Road trip to Portland!

Tomorrow morning, I'm meeting up with Amy, Sonja, and Constance, and road tripping down to Portland, Oregon for the second annual Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup! Four days of sewing, socializing, classes, fabric shopping, and more (and did I mention, this is all child-free?!). I can't wait!

It's been almost exactly six months since the awesomeness that was QuiltCon and I'm looking forward to re-connecting with friends I met there! I also can't wait to meet new soon-to-be friends. I always have something to talk about with fellow modern quilters, so my usual introverted self isn't too worried about the large group! Plus, I met a bunch of these folks in Seattle last year at the first meetup between the Vancouver, Seattle and Portland MQGs. I had so much fun at that event (just check my flickr set!) and I can't wait to attend my second meetup!

If you don't know me yet and you've just found my blog, here's a picture of me with the tote I'm working on for the tote bag swap:

And here are a few facts about me:

1) I'm a SAHM to two delightful girls (ages 6.5 and 2.5)

2) I married my high school sweetheart, who I met in math class because we were both math geeks

3) Hip hop is one of my favourite musical genres (especially stuff that's easy to sing along with like "Inner Ninja" by Classified who I just learned is from Nova Scotia!)

4) I'm from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, a gorgeous island off the West Coast of BC. Therefore, I take the ferry a lot to visit family who still live on the island. I moved to the lower mainland (that's what we call the southwest corner of BC that includes Vancouver and surrounding cities) in 1995 to go to university.

5) I'm a biology geek with a BSc in Ecology. I'm also a substitute teacher so I get thrown into random classrooms to teach subjects as diverse as organic chemistry, tap dance, and Punjabi!

6) I'm the founder and president of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I love my guild!

2013 Finish-a-Long: Quarter 3 Goals

I've been tempted by the call of the Finish-a-Long for months now, and this time I'm going to finally share some of my goals in public. If you know me, you know I don't get many projects finished each year, but there are a few that I really want to finish in the next couple of months, so it seems like a perfect time to join in with Leanne of She Can Quilt and the Finish-a-Long crew!

Here's my list of projects to finish in Q3:

1) Patchwork baby quilt (started May 10th, 2013)
The baby this is meant for has just turned two months old and I'm optimistic I can get this basted, quilted, and given to him soon! His second cousins can't wait to meet him!

2) Rainbow Girl
I started collecting fabric for this colour wheel quilt in 2010 and I pieced the top last summer. I basted it in November 2012 and just have to quilt it!

3) Memories of QuiltCon
I pieced this mini quilt top at a Lizzy House workshop at QuiltCon in February 2013. My neighbour Courtney, managed to design, piece, quilt, and bind her mini quilt in the same time I took to create this top! It won't take too long to quilt this tiny little quilt, I just need to make it happen! All of the fabrics I used for this quilt were from a bundle I purchased in Seattle at last year's meet up of the Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland Modern Quilt Guilds. Thanks to Keli of Drygoods Design for creating this great palette!

I have many more WIPs that I could list, but I'm going to try to remain grounded in reality and stick with this list of three. I have some late bee blocks and a couple of swaps to do over the summer, so I won't just be focusing on finishing my own quilts. If I can finish just three quilts by the end of September, I'd be delighted!

What are you working on this summer?

Cheers to eleven years!

Dean and I were married eleven years ago today in a beautiful ceremony by the ocean in Sooke, BC. The day after our wedding, we planted a redwood tree at Dean's parents' property in Duncan. Over the years, we've made it a tradition to get an annual photo with the tree. My favourite part of this collage is watching the tree quickly grow past our heads and then seeing the kids come onto the scene. We'll keep up the tradition and before you know it, Sophia will quickly taller than me as well!

Happy anniversary to my best friend!

I love the Vancouver Public Library!

Sophia (age 2) and her Nonna at the Kitsilano Branch of the VPL, January 2010

Do you still get books out from your local library? I do! I love being able to access novels, DVDs, eBooks, magazines, and more. My whole family gets books from the library and both girls have their own library cards (no late fines!). Sophia has just signed up for this year's Summer Reading Club and is looking forward to lots of relaxing summer reading!

I find that the Vancouver Public Library has lots of modern quilting books available. Since the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild doesn't have the space to store a physical library, we let the VPL do it for us and encourage people to go to the library to check out books listed on our Books page.

