A Finish!

So fantastically happy with the way this quilt turned out. I had my friend Coralee quilt it for me, and she did some funky paisley type pattern, exactly what I had hoped for, adding to the quilt another layer of fabulous funkiness.



After much discussion, I went with a green border in 4 different fabrics, 2 print and 2 Kona solids. I love this border. I also love doing my binding by machine. I love it. It's so fast and tidy, I get the whole binding done in 2 hours (from cutting to finish) and it looks fabulous.


The pattern, in case you haven't seen earlier comments in various places about this quilt, is by Elizabeth Hartman in her book, The Practical Guide to Patchwork. I've restocked this book multiple times in my store, because it's such a fabulous all round great quilting book, especially for beginners (but I use is all the time!) The fabric is Prayer Flag by April Cornell - I used 2 charm packs, 1 jelly roll and some yardage of Moda Grunge from the Max & Whiskers collection. Back is some solid Kona as well as Prayer Flag yardage. I love love love the back.


I also love how it washed up (are you getting that I'm digging this quilt?) and it has already been delivered to it's new owners (with whom I took a yoga class this evening) and promised to sleep under tonight!
Best wishes Morgan & Dinesh - may you have many years of happiness under that quilt!

my design wall...

and the cozy little nook I've created for myself. I'm on the night shift at the hotel again. Two nights a week we don't have staff in the hotel, and so James opens the hotel at 6:30 and sets up the continental breakfast (he does this every morning, thank you!!) we trade each other off through out the day, and then in the evening he goes to bed early and I stay up until after 11pm to do the night audit. Little does he know I secretly love it. It's so peaceful in the hotel right now. It's what I'm referring to as "renovation season" where we only have a few rooms a night and so are working on lots of upgrades to our hotel.

The point of all of this, is that I took a photo of my little nook tonight, and the new pattern I'm working on, a complete original, I'm VERY excited! I know the photo is a little blurry, but it best captured the feel of the lighting in the room. Can you see my two mascots hidden in this photo? (one is a yellow lab, the other a calico kitty)


Been very busy with the store this week, lots of drop ins, lots of on-line orders (thank you all SO MUCH!) and only 4 new boxes of fabric. Over 200lbs mind you, but only 4 boxes. Let me tell you, it's like Christmas on the days that fabric shipments arrive here. Unpacking and remembering what I ordered makes me giddy! (the number of hours I get to spend uploading fabric to the website... not so much!) I'm very excited to introduce our newest fabric selection, the Tonga Batiks We have in stock the entire line of the Island Punch colourway (I'll have them all up soon!), as well as the Tonga Treat Strips (2 1/2" strips of fabric in 20 different prints, 2 of each print) and Tonga Mini Treats (2 5" square cuts of 20 different prints of fabric. I have never sewn with batiks before, but let me tell you, I am very excited to start! (Once I have finished some VERY URGENT projects!)

We also are excited to announce we are offering FREE SHIPPING to all Canadian addresses for the month of September (and hopefully longer - we're trying to figure it all out) If you have been thinking about ordering from us, now is the time to try! It's quilting season and our fabric quality is always high and constantly being praised. See for yourself!

Did I mention we received the opportunity to be one of only 5 quilt stores in British Columbia to carry a FABULOUS line of blenders? More next time....

Choices....

So I've been piecing and piecing and planning.... And realized that I could have flipped this and created the pattern with any colour in the middle (I know...duh, but to actually play with it while it was on the design board. I guess this is the sort of thing people use those EQ programs for! Anyway... I tried two options and took some photos, and now have to make a decision.

I do love the way Tula has laid it out in her pattern Field Study as well as the fact that it's a REALLY quick and easy quilt to make up, and has a small, medium and large size - plus, it would be GREAT for featuring a larger print, customizing it to each kidlets preferences? That being said, I think I'm drawn to the green center, keeping in mind that the end of the quilt will hang over the end of the bed...


What do you think?

