Twelve years ago today

Holly and Dean with all eight grandparents, July 6th, 2002

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary and in looking back over our photos, I found this treasure of me and Dean with our grandparents. We were lucky enough to have all eight of our grandparents at our wedding and these four loving couples represented over two hundred years of marriage! When take into account our parents' marriages, which were both close to thirty years old at the time, you can see we were raised with a wonderful heritage of love and partnership. Happy 12th, Deano!

Q3 Finish-a-Long post #2 - baby quilt

Back in July, I wrote up my list of Q3 Finish-a-Long goals, with high hopes that I would complete all three of my works in progress by the end of September deadline. Here's finish two out of three. I have to give a huge thanks to Leanne for hosting the motivational FAL, without her inspiration (and deadlines!), I doubt I'd have a finished quilt right now!

This simple little patchwork baby quilt was made with love for my cousin's new baby boy. I used the same Kate Spain zoo fabric that I'd used for Ellie's quilt back in 2011. I added a mix of coordinating tone on tone prints and Kona solids. I kept it simple, cutting five inch squares of each fabric, and adding a few pieced blocks here and there. I made my first ever hour glass blocks (yay!) using Rita of Red Pepper Quilts' tutorial. I also pieced a few half-square triangles and striped blocks to add interest. When planning the layout, I arranged the blocks randomly and tried to balance out the colours in a way that was pleasing to the eye.

I quilted in an organic crosshatch pattern, meaning that I didn't mark a single line on this quilt! It was so much fun watching the pattern emerge! I used a taupe Aurifil thread (2314) from a new box of 28wt threads I got over the summer. 

For the backing, I used exactly one yard of Amy Butler's full moon dot that I had in my stash. Actually, this entire project used fabric from my stash, the Kona charcoal binding was leftover from my first set of potholders for the VMQG-FVMQG swap, and even the batting was scraps from another project.

I thought Baby E deserved a personalized quilt, so I fused this six inch tall letter E to the backing and blanket stitched around the edges before basting the quilt. 

This was a fun project and I'm looking forward to giving it to our little cousin sometime before he turns six months old. It finished at 35"x42", so even though he's not a newborn anymore, it's plenty big for him to use it for years to come.

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!

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?

Day 3 in Austin - bring on QuiltCon!

Today was simply spectacular and I couldn't possibly capture it in words. It started as I entered the Austin Convention Center for the first day of QuiltCon.

As soon as we entered the quilt show, we posed for a family photo at the Michael Miller photo booth. Thanks for taking this picture, Susan (West Coast Crafty)!

The first quilt we saw at the show was the QuiltCon challenge raffle quilt (pieced and quilted by Elizabeth Hartman with blocks made by MQG members)! Here is Sophia proudly pointing out the block I made.

Other highlights of the day:

- walking the show (amazeballs!)

- free Pearl Bracelet charm pack at the Andover booth

- the Awards ceremony (including TWO honorable mentions for Felicity!)

- learning hand quilting from Anna Maria Horner

- running into all sorts of quilting friends and mentors

- chatting with keeners at the MQG Leaders meet up

- getting kicked out of the atrium for stitching too loudly with a group of rowdy quilters

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Day 2 in Austin (pre-QuiltCon)

Before I head off for the first official day of QuiltCon, I wanted to write up some memories of yesterday. Wednesday was our one full family day in Austin before I go into QuiltCon mode and let Dean take care of the girls on his own, so we took advantage of it!

First, we bussed to the Austin Nature & Science Center because Dean had heard that they had a dinosaur exhibit. In addition to lots of cool raptors, a raven that Eleanor adored, and an acrobatic raccoon, they had a dino pit where junior paleontologists could try their luck. Sophia loved it!

After lunch at Chipotle's, we headed up to the Texas State Capitol Building (did you know that Austin is the capital of Texas? I didn't!). The building was truly impressive and even though our kids didn't have the patience for a tour, stepping into the grand lobby was worth the security check.

At 4:00pm, I was dying to check-in to QuiltCon, so I headed over to the convention center (I'll use American spellings here as a concession to the locals). Since our hotel is offering a discount to QuiltCon attendees, there are quilters all over and I met Maria from NYC on the way to registration. She was kind enough to take this photo of me:

When I got to the desk, who should check me in but Julie (Procrasticraft) from Australia who I'd been chatting with over twitter for over a year in anticipation of this event!

I soon met up with Leanne (She Can Quilt) and Marianne (The Quilting Edge) from Edmonton, and then Rene' (Rene' Creates) popped by and then Kristy (St. Louis Folk Victorian) was running up and introducing herself! It was like the internet had come to life and I loved every minute of it! I quickly said hello to Heather Grant (Modern Day Quilts) who has been working like crazy with her amazing team to make this event come together.

