeks for my family.

i know that some people have pets, and that's it, they're just pets. for us, our animals are part of our family. i can't fathom it being any different. i have my sofie-bean who lives with me, she's my baby, and then there are the cats at my parent's house. i spend so much time over there that i love them to pieces too. Mika is the oldest, he joined the family when i was still in high school, then Gigi, who came a few years later. Hemi came after i'd moved out, though i moved back in for a few years when i first started having health problems, so i lived with him too. the cats are all technically family, other than my Sofie, none of them were specifically any certain person's cat, but anyone who's ever loved a cat knows that they have a mind of their own!

in mid-september, we said goodbye to Gigi. Gigi was my mom's baby, she loved my mom the best. she came to us from a family that bred rhodesian ridgebacks, fairly hyper dogs, and had quite a few extremely hyper kids. on top of the hyperness, her mom was a barn cat, and Gigi never outgrew her skittish nature. most people never even knew that we had her, she hid whenever anyone came over, but she visited mom in bed every night at bedtime, and slept in a basket by their bed.

she was very dignified, very sleek, and very elegant. her nose was always damp like a puppy's, she was much heavier than she looked because she was pure muscle, she purred her head off when you rubbed her belly and hid her head in your elbow or your armpit because it was less scary if she couldn't see you. her paws were a special shade of grey with a silver overtone that always reminded me of fog and thus, carl sandburg's poem, so one of her nicknames was "fog feet". when she was a kitten, she and Mika were best friends. they'd sleep curled together, and Mika was attached by a dog once when he tried to rescue her from the neighbour's yard.

Gigi started getting sick in the spring, and we took her to the vet, and they did a whole bunch of tests and exams, and gave her medicine, but we knew that our time with her was limited. she was still happy and loving and affectionate, but by mid september, she was obviously in pain, and it was time. she was 12 years old in the spring, which for animals in our family, is only middle age. (my childhood cat, Robert, passed away when he was 21 or 22.) it was hard, but we knew that her time was coming, and we had time to get used to the idea of losing her.

on tuesday night, we lost Hemi. it was completely unexpected, and the only word i can think of is devastated. we are completely devastated. i was there when we found him, and i've never seen my dad so heartbroken. Hemi was such a character, which such a unique personality, that it still doesn't seem real that he's gone.

Hemi's name came from his extra toes - like my Sofie, he was a Hemingway cat, a polydactyl, and because ever since he was a kitten, he's purred his head off and sounded like a hemi engine. my parents adopted him from a local animal rescue, and after they adopted him, they called me and told me that there was another cat there that i had to come see - my Sofie-bean. he was one week younger than Sofie, so not the same litter, but likely the same father, since they came from the same house, and are both hemingway cats. he was 8 and a half years old, so young.

Hemi was my dad's baby, his best bud. he hung out around dad outside and "supervised" whatever project he was working on, and loved having naps with him. dad would call "bedtime!" and Hemi would come running. he was the friendliest, dopiest, most mellow cat you'd ever meet. he trusted everyone, and wasn't scared of anything (except babies. crawling babies really freaked him out!). he was practically impossible to take good pictures of, because they usually turned out blurry like the one above, and he was so dark. he always wanted attention, and though he loved dad best, he wasn't too picky about who he got his attention from. because he wasn't scared of strangers, and always came to check them out, visitors to our home fell in love with him immediately. he was definitely not that bright, we used to joke that he should have been a dog, but we loved him even when he couldn't find the treat that he was standing on top of. which was even funnier because he was such a piggie - after the other cats ate their breakfast, he's go back and finish off their bowls every time.

he was so handsome, with his long fur and we called him "fluffbucket" a lot of the time. i used to slide him around on the kitchen floor, teasing that he was a good broom. he needed to be combed daily, because he adored galivanting around outside and getting burrs and knots in his fur. he liked being combed, as long as he didn't have too many knots, and he'd come running when you shook his comb. his favourite thing to do outside was roll around in dirt like a horse, then get up and rub the dust all over your ankles.

he spent a lot of time flopped in various places around the house sleeping. he was completely comfortable and trusting anywhere he was, but his favourite position was sprawled on his back on my parent's bed. in the picture above, he's made himself comfortable between a suitcase and laundry basket, completely unconcerned. every night he "came to bed", and crawled under the blanket with my dad for a little while. when i housesat back in september, if i didn't lift the blanket for him to crawl under it, he would pat my cheek with his paw until i did. he did the same thing if you sat on the couch and didn't pet him, he'd come up and sit on the arm beside you. if you ignored his gentle pats, they would get progressively harder until his claws came out! as much as he loved attention, he hated to be held. he prefered to be beside you, or on the back of the couch above you, but sometimes he would sit on my dad's legs.

he and Mika were best buddies. Mika would give him baths, though that usually ended in a playful scrap. the two of them slept peacefully on the same bed, and ganged up on Gigi together, the jerks. he was still a kitten in so many ways, and absolutely adored/hated catnip toys and playful wrestling on the floor.

he was so FLOUFY! his tongue was such a bright pink compared to his black fur, and his fur was so black on his back that it looked green in the sunlight, though it was brown on his belly. his ears would get bent back from him rolling around or us petting him, and he wouldn't even notice until a few minutes later when he'd shake his head really fast and they'd make a "whap whap" sound as they fell back into place.

he had two extra toes, one on each of his front paws, so he looked like he was wearing mittens. his paws were so soft and silky compared to his fluffy fur, so we referred to them as his velvet mittens. he hated it when you petted them, but we couldn't resist.

we're going to miss our bratsky so much. my poor Hem-Hem. he was such a huge personality, and he was so loved.

i'm behind on e-mails and comments and blog posts, because i've been spending time with my family, and i'm still sick (though better), so i've been sleeping a lot. on a positive, thankful note, Sofie has been SUPER affectionate. i'm not sure if she knows that i'm sad, or if she just missed me since she's been hiding from me and my coughing for a week, but either way, i appreciate it!

i have an idea. and i need your help!

2011-10-24T06:05:00.000-07:00

i know i don't usually post about quilts until i can at least post a WIP picture, but this time, i'm posting before i even choose the fabrics!

i have an idea for a baby quilt, partially using Sonja's amazing Winter Critter's paperpiecing pattern that was published in the Nov/Dec issue of Quiltmaker, and partially using patchwork letters. i plan on using the full tree and the raccoon, and possibly the two birds at the bottom, but leaving off the higher branch and the squirrel. i want to fill that large space with a quote of some sort. i'm not sure if i'll paperpiece the letters, improv piece them, etc, but i won't do them too wonky, i want them to match stylistically with the raccoon.

this is where you come in. i need to find the perfect quote!

my first thought was to find a quote about curiousity, because raccoons are incredibly curious animals, and curiousity is such an invaluable trait, but i'm now that i've spent some time searching around for quotes, i'm not as tied to that idea.

i'm looking for a quote aimed at a child. i don't want it to have confusing language, or require a lot of explanation from a parent once the child is older. there are a lot of really amazing quotes out there, but i can't imagine explaining the language in them to a 3 year old! i don't want it to be faith-based, and i'd like to be able to credit the quote on the quilt label, so if it's a "real" quote, and not just a phrase stuck on a picture for tumblr purposes, that's preferable! also, there are great quotes out there by people who have questionable stuff connected to them, so i'd like to avoid that. walt disney, for instance. (i was going to link to something there, explaining why so many people don't want their kids exposed to disney, but when i went to google and typed in "disney is", 10 different reasons came up! so i'm guessing you can figure it out if you want to.) i want it to be a life lesson sort of thing, if possible... anything connected to creativity would be awesome, but it's not limited to that.

it might seem like i'm being picky. am i being picky? i just want to find the PERFECT quote!

i've spent ridiculous amounts of time watching the food network/history network and searching pinterest. a RIDICULOUS amount of time. plus, i bet anyone who was following me for crafty purposes is really bored right now, i've pinned more than 200 quotes because i got a bit distracted and started pinning all the quotes that i liked, whether they'd work for this or not!

anyway, here are the ones i've found that i like....

Source: blog.workisnotajob.com via Amy on Pinterest

i adore this quote, but i don't know what the source is. i need to e-mail and ask. i tried googling it and i did find a quote with the same first line, but fairly different ending.

Source: flickr.com via Amy on Pinterest

Source: etsy.com via Amy on Pinterest

Source: konfetafpodarok.com via Amy on Pinterest

just the "follow your dreams. they know the way."

Source: modernparentsmessykids.com via Amy on Pinterest

Source: margaretfeinberg.com via Amy on Pinterest

this quote is actually wrong, the correct quote is "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see" - Thoreau
i kind of like the misquote better!

Source: flickr.com via Amy on Pinterest

this is from a poem by Mary Oliver titled The Summer Day. i'm REALLY liking this one, and it seems to match the Winter Critters better than any of the others....

Source: etsy.com via Amy on Pinterest

Dr Seuss said so many great things!

Source: nawasaka.tumblr.com via Amy on Pinterest

like this one... but this quote would be better suited to a stacked block quilt, or something like Holly's awesome Book Quilt.

speaking of Holly. i mentioned at thursday's VMQG meeting that i was looking for curiousity quotes, and within a day, she'd sent me some! I really like this Albert Einstein one she sent - "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. " i'd seen the first half, but i think it's stronger with both lines.

so! this is where you come in! what do you think? what are your favourite quotes? do you have a favourite that you'd suggest? brainstorm with me!

(but i refuse to draw a web! can you believe that i was once in a college class where they tried to teach us brainstorming webs?!! what, did they think i'd skipped grade 9? it was a 200 level class! blew me away.)

(also, thank you for the get well wishes! i'm still coughing so much that my neurotic cat won't come near me (i miss sofie!), but otherwise, i'm feeling better!)

A Dapper Skeleton and a Fabulous Soup

2011-10-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

i finished my Iron Craft project by the deadline this week, but i haven't managed to blog about it yet.

the theme this past week was Imaginary Friends, and participants were asked to make a friend for themself or for someone else.

this was perfect timing, because i went to a retreat on saturday, and Berene's skeleton stuffie fabric had arrived, so she brought mine for me (i'd seen it on flickr and HAD to have it!). i actually thought i'd get mine done that day, which shows you how dillusional i am about time management! however, Krista did manage to get hers done, so if you follow her blog, you'll have already seen hers.

anyway, i finished my Outfoxed Quilt at the retreat, and saved my skeleton for this week. it came together very easily, even for me, and i'm incapable of making stuffies!

if you're not familiar with Berene's work, you might not understand why it was so easy. one of the most wonderful things about the VMQG has been the people that i've met through it. Berene is one of those people. she's perfectly lovely. she's trained as a graphic designer (the same as Cynthia, who's also incredibly talented! coincidence?), and she's used those skills to develop a line of fabulous stuffie patterns and kits. the patterns are printed directly on the fabric, and her instructions are very clear, which makes the stuffies oh so easy to make.

she designed the skeleton plushie for a contest on spoonflower, and checking out the other entries in the contest really made me appreciate Berene's skill at this. did you or a relative ever make anything out of a panel of fabric when you were a kid? i remember making a few things, and they were always crap. they never included enough seam allowance, or if it was a stuffie, it was completely boring and 2 dimensional, with lots of puckered seams, or they didn't line up properly, or the fabric was cheap, or you could see the white edges. there was always some reason why they sucked! so, the difference between Berene's designs and the boring panels that you buy are that, first, hers are hella cute! but second, and equally important, is the way that Berene tests the designs before she produces them. she puts so much effort into them, from ensuring that the patterns fit together well to testing different kinds of polyfil to include in her kits. they're printed via spoonflower, which allows you to chose from several fabric options, and all of the options are great quality.

for instance, her skeleton comes in two sizes, the miniature 12" skeleton and the larger 27" skeleton. for my miniature skeleton, the quilting weight cotton is perfect. it's not too bulky for the narrow limbs, but the quality is really nice. for the larger skeleton, the upholstery weight twill or the linen-cotton canvas would be a sturdier choice.

but anyway. enough gushing about Berene, you want to see what i'm talking about!
(but you should definitely check out her etsy!)

i'll post more about the hat another day - but it's cute, isn't it?

and as for why my Iron Craft project was late?

i'm sick. and whiney. and really doped up on cold meds. for most of the week, i couldn't even keep track of what day it was, much less motivate myself to blog.

i don't have kids, and no longer work in an office environment with people who pride themselves on never taking a sick day (no matter how contagious they are), so i don't actually get sick very often. but it seems like when i do get sick, i get SICK. it might just be the fibro - when otherwise healthy people get sick and are achey, that sucks, but when folks with chronic health conditions get sick, that achey-ness is on top of what they already live with, and is often a last straw sort of thing. whatever it is, flu shot or not, i'm super miserable when i'm sick. as a side note, when did the definition of flu change? when i was a kid, the flu meant you were puking, but now, with flu shots and H1N1 drama, it seems to mean something else. speaking of H1N1, this post is perfect. i love that tweet. anyway, i'm sleeping in 4 hour increments, i drift to sleep listening to the odd sounds my breathing makes, and as soon as the cold meds wear off, i wake up coughing my head off. i think my neighbours hate me, i'm sure they can all hear me coughing constantly. my cat definitely hates me. all i really want to do is spoon with someone in my super comfy bed, and have that same imaginary person make me tea and soup. being sick is one of the few times when i really begrudge being single!

however, one thing that i'm reaalllyyy appreciating, is that last month i tried out a recipe for Smoky Refried Bean Soup that was SO GOOD, and i froze some of the leftovers. i found the recipe on this site, and loved the fact that it was for the slowcooker. i'll save my adoring love of it for another time, but suffice to say, i own three of the same slowcooker! anyway, the soup. ohmygod. it's a bit spicy, but not too much. enough that i can taste it, even with my cold, which is why i'm so thankful for it!

i couldn't find roasted corn - the only non-fresh corn options we have here are creamed or niblets, and creamed freaks me out, so it isn't really an option anyway, and my chili powder wasn't chipotle, but otherwise i followed the recipe. oh, and my stewed tomatoes weren't plain, they had some spices already added. i made two batches, and the first batch was awesome. the second batch was for a party, and i tried to make it go a bit further and the spices were a bit weaker. i definitely should have doubled them for it. the soup is vegan and gluten free, so it's pretty much perfect for potlucks. if no one's vegan, you can add some grated cheese on top, which is also super yummy. basically, it's the awesomest soup ever, at least this week!

Outfoxed!!! Quilt!!! Improv is Foxy!!!

