Winter is Finished!

That title is true in more ways than one! Winter - the season - is finally done here in my part of the world. But more importantly, my first Bee Sewcial quilt, Winter, is also done!

This quilt is a collaboration quilt - all of my Bee Sewcial partners contributed one large or two smaller blocks to this quilt. If you look at this blog post, you'll see my original prompt, where I asked them to make minimalist winter landscape blocks using shades of grey with white. I took the blocks, puzzled them together and then fretted about the quilting.

I won't bore you with the long list of Finish Along quarters that this beauty showed up on my Goals list. Suffice it to say that the top has been assembled since late 2015, I believe.

For the quilting, I marked a couple of the lines, and then eyeballed some walking foot quilting in more or less equal intervals, keeping some parallel and others in wavy points. I used Aurifil 50 weight in a light grey colour (2600).

I actually bound the whole thing and then decided it needed more quilting so out came the 12 weight cotton thread in the same colour. My hands weren't happy with that thick thread but I love the effect! I might even add some more but I needed to call this one done after so long.

I have my sisters in creativity, the Bee Sewcial group, to thank for this amazing finish. Every month, I am in awe of their skill and creativity. How lucky am I to be inspired and challenged by these amazing women!

This is a Finish Along finish as well! Hooray! No more putting it on my list! Wheee!

Small Study

While at QuiltCon West in Pasadena this past February, I took a workshop with the inimitable Gwen Marston. A once in a lifetime opportunity, really, since she is not going to be travelling and teaching anymore. I'm not even certain she will be continuing her retreats on Beaver Island.

The day I spent learning from her was the absolute highlight of the entire trip for me, and that's saying something since it was a pretty fabulous trip all around.

This is the finished product, which is about 10½" square. Working with 3/4" strips was challenging but I loved the ability to see my composition come together right before my eyes.

Gwen is a really marvelous teacher, and the work that came out of the class in just one day was absolutely wonderful:

And finally, here we are after the class.

This sweet lil' mini is on my Q2 Finish Along goals list. Yay for finishes (it was my only one for the quarter)!

Strips and Squares Everywhere

Strips and Squares Everywhere

This is a finish that was 4 years in the making! It got its start during an online bee on Flickr, and (EDITED) continued to a second bee that I was in that year. Everything began with The Maple Leaf Bee and continued with Sew Buzzy. Both bees were the kind where the Queen Bee sends out fabric to the other members of the group with instructions for what we'd like. I loved the look of Kaffe Fassett's Jewel Squares quilt, with squares of differing sizes all working together so that's what I asked everyone to make with my fabrics (Spa by Rosemarie Lavin plus one print from Hope Valley by Denise Schmidt and Kona solid in White).

I got my blocks back but the project stalled because I needed to make a lot more blocks to get a decent sized quilt.

Fast forward about 3 years and I started putting this project on my Finish Along goal lists. Finally, I got to work on it in the past few weeks. The design changed a bit in the time since I conceived of the idea and I'm really happy with how it ended up - it's an ode to Jen Kingwell's Gypsy Wife layout with the strips in between blocks.

I quilted it on a longarm in a simple, organic loopy loop pattern that I like for its simplicity of execution, not to mention how quickly it gets done. I used a lime green thread and I love how it looks!

Final size - pre washing - is 60" x 72", a double-ish size that covers the top of our queen size mattress with a small amount of overhang.

Bound with scrap strips and backed with some groovy IKEA fabric and some leftover fabrics from the front. I'm so happy that this is done - I feel a lot lighter for having it off my Finish Along list!

Spring Bloom Giveaway Winner

I somehow lost the numbering on my blog comments so instead of Random.org, I went low tech/old school. I printed out the comments, cut them apart and had G dig around to select one.

The winner of the Spring Bloom FQ bundle is.....Cheryl, whom I've emailed.

Thanks again, Amanda, for inviting me to participate in the blog hop, and a big thank you to Windham Fabrics who sponsored the blog hop with fabric for me and the winner!

Make It, Take It Bloghop (With Giveaway)

Welcome to my stop on the Make It, Take It bloghop!

Way back over two years ago, Krista Poppyprint told me that she was going to write a book on retreats and asked if I'd contribute a project. I couldn't say yes fast enough. I was - and am - absolutely thrilled for Krista! All of the opportunities and success that this book and her Chess on the Steps pattern have brought to her are the culmination of over 10 years of really hard work and beautiful creations and I am so delighted to be a part of it all: as a contributor, a frequent participant in her day and overnight retreats, and as a friend.

