Happy Haunting!!

Wishing everyone a safte and happy Halloween!! And if you haven't already, go here to put your name in for the fat quarter freebie draw - there's only 2 more days to enter!

PS - if you are wondering, the pumpkin on the left is mine, the middle one was done by my boyfriend, and the one on the right (with the fangs) was done by my daughter- we love the fangs!!

Progress on the Geisha Quilt

I find it amazing, how many things I wish I could do in life, and how many things I start to do, that take forever to finish. This Geisha quilt has been something I have been mulling over for a seemingly endless amount of time, at each and every step. A while back, I didn't like what I was doing, so I ripped stitches and painted the Geisha. After that, it became a "well, what now?" sort of challenge. Finally, I figured it out, and this is what I came up with:

I really like how the robe looks; it is quilted with blue Yenmet thread that has gold metallic in it. For the fans, I decided to go with a monochromatic thread, so that it wouldn't detract from the center panel. It looks like this:

Initially, I wanted to have a sort of circular pattern showing, but I realized that the fans, where they lay, would not allow for this. So, I am alternating, and my stitches are a little uncertain in places, and nearly perfect in others. I really wanted perfect, but I realize that, like many things, as long as it is made with love, the perfection is in the thought. And this is definitely a quilt that has been made with love; it is for my boyfriend's daughter, who is moving in with a love of her own, and who is turning the big 21 in November. I guess, then, that I have a lot of love to show between now and her birthday....

Fabric Pumpkins and Fat Quarter Freebies!

What an amazing time I have had lately - this morning I woke up thinking just how lucky I am, and what a charmed life I have. In the past couple of weeks, I have had someone add to my lovely and large stash of fabrics by gifting me with a bunch of fat quarters, I have spent some quality time with my daughter and her friend making fabric pumpkins, and I have won a DVD from Diane Doran at Ooh Pretty Colors , called Digital Collage for Quilt Design.

With the thought of just how charmed my life is, I could only think of making it better with giving something away myself. As I mentioned, I have a pretty large stash of fabric that I am very proud of - now, I know it is not as large as some, but right now my storage space for all things shiny and crafty is limited to a closet under the stairs (fingers crossed for a whole room soon!). What better, then, than to gift someone with a few fat quarters cut from some of the favourite fabrics in my stash?

Five great fabrics, two sets of five fat quarters, and two lucky winners. All you need to do to enter, is leave a comment on this post, and tell me what you would make with these fantastic fabrics. As a special bonus, let me know if you are following my blog, and I will enter your name twice. Halloween is just around the corner, and I will need a day or two to recouperate from taking my darling daughter out for a night of trick or treating. So, leave a comment by midnight November 1st, and I will draw two names on November 2nd - either check back here on the 2nd, or make sure to leave an email address so that I can contact you if you win. Good luck, and Happy Halloween!!

A picture of the fabric pumkin my daughter made this weekend, thanks to a tutorial that I found at Craft Buds . This was super fun, and the crafting bug bit my10 year old daughter, who hand crafted Bob the ghost, all on her own, without so much as a template - isn't she awesome?!?

And the winners are (according to the random number generator)......

Carla G and Mtnquiltr!! I will email you today to get your mailing addresses, so that I can get your fat quarters to you. Thanks to everyone for stopping by and leaving comments - happy quilting!!

Playing With Colour

After organizing my fabric stash , I was surprised to see how many variations of colour that I posessed; prior to organizing by colour, I organized by style (kids, batiks, asian, etc.) - organizing by colour, though, I have found other combinations that will work quite well together, but I have to save those ideas for another day, since I am still working on my commissioned quilt, and am nearing the deadline for my Geisha quilt to be done as well.