2011-10-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

it's done!! hurray!!

i'm so excited about this quilt! i'm so proud of it, and i want to dance around and show it to everyone i know. ta-da!! yaay!!

remember, i posted my in progress picture the other day? it looks different, huh?

to recap, the fabric line i'm working with is Outfoxed, designed by Lizzy House for Andover.
the fabric isn't available most places yet - Spool of Thread was one of the first in North America to receive it, which NEVER happens in Canada! i went in to pick up a yard of Kona for something else, and there it was! I'd seen it online, and yeah, it's cute, but honestly, it is so AWESOME in person! i added a few Konas, amber, lupine, tangerine, plum and sable.

i started out with a wonky log cabin. after i'd made it as wide as i wanted the finished quilt, give or take, i cut it into two. i added strips to the top of one side and the bottom of the other, and a few in the middle to add a bit more width, and sewed them back together.

this was the sketch that I started with, the only sketch i did. this was my first real improv quilt. for all the quilts i've done in the past, i've plotted out a lot more details, and measured a lot more. i'm so happy with how it turned out!

i used two different colours of thread to quilt it, an orangey yellow for the vertical quilting, and a plummy purple for the horizontal quilting.

i "quilted the crap out of it", as usual! i purposely didn't wear quilting gloves, so i didn't have a great grip on the quilt as i was quilting, and i quilted it quickly (though it still took forever!), purposely allowing the lines to swerve a bit, and not end up perfectly straight.

for the larger Outfoxed print, i quilted around the triangle trees and along some of the branches.

i backed it with a solid brown flannelette, because i LOVE flannelette backings, especially when the quilting is super heavy.

the label is a kona, though i don't remember what the colour is called. i try to always use preshrunk fabric when i'm machine embroidering, because it'll pucker when it shrinks otherwise. i have a seperate stash of preshrunk konas for hand and machine embroidery. i really wanted to include the selvedge in my label, but somehow, with all of the prints that i bought, i didn't manage to get a full selvedge that included both the name of the fabric line, Outfoxed, and Lizzy House, the designer's name.

i was going to give this away, and i know that my planned recipient would love it - but i love it too! plus, there's this..... i have a different idea for a quilt to give away, so i think this one will live with me instead.

i'm linking this up with {Sew} Modern Monday and Fabric Tuesday (once it posts!). i'm also entering it in Stitched in Color's Celebrate Color - and as i said the other day, i know that i used the same fabric as the prize for October, which feels kind of weird, in that "wearing a band tshirt to the concert" kind of way, but oh well. i'll live with it, because i just couldn't resist the fabric!

and because i'm so excited about it, i'm also linking it to amylouwho's new Sew and Tell Fridays, amanda jean of crazy mom quilt's Finish It Up Friday, and Angie of Stitching by Starlight's Finished It Friday.

100 Quilts for Kids!!!

2011-10-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

hey, remember this quilt?

Kate at Swim Bike Quilt is coordinating a wonderful project called 100 Quilts for Kids, and she's asking folks to donate quilts to charities in their communities.

i'm donating the Bookworm quilt to an awesome local group called Caring Hearts, who provide handmade quilts/afghans and clothing to children in crisis. i volunteered with them a few years ago, so i know how many organizations they help. they send handmade goods to women's shelters, transition houses, community new baby groups, low income schools, women's centres, the children who witness violence program, and so much more. as they've posted on their website, they're no longer a registered society, but they're still helping as many people as they can. the group is primarily made up of senior citizens who like to knit, sew and crochet, but aren't necessarily able to sit on a board of directors, so it makes sense that they're scaling back that aspect of the organization and focusing on the important stuff.

in addition to the Bookworm quilt, i'm also donating these quilts for 100 Quilts for kids. i've never blogged these, and i won't go into a lot of detail now, because i do plan on blogging them, but i made them earlier this year, and have been planning on donating them somewhere before Christmas.

the LQS near me was running a project collecting quilts for charity back in August and September, so i donated the argyle version then. they collected almost 100 quilts! because there were so many collected, they split them up between charities - my quilt went to one of the following - Juvenile Diabetes Association, Surrey Mission, Surrey Christmas Bureau, and to raise money for cancer (not sure which charity that's through). some of the larger, fancier quilts are going to charities that are going to raffle them off, but i think that the smaller kid's quilts like mine are going directly to kids in our community.

i'm donating the lime and blue quilt to Caring Hearts as well, i'm dropping them off tomorrow.

do you make charity quilts? did you contribute to the 100 Quilts for Kids project this year? where do you like to donate quilts to?

more halloween blocks, and that's about it! - WIP Wednesday

2011-10-12T23:53:00.000-07:00

my last WIPs post was long, because it was several weeks worth of projects, but this one doesn't have much to report. i've been spending a lot of time at my parent's place this past week, and as a result, i haven't gotten a whole lot accomplished, sewing-wise. however, i did suceed in getting one of their cats to have a nap with me today - kitty joined the family back in may, and though she's mellowing to us, she's not very cuddly yet. honestly, i was kind of surprised that she actually came when i called, and i thought she'd stay with me for a few minutes. i woke up an hour later, and she was still curled up against my back! it was pretty sweet.

but anyway, back onto the sewing topic. i posted a WIP photo of my Outfoxed quilt yesterday, and i started quilting it today. i'm not sure if i'll get it finished by the FVMQG meeting tomorrow night, but i'm hoping. cross your fingers! i am totally totally loving the quilt, and i can't wait to finish the quilting.

have you seen the Drunkard's Path Quilt-a-long that Kristie of OCD and Kate of Needle and Spatula are doing? i know, i know, i already have way too many projects on the go....

but i'm so tempted! i've been dying to make some quilts with curves lately. however, i know that i definitely don't have time for a project that has to be cut out with templates, and sewn very precisely. i started thinking about some improv circles that i'd done, and wondered how they would work. Kate has written a tutorial for wonky drunkard's path blocks, but they're not quite as wonky as i was thinking, so i just did it my way. i wanted to try it before i cut a whole bunch of fabric for a full quilt, so i pulled out some of the Spooktacular charms leftover after i made those halloween blocks a few weeks ago. i made 16 blocks, and then wondered what the hell i was going to use them for! using 5" charms, i ended up with 4.25" blocks after i trimmed them - i played around with them for a bit and decided to use them for the VMQG Halloween block challenge that the other blocks i made were for. i had to trim them down so that they'd fit the size requirements, but considering that i really just made them to play, i wasn't too concerned.

i sewed 4 blocks together, creating 4 - 6.5" blocks for the challenge. i like the effect, especially on the two brighter blocks, and if i do decide to pull together a drunkard's path quilt, this will definitely be how i'll do it.

this week's iron craft challenge was Halloween themed, so the blocks fit that perfectly!

i haven't made an progress on the Billboard quilt, FVMQG's Mod Sampler Quilt-a-long, the Across the Sea Quilt-a-long, the Blue and Brown baby quilt, either of the Bowtie Quilts, or the Sherbet Pips baby quilt. i was hoping to get the second Sherbet Pips sewn together, but i didn't get around to it. i do need to move on it soon, because the recipient will be arriving soon!

other projects on my WIPs list are the ongoing Unscripted blocks, the RSR pouches that are ridiculously close to being finished, the binding on my green kona quilt, that blue and black half-quilted monstrosity that's holding half my favourite basting pins hostage, the blue modern traditional quilt.

somehow, in my big studio clean up at the end of august/beginning of september, i managed to lose the RSR pouches that i'm almost finished, and a big bag full of Kona solids that i'd purchased especially for portrait quilts, full of skin colour shades and hair colours. i'm super frustrated about it, because i've looked EVERYWHERE, but i have faith that they'll turn up at some point. they've gotta be in this apartment somewhere!

on a positive note, while i was cleaning, i found a $100 bill! awesome! it was from last christmas, and it was in a little vinyl pouch that my mom bought me, along with all of the scratch'n'win tickets that were in my stocking. most of our extended family just send cheques for christmas gifts, which my mom then cashes and distributes, so basically, i just found my birthday and christmas gifts from my grandparents, and my christmas gifts from several aunts and uncles. i won $2 on the lotto tickets, and the $100 was perfect timing, because i'm going to a quilt retreat this weekend, organized by the fabulous Krista from Poppyprint, so it covered that and a bit of fabric, because i obviously need more! i'm really excited about the retreat, the last one was fabulous! it's 13 hours of sewing, and this time i AM going to rest part way through the day. i need to figure out which projects i should bring with me, because i'm determined to gather my stuff and get it ready BEFORE 11:59 on friday night!

~~i'm linking up to WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced, along with lots of other folks who've managed to get a lot more done than i have.~~
woops! i started writing this, and forgot to actually post it (i got distracted quilting Outfoxed!), so i missed the linky thing over on Freshly Pieced. let's just pretend that i linked to it, shall we?

Foxy Christmas Fabrics

2011-10-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

i signed up for my first charm swap, and i'm excited! It's a Modern Christmas Fabric swap, organized by Emily over at the Strawberry Patch, and the flickr group is already looking veeeerrrryyy promising!

i went out today to buy my fabric, because i'm one of the international partipants, so i need to send my charm squares with plenty of time. i'm not worried, because mail seems to get to the UK faster than it gets the 30 min across the border to the US, what the hell canada post. but anyway, i wanted to get that done, and not leave it to the last minute, like i usually do. i very naively believed that i could get to Fabricana and then back over the Patullo bridge before 3pm, when they shut the exit to the bridge that i use, and i have to go the long, busy, annoying route, but of course, that totally didn't happen! i didn't factor in the ridiculous construction, and after leaving the store i sat for half an hour and traveled about 2km. i decided that was a sign, and took the scary bridge instead (the Port Mann, it freaks me out!), which meant that i drove right past Fabricland on the way home. dangerous!

i had to get thread anyway, so i decided to check out their holiday fabric... and found the rack of last year's discounted fabric! most of it was pretty traditional, but it will totally work for christmas gift bags to go under my parent's traditional tree! so i bought a bunch. 4 metres of a red that was $3.60/m (and it's glittery! i'm such a drag queen.) and 6 metres of this great lime green and red print that was $2.60/m. awesome! i guess the lime green and red could be considered modern... but as perfect as it will be for gift bags, i didn't think it felt like good enough quality for the charm swap. i picked up a few other bits of the discount fabric, and resisted the temptation to buy Michael Miller xmas prints (aqua and red! deer!!).

these are the two i decided on for xmas swaps. since the FVMQG is doing fq swaps at guild meetings, i needed a metre of christmas fabric for the november meeting anyway. i figured i'd get two options, and one would be for charms, the other for fqs. i haven't decided which is which yet though!

the fabric on the left is Jovial by Basic Grey for Moda and the fabric on the right is by Have a Sheri Berry Holiday by Sheri Berry for Lyndhurst Studio. i made a tablecloth and a mini tree skirt out of that Sheri Berry holiday line last year, though i don't think i ever took pictures of it! the Moda is a bit creamier in person, and the Sheri Berry is a bit more aqua or minty. as much as i like their designs, and liked them in scrapbooking before they even start designing fabric, i personally don't feel that the Basic Grey is super modern. i think it's because of the cream undertone, but i know that a lot of other folks do. (i don't think that sweetwater is that modern either, sorry!) honestly, Fabricana's christmas selection was kind of sad. i wonder if it was too eearly, and they'll get more? hm.

also, i'm wondering, because i'm the kind of geek who loves this shit*, do you think that the fabric selection would be different if it was a swap with primarily North American participants? i'm really not trying to police what is modern, or anything like that, and all of the fabrics that have been added to the flickr group are lovely, so i'm not being critical, i just started wondering how the different nationalities of bloggers might change their opinions and views. there are lots of bloggers from the UK and from Australia, and then us Canadians, and of course, the Americans. is modern quilting different in different places? it's curious.

*i really do love stuff like that, looking at regional differences. and on that note, if someone can properly explain why Brits and Australians call muslin "calico", i'd love them forever! it just doesn't make sense! what do they call calico cats in the UK?

also, since i've been nattering away at you, i figured i might as well show off an in progress shot of my Outfoxed project. yes, i did JUST post that i purchased the fabric, but i couldn't resist it! i'm further along now than i was when i took this, and i'm hoping to pin baste it tomorrow, but this is where it was at the other day -

i love this fabric so much. i told myself that i wasn't going to follow fabric trends for the fall and the winter. i honestly didn't think that there was anything that i HAD to have (except ruby star spring, of course!) but when i saw this line in person, i fell in love. it looks so much nicer in person, seriously. i have scraps left, and i'm thinking of making a cushion out of them... not sure i have enough, but we'll see!

and i'm linking up to Fabric Tuesday!

WIP thursday and exciting new fabric!

2011-10-06T23:47:00.000-07:00

i hven't done a WIPs post in awhile, mostly because i haven't had anything to update. as i said a few posts ago, i've been lacking in motivation lately. i have six million projects on the go, but none of them are really grabbing me at the moment, you know? i've been spending way too much time searching flickr, and not nearly enough time sewing.

i DID finish my sample blocks for the September VMQG meeting, for the halloween challenge. i finished something!

i've also done some work on plotting out my Billboard quilt, and i've pulled out all of the fabrics for it, but that's as far as i've gotten.

i gathered my fabrics for the FVMQG's Mod Sampler Quilt-a-long

but i haven't started cutting yet - apparently that's the hardest part.

i cut and sewed all of the blocks for the front of the Across the Sea Quilt-a-long, but i still need to trim them. i'd lent my 12.5" ruler to a friend, and even though i now have it back, i still haven't gotten around to it. nor have i cut or sewn the blocks for the back...

i also started a new project using a prize pack of fat quarters from Pink Chalk fabrics. i realized that i'd won the pack in APRIL, and it was completely ridiculous that i hadn't even touched it yet. and even though i have a million WIPs, i thought it might be a nice break to start something small and actually finish it soon. that totally isn't what happened!

