I love Spring

I've been so busy lately that spring sort of snuk up on me and just the other day I realised there were blossoms on the trees and I saw a woodpecker tapping at an old wooden telephone pole. So I took out my little book of "To Do" lists and have begun making notes on what to get for our balcony vegetable garden this year. Oh it's going to be GOOOOOD.
So being spring we are of course deep into our Chrismas 2013 crafts, here is a sneak peek:

 

 

The Craftsy 2013 Block of the Month Club was an interesting challenge this month. This is the "Economy Block".  I added a few extra pieces to the design and had some fun my newly learnt skill of 'partial seams' (we learnt last month) in the center of the design:

 

 

I really like how the instructor provided a blue print of the quilt - it helps so much in working out the colour scheme!

 

Amy's Sugar Block Club was also another fun challenge this month. I love playing around with her blocks and coming up with several variations on the blocks. This is the "Forget-Me-Not Block":

 

 

This is what I have so far with the bright fabrics (I haven't decided what I'm going to be doing with the denim and plaid fabrics yet):

 

 

The wall hanging I'm working on of my father is going well so far:

 

There is still lot of work that needs to be done - mainly shading.  I had tried dying some of the pink and orange curtain fabric behind him with the hopes of incorporating it into the pattern, but after experimenting with tea and coffee dying, I just could not find the right hues. I did end up dyeing some white fabric with tea and came out with his tanned skin tone - I was very pleased with that result. So I'm looking into tinting the areas that need shadow with a brown wash fabric paint. I'll do some samples of course and see how that goes. What I REALLY like about this wall hanging so far is this area:

The wonderful thing about the rectangular red paid is that I was able to give his shirt some shape. The dark blue streaks on his jeans was done by machine and zig-zag stitch. I'm going to be appliqueing the black on the arm of his banjo. I am very pleased with it so far, however a couple of areas of concern for me are these:

In the original picture dad is sitting on a stump. I made a mistake in having all the lower ground fabric to be the same as the stump because it all most gives the impression that he is bow legged and not sitting. I'm going to have to go back and work on changing what he is sitting on.  As well I've been having some trouble with his eyes and I've been wondering if I can get away with having them under shadow of the brim of his hat. Tricky.
I think I'm going to put it away for a month or so and let it marinate. Besides there is a garden to do and Glen is already bugging me about getting more Christmas craft stuff for him to do.









Saving fabric from landfills!

I just discovered a new place to buy fabric, help keep perfectly good materials out of landfills and save some money!!! There is this grass roots Vancouver based organisation called Our Social Fabric http://www.oursocialfabric.org/ and in their own words this is what they do:

"Our Social Fabric is a non-profit Vancouver group that helps recycle excess fabric from manufacturers, the movie industry, and more. Through monthly sales, we put the fabric into the hands of creators in our community.

Our storage unit at 1631 Powell Street is full of fabulous fabrics rescued from the landfill and ready to be repurposed! Most are high quality sample fabrics donated directly to us from the film industry, factories, and production facilities. The fabric is still on the bolt and unused. We have a wide variety of wools, cottons, linens, polyester blends, and technical fabrics from places such as Lululemon and Mountain Equipment Co-op.

We recycle fabric by holding monthly fill-a-bag fabric sales out of our storage unit in East Vancouver. Fabric sales are staffed by volunteers, and proceeds go to maintaining the storage unit and keeping it available for donations while we grow our organization and develop related programs.
In the future, we hope to open a storefront for our sales, explore selling fabric online, move into textile shredding and remanufacturing, while providing employment and social reintegration opportunities for Downtown Eastside** residents."

For those of you not familiar with the greater Vancouver area (also called "the lower main land"), the Downtown Eastside is one of Canada's most poverty stricken areas.

Once a month the fabric is sold off the bolt by the metre, however if you want the loose fabrics and notions you stuff them into a bag that measures 16″ x 6″ x 15½” - one bag is $25, two bags go for $40 and it is cash only.

You can follow their site and they also have all the social media covered as well
https://www.facebook.com/oursocialfabric/events#!/oursocialfabric
https://twitter.com/oursocialfabric
But I recommend you follow their blog http://oursocialfabric.org/ as they have the most info on what they are getting in :)

So guess where I'm going to be this Saturday!

