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!

My pouch for the Portland-Vancouver swap

When I first started chatting with the lovely Susan Beal, president of the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, we talked about having a swap between our two guilds to build a connection between modern quilt guilds in the Pacific Northwest. The Portland MQG-Vancouver MQG Pouch Swap is the result and here's the pouch I'm sending off to Portland. It's my first ever pouch and I'm very happy with how it turned out. I used some of my precious apples and pears print for the exterior based on my partner's colour preferences (actually, since she's American, she probably has color preferences without the u, doesn't she?). 

Inside, I used a Lizzy House stripe for the lining and zipper tabs. I followed the Easy Peasy Zippered Pouch Tutorial by Make it Perfect since Heather had recommended it at the VMQG meeting.

 This was the very first zipper I've sewn at home and the second ever zipper I've sewn. I bought a zipper foot for my sewing machine and it worked perfectly! It really was quite magical for me to see how it all came together because I've been quite intimidated by zippers.

The finished pouch measured 7 3/4" wide by 5 1/2" tall. I was able to fit in a couple small goodies for my partner. Now that I've given this pouch away, my daughter wants me to make one for her! She's already chosen the fabrics and even a few buttons for good measure. I'll be sure to share when it's done!

Happy 2nd Birthday, VMQG!

Can it really be two years since the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild was founded? I can still remember the excitement of that first meeting where the crowd of forty-five quilters squeezed into Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge to share their quilting stories and modern quilts. Since that night, I've made wonderful new friends, been amazed by the fabulous quilts made by VMQG members, participated in sew-ins, and had monthly doses of inspiration and laughter. Thank you to everyone who has made the VMQG a life-enriching experience for me!

Tonight is our 2nd anniversary meeting and I know there are some delicious cupcakes ready for the party! I've got to do a few things to get ready and I don't have time to add a photo, but I hope to see you there!

Potholder swap (take two)

See Potholder swap (take one) to hear the tale of my lost potholders.

I am happy to report that I have finally completed the VMQG-FVMQG potholder swap and that my partner has her potholders! I went to the Lions Gate Quilters' Guild show yesterday and brought the potholders along just in case I saw my partner, and, lo and behold, she was the second person I recognized at the show! I was really happy with how this set turned out, but I had no problems giving them away as I had felt bad about the long wait she'd had!

I used the same basic plan as my first set of potholders, but made a few changes like taking out the grey and making the equilateral triangles a bit bigger. I actually like this set better than the first ones, so perhaps it was a good thing that Canada Post lost them? Nope, it wasn't, still sad about that.

Taking out the grey meant that I couldn't use all the extra grey bias binding left over from my first pair of potholders, so I spent a lot of my day at the May 26th Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild sew-in making tons of bias binding in green and blue. Now I've got lots extra for future projects!

I also remembered to put hanging loops in this set!

I'm so happy that these are off my plate and I look forward to working on some other WIPs!

Details:

8.5" diameter circles

Kona grass green, cactus, teal, azure, Erin McMorris leaf dot in green and teal

Batting: one layer InsulBrite and one layer cotton/bamboo blend

These are a few of my favourite things

I'm so excited that the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and the Portland Modern Quilt Guild are doing a pouch swap! We just got our partners and I've already got ideas for what I want to make for my partner. It's going to be so much fun to see the results of this swap!

Message to my partner: "Hi partner! As you can see, I love graphic designs, solids, rainbows, and gradations of colour. I hope this mosaic helps you out if you need ideas. Feel free to use your creative license and create something that's different from what you see here. I'm just happy that you're making me a pouch!"

Here are the links to the beautiful creations featured in this mosaic (#10 (Spectrum) is a beautiful shot of overlapping coloured glass bottles):
1. PPS - 2 front, 2. grow a garden pouch, 3. PLPS Front,
4. PLP Swap - for Megan of CanoeRidgeCreations, 5. SUTK, 6. Busy Bees for Amber,
7. sewing project zipper purse, 8. Molly's Sketchbook: Miniature Patchwork Pincushions, 9. rainbow zip pouch,
10. Spectrum, 11. IMG_1387, 12. 20120409 Triangle Quilt-3

Pysanky 2012

It's Easter weekend and in my family that means it's time to write pysanky! Every Good Friday we have a huge egg decorating/baking/chocolate making party at my parents' place. Over the years, we've experimented with a variety of styles of egg decorating. Although we don't have any Ukrainian heritage, we've discovered the art of pysanky. It's a wax resist process where you write on the egg with a kistka, a tool that leaves a line of beeswax on your egg. I usually create the traditional designs but this year I wanted to try a quilting-based pattern. Here are our creations for 2012!

 This egg has tumbling blocks design which you're probably familiar with if you're a quilter! I used the step by step illustrations in the wonderful book Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs with Wax & Dye by Jane Pollak to create my egg.

 After the inital lines were applied. Ready for the first dye bath!

After the first dye bath, I applied wax to the diamonds to protect the light blue colour while dipping the egg into the dye again to get a darker blue. (sorry for the blurry photo!)

 My husband is a skilled pysanky writer as well and this year he went with chevrons, a very on-trend design.

He also made this striped egg. 

Have you ever tried pysanky? If you want to give it a try, I'd recommend Baba's Beeswax (based in Richmond, BC) for all the supplies you need. Did you decorate any eggs this week?