(the pack together was called "Little Boy Blue")

i chose the fabrics that i wanted to use (the ones above), i decided on a pattern, i cut, and then i sewed, and then i cut again. and then i laid it out on my design wall (pre-picnic, obviously). and i'd done it COMPLETELY WRONG. seriously! so then i had to rewrite my plan, cause i sure as hell wasn't gonna unrip it all. so, new plan! i figured it all out, and started cutting out small chocolate brown squares. i cut out a whole bunch and thought, yay, now i'm ready to sew! except... i can't do math, and i'd only cut out half as many as i needed. and i couldn't find my chalk pen to mark the diagonals for the HSTs. so much for a quick finish! that quilt is now in a ziplock bag waiting for more patience.

i did finish my Sherbet Pips quilt, but that doesn't count, because i said that i'd finished it in my last WIP post. i just haven't taken photos of it yet. the fabulous Krista offered to help me take pictures at the last guild meeting, but because i was all preoccupied and can really only focus on one thing at a time, i turned her down, hopefully nicely, considering how preoccupied i was, and said i'd get my mom to help. as if that's happened! meanwhile, there is still a baby Sherbet Pips to come, and the strips are all pieced and labeled and ready to sew together... this weekend maybe?

and yesterday i decided that it had been much too long since i'd sewn anything, so i sewed up the rest of the bowtie blocks for the smaller baby quilt. as soon as i find the new tablecloth that i bought for a design board (i took my old one on a picnic - it worked fabulously to protect the blanket from the wet ground, but it's a bit dirty now!) i'm going to lay it all out and see if it looks as fabulous as i've been imagining.

other projects on my WIPs list - Unscripted blocks, the RSR pouches that are ridiculously close to being finished, the binding on my green kona quilt, that blue and black half-quilted monstrosity that's holding half my favourite basting pins hostage, the blue modern traditional quilt

on the quilts to come list - my ghastlies quilt, my far far away II quilt, start a portrait quilt, the housewarming pillow, the black and red circles quilt, start one of the art quilts floating around in my head....

and in other news - i think my motivation issue has been solved! i went into Spool of Thread today to pick up a metre of a Kona solid for the FVMQG fq swap, and LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!!
(if you're on their e-mail list, you'll know - i was buying mine as Henry was sending that!)

apparently we're among the first in north america to get our hands on it (that never happens!)!!

i'm completely in love with the Wisely colourway, and immediately grabbed my favourites and found some Konas to match.

but as soon as i saw the Smartly colourway, i thought FALL!! and since i'd been contemplating a project for Stitched In Color's Celebrate Color contest, they seemed perfect for it. so i piled them up too, along with more Konas. (i totally did not remember that the Outfoxed line was one of the prizes for this month, and now i feel kind of ridiculous. it's still okay to use them for the challenge, right? is that too much like wearing the band tshirt to their concert? i always thought that was a stupid rule anyway....)

guess what i'll be working on this weekend? i'm thinking improv... maybe.

the Cleverly colourway is also super gorgeous, and would make such a lovely baby quilt. hopefully there's still some available once my budget recovers from today!

you should note that those links don't actually show the full colourways... they're all missing the Jewels prints, which you can see in my photos. funnily enough, i've been loving the Pearl Bracelet print in quilts and patchwork that i've seen on flickr, and totally regretting that i don't have any in my stash, but now that it's available again, i'm just not loving them. it's the colours i think, because if the pearl bracelet prints were the same shades as the jewels prints, i would LOVE them, but they're all lighter tones. maybe next time!

also, i may be willing to concede defeat (yes Henry, you were right), now that i've checked Lizzy House's blog, but i still think that porcupines make more sense. foxes and rabbits live in the forest, with porcupines! do we even have hedgehogs in North America? for some reason i picture them in South America, like guinea pigs, but i guess a lot of English children's books have hedgehogs as characters, so maybe they're a European thing... hmm. must google this.

Heather Ross's Everything Bag

2011-09-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

a couple of things coincided for this project, which is probably why i managed to finish it!

first of all, i need a new bag. i really NEED a new bag! remember the shiny blue and glittery purple bag that i made myself for the vancouver handmade nation premiere? way back in july 2009? yeah, it's busted. i replaced the straps in the spring of 2010, because the vinyl had ripped entirely, and when i did that, i threaded thin strapping through the new ones, to add strength. the vinyl has ripped again, and the bag is only being held up by the strapping. plus, it's gotten a bit scuffed and stuff, since i've been using it almost constantly for more than 2 years. once i make a new one, i'll take it apart to scavenge what i can from it, like the handprinted lining.

i bought some Ruby Star Rising specifically to make a new bag, but of course, i'm hoarding it and scared to cut into it until i know for sure that it's the right project.

i've been looking around for a good pattern to use - i don't think i've ever used a pattern for a bag, i always just make them up myself, but there are so many neat patterns out there that i was intrigued. i've been eyeing the Noodlehead 241 tote, because i think it would be a good showcase for the RSR prints, but i realized that it was too small. i'm still contemplating enlarging it, but we'll see.

in the meantime, Craft Buds has been doing Craft Book Month for the month of September, and let me tell you, ohmygoodness do i have craft books! i decided that their challenge was a good motivation to try some of the bag patterns in the many many books that i have. for their challenge, i could have used a project that i'd already made, like the bibs and pillow from Doodle Stitching, by Aimee Ray, or the quilt that i made from Elizabeth Franson's book, Practical Guide to Patchwork, last winter

but then last week's Iron Craft challenge was "Hold it" - open to interpretation, but most obviously a bag challenge! definitely a sign that i should get moving on a new bag.

so i spent a few hours going through a whole bunch of my books and made a list of my options. i decided to make The Everything Tote from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross first. i wasn't sure that it would be a good pattern for an everyday bag, but i thought that it would be good for carrying quilts around, and i was hoping that it might prove suitable for carting a load of laundry.

cute, right? to tell you the truth, i didn't look at the fabric requirements very closely. i decided to make it out of vintage sheets, since it was technically a sample, and it looked like it would take a lot of fabric, given the size. if i HAD looked at the fabric requirements, it would have been a good indicator of what was to come - they were wrong anyway.

i didn't google the book, or any of the patterns in it, before i started working on it. it didn't even occur to me. it's a beautifully photographed and styled hardcover book - wouldn't all the information required be in it? after all, if i wanted to search the internet for info, i might as well just use one of the online patterns or tutorials that i have bookmarked.

so i started on the bag. all of the patterns are printed on a large folded sheet of paper adhered to the inside of the book. they all overlap each other, but each pattern is a different colour, so it's fairly easy to see which lines to follow. you need to trace the pattern out onto other paper, but that's not a big deal, and it's definitely preferable to books that require you to go to a copy shop and enlarge them.

i didn't actually trace out all of the patterns because other than the bag itself, the patterns were all rectangles. instead, i measured the rectangles and used my rotary cutter and ruler.

the pattern calls for the straps and the front binding to be cut on the bias. it doesn't say why, and honestly, i don't know what the justification was. fabric cut on the bias is generally stretchier - but you wouldn't want straps to be stretchy, really. i wondered if the pattern is designed to be bias because you're applying it to curved areas - but the way the pattern is written, the bias strips are sewn together before they're applied to the curves, so you loose all the benefits of a bias anyway.

but i was determined that i was going to follow the pattern the way it was written (because i never do that!), and since i had plenty of fabric, i did as i was told and cut the strapping and binding on the bias.

i started sewing the bag together, and it came together nicely. it's a fairly basic pattern, with boxed corners, and a simple body structure. since the edges are bound in the last few steps, it's super easy to add the lining. i didn't follow the instructions for the pocket exactly, because it said to apply it 2" below the raw edge of the lining, and that seemed awfully close to the top of the bag, so i lowered it a few inches.

then i basted the bag and the lining together, and got ready to start on the binding and the straps.

and that, my friends, is where the problems began. the pattern calls for the binding and straps to be lined. i understand part of the strap being lined, because you can see the lining on the over the shoulder portion of it. but why line the part that's attached to the bag itself? and why line the binding across the front and the back? but i did it anyway, because i was following directions.

and then it got even more confusing. the instructions tell you to lay the binding down, right sides facing, and stitch. then you fold it over, and stitch it again. basically, just like a quilt binding. but with way too many layers of fabric, and seam allowance bulking things up right where you're supposed to be folding it over. i read the instructions over and over, because the way it's written will give you a very narrow binding. and if you look at the picture earlier in this post, that bag doesn't have narrow binding, it has wide binding that is scale to the size of the bag. i was getting really frustrated, and starting to think that i'd completely lost my ability to read patterns!

i decided to veer off from the instructions, and to apply the binding with just the single fold along the top of it, because i couldn't see how else i could get it to actually look like the picture. i basted the inside binding in place, folded it over, and topstitched through all the layers. i did a double line of stitching to make it super neat and tidy. my binding, that i'd cut to the pattern dimensions, was longer than it needed to be, but that was easy to trim, and wasn't a big problem in the grand scheme of the bag.

you're instructed to sew the strapping pieces onto the bag the same way that you sew on the binding, starting stitching 1" from the bag body on each side. that leaves the straps unfolded, and therefore wider and comfier than if they were narrow. that makes sense. but the way you sew it on, with all those extra folds? that doesn't make sense. at this point you have even more layers to sew over, since you have the bag body and lining seams as well. the pattern calls for a heavier weight fabric for the exterior of the bag, and i used a sheet - a heavier weight sheet than a lot of them, but not as heavy as twill or anything like it. and in addition to that, the strapping is two pieces, that you overlap (more layers!) and handsew as the last step. why? why not just sewn them together into a big loop and apply it that way? i thought that the handsewn way looked bulky and slightly sloppy, so i sewed my strapping pieces together. it was a bit harder than it had to be, because i'd already lined them, but i managed. and then i applied the strap portion the same way that i applied the binding.

and it was done. hurray, it was done!

it took me about 4 hours to make this bag, plus a bunch of pinning time for the strap that i did in front of the tv. i realize that my sewing is not as fast as it used to be, but still, it seemed like a long time for such a simple bag. there was a lot of effort spent on pressing the straps so that the lining wouldn't show (do you know a trick for that? i don't remember it being that difficult!), and a lot of time spent re-reading the pattern and thinking "WTF?"

i mentioned the other day that i've been having a hard time with motivation, and that's true. in addition to that, every project i've started has been very frustrating. i was originally going to make a stuffy for the Craft Buds challenge, but that turned out even more miserably (stuffy making has never been my area of expertise, but still, i don't know what went wrong!). by the time i finished this bag, i was feeling pretty discouraged.

but then i came online, and realized that everyone had problems with it. and not only did a lot of people have problems with the Everything Tote, a lot of people had problems with everything in the book! i found quite a few reviews of this bag, there's this one, this one, this one, and this one. and the Amazon reviews are awful - there are more 1 and 2 star reviews than there are 4 and 5 star reviews, and the 4 and 5 star reviews seem to be from people who haven't actually tried to MAKE anything from the book!

there's a flickr group dedicated to Weekend Sewing, and their group conversations have a ton of info about the errors in the book. from what i've been reading, there used to be a web page or a blog post on Heather Ross's site where people posted corrections as they came to them, but that info has all been removed. it's been replaced by a very brief errata - that's still wrong! it still has the incorrect fabric requirements for this bag - though it's a different incorrect requirement (the book said 1/2yd each of two fabrics, the errata says 1yd each of two fabrics, reality requires 1 1/3yd each of two fabrics to accommodate the bias strips). the members of the flickr group have created their own errata, and it is much more detailed than the one provided by Heather Ross.

so. all in all. i like the bag. i wish i had made it a little bit deeper - it holds a smaller load of towels, but not a full load of clothes, and i'll probably continue using my cherry vinyl bag for carting quilts around, because i discovered quickly that i prefer something than can be zipped closed. there are other projects in the book that i like, and that i'm interested in making, but i will be very sure to check the errata before starting another project, and i don't think i'll make any of the clothing in it - for one, a lot of the items are rather baggy and shapeless, most attractive on a very angular, hanger type body, which i'm not, but also because i really don't trust that the sizing will be at all accurate.

overall, this was frustrating. Heather Ross is a designer that i really like, and the book itself is beautiful, full of mostly lovely projects, but there seemed to be no technical editing done at all, and the instructions for many of the projects seem clunky and illogical, as if someone without much experience sewing designed them. i honestly don't see how these patterns could have ever been tested without the errors being discovered. i don't know why this is. has the trend for craft books created such a rush to print them that there's no time for testing? i'd rather wait a few months more. testing could even be done as a marketing ploy - have bloggers test the patterns, and then when the book is released, have the bloggers show off what they made during the blog tour. makes sense to me!

Another Modern Quilt Group!

2011-09-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

two weeks ago i went to my first Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild meeting.

i uploaded my photos the next morning, but it's taken me forever to get around to blogging about it. i've been lacking motivation for the past few weeks, for pretty much everything. i usually have a flare up in the fall, what with weather changes, the start of the rainy season, etc, and i think it's just that. there's a limit to the meds i can take that will actually work, as i'm sure anyone with fibro will tell you, and they don't hold up to west coast weather all that well. and i've been so freaking tired lately! i sit down at the computer to write a blog post and 5 minutes later i realize that i need a nap, as i can barely keep my eyes open. or i sit down at the computer and realize exactly how crappy i'm feeling, and need to rest. one or the other.

but back to the FVMQG, before i decide to have another nap!

the FVMQG started a few months after the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. it's coordinated by Cynthia and Lysa, who came to VMQG meetings at the beginning. (or at least, Cynthia did. i don't know if Lysa did. don't quote me on that!) they decided that it was too far for them to commute back and forth, so they started up a guild out in the valley. they're a bit less formal than VMQG, and have a bit different demographic, and they seem to have a lot of fun! up until this month's meeting they've been meeting on the 3rd thursday of every month, the same night as the VMQG. now that they've changed locations to accomodate their expanding size, they were also able to change their meeting night - which means that i can go to their meetings now!

their september meeting was their anniversary meeting, a few months after VMQG's anniversary, so it was a super fun meeting to attend.

there were tons of door prizes, enough for everyone there, plus extras!

show and tell was awesome, though i do have to say - VMQG is so much better trained for photo taking! we're all used to standing still, the FVMQG group needs to learn that too!

i did manage to get pictures of a couple gorgeous tops though -

i love that Kat's quilt is a rectangle in a square, instead of the usual square in a square. it just adds a teensy bit of variety, and looks fabulous.

i really really love the colours in this quilt... yumm!

there was SO MUCH FOOD. i should have taken a picture. it was pretty freaking amazing!

i won a couple of fabulous prizes, one in a "raffle" like game, and one as a door prize.

i won Amy Ellis' book, Modern Basics, full of cute quilt patterns, and i didn't actually win this amazing mugrug by Cynthia, but the lovely person sitting next to me did, and she traded me! wasn't that super sweet? i won a magazine that i already had, which was no biggie, i just figured it would be a door prize for VMQG's next meeting! but the woman beside me asked if she could look at it, and i told her she could have it if she wanted, no worries at all, but she didn't want to just take it, so she offered to swap. i totally got the better deal, that mugrug's going on my wall!

also, look-it the hella cute cupcakes that Lysa made. so CUTE!

Lysa's the who faciliates the meetings, but different people in the guild organize different things, so various folks chatted about the quilt-a-long that they're doing, an interguild swap between FVMQG and VMQG, an overnight retreat in january, and monthly fq swaps that will start next month.

you should go check out the FVMQG's flickr photostream, because Carol takes way better photos than i do!

and then there was the bunting! i wish i'd made more of an effort to take pictures of all the buntings, because they were all so different, and very cool. there was one that was all cupcakes, one that was all junk food on the other, one that had really cool rickrack, and of course, the awesome bunting that i won! (the fabric on the far right is a spoonflower design by Cynthia!)

and this was my bunting! i really like how it turned out. i sort of used this tutorial, but really, it's bunting. not all that hard! i changed the sizes a bit, and made my centre flag patchwork.

the fabric is cute, it's all sewing themed, but because it's a light colour, you could see the print when you put them back to back, so i added a thin layer of white to line them.

here's half of it, in action at the meeting. it was too long to fit it all in the photo.

i've thought a bit about being in two guilds, because i haven't run across anyone else online who's in more than one modern guild. but you know, i HAVE run across people, both online and in person, who are in a modern guild and in a more traditional guild. so really, what's the difference? I did think about joining a traditional guild in my area, but i was more than a little offput when i went to their quilt show and was asked to leave beause i answered my cell phone (never mind the groups of women standing around, blocking quilts while they chatted away!). Really? it was so rude! that obviously wasn't the only reason why i didn't check out their guild meetings, but that attitude definitely didn't help.

when you add that in with the stories i hear from members of traditional guilds about how much the modern quilt guilds are disliked, my own experiences of having people complain about "those modern quilters" to me (once by the teacher of a class i was taking!), some of the comments i've heard from other quilters in the more traditional quilt shop near my house, and the fact that their meetings are held in a senior's centre, i'm not feeling particularly welcome! not to mention that apparently traditional guilds are very stinky, quite literally. i've definitely noticed a tendancy amoung women of a certain age range to wear excessive perfume with little regard to others, so i can see how a meeting with a large group of women primarily within that age bracket would be horrendous! (someone was telling me last month that her guild tried to set up a scent-free policy, and people were outraged!)

so yeah, i'm not that interested in joining a more traditional guild, at least not at this time. i'm joining a second guild not because i don't like VMQG, because i do, i love our guild, but because it will afford me the opportunity to meet more quilters on my side of the bridges, and will let me participate in a different way than i do with VMQG, where i'm on the exec, and will open up even more challenges and inspiration and swaps. isn't that why anyone joins more than one guild, regardless of modern or traditional?

i'm just going to appreciate the fact that i'm lucky enough to have TWO modern quilt guilds in my area and enjoy!

this black and white dresden pops!

