Odds N Ends

Hey folks, I have a few little odds and ends to post. These have been on my instagram but I haven't shared them over here (silly me!). With my machine at the shop for a whole 4 days now, I'm feeling a bit at a loss. I even organized my sewing room last night! Clearly, I'm getting desperate. So, here's what I was up to before I broke my machine:



My Ghostbusters wall hanging which is currently up at the Dart Gallery



Wall hanging with my pillow below it.

Ghostbusters pillow now available at The Dart Gallery

 

My pouch for the swap with the Victoria Modern Quilt Guild - plus the goodies to go inside

Rocket Raccoon costume Eric made for my nephew

 

Beauty wool blanket I bought at the Acadia Craft Fair

Darwin, being adorable.



Halloween Madness

As frequent readers of my blog know - Halloween is a little nuts in my house. Eric LOVES it. We usually do a costume for my nephew but this year, my niece wanted one too. Like every 9 year old girl this year, she wanted to be Elsa from the terrible movie Frozen. We tried to order a costume online but after jerking us around for a few weeks, we found that the company we had ordered from didn't even make them in her size. So, in desperation, I decided to make it myself. Luckily, McCalls has a pattern with this awkward kid on the front.

 

 

I'm probably never going to make a dress again. It turned out fine but these fabrics are hell to work with. I don't know if the sizes run really big or if I am just terrible at this but the end result was a little baggy on the kid.

 



It's fine as she's probably going to want to wear it for every event for the next 3 years and I don't want her to look too skanky. All she needs now is a blonde wig...and based on current temperatures maybe a white jacket to wear under it.

Here's Liv not helping. She went through my scraps and randomly sewed them together. Then asked me to finish her mess into the ugliest pillow ever. Needless to say, I have not found time to do that.

I did have time to finish this cute Chevron quilt for a housewarming gift. Only 5 months late!

Jet Set Radio

Hi all, last week while on vacation I finished up a commission quilt that I thought I'd show you. This is the last applique quilt for a while - I neeeeeed to get back to piecing! Jet Set Radio is an old video game which makes sense because the person who commissioned this owns a video game store.


The quilting looks badass with those shadows!

Excuse the wet spot on the bottom right - had to clean off some quilting lines I had drawn.

It's easier to see the quilting from the back. I echoed around the main logo and then added a couple of areas at the bottom where I put in some more of the circle-y things that were in the logo.

Not too much witty commentary today. I'm back to work after 2 weeks off and super sleepy. Enjoy the pics.

Banner Blocks

Happy Monday, folks! I had a busy weekend with the gallery opening for the Last Exit to Springfield show where my Krusty quilt was included and then a wedding and the Dartmouth Comic Arts Festival on Sunday. Phew! Between all that I managed to actually get some sewing done. Not much...but some!

Here are my blocks to be included in the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild banner. The one on the bottom left will be signed and included on the back. The other two will go on the front. They are all 6.5" sq (ish). Now, off they go in the mail to be added to the others!

"If this is anyone other than Steve Allen, you're stealing my bit!"

 There's another theme art show coming up this weekend at the Dart Gallery in Dartmouth, NS. This one is Simpsons themed!! I'm so very excited to see what everyone else is contributing.

 

Here's my Krusty the Clown quilt. I just finished it last night as I was having machine problems. So I ran out this morning before work to grab this picture. Tonight, it's off to the gallery so I thought it might be the last chance to get a picture (no matter how bad the pic is, it's better than nothing). I love the crinkle in this quilt. If my washing machine wasn't broken, I would have thrown it in to make it even better.

 

A close up so you can see the quilting around Krusty. I'm pretty sure Eric is keeping this one unless it sells.

 

And the back using red, orange and yellow scraps. Love it! Again, sorry for the poor picture quality. I'll try to get some better ones.

Well, back to work on a commission and a few squares for the Guild banner! Hopefully will have more to show you soon!

 

Megaman and Roll

Check out this adorable couple that I just finished up. Megaman and his girlfriend, Roll made into pillows. As usual, these ended up larger than I had planned but they look great (if I do say so myself!).

 

 

These pillows were a commission from The Last Gamestore in Clayton Park. They will be prizes as part of a raffle as part of their annual "Megamanathon" which benefits Childs Play. For more info, check out their facebook event page.

 

It was such a nice sunny day, I decided to photograph them on my deck. I managed to do this without any doggy photobombs - which I think may be a first.

 

Here's a pic of my boys playing in the tub in case you missed them. Jack is the black lab, Darwin is the Australian Shepherd with his face under the tap.

Spring Chevrons

Another post so soon? I know, I'm getting crazy over here. I have a finish to show off. I have been wanting to do a chevron quilt for quite a while and finally had a chance. I did this cute little baby quilt for a friend of Eric's who recently had a baby. I think I finally found someone who would appreciate the Berenstain Bears fabric on the back so I chose the colors on the front to go along with it. It seems a bit backwards but I often find it easier that way. There are so many colors of Kona that you can usually find something that will go with your backing.

