a long break after the long weekend

Oops!  It's been a bit of a long break since my last post.  Oh well, I'm here now right?

Remember that long list?  Done.  That's right, I did it all.  (Okay, fine, I only washed one guest bed, but it's not like anyone is staying in the unwashed one.)  Gardening?  Check.  Clean house?  Check.  Work on wedding quilt?  Check.  More hexagons?  Check.  Actually, I guess I didn't write a post about the wedding quilt either.  So here it is.  Let's start with the weekend.



There was gardening.  Lots of it.  3 hours worth.  Just on one small kidney shaped garden bed in the front.  But in the end, it was worth it.  Last year I left the wedding until the end of June and we looked like trailer trash.  I learned my lesson.  This year I put my brother in law (who is living with us for the summer) to work on the lawn to get the dandelions taken care of.  It all looks much better.



See?  So pretty.  I still have much to live up to though.  Our nice neighbours next door have an immaculate lawn and a perfect garden and my goal is to get ours up to par so as to no longer embarrass them.  Unfortunately for us, we are dealing with roughly 5 years of neglect at the hands of the previous tenants so it might take a bit.

Not even a week after all my hard work, this happened:



It snowed for almost 3 days.  Not that all of it stuck, but still!  We are talking about the last weekend in May and the temperature dropped to 0 (celsius) and there was SNOW!  I really shouldn't be surprised.  I've lived here 6 years and every year I tell myself not to get excited about nice weather in the spring because it WILL snow again, and every year I think "Nah, it won't happen" and it does.  It's really not all bad though, because apparently it's going to be a really dry summer so we needed some big time moisture to start off the season and we got it.

There was some hexagon sewing, (pictures later) and some pot holder sewing (pictures later) and some quilt top sewing.  After weeks and weeks of painstaking work on this dang quilt, the top is finally done!  This was the original sketch:



And the original notes on fabric needs and measurements:



And this is how the top turned out:



I hope you noticed the little upside down scribble of finished measurements on the back of the sketch.  That's right, it reads 64x80.  Guess how big it is.  75x99!  How did this happen???  I think I forgot to account for the width of the stripes.  Oh well.  It's huge which will hopefully make it even better for snuggling under during movies.  Unfortunately, it's not quite big enough for a bed.

I am making this quilt for my friends Troy and Amanda.  Troy was our roommate for almost 2 years, and we love him dearly.  When we met his girlfriend (now wife) for the first time we just knew she was the one for him.  Together they make a wonderful couple and we couldn't have been happier when we saw them exchange vows just 1 month ago.

Obviously, that means this quilt is late, but there is not rushing me because when I do rush I screw things up.  A LOT.  I must have ripped out 30-40 lengths of stitches trying to put this thing together!  I didn't think it would be that hard when I decided on an argyle pattern, but I was wrong.  There are a lot of seams to match and looooooong straight lines to make, and SO much ironing.

I really, truly hope that the new Mr. & Mrs. Dunham love their quilt when they eventually get it and that it gets a place of honor in their home.  They definitely have a place of honor in my heart.  (Okay, I know that sounds cheesy but it's very true.

a long list for the long weekend

Where I wish I was this weekend.  Back in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, relaxing on the beach.  (Instead of working, like last time,)

My long weekend is actually more like 3.5 days.  I didn't work on Friday, and I have until Monday at 4pm off.  I still feel a bit odd sometimes when I look at my schedule posted on the fridge.  For years I worked in offices with straight 9-5 hours and weekends off.  My husband worked at the same place and his weeks ended up being more like 60 hours a week instead of 40.  We were both volunteering in several places and needless to say, we didn't see much of each other.

Now, he is a full time graduate student finishing his Masters in Counselling Psychology (and rocking it, might I add!) and I am working with wonderful families and adorable kids.  We have never had so much time together or so much flexibility in our schedules and I love it.  So not only am I not toiling away in front of a computer in a windowless room every day and having the creativity sucked from me, but now I feel more creative than ever AND have the time to actually do creative things!

As the title of this post implies, I have a long to-do list for this long weekend.