2011-09-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

i've missed the past few Iron Craft challenges. i was busy with something else (damned if i know what) the week that the theme was Creative Activities (ie, things you'd enter in a state fair), and though last week's Shrink to Fit mini challenge would have been a great excuse to make a mini quilt, or something even littler like that patchwork ATC that i made years ago, i completely forgot about it.

but this week's challenge was different!

the theme was Black and White, and it fit perfectly into a few things i'd been meaning to get around to anyway.

you might not remember/know this, because i'm terrible at posting about it, but i do make clothes on occasion. i used to make clothes a lot, along with costumes for both theatre and burlesque, but since i've been obsessed with quilting for the past year, my garment sewing has pretty much fallen by the wayside. which means that i really really need some new clothes!

so one of the things that i've been meaning to get around to is making some new skirts. i have quite a few pieces that i've bought in thrift stores to reconstruct, and not nearly enough variety in the skirt section of my closet!

and i've been thinking about using quilting imagery/symbolism on skirts. i honestly don't remember where the idea came from, though i know i've seen a few different variations around since i've started thinking about it, so apparently it's a common idea!

new skirt + quilting imagery + a stack of black and white prints =

a dresden plate on a skirt!

the dresden plate is topstitched onto the skirt, and then the centre of the dresden was made using that applique method that everyone's been raving about for circles - you know, when you sew a super lightweight fabric to your regular fabric, like an interfacing or something, and then cut a slit in that and turn it right side out? i've seen it called double applique. anyway, i'm not super impressed.... you can see the lightweight fabric along the edge of the circle. it would be great if i was doing a zigzag around the edge of the circle, but if i was going to zigzag it, why don't i just do a raw edge applique?

but anyway, i still love it. the skirt itself is my favourite skirt material - doubleknit weight polyester, which i've always called fortrel. fortrel is technically a specific brandname, but everyone i know has always called all polyester of that weight fortrel. it's nasty to wear against your skin, i know, but it makes the BEST skirts! it hangs awesomely, and lasts freaking forever.

i bought a long black fortrel skirt at a thrift and cut off the bottom half for this skirt, which means i'll have enough left for another skirt from the top. i made a waistband using a comfier black knit, and a wide elastic. simple, effective. next i want to make one with hexies.....

is it too early for Halloween? never!!

2011-09-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

lately i feel like i've been all about the blocks. there's the unscripted bee, the across the sea quilt-a-long, various little projects.... everything's block based. i enjoy making blocks, but i'm starting to crave strip piecing!

however, i am SUPER happy with these blocks. how can i not be? they're halloween themed! y'all know how much i love me my halloween goodness!

you might remember that last year i organized a Halloween challenge for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. it was pretty damn fabulous, and we had so many awesome blocks. i wanted to do it again this year, but of course, i wanted to switch it up a little bit, just for variety.

so this year's challenge was along the same lines - make as many Halloween blocks as you'd like, bring them to the meeting, and recieve a ticket for each block that you make. we draw the tickets, and folks with the winning tickets each get to choose 10 (10!!!) blocks to take home and make into something fabulous. last year we had 5 or 6 winners, i think? so we got around 50 or 60 blocks - pretty awesome!

last year we had a requirement that all the blocks had to have Kona black in them, but not all of them did, and that was fine (in fact, i screwed up and one of my examples didn't even have black!). so this year we scrapped that requirement, and opened up the sizes instead.

all blocks made for the challenge must have a finished size that is a variation on 6". so people can make 6.5"x6.5" squares, or 12.5"x12.5" squares, or 6.5"x12.5" rectangles, whatever they'd like.

i was really excited about the variety of sizes, and had a blast making samples.

first, i made a 6.5"x6.5" block. simple cute square in a square, log cabin style block.

it was originally going to be two rows around the centre, but i suck at scant 1/4" seams! that's okay, i just trimmed the 3rd row a bit, and added a 4th.

then i made two 6.5"x12.5" blocks, one stacked blocks, and one flying geese.

the stacked blocks/coins/books/bolts/whatever block was a great excuse to use a halloween charm pack that i picked up last year. because the block is a rectangle, the 5" squares were a great size, wide enough to fill the 6.5", but without too much waste. i've obviously been into this block lately, after the one i made for the unscripted bee, and the sample i made before that. there's a tutorial here, as well as instructions in the book Block Party, as seen here on alissa haight carlton's blog.

and the flying geese were just fun. i love this striped green print, with the little spiders peeking out!

and then the flying geese created some extra HSTs, so i figured i might as well sew them up too!

they needed a few borders as well, to bring them up to size.

most of the fabrics i used were Seen On Halloween, by Maywood Studio, except for the centre of the log cabin block, which was Batty Halloween by Kylie Kreations for SSI, and the charm pack i used in the stacked whatever block, that was Spook Tacular by Sanae for Moda.

and i also made a 12.5"x12.5" block!(it is square, i promise... apparently i just can't take straight photos!)

this one is using kona black and Witchy Stitchy, an older alexander henry print - it's yummy, but the colour tones aren't my usual thing. i love halloween, but i hate oranges and pumpkins! i like how the block turned out, but i don't have anything else that would go with it, you know?

i'm so excited to see what the rest of the guild comes up with by next month!

and i'm linking up to {Sew} Modern Monday and Fabric Tuesday. click on the badges to see lots and lots of other fabulous projects!

WIP Wednesday

2011-09-07T23:28:00.000-07:00

once again, i didn't get much done this week - but this time my apartment is MUCH tidier, as i've been spending a lot of time organizing, and now i have a nice tidy area to sew in. we had the final meeting for this past year's exec for VMQG at my house yesterday, so i HAD to clean! i've been housesitting as well, so i'm spending a lot of time going back and forth between their cats and my cat. as i write this, there's a very handsome stripey boy curled up against my leg, and a very pouty sofie hiding in the closet at my house.

i have managed to do a little bit of sewing...

i finished my Sherbet Pips quilt!! yaayy!! i went in to Spool of Thread after brunch with a friend on Sunday and pinbasted it, and have been working on quilting it the past few evenings. i did the binding this afternoon, and it's in the dryer as i type this. i can't wait to pull it out, it's going to crinkle up sooooo nicely!

and i finished cutting the prints for both of my bow tie quilts (still need to cut more black kona), so i could finally put away the stacks of rainbow coloured cottons all over my table, and i've laid out all of the colours for one of them, so that i know what order the prints will be in the quilt. i need to do that for the larger quilt as well, but it's not a huge hurry.

other projects on my WIPs list - the RSR pouches that are ridiculously close to being finished, the binding on my green kona quilt, plotting out my pattern for the Billboard quiltalong, pulling out the fabrics for the Across the Sea quiltalong, that blue and black half-quilted monstrosity that's holding half my favourite basting pins hostage, the blue modern traditional quilt

on the quilts to come list - my ghastlies quilt, my far far away II quilt, something with a prize pack of fqs from Pink Chalk fabrics, perhaps a wonky 9 block??, start a portrait quilt, contemplate the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild's quilt-a-long, housewarming pillow, the black and red circles quilt, start one of the art quilts floating around in my head....

not yet started, but this week's list - Unscripted block, samples for Sept guild challenge

i'm linking up to WIP Wednesdays at Freshly Pieced, be sure to click through and check out some fabulous WIPs!

in other news, tommorrow is the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild's 1 year anniversary meeting! they've changed the date and location of their meetings, so they're no longer on the same night as VMQG, huraay!!! i'm really excited to go (though much less excited about driving there...) because as much as i love the VMQG and enjoy my role as secretary, it's going to be so great to actually participate in a guild meeting instead of typing frantically!

and it's going to be a great meeting, i'm sure. there will be plenty of door prizes, show and tell, a draw for a basket full of fat quarters for anyone who choses to bring one, yummy food, some sort of game, information about a quilt-a-long, the launch of an interguild swap, and anyone who's interested is making a string of bunting (following this tutorial, or close to it) that will be used to decorate the room during the meeting, and will be swapped at the end of the evening. i'm determined to go, regardless of how crappy i feel, because i know that it'll be worth the effort! i started cutting out fabric for a bunting, and ended up cutting enough for 5 or 6 strands - i need to sew at least one strand together tomorrow, so that i have one to take.

i've been advised that i must bring my Kona Pinwheels quilt, as the FVMQG is in the middle of their Kona challenge, so i'll take that, and my newly finished Sherbet Pips quilt. i'm excited! (could you tell?)

and speaking of my Kona Pinwheels quilt, Candace from Southern Girl Quilts, who wrote the tutorial that i used for the quilt, has blogged about my quilt, and the blog post just before that shows two different versions of origami pinwheel quilts. you should definitely pop over and give her some love!

WIPs and Bee Blocks

2011-09-02T11:24:00.000-07:00

WIP ~~Wednesday~~ ~~Thursday~~ Friday

let's just pretend that it's wednesday, shall we?

i don't feel like i got much done this week, yet my apartment isn't much tidier either, so i'm not exactly sure what i did with my time!

i did buy a whole bunch of vintage sheets to add to my stash at the value village 50% off sale on monday, and since then i've been diligently washing them all. i had to stop after the 7th or 8th washer load, because my arms were so sore from folding them all! i remember working in fabric stores and folding 10 or 15 yards of home decor fabric at a time, but that was obviously pre-fibro... i have one or two loads left, including the most AMAZING vintage fabric find - i'll have to take pictures of it after i wash it, it's incredible.

i worked on my Sherbet Pips quilt over the weekend, and it's all ready to be laid out and pin basted. i was originally going to quilt-as-you-go, since it's a strip quilt, but that was very cranky making, so i decided to piece the strips and quilt it normally.

the main thing i did in the past week has been blocks.

the most important block i finished was my August block for the Unscripted Bee.

this block was inspired by a quilt in the book Block Party, which can be seen in this post on HandmadebyAlissa. there are other version of it floating around, such as this quilt by Caroline of Trillium Design, and there's tutorial for the block by Christinaa, the Sometimes Crafter.

i had this idea that i would use specific fabric every month to try out the pattern/technique for the bee block, before cutting into the queen bee's fabric, and then at the end of the bee, i'd have a second quilt ready to go that would be a sampler of all the blocks from the bee. which sounds fun, right?

we'll see if that continues! i made a sample of this block, and it seemed to take me forever.

but it's good that i made a sample, because i did learn a few things. such as, vary the widths of the strips more, so that they're not at all super narrow!

i also found a way to put the block together with very little waste, which was good, because i ran out of fabric for the bee block!

we were asked to make a block that was 21” across, and 24” high, but mine ended up being 21" across and about 20.5" high.

see how little fabric i had left? not even enough for a small signature block for the back!

i'm super excited to make new month's block, though i've promised myself that i won't start on it until after i get some more tidying accomplished! i have a guild exec meeting here on tuesday, and at the moment, my living room is full of rubbermaid containers. no more sewing until i clean!

remember, i mentioned the blog Block Lotto, in a recent post? i also made a few african violet blocks for that, before i reread the instructions and realized that i was supposed to use PREWASHED fabric. i guess i won't be doing any blocks for that, since i don't prewash my fabric unless i have to!

so now i have two blocks and nothing to do with them. would you use them? if you added two more, you could have a neat little table runner.... if you'd like them, coment or pop me an e-mail and i'll send them out to you, they might as well be used.

and i'm curious - do you prewash your fabrics?

also on the WIPs list - the bow ties, the RSR pouches, the binding on my green kona quilt, plot out my pattern for the Billboard quiltalong, pull out the fabrics for the Across the Sea quiltalong, that blue and black half-quilted monstrosity that's holding half my favourite basting pins hostage

on the quilts to come list - my ghastlies quilt, my far far away II quilt, do something with a prize pack of fqs from Pink Chalk fabrics, perhaps a wonky 9 block??, start a portrait quilt, contemplate the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild's quilt-a-long, start one of the art quilts floating around in my head....

and in other news, last night my mom and i drove out to port kells to meet my uncle for supper (my uncle's a trucker, so whenever he's in town, he's in an industrial area) and i found TWO thrift stores that i'd never been to! that was pretty exciting, even though after july's thrifting road trip, i'm avoiding thrifts at the moment - which reminds me, i haven't posted about any of the thrifts that i found on that trip! that'll be another day's post.

even if my life isn't interesting, at least my journal is!

2011-09-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

do you keep a journal? i've tried off and on over the years, but i can never keep up with them. for a long while as a teenager i had sketchbook journals, but i can't keep up with them either. i can't even keep up with a daily symptom log, much less actual personal writing!

my great grandfather kept a daily journal for years and years and it's fun to read them - though truthfully, a lot of it's very dry and routine. there's only so much you can read about the weather and crops 75 years ago before it gets a bit dull! but they're still very interesting to read.

as much as i never write in journals, i do really like to make journals. when i went to manitoba in july, i collected papers of all sorts along the way and made a journal one day when i was up at the cabin. this week's Iron Craft theme was "Done Reading", that is, we were challenged to make something using a book as our main material. this was the perfect excuse to make a few more journals, since my favourite journals are the ones made of recycled book covers.

since i haven't gotten around to posting the book i made while i was away, i'm going to post it along with my two new ones, since it's the same technique anyway.

i start out with an old book that still has a nice sturdy cover. i carefully cut the pages out of the book, leaving me with just the cover.

i measure the book to determine how big my new pages should be, and go through my stash of recycled and thrifted paper, pulling out lined paper, ledger sheets, sheet music, paper bags, envelopes, graph paper, tracing paper, etc. anything goes!

i cut the pages as needed, and fold them into signatures. i punch holes in them, then i stitch them together using the coptic binding technique. if you're unfamiliar with coptic binding, this tutorial is very good, and as is this Youtube video.

i make sure that the front and back signatures have a heavier weight paper on the outside of the signature, so that it can be used to adhere the book into the cover. for the little green book and the book i made in manitoba, i used thick ledger paper for the endpapers, but for the yellow book, i dug out some neat scrapbooking paper.

i use rubber cement to glue the end papers onto the hardcover, let it dry, and ta-da! a new journal, full of interesting papers to write on, draw on, and glue things into!

here's a peak into the pages of each journal -

the Hawthorne book was the book i did while i was away. it's pages are full of thrifted sheet music, ledger paper, graph paper, etc, maps i collected along the way, paper bags, wallpaper that i thrifted, thrifted onion skin paper, brown paper towels and more.

the green and yellow journals have much of the same pages as the hawthorne book, but i had a lot more selection to chose from with my stash, and i didn't use maps, paper bags or paper towels.

graph paper, a glassine envelope, and coloured copy paper

a different graph paper, ledger paper

printed copy paper, onion skin paper, and the ledger used as an end paper

i couldn't resist this cover!

stripey scrapbooking paper end paper in the yellow book

the back endpaper is a bright paisley

graph paper, tracing paper, ledger sheet, sheet music

more sheet music, coloured copy paper

the yellow book is larger, so it has more selection of papers, such as this impractical but pretty pink tissue paper.

of course, now i feel like the journals are too pretty to write in!

