Sneak Peek....

As many of you know... it take me a little while to get new fabrics up and running in the store - but our March order just walked in the door from Robert Kaufman and I wanted to share with you what's coming! If you are DESPERATE for some of the fabric in one of the photos, send me an email and I'll hook you up!

thursday ramblings...

Happy Thursday to you!

It was CRAZY here this week & especially today. I was working on a quilting project for someone, and I used some coffee filters to make the minky slide through the machine better (it works awesome by the way - use a SHORT stitch when you do!) I was doing loop de loops and ended up spending about 4 unplanned hours picking bits of coffee filter out from underneath my quilting stitches. f.y.i.

Ugh.

And because this project was due today at noon, I was tweezering away at the back of this quilt like a maniac. There was coffee filter fluff everywhere! Looked like a massacre had happened. Then I had to quickly make up the drapes for my friend's rental house that I have had all month to do, and only did it on the last day in the last hours before my evening meeting of Pathfinders. So naturally I was late, and then gave friend's hubby a hand hanging them in the room, which made me even more late.

Moral of the story? Plan better. Don't procrastinate so much.

Thinking about doing 2 classes over reading week, one Wednesday, one Sunday - I'm thinking placemats on one day and the layer cake quilt on the other??

To Do/UFO List:
Christmas Table Runner

12 aprons for coffee shop

24 coffee mug holders (48? - icehouse?)

finish quilting Grannie's quilt

redo borders on mom's batik to finish top

Finish Quilt as You Go Tree Skirt

Swap Project

Recently, I had the great opportunity to participate in a quilt swap, with a large group of modern quilters. I've never tried anything like this before, and thought it would be a lot of fun (and it has been!)

It's the For the Love of Solids Round 2 Swap (here's the Flickr Group) - what happens is we create a colour palette that we would like to see in our mini quilt, as well as an inspiration mosaic of different projects. We sent that in to our Swap Mama, and she shook us all up and gave someone else's mosaic. We are challenged to then use the colours chosen for us, to create some sort of beautiful project for our partner - in the form of a mini quilt, sewing machine cover, bag or what have you.

Because it's a blind swap, I don't know who has me... and my partner doesn't yet know that this quilt is for her (although she hopes it is, if her comments on Flickr are anything to go by!) It has to be ready to ship for the beginning of March, and I was able to finish the binding the other night.... I'm VERY happy with how it turned out...

I would love to be able to create a pattern for you to make your own... but because so much of it was improv piecing, it would be VERY difficult to translate into a pattern... but I'm thinking about creating a Modern Block sampler, quilt along for all you Seamsters out there... (you know, like a funky cool hipster but better!) What do you think??

The last two photos are a couple of "in progress" shots... the second you can see some changes in my layout, and the first, some of the method I used to get it all together.

Mid Winter blahs....

Sorry for the blogging absence again... you know... it's February.

What? I haven't posted since 2011? Oh.

Well... I've been busy... I swear! (even though it only takes 15 minutes to whip up something and throw it online)... Okay... umm... I guess I don't really have an excuse then.

i'm sorry :(

On the upside, I have LOTS of things to show you!!

The store is getting full, full, FULL! We've expanded to the second room in our basement, and could already use some more shelves. I'm pretty excited about the great line from Robert Kaufman, Fresco - it's a marble blender line, and there are some GREAT colours in it!

Illness...

I have a yukky chest cold... so in the spirit of laziness, here are some photos of what I've been up to - learning how to free motion quilt, quilting for other people and having a love affair with placemats!

Really? A month?

You may have noticed... I'm a sporadic poster.

I try... I try really hard.... I think about the blog often. I write blog posts in my head during the day, but somehow... they never seem to translate into getting to the computer and where you can actually read them. I follow A LOT of blogs, in google reader and am always excited to get up in the morning and see the new posts. I find so many of you out there SOOOO inspiring, and am hopeful that some of the creations that come out of here, a few of you may find elements you love, that make their way into your quilts or creations.















So - it's fall here in Prince Rupert, and we get some very unique fall weather here. It blows wind and rain sideways... sometimes with hail, and yesterday was one of those days. As a result (or perhaps an excuse?) I hunkered down at the sewing machine, piecing a whole junk load of HST. I'm generally not a fan of triangles - cause it drives me nuts when things don't match.

I knew I wanted to make a block that was inspired by Jennifer's block at Ellison Lane Quilts (and as I look for the link, I discover she has a tutorial posted, if you want to make your own!! (Block Tutorial) I'm also thinking about putting together the supplies to make these into a kit - what do you think?

A sigh of relief...

Because this bag is in the mail on it's way to it's new owner.

This bag should have been finished 4 months ago - or maybe longer. She ordered it in February. She asked for something that was like my laptop bag - so I'm working without a pattern. I modified the way that I make my regular messenger bag, and tried a few new techniques. Some good... some not so good. There was definitely a lot of "frog sewing" (you know... rip it... rip it...) and a few curse words occasionally. There were quite a few days that I just needed to put it down and walk away... (thus the 7 month sewing project).

So... the project is modified from this tutorial here (I have made LOTS of modifications!) The yellow is a dividing pocket for papers, and there is a small zippered pocket on the inside. The outside of the bag (back) has another large pocket, and it's all well padded to protect those important computer bits!

For those of you that are wondering, the external fabric is a home decor weight from my last trip to IKEA, and the lining is the Road to Marrakech (found now in our sale section!) and some Dot to Dot Marigold.

The photos are hopefully in order, front, back and then lining. Yay, it's done!!