• attend a friend`s wedding tonight
• finishing writing my second post on hexagons
• spend LOTS of time working on another overdue wedding quilt
• write a post about said wedding quilt and how it`s trying to kill me
• finish washing and folding piles of laundry
• rescue garden and lawn from dandelions
• clean entire house
• wash sheets in BOTH guest rooms
• sew more hexagons!

(Okay, fine, that last one isn`t really a must do.)  Unfortunately, not much of that list has anything to do with spending time outside, but that may be a good thing because in typical long weekend fashion it`s not exactly warm here in Calgary.  But at least it`s not snowing!!

Usually I would put off cleaning the house because there are just so many better things to be doing, but on Monday morning we have a man from a homestay agency coming to our house for an interview and assessment. We are hoping to become homestay hosts for some international students this summer and this is the first step.  The agency man will be talking to us and checking out our house to make sure we are fit for the program.

We have two rooms that are available to host students in and I`m not entirely happy with the look of either, but I don`t know if it`s work decorating them.  We have zero budget to buy anything so I would have to be making anything that would go in them.  Any ideasÉ  I was thinking another set of pennants, and maybe repurpose a picture frame from somewhere else in the house.  Hmm...I`ll have to do some quick thinking on that one.  Let me know if you have any cheap and fast ideas for decorating.

So, armed with a giant mug of tea, I will head out into my weekend (almost) fearlessly.  Wish me luck!

busy work

I've mentioned before that I am a nanny. One of the perks of being a nanny is a lot of down time during the day. I have a few things that I do to help out around the house while the kids are sleeping like tidying up the kitchen and putting some laundry through. There is still a lot of downtime during naps or when the kids go to bed at night and I am staying later. Most often during my downtime I will read or maybe watch a tv show or movie, but I've temporarily fallen out of love with reading, and tv is boring so I had to find something else to do.



Enter hexagons. As most of you know, these little babies have been popping up everywhere for quite some time now, but I have yet to make any. So the other day when I had to make a car service appointment (that's going to last 3 freaking hours!!!) I thought, "I need to find something interesting and productive to do while I wait."

So today, I found a pile of scraps, made myself some templates and I am set. I'll bring them with me to work tonight so that once the little cutie goes to bed I have something to keep my hands busy, and I will definitely bring them with me tomorrow while I sit in Toyota's customer service lounge drinking stale coffee for 3 hours.

giveaway day winner

And the winner is....

Number 112 - Bee Damon from Germany!  Bee writes "This bag is so beautiful, well done! Right now I love sewing for my first child, which is due in December. Blankets, plushies and so on. =)"Congratulations!  

I was so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of comments and the kind and wonderful things people were saying.  Before I posted my giveaway I made a goal of 75 comments and 300 visitors and thought if I reached that I would feel it had been a success.  In the end I received 365 comments and over 1500 visitors!  AMAZING!  

I can't thank all of you enough for taking the time to stop by.  It feels so nice to give things away, I think I'll do it again!  Stop by near the end of June where I will be doing another giveaway in celebration of my 24th birthday.  And don't forget to tell your friends to keep visiting.

Later today I hope to put up a post about my current project which may just kill me, so stay tuned.

P.S.  Bee, I have sent you an email asking for your shipping info, so look out for that!

P.P.S  A big thank you to all the other blogger friends out there who participated.  I had so much fun checking out new blogs and seeing the fabulous things other were giving away.  I am positively drooling at the prospect of winning something!

my first mini quilt

I recently joined the Swap Till You Drop (or STUD as it's known) group on Flickr. It's a monthly mini quilt swap with a different theme each month. This month's theme was "Wish You Were Here" and we were supposed to create a mini quilt that was representative of where we live. I took that literally and made a quilted map.

This was my inspiration:



A GooleMap of my community, which by the way is a giant circle with a shopping area in the middle. I think it looks really neat on a map.

And here is the finished product:



I think it turned out pretty well! And major bonus, it only took a couple of hours. I'm not actually sure who long exactly, but I think it was about 3 hours of piecing and quilting and then another 40 minutes or so to bind and label.



The backing is a piece of Heather Bailey fresh cut fabric. I believe that the flowers are roses (correct me if I am wrong) and so I chose it because the official provincial flower of Alberta is the wild rose. It even says it on our license plates! Alberta - Wild Rose Country.