Breaking the Rules Lap Quilt

2011-08-29T23:49:00.000-07:00

i did it! i finally finished one of my Kona Challenge quilts!

i had it partially finished for our June Anniversary meeting, but i had a lot more quilting to do, and i finished up the binding just in time to take it to my august guild meeting.

i really really love how it turned out. i love the Kona darks palette, i love the teal linen that i used, and i love the print and the softness of the backing fabric.

i found this tutorial by Candace of Southern Girl Quilts for 3D pinwheels and decided that it would be perfect for this challenge. aren't they fun?

confession time - i didn't use all of the fabrics in the charm pack for this quilt, the way the challenge required. i know, it's bad! i was going to, honest! but they didn't fit. i would've had to add another row of 3 pinwheels and i really liked the idea of the square quilt. i would have needed 12 more colours, and i only actually needed to use up 4 more colours (cause i used a few others on the back in the label, etc) plus, they didn't really match the linen.... and i loved my vision of the quilt. i rationalized by the fact that i used all the colours in my other Kona quilt (i made two, cause i won another charm pack as a door prize), so this one was really more of a bonus quilt anyway.... right?!

this quilt breaks all the quilt-police rules. i used linen on the front, i used RAYON on the back (the horror! but it matched perfectly!), and i quilted it with polyester thread, because the colour matched so well. i LOVE the giant roses on the back, and the rayon is so so soft and cuddly.

the embroidered label. i was going to use one of the Kona squares for my label, but i apparently can't do math, and i screwed it up.... so i cut out what little unembroidered bit that there was left, and included it in the strip down the back, and just embroidered on a piece of the linen.

and i totally quilted the crap out of it.... i think i used at least 700 metres of thread - and of course, it was a colour that only came in 100m spools!

i'm so so happy with the binding on this quilt! the fabulous Felicity linked to this tutorial for using fusible thread, and it's AMAZING! my binding is so perfect and crisp, i love it! thanks Felicity!

i'm linking up to {Sew} Modern Monday, Fabric Tuesday and Finished It Friday. click on the badges to see lots and lots of other fabulous projects!

Blocks or Strips?

2011-08-28T23:41:00.000-07:00

which do you prefer? are most of your quilts block based, or are they an overall design?

i'm all about the strip piecing, so i don't generally make a lot of blocks. i made the wonky stars baby quilt last year (i've heard them called maverick stars, but honestly sarah palin has ruined that word for me!) and i've plotted out a few block based designs that i'll get around to eventually, and i've made quilts where the design is made up of basic blocks, like the Fat Quarterly quiltalong, my green Kona baby quilt, or my in-progress bow tie quilt, but none that make the blocks the focus, like a log cabin, or a churn dash, or something like that.

i'm completely swooning over Swoon, and i'm determined to make a log cabin quilt at some point, but my attention span works against me in regards to a full quilt made up of obvious blocks.

that's why guild challenges and bees are so awesome! i can make blocks, which are fun, but i only have to make one or two of each design, so i don't get bored. and i get to see if i enjoy that particular block, before committing to an entire quilt with it. it's perfect!

i've been working on blocks off and on for the past few weeks, catching up on a guild challenge, and working on bee blocks.

the June challenge for VMQG was a modification of a Bottled Rainbows block. i was super excited, because i'd really wanted to do that quilt-a-long, but i was too busy at the time. we changed it up slightly, so that the fabric requirements were a bit more practical, but otherwise, it's exactly the same.

the quilt-a-long instructions gave several options for how the ticker tape pieces were sewn down, but since we'll be making guild quilts out of the challenge blocks, we (or rather, Paul, our challenge coordinator extraordinaire!) decided to keep it consistent and have everyone zigzag their blocks.

have i ever mentioned how much i dislike zigzag? ha! i've seen it making a bit of a comeback in the last year or so, but i still haven't changed my mind. to me it feels cheap. i think it looks homemade, but not in a lovely handmade kind of way, more in a "i can't sew straight, but it's less obvious if it's not a straight stitch" kind of way! i don't mind satin stitch, it can look really polished when it's well done, but i'm definitely not a fan of zigzag!

i do like how my blocks turned out, but i'm contemplating making more of them for myself, and i definitely won't be zigzagging them.

despite how excited i was, i still didn't finish them until just before the august meeting. they require prep work before you can start the fun part, and i've realized that i'm not good with that sort of thing!

in addition to the guild challenge blocks, i mentioned in my WIP Wednesday post that Sarah of {So Sarah Sews} is organizing a casual charity bee, specifically for two teenage sisters who are in the foster system. the blocks are all pink, purple and white, and she's chosen two blocks to do, one for each sister. folks are posting their blocks in the flickr group as they finish them, and they're really looking fantastic!

i made two of each block, though i could quite easily have continued making them, especially the garden fence block by Hyacinth Quilt Designs. so simple and pretty!

luckily, i'd just picked up some purple and pink for my bowtie blocks, after realizing how little selection my stash had, especially in purple.

we're staying away from childish prints, because the girls are young teenagers. it's one thing when you're an adult, then you can love childish things unabashedly (or at lest, you should be able to!), but when you're 13 and trying to feel grown up, it's a whole different story!

the instructions for the star block came from a Moda Bakeshop pattern, the Charming Stars Quilt, designed by Stefanie from Little Lady Patchwork.

now that those are done, i can focus entirely on my improv block for Unscripted Bee! i've been working away on it, and i'm hoping to get it finished Monday or Tuesday of this week.

and in addition to the bee blocks, i also came across Block Lotto the other day, which sounds super fun. what do you think? have you ever participated? this month's african violet block could be really funky, if done right!

more bow ties, with so many more to come!

2011-08-24T19:11:00.000-07:00

you might have been thinking, hey amy, whatever happened to those bowtie blocks that you were making?

or, more likely, you completely forgot about them, and thought that i did too. but i didn't!

i've been working on them off and on and they've been a great stress-free project to work on in-between other projects. i've been doing them assembly line style, and they come together so quickly. i precut the fabric, sew one seam at a time, press a bunch once i get around to it, and generally just putter along at them.

i was originally working from my stash, but then i decided that it would look really awesome if i kept to tone-on-tone prints, so i ran out of options in my stash (i didn't expect that either!). finding tone on tone prints that aren't incredibly fussy or boring ended up being a lot harder than i'd expected, the vast majority of prints seem to be printed in black or white with a coloured background.

i figured out how i wanted to lay out the final quilt, and realized that i needed a certain number of each colour for it to work. i've got most of them, but i'm a few short, orange in particular - anyone wanna swap 3.5"x10" strips of fabric?

i've got all of my coloured fabric cut out, but once again, i can't find the kona black that i bought for this purpose.... i can't tell you how many times i've bought kona black, but i can never find it when i need it! i have a sneaking suspicion that it's in the same bag as all the other bits of kona that i bought for portrait quilts, which i've been looking for for the past week...

i've finished 96 blocks now, so i'm already finished the challenge, but i need more for the quilt i have in mind, plus, i sewed together quite a few duplicates before i decided that i didn't want any duplicates in my quilt, so i guess i'll be making a baby quilt as well. it's a good thing that they're fun to do!

for today though, i've set them aside to work on bee blocks. i have to get moving on my Unscripted blocks (what? no, i haven't been intimidated at all......), and i came across the informal charity bee that Sarah from So Sarah Sews is running, and i've volunteered to make a few pink and purple blocks for that. she's still looking for more folks to help out, so go check it out! people are posting photos of the blocks that they've made in the flickr group Quilting for Kids and they're going to look fabulous.

i'm linking up to WIP Wednesdays... though this is is just the tip of the WIP iceberg!

also on the WIPs list - sherbet pips strip quilt (all cut out and ready to go!), RSR pouches, the binding on my green kona quilt, plot out my pattern for the Billboard quiltalong, pulling out the fabrics for the Across the Sea quiltalong, that blue and black half quilted monstrosity that's holding half my favourite basting pins hostage, finally start my ghastlies quilt that i'll never get around to starting.... i'm sure there are more that i'm forgetting!

my new favouritest hoodie ever!

2011-08-24T01:05:00.000-07:00

i know favouritest isn't a word, but i've decided that it is. tough luck mom! (she hates it when i invent words)

i am so enamoured with this hoodie, i could hardly wait until today to post it!

a few weeks ago i was thinking about how much i love the prints on quilting cottons, but i hate wearing them, because they're really rather thin for skirts, and skirts are pretty much the only thing i'll wear out of woven fabric. so i started thinking of ways that i could incorporate quilting cottons into my primarily stretch wardrobe, and of course, the usual, applique, came to mind. and applique looks fabulous with florals or small prints, but what about fabrics with distinctive images, where the shape of an aplique will distract from the fabriuc itself?

around the same time, i came across hoodies at the grocery store (great canadian superstore, it's more than a grocery store, obviously!) in super yummy colours, and since they actually had my size, which they never do, i snapped up one in raspberry. i eyed the avocado green one, because i keep thinking that i should add more green to my wardrobe, but decided that i didn't really need it.

a few days after that the quilting cotton idea combined with the hoodie in my mind, so i took the raspberry hoodie to Spool of Thread to audition fabrics. i found lots of lovely fabrics that matched, but i COULDN'T STOP THINKING ABOUT THE GREEN ONE. i came across this awesome black and white print, and could picture it so perfectly on the avocado hoodie.

so i bought it, and left the raspberry fabrics behind for now, full of trust that i'd still be able to get the avocado hoodie.

and three different store locations later, i did!

and this is what became of them!

i am so in love with this hood. i love how it feels, with the thin cotton over the squishy jersey. it's yummy!

i decided that the middle of the hoodie looked bare, and that it needed something between the hood and the pockets, so i added an applique. i couldn't think of a shape that would work with the bicycles and still show the print (because a bike applique would be cool, but it would have very skinny lines, so you wouldn't see the print very well), so i decided to monogram it. what the hell.

did i mention the other awesome part about my hoodie? this week's Iron Craft challenge was "On the Go", with the instructions to make something that honours transportation. isn't the fabric perfect?

AND, i made the hoodie on monday, which means that i had my iron craft project done EARLY. the world is officially coming to an end!

funky modern apron, just for the hell of it!

2011-08-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

do you do linkups? like {Sew} Modern Mondays, or Fabric Tuesdays? are there others that you do? share!

i came across those two today, and was trying to think of what i could write about, when i realized exactly how many projects i've yet to post!

this was a quick, fun project, using super modern fabric, that i made back in june.

i fell in love with the fabric, even though it's so totally not my colours. i wanted to make something out of it, but i knew i would never use whatever i made! a door prize for the VMQG's 1 year anniversary party was the perfect excuse.

i picked up half a metre of the onion print, which is a Hoodie design for Blank Quilting, and half a metre of Kona cotton in curry.

the curry Kona is kind of amusing, because i HATE this colour! when i bought it at Spool of Thread, Lili wasn't working, so i told Henry that he had to tell her that i bought it, she wouldn't believe him. Lili LOVES this colour, so we've discussed our love/hate on multiple occasions.

(i once ran across a set of vintage melmac set in curry for really really cheap - and i passed it by, because of the colour. if you knew how much i LOVE melamine dishware, you'd understand how drastic that is!!)

but the curry was the perfect colour to match the onions, so i couldn't resist.

i used almost exactly all of the fabric i bought - i think i was left with a teensy piece of onions only a few inches long, and no kona at all.

i joined 3 strips x WOF and used my ruffler foot to pleat them, and it was the perfect length for the hem and the sides.

i was so busy taking notes that i didn't even see who won the apron, but i hope they like it as much as i liked making it!

(linking up with {Sew} Modern Mondays and Fabric Tuesdays)

no sewing, just cuteness!

2011-08-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

i had a blog post planned for this evening, but forgot to charge my camera battery before i went over to my parent's house to take the photos. oops!

instead of quilts, how about some cat pictures?

i try not to post photos of sofie very often, and the fact that she hates having her picture taken helps a lot, but i just couldn't resist these!

i absolutely adore it when there's a lump under my duvet that meows when i pet it!

ohmygod i hate you

i give up

okay fine, hi

is the escape route clear?

Finally! Finished Encaustics UFOs!

2011-08-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

the theme for this week's Iron Craft challenge was UFOs*. and let me tell you, i have sooooo many UFOs!!

i have several quilty projects that i was hoping to get done, but i got my days mixed up and completely forgot that i'd signed up for an encaustics open studio day at The Upstart Crow today - i was sure that it was friday!

so instead of binding a quilt, i found myself pulling out all of my encaustics supplies from last fall when i took a 3 day class with Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch. it was a really amazing class - though looking back now, i realize that i never got around to blogging about it! Trish is a wonderful teacher, and i'd been enamoured with encaustics for so long, so i was really excited to take the class, and it definitely didn't disapoint. after the class, i worked on a few pieces and finished up the piece that i made my mom for her birthday, which i blogged about for the iron craft challenge that was "home" themed.

