Funky Friday #

See that title?   That would look like I am going to start a series of 'Funky Friday' posts.   I might.   What I mean is I am going to try, but if I don't, then you can't blame me because I never put a '1' in there to actually start the series.  So this is just a tester.   (Really it means if I can't get my act together and commit to a weekly Funky Friday, you can't blame me=)

So what is going to happen on Funky Fridays?   I honestly have no idea, I just had the brainwave 15 seconds ago.   But it might mean I show you something fun and different I just made, and maybe show you a couple blogs that caught my eye.   I figure if you read my blog, you probably don't read anyone else's as nothing can beat mine, so it would expand your horizons if I highlighted a few.    (In case you are new, I am sooo joking=)

That pretty much sums it up.   You can't expect me to know exactly how it is going to go, being the first, I mean 'tester' of Funky Friday.

Here goes.   This spring and upcoming fall, I am doing a fair bit of travelling and really like to pack light.   Mostly so I can fill my suitcases with fabric.   That means I am not bringing slippers.  Mine are fairly clunky and big and would take up entirely too much room.   My friend Kat created this pattern and I made them in 22 minutes flat.   From start to finish!  

Mine are not as fancy as hers, but I used an old pair of stretch denim jeans and cut them up.   Yes, I wear stretch denim... really at my age, everyone should.  Anyway, they were perfect as the top band fits nice and snug due to the elasticity in it.  

These would make amazing gifts for people that go camping or travel alot.

I learned today that Quilt University is only running till the end of 2013, the founder died suddenly in February.

Here you can see the 2012 winners from the International Quilt Festival, better known as the 'Houston' show.   The biggest juried show in North America.  Also just as noteworthy, the show that has sent me the most rejection letters.   I am still waiting for an acceptance one.   Yesterday I sent in my submission for the 2013 show.  FYI, July 17th may not be the best day to hang out with me.   That is when they send their 'You are a loser or You are a great quilter' letters out=)  My husband usually finds a reason to 'work late' that day.  

Now as for a great blog to take a look ,.  Geta's Quilting Studio is filled with talent and inspiration.   She literally started not knowing anything about quilting and is now publishing books.  Her work is perfection and she always has great eye candy and tips.

A Diva Denim Day

It is snowing again!  Seriously, can someone please tell Mother Nature that this is not the time to get in a fight with Mr. Snow.  Someone bring her some chocolate.

As you know I have my fabulous Diva Vest made and ready to wear.   I have already worn her to two trunk shows much to the delight of the ladies.  But I still thought she was missing something.  The back is all glammed up but the front just has spool pockets and the opening of the vest.   I decided that I should make something  beautiful, so that the Diva on the back would be proud of the Diva wearing the vest.

Here is what I made today.   Don't you just want one?  I used the Madhuri fabric again and covered the spools with it.  Sigh... so beautiful.   I am probably going to stop a lot of people in their tracks with my beauty now.   (Or they will be checking my sanity).

 And I had a little time to make these matching cuties.

Once I had my gorgeous necklace made, I dove into my denim and continued with my free motion piecing.

I have a few ideas of what I am going to do with the  blocks, but none are making me crazy with delight yet.   I figure if I keep at it, something will jump into my head.

MIA, But I Am Back

I took a little venture and headed down south for 31 hours.   An overnight at the brother in law's and then off to the Gwillimbury Quilt Guild for a trunk show.   You know things are going to go amazing when the gal introducing you actually took the time to memorize the stuff you sent her.  

And it doesn't hurt that the members were so gracious and accepting of my crazy 3D work either.   Love.That. Guild.

In the meantime, I have been keeping busy.  I finished off a small piece heading to Quilt Market.  I can't reveal it yet, but I think I am safe to show you the back.

See that little pink square in the corner?   Here is a better look at it:

This is my quilt label!  How cool is that.  Well it is if you are super lazy like me.  By the time I finish a quilt, I am done with it.  And I have no patience to make a label and sew it on by hand.   Doing the binding by hand is usually the last straw.   So now all I do is heat up my iron and fuse this baby on to the back of my quilt.   I then take out my Sharpie marker and put a title and year and I am done.  A friend ordered me these from Etsy, but I am sure you can get them anywhere.   If you have a few dozen lazy bones in your body like me, make sure to get the fusible labels.

Remember the Bestie QAL I am  involved in?   I finished another 'Swoon' block as well.   I guess maybe I am not so lazy=) Oh who am I kidding, I never got a sleeve on my last quilt, but tied jumbo ric rac to it, to act as a hanger.

Wearable Art

I may have mentioned once or twice that I am in love with Madhuri, The Quilted Fish's new fabric line coming out this May.

I made another wall hanging.   I can't show that yet either.  But I did have some tiny scraps and some earring bases so I decided to make some wearable art.

