Friday Felicities - To Boston With Love

I saw Felicity's post just now and was inspired to write about what's making me happy this morning. I'm joining in on her Friday Felicities linky party today (that's a felicity in itself, since I haven't been blogging lately!).

Today marks six weeks since I got a call from Berene Campbell sharing her inspired idea to help the people of Boston with a little project called "To Boston With Love". Since then, the call went out to quilters around the world to make flags of peace and love to send to Amy Friend, who collected the flags and delivered them to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston last week. The grand total of flags installed by Berene (who flew out for the installation and opening), Amy, and the museum staff was an amazing 1756! (and to think there was a point where Berene was stressing out about not having enough flags!)

I contributed one flag to the project, a Canadian flag with a heart in place of the maple leaf. I was excited to spot it in photos posted by the Museum of Fine Arts on their facebook page during installation. I described it to my aunt and cousin who live in Massachusetts, and they found it last weekend when they visited the museum!

 This picture makes me so happy! Hi, Aunt Emmy & Melissa! Love you!

My flag will fly along with its bright and inspiring companions until the exhibit ends on July 7th, 2013. If you're in the Boston area, I encourage you to check it out!

As president of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, I've been working with the media to share this inspiring story. This past week has been very busy and Berene has been on TV, radio, and in the newspaper! I've been keeping track of all the press coverage on the VMQG facebook page as well as the "To Boston With Love Press" discussion thread in the Flickr group. More coming in the next couple of days, so remember to check back!

What's your felicity today?

Friday Felicities - Star Trek cross stitch pattern

Image from weelittlestitches on Etsy

I'm linking up to Friday Felicities again to celebrate things that have made me happy this week. One fun thing is that the folks at Wee Little Stitches have finally come out with a Star Trek: The Next Generation cross stitch pattern! I've already purchased my copy and can't wait to stitch it up! I'm a trekkie and TNG is my favourite Star Trek series. When I heard the pattern had come out, I thought I'd give this image macro meme thing a try and created this image:

Worf "Today is a good day to cross stitch" image by me

If you're a fan of the series, you'll know that this is Worf, a Klingon Starfleet officer. A famous Klingon phrase as they head into battle is "Today is a good day to die". I'd rather cross stitch than go into battle any day. 

I actually bought this pattern using my other main Friday Felicity, my new Android phone! After seven years with the same old flip phone, I have taken a giant leap into the world of smartphones. You can now find me on Instagram as hollybroadland (and if you're not on Instagram, I've been tweeting my photos and you can see them here @myredbike). I'm am loving having a camera with me at all times. I finally got to take a photo of that real estate sign I've been wanting to photograph for weeks because it's great inspiration for a quilt.

Now that I have a great new phone, I'm learning how to text (finally!) and I can see where all those funny DYAC posts come from. I've been trying to be very careful to avoid funny autocorrects, but as I was buying the Star Trek pattern I accidentally sent the message "Live long abducted" instead of the more traditional Vulcan saying, "Live long and prosper"!

Friday Felicities - My QuiltCon Challenge Block made it!

Mondrian-inspired QuiltCon Challenge block by Holly Broadland, photo by Elizabeth Hartman

I'm so excited! My QuiltCon challenge block is one of twenty blocks that Elizabeth Hartman selected for the raffle quilt! After seeing the display of nearly 400 amazing blocks on The Modern Quilt Guild's blog this past month, I'm honoured to have my simple Mondrian-inspired block selected for the quilt. I've been considering writing a tutorial (it would be my first!) for this block. Do you think people would be interested? It's pretty straightforward, but I haven't seen any tutorials out there that walk you through it. Thank you, Amy, for emailing me at 4:00am to let me know that the post with the final four blocks was up and that my block was in the group! Good thing I've already registered for QuiltCon so I can go down and see this quilt in the show! Guess I'd better work on getting some plane tickets, eh? This is a Friday Felicity indeed! Friday Felicities is a new linky party by my VMQG friend Felicity. It celebrates the positives in our lives and I think it's a great way to wrap up the week. I'm linking up today for the second time. Other felicities on my mind this week:

1) Eleanor turned a year and a half old yesterday! She's very affectionate and loves to give hugs and kisses. 

2) Sophia is five and a half today! (yes, the girls have birthdays just one day apart) We went to her school's open house last night and I got to see her writing book. She's written, "I love dinos. I'm Sophia. Do you know I love you, Mom & Dad?" If you've got older kids, tell me, how long will she stay this sweet? 3) I got happy mail twice this week! My Heather Ross free fat quarter from Spoonflower arrived and my October fabric for the Fab Bee came super early. I get to make a Super Mario block for Eryn! Now to decide which character to make... Have a wonderful Friday! 

Friday Felicities

It's technically still Friday here in Vancouver for another hour and a half, so I'm going to participate in my friend Felicity's inaugural Friday Felicities linky party! Felicity is a lovely person who likes to celebrate the positives in her life. I agree with this philosophy and I love the idea of spending time to record things that make you happy. Here are a few of mine from this week:

1) Happy mail! The FQ bundle of Bella by Lotta Jansdotter that I won in Katie's Winterkist blog hop arrived. It's just beautiful and the Fat Quarter Shop staff packed it up so neatly. I almost want to keep it this way!

2) Happy kids! My daughter, after two weeks in kindergarten, has declared that school is great. She's adjusting to the full days very well and my younger daughter is enjoying the extra trips with mom to the family place and library.

3) Happy husband! Dean is looking forward to his first league hockey game tomorrow night. This will be his third time playing hockey this week and he loves it. I love the fact that the hockey bag is now living on the porch instead of the storage room in our condo.

3) Happy Holly! I'm going on a full day retreat with my VMQG friends tomorrow! We'll be sewing from 9am-10pm only taking breaks to eat the delicious food Krista has prepared for us. I've been anticipating this retreat for months and I'm ready to savour a kid-free day!