(wondering what encaustics is? according to the website encausticartist.com, "From the greek enkaustikos which means “to heat” or “to burn”. Encaustic is the name for both, a medium of pigmented wax, and the process involving heat, by which the medium is applied and secured" i described it in the post with my mom's piece as "an art technique that uses wax, oil colours, collage, image transfers, and so much more, all in multiple layers to create an image with an incredible depth to it.")

after that, i put all of the encaustics away, because i needed the space for other projects. i kept intending to pull it back out, but never found the time, so i signed up for this open studio day to get myself back into it.

and i actually finished something! (maybe) because encaustics works with wax and heat, there's a lot of cooling time in between layers, and since i can never work on one thing at a time, i had soooo many in progress pieces - or UFOs! i got further along on a number of pieces, but these were the ones that i actually finished today.

i still need to clean up the edges of the wood blocks, trim a bit, that sort of thing, but i'm still really happy with how they turned out.

i LOVE how this piece turned out! it's soo soo many layers, and in person you can really see the depth. i think the base had a shellac burn or a white glue burn, but that's been completely covered by the later layers. i inscribed straight lines, circles, and typewriter letters in the wax while it was warm, then rubbed black oil colour into the impressions and kept layering and layering. i did an image transfer in the corner, using an image that i photocopied about 9 years ago, of the pattern in one of my favourite scarves.

oh, i love this one. masking tape was laid down across the board, and plaster was applied, and then the tape was removed. once the plaster dried, i burned the board, creating the black lines with the white plaster. i didn't do as many layers on this one, because i wanted the wood to show through. i inscribed some dots and lines, used a violet oil stick to highlight them, and added another layer. i incised two sizes of circles, and used the black oil stick to bring up the contrast.

i don't know if this one is actually finished or not! i had a whole different base started, but i decided that i hated it and used some coloured wax to start up a new base. i love the bright green. i did an image transfer using one of the images from the pre-released bonus files for issue 8 of Craphound - remember, i blogged about Craphound last week? i'm thinking of inscribing a row of circles on the left side and highlighting them in black.....

i might add to this one too... the texture from the topmost layer of wax is really awesome, so i might highlight them a bit with some oil. in deep red maybe? we'll see. the base is plaster again, but much thicker than the circles piece. the strips of tape were used again, which created an indent to hold the pieces of fabric measuring tape. i don't think i'm going to trim the edges, i like the overhang.

i've signed up for another open studio in september, and i'm excited! Trish is coming back to teach classes again this fall, but i don't think they're in my budget. maybe i can manage one of the days... i hope!!

*unfinished objects

summer picnic recipes!

2011-08-17T08:30:00.000-07:00

you might have realized, by the lack of cooking posts on this blog, that i don't cook a whole lot. i'm not anti-cooking, i'd just rather be sewing!

but this past weekend was one of my best friend's birthday, and i decided that the surprise picnic was the perfect time to make a few recipes that i'd come across lately.

the first one was Krista of poppyprintcreates.com's Summer's Best Salad. i had this salad back in february when Krista organized a retreat for the VMQG and i remember liking it, except for the cilantro (not a fan!). Krista posted the recipe recently, and since the friend who i was making this for likes quinoa, it was the perfect excuse to make it.

it looks good, but i kinda screwed it up! first, i skipped the cilantro, obviously, and i didn't use as many scallions as called for, because i didn't buy enough. those are no big deal, but i also realized after the fact that i hadn't measured the quinoa, i just used a full box, and i don't think i used enough. it was really really strong. i thought the lime was too strong, but several other people thought it was too sweet. (i found this tutorial for juicing a lime, and you get A LOT of juice with it!) if i'd had more quinoa, i think i would have made another box to spread the flavours out further, and it would've been great.

i also made a pasta salad, and googled for recipes for ideas of what to add. i found this recipe, and kind of followed it. i didn't add cucumber, because i didn't think it would hold up very well for leftovers, i didn't add tomatoes because i think fresh tomatoes are disgusting, i didn't add onions, because i forgot to buy one, and i used WAY less dressing than the recipe called for. but otherwise i followed it! and it was really good!

i wanted to make a cucumber salad as well, but ran out of time, which was fine, because we had soooo much food!

dessertwise, i made my peanut butter butterscotch marshmallow squares, because they're the birthday boy's favoutite, and super easy to make. instead of making squares, i poured the mixture into a buttered cupcake tin, to create cupcake-like shapes. once it had set, i popped them into cupcake liners, and you can see in the pictures that we put candles in them. i also tried putting a layer of melted chocolate over the top, to be like "icing", and that sort of failed! i ended up having to move them before the chocolate had fully set, so they looked sort of gross, even though they tasted fabulous!

mmmm, yummy!

in addition those, i also made the most amazing things EVER! the fabulous batgirl, AKA Lori, made these cheesecake stuffed strawberries and posted them on craftster.org. i didn't even know that you could buy cheesecake mix! they're so easy, and so incredibly yummy!

it was a really awesome picnic, and i was pretty proud of myself for trying something new!

Summery Teeny Blocks!

2011-08-11T18:16:00.000-07:00

i'm currently in the midst of a massive clean up effort - my sewing area has been completely out of control for months, and i can't handle it. i live in a 1bedroom apartment, and my studio is my living/dining room, so when it's messy, i can't just shut the door like some people can! i went out and bought some rubbermaid containers and started sorting, and it's sooooo much better. ideally, i'll be destashing as well, and i'll just use the extra rubbermaids for storage at my parent's house, but for now, it's showing me how much i have of specific things, and i'm finding things i didn't even know that i had.

like this fabric! i found it in a bag of scraps that i'd thrifted, and i wanted to sew with it immediately. i loved how vibrant the colours were, and the green stripe is exactly the same shade as my favourite green kona solid.

last week's iron craft challenge was the Summer Challenge, and the pinks with the orange stripe in this fabric practically screamed summer to me, so it was the perfect excuse to use it.

in addition, i came across this tutorial from Sew Lux Fabric & Gifts for a mini whirligig block the other day, and immediately fell in love. even though i have a million projects in progress, i wanted to make something little, just for the hell of it, and actually FINISH something!

i made three mini blocks, and joined them together with 1/2" sashing made from the same green kona. the blocks are supposed to be 3.5", but my blocks ended up being about 3 7/8". not sure how that worked, i think the fabric stretched a bit, because they were 3.5" when i added the sashing! i added a row of 1.25" sashing in the stripe, and ended up with a cute little wallhanging.

the entire wallhanging ended up 13.25" tall and 6.5" wide. i quilted in the ditch around the whirligigs, and then visibly on the outer border. the back is the same green, and i added a hanging sleeve made of the stripe.

i couldn't make up my mind how to quilt it at first, so i tried a few things. at first i wanted to hand quilt it - what was i thinking? ha! first, hand quilting is hard. i don't know WHY, considering that i have no problem with much fancier embroidery, but trying to keep the stitches even while hand quilting is entirely different. and it took forever. plus, hand quilting on the patterned fabric made it look too busy, in my mind.

after i ripped out the hand piecing, i machine quilted the same way i had hand quilted - on top of the whirligigs. i used a larger stitch length, which i was glad of when i decided to rip that out too!

i'm really happy with the stitching in the ditch quilting, and that just goes to show that it's not always bad/boring/plain/traditional to stick with the basics.

the deadline for entering the Iron Craft Summer Challenge was 8pm EST. thanks to the time i wasted on the quilting, i posted the picture in the flickr group at about 4:59 PST! i machine sewed the binding on, but there are a few spots that need to be hand stitched down, and i have to hand stitch the bottom edge of the hanging sleeve. just a teensy bit of work left, and nothing that masking tape couldn't hold for the photos!

did you check out the prize for the Summer Challenge? yummy gnome fabric!

Craphound is not crappy at all, in fact, it's really freaking amazing.

2011-08-08T07:12:00.001-07:00

i want to tell you guys about this super awesome resource that i love called Craphound.

it's basically all images. there are a few pages of writing at the front and the back, but other than that, it's pages and pages jammed full of awesome images. it was created by a guy named Sean Tejaratchi and the first issue came out in 1994. they were the stuff of legends for years and years, until they started reprinting some of the issues, and folks like me could finally get their hands on them. there have been 7 issues total, and Reading Frenzy/Show & Tell Press out of Portland is trying to get the funds together to print Craphound #8 via a Kickstarter campaign.

Crap Hound No. 1: Death, Telephones & Scissors
Crap Hound No. 2 & No. 3: Sex & Kitchen Gadgets
Crap Hound No. 4: Clowns, Devils & Bait (reprint still available)
Crap Hound No. 5: Hands, Hearts & Eyes (3rd edition reprint still available)
Crap Hound No. 6: Death, Telephones & Scissors, a revised version of no. 1
Crap Hound No. 7: Church & State (new issue, still available, but barely)
Crap Hound No. 8: Superstitions

i have 4, 5, 6 and 7, and i think 8 is going to be AMAZING. seriously. the images around luck and superstitions are so awesome, i can't wait to play with them.

they have lots of really cool rewards for donating (rubber stamps! totebag! wrapping paper! cards! buttons!), and i really really really want them to make their goal! they're so close!

as i'm writing this, they have 5 hours left on the kickstarter campaign, and less than $2000 left to raise. the thing about kickstarter is that unless they raise the full amount of $15,000 required to print the issue, no money will be raised at all, because no one is actually charged until the goal is met. THEY'RE SO CLOSE!

Are You Someone Who? Queer East Van Bingo Quilt

2011-08-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

the flowers from opening night are pretty much dead, so i should probably get around to blogging about my bingo quilt. i posted last week about folks helping me finish it and stuff, and i had intended to blog about the quilt really soon after that, but every time i sit down at the computer i get sucked into reading more and more previous posts of thebloggess.com. (i'm at page 105 now and i can't stop! the way she writes is exactly how my head works, it's like she's in my brain!)

i explained in the previous post that this quilt was a piece for the Queer Arts Festival Curated Visual Arts Exhibition. this year's theme was Games People Play, which was an awesome theme, and some really amazing pieces were created based on it.

i'm going to copy and paste my artist's statement here, which is a lot longer than i thought it was, so feel free to skim it if you'd like.

or, if you're one of the people who vehemently hate my lack of capitalization on this blog, you might want to read it over and over again, cause in a rare fit of appropriateness, i actually capitalized letters in it.

artist bio
Amy Dame combines art and craft to create pieces that illustrate their experiences as a queer and genderqueer person with disabilities, the beliefs and political views that guide their life, and the experiences of people around them. Primarily fibre based, Amy’s work regularly incorporates hand and machine embroidery, machine piecing, quilting and appliqué. Amy is inspired by words and imagery not generally expressed in traditional fibre work, and believes that the act of illustrating our stories in time consuming mediums such as embroidery or quilting reflects and respects the true value of the experiences of our community.

artist's statement
Are You Someone Who? East Van Bingo combines the time honoured tradition of signature quilts with the ubiquitous Bingo icebreaker to create a modern form of an art quilt.

Signature or album quilts were historically made as gifts when respected leaders, such as teachers or ministers, moved on to a new posting. Blocks of the quilt were signed by church or community members, and reflected the time the recipient spent in their community. This quilt illustrates a specific time period of East Van community, with an emphasis on the experiences of the artist’s generation.

The other aspect of the piece is a variation of the Bingo game that we have all played at meeting after meeting. Usually tailored towards the theme of the gathering, statements printed in the squares reflect experiences of the participants, and attendees are asked to find people who fit each statement and then have them sign their name on the block as a way to break the ice and encourage familiarity.

In this case, audience members are invited to sign their name to any and all squares that they identify with. They are free to sign as many or as few blocks as they wish, and to use whichever names they are most comfortable signing with.

It will be interesting to see which blocks attract the most signatures, and which blocks the audience members are most comfortable identifying with. Though the majority of the blocks invoke familiarity, nostalgia and laughter, some of them may be viewed as embarrassing or shameful. It is important to include these aspects of our community, even some that may be considered negative, to ensure that our history is portrayed honestly and respectfully.

the specifics - all the fabric on the front is Kona cotton in white and black. the bingo letters are reverse appliqued using wonderunder, and all of the writing on the blocks was digitized and then machine embroidered. the embroidery was done with standard sewing polyester thread, because i didn't want the sheen of embroidery thread. the centre square, which took me forever to design and digitize, is based on this vancouver public art piece, which is actually based on an old gang symbol that has been in use in east van dating back to the 1940s/50s. the quilt is backed in black and white polka dot cotton voile, with a bit of black and white striped voile along one side. it currently isn't quilted - after the show is over, i'm going to undo the basting stitches and sandwich it properly so that it can be quilted. i was originally going to quilt it before the show, but i needed it to be a flat, smooth surface for people to write on, so i changed my mind.

the quilt has 24 blocks with statements written on them, and a smaller companion piece that reads
"Are You Someone Who..."
"grab a pen and . sign as many
or as few of the squares that
describe you. use your real
name, a fake name, your
drag name or your alter ego’s
name, just sign."
the companion piece doesn't hang the way i wanted it to.. which is irritating. but i'll fix it later.

the 24 blocks are:
B
- went to rock for choice at the cultch
- remembers when Tegan and Sara were Sara and Tegan, cute little baby dykes with acoustic guitars (it still trips me out when non-vancouverites/non-albertans know who tegan and sara are. weird!)
- has been part of a collective or consensus based group
- is poly or is consciously monogamous
- owns a pair of skinny jeans

I
- voted for Libby Davies
- moved to Montreal or Toronto for a “change of pace”
- has hosted a potluck
- has thought seriously about your gender identity
- owns a full set of leathers

N
- is vegan or vegetarian
- has an account on superdyke, plentyoffish or okcupid
- east van cross!
- has filled a stamp card at womyns’ ware (local sex store - link NSFW!)
- knows the best friend of the ex girlfriend of the casual partner of the last person you slept with

G
- knows how to repair your own bicycle
- has met a lover, one night stand, john, friend with benefits or future partner via craigslist
- has lived in a communal house with its own name
- has made their own sex toys
- wears a hanky and actually knows what you’re flagging (basic hanky code, an updated version than i love)

O
- has lived in more than 5 apartments or houses in east van
- protested during the Olympics
- has gone weeks without leaving East Van
- has been to a dance party in a completely inaccessible space like the Anza, the Legion or the Secret Location and thought nothing of it
- has been to Michfest or Camp Trans (michfest is an annual event called michigan womyn's music festival that only allows cisgendered women to attend, and camp trans is an annual event that protests MWMF's transphobia and creates a welcoming community near the MWMF site)

it was really really hard to narrow down to 24! a few of my others were: feels as comfy at the Wise Hall as you do in your own home, has dated/slept with/played with/etc a librarian, has performed drag, and has marched in the dyke march, but honestly, i could've made 3 quilts and still have more statements to use.

the quilt was a big hit on opening night, and the opening night Art Party was a big hit on it's own. this year Pride in Art organized two art shows for the Queer Art Show, the curated show that I was in, and the non-themed community art show, so the Art Party was HUGE! i've been going on opening night for many years now, and there's never been that many people. someone said something about 300 people, and i'd totally believe it. it was really overwhelming! i went back on a later night to actually check out the other pieces, because there was no way that i could actually concentrate with that many people around me. my family came, including my totally sleep deprived dad who'd just arrived home that morning, my mom and her best friend, my sister, and my also sleep deprived little brother, who'd also arrived home that morning, his girlfriend, and some of my dearest chosen family members, including my friend J, who i've posted about before, and my best friend K and his partner. both my parents and my little sister got me flowers, and my mom wrote me a super sweet note from her and my dad, and i was so so happy that i was finally able to introduce J to my family. it was a really good night.

come on quilters!

2011-08-01T16:00:00.000-07:00

just a super quick post to remind locals that tomorrow evening at 7:30pm is the executive meeting for Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild!

elections are coming up, and we're looking for gung-ho volunteers to sit on next year's board, or to volunteer in other ways.

if you're at all interested, you should totally come to the meeting to see what's up. even if you totally don't want to be on the board, you should come to the meeting to chat about other volunteer opportunities. please contact Kalin or one of the other board members for the address!

if you're intrigued, but can't make it to the meeting, please e-mail Kalin and chat with her about it.

omg, people rock.