The green, blue and yellow remind me of spring too so that's a nice bonus until we get some colors other than brown going on outside.



The backing!

It's making me want to do a more adult chevron. I love those colors but feels a bit kidd-y. 

Quilting Confessional

I have a confession to make: I am not a good fabric purchaser. I have a really hard problem with buying fabric unless I have a specific quilt in mind. Perhaps it's my accounting background that causes the serious cheapness. I know that to you fabric hoarders, this probably doesn't seem like an issue but a lot of times I end up talking myself out of buying cute fabric and then missing out on it. Or, if I actually do buy fabric, I keep it in a drawer and refuse to use it on something unless I think the receiver will have a proper appreciation for it. I bought some of the Berenstain Bears fabric a while back and only just used it because I didn't want to waste it on someone who didn't care about the BBs.

Another issue is that I really can't seem to figure out how to use patterned fabrics. You may have noticed that my quilts tend to be all solids - except sometimes on the back. I swear I'm going to get this thing licked. So, with that in mind, I made a purchase!

Allow me to introduce you to Echino Birds in Black and Natural. 

And Echino Bees in Blue/Green and Pink/Purple.

I'm thinking that these will combine into a super quilt called the Birds and the Bees. We'll see if that actually happens but for now I'm just awaiting their arrival in the mail! I should also mention that these are my first Echino fabrics and I'm pretty excited about that too. It's possible that I would have bought all 4 colorways of the bees if they had been in stock.

I have a question for my fellow quilters: When you buy fabric for no quilt in particular, how much do you buy? My cheapness says to go for a fat quarter but my inner quilter says go for at least a metre so it could be used on the back of something small.

Gone Hunting

Just kidding, the only hunting I'd do is with the orange gun that came with the Nintendo I had when I was 5. I have been wanting to do this quilt for some time. I remember my sister and I playing this and Super Mario Bros after we got them for Christmas. Of course we fell for all of the stupid things our friends told us - including that you have to spastically move the controller to the right if you want mario to jump farther. Duck Hunt was amazing for its time. I didn't understand the magic of how it worked (and still don't for that matter) but it kept us entertained for hours! But, oh how I hated this smug dog! I'm sure there are quite a few other 80's kids who share my hatred.

Binding!

I had originally hoped to add the ducks to this but it would've been gigantic so maybe I'll just make some pillows to go along with it. This quilt will be going in the Dart Gallery NEStalgia show starting on March 21. I'm quite excited to see it up in the gallery - especially since my Shredder quilt didn't get finished in time for the last show. If you're in the area, feel free to stop by. There will be lots of different items in the show including posters, this quilt and other mediums as well.  

Quilt As You Go

Hi All, just wanted to give you a final picture of the Quilt As You Go pillow I made following our last Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting. As you may recall me saying, we had a little tutorial during the meeting so I decided to give it a shot when I got home. I think it was fun but probably next time, I would use a more limited color palette and possibly make all of the strips the same size. There's just something about balance that I need in quilts. It was really nice doing a quick project for once as my quilts tend to be quite time-consuming. I should have a pixel quilt to show you soon but until then, here is my QAYG pillow. I showed it to my husband who told me he didn't like it because it looked like I just used scraps. "Uh, I did use scraps...just pretend you like it."

Craftster best of 2013

I'm very excited to announce that my Sheldon Quilt has been selected as one of the best of 2013 in the quilting category. I really like the craftster forums because of the large breadth of crafty items. It's really an honour to be included in this! Check out the rest of the winners! Craftster Best of 2013

 

 

Here are a couple of pics from my quilt in case you missed it:

 

 

New Stuffs For a New Year

It's always nice to learn new things. Sometimes we get stuck doing the same old, same old. A few months ago, my husband and I completely changed what we were eating at home. We started doing the Paleo diet which means cutting out things like sugar, grains, dairy, etc. We actually kept the dairy in because...cheese...but other than that we've been sticking to it pretty well. I've found that this has caused us to retrain our brains for more proper meals. If I was on my own for dinner, I'd usually just pop an english muffin in the toaster and have that but I can't do that anymore. Also, potatos are generally frowned upon (although not ruled out completely) so we've found ourselves trying new green vegetables that previously we wouldn't have. I ate brussels sprouts this week! Crazy! Last week, I told Eric that I'd prob eat anything as long as it had balsamic and garlic so he offered to get some cat turds out of the litter box. Not really what I meant but it does make boring vegetables delicious.

Anyway, this change had me feeling like trying new things wasn't so bad which is big for me since I'm an accountant and often like things a certain way. I don't generall like mixing things up but when we had our Maritime Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week, it inspired me so I tried a Quilt As You Go project similar to what Adrienne showed us. Here is a WIP pic:

For the first try, I'm just using scraps so the colors aren't super co-ordinating and the batting is pretty jenky but it's pretty fun to do. The MMQG girls laughed at me when I said I couldn't try this in public. I'm so used to doing pixel quilts where everything has to be perfectly square and lined up that it was a little hard to start but once I got going it was freeing. I'll let you know how it goes but for now, I'm back to a pixel quilt.