June 17th is the 1st meeting of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild!

Ever since I heard about the LA Modern Quilt Guild, I've been wishing there was a Modern Quilt Guild here in Vancouver. I'm happy to announce, that I've found a way to make that happen! I proudly announce the first meeting of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild!

Time: June 17, 2010 from 7pm to 9pm

Location: Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge

Street: 101-649 E. 15th Ave.

City/Town: Vancouver, BC

Phone: (604) 879-3031

Join us on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 for the inaugural meeting of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild at Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge! This is the place to be if you love fresh, modern quilts!

Come to this informal meeting to meet other fabric lovers, show us your modern quilts, and share your ideas for what this guild could become! Stay tuned for more details (door prizes anyone?).

A huge thanks goes out to Lili and Henry, who have created the amazing Spool of Thread Sewing Lounge! They are gracious hosts who are genuinely excited to meet some local modern quilters. I'm also grateful for the support of Austen Gilliland, who writes for Canadian Living magazine and wrote a post about our meeting her Make + Do blog. Of course, I must also thank my husband, Dean, for putting up with my never-ending quilting chatter during our morning runs!

Feast your eyes on Blogger's Quilt Festival!

HST Overload by Red Pepper Quilts

Have you had the chance to check out the 3rd Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side? As of 6:00pm on Saturday, May 22nd, 427 bloggers have shared the story behind one of their favourite quilts. I added my most modern quilt and have had tons of commenters visiting my blog (yay!). You can add your own post until Friday, May 28th and there are great prizes up for grabs! If you don't have a blog, you can visit all the participating blogs - there's quite an array!

Enjoy!

Here are a few quilts that caught my eye:

Little Folks Ruffle Quilt by Bijou Lovely

Stepping Stones by Sew Katie Did

Colorbrick by Stitched in Color

Whirly Gigs Quilt by Rose Room Quilts

Sea Glass by Strandz

My Blogger's Quilt Festival Quilt

It's Blogger's Quilt Festival this week and I'm sharing Gabriel's Baby Quilt, a 41" x 46" quilt that I finished in July, 2009. My dear friend had her first baby and I gave him this quilt. It was the first quilt I made since I got hooked on modern quilting and it's my favourite quilt to date!

I thought I'd share the process from start to finish.

I headed to The Cloth Shop and picked out fabrics from Paula Prass's Flights of Fancy line in the ocean colourway.

I fussy cut the Par Avion fabric to highlight the birds and butterflies.

I (with lots of help from Dean) laid out the fabrics and balanced the colours and patterns.

I used Finn's quilt pattern from Chickpea Sewing Studio.

After piecing the top, I sent it all off to the longarm quilter.

I love the hand stitched stripy binding and mitered corners! In comparison, I give you my first quilt (completed in Spring 1997) with square corners and machine stitched binding.

It was stipple quilted by Jackee Thaysen of Jackee's Quiltworks.

I used one piece of the fun polka-dotted fabric for the back.

Writing the label directly on to the backing was nerve wracking, but I love how it turned out!

I'm so glad to share this quilt with you! Head to Amy's Creative Side to check out the list of other Blogger's Quilt Festival participants. There are nearly 250 participants as of May 21st!

First attempt at fabric cards

I made my first fabric cards this week and I'm pretty darn happy with the results! This was a collaborative project; Sophie chose all the fabrics and I sewed them to the blank cards. I was inspired by seeing some fabric cards on Dana's blog. Her tutorial is here. It's based on a project from the book Denyse Schmidt Quilts, which I was given for Christmas (thanks, Jan & Ken!), so I pulled out my copy for reference while putting together the cards.

The rainbow card went to my Grandma and the Earth Day card is waiting for a lucky recipient.

In other sewing news, I received this great fat quarter (1/4 yard of fabric) from Georgi in Whitehorse yesterday! We were partners in the Sew, Mama, Sew! FQ Swap that is part of their Quilt Month celebrations. As soon as I opened up the handmade envelope, Sophie said, "You should make some more fabric cards with that!" Good idea, Sophie!

The Snail and the Whale

Our house is full of books, especially kids' books, and a great one that we were introduced to by the lovely Mia is "The Snail and the Whale" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. It's a lovely story of an adventurous snail who hitches a lift on the tail of a humpback whale in order to see the world.


When I bought Sophie some whale pajamas from the consignment store, she requested that I add a snail on the tail of the whale. This week, I finally pulled out my needle and thread and granted her wish.


We were both pleased with the results!

Bike the Blossoms

If you're in Vancouver this weekend, hop on a bike and join the 3rd annual Bike the Blossoms ride! It's part of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival and it runs from 10-4 on Saturday, April 17, 2010. Our family did the ride in 2009 and had a great time!

Bicycle print by My Little Buffalo

Sophie says: "I would like to have a brown and blue bicycle like that sometimes."

I say: "I'd love a copy of this print with a red bike!"

Spotted this great bike print by My Little Buffalo on Etsy. Spotted her shop via Handmade Evolution.