Sold and Bought

what a thrill to sell a piece of work I made. this was on display at the Ultimate Sewing Centre and someone liked it enough to want to buy it. many messages later it is sold.
I changed the binding to match the border and it looks much more sophisticated now.
Money comes and goes all the time but firsts should be recognized. whether it is from babysitting or your first job or as in this case your first sale - that money can and should be used to commemorate the event.
I used some of my sale moula to buy this laptop tote. made by Canadian designer Jonathan Chang under the JoJo label. see it reviewed here
who knows one day I may even post to this very blog from a coffee shop. Is Timmy's WiFi? no eh? I'll have to learn to order coffee at that other place. My java of choice is DD. and that is not my cup size!! (XL if you insist)

flowers will be blooming

in the garden soon. now that the snow is finally gone & the rain is washing things clean. In the mean time, another step on my convergence that started here, and is now waiting on flowers. I changed the bottom right green to an orange.



you might recognize the foliage from here. some plants are hard to get rid of!

fierce tote

Hello there my chicklets -Paris can keep her Hermes, Nicole her Gucci, I will be carrying this awesome bag I just finished creating down the guild catwalk!! I love the argyle and the lovely robins egg blue lining. Its FIERCE







It has pockets for my strawberry and Moleskine


Carrie can keep her red-soled Christian Louboutins My bag has this Fierce purple seam binding!!
Note to self - Do not read Mark Lipinski and watch 2 hours of Project Runway in the same day!!

More Moo cards

I love Moo cards. Everyone wants to know about them when I hand them out.
My first set is here. this is my second order. All but 2 of the cards are from various projects I've made. Two are from favourite photos taken in the south of France.

Young and Hip

Another guild piece ready to leave my home. I loved the large scale floral - graphic black & white sketched flowers with orange, yellow and pink. The best pattern for a quick quilt is one with half plain blocks, similar to the marquee quilts- get those cut & you can tell yourself you're half way done!! the pieced blocks were done in stack & whack style with solid yellow, black & white. The fossil fern fabric in the unusual colour combination was perfect. Addition of some funky black & white prints helps keep it fresh. I messed up on the borders - I thought they were going all the way around like more traditional borders but didn't make them long enough to mitre. I quite like how it turned out. I think it will be a great quilt for a girl or young woman. I'm taking it back to the guild to find a back & a quilter to finish it. Any volunteers??

cat prints

another guild project finished. A panel or as we used to call them 'cheater tops' with simple but effective borders in gold & blue.

It seems to be the tiniest thing I get the biggest kick out of - like this one. I love the tiny motif on the the blue fabric. It looks like cat foot prints. sort of like when the cat walks through mud then up & down the glass windshield on your car!! this kitty looks sweet enough to do just that!

for sale

This is another sample from a class I taught last fall. It is called Mystic Blooms from a pattern by Sew Be It. I love the pink and orange combination. the centre of the flowers are made from threads and bits of batik similar to thread bowls.

I am asking $300 Can.

is it really spring?

anybody else tired of winter? even though it is officially spring there are no signs of it yet. the morning doves are all fluffed up against the cold.

Christmas teddies

no, not those slinky things men buy their wives. these cute cuddly teddies. The fabric is from salesmans samples donated to our guild by the Ultimate Sewing Centre.
The rectangle pieces were cut to minimize waste and a very simple graphic layout. I love the backing because the sweaters look laid out for the teddy bears to take their pick to get dressed up & go out to play in the snow.

a well travelled quilt

I made this wallhanging from the Trendtex challenge kit for CQA. The quilt is on its way now to BC then to the conference in Newfoundland in June. I used only the 5 fabrics provided. The bright yellow is sewn in as narrow free cut little strips. I hope some one likes it enough to buy it.

sacred company

I spend a wonderful weekend in Kingston at a workshop with Judith Martin. Kingston Fibreworks organize events and have worldclass speakers at the facilites at St Lawrence College.
We started with a presentation by Judith. A preamble show & tell of some of her pieces. A wonderful slide show as Judith read poetry.
Saturday and Sunday were a combination of stitching & sharing. I especially enjoyed hearing everyones short presentation about themselves based on the timelines we prepared about ourselves. We all DO have stories. Interesting stories. value your story, write your story, share your story. For me I know I will be including my story in my work.
It was a memorable weekend in other ways too. Snow,lots of snow, wind, stuck cars, abandoned cars.
these are some of the dyed fabrics in the kits Judith prepared for us. You can see where I've started stitching on a piece of dyed dish towel.