2011-07-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

i don't, i kind of suck because i meant to post this a week ago, but i have to tell you, THE PEOPLE IN MY QUILT GUILD FUCKING ROCK. seriously.

remember last year when i finally got the nerve up to submit some pieces to the Queer Arts Festival? two of my pieces were accepted, the Beth Ditto porn diptych, and the mixed media embroidery piece, Queer Health. (the Beth Ditto porn diptych is TOTALLY NSFW, but that's kinda obvious given the name, and the Queer Health piece is SFW, unless your work has an issues with speculums)

this year the show was curated, so instead of submitting pieces, i was ASKED to do a piece, which was so hella exciting! except for the fact that since i didn't have to submit by a deadline, i didn't have to get it done by an earlier deadline either. and despite my promise last year that i'd learned my lesson about procrastinating, i totally hadn't.

i had a pretty good start on this year's piece, but then i went on a roadtrip, and because my family is completely absurb, managed to get exactly nothing done while i was out there. (unless you count thrifting. i did lots and LOTS of thrifting. but that didn't help me get my piece done)

i had it all planned out, i was going to come home, have plenty of time to work on it, etc. but that totally didn't happen. by the time i got home, days later than planned, it was 3 days before the piece had to be done. and then i had a bunch of personal drama stuff that came up and totally interfered with my plans to get things accomplished as well.

i basically got home wednesday night, slept, and then got up thursday morning and started sewing. by thursday night, i had the main portion pieced, and i took it to our July VMQG meeting for show and tell. i had originally been kind of nervous about taking it to the guild, because i'm already the freaky one who says innapropriate things all the time, but i was so overtired, i totally forgot to be nervous.

(picture credit to the fabulous Holly - i have no idea how she always catches me making the weirdest faces!)

and the guild was awesome. SO MANY people said such amazing things, were so complimentary and positive, it was wonderful.

so then i went back home and kept working, but the aforementioned personal drama came up, and the next thing i knew it was Sunday, the day the piece had to completed and dropped off, and i'd slept in four later than planned. (i have 3 alarm clocks, 2 of which beep for 2 hours before turning off. i slept through ALL of them!)

we had a sew-in scheduled, so my plan had been to take the piece with me right when the sew-in started at 10, finish it up, and drop it off around 12 or 1. instead, i didn't get to the sew-in until 2, and i had to drop the piece off by 4, so i was scrambling! luckily, MY QUILT GUILD ROCKS, and i had 3 people (Terry, Sue and Paul) helping me, and Louise nagging me to hurry (in a totally loving, understanding way).

i made it to the drop off by 4:10, thank goodness, and after discussing hanging, etc, dropped it off. there is no possible way that i would have made it without the help, and once again, i have to say, MY GUILD ROCKS.

and then i went home and slept.

(i'll post about the piece itself asap, i'm sorry heidi!)

Starry Bow Ties!

2011-07-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

so hey, remember Iron Craft?

with all the busy-ness of June (which i'll still post more about, don't worry!), i didn't have time to keep up with the challenges, but this week i really wanted to. the theme was stars and stripes, which quite honestly, i'm soooooo tired of! every craft blog on the internet has been all about independance day, and it's boring. i don't even celebrate canada day (read this for part of the reason why), so i'm understandably not all that interested in celebrating another country.

but Iron Craft left the challenge really open, not july 4th-based at all - and you know what, i LOVE stars and stripes, as long as they're not red, white and blue!

and this seemed like the perfect excuse to start another project - cause i always need more projects! i recently ran across a super simple summer quilt a long - Summer Bowties! the original blog post by Karen Snyder of Anna Lena Land has a tutorial for simple 3" or 6" block, and she wrote a second post with a tutorial for a 6" 3D block. she's started a Facebook group for people to share pictures and their progress, and to discuss layout options.

the basic idea is simple - make one block every day of summer.

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so far it's been 16 days - by the end of the summer you'll have 95 blocks, enough for a quilt or even two, depending on your layout. but it's totally managable, right? (that's totally going to kick me in the ass now that i've said it, i know, but it IS simple!) i have a lot of fat quarters and snippets of fun fabrics that i haven't used, so it'll be a great excuse to make a scrappy quilt and use them.

i haven't finished 16 blocks yet, but i will! it's easy to get caught up, once you're in the rhythym of them. i cut the fabric for 37 blocks yesterday, and sewed up 8 of them, using the star and stripe fabrics in my stash.

i made the 3D blocks - not because i particularly cared about the 3D part, but because i wanted a solid piece for my centre, and the triangle technique uses two pieces. but the 3D aspect of it is definitely fun! (and as a bonus, you don't have to match the seams!)

i made 8 blocks total - two each of the purple and green star prints. i only wanted to use tone on tone prints, or at least prints that are all within the same colour family. it turns out that most of my stripey fabrics are not tone on tone - i was pretty amazed to realize that only two of them fit my loose requirements! i'll have to dig deeper into my stash i guess.

fun, huh? i'm excited to play with my scraps and put together more blocks!

goodbye june - thank goodness!

2011-07-03T18:24:00.000-07:00

so obviously, june was not a good choice for a daily challenge!

ohmygoodness. i knew june was busy, but i did not expect it to be as overwhelming as it turned out to be.

first, on june 16 the VMQG celebrated their birthday!!! we had a yummy cake and lots of other goodies, TONS of door prizes (one for everyone who attended!), Holly put together a fabulous talk and slideshow celebrating our first year, showcasing her own and Sonja's awesome photos, and everyone brought their completed (or partially completed!) Kona Charm Pack Challenge quilts. i was really focused on the items that i made for door prizes, and on trying to get my kona challenge quilts as finished as possible, and on organizing the meeting itself. Anna handled most of the food stuff, but i did up punch, etc and between everything else, i was very happy when the day of the meeting finally arrived, and even happier to sleep away the day after it!

i took my camera to the meeting - i even charged the battery just in case - and then i was way too busy to even take it out of my bag. luckily, Holly took some fabulous photos, and she's graciously given me permission to post them here.

first of all - the cake! ohmygoodness, the cake. who knew it was so hard to find a yummy, personalized cake in vancouver! we wanted the cake to have our logo, and use an icing colour that coordinated, but that turned out to be almost impossible to find for an affordable price. if we'd realized how hard it was going to be, we could have ordered an edible transfer of our logo online, since one bakery wanted to charge $60 for it (google found them for $10!), but we had no idea until it was too late. in the end, Anna found an awesome bakery, Richlea bakery, who did exactly what we wanted, and made us a super yummy cake. unfortunately, they were in Ladner! luckily, on our members, Matt, who owns The Quilted Bear in Ladner, was willing to pick it up for us.

and then we had the other cake! Anna made this super cute fabric cake for us as well!

it was so awesome to see all of the Kona challenge projects - i'm not in this picture - i was so frazzled, i didn't even realize they'd taken it until afterwards!

you should definitely check out more pictures of the Kona challenge projects in the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild flickr group, both the ones that Holly took, and ones that members have posted.

i'm not going to show you both of mine, cause they're not done (is that surprising?!), but Holly took some awesome photos of them in progress. i did two Kona challenges, because i won a second charm pack as a door prize.

one of my quilts is a large square, lap size quilt, and i'm backing it with this awesome vibrant rose printed rayon - it's soooooo soft, it's going to be fabulous to cuddle up with. i'll post of pics of it once i've finished it, because i've added a lot more quilting since the meeting. i'm almost done the quilting, and then i'll just need to put the binding on it.

you can also see a peek at the table full of door prizes between me and the quilt - i'll post the door prizes that i made to donate another day, but there were SO MANY amazing prizes!

but back to the quilts! my second quilt is a baby size quilt, and it uses 42 charms on the front, with the 43rd used to applique the Kona logo on the label on the back. the backing fabric is the same fabric used on the front, Kona grass green, which i'm totally in love with. it'll be the binding too, once i get around to it.

i wasn't really happy with this quilt, but looking at it in a photo, i'm totally changing my mind! it's funny how sometimes you need that different perspective. i like it a lot better now. you might recognize the layout as being the same as the Yellow and Orange Central Park pillow.

i love the back, and even more, i love this picture that Holly took of it!

the label is machine embroidered, as usual, except for the Kona logo, that's a wonderunder applique.

buuuuuttttt, as much as i like how the quilts turned out, the real hit of the evening was the t-shirt that i made to wear!

(i don't know what the hell that look on my face is)

almost every meeting, i get up there for show and tell, ramble on about how i made the quilt, the fabrics, etc, etc, and then end it with "and then i quilted the crap out of it". it's become a guild slogan, along with "i just made it up as i went along!" so i made a quick tshirt, with fabric letters fused on the front. i need to sew them down, but i didn't have time before the meeting. i want to make a silkscreen of it to put on other things - that'd probably be faster than cutting out all those letters was!

Days 3, 4 and 5, update! (lace wings, rice krispies and balsa wood)

2011-06-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

i've been working at the 30 Days Of Creativity challenge, but most of the stuff i've made had to dry overnight, needed a last finishing touch, etc, so i'm a bit behind in actually posting.

on Friday, day 3, i made super cool free standing lace wings. aren't they awesome? the pattern is from Urban Threads. i made them pink, to match a skirt, which i didn't actually finish in time.... but they matched my tights just as well!

they're stitched onto washaway stabilizer, and after they stitch out, i rinse them in warm water to disolve the stabilizer. i usually lay fsl out on a towel or wash cloth to absorb the moisture.

each wing takes over an hour to stitch out, and for the first one, i only used one layer of stabilizer, and it wasn't enough, and the stitching got a bit stretched. however, i was not willing to start all over again! after the wings dried, i used the same embroidery thread to hand tack the background and the border together.

i got my sister to pin them on my shirt in position, and then i basted them down by hand. fun! i want to make them in every colour of the rainbow!

(blurry, i know, but shouldn't magic be blurry anyways?)

on saturday, day 4, i made vegan, gluten free rice crispie cake. yum! i can't remember where i saw it, but i read about vegan rice crispie cake a few months ago and got it in my head to make it for a party. i have a lot of friends and aquaintances who are vegan or veggie, so i'm used to that, but gluten free was more intimidating for me (thought it ended up being no problem at all). i didn't actually go to that party (i got my days mixed up and missed it!), but saturday night was a housewarming for many of the same people, so it was a good excuse to use the supplies i bought. i used Nature's Path Brown Rice Crispies, Dandie's Vegan Marshmallows (they totally taste the same!!), Earth Balance vegan buttery spread (that shit is so awesome for baking), and a teensy bit of vanilla, homemade with vanilla beans and vodka. all organic, except for the vodka and vanilla!

i made a couple of little flags to label them. simple but effective.

and today, day 5, i finished a birthday card that i've been working on for the past few days. i've posted before about the fabulous sewing lounge and fabric store that my friends Lili and Henry opened last year. this weekend was Spool of Thread's 1st Birthday! yayy!!!

so i made them a card, and took it in today to deliver it, and picked up fabric for a guild project. and i ate a few mini cupcakes, they were awesome!

the card is a piece of balsa wood painted with jacquarde neopaque paint (i love jacquarde paints, their lumiere line in particular is gorgeous). i sketched out the birthday cake on some scrap paper, and then transferred the outlines to wonder under. i ironed each piece onto a fabric scrap, cut out the shapes, peeled off the backing, and ironed them onto the balsa wood. i added some machine stitching for details and defining, and typed Happy Birthday with my typewriter before stitching down the little piece of vintage graph paper.

and that's my days 3, 4 and 5! i haven't decided what to make tomorrow.... do i work on a larger project, or make something small that i can finish and post pictures of? we'll have to see.

Today's Progress...

2011-06-02T23:56:00.000-07:00

soooooo pinterest!

wanna follow me?

i applied for pinterest a while ago after running across it on a few blogs, but by the time i got my invite, i'd gotten distracted, surprise, surprise.

until the other day!

Kat from Iron Craft posted about a project that she did last year called 30 Days of Creativity.

30 Days of Creativity is a social initiative encouraging people to create stuff (anything) every day for 30 days in June.

Your brain is like a muscle. When you exercise it, it gets stronger.

sounds fun, huh?
since obviously my june isn't already busy enough (wtf amy?) i decided that it would be fun to join in as well. which leads me back to pinterest! while people are also posting links on twitter (follow the hashtag #30daysofcreativity to see), pinterest is more fun, where they've created a board for every day and folks pin their daily results to the board.

i didn't post about new year's resolutions this year, but a few years ago i made a resolution to do something creative every day, whether that was working on ongoing projects, planning projects, or even just blogging about projects, something. i've continued on with that resolution every year, but looking back now, i can't imagine even needing to make that resolution! (however, i completely failed at the "make something for yourself every month resolution")

so yeah, i don't need the motivation of this initiative, but i think it will be good to specifically think of what i've done each day, and it will force me to document it better, which i'm admittedly bad at. you guys have no idea how many little projects i never get around to posting!

for Day 1, i made the salad bowl sling in my previous post. today, for Day 2, i didn't complete a project, but i DID make quite a bit of progress on a larger project. i finished 9 giant blocks for a future quilt, and hopefully tomorrow i'll get them sewn together. i'm hoping i'll be able to sandwich it next week, and start on the actual quilting. hopefully!!

Bowl Carrier - Picnic Tutorial (what the heck do i call this?!)