Make It, Take It is a book that celebrates retreats, and features projects for taking your equipment, and projects you can make while you're there. Have you ever been on a retreat? If you have the chance, do it. I think what makes it so special for me is that it’s not just the time; it’s the space. Physical space for basting a big quilt is wonderful but more than that, retreats afford me metaphysical space that I need, too. On my annual overnight retreat, meals are announced with a chime. When it sounds, I slowly stop what I’m doing and go eat a meal someone else has planned and prepared. I eat it in communion with other women who, regardless of who or what we all are in other aspects of our lives, share a passion for creating. I’m a wife and a mother who works full-time outside the home, so freedom from the usual obligations and responsibilities of family and home and work is what I love most about retreating.

My pattern in the book is a set of placemats designed for a round table. If you aren't into scrappy projects, these placemats would look fabulous with just two colours of strips, maybe with a fun contrasting binding? Or you could use precut strips from one fabric line. Lots of choice! If you did your cutting ahead of time, you could get a very good start on a set of 4 during a long day retreat, and certainly finish them at an overnight getaway.

I came up with the concept after a visit with my Dad when I noticed his rectangular placemats weren't really working all that well on his round table. I didn't tell him I was making them for him (because surprises are so fun!), and it took quite a while before they actually went from idea to finished project (because of course they did). Once the placemats were finally done, I proudly mailed them off and he sent me a lovely thank you email when he got them. Shortly after I got the email - we're talking minutes here - my Dad called. He told me again how much he appreciated the placemats, how lovely they were. Then he paused and said, "Felicity.....I got a new table." I'll give you one guess as to the shape of the new table. Correct! NOT ROUND! Good sport that he is, Dad uses the round placemats on his square table (and they work really well, actually).

There are lots and lots of other projects in this book, and they're all fabulous. I've made one other one so far (blog post to come). Have a look a this list of contributors and fellow bloghop hostesses who'll be sharing their projects over the course of the hop:

Friday, April 4 Blog hop kick-off: Krista at Poppyprint
Monday, April 6: Berene at Happy Sew Lucky and Amy at During Quiet Time
Tuesday, April 7: Leanne at She Can Quilt and Felicity at Felicity Quilts
Wednesday, April 8: Martingale Inc. at Stitch this! (check out their Rainbow Round the Cabin staff party!)
Thursday, April 9: Krista at Spotted Stones and Krista at Krista Withers Quilting
Friday, April 10: Lynne at Lilys Quilts and Cindy at Live a Colorful Life
Saturday, April 11: Ayumi at Pink Penguin and Krista at Poppyprint
Sunday, April 12: Kristie at OCD: Obsessive Crafting Disorder and Christina at Sometimes Crafter

Now for the exciting part: how you can win your very own copy of Make It, Take It! Two books are up for grabs: one digital copy (courtesy of Martingale, the book's publisher) and one hard copy (courtesy of yours truly).

Simple entry rules:
- Comment on this blog post.
- One comment per person, please. I'd love to know where in the world you are, so if you want to include that in your comment, that's cool but optional.
- Make sure your email is attached to your profile (or if you're unsure, just include it in your comment to be safe, using AT and DOT to avoid spam) because if it's not there, I will have to choose another entry.
- International entries are welcome.
- I'll close this post to comments at some point on Friday, April 10th, probably around 8:00 pm Pacific, then use Random Number Generator to select TWO winners. One will win the digital copy, the other will receive the hard copy.  Edited: Giveaway closed and winners announced. Thanks for entering!

QuiltCon 2015: Connections, Learning and Inspiration

I seem to have so little time for blogging these days, I'm going to just go ahead and cram all of my QuiltCon 2015 stuff into a single, looooong post. So go grab a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and settle in.

This post's title really sums up my experience in Austin for QuiltCon. To wit:

Connections

It started on my 8 am flight out of Vancouver: I had misremembered my itinerary so I didn't think any VMQG peeps were on my flight. I was really happy to be proven wrong when I got to YVR and got a text from Krista Poppyprint. We met up at the Starbucks, discovered we were on the same flight and then made our way to our gate.

At the gate, ready to get to Austin already

We were seated only two rows apart and it took exactly zero effort to convince the very tall fellow in the seat next to mine to move to Krista's aisle seat two rows back so we could sit together. Fun!

The rest of the trip was full of similar serendipities and connections. I finally met my longtime bloggy friend Cindy Live a Colorful Life in person for the first time and we spent a lovely dinner together along with some other friends, both old and new for me.

I also connected with many of my Bee Sewcial bee mates and that was fabulous too.