Finally, the label is written in Sharpie (oops, I didn't have a fabric marker, and there was just too much writing to consider embroidering it). And I grabbed an iron on Canadian Flag patch from (gasp) the hated Fabricland. (Geez, for someone who hates it so much, I sure do get a lot of things from there.

I'm happy. I was inspired by these wonderful people who make the most gorgeous hand stitched map quilts.  one day I hope to do one similar to theirs, but for now I will settle for some machine stitching.


P.S. For those of you who are here via Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day list, check the previous post for my giveaway and to comment. If you like the blog, please consider following!

giveaway day

It's here!  It's here!  It's finally here!

I am so VERY excited about Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day!  Not only do I love going through the dozens and dozens of blogs for inspiration (and of course a chance to win something awesome) but this year I am finally hosting a giveaway myself.  It's such a fun idea and I love creating for other people, so why not?

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the prize:



A Buttercup Bag (made of course, from the pattern by Made by Rae).  Exterior fabric is my fabric home decor weight Ikea Bladd fabric in grey, and interior is a hot pink "Bubbles and Blooms" print.



And for an extra special treat: 2 fat quarters and a .4m piece of fabric!  The prints are: Heather Bailey Pop Garden Swirlybuds in turquoise, Amy Butler Midwest Modern 2 Park Fountains in yellow and Gail Kessler Summerhouse Collection Butterflies in purple.



Excited?  To enter, please leave a comment on this post telling me where you're from, and either what your favourite thing to sew is, or what fabric you're currently obsessing over.  I will leave comments open until Thursday, May 20 at noon (Mountain Time) and choose a winner by random number generator after that.

Good luck!

yummy

Lunch by Joel.  Delicious.  Need I say more?

what i've been working on

This is what I've been working on lately. Another commission, this time from a friend in Ontario. My friend ordered 2 happy birthday banners for her 3 children. She has two boys and a girl and so she wanted one banner in boyish colours and one in girly colours.



The challenge was that the little girl likes bugs and pink and purple. How would I ever find fabrics to suit that?  Enter "Flora and Fauna" by Patty Young!  What a triumph this was for me because not only did I find an amazing sry of fabrics for the banner but I even found it at a reasonable price and at the hated Fabricland of all places!  (Have you noticed yet how much I hate Fabricland?  From what I can gather, I feel about Fabricland the way many people seem to feel about Joanne's in the States.)

The point is, I found great fabrics for the girl that I feel will suit her now but are also sophisticated enough to grow with her.



The boy fabric didn't feel like such a triumph but I am happy none the less. The boys got a bright colour palette and some "manly" fabrics. A plaid, a semi-solid, a blue with little camping line drawings and a faux bois print in green. I went back and forth on wether I liked the fabrics because they didn't seem as special as the girls but I think it works well.

Each flag is 5x7 and double sided so it reads HAPPY BIRTHDAY which ever way you look at it. I made my own 2" double fold bias tape to string up the flags and the total length is just over 11 feet including 24" on each end for tying.

I just have to make up a couple of quick bags to store them in and they can go in the mail. Good thing I'm almost done too becuase 2 of the 3 kids have their birthday next weekend!

I learned two lessons with this project.

1.  I HATE making double fold bias tape and I should have just bought some!  In the end, making my own meant the perfect colour match and saved me about $10 in materials per banner. (Which means that unlike my first commsission I actually made a decent profit!)

2. I should really stop trying to make little lined bags. I get it wrong everytime!  This time I resewed 3 times only to find out I had measured wrong and the banner didn't fit. I guess I have a cute little bag now. Oh well!

wonky baby girl quilt

My favourite quilt to date.  This quilt was new for me in several ways:

1.  It was a commission!  My first paid piece for which I did not make a dime of profit.  Oops.  The quilt was commissioned by my mother-in-law for a friend of hers.  She said the mom-to-be was "non-traditional" and was having a baby girl.  That is literally all I had to go on.

2.  It was the first time I had ever tried any sort of "wonky" block or any improvisational piecing.  It wasn't as improvisational as it maybe should have been, but I love the end result and there was only one block made but not included.  And only because it looked like a 3 ring circus.

