QuiltCon 2015: The Countdown is on!

Quilt in QuiltCon banner is "Fireworks" by Tara Faughnan

The Modern Quilt Guild has just announced that QuiltCon 2015 will once again be held in the city of Austin, Texas! The dates are Thursday, February 19th through Sunday, February 22nd, 2015. The keynote speech will be delivered by the quilters of Gee's Bend and many other inspirational quilters will be teaching workshops and giving lectures. This time next year, you'll find me at QuiltCon!

Me in front of Rachel Hauser's Oodalolly quilt at QuiltCon 2013

QuiltCon 2013 was an amazing experience for me and the best part was meeting passionate modern quilters from all over the world. I can't wait for 2015! Will I see you there?

Happy birthday to my Janome Horizon!

One year ago today, on February 4th, 2013 (at 2:34pm, if you want to be precise, I remember this because I had just minutes to unpack the box before heading off to pick up my daughter from school) my new Janome Memory Craft 7700 QCP sewing machine arrived. I had been sewing on a $200 Singer since 1999 and this was a major upgrade for me. The major selling features were the 11" harp space, the beautiful stitches, fun features that I'd never had like an automatic buttonhole, and, to be honest, that snazzy red faceplate. Oh, and I got it for a great, hard-to-resist price thanks to a tip from some VMQG friends!

I promptly named my new machine Ruby and played around making my first automatic buttonhole. In the past year, Ruby and I have had some fun sewing adventures. I tried my first free-motion quilting in a VMQG workshop taught by Matt Wheeler.

 Free-motion quilting practice

 Playing with free-motion quilting designs. So much fun!

 In July, Cheryl Arkison came out to BC to give a Perfect Circles workshop and I was honoured that she used my sewing machine to demonstrate her technique. Fan girl moment!

 Here I am with Cheryl and one of the circle blocks I completed in her workshop.

 I absolutely love how this machine quilts and it did a beautful job on Rainbow Girl and Memories of QuiltCon, my two favourite finishes of 2013.

 As you can see, Ruby has become a part of the family and she's mostly found on the dining room table.

I can't wait to see what adventures Ruby and I get up to next!

Creative Edge Quilting - a LQS that's off the grid

As I was creating a "Local Quilt Shops in Metro Vancouver" board for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's new Pinterest account, I realized that I couldn't link to Creative Edge's website, as they don't yet have one. Instead, I'll use this blog post full of photos I took there in October as a placeholder until their website is live. Creative Edge Quilting & Sewing is a great little shop located just over the Second Narrows (Iron Workers' Memorial) Bridge in North Vancouver.

 

They have an excellent selection of solids including Robert Kaufman's Kona solids, Moda Bella, and In the Beginning's Modern Solids. 

They carry a wide range of Kaffe Fassett stripes and shot cottons.

Look at the beautiful Anna Maria Horner ribbons!

 

They have precuts like these Moda Honeycombs available.

My toddler's favourite thing about the store was the chalk cloth activity book that kept her occupied for a good long time while I browsed!

They also carry Freespirit fabric including collections by designers such as Joel Dewberry and Tula Pink. 

Creative Edge offers classes and has lots of class samples hanging in the shop. The store is located in a mini mall with a small parking lot. Oh, and if you shop there, don't be surprised when CEQASS NORTH VANCO BC shows up on your bank statement!

They may not have an online presence, but I'd definitely recommend a visit to Creative Edge (just not on a Monday)!

The details:
Creative Edge Quilting & Sewing
2065 Old Dollarton Rd, North Vancouver, BC V7H 1A6
604-982-0088
10:00am-5:00pm Tuesday - Saturday
12:00-4:00pm Sunday
CLOSED Monday

Farmer's Wife Sampler blocks

Hello to all my new followers who found my blog through Blogathon Canada! If you read my profile on the Sew Sisters site, you may have seen that I'm a self-described incurable procrastinator. Case in point: I received this great fabric from fellow British Columbian Barb in July and have only started making her blocks now! Back in the summer, I arranged a private swap with Barb because she's working on a Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt and needed a few extra blocks and I'm still looking for blocks for my Fab Bee neutrals quilt (whoops, just realized I haven't blogged about that one!). 

I received a package of orange, grey and blue fabric and set to neatly cutting it up (after I located a copy of the book through an interlibrary loan! Note to Vancouverites: the Vancouver Public Library now has a copy of this book due to my request for purchase. You're welcome!). I was so proud of myself for neatly organizing all the fabric I'd need for each block into carefully labelled baggies. And there they sat for four months, patiently waiting for me to finish my even-more-overdue Fab Bee blocks and my quilts for the Northwest Quilting Expo.

Now that I've started making the blocks, I don't want to stop! They're just 6.5" unfinished and they're so cute! So far I've made my first snowball block:

And a HST-filled beauty called Whirlpool. I think I must be a slow piecer cause even with the pre-cut fabric, it took me an hour and twenty-five minutes to sew up this block. I had fun doing it!

Added bonus: my rotary cutter and box of pins match the fabric!

One of my first quilts was a sampler that I made at a course at The Cloth Shop in North Vancouver. Have you made a sampler quilt? 

Blogathon Canada Winner

Wow! What a week! I've had the most visitors ever at my little blog and it was a treat to see all the comments you left on my Blogathon Canada post. I had fun visiting other Canadian quilting blogs from coast to coast! Thanks again to Sew Sisters Quilt Shop for hosting the blog and all the fabulous giveaways. Speaking of giveaways, do you want to hear who won the ten FQs of beautiful Kona Cottons?