I really made a point of channeling my extrovert half, which meant I forced myself to be the one to say hello and introduce myself first rather than holding back and waiting til I felt safer, which is my usual M.O. Needless to say, this strategy was extraordinarily successful and was helped along considerably by the brilliant QuiltCon Pin Swap (begun by Vicky (@houseofduke1 on instagram), I believe) .

Just a sampling of the buttons I collected

Furthermore, the QuiltCon Lanyard Swap was yet another way to make connections at QuiltCon, as evidenced by my startling the lovely Yvonne while she was on White Glove duty by hoisting my lanyard and yelping, "Hey! You made this for me!"

I had met S-J, my lanyard recipient, in Vancouver just ahead of QuiltCon. Speaking of serendipity: S-J, Australian, considers Vancouver her home away from home and had already planned to spend time here before taking the train (!!!) to Austin. So we met up for coffee one Saturday and talked nonstop for the entire hour and a half.

I kept running into her at various points over the event, including at "QuiltComm," what we dubbed the gathering of folks from the Commonwealth who attended QuiltCon.

This is really only scratching the surface of the social smorgasbord that was QuiltCon. I reconnected with old friends I hadn't seen since last QuiltCon, met online friends for the first time in person, hung out with VMQG friends, hung out with new friends....oh my goodness, it was wonderful.

Learning

I took two full day workshops and one half-day, plus a couple of lectures. That was the perfect amount of classroom time (for me).

My first class was with the Quilters of Gee's Bend. Yes, those incredible women. The class was very short on instruction ("Just cut up the fabric and start sewin'!") yet still very inspirational. I used some thrifted jeans and shirts plus some vintage red corduroy from my mother-in-law and got this far in our session:

Everything is improved by leopard print (just call me Edith Prickley)

One more strip of denim (I ran out of what I'd brought with me) and I'm calling this done. I will hand quilt it but not sure if it's going to be a cushion or a wallhanging (it'll be about 30" square).

My other class was with Anna Maria Horner, doing her Mod Corsage project. It was a super inspiring and educational class - she really brings her art and design background to her incredibly helpful critiques/feedback. She is also gracious, hilarious and warm. I loved the time I spent in the workshop. This is where my project got during the day, and I've since added some appliqué as well (not pictured):

more flowers and stems to come

The class was made all the better for having Denyse Schmidt as one of the learners. When I saw Denyse enter the class, I assumed she'd come to say hi to Anna Maria. But then she put her tote bag down at an empty spot at a workshop table and I was intrigued. She participated in the feedback/critiques as well both as a maker and a designer. Thrilling!

Anna Maria Horner and Denyse Schmidt discussing Denyse's piece

Inspiration

The Show, people. THE SHOW. Everywhere I looked, there was another feast for my eyes and sensibilities. An entire show featuring modern quilts? Bliss. Here are a very few photos I managed to snap (click through for attributions):

For more photos of QuiltCon 2015 show, the MQG has a roundup of winning quilts here and Sew Mama Sew did a wonderful job of capturing photos of all the quilts.

All in all, my QuiltCon 2015 experience was so perfect that I'm actually hesitant to consider doing another one so soon (QuiltCon West is in February 2016). Need to think on that one for sure.

Make It, Take It

You guys, I've got some awesome news. My beautiful, awesome and talented friend the one and only Krista Hennebury (Poppyprint) has written a book. A delightful book. Make It, Take It is about retreats and sewing with friends and it's full of fantastic projects, all of which you're going to want to make immediately. I'm one of the contributors, I'm proud to say.

 Images courtesy Martingale

The book will be available for purchase on February 10th at Martingale before shops and Amazon have received their shipments. Plus, purchases direct from Martingale will include a free digital copy that you can download to your laptop, tablet or phone to bring along on retreat!

Lonestar quilt designed by Lynne Goldsworthy 

Photo from Make It, Take It by Brent Kane, Martingale 2014

More details, photos and a giveaway to come - this is just a teaser! If you're heading to QuiltCon, you'll be happy to know the book is debuting there, and Krista is scheduled to do a couple of signings. Details to come on her blog.

QuiltCon Preparations

QuiltCon is about 6 weeks away - incredible that it's come up so fast! I've been doing a few things to get ready!

Jules Procrasticraft organized a fun QuiltCon-related swap of lanyards. It's been so fun to check out the #quiltcon2015lanyardswap hashtag on Instagram! My camera ate the good photos I took so you'll have to settle for this (sorry!):

It's a secret, blind swap and my partner very generously said she would love a lanyard that reflects where the maker comes from. I chose blue for the ocean and green for the lush trees and greenery we have here in Vancouver, plus I couldn't resist a little red/white to signify Canada. The maple leaves were my husband's suggestion and I think they're sweet too. I've mailed the lanyard and a coordinating little pouch that can hold a room key and a few bucks. I hope my partner likes it!