To get things going, I took my brother (again) to the fabric store.  Together we picked out a selection of prints from Amy Butler's new Love collection with the idea of doing a whirly giggle type pattern.  I should have known that what I plan on when I shop is almost never what I make.

I got home and decided the quilt needed more variety and a different design altogether.  Wonky blocks it was!  I went through my stash and added some new other fabrics and bits that went well with the new fabric and started fussy cutting for centres.



I think there is about 17 different fabrics not including the backing and the solid white background.  Most of the fabrics are either Amy Butler from various collections, or solids/semi solids, but there are a couple of special bits thrown in from Heather Ross' Mendocino, Echino, and a a few random prints that I have no idea where they are from.



The backing is a big piece of flannel polka dots from Amy Butler's Love collection, and it's bound in a pink cotton.

I LOVE this quilt.  I loved it so much that even though it only took my a week to make, I kept it hanging over the half wall in our dining room for another week just so I could look at it.  I love it so much, I am contemplating making an (almost) exact replica just for me, even though I have no need for a baby quilt right now.

When she finally had her baby, the "non-traditional" new mom loved her quilt! Good news for me, because that means I did my job well and a tiny little baby has a snuggle blanket to grow up with.

giveaway day

Just a heads up: I am excited to say I will be participating in the May Giveaway Day held at Sew Mama Sew.  Check back on Sunday evening or Monday morning for my post.  I'm not going to say what I'll be giving away, I'll just let you know I am in the Handmade Items and Supplies/Materials category.  Yay!  And because I can't post without a picture, how about this:



Poor little cone head.  She gets it off this weekend though so she won't be sad for long.

stacked coins (another wedding quilt)

The first quilt I made for a friend's wedding was inspired by the Stacked Coins pattern from Joelle Hoverson's Last-Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.  I didn't actually follow any of the instructions or measurments but I saw the quilt there first and it made me desperate to make one of my own.



This quilt was a wedding present for my friend Esther and her new husband Loewen. I knew I wanted to make them something special and handmade when I recieved her wedding present to my husband and I.  She had taken every minute of the short 3.5 months that Joel and I were engaged and painstakingly crocheted a beautiful afghan for us. So when it came time for her wedding I knew I couldn't just pick something off the registry - I had to return the kindness.

I had a very hard time parting with this quilt in the end. And like the Plain Spoken quilt it was MUCH later than it should have been.



Most of the fabrics used in the stacks are from the Cake Rock Beach line also by Joelle Hoverson. (My goodness what a talented woman!!)  It also includes one or two random solids.  I quilted it with a diamond pattern and I have no idea what the finished size was!

Two lesssons were learned in the process of making this quilt:

1.  I needed a walking foot. Turns out I had one but had no idea what it was for. I have since learned the joys of said walking foot and how much easier it makes straight line quilting.

2.  I needed to become a prewasher. I know this debate rages on in the quilting community but after a bit of bleeding in this quilt I vowed to always prewash and now I don't have a heart attack everytime I put a finished quilt in the wash.



The backing is a couple of pieces of the solid chocolate (a thrifted shift) and some yardage from Amy Butler's Midwest Modern line.

Esther and Lowen loved their quilt and it lives happily on the couch in their living room. And now if I miss it I can pay it a visit over coffee with a friend!

speaking plainly

Speaking plainly: this quilt just about killed me. The pattern for the Plain Spoken quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop is actually great (I'm just instructions impaired). I found the quilt on Flickr originally and lived the graphic nature and tone on tone quality of my inspiration picture. When I showed the photo to a long time friend and asked if she would want one as het wedding present she was ecstatic and I had no idea what I was getting into.

To start with I had to borrow the book from the library to get the pattern an was on a waitlist for more than a month to get it. Then I made the mistake of waiting until the morning of said friends wedding to go and actually buy some fabric for it. (In the end I didn't even use what I bought for the backing!) And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat. I puzzled over where to get my solids as they aren't necessarily readily available (or at a decent price) in Calagary. Should I order some kona solids online? Should I go to my most hated store and sort through their disorganized and frustrating piles? In the end I did the latter. I took my extremely stylish brother to Fabricland and had him build a beautiful earthy palette for me. Problem solved. And at only $8.00/m!

