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!

QuiltCon block challenge

If you've been reading this blog over the past few weeks, you may have realized how excited I am about a little event called QuiltCon that's happening in February. I've been anticipating this event since it was announced six months ago and one way I could keep busy while counting down the days til I head to Austin was by making a QuiltCon challenge block.

Here's the Mondrian-inspired block I made for the VMQG's second anniversary. We asked members to create a modern block in the colours of the VMQG logo. I first made a block like this in the red and aqua bee and I thought it epitomized modern quilting.

 I expanded on my VMQG block to create this QuiltCon challenge block in the colours of the QuiltCon logo. It measures 12 1/2 by 18 1/2 inches.

Back in July, I sent in my block, and it is featured on the Modern Quilt Guild's blog today (along with the block by the talented JoAnn Lee, also of the VMQG!). Twenty of the nearly 300 blocks submitted will be chosen for a special raffle quilt and the others will be made into charity quilts for the Austin Children's Shelter.

QuiltCon registration confirmed (woot!)

Woo hoo! I was up bright and early this morning to register for QuiltCon and I got into the two workshops I wanted plus I got a four-day lecture pass and a ticket to the 80's dance party! I'll be learning hand-quilting from Anna Maria Horner and making a mini quilt with Lizzy House.

Registration went very smoothly for me. I was on the computer refreshing the registration page at 6:50am, it opened at 7:01am according to my computer, and, as you can see above, I had my confirmation email by 7:04am. I think obsessively watching the video tutorial on how to register helped!

About ten members of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild are flying from Vancouver to Austin for Quiltcon. Are you going? I can't wait to see you there! If you won't be going this year, you can still enter a quilt in the quilt show!

I'm going to QuiltCon!

Ever since QuiltCon, the inaugural modern quilting conference and show, was announced in February, I've been looking forward to attending this amazing event. It's going to be held in Austin, Texas from February 21st to 24th, 2013. It will be four days full of modern quilting workshops, lectures, and meet ups and I can't wait. Registration begins tomorrow at 7:00am PST and I'll be ready and waiting at my computer!

I've thought long and hard about my workshop wish list and I think I'll restrain myself and only sign up for two workshops. I know I'll want to have time to go to lectures, visit the quilt show and vendors, get out into Austin, and, most importantly, socialize with other modern quilters. I'm eager to talk to presidents and members of other modern quilt guilds to hear how their guilds are going and what they're excited about.

Even if you can't attend QuiltCon, you have a chance to be part of it by submitting a quilt to the quilt show by November 30th. Or perhaps you already submitted a block to the QuiltCon block challenge? I just caught a sneak peek of my block here and I look forward to seeing it soon in the series on The Modern Quilt Guild's blog.

The Modern Quilt Guild masterminds have worked so hard to make this awesome event come together and I'm thankful to them! They've thought of everything, from a fabric-obsessed visitor's guide to Austin, to an 80's dance party, to video tutorials explaining how to register.



Will I see you at QuiltCon 2013? I hope so!

Squaaaak! Dinosaur Train pillowcase

Sophia with her souvenirs from Seattle

My five-year-old daughter is a huge dinosaur fan. She knows more species than I do and blithely recites dinosaur names such as Ornitholestes, Dimorphodon, Oryctodromeus, and, her favourite, Parasaurolophus.

Sophia loves the PBS Kids show Dinosaur Train and seems to retain all the palentology facts that Dr. Scott teaches at the end of each episode. (I apologize if you have preschoolers and have the theme song stuck in your head for hours at the mere mention of this program). When I discovered Dinosaur Train fabric by Quilting Treasures at Fourth Corner Quilts in Bellingham, I only hesitated for a moment before showing it to Sophia. Licensed novelty prints are not usually my thing, but when they make your child over the moon happy, you compromise your style. We decided to buy the Pteranodon family flying through the sky print and I told Sophia I'd make her a pillowcase.

We bought the fabric while heading towards Seattle for the meet up and after checking in at the hotel and eating dinner, I left my family to meet with some quilters. Dean reported later that fifteen minutes after I'd left, Sophia was talking about her new Dinosaur Train pillowcase "which Mom probably hasn't made yet". I knew I'd better get on it asap! When we got home, I put off laundry and unpacking and made up the pillowcase as quickly as possible.