Are you saying "Wow that is amazing!"   Or "Oh boy, how do I leave a comment for Jackie telling her she has finally lost her marbles?"

I probably would have had 40 more pairs but I ran out of fusing and earring stuff.   I know some of you are very thankful for that fact.   I did keep the earrings pretty small though.  At one point I was contemplating having a 3" earring on each ear to capture the full effect of the pattern on the fabric.   

I am going to send Amanda a pair.   (She designed Madhuri)  Which pair do you think she would like best?  You can say #1, 2, 3, or 4.   And 'none' is not an option=)

Sneak Peek

I have been MIA.   Did you notice?   Just say yes, even if you didn't even realize I was gone.  
I was having an argument with Mother Nature and was trying to give her the silent treatment.   If you haven't heard, she has decided not to bring spring to Canada this year.   Yep, snow and rain only.  

On the upside, I used my fancy schmancy Madhuri fabric.  On the downside, I can't show you just yet.   But I think I can give you a quick peak.  

I wonder if my hubby would notice if 25 bolts of fabric arrived from the postman.   Seriously, I really do want a bolt of every fabric from this line.   I could really just sew with this fabric for the rest of my quilting career.  

Can you imagine the popularity I would get?   If I decided that for the rest of the quilts I make, I only use fabric from Madhuri.   I would probably need more than 25 bolts.   I think I may be onto something here.   I wonder if that would finally get me into IQA Houston?   

Probably not, but it would certainly get quilters talking!  Can you hear it now?  

"Did you hear about that crazy Canadian who has decided to only use one fabric line for the rest of her life to quilt with?"

'I sure did, her husband had to take a second mortgage out as she ordered so much from Riley Blake Fabrics so she would never run out."

What do you think?  Have I just come up with the most brilliant plan for claim to fame ever?

Madhuri Is In The House

Madhuri came today!   This is The Quilted Fish's newest fabric line for Riley Blake Fabrics.   Yeppers, super awesome Amanda Herring knocked this one right out of the park.   I only have some pieces for a special surprise to be revealed at Spring Market, and then later here on my blog!

I will tell you this though, I am making a skirt for myself out of this fabric:

I do have to tell you my guilt story of the day. I was tossing out a pair of jeans and then felt so bad about not recycling them, that I pulled them back out of the garbage and brought them into my sewing room.   I still wasn't ready to cut up Madhuri, so I decided to just experiment and cut up the jeans.   I cut them into squares and then put little bits of colour into them.   

I am going to make a bunch of them, and see where it takes me.

Petals and Popcorn

Is that not just a lovely title?   I have a very strong feeling that this is what I will end up naming my quilt.  I bet you are wondering what popcorn has to do with quilting.   Ok, did one of you actually think I embellished my quilt with popcorn?   It totally never even crossed my mind.   Mental note: see if popcorn can actually be attached to fabric.  

I am doing a bunch of workshops in the fall teaching my 3D flowers and wanted to try some colours that I don't normally use.   Riley Blake fabrics sent me some delicious fabrics from their new line 'Serenata' by Samantha Walker.

I chose a blue that I never use and then broke down and chose some funky colours that I always use because they are fun.  

This would be the fun fabric... and I might as well point it out, do you see the mistake?   Take a close look, if you still don't see anything, then head to the left side.  You see it now don't you?  I am really hoping that I don't need that petal.

Now here is the blue that I did not believe could ever be used in one of my quilts.  I have no idea why, as it is quite lovely... maybe because there is no pink in it.   So this is view 'A'.  

And this is view 'B'.   What view do you like better?   I have a preference, but would be interested to see what you have to say.

Popcorn.  I just want you to know that this is a real money maker idea I am going to tell you, so if you want to make a lot of moola... take this thought and run.   After I did all this stitching, I thought I should reward myself for using fabric that is really blue, and that I didn't add any pink to.  Not yet anyway.   So I made myself popcorn and put some butter on it.   Part way through my popcorn I ran out of butter, and at that moment I had my brilliant thought.   I need a butter pump.   A portable pump I can fill up with melted butter, so when I have popcorn that has no butter on it, I can simply squirt some butter on my popcorn and continue my celebration.   How amazing is that?   And so not quilt related at all=)

Selvage or Selvedge, either way I have succumbed and a few winners

You know how it is always nice to spel words properly when other people will be reading your stuff?   (ok, I tricked you I totally misspelled the word 'spell'=)
Anyhoo....  I know that is not a word, but it seemed fitting.  Wow, I am really digressing this morning, that is what happens when I don't have my jumbo cup of coffee!  Remember how I forgot to show you what a normal cup looks like compared to my new BIG cup?  I took a pic so you could see.  I do still like my little cup because it has dots on it!

