Tula Pink!!!

Anyone who knows me probably knows that I get REALLY excited about a couple of things when it comes to fabric: Amy Butler and Tula Pink.  In fact Amy Butler was my first fabric obsession.  A little Midwest Modern in the Ohio Sky colourway anyone?  I have to admit though, my love affair with Amy has been waning over time. She used to be at the top of the pantheon when it came to fabric designers but since she has NEVER replied to my tweets and Tula has replied or retweeted Every.  Single. Time.  Amy has officially been usurped!

Tula's fabric is epic.  I love that its a little bit cheeky and the colours are so vibrant!

Anyhoo, Tula has come out with a new book called "Tula Pink's City Sampler: 100 Modern Quilt Blocks" and I was sooooo excited about it that I pre-ordered it over what feels like a million years ago and then waited impatiently for it to arrive.  There was obsessive website checking and rechecking and refreshing and re-refreshing. Sigh.

It finally arrived!

I have already thumbed through the whole thing and decided on my favourites.

I'll post up a picture of the cover as soon as I get home tonight!

SOOOOOOO Excited!!!!

Yay!

Life, post Ugly Quilt

I finally got around to working on something that I promised myself I wouldn't touch until good old Keystone Lodge was done (did I mention that it leaves to its forever home on Friday?).  It was the small version of the practice block for Don't Call Me Betsy's Lucky Stars BOM.  Like all months previous, I had made the big version already.  Also like the others, I was determined to make the small version from the large version's scraps rather than waste a ton of fabric by cutting out for the small as well.  Lets call that a lesson learned through experience after the first month.   You know what that means though -- for the last month I have been sitting and sewing with a random pile of scraps next to my machine....that I couldn't touch or clean up or throw out.  For those of you who know me, you can imagine how annoying that was.

Well....good news!  Today, I made the little version.

This is it in progress - I overlayed the little onto the big while I was sewing to keep track of what went where.

I STILL have scraps left over!  Not too bad though.  You can just imagine the waste if I had cut out pieces for the small instead of just using scraps.

And finally, because its so pretty and I want to love it forever - here is some fabric I picked up at the Creative Festival's Spring show.  Its from a local online shop called The FabricSpot.  I discovered this awesome shop at their booth -- the fabrics were right up my alley!  Not that I want to go on and on about this place but they have free Canadian shipping if your order is more than $100 and flat rate $5.99 shipping otherwise.  Yay!  Anyhoo, I think I might be in love.  Its from Tula Pink's Birds and the Bees collection.

I love the purpley-bluey mix.

Well, time to cook for the week.  I'd rather be sewing!

Keystone Lodge - A finish!

I give immense thanks to the universe for being finished this quilt!

So this is it.  The whole thing.

Close up of the front.

The back

Detail of the quilting as seen from the back.

Folded up and ready to be OUT OF MY LIFE!!!!

If you couldn't tell, I'm all kinds of stoked to be done the damned thing.

Please excuse my pictures....it is intensely sunny out today....which is almost as awesome as being done this quilt.

Now, my shoulders hurt.  I'm going to drink.

Productive day

I'm happy to report I have spent the day working on quilting the Keystone Lodge quilt!  Hooray!!!  I chose to do a two-inch grid but to leave the circles empty since they're kind of intense to start with.   I got the grid all quilted and stitched-in-the-ditch on both sides of the narrow inner border.

Here is my progress.  I used 2-inch painters tape to accurately grid my quilt.  Bulky...but helpful

Here is the immense amount of garbage I created.  It was incredibly fulfilling to rip off all that tape every time I finished two rows of sewing!  :)

And this is my new favourite tool/toy.  Its a mechanical chalk pencil specifically made for quilters.  Its made by Bohin (a French company).  It made marking my grid SO easy and they chalk comes in multiple colours.  I got it off Amazon.  Get one! 

Anyhoo, that's all my progress for today.  I'll be back at it tomorrow.  I'm contemplating machine sewing the bindings on this one just to get it done all the faster.  I'll letcha know how it goes.

New fabric LOVE!

Last weekend, I kind of went a bit mental with a project that's been marinating in my brain for a while.  Its a quilt I want to make for my sister before she moves to the Netherlands at the end of the summer.  I have mentioned it before.  This project will be personally meaningful for her as both the pattern and the fabric represent why she is moving there in the first place.....to get her PhD in Astro-Physics.  The pattern is Space Dust by Tula Pink (LOVE) and the fabric is Constellations by Lizzie House.  She has been enamoured with space her ENTIRE life.  I particularly remember one instance from my university days when she looked at my friend (who was over for dinner) with her gigantic sweet eyes and asked with a slight lisp "What's your favourite type of galaxy?"  He looked at me, imploring for some kind of answer he could give her while not looking like a total idiot but I had nothing.  She might have been nine.  I should have known then.

Anyway, I got to thinking about this project and realized while I was window shopping on various websites that its getting harder and harder to get a hold of the whole line.  Since the quilt requires 22 different fabrics, I kinda realized I had to act soon or risk not being able to find what I needed.  So I took the plunge, and bought it.  From the U.S.  Its NOT on sale.  Shipping is ri-DONK-ulous.  But who cares - she's my sister and she's worth it and she will love it forever.