However, sometimes you just can't stop creativity, and in this case it managed to fit into the class that I am taking as well (The Artist's toolbox, hosted by Lyric Kinard) . So, last night I took out my newly organized fabric stash, and came up with this:

It is very difficult to see the purple thread that I used; I think I'll take another photo or two and post it later. For now, it remains unquilted, but I have decided that I will use yellow thread once I figure out how I want to go about it. I love the colours, and the movement in this quilt; I did have trouble deciding how I want to hang it, because it works no matter what angle it's at. Hmmm, maybe I will add more than one sleeve to the back, so that I can change it at my whim!!

It's later, and I have taken a picture of some detail:

My quilting lines are a bit uneven; I am just starting out with free motion shapes, and I had some trouble with this. I was stitching over tear away stabilizer, and it seemed to "catch" from time to time, though I am not sure exactly where or how. As I was working on this piece, I decided to add a teflon Goddess sheet to my Christmas wish list...

And, since this post is on "playing with colour," I thought I might share what I did in my sketchbook the other day:

I am by no means an "artist" in the traditional sense, but I do love art, and I do love colour. And, I thought that it was time to get over my fears, and get sketching!! Now, I guess it's time to see what I can do with the waiting Geisha....

Pocket Purses

I've made a promise to spend at least one day a month doing a kid friendly craft with my daughter, and this month we made pocket purses. Quick and easy, this no sew craft will have little girls everywhere expressing themselves in style! (I admit, though, that if it were totally up to me, I would have done some sewing, but it was not my turn to be the boss here.) Here are the purses that we made:

These are the purses from one side

And from the other side - my daughter's purse has the fringe :-)

To make these purses, all you need are some pants, some embellishments (we used grosgrain ribbon and shoelaces for the purse straps), and a glue gun. Cut out the back pocket, leaving a bit of extra fabric at the top (about 1/2 inch). Next, cut out the front pocket (or the other back pocket, or some extra fabric from the pant leg), again leaving some extra fabric at the top. Glue the tops down, and then glue the straps on, lining up the edges of the pockets. From there, I glued one matching edge, and where needed, cut the opposing edges of the front pockets to line up evenly with the back pockets (front pockets are bigger sometimes, making this project a bit more labour intensive).. Keep gluing until everything is lined up, taking care not to burn your fingers.

I also recommend adding any applique embellishments prior to gluing if possible, as the glue that holds the pieces together will soften if they are added afterwards... Either way, the end result was quite pleasing, and my daughter is excited to be presenting the two purses on the left to her friends tomorrow!!



How I Spent Canadian Thanksgiving

This weekend I was blessed with three whole days off; Friday night after work, my 10 year old daughter and I set out to gather all the needed supplies for our crafting adventures. Saturday, she had a friend over, and they made sparkly foam candelabras for Halloween while I started organizing my fabric stacks turned stash.. Sunday was a lazy sort of day, with us both sketching, and me finishing the work with fabric and paper crafting supplies. Monday, we made pocket purses out of old pants that I got from one of our local thrift stores - I'm told that I can't take pictures until they are finished, but we are close - we only need to apply some patches and then we are done!

I also spent some time doing homework for the Artist's Toolbox, the class that I am currently enrolled in at Quilt University . And, of course, I caught up on the blogs that I follow. One in particular held a great picture that totally caught my eye. The blog is Spirit Cloth, authored by Jude Hill, and her post with this great picture can be found here. Can you guess which picture I love???? Hint: ???

Organizing the fabric stack.. or should I say stash?

Recently, I have seen posts linked to Seth Apter's The Altered Page and his Stackaholics project.  I have been a collector of fabric and other shiny things for quite some time now. When I first started quilting, my thought was to only have the fabric that I needed, to work one quilt at a time... Yes, you can stop laughing now, although to be honest, I still am. As you can guess, my needs have changed over the years. Initially, I could fit everything quite nicely onto a shelf in a closet. Then, my stash grew, so I bought two tall rubbermaid containers, each with 5  drawers - one drawer for each project.