repeat after me..

it is only fabric, it is only fabric.
Yes you can use that beautiful fabric you love so much. Use it before your tastes change & you wonder at what the big deal was!!
same for dyed fabrics. Yes I made it myself & yes it is the only piece like it in the world but it isn't being appreciated folded away in a basket.
I dyed this during my one & only go at dying last year at St. Lawrence College. When it warms up a bit I'm going to dye a whole lot. Like everything else it takes practice to get it right.
Myrna is really enjoying herself much to her surprise.
This bag was made according to directions from the first issue of Quilt WOW (workshop on the web) by Edwina MacKinnon who happens to be my tutor for the C&G Sketchbook course I'm taking through DesignMatters. There is a gorgeous example of the same style bag in the Thr3fold Journal Reader's Gallery. and another example on the cover of this book.

I won, I won...

a wonderful gift from Franca in Paris. Yup Paris, FRANCE, not Paris Ontario. I love Marie Claire Idees magazine. It comes out four times a year. I've bought it only once in France and can usualy find it at Chapters. This is my collection.

teaching

I'm teaching several classes over the next few months. I'm teaching at
Ultimate Sewing Centre in Oshawa. It is a great store super friendly & helpful staff, great prices & awesome selction of fabrics especially the greens.
Photos of the classes I'm teaching are listed here. scroll down to find Point Nine, Kabuki, quilting with Circles and the sewing bag.

ATC

I got mt ATC from Susan Lenz of CyberFyber in the mail recently. I love the textures & colours. reminds me of the quilt I just finished. Lenna has hers here. These are the ones I'm sending for the trade.

graphic quilt

I just finished this quilt. It started by doodling on graph paper. I love the high contrast with the black & white fabric. It would make a great quilt for a beginner to make as it is really just a fence rail pattern. I love the combination of black & brown. This is more a golden brown. The complex pattern in the border fabric adds another element of interest.
The binding (I think IMHO!)works as a final frame matching the inner thin border. simple but effective. Machine quilting is still a big challenge for me. I feel like I'm starting over every time I attempt it. practice. practice.

.....its painted

I didn't want to paint just for the sake of painting on a quilted surface. I wanted to use the same shape - mostly squares - that I had used in layering the sheers.
I used a stiff cardboard template, straight seta color fabric paints & a foam brush. I tried to just tickle the tops of the raised parts and was pleased with the results. A couple of the blocks are a little heavier on the paint than I would like.
I have no idea what to do now!! Is it finished? does it need something else?

hand stitching

ever notice how lovely hand stitched pieces are small. like this beautiful elephant on the cover of Stitch magazine. It is 21 x 17.5cm. I now know why. I belong to a very small but great group of fibre artists - at our first meeting before Christmas last year we decided to work on a project from Quilting Arts Magazine Gifts issue. a bag from Linda & Laura Kemshall.
layers of sheers under tulle then lots of hand stitching. I worked on it diligently watching all the Christmas specials. you know the ones - the ones you know word for word - Grinch, Rudolph, Charlie Brown. Yup classics.
True to my theory that everything is smaller in the UK - cars, roads, fridges. I thought go big or go home. I started out with a fat quarter. so my stiched piece is a huge 42 x 48 cm. that's about 17 x 19"!!
all stitched and more than a few pricked fingertips!!
I love the texture, the bumpy surface where the stitching gathers up the batting.
the big question - what's next!!
Laura & Linda are know for painting on their quilted surfaces.
Yikes. but as Myrna said- the earth won't fall of its axis or birds fall out of the sky so why not!!

Cyber Fyber

The internet has been a great resource in building communities that wouldn't exist any other way. Meeting people from around the world with common interests. Susan Lenz had a wonderful exhibit of small art in the form of ATC's and postcards called recently called Cyber Fyber. These AtC's & postcard started out similar to these -same velvet,plaid scarf,foil, sheers -different wool and sheer on top. The sheer is more reflective and called for a cheerier finish. I love the fuzzy multi-coloured yarn.

souvenirs from Prague

I'm not a big fan of buying souvenirs when we travel. We take lots of photos and try to keep notes on each days events. But hand painted silk in a gallery window will draw me in regardless of where I am.
I bought this beautiful one-of-a-kind hand painted silk designer skirt at a gallery in Prague
this photo shows the detail of the fabric & the back of the skirt. It is by a designer Ivana Follova.
This sweater is designed by Martina Nevarilova and looks great with the skirt. I am so excited to have a truly unique outfit to remind me of a great visit to Prague.