Febuary block re-think

So I've made a new quilting rule that sort of goes along the lines of "if looking at it makes you physically ill - ie: motion sickness - it is not allowed to be in the quilt, UNLESS it is to fight evil." and since I have no plans for using this quilt against any evil villains, I had to buckle down and make new blocks. I had a closer look at the patterns with in this block. The block is made up of five fabric strips which are made into four blocks.

 

But what I noticed once I ignored its construction, was the possiblity of a different pattern: 

 

So I decided to stick with my stripe theme, but cut back on the colours and find a way of focusing on the pattern. I chose colours that were already in the stripe print I like:

 

 

 

 

I'm SO much happier with the results! Now I'm back on track and itching to finish this quilt, and March is almost here!

If anyone would like the "Pull over I'm going to be car sick" block, send me your address and I'll mail them to you :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have no idea what I'm doing.

One of my quilting goals this year was to really push my limits as far as my colour, design and pattern choices when it comes to fabrics I choose.
Well honestly some days I do not think it is going all that well.
Normally I like to have a theme - like "early spring time in Alberta" or "Old-timey Christmas" and go from that, but I have always been very safe in my choices. So for my Craftsy 2013 block of the month club quilt I decided  not to by anything new and just go with the flow. In many ways going 'with the flow' can be a very good thing, however it can also be a very bad thing. For instance shopping for groceries on an empty stomach is not a time in which 'going with the flow' is necessarily  a good idea. What I have discovered as well is if you have had a recent obsession with stripes, sitting in front of a sewing machine is not a time in which you want to 'go with the flow', and here is why:

 

When I had finished and sat back, I asked myself "Jessica what is your theme here?" and what immediately came to mind was "pull over I'm going to be car sick".  Yup, I really have no idea what I'm doing.

 

One a happier note the pattern of the wall hanging I'm making of my father is coming a long very well:

 

I'm hoping to start cutting next month.
AND I got a late Christmas present! I was given a gift certificate to a book store and finally got "Serendipity Quilts: Cutting Loose Fabric Collage" by Susan Carlson

 

I have only been able to have a cursory glance at it but what is really fun about her work and what you get to make is how unusual some of her ideas for projects are, like this Polka dot Dodo bird:

 

!!! I love it !!!

 

The second book I was able to pick up is "Shape Workshop for Quilters", by Katy Jones, Brioni Greenberg, Tacha Bruecher and John Q. Adams:

 

The pattern I'm REALLY looking forward to doing is called "The Saw Blade Quilt"

 

 

each block has 65 pieces! So. Much. Fun. I just need to finish everything else first. Hahahah.

Sugar Block Club

What a month is has been! I enjoy being busy, but I find I don't like how fast time goes by - I mean the middle of February ALREADY!?

So much to do, and on top of it I have little nagging emails and lists full of  reminders that I'm getting behind on the fun stuff. Not good. So here are a few things I have been able to cross off the "Have Fun Dammit!!!" list:

This month in the Sugar Block Club we made the "North Star" block and I followed the colour scheme at first with the block for Glen's quilt

 

 

But then I decided to mix things up a bit and I'm calling this block (for my quilt) "The Comet"

Then I decided I could not stop there and wanted another block in cool colours so I came up with the "Space Station"

 

After this I realised I need to stop - I love science fiction and themes are great, but I have three other Block of the Month Clubs I have been ignoring and much work to do on the wall hanging of my father.... maybe I'll do just one more tomorrow called "Alien Life Form" Ha!

 

It's going to be a good year - or else.

Well this is going to be a very productive quilting year, yessss indeedy. 
Aside from the excitement of having the opportunity to incorporate quilting into my professional life, I am going to be completing 6 major quilting projects. "Gee," your telling me right now, "that seems like a heck of allot of sewing Jessica." Well yes and no. 

Some of the projects are going to take ALLOT more of my time and brain power than others - those 'others' are pretty easy going and just take organisation and planning. I probably will have less than three meltdowns a month this year! See already things are looking up. 

One challenge in particular I started the preliminary work for last year was the making of a pictorial quilt of my father. Some months ago I did a pictorial quilting class threw Craftsy.com and made a small wall hanging for my mother so that I could get the technique down - please take this time travelling link: http://www.oddcatstitches.com/2012/10/a-new-class-and-new-possibilities.html

My father works in the medical field and every once in a while will take a summer off and busk at a Fringe Festival either locally or somewhere in the world where he has friends to stay with. He can play many instruments, but the picture I really like of him is from a Fringe Festival in which he is holding one of his banjos. 

