Fabric enabler warning...

My buddy Cynthia designs fabric for Robert Kaufman.  This is her new line called Sewing Studio.  I just love it.  I ordered it from Hawthorne Threads and I am sure we will see it popping up at other online shops.  It is awesome.  Cynthia is just super with text and I love the sewing machines.  Check it out.  Lindsay from Hawthorne Threads has added some of the line to her Lindsay's picks.  Just saying.  She has taste!


More fabric news.  Sew Sisters, a sponsor of mine, is having a Kona sale.  Oh yes they are.  Starting September 24 to 30.  $6.99 a metre. Sew Sisters also has lots of new great stuff in their clearance section.  Check it out.  You will thank me.  Happy Shopping!

What do you think?

Last Thursday evening, the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild celebrated our fourth year anniversary.  We had a heck of a good time.  We had a mini iron quilter competition with teams of quilters producing an 18" by 18" mini quilt on featherweight in an hour.  That is the bedazzled iron quilter trophy made the fabulous Cynthia.  It is a thing of beauty!  of course as we were sewing, the evil doers,  the organizers, threw us curveballs, like now you have to add in some ugly fabric, now you have to quilt it and finally, bind it!  I have to say that my team won!

And here we are...  that is me on the left with Marg, Colleen and Charlene.

I was just a little bit excited!  That is all featherweight, quick and dirty quilting by the way!  We had to have at least 20 pieces of fabric in our mini.  

 The quilt guild got together to make thank you quilts for Cynthia and Lysa who founded the guild four years ago after they had a bright idea.  It was a super bright idea.  We are a fantastic bunch of happy, creative women who absolutely love getting together to talk quilting, fabric and fun.  It is such a positive and supportive group.  I am so tickled to be a part of it all!  Anyway, I digress.  We decided to make Cynthia and Lysa quilts to say thank you.  And we were super sneaky and pulled it off without them knowing a thing!  We even had a super secret sew in.  Then Bonnie and I quilted them and I got to present them at the meeting.  They were suprised!  Aren't they lovely?  The quilts are too!

Darlene says this is the money shot.  That's me giving our Lysa a big hug.

You rock, ladies!

I made this the other day...

I made this the other day.  I made it to try out a theory.  I am pleased to say that it worked.  Can you see it?  Yep.  It is a zippered covered journal.  Squeal!  This, for some reason, gives me great joy.  I will say that the zipper I used is not a favourite.  I had a vision of a fantastic metal zipper but do you know how hard it is to find a long metal zipper that does not look like it is made for a logger's winter coat?  I think, however, that I have solved this problem and I will be trying out more versions of zippered covered journals very soon.

Oh my goodness!  Look at that zipper!  So awesome!  I used a duvet zipper and just cut it to the right length.  I wanted to show you that the journal does open all the way too!  Success!

Linking up with Amanda Jean for Finish it Up Friday.

Progress...

I continue to make progress on my scrap buster number two which is a block from the book Modern Bee:  13 Quilts to Make With Friends.  Surprisingly, I am still using white from my scrap whites.  I am trying to use all those leftover setting triangles and bits and pieces from other projects and so far it is working.  I am working my way through my other scraps but found that I just too darn short in the orange department so have resorted to some orange fat quarters that have been lingering in the stash to make up for the scrap shortage.  These blocks all need trimming but it is very satisfying to take these oddly shaped bits of fabric and slice them into something pretty.

 I plotted out the size of the quilt on my design wall so you can see that the blocks that extend out into space are marking how big the quilt will be.  I just need to fill it all in.  And as a matter of fact, I have already filled in a lot more since I took this picture.  Notice the squash all lined up under my design wall.  I don't know why they are there but Husband decided they should live there when he brought them in from the garden.  They are a beautiful colour!  While I was making these blocks on the weekend.  Husband was busy with the renovation on the sink wall of my sewing room.  I am quite excited about that as we had left that side of the room until now. Stay tuned!  Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday!

Bee Blocks: Pineapple Blossom

I took care of my bee blocks right away today.  They were blowing a bit on the barn wall.  This is Pineapple Blossom and is a free block pattern at Quiltville.  The block pattern is available in two sizes and Michonne asked for the biggie size.  So fun!  The block tutorial gives a little hint for using up the corners that you cut away so I did that and I have a small stack of completed hsts as a result.  This block is a super great stash buster as the bigger size uses 2.5" strips.  

And here is an example of Toni's finished quilt using the same block.  It is gorgeous!

There you have it.  Bee Blocks for That Stash Bee September.  Check.

Fall is coming

First of all.  Sunflowers.  What a fabulous thing.  Husband always plants sunflowers.  We have them grow along the wood shed and they feed all sorts of chickadees and other critters.  This year the seeds did not exactly work as promised as we usually plant Giant Russians and that is what the seed packet promised but this year we got giant sunflowers but branching ones without the giant flowers.  But man,  they are tall.  This one is over 11 feet.  Seriously.

Let's talk about fabric.  I have been crushing on the latest Eclectic Elements  by Tim Holtz and when my quilt guild buddy, Cathy, who owns Steam Trunk Craft Works, spread the word that she had them in stock, I was on it.  The fabric arrived super fast and was all wrapped up and lovely with the sweet little charm added.  So fun! Love the clock faces.  Fabric happy!

On the go...

I had a great long weekend with lots of sewing.  With being back to work, I was away for a bit of last weekend for a work thing and then spent Sunday making and canning salsa so sewing was on the back burner.  I have to say I was suffering a little sewing withdrawal.  I have also been having sewing machine woes.  I wore out the automatic thread cutter on my Janome Horizon 7700.  Seriously.  Apparently it is a first for my sewing machine shop.  I do use it a lot.  Anyway, the folks at the shop were lovely and helpful and got everything sorted away once the part came in and I am back in business for only the price of the part... no labour!  Really nice!

So what was I up to?  I worked on a few secret projects.  More on that later  and I made great progress on my scrap buster two project.  As you can see in the picture above, this is growing by leaps and bounds.  I stood on a chair to place the blocks way up high!  And I am busting a lot of scraps.  Even the white has been from scraps.  Bonus!

When I got tired of making scrap blocks, I made a bag for Mum out of some pretty thrift store home decor fabric she found somewhere.  I just have to attach the handles.  I used this tutorial.  I am not using leather handles as you can see.  Rather, I made my own with 2.5" strips folded and pressed into nice narrow handles but the same length of the recommended leather handles.  I think Mum will like it.


What are you working on?  Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for Work in Progress Wednesday and The Needle and Thread Network for Canadian bloggers.