- also, I'm so sorry that the photos are turned but the program I usually use to change my photos is randomly deleting them so I'm not so keen on playing! :) Jill!

Exciting News!

We just found out yesterday that the next cruise ship thursday (August 18th) is going to be full of QUILTERS!! Are you kidding me? And I only have one room to cram them all into? I'm in the process of renting out some storefront space on 3rd Avenue, across from the City Hall, and will have "fishskin fabric" open for business. It was our intention to open downtown for a week later in September, once we had time to do an advertising blitz. Now I'm thinking we should just make hay while the sun shines, and stay open for a week, especially since I have both front desk staff here right now.

Busy Summer Days....

Full of hotel management, organizing, re-organizing and sewing. I've been busy at my sewing table using a fantastic Tula Pink pattern. I was very excited to have it arrive in the mail, and when I opened up the pattern and saw the layout, done with solids, I think I might have squealed a little. About 2 minutes later I was down in the fabric store picking out a large armload of Kona solids (I used curry, mustard, snow, pear (organics), basil, spruce, caribbean and teal)


I love how it's coming together. Have you noticed it's massive?! 90 inches long! I was wanting to quilt it myselt, although that may be a bit too much of a challenge. I'm thinking the back will be peiced with the bits I cut off from HST. I like it a lot though... now to just get through a mountain of paperwork to get back to the sewing table!

I also have a couple of front & backs that need to be put together into quilts and quilted, as well as one laptop bag to get the finishing steps done on - I just want to make the strap adjustable and need to spend some time figuring out the way I want it done. I was also playing with some square in square blocks... each one I did got a little wonkier until they were something else entirely. Still madly in love with the first block and kind of meh about the other 3.


W.I.P. (Works in Progress):
5 - 1 bag, 2 baby quilts to be quilted, 1 zigzag quilt, 1 sq2 blocks

Finish:
none - but heck I'm having a good time!

Finally...

I've been meaning to blog for ages, and yet I never seem to get around to it. It's not that I'm BUSY, just that there always seems to be something else to do. But, for the moment, I don't have a quilt up on the design wall (it's so WHITE!!) and a quiet moment to myself at the hotel.

I've been doing lots of piecing while I've been in Prince Rupert, although not a lot of "sewing" or "quilting". I have a laptop bag that desperately needs to be finished, as it's future owner is waiting for it. I also have a few boxes of U.F.O's that I need to get to (although i don't think it's terrible... one children's quilt, one blue & grey quilt & a Summer Sampler - more in a future blog)



That being said, I have completed the front & back of my solids quilt!! Finally!! (Coralee, I'm sending it with James to you... no rush, we'll talk!) I'm not quite as happy with the back as I was hoping, but it was all a bit freehand and random and hopefully I'll LOVE it when I get it back from the fabulous Coralee. I haven't decided how to bind it yet... suggestions??

Weekend Quilting Retreat

Just came home from a fabulous weekend at the Rough Acres Camp in Houston, BC. The retreat was hosted by the Cut Loose Quilters & let me tell you... it was a heck of a lot of fun! I spent my weekend working on a top secret wedding present, but had the opportunity to learn a new method of piecing a block, which were all then pieced together to make a quilt for Japan. (I think we had enough blocks to make 2!!)

The food was fantastic, the games fun and silly and let me tell you that I giggled my bum off watching everyone Zoomba! (is that what it's called??)
I forgot to bring a fully charged battery in my camera so I don't have too many photos, but here are a couple!!

1. my view for the weekend :)

2. The quilt is by Amy D - from a round robin... can you even believe how beautiful it turned out?!!? she's still going to applique some leaves the branch!

3. my momma came out from PR for the weekend, so glad she was there, had a GREAT time! Thanks mom! (she made some BEAUTIFUL pillow covers, and I forgot to take a photo... hopefully she'll send me one and I'll show you!)
4. my mom said I looked like a deranged miner in that bunkbed photo :)