-----------> mentally insert favourite banjo joke here or better yet leave one in the comments section for everyone to enjoy <------------

With the help of Adobe PDF and Photoshop I was able to make a black and white, poster size of the photo that I printed off at home and pieced together on my wall - it measures approximately 26"/34":

I am now working on making a pattern from this poster. It is gong to be a very long process because along with making my own pattern I am also going to be dying and painting many of the fabrics that I will be using in its construction. So much fun!

So what else am I up to?

Well I received the first block tutorial from Amy Gibson for her Sugar Block Club! http://www.stitcherydickorydock.com/sugar-block-club It is going to be a great deal of fun as I have decided to go outside what I would normally choose for fabrics and colour schemes. I am making a quilt for Glen and decided to use flannels, extremely light weight denim - Glen is just that kind of guy.

The second quilt I am making for myself- I like these bright colours, they really pop out and give the eyeballs a few good smacks. There are only going to be 12 blocks in the BOM so I am going to make a second variation on each block pattern Amy sends me. This BOM also has a Flickr group with about 400 members and counting, so pop over there some time and see the amazing array of ideas that come from just one block.

Alrighty then - next is a project Glen and I started together. I had Glen draw me 200 simple houses (let's do the timewarp agaaaain http://www.oddcatstitches.com/2012/11/glen-is-fun-cause-he-always-says-yes.html )
and I am plugging away at that slowly but shirley.

So I bet you thought you would never hear me say "another block for my Craftsy block of the month club yaaaaaaah!" - sooo wrong because it's a new year and we go a whole new and FREEEEEE Craftsy Block of the month club :)
This is January - a variation on The Log Cabin Block.

There are many things that are different about this new class - different teacher, new techniques, new way of doing a sampler quilt. But what really stand out for me is that this new instructor has given us the plans for the quilt ahead of time so that we can plan a colour scheme (which I am not doing). This gave me an over view of what I like and don't like about this quilt. I have decided that I am going to make every block because there are some new techniques I have not done before, however I will not be incorporating them all into the final quilt design and will instead replace blocks I do not care for with ones I like more. I'm really looking forward to see how it all turns out :)

Angels - Yes insanely elaborate gift tag ones!

So this is the last bit of what we made all summer for Christmas. You might see that these are not your average halo balancing, white wearing, immune to the cold angels. Nope, much like our Snowmen and Santas, these Canadian Angels understand the dangers of loosing your mitts in a snow bank (hence the bright red) and the dangers of frostbite. "But why," you might be asking "are your angels dressed in such crazy striped and polka dotted house frocks?" Well two reasons. The first one is that when I think of angels, they make me think of little old ladies who don't give a hoot what you think and are all about comfort. They remind me of the old world granny one of my childhood friends had, who, when her crab apple tree was ready for picking, would pull off her top and climb up the tree in her giant wartime era brassier and spend the afternoon getting the job done. She did this for very practical reasons: she did not want to tear and dirty her shirt with sweat and bark, and is it really any worse than a micro bikini top? Truly at the time I could not wrap my head around her behaviour, but now I think I get it and in 30 years you know I'm going to be doing it. That's just a fun fact of my life.

Ok the second reason our angels are so colourful is that some years ago my uncle gave me a book called "Our Lady of the Lost and Found" by Diane Schoemperlen. Essentially the premise of the book is that the Virgin Mary decides to take a break from the ethereal and come to our modern day world dressed like a bag lady - of course there is far more to the plot than that, but our little angels were partly inspired by this idea. Besides life is filled with so many gorgeous colour combinations and textures!... But to be fair, these angels are more on the *fun* side of the colours and textures spectrum :)

 

 

This is how I did the angels feet - and yes I know I just went on a minor rant about how "Canadian angles know how to dress for the weather bla bla bla...!" well ok, now I'm letting you know that our angels also have a few mental health issues, but they are going to be just fine, thank you very much :)

 

Glen did all they angel eyeballing of course

 

"...HOORAY!..."

 

Angel hair

:)