It was Jan Baker, who left comment number 285 out of 287 comments. Just goes to show that it's never too close to the deadline to enter the draw! Congratulations, Jan!

I happen to agree with Jan, you can never have enough solids! Here's my Kona solids stash after I did some rainbow-order organizing. Do you have a stash of solids? What is your favourite type of solids?

Blogathon Canada 2013 - Welcome to the West Coast!

 

It's time to kick off Blogathon Canada, a week-long celebration of Canadian quilting bloggers! Together with Heather from Winding Bobbins, I'm representing BC as a host. I'm here to tell you a bit about myself, introduce you to a dozen BC bloggers, and give away some lovely fabric!

Hi, I'm Holly! I've been quilting for close to twenty years and my passion for this craft only gets stronger with time. I founded the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild in 2010 and it has enriched my life in so many ways. I love learning new tricks, being inspired, and, best of all, making quilting friends who really get me. Although I have all sorts of WIPs and ideas for new projects, I don't actually finish many quilts each year. Much of my time is spent chasing after my two daughters, ages six and two. I'm lucky enough to have a husband who supports my quilting habit and is willing to take photos of me holding a quilt in the middle of a busy downtown intersection!

I do enjoy blogging, but find myself posting more to Instagram these days, you can find me there as hollybroadland.

Thanks for visiting and taking a look at a some of my work!

 "Gabriel's Quilt" (2009) - this was my first modern quilt and the quilt I shared at the inaugural VMQG meeting in June 2010

 My first quilt (1996) - This is the quilt that started it all for me!

"HST Tote Bag" (2013) - Here is my swap partner Susan with the tote bag I made for her as part of the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup in Portland, Oregon. Pattern by a great Canadian quilter, Leanne of She Can Quilt!

 "Memories of QuiltCon" (2013) - I started this mini quilt at a Lizzy House workshop at QuiltCon in Austin, TX this February. I'm already looking forward to QuiltCon 2015!

 "Ethan's Quilt" (2013) - My most recent finish, I gave this quilt to my cousin's baby this past weekend.

"Rainbow Girl" (2013) - A labour of love that took me 3.5 years from start to finish

Check out these BC Quilt Bloggers! (and be sure to visit Heather's blog for an additional list)

A Pieceful Life

Silver Thimble Quilting

Adventures in Life

What Comes Next?

Stacey in Stitches

CReate the poinT

Quilting Fun

Sew Bossi

The Zodiac Quilter

aRt by Rhoda Forbes

There & Back

Eclectic Gnome

Since I'm a huge fan of solids, I chose a prize that makes me happy. I hope it makes the winner smile as well!

To enter the giveaway for this bundle of ten fat quarters of bright and beautiful Kona Cotton solids from Sew Sisters Quilt Shop, simply leave a comment on this post by midnight PST on Saturday, November 23rd! (edited Sunday, November 24th: giveaway now closed, and the winner has been notified. See Blogathon Canada Winner post.) Please leave your email address if you're a no-reply blogger or I won't have a way to contact you. If you are a no-reply blogger, you might want to take a look at this tutorial by Jodi of Pleasant Home on how to change that. Contest open to international participants.

 Don't forget to head over to the Sew Sisters blog to enter their Aurifil thread giveaway!

The Blogathon is on all week and I hope you'll enjoy getting to know the host bloggers from all across our country!

Monday, November 18	BC	Holly	Holly's Red Bike (that's me!)
Monday, November 18	BC	Heather	Winding Bobbins
Tuesday, November 19	Maritimes	Adrienne	Chezzetcook Modern Quilts
Tuesday, November 19	Maritimes	Marjorie	Marjorie's Busy Corner
Wednesday, November 20	AB	Katherine	Sew Me Something Good
Wednesday, November 20	AB	Andrea	Urban Quilt Works
Thursday, November 21	SK	Flo	Butterfly Quilting
Thursday, November 21	MB	Kathy	Tamarack Shack
Friday, November 22	QC	Izzy	Dizzy Quilts
Friday, November 22	Territories	Danielle	A Geeky Crafty Life
Saturday, November 23	ON	Jackie	Jackie's Art Quilts
Saturday, November 23	ON	Krista	Krista Quilts

How do I number the comments on my blog?

In preparation for the Blogathon Canada giveaway I'll be having next week thanks to Sew Sisters Quilt Shop, I wanted to number the comments on my blog. Since this is my first time hosting a giveaway and I'm planning on using the Random.org Random Number Generator to determine the winner, I wanted to have an easy way to figure out who number 42 was should they win. Off I went to ask my trusty friend Google and I came up with a tutorial called Help with Numbered Comments in Blogger by Jenelle of Echinops and Aster. Her solution is to add some code to the CSS (style sheets) in your Blogger template and it's simply a matter of cutting and pasting the code.

I'll let you follow her easy-to-follow tutorial if you'd like to number the comments on your own Blogger blog. The only thing I would add is that I was momentarily stumped at the first instruction of "Go to Template Designer". It turns out that Jenelle had already thoroughly explained that in her post "Layouts and Templates in Blogger" that is part of her awesome "Tech Help for Bloggers" series. In case you just want a quick visual, I'm going to give you a screen capture to show where that is.

Select "Template" from the left hand menu and then click "Customize" and you'll be brought to the Template Designer. 

Click "Advanced" and it will open a new menu for you.

Scroll to the very bottom of this menu and you'll find "Add CSS". Ta da! See Jenelle's post for the code you'll need to paste into the box.

Enjoy your numbered comments!