Secondly, there's a Facebook group of Canadians going to QuiltCon and the lovely Julie has designed a T-shirt for us all!

I am putting in an order forthwith - I'm so looking forward to meeting fellow quilters in Austin in a few short weeks.

Naramata Summer

For the past few summers, my family and I have spent a week or so in the Okanagan - a beautiful area about 4 hours' drive from Vancouver. Much of the fruit we eat in BC is grown in the Okanagan Valley and no trip there is complete without stopping at many fruit stands to buy juicy peaches and other scrumptious fruit.

This past summer, we stayed on the grounds of a fruit winery in Naramata BC and it was fabulous. Because we were there toward the end of the summer, picking season was in full swing. One day I was walking along the road beside the orchard and noticed a few stacks of pallets awaiting their tour of duty holding the big bins of picked fruit. The pallets were mostly brown but two were this bright blue. I didn't have a camera with me but I sketched what I saw, knowing one day it would turn into a quilt. Amazingly, it did, and in record time, too! This is Naramata Summer.

She's about 31"x29" and made entirely of scraps/stash fabric: Robert Kaufman Essex Linen in (I think) Natural, some Kona cotton in some colours I can't remember but they're left over from my Oceanic Supernova, and Kona Stone.

The quilting? Well let me tell you about the quilting. I was all set to make this a quick finish with some straight line quilting and call it a day. The short-sightedness of that plan was pointed out to me at my annual Loon Lake retreat, where I had registered for a short workshop with Krista Withers - a preview of the one she's teaching at QuiltCon on Compositional Quilting, an approach to quilting the negative space found in many modern quilts. Thank goodness I have friends who will kick my ass around the block when needed.

Because in that workshop? Mind: BLOWN. Seriously. I'll never look at quilting the same way again, and even though we didn't sew one stitch in the workshop, my Free Motion Quilting game was upped *significantly*. I didn't realize I had this in me:

I'm so happy I waited. SO so happy. I will enter this in the QuiltCon quilt show but even if it doesn't get in, I'm extremely proud of the work I've done on this quilt: the design, the execution and the quilting (which was done with Aurifil 40 weight in a lovely turquoise (5006)).

And one last full frontal just because:

Bloggers' Quilt Festival Fall 2014: Liberty Goes to the Circus

I do so enjoy the Bloggers' Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis twice a year at Amy's Creative Side. She rounds up great sponsors and creates a fantastic online quilt show for our viewing and inspiration. It's wonderful!

My BQF entry this year - in the Large Quilt category - is called Liberty Goes to the Circus.

I was gifted a half-dozen packages of Liberty of London tana lawn fat quarters by my neighbour who's in the clothing design business. He'd had them hanging around in his office for a while and one day offered them to me. I could barely squeak out a thank you, knowing what I did about how precious Liberty fabric is.

I paired each FQ with a coordinating Kona solid...

...and used this tutorial to create a total of 42 St. Louis 16-patch blocks. I hoped that the brightness of the solids would unify the disparate patterns and backgrounds of the various Liberty fabrics.

I do believe the solids did their job of unifying the whole thing. Having said that, however, I'm reminded of my sister and brother-in-law's first home that had different coloured carpet in every room in the house (colours included burgundy, purple and royal blue) and she commented that it seemed like the previous owners used "Circus" as inspiration when they were choosing their décor theme. Which is why I'm calling this Liberty Goes to the Circus.

The quilt is the biggest I've made - 87"x101" and I wasn't able to use my usual strategy of pinning the quilt to the wooden arbours in our courtyard (seen above) for photography purposes. Instead, I had my husband hang it over the railing of our top balcony.

It's free-motion quilted with an neutral(ish) Aurifil thread in 40 wt (colour 2324) in a petal/leaf motif in each square.

The backing is a fabulous Martha Negley print plus a little bit of Jay McCarroll Habitat and an extra block.

I was originally going to use a dark solid of some kind as binding, but instead I went with a favourite "neutral" of mine - Kona Curry. It is a surprisingly versatile shade, and provides a nice pop of colour there (like this thing needs more colour ha ha) along the edge. Plus, this lighter shade will wear a little more nicely than a darker fabric that will fade after many washings.

I puffy heart love this quilt, and it's mine alllll mine. Except when the kid steals it for afternoon reading/snuggling purposes.

Thanks for stopping by for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival! This quilt is entered in the Large Quilt category.