Sophia making a dinosaur noise while showing off the newly-finished pillowcase 

(T-Rex T-Rex, her favourite stuffed animal, looks on)

Sophia proudly showed the pillowcase during the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's show and tell at our August 16th outdoor meeting. (see Sonja's cute photo for an in focus shot.)

As with my owl and yellow & aqua pillowcases, I used Ashley of Film in the Fridge's Pretty Quick Pillowcase tutorial. The pillowcase was put into immediate use and Sophia has declared that she will never need another pillowcase for the rest of her life. My work here is done.

What a way to start the day!

I awoke this morning to a lovely email from Katie saying that I'd won a fat quarter bundle from Fat Quarter Shop for commenting on her Winterkist Blog Hop post. I was completely surprised because I hadn't realized it was a giveaway post and I was just commenting to say I loved her work (check out the stitching on her gnomas beard!).

Pretty nice way to start the day, eh? It extra nice because Katie is an online friend who lives close by (just a ferry ride away!) and I'm expecting to meet her in September at the VMQG retreat that Krista is organizing for the guild. 

Now comes the hard work, choosing a bundle out of all the amazing choices at Fat Quarter Shop! 

Since I won the fabric as part of the Winterkist Blog Hop, I could get some of Winterkist of my own (it's not quite available yet, but is expected soon). It would be extra special since I got to meet Monica Solorio-Snow (who is hilarious!) two weeks ago at the meet up in Seattle.

Or should I go with the newly released Bella line by Lotta Jansdotter?

 Erin McMorris's new La Dee Da collection is fun! 

It looks like Fat Quarter Shop only stocks Cynthia Frenette's Kona Modern Quilts fabric in half yard bundles, so it doesn't qualify for this prize. It's still fun to look at!

Maybe I should get a bundle of the new Kona colours to round out my collection?

And the Simpatico collection just makes me happy:

When I was searching through the list, I came across this awesome Strawberry Shortcake fabric, that took me immediately back to my childhood in the 80's! It's not available til October, but check it out:

What would you do with a bundle of fat quarters? I bought the Swoon quilt pattern awhile back and I know it's fat quarter friendly. Any other suggestions?

WIP Wednesday

My completed colour wheel quilt top, 56x56"

I'm delighted to share my completed colour wheel quilt top today! It makes me very happy to see this quilt coming together after having it on my WIP list for over two years. I started collecting fabrics for this quilt in March 2010 and it took me quite a while to decide on all of the fifty-two prints that I eventually used. 

My first pass through my stash, auditioning fabrics for the colour wheel. March 2010

I received fabric from many sources: my own stash, a Sew, Mama, Sew! swap, Flickr quilting bee friends, and a private swap with Quilting Barbie who was working on her own colour wheel quilt. After all of that, I still had to go out and search for more fabric, so I bought a few fat quarters here and there. This pattern, from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson, really doesn't take much fabric for each wedge, a 4x12" piece will do.

After I had all the wedges cut, I let this beautiful project sit on my shelf for over a year. Recently, I decided to work on it again and sewed up the four arcs of coloured wedges. To my dismay, each wedge finished at more than ninety degrees, meaning the finished quilt top would either have unsightly bubbles or some noticeably narrow wedges. Oh noes!

Super-strong, double-sewed seams!

After having Felicity over to give some helpful advice, I took a deep breath, and painstakingly resewed all of the seams so they were one or two millimetres wider. The impact of this small change over twelve seams fixed the problem and everything came together beautifully! I'm so glad I took the time to fix it.

When it came time to sew the curved seams, I used tons of pins and it all went smoothly!

To attach the quadrants together, I used a little trick. I sewed the essential area where the white fabric met the coloured arc first and if that wasn't perfect, I ripped it out and tried again. Once it was just as I liked it, I pinned and sewed the entire seam. Is this a technique you've heard of? I doubt that I made this up, but it just seemed like a good way to ensure my key points matched. I sure didn't want to be ripping out a fifty-six inch seam multiple times!

The last seam after I'd sewed the five key points. After it was fixed in place, I just sewed the entire seam one more time.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me with this quilt so far! Now to keep up the motivation and get it basted and quilted!

I'm linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced and The Needle and Thread Network.