I bet you can guess what happened next.. yup, my stash grew again, and again... And then I moved, so I just crammed everything into whatever box it would fit in. Today, only 7 months later (hahaha), I decided that it was time to organize again, this time by colour. Here is what I ended up with:

This is the majority of my stash, after sorting

And this is what it looks like now :-))

This is much nicer, and organized like this I can actually see what I have, without digging to the bottom of a drawer. I have one more rubbermaid tote that is larger than these, and it will hold my smaller pieces of batting, my larger (fuzzy) fabrics, and my UFOs. I expect that this will make life easier, since I now truly have an idea of what I have, and it also gave me an idea of what I didn't have much of (yes, I admit that once I found some areas that were lacking, I made a trip to the fabric store, lol!). It also gave me an idea of what I really, really don't need more of (note the browns and blacks... I do like earth tones, and am only recently finding room for more colour in my quilting and crafting world).The tote on the bottom left is for panels, kits, and fabric already designated for a quilt on my list of "to do's".  Finally, I have one medium sized tote reserved for fabric scraps, although I expect that even that might grow one of these days...

Oh, and in case you are wondering what I will be doing with my drawer totes, well.... those are now destined to hold my ribbons, paper, beads, paints, stamps, and other crafting goodies. What fun it will be, to finally be able to find everything without digging!! 

As the Seasons Change

I woke up this morning, and was greeted by a crispness in the air that reminds me Autumn is really here. It reminded me of a bowl that I made as a birthday gift recently, but never posted, so here it is:

I very much like how the two colours intereact with each other, and the sense of calm that this bowl brings... Today, I will be enjoying the first of three days "off" from my day job, which still leaves me with much to do. I've decided though, that I will rest as much as I can, as I woke up with another sure sign of Autumn - a cold...

More Fun With Fabric

Yesterday I mentioned that I was enrolled in an art class that is being taught by Lyric Kinard , and did I mention how much fun I am having? Only once before have I ever picked up fabric without a clear intention of what I was going to do with it. Yesterday I did a couple of the exercises that were listed, and this one is my surprise favourite:

The exercise was on texture, but I really quite like the composition of this; I think, though, that I would like to change the osnaberg to black, either linen or cotton, and perhaps embellish it further. The white lace actually reminds me of a garter belt for a wedding, and the other fabrics used are quite traditional. Overall, though, I have to say that I pretty much dig it..

And, now that I am remembering the other time that I played with reckless abandon, here is the "bookmark turned small art quilt" that I made last year:

What do I mean, "bookmark turned small art quilt"? Well, initially, I had done some abstract painting on muslin that I had torn roughly into the size that I wanted, with the intention of embellishing and creating bookmarks. For some reason, I decided that this was not the route I wanted to take, so I figured that I would try my hand at creating a small art quilt. I gave this piece to a patient and friend who has been struggling with illness for far too long, and her reaction was well worth the journey to create this piece. Currently, I am working on a number of projects, and I had forgotten hour much \i enjoyed making this. Now that I am reminded, though, I think that I will try to make some more of these again this winter - if time allows, that is!!

Measure Thrice, Order Once

Funny story here - when I was calculating my fabric needs for the commissioned "Babes in the Woods" quilt, I figured it out alright. Then, late at night when I was going to place my order, I thought to myself, "no way, that is far too much of THAT fabric," and calculated again, very quickly.

The fabric arrived, and I was happy!! After a mishap with one of the dyes during prewashing (oh, thank goodness for Clorox 2 and Tide stain release), I was set to starch, iron, cut and sew, and off I went - and here is where it gets interesting... about 3/4 of the way through, I realized that I actually didn't have enough of my fabric for the binding - how many times can I groan here??? So, after scolding myself for a) not trusting my initial calculations (which were totally correct), and b) calculating quickly in my head, right before bed (*groan, groan, groan!*), I set my work aside, ordered more fabric, and went on to preparing for an online class that I enrolled in (fyi, it is called The Artist's Toolbox - it is being taught at Quilt University by instructor Lyric Kinard, and it is so much fun!)

So, as it stands, here is what I have done for the commissioned quilt so far:

Now, off to play some more, and see what I can make to add to my "Artist's Toolbox!"