Happy Worldwide Quilting Day!!!

Posted in Works In Progress by StaceyinStitches

Last year on Worldwide Quilting Day I was waddling around my house thinking to myself “please come early, please come early….”, whipping up a Turning Twenty baby quilt, and putting the finishing touches on client quilt (that’s me on the left).

Wedding Ring Quilt

Today on Worldwide Quilting Day, I was bouncing around the house thinking “please take a nap, please take a nap…”, mailing off swap blocks and printing out a pattern for my Fab Little Quilt Swap quilt.

FLIQs quilt for my partner. Original design

How things can change in a year!

Its crazy to think about. Next weekend is the Creative Stitches and Crafting trade fair, and last year it was the last thing I did before my son was born. I was huge walking around the arena, and so close to my due date that Hubby (bless his heart) would not let me go alone! I am convinced it was all the walking that day that encouraged the little munchkin to come right on time! I am very excited for this year because I get to introduce my little man to the quilt friends I haven’t seen in a while, not to mention all the great deals on fabric!

I also picked up my bundle of Les Amis by Patty Sloniger for Michael Miller. I swear I got one of the last complete fat quarter bundles online ( less one girl print) from Westwood Acres Etsy shop. Amanda was fantastic and held my bundle for me until I got my first paycheck (did I mention i am back to work as well this month?) I recommend her shop, it has lots of great bundles and the shipping is affordable!

Les Amis Fat Quarter Bundle from Westwood Acres

All I wanted was the teal colorway, but I am happy I got the entire thing. I plan to make Harry another quilt, probably using Melissa’s Starburst pattern and a very very light teal solid for the background. I still need to sit down and quilt my Starburst QAL quilt, but its on the list. As is the Listen With Your Eyes quilt, my Hoffman Challenge 2013 entry, and the first in a series that will be announced later this year (once I catch up and draft out the first quilt). Last year I would have planned it as a Quilt of the Month Series, but this year I know that Real Life dictates it be a Quilt of the Year Series *sigh*

I am also in the midst of planning Harry’s First Birthday Party. Its going to be lots of fun, and I finally settled on a Mustache Theme. Inspired by this lovely, professional photoshop (read: paint) job by my brother.

Hubby says he “doesn’t get it”. I keep telling him there isn’t anything to get, its just a fun theme, what is there to get? He still doesn’t get it…..

Have a great Worldwide Quilting Day everyone!!!

Stacey

22Jan2013

Starburst QAL Week 2

Posted in Quilt-A-Longs, Starburst QAL, Works In Progress by StaceyinStitches

QAL Update! Week two was making the Goose in the Corner and the Half Square Triangles. A nice easy week, I actually managed to finish early. OKay, okay, I have a couple more HST to square off. But I am super happy with my background choice. The Pure Elements is super nice to work with and it feeds through beautifully. Its also making the colors pop. I can’t wait to get onto the next step. I might even try to work ahead!

QAL week 2- Finished!

27Nov2012

Owl Madness and Mr Random Goodness!

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

Mr Random has been good to me in the last week! First off, with the Long Weekender Blog Hop, I won a gift certificate to The Fat Quarter Shop =) The fact that I won it 2 days before their amazing Black Friday Sale was as super bonus!! for 25% off I purchased an Art Gallery Fabrics Grab Bag and a Bloggers Choice Bundle. I am super excited for the grab bag, it contains 9.5lbs of Art Gallery fabrics in sized from .5-.875 yards! woot woot!!! I love AGF, especially the Pat Bravo lines. You point out someone who doesn’t like Rock N’ Romance or Indie, and I point out someone who is probably the husband of the person who bought it!

Then this morning, after a particularly harrowing night with my poor teething little Mr Moo Moo ( yes I call him that and it will come up at his wedding!) I opened my email to discover a message from Melissa at Happy Quilting saying I was the winner of this gorgeous bundle of fabrics from Julie at the Intrepid Thread. I love Intrepid Thread. Julie is very nice and will make custom bundles for you if you cannot fit everything in your shopping cart! The shipping is reasonable too!

Its been a good week, other than last nights debacle ( we won’t get into that, thank goodness for mom support groups on Facebook!) My friend from Calgary came to visit, and she is getting MARRIED!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!!!! So we went to look at dresses, and baked cookies =) It is a recipe out of an old Betty Crocker Cookbook from like the 60’s, and they are amazing! Sub out the chocolate chips for Penut M&M’s and you will go into cookie coma heaven. Here is a re-enactment of my morning

Thats pretty much how it went…..

I also recieved an overwhelming response to a recent post on Facebook. I found a bag of some Owl Ornaments that I made last year. I decided to sell some of them in the Mom Swap group. I had no idea what a whirlwind that would become. My little owls are the MUST HAVE item of the season right now. Personalized and a great price ( I definitely undercharges, cest’ la vie!) I wound up selling the 11 I had in less than 4 minutes, and because of FB’s way of ordering posts randomly if they are posted at teh same time, there were people whi should have been ahead of others and why did they get skipped will there be more…….wow. So I decided to make more. I now have a house full of owl ornaments. I have 39 on the go, those took about 4 hours to come in and I had to create a waitlist, which I had to close last night. The waitlist is at 33 owls. Add that to the stocking orders tand the custom quilt order, and I have a busy next couple weeks!!

