A new modern quilt guild in BC!

I'm happy to report that the Nanaimo Modern Quilt Guild is having their first meeting this Wednesday, August 1st. It's great to see a new BC modern quilt guild get started and since I'm a Vancouver Island girl, I'm especially happy to see an Island guild start up!

If you're interested in joining, you can check out their website or like the Nanaimo Modern Quilt Guild on facebook. If you'd like more information, email nanaimomqg at gmail dot com.

If you'd like to join a modern quilt guild, you can always check to see if there's one in your area by looking at The Modern Quilt Guild's list of chapters on the sidebar of their website. Are you a member of The Modern Quilt Guild?

WIP Wednesday

I'm happy to have a work in progress to report on this week! On July 14th, I had a great time at the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's first-ever workshop and I completed a quilt top!

The class with our quilt tops

Felicity taught us her Easy Going Modern quilt and it was indeed an easygoing afternoon. We chatted and laughed and sewed and pressed and ended up with some beautiful quilt tops!

Laying out my quilt on my design wall (aka flannel-backed tablecloth from the dollar store).

Felicity also taught us a fun technique for keeping all our patches in the right place as we stitched them together. It made it very easy to piece the quilt top and there was no row marking involved.

As you can see, I chose to use solids to create an ombre effect. It turned out just like I had been hoping! I can't wait to share it at tomorrow's VMQG meeting.

I'm linking up with Lee of Freshly Pieced and Monika of the Needle & Thread Network.

I'm off to quilt with Felicity!

My fabrics are cut and I'm looking forward to a day of sewing at Felicity's Easy Going Modern workshop! This is the first ever workshop organized by the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and I think it's great that our instructor is one of our own members teaching about a quilt that she designed. It took me a long time to decide on my fabrics, but I went with solids in the end. I precut my fabrics ahead of time like a good student and I think even my scraps turned out looking lovely. Can't wait to see how the quilt top looks after today's workshop!

Happy 10th Anniversary, Deano!

July 6th, 2002, Vancouver Island, BC

Dean and I were married ten years ago today on a spectacular, joyful, amazing day. We were high school sweethearts and had been a couple for nine years before we got married. I was so happy to stand up beside my best friend on that day and I'm lucky to have such a wonderful partner in life.

We had an awesome wedding party and the bridesmaids were especially stellar.

I mean, have you ever seen such twirly skirts?

We were honoured to have all eight of our grandparents present at our wedding. The total years of marriage represented in this photo was over 200!

All in all, it was one of the best days of my life.

And every good day needs a little silliness!

Collaborative sewing - a mother-daughter zipper pouch

My five-year-old and I recently completed this zipper pouch together. After seeing the apples & pears pouch get whisked away for the Vancouver-Portland MQG pouch swap, Sophia was insistent that I make another one with her. Hard to resist a kid who wants to sew with you! 

She chose fabric from her stash (yes, she has a stash, gotta start young!) and carefully decided how she wanted the front to be pieced. Then she sat on my lap while we zigzag quilted the front. I added four buttons in the precise places she indicated. This girl knows what she wants!

On the back, she drew her name with a marking pencil and I embroidered on the lines with a backstitch. I loved how we worked together to create a lasting artifact of how she prints her name at this age.

Of course, little sister was fascinated by the pouch and tried to figure out how to operate the zipper.

She's also tried to remove the buttons, but they're on there securely!

Now, what did this girl fill her pouch with? Dinosaurs, of course!

Cause every five-year-old needs a place to keep their dinos. Left to right, we have Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Dimetrodon, and Saichania. Don't they look happy?

The Queen of Last-Minute Sewing Strikes Again!

The night before my daughter's friend's birthday party, I realized I had the perfect fat quarter in my stash (it had been "curing" since I picked it up at the Lions Gate Quilters' Guild show in 2010) and I needed to make this little girl a lined drawstring bag using Jeni's adorable pattern (which I had picked up on sale earlier in the week!). Sophia's friend loves pink and speaks French, so this pink Lecien print covered in tiny French phrases was perfect! Some of the text included: "Bon journee!", "croissant", "bon voyage", and "pomme de terre". Dean had taken the girls out of the house so I could have uninterrupted sewing time (hooray!), so I whipped up this cute bag. 

I used Kei honeycomb dots in aqua for the accent fabric, Kona primrose for the lining, and Kona lemon for the drawstrings. I had exactly 30 seconds to snap a quick photo of the bag (full of birthday presents) before heading off to the party (we were a few minutes late, but not too bad!). I will definitely be making this bag again!

If you'd like to make your own, you can buy the pattern in Jeni's Meylah shop or use the free tutorial on her blog, In Color Order. The pattern contains a whole schwack of sizes plus a handy-dandy formula for making a custom-sized bag. Have you made this bag yet? Which fabrics would you use?

p.s. This weekend I passed the 30,000 pageviews mark on my blog. Thanks for reading!