My post today is about selvages, or selvedges.   When I looked up the spelling, it said that 'selvage' is the US English version and 'selvedge' is the British English.   Hello, where is the Canadian English version of the word?   I thought this might be a good time to create one for all fellow Canadians.  How about we spell it 'selvej'?   Just as it sounds.   I am pretty sure Webster's Dictionary people are going to be calling me shortly as I have just created a new word for Canada.

Oh my goodness I really need to focus.   I decided to work on the latest challenge of Quilting Arts magazine... mostly because I felt like being humbled again by another rejection from them.
The theme for this one is 'Passages'.   I considered doing a quilt with this question written across, 'Why do you keep passing me by?' but figured that may not be the best way to get into their magazine.  

That is when I thought of my funky Riley Blake selvejs  (selvedges, in case you just started reading here).

Now I have to turn this into something eye catching, but first I need to fill up my coffee cup!

Here are the winners of the book giveaway and pins:
Cecilia won the book-lucky girl!
J, Jennifer and Janet all won pins.   Congrats ladies.

An Addition To The Diva In Town

People are always asking me how I get so much done in a day?   (They really aren't, but this seemed like a good segue into my story.)  As you may know I do love my coffee (and chocolate) and I find it a real pain that I am always having to come out of my studio to  make another cup of coffee.  

Yesterday my dear friend showed up with the perfect solution.

Okay I just realized 2 things.   

1.  You can see my teabag in there.  I had already had my limit of coffee for the day and had switched to peppermint tea.  But I have been using it for coffee and it is ginormous.   (that means super duper big)

 2.  You have no idea how big the mug is as I didn't compare it with a normal sized one.   You are just going to have to trust me that it is 3 times the size of a coffee cup.

Anyway, the reason I was back in my studio again, barring the fact it was that or cleaning, I had a dear reader comment that the front was too plain on my diva vest.   So, I had to rectify that problem.   

I made a pattern.  I am hoping you have guessed that it is a spool.

 I then picked out my adorable little chevron lines by Riley Blake fabrics and put the spools together.   Hopefully this will now make the outfit perfect!

A Diva Is In Town

As you may remember, I am on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Quilters' Association.  Each year we have a conference with workshops, wonderful instructors, a National Juried Show and several other quilt shows.

I decided it would be fun for the Board to 'Diva' it up at the next conference.   I bought patterns and mailed them to each Board member.   They had 10 months to finish it.  We need them for May. As typical quilters, only 2 of us are finished.  But in case any of them are reading this,  (even though none of them bother to follow my blog, kidding). I have complete faith that the others will finish in time.

This is the pattern I bought by Amy Bradley

I really think it should be a part of signing on to the Board.   Something like, 'must be willing to wear one outlandish outfit at each conference'.   I think that would foster a good relationship with the members, that or they will think we are off our rockers and overthrow us.

I decided to put mine onto a navy denim long vest that I might add I made in one day.   And not to brag or anything, (totally want to brag here) I did french seams and a piping on the edges.   The piping is blue and white dot fabric, seriously who doesn't love circles as binding on a vest!

This is my piping.

Here is the back of my jacket where my Diva resides.   She is wearing the best in fashion for 2013.   That really translates to me picking out fabric that is loud, bright and full of dots.  

In case you were wondering, those earrings are actual spools covered in fabric.   I know, you wish you had a pair.

Don't mind the snow in the background, I have been politely asking Mother Nature to please wake up and realize that spring was supposed to arrive last month.

What do you think of my Diva coat?   Should I start beefing up my resume as I may be turfed from the Board?

Book Giveaway!

Quilt Author - Jennifer Chiaverini

To say I adore Jennifer Chiaverini is a huge understatement.  This woman can write like no other when it comes to quilting and drama.   Her books are unique and her characters possess such wonderful traits that you want to meet them in real life as Ms. Chiaverini gives them characteristics that are familiar and endearing to us.

Excerpt from her book:


  At Elm Creek Manor, the week after Thanksgiving is "Quiltsgiving," a time to commence a season of generosity. From near and far, quilters and aspiring quilters—a librarian, a teacher, a college student, and a quilt shop clerk among them—gather for a special winter session of quilt camp to make quilts for Project Linus.

Each quilter, ever mindful that many of her neighbors, friends, and family members are struggling through difficult times, uses her creative gifts to alleviate their collective burden. As the week unfolds, the quilters respond to Sylvia's provocative question in ways as varied as the life experiences that drew them to Elm Creek Manor. Love and comfort are sewn into the warm, bright, beautiful quilts they stitch, and their stories collectively consider the strength of human connection, and its rich rewards.

This book is finally available and I have one copy to give away to one lucky person. 

I also have 4 pins to give away as well. All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me something you like about quilting.  If you are a follower, leave me another one telling me so.

Draw will close Monday April 9th.

Good luck!