Owl Madness

Ready to stuff!

Its taking over the house!

Thankfully my husband said he will stuff all the little basssss-….I mean darlings…… when he gets home from work. On the upside I have an excuse to purchase a fancy new SHARP pair of embroidery scissors.

Its time to eat dinner! Peas for the Little Mister and a honey mustard glazed ham steak for mommy! Yum!! the secret recipe?? Dijon mustard and syrup. put in a measuring cup until it looks like it will cover the ham. mix, cover the ham, season with thyme and rosemary, bake for 20 min.

Happy Quilting!!

15Oct2012

Phew, what a week! Lots to share!

Posted in Cathedral Window QAL, Other, Quilt-A-Longs, Tutorials and Patterns, Works In Progress by StaceyinStitches

Hello everyone! It has been a very busy week here, so I haven’t had time to do much blogging. I say week but in reality the last 15 days have been go go go!Between play-dates and appointments and pick ups and drop off I have had time to finish up all my 3×6 bee blocks and get them in the mail, catch up on my Modern Mystery Quilt, keep up with the Cathedral Window QAL, and make/hunt down some props for my little man’s 6 month photo session today. Throw in some grocery shopping and a sudden change in the weather read: from Indian Summer to torrential rain overnight and voila! Lots of excuses not to vacuum….. =)

I realize that this is the west coast, and normally by the start of October the rain has moved in, but it was so beautiful for so long. Thanksgiving weekend was so warm people were still out in shorts. We were going to go to the Pumpkin Patch and have ourselves a grand old time yesterday, but record rainfall coupled with a rainfall warning quashed that faster than you can say “eh?” I did get to try Harry’s snowsuit. I don’t think it fits quite right yet……but it sure is warm!

Do I look impressed?

Can you tell I don’t like the rain? I’m from Northern Alberta. It may be -40, but at least the sun is shining and your not soaked! Anywho….onwards!

It seems lately that everything I make heads out the door. I feel like I have been sewing like a madwoman but have nothing to show at the guild meeting tonight.

Here, this is my stack of finished blocks that need more to complete whatever I was going to do with them, 1/2 of the checkerboard for a show quilt, and all the pieces to a mystery quilt that I can’t for the life of me figure out how the end result will look….*chirp chirp*

However, I do have a cute little project that I whipped up last night as a photo prop that I can take with me. If Harry is going to be a dragon for Halloween, he needs a Princess to kidnap (and probably try to eat).

She looks so happy, just wait until the dragon starts gumming her head =)

The dress fabric is my favorite colorway from Treasures of the East by Hoffman. The teal/aqua colorway was the challenge fabric in 2010. I also picked some up in the fuchsia and sunset colorways. I can’t seem to find them anymore, so If anyone comes across either colorway, please let me know! Poppins Quilt Parlour in Penticton, BC still has the challenge fabric for anyone looking to nab some. They do phone orders!

I drew her face on with Sharpie markers. I think she looks suitably princessy!

You can find the pattern here as well as the tutorial. I just winged it with mine.

I was also doing some pinning while watching TV the other night. This is why you don’t leave your pin box where the cat can get to it!

Luckily I found them all (magnets are wonderful wonderful wonderful!) and I have yet to be stuck with a pin! It did inspire a pincushion design however, but more on that to come!

Tomorrow I will be posting my Scrappy Star block pattern, no tutorial yet though, so please be patient with me! I start a temporary job as a nanny for my friend who just welcomes their little boy yesterday morning. I have all the fabrics for her new baby quilt, I just need to get to it!
Happy Quilting!

8Oct2012

A Moment of Discovery

Posted in Other by StaceyinStitches

Do you ever have those moments where you go, know why didn’t I think of that? That’s what happened to me the other day while reading Felicity’s blog. She posted about her Craft Buds month entry, and mentioned that she got her book from the local library.

“SAY WHAT? The library has modern quilting books? Well, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before!” I said to myself.

Needless to say I promptly went online and searched around the Surrey Public Libraries website, and boy, do they ever have quilting books. Not just modern quilting, but any kind of crafting book. And new ones, modern ones! Tula Pink, Elizabeth Hartman, Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, and not one but three Kaffe Fassett? My library card now holds a coveted spot in my purse, and I almost have the numbers memorized to log in online and reserve books, but because I am a new cardholder my limit is 10 books at a time. I laughed when she said that, 10 is more than enough to keep me occupied for 2 weeks. I maxed out my limit the first night (better on a library card than a credit card) and have 8 books on order. I have to bring the lot of them back this weeks and exchange them for the next batch (Quilts from the House of Tula Pink is in this batch, yippee!)