And then the project sat and sat and sat and sat (again)! This time for no reason at all. Finally, when I couldn't avoid it anymore, I started cutting. Buy only after my dear (extremely smart) husband suggested I cut enough for two and give the second one to another set of friends for their wedding. There was a little voice inside me screaming that it was wrong to give the same quilt to two different people buy I went ahead with it anyway. I cut all the pieces I needed for the two quilts and got to work painstakingly piecing all the little bits together.



I learned a few lessons during this quilt. The obvious one being that I should stop procrastinating! Other than that I learned a few lessons about accuracy in piecing. I quilted with straight lines on either side of all the seams which is a new thing for me and I liked it.

The quilt is backed in a brown print from a collection called "Bubbles and Blooms" and bound in the same.



Finally, I added a hand embroidered dedication patch for the beautiful couple.



And because I can, here is a shameless plug of my friend Brooks Reynolds who is a fabulous wedding photographer from my home town. He not only took the couples wedding photos, but he took mine too. Make sure to check him out!

another vintage quilt

Yesterday, after I had finished photographing all the quilts from my great grandmother I tossed them in a pile on the couch rather than fold them like a responsible person. Cheddar discovered the comfy nest in minutes and laid claim to it. Both our cats Cheddar and Broccoli were spayed last week and thy have been moping and hiding in warm and cozy spots ever since. Poor girls. But they are finally getting back to their old selves and we couldn't be happier!

Anyways, I wanted a write about another past project today. It is a vintage quilt top purchased by my former boss at an antique store that I restored into a full quilt top for her son. I nannied H for a short 8 months but it was a wonderul 8 months spent with a handsome, smart, funny and sweet little boy. His mom Tully is an artist and has a never ending creative eye. She found this quilt top and knew it could be something special so be brought it to me for a little tlc.



Unfortunately there is no before shot, but the top was in pretty great shape to begin with. One or two minor rips to be fixed and then a back and some binding. Before I had taken a closer look I knew this was going to be a tied quilt. The wavy pattern of handstitxhed patches and the satin stitch over top dictated that. Tully said she wanted the back to be mostly red to complimnt all the red stitching on top. So after a trip to my local quilt store I found a solid red and two coordinating stripes to make a pieced back and a binding. I also grabbed some red yarn for tying.



Overall the quilt went together really quickly and I was very happy with the result. It was also the first time I added a piece of random fabric into the binding and I love the effect!



in the end there weren't any sewing related lessons to be learned. I did however learn how hard it is to pour into a childs life only to have to say goodbye. I will continue to miss H but I know that this quilt now lived in his new big boy room and that makes me happy.

happy mothers day

To my sweet, patient, hardworking, hilarious, creative and one-of-a-kind mother:  I wouldn't be the woman I am today if it wasn't for you.  I love you.  Happy Mother's Day.

antique quilts reborn

Even before I started sewing, I always had a love of quilts.  There is something so wonderful and comforting about the weight of a worn old quilt on you.

I don't remember much of my Great Grandmother since she died by the time I was 6, but I do know that she was a quilter.  And for a short stint, so was my Grandma (her daughter).  Growing up, my brother and I would spend a few weeks every summer at my grandparents cottage in Ontario.  I loved going there because it meant swimming, fishing, trips in the boat and to the beach.  The cottage was by no means large but certainly large enough for the 6 of us to hang out comfortably.  Other than the extraordinarily short bunk beds my brother and I slept in, one of the things I remember is all the quilts and blankets.  When my grandparents sold the cottage more than 10 years ago, they went up one last time to clean everything out including about a dozen handmade quilts from my Great Grandmother.  My mom took most of them for sentimental reasons and when she realized that it was ridiculous for her to store them all, she offered some to my brother and I.  At the time I didn't recognize how precious these items were but I took 3 for myself and my brother took one.  One of the 3 I took was a Dresden plate quilt hand stitched with love from old scraps of clothes and when a friend needed an extra blanket for her bed she got it.  One is a beautiful patchwork quilt in navy and cream and it lives on our guest room bed as it is a perfect queen sized quilt.



The last was just about the ugliest quilt I've ever seen but it smelled like the cottage and reminded me of my grandparents and that one has stayed with me since.