But what do you do if the library doesn't have the book you're looking for in its collection? You suggest a purchase! This is what happened to me today when I went looking for The Farmer's Wife book. I was surprised that the book wasn't in the VPL's collection, so I suggested that they buy it:

To get to the Suggest a Purchase page, you click on "Using the Library" near the top right of the VPL homepage, then click "Borrowing", and then "Suggest a Purchase". My favourite way to fill out the form is to open up a Amazon.com tab for the book I'm suggesting and then copy and paste the relevant information. Simply tell the librarians why you think they should purchase this book, and send in the form!

I've had great luck getting books added to my library's collection using this method. If you don't live in Vancouver, try asking your local library how you can suggest a purchase.

Central Branch of the Vancouver Public Library

Enjoy your summer reading!

Patchwork tea towel

My youngest daughter's music classes just wrapped up for the year and I made a patchwork-embellished tea towel as a teacher gift for her wonderful music teacher.

Eleanor's teacher is always cheerful and smiling, so I did a fabric pull with those qualities in mind.

It really doesn't take many scraps at all to turn a plain white towel into a bright and cute towel! I looked at tutorials by Jeni of In Color Order and Sew 4 Home to get an idea of how to embellish the tea towel.

I've been meaning to make one of these for a very long time and it was fun and easy, I look forward to making more! 

I wrapped the towel around a bottle of hand soap (thank you, Pinterest, for that idea!) and the gift was ready! The good news is, the teacher loved it!

Gotta love a quilt show!

"Thistle Pods" by Maureen Woods, quilted by Vicki Ibison

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to spend the entire day (I'm talking 9:45am-5:00pm!) at the Fraser Valley Quilters' Guild show, Fabric Fiesta. The show is open today from 10:00am-4:00pm, so there's still time to check it out!

Mod Quilters (left to right: Holly (me!), Amy, Felicity, Terry, Paul, Diane)

My day started with the Iron Quilter competition. The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's "Mod Quilters" team was up against last years' champions from the Fraser Valley QG. Each team had two hours to complete a 36"x36" quilt from start to finish and we needed to incorporate a fat quarter of a feature fabric. It was lots of fun and we worked as fast as we could to complete our quilt.

As the clock ticked down, Terry was sewing like mad to secure our binding by machine, but we were only able to get about 1/3 of the way around the quilt before the bell went. Unfortunately, we were disqualified because we didn't finish in the allotted time, so our competitors won.

 Finished quilt by the Yellow Iron Quilters from the Fraser Valley Quilters' Guild

Their quilt was bright and cheerful with relatively complicated free motion quilting, very impressive!

Here's our team with our finished quilt, inspired by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr's Kyoto quilt.While Terry was quilting, Amy supervised the creation of a bonus pillow cover!

Our finished quilt, note the pieced binding!

We pieced our back and included a strip of the focus fabric. This step may have cost us the competition, but we wanted to show how modern quilters often piece their backs. We had lots of interest in the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and modern quilting in general. I think there will be some quilters giving it a try!

After the competition, I took my time to walk the show and shop at the vendors' mall. What a treat to have this kid-free time! It was fun to run into some Instagram friends in person (Hi makinglifeprettier and christinaive!). The show was impressive, with a large display of mostly traditional quilts. I was blown away by the craftsmanship of some of the quilts, truly masterworks! Here's just a sampling:

 Honey by Fumiko Noguchi

 Abstract Hand Dye Wall Hanging by Vera Swaren

 Going Around in Circles by Val Smith

On the Wing by Val Smith

 Ultimate Insanity by Beckie Stewart, quilted by Lauren Tolhurst

 Como Lake Quilt by Robin Kilik, quilted by Lauren Tolhurst

Untitled by Sharon Franzius

I had some fun at the vendors' mall and got myself some Machingers for free motion quilting, some Aurifil, and one of those cute new aqua rotary cutters that Amy used for Iron Quilter. I totally scored in the boutique and picked up twenty magazines for $2.00! Can't wait to read my many new copies of Quilter's Connection and The Canadian Quilter and more!

Claiming My Blog with Bloglovin'

I've kept my head in the sand for long enough, but it's time to face facts. Google isn't going to back down and change their mind about killing my beloved Google Reader. Google Reader has been a daily part of my life since January 5th, 2008* and I was stunned when I first saw this message in my Reader:

I've now migrated the 600 blogs I follow to both Feedly and Bloglovin' and this post fulfills Bloglovin's requirements to claim my blog so I can see the stats they have for me.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

If you're a Reader addict like me, make sure you migrate your feeds in the next week so you don't lose them! Goodbye Google Reader! (sniff!)

*find out how long you've been on Google Reader by going here: http://www.google.com/reader/view/?page=trends#trends-page