While digging through my little trove of quilty goodness, getting inspired and copying templates, I discovered something about myself. A couple of the modern quilting books were centered around minimalist quilting, or had projects that fall into that category. As much as I can appreciate the design and time that goes into them, I found myself thinking more and more that these were not things I would make for myself. Only one color and a plain white background…? I am not a minimalist!

I love to put as many colors as possible in my quilts.

Rich, vibrant prints and blenders with a tone-on-tone black background? Yes please!

Batiks? Let me at ’em!

Don’t get me wrong, I really like many of the modern quilts I see, and there are many that I would like to/will eventually make. I love anything Tula Pink, I think Pat Bravo makes some amazing fabric lines, and the use of solids is stellar, and I love the projects that come up in the blogs I follow that put a modern spin on the traditional quilts. Don’t even get me started on the amazing quilts of Kaffe Fassett! I just can’t make a quilt with only 3 fabrics in it when there are so many out there just calling my name. Use Me!!

Flights of Fancy, using Nest by Tula Pink for Moda

I am looking forward to this week’s mail, my order of Rock n Romance by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics will be arriving! Hurray! I ordered a fat quarter bundle from The Intrepid Thread. It has all the prints with an equal number of matching blenders. I am going to use these to make the Starburst Quilt.

Happy Quilting!

Rainbows For Maranda

I am part of a couple mommy groups, and one of the other mommies came across this. I contacted Patricia, and the little girl is in her friend’s Brownie Troop.

I know I get some international readers, so I would like to encourage everyone to take part. It will cost you nothing but a stamp! Lets help make a little girl’s dream come true!

Could everyone, including you big kids, draw a simple picture of a rainbow and mail it to Patricia Verhelst Box 355, Radville, SK S0C 2G0 Canada, by next week and I will send them all in together. There is a little girl in Saskatoon who is sick who wishes to get a rainbow from everyone in the world. Please write your name and where you are from on it. Lets make a wish come true if it was your child you would want that! Thanks everyone and please copy and paste this to help spread the word!This little girl’s name is Maranda, she is 10 years old and I’m really hoping everyone will do their best to make her wish come true!

During my clinical training, I did a month long rotation through the BC Children’s Hospital. Even three years later, that month has stuck with me, even more so now that I have a child of my own. It takes something so simple to make these kids happy.The odds seem so stacked against them, yet they shine through the adversity with bravery, strength and smiles for those who care for and about them. I will always remember my time there, and I know it shaped part of who I am professionally with my patients and at home.
Please, share this with your friends, family, and other bloggers!

Here is the address again:

Patricia Verhelst

Box 355

Radville, SK

S0C 2G0

Canada

27Sep2012

VMQG Pincushion Swap

Posted in Tutorials and Patterns by StaceyinStitches

My guild, the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, is participating in a nationwide pincushion swap! I am excited! I love swaps, its is so much fun to send your work out and get something back in the mail. Its like Christmas! You can find more information on the swap at the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild Blog. You can also find information about the guild and how to join. We love to see new faces and quilts! Everyone is welcome, there is such a wide inspiring range of talents!

~~Holly, of~~ (Holly’s Red Bike), Felicity posted a couple pincushion tutorials on the VMQG blog ( thank you Holly for the correction) and I was immediately drawn to the Cathedral Window Pincushion over at My Go-Go Life. I have always wanted to try a Cathedral Window quilt, but have never gotten around to it. This pincushion was the perfect way to the try the technique, and now I am hooked. I am going to tweak it a bit and try a couple of things out. I really enjoy all the tutorials Kim has on her blog, and I hope you all head on over and check it out!

For my pincushion I used a Kona Solid in Linen for my square, and used Moda Bliss for my pops of color. The grey polka dot in the center was a random fat quarter I picked out of my stash. It might be a Riley Blake fabric….

I had so much fun making the front and realized I has some good scrappy pieces left over so I decided to have fun with the back too! I also made a covered button with the leftover scraps from that, and voila! A Cathedral Window Pincushion. I am going to make some more for and exciting event coming up with the guild, but more on that later!

Enjoy the tutorial and as always,

Happy Quilting!

Starburst Quilt Tutorial from Happy Quilting…and Baking!

I wanted to share a delightful blog and tutorial from Melissa at Happy Quilting. Her patterns and tutorials are easy to follow, and she always has something fun going on. I love that the quilt looks complex but the directions are super easy to follow!

And to sweeten your day, I came across a recipe for Cinnamon Scones! They are like the ones they sell at a very popular bakery here, Cob’s Bread. These scones are to die for! I have eaten three so far today….and I can’t promise that I’m done….but you can find the recipe here! I tweaked mine a tad and when I made my cinnamon flakes, I eliminated the corn syrup entirely. I HIGHLY recommend the parchment paper, and the flake mixture should be spread thin, it makes it easier to crumble afterwards!

Enjoy your scones while making Melissa’s lovely Starburst quilt!