Leanne and Marianne and I were chatting and checking out our swag bags when what did I see but the program with the raffle quilt and MY BLOCK on the cover!

Eventually, I decided I'd better find my family for dinner, so I left the convention center. As I was heading out, I gave directions to fabric designer Laurie Wisbrun (Scarlet Fig) who was headed to the Kaufman booth to drop off her adorable rain coat made from her laminated camper fabric. Once back at the hotel, we headed to Whole Foods and enjoyed pizza and a build your own salad before stocking up on groceries for the week.

Back at the hotel, Eleanor got into my swag bag and especially loved the sunglasses (shown here as a white blur in her hands)!

The quilt show officially opens in less than half an hour and I can't wait to see it! Thinking of all my VMQG friends who would love to be here today and wishing I could transport you all to Austin! I'll do my best to keep you updated! (happy yet, Michelle?)

I'm in Austin, Texas! (day 1, pre-QuiltCon)

After months of anticipation, last-minute frenzied packing, and hours on an airplane with a squirmy toddler (and relatively well-behaved husband and five-year-old), I'm finally in Austin for QuiltCon! We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and met up with my cousin who used to live in Austin (she now lives in London) for a tour of the city.

As soon as we arrived in Austin, the live music capital of the world, we knew there was something special about this place.

After leaving below-freezing temperatures and snow behind in Pennsylvania, warm weather and palm trees were a welcome sight!

Our hotel is very close to the Austin Convention Center and I jumped up and down with glee when I saw this sign for QuiltCon!

We headed over the Congress Bridge for dinner and stopped on the way to see the famous bats. I had read that we were out of luck since it wasn't bat season yet, but apparently some of the bats didn't get the memo. We saw hundreds of bats leaving their homes under the bridge to find their food for the night. If you're in town, you can watch them from a park on the southeast side of the bridge and the bats started their flight at 6:30pm.

Can you see the bats? I know they're blurry, but it was so cool!

Here's a video of our bat viewing. As you can see, Eleanor was impressed!

We enjoyed our first taste of TexMex at Guero's. The novelty of eating outdoors in February did not escape us!

After dinner, our intrepid ice cream lover was determined to try Amy's famous ice cream despite the cooler weather. It was indeed delicious and I hope we get a chance to go back there on one of the warmer days that should be coming soon!

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.

Bon voyage, Kristi!

My sister sets off on an adventure today (she's on a plane right now!). She'll be living in Germany for a year, absorbing the language and culture and travelling around Europe. She's lived in Vancouver for six years and we see her often, so it'll be strange not to have Kristi dropping by all the time. Thank goodness for Skype! 

Aunt Kristi with her nieces

As a goodbye gift, I made Kristi this passport sleeve. I started with this tutorial from bunnybum and added some improv piecing to make it my own. I was completely inspired by Amy's mini quilts at the February VMQG meeting and I decided to challenge myself and try some improv quilting. It was actually really fun to slice into my work and add extra strips!

I had no clear plan when I started piecing, so it was fun to see the results!

I was relieved to find out that the passport sleeve fits perfectly. I was a bit anxious while finishing the topstitching because all the seams in the pieced section had added a bit of bulk.

I tested the sleeve with my old 1992 passport from when our family took a summer trip to Europe. I thought  it would be a treat for my readers to see my vintage passport!

Now that I've tested the tutorial, I guess I'll have to make myself a passport sleeve for my trip to QuiltCon!

Eleanor at seven months

I love this girl! This fall, Eleanor is becoming a little person right before our eyes and it's so much fun!

Ever since she turned six months old, she's been trying a variety of solid foods. Her preferred method of eating is through her cheeks.

She still fits in the baby bathtub and she doesn't mind when we do silly things with her hair.

She can be found hanging out in the Ergo most days (she's in the Ergo as I write this, bending over backward to try to see the screen).

She turned seven months old yesterday, so we did another photoshoot on her quilt.

She can sit up unassisted for several seconds, sometimes even for a minute or two. 

She now has two teeth (one on the bottom and one on the top!). 

And she's basically an adorably chubby sweetheart! Happy 7 months, Ellie!

Ellie at five months

Eleanor is now five months old and I thought it was time for a couple pictures of my cutie. She's an easy-going, happy baby who adores her big sister. She has tons of hair, drools like crazy, and is about to cut teeth, I'm sure of it! She has found her feet and likes to hold both at once. She has also discovered her tongue and makes the funniest faces!

 Sophia reading to Miss Ellie (recognize the quilt?)

 Eleanor loves her Jolly Jumper

Making faces at her five month photo shoot