Anyhoo, the point of my little story here is that the fabric arrived yesterday.  Yup...all 17 yards of it!  Ha.  I LOVE it. So pretty!  I pet it for a while this morning before I decided everyone else should share in the joy of it too.  I'm hoping to have enough of the scraps to make a whole bunch of Half-Square-Triangles after so I can have a little something out of it too.

Here it is:

This is every fabric laid out in a stack.  The colours are from the same family but there is enough diversity to get the look that I want.

And although the lighting isn't ideal, here is a view of all the fabric.  I rounded out the line with some Pear Bracelets in coordinating colours and some solids too.

And just becaase its Saturday, here is the Moosh, having a lovely nap.
I have no idea why but he is obsessed with pillows.  He ALWAYS sleeps on pillows.  Its kinda cute....unless its my pillow.  

...And back on the horse again

I have been remiss lately.  No sewing....no posting.  Yikes.  Finally organized my super-hectic life enough to dive back in this weekend.

First up, I finally got around to doing the practice block for the Lucky Stars BOM - you know, even though I did the Jan.-Mar. blocks.  What can I say?  I'm a rebel.  Ha!  I still need to do the April block so its on my hit list for next weekend...or this week....maybe.

I'm really liking the fabric/colour scheme I chose for this.  Can't wait to have enough blocks for a full top in December

Then, I REALLY had to get on quilting the Keystone Lodge quilt.  I'm running up against a deadline in early May and as much as I want it to, this thing isn't going to quilt itself.  I chose to piece the back.  This is the reverse side of it on my living room floor.  I had to move all my furniture to make enough room for it.  I used some of the scraps from the top (mostly since I will NEVER use it for anything else...if you can't tell, I still harbour some thinly veiled hate for this thing).

Step one of basting included ensuring my dog was firmly ensconced on the couch...sleeping.

Can I just say for the record, that I DO NOT comprehend how folks pin baste.  I spray baste....and I still think its too much work.  You people who use safety pins deserve some kind of patience award.

There she is - all ready to get quilted.

Then acting on a tip from my quilty friend A, I decided to measure and grid my quilt using painters tape.  I want to create 2-inch squares as the quilting but to avoid crossing into any of the circles.  This will be an exercise in patience, hopefully made more simple by doing this:

I'll letcha know how it goes as I go along.

Next step is quilting.  I think it will be relatively straight-forward.  Just straight lines using my walking foot.  However, if there are any tips as to what to put in the borders, I am all for it.

Let me know!

So....mystique?

Do you know what Mystique is?  Ya, neither did I until two days ago.  This competition suit project I have undertaken for a friend of mine has really started to heat up.  Turns out, that's what the fabric I need is called.  Ha.  Who knew?

After discovering that you can't buy ANYTHING you need for this sort of thing at your local Fabricland, I was able to hook up with a quilty friend of mine to head to the fabric district in Hamilton.  Who knew the Hammer was such a magnet of the fabric world!?!  You learn something new every day!

We ended up at a store (very near to where my Aunts live as a matter of fact) that has PILES of what I was looking for.  It was a bit overwhelming at first....this is what I saw in the aisles:

Literally in every colour of the rainbow, in all combinations you could think of.

I was able to pick up everything I needed for this thing  including the lining for the cups and the rest of the suit plus the trimming.  Bonus, the fabric itself was cheaper than I thought so I was able to pick up four colour options -- and walked out of the store for less than 50 bucks! If I ever have to do this again I am for SURE heading to this place.  For sure,

Here is what I ended up with:

From left to right we have the padded lining for the cups, the other lining, lime mystique, olive green mystique, red mystique, elastic trim and lemon yellow mystique.

I showed this picture to my friend and she has already picked out the lime as her favourite.  Looks like I'll be starting with that one.  Wish me luck!

Plus, with the long weekend, I was able to finish off the practice block for the Lucky Stars Block of the Month Club.  It should have been done in December but I joined late and I wasn't sure I was going to do it at all but as I contemplated my final lay-out, I thought I would need it.  Here it is:

Okay, dog walking time....and now I'm all caught up!

Catching up

I feel I've been a little lax since I got back from the quilting extravaganza weekend.  This is where we left off....

After I made the bluey/greeny toned Amy Butler quilt for my friend Alice, I had bluey/greeny quilt envy so I started putting blocks together for a Daisy Chain strippy quilt.  However, after getting 24 together, I'm thinking I like them set on point and assymetrtical better -- not at ALL what the original pattern called for.  I'm putting it aside while I work on stuff with actual deadlines.  *sigh*

I thought I would let you all check out what everyone else was working on while we were away...

This is a disappearing four-patch put together by my friend Atty - LOVE the contrast of the black and whites

This is the kimonos quilt put together by Trudy,  The fabrics are perfect for it.

And finally, this is the squaring up stage of a  quilt  by Marie L.  There are a LOT more blocks to get up there but its got a good visual repeat.

I happened to be awesome at forgetting to get some good pictures of some other great projects.  My grandmother and Fran worked on a couple cool paper-pieced Christmas tree table runners.  And Marie D. put together a really cool wall-hanging that looks like a shelf of books and a smaller wall piece of an appliqued Christmas tree.

Very productive extra long weekend over all!