2011-06-01T23:36:00.000-07:00

i sat down to write this post hours ago but got completely distracted by the joys of Pinterest.. that's a dangerous website! i'll post a link to my boards in the sidebar tomorrow, if i go back there tonight, i'll never get this done

so, back on track. iron craft! i missed last week, so i was determined to do something this week. the theme of Challenge #22 was Al Fresco, outdoor dining, picnics, bbqs, etc.

i'm in the midst of several big projects right now, and at first i couldn't think of what to make. one day i'm going to make a giant picnic blanket, but that wasn't going to happen this week. i wanted to make a giant ruffley, lacey, pastelly skirt, because i'm DETERMINED that one summer i'm going to organize a big fancy tea party with costumes, hats, croquet and pink lemonade which may or may not be spiked with vodka. but i knew i wouldn't have time to give it justice.

but then the other day, i picked up these fabulous vintage napkins. they just screamed picnic to me, with the berries and the blue lattice. that got me thinking about picnics, and my favourite summer salad - beet and apple!

i usually make the salad in one of my pyrex or fire king bowls, and then i have to carefully prop it in the backseat and carry it to the picnic spot cradled in my arm, making it hard to carry anything else. but if i put it in a bag, it always slips around, and doesn't stay level, blah blah blah.

i started thinking about the casserole carrier in One Yard Wonders, wondering if it could be altered for bowls... i looked over the pattern, and decided it would be easier to start from scratch. and this is what i ended up with!

and i made a tutorial!

so! to start!

find the bowl you usually use for salad. this is a 1.5oz bowl - fairly small, i know, but the perfect size for a picnic with tons of food. trace around the bowl.

fold your circle in half and in half again, creasing the paper. you'll want these marks later.

measure 1" inside the circle

fold the paper back into quarters and make a series of marks 1" away from the first circle

connect the marks to draw another 1/4 circle inside the first circle

cut along the two circles and disregard the middle and the outside, leaving you with the ring

get your napkin. the size isn't super important, as this is a pretty flexible tutorial, but for reference, the napkin i'm using about 15"-16" squares

press it if required, and then fold it in half

use pins to mark the centre fold

if you're unsure where to pin, use your paper ring centred along the fold to guide you

fold the napkin in half again, the other way, and pin the centre fold

now you'll have pins marking the four centre lines

centre your paper ring on the napkin, lining up the creases you made a few minutes ago with the pins you just poked in

pin the paper securely

and cut out the centre of the napkin

save the centre if you want - wouldn't the berries be a cute applique?

fold the corners of the napkin in

leave at least 1.5" between the hole you cut and the corners

use chalk or a marking pen to mark 1" from the fold on each corner

sew along the lines, creating a casing on each corner

sew the bias tape around the edges of your cut out circle. there are tons of tutorials on applying bias tape, but you'll notice that i'm not doing the usual two steps, where you sewn down one side first. i just slip the cut edge into fold and sew, and using my handy dandy blind hem foot, it works perfectly.

leave an inch or two unnattached when you start sewing it on

when you get close to the spot where you started, stop sewing. cut the bias tape, leaving yourself a few inches extra. unfold the bias tape and sew the two ends together. this tutorial explains it perfectly.

after you've sewn the ends together, fold the bias tape back up and finish sewing around the circle.

a note on the foot - when you're topstitching, the blind hem foot is your new best friend. i've been using it obsessively since i got this machine, and you get perfect results every time, it's like magic!

the blind hem foot has a little screw, and you can make the space of the foot wider or narrower, depending on what you're sewing. the edge of your bias tape lines up against the little metal ledge, so it's super easy to keep it on track. it looks like kenmore, elna, janome and bernina all have adjustable blind hem foots for sure, but other makes might as well. if your machine doesn't have an adjustable foot, it more than likely lets you adjust the needle position, and that'll work too.

but back to the project at hand!

take the remaining bias tape and topstitch along the fold to turn it into a cord

thread the bias tape cord through the casing on each corner of the napkin

tie the two ends together and place your bowl in the centre

holding the cord on two sides, pull the cord, gathering the napkin along the casings

pull up the cords. you'll have two loops, one from each side.

slip one loop over the other and tug on the cord until the loop lies flat

tadaaa!!!

simple, huh?

so, what would you put in it? share your recipes!

back to regularly scheduled life!

2011-05-26T19:55:00.000-07:00

whew!

Sew Mama Sew Give away Day is done.

what did you think? did you go hopping around to some of the blogs? did you manage to get to all of them? they've posted a blog post asking for feedback, so be sure to pop over and do so - and tell them how AWESOME they are for organizing this twice a year!

i've participated in giveaways before, and i love doing them (when i remember), but i find them extremely stressful to navigate through. there's just so many! and so little time! and so many hoops to jump through! and some of them ended at really weird times. 9am? wha?

i tried to only enter giveaways that i was sincerely interested in, and i tried to always give real comments, and i simply wasn't able to get through them all. and i had more time available than someone who works fulltime, or someone with kids! i want to start responding to some of the awesome comments left here, and go back to some of the blogs that looked really interesting, because there totally wasn't time to look around. i'm curious as to what others thought, both people who were doing giveaways, and people entering the giveaways.

but enough of my blathering, you're wondering who won!

Congratulations Erica!

Erica said - "So pretty and sunny! It would look excellent on my couch! :) I don't think I have anything interesting to say, so I'll share that the other day I decided to try sorting my fabrics by color. (Which was quite the undertaking because most of it's in bins due to craft room construction.) I've found that I need lots more red, orange and yellow fabric...And being that I'm working on a project of rainbow proportions, I'd better get on that! :) "

apparently her couch is already excited! ;)

i'm going to mail that off next week - a few days past the deadline i think, but i am NOT going near the border lineups that memorial day weekend will cause! and it's silly to ship it from here, pay 3 times the price, and wait weeks for it to arrive, when i can just ship it from the US and it'll arrive the same week. have i mentioned how much i love USPS? i totally <3 USPS.

guess what? it's giveaway day!!!

2011-05-23T05:06:00.000-07:00

yay! Sew Mama Sew is facilitating hundreds of giveaways, you definitely have to go check it out! they have three lists, handcrafted items, sewing and knitting supplies, and handcrafted items with supplies. all three lists are organized with giveaways that allow international shipping first, and giveaways that are host country-only shipping second, which is super handy for those of us who aren't in the US.

so what am i giving away? i hinted the other day....

the Central Park Spring Pillow!

the pillow is made of yellow linen and prints from the Moda line Central Park that was designed by Kate Spain.

it measures aprox 16" x 10" and is backed in solid orange Kona cotton.

sooooo... the rules!

* this giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY! yay!

* you must post a comment on this thread to enter.

* the winner will be chosen via random generator, though i'll give you fair warning - if your comment is just something along the lines of "pick me!", the random generator might be chosing a different winner... cause that's boring. i know you're going to hundreds of blogs, but half the fun is looking around a bit!

* you don't have to become a follower or tweet or anything fancy like that to enter (though you could, if you wanted to! or sign up for the handy-dandy e-mail feed!)

* the giveaway closes at 11:59 PST on May 25th

that's it! leave me a comment about something fun... leave a comment about something you've seen here on my blog. leave me a comment about something that you wish more blogs had (like e-mail feeds! is that just me...) tell me what your last project was, link to an awesome tutorial that i might not have seen, tell me what you listen to while you're sewing/quilting/crafting/creating. tell me what you're excited about making next, what awesome book you just read or movie you just saw (i finally saw grey gardens last night!), what new blog you just discovered (i'm loving threadbared lately. gender, politics and FASHION! brilliant!), or what new fabric line you can't wait to order, or what your favourite zine is, and what distro carries it. tell me something that'll make me glad that you stopped by. ;)

good luck!

blah blah and mother's day...

2011-05-23T00:23:00.000-07:00

you know those weeks when everything that's going to go wrong will? yeah, that was last week. the third week of the month is always a little stressful for me because it's guild week, and i always feel like i have a million things to do, but last week was all that and a whole bunch more. i DID get my iron craft project done - super early, actually, but i still haven't had a chance to photograph it. maybe i'll get it done by this week's deadline. ;)

however, i did manage to make a simple header and change the blog around a bit. what do you think? i overestimated my photoshop skills, but i'm still pretty happy with how it turned out. (and i managed to embroider a word in metallic thread without it breaking! score one for the fancy $7 metallic needles!)

and while i'm getting my butt in gear to post about current projects, i thought i'd post another catch up - i've gotta get caught up eventually!

so, wanna see what i made my mom for mother's day?

i bought her a bunch of books, because we're big book lovers in our family, but the night before, i decided that i should sew her a bag to hold the books in.

i'd picked up this fabric months ago, because i knew she'd like it. it was a slightly odd fabric because the metre of fabric was actually 4 different prints. remember panels of fabric, when you would buy a length of fabric with a pattern pre-printed on it, usually an incredibly ugly vest of some sort? it was like that, but with coordinating fat quarters printed on it.

two of the prints had a black background, and two of them had a white background. i knew i wanted to use the cat print on the outside of the bag, and it had a white background. a white totebag seemed very impractical, so i decided to use vinyl for the bottom of the bag. not only was it black and easy to clean, it would also hold up much better than quilting cotton.

in theory, this was supposed to be a very simple bag.... i cut the vinyl 15"x5", the two outer pieces 15"x11", the two lining pieces 15"x15", and two pieces of quilt batting to match the lining, and pieced together some scraps to make two 22" long strap. i quilted the batting to the lining and assembled the bag, but somehow it ended up taking me way longer than i thought i would.... maybe it was the crime shows that i was watching while sewing it!

Teal Linen and Central Park Pillow (yes, more central park!)

2011-05-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

i figured since i posted the yellow and orange pillow the other day, i should get around to posting what i made with the first half of the Kate Spain Central Park charm pack as well.

it's linen, are you surprised?

however, this pillow was started well before the orange and yellow pillow - i posted a sneak peak back in january i finished the top then, and even quilted it, but didn't get around to making the back and constructing the pillow last month, just in time for quilt guild.

it's based on the Mod Mosaic pillow tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman, who blogs at Oh, Fransson. this tutorial was actually our January challenge - i didn't finish my blocks for the challenge, because the pillow took forever! my pieces were really small though, since i was working with charm squares.

i used all of the "reservoir" (aqua) and "plaza" (pink) charms from the line, with the prints bridle path, carousel, cobblestone, esplanade, hernshead, linden and trefoil, as well as carousel in "lawn" (green). there weren't enough charms for a a full 16" pillow, so i added teal linen to the top and bottom of the patchwork. and yes, it is the same linen as my bunting pillow, the stuff that i'm in love with.

the back is just the linen, with diagonal straight line quilting. like the bunting pillow, i used flannelette instead of batting to reduce bulk, but to still get the crinkled wrinkly look after washing it.

i used a vintage zipper, like i always do, and it bled! i've never had that happen before, so i was a bit disappointed when i noticed the green along the zipper (after it had already been through the dryer, of course!). and see how the fabric acted on the lapped edge? i was using a zipper foot instead of a walking foot, and the fabric really pulled. i like the way it looks though... i've been so fascinated by the way fabric folds on a bias lately!

vote for me?

2011-05-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

if you have a chance, do you wanna vote for my pretty yellow linen pillow in the Iron Crafter Sping Contest?

go check out all the awesome entries here, then send an e-mail to theironcraft@yahoo.com with the number of the one you have chosen (mine's #23!!), with "IC Vote" in the subject line.

voting ends at 7pm EST tomorrow! thanks!

Central Park and Yellow Linen Patchwork Pillow - Spring Challenge!

2011-05-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

I’m late posting this, due to blogger’s issues yesterday (i'm crossing my fingers that this post won't disappear, and that tuesday's will come back...) but I was late finishing it anyway! This week’s Iron Craft Challenge was the Spring Contest, and the deadline was open until 8pm EST on Thursday – I uploaded my pictures about 30 minutes from the deadline. Cutting it close! I had the front and back all pieced together, and then i decided that i hated it, unpicked it all, and sewed it back together.

I’ve been planning this project for awhile, so Iron Craft was the perfect motivator. What’s more spring-like than bright yellow linen?

My sister got the linen piece for me at a “stitch and swap”, because she knows how much I love coloured linen. I don’t know the full fabric content, but it’s lovely. It had been torn, and therefore the edges were really wavy, and for the life of me I couldn’t press them out, so I used Best Press, which is a pretty magical product! (it’s like starch, but better)

The yellow is the perfect shade to use with the second half of my Kate Spain “Central Park” charm pack. (I haven’t posted the project that I made with the first half, but I will soon!!) I had some orange linen, but it wasn’t really the right shade, so I was really happy when she finally remembered to give it to me.

I started out sewing strips of the linen onto the charm squares, and then cut them down into smaller blocks. I laid them out and sewed them together….. and it looked so boring. Why did I bother doing the fancy sashing if I was just going to do a simple layout like that?

So I started unpicking. And I decided to play around with the layout in photoshop before I sewed anything together again!

I took some photos of the blocks, and chose the clearest one of each fabric. Then I rotated them around, playing with the layout until I came up with this one. It's interesting how the prints and the geometric design that they create are prominent here, but in the actual pillow, the sashing and the cross/plus signs that it creates is most prominent. I think if I’d added yellow sashing around the entire piece, it might have changed that because once I stuffed the pillow, the top and bottom blocks kind of disappeared.

(the prints used are, from left to right, Esplanade in Sunshine, Seneca in Metro, Trefoil in Sunshine, Carousel in Sunshine, Cherry Hill in Metro, and Bridle Path in Metro)

The backing is orange kona cotton, because I’d run out of linen (the fabric I’d cut for the pieced back was too small, the new design was bigger) I put a layer of quilt batting against it, but didn't actually quilt it, I just wanted to ensure that the back was smooth after I filled the pillow with batting.

I did quilt the front though, with a fairly thin cotton batting. I haven’t washed the pillow yet, but I think it’s gonna “scrunch” up nicely!

I wanted the prints to be the focus (see above on how I failed with that!), so I only quilted on the linen, around the chain created by the prints.

These aren’t my usual colours at all, but I really love how it turned out! I’m really excited about using this basic pattern for larger projects. I haven’t decided on a design for the Kona Charm Pack challenge yet, so this might be in the running.

However, because it’s not my usual colours, I won’t really use it in my house….. Maybe it’s better suited to yours? Sew Mama Sew is facilitating their Annual May Giveaway day on the 23rd, so you might wanna check back here around then!
(Hows that for a hint? Subtle, huh?)

Finally! Fat Quarterly QAL Quilt!

2011-05-11T23:09:00.000-07:00

It occurred to me a few weeks ago that if you were only going by what I post here, you’d probably be wondering why the hell I’m so involved with a quilt guild, since I seem to do so little quilting. You’d be totally wrong, but I wouldn’t blame you at all. It’s funny actually, since I’ve been so obsessive about photographing and recording stuff I make for years now, way before blogs took off. The problem is, quilts don’t fit on my dressform!

Living by myself, and not being able to convince my sister to model for me, means that I don’t always get good pictures. My apartment isn’t big enough to have a quilt’s worth of wall space clear, and I don’t have a nice lush yard like some bloggers. I’ve considered taking my quilts to the park across the street, if only the park had a clothesline....

So a few weeks ago, on a rare non-rainy day (we’ve had the wintery-ist spring here, it’s miserable), I got myself organized, took a stack of quilts over to my parent’s house and forced my mom to stand in front of the cherry tree holding them out. Finally, pictures!!

Now I can try to catch up on posting some past projects!
This is probably the oldest project. I posted a few in progress photos, but I realized that I’d never photographed the end result. Remember the Fat Quarterly Quilt-a-long? And my pretty quilt that I was making out of vintage linens?

I finished it, and it’s been hanging out on my couch with me for months now.

Sofie’s decided that it’s hers. I actually had to wash it before I could take pictures, it was so covered in black and white fur.

Here it is entirely.

I quilted it with wavy horizontal lines. I used a stitch setting on my machine, so it was super easy. The stitch could have actually been wider, but my walking foot needed a larger open area!

I added some appliquéd hexagons scattered across the quilt. They were sofie’s fault actually – she loves the quilt so much that before it was even done, she kneaded at it and pulled the threads in one of the blocks. I’d already started quilting, so it would have been a huge hassle to replace it, so I covered it up! Besides, as much as I love hexies, I’ll never get around to actually handsewing them all together for anything, appliqué is a much better use!

The back is a full sheet with pink roses, very simple, but you can see the quilting I did.

I made a label using a bit of kona cotton and a strip of one of the sheets from the front.