I've been thinking about making some adjustments to the last quilt recently.  For obvious reasons, it's not the most beautiful thing to look at, but in the last few months (or maybe years and I didn't notice) it has started to disintegrate.  Most of the ties are gone, some large holes have popped up and on further inspection, it's actually a blanket wrapped in fabric, wrapped in fabric!  I wonder if it would be crazy to add another layer?  Would it ruin the sentimental quality for me?  At any rate, this baby is not going into a box.  I believe quilts are meant to be used, and by golly I'm going to use it!

For those of you that watch any amount of HGTV, you have probably heard of Sarah Richardson.  She is a designer who, over the years has had several shows.  The most recent show she has produced is called Sarah's House.  The concept is this: you will almost always get more bang for your buck if you buy the house and make the changes yourself rather than buying a finished house built to your specifications.  In the third season (currently airing) she has bought a country home about 2 hours north of Toronto, Ontario and is gutting it and starting over as well as adding an addition.

My personal opinion of Sarah Richardson is that she can do no wrong.  I have always loved her style and have been watching it slowly evolve into what is now becoming both an eclectic and sophisticated style.  But she seems to have outdone herself this time!  In the last episode she was working on the Master Bedroom and her jumping off point for the entire room was a gorgeous antique quilt.  The quilt was found at a large antique show near Toronto and it is impeccable!  Vibrant and rich yellow and orange solids on a cream background in a beautiful flower applique pattern, made in approximately 1885, and all for only $350!  Jealous.

I'm totally in love with this quilt, and I am now wanting to go and find gems of my own.  But where to start??  I've picked my first show, and I will be dragging my hubby or my friend Candace with me because I am determined to get myself some beautiful old quilts to add to my collection.

end hiatus

After a very long and much needed break from my short career in blogging, I am back.

I had started this blog as a way to put my creativity "out there" in hopes that maybe it would inspire someone else, (and maybe because it always feels nice when someone compliments your hard work!)  At the time, I was working in a job that I did not enjoy in an environment that left me feeling uninspired and even a little hopeless.  I was also very sick with an inner ear disorder and all of that added up to me neglecting my space.

So, a fresh start, a fresh name - everything but a fresh address!  In the last 13 months, a lot has changed. Jobs, houses, roommates, pets.  (More on that another time.)  What hasn't changed is that I love sewing.  I've even started keeping up my Flickr account and joined a few more swaps.

I think that in order to get back into the swing of things, I am going to spend my next few posts sharing some of the projects I've been working on (in no specific order), so lessons I have learned along the way (LOTS!) and some things I hope to add to my list of skills and endeavors in the (hopefully very near) future.

So here goes:

I've been trying to branch out a little bit and have completed some small projects as gifts for friends and family.  First up: the gorgeous and very popular Buttercup Bag!  This bag is a free pattern posted on the fabulous Rae Hoekstra's blog and my goodness was it fun to make!  I am by no means a person who reads or follows instructions very well, and this was EASY!  My only trouble came when I (of course) didn't read the instructions thoroughly and tried to attach the lining and outer shell together.  It came out backwards or inside out or both several times before I finally got it right.  But no worries, it came out perfectly.


(sidenote: YAY!  I just learned how to add my images through Flickr!)

The exterior of the back is a home dec weight fabric from Ikea.  I believe the name is Bladd, or something like that. Anyways, I love the fabric so much I have some of it framed in the house.  I modified my version a teeny bit because I didn't have a magnetic clasp laying around.  I added a tab with velcro for closing it up and stitched a big grey button on the tab just to clean it up.

The inside is a rich purple solid cotton.  Not Kona, but something I found at my local Fabricland store (ugh.  I hate going there, but you can't beat their prices on solids.)  I ended up adding 2 pockets because I generally feel the more the merrier when it comes to pockets.

Since this was a birthday present for a dear friend of mine, there is a Smart Set gift card tucked into one of the interior pockets, just for an added surprise.

Overall, this bag was super fun to make.  I am absolutely in love with the finished product and will surely be making more in the near future.  I am also considering buying the license to sell because 1. It's SO cute and I know plenty of people that would want one and 2. I want the bigger size!

Lessons learned: READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY AND COMPLETELY BEFORE BEGINNING PROJECT.  Oh well.