Kona challenge quilt finished!

Sophie with my completed Kona challenge quilt

Cross one project off the WIP list - I've finished my Kona challenge miniquilt! I used Don't Call Me Betsy's bookshelf quilt tutorial to create "Nancy's Library" for my Aunt Nancy who retired this year from a career as a librarian. It's finally complete and I'll send it off in the mail asap.

Back in March (right when I was welcoming baby Ellie into the world), the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild announced they'd be participating in Robert Kaufman's Kona cotton challenge. Each quilter was given a dark charm pack (43 five inch squares) and challenged to make a quilt adding only solids. I made sure they saved a charm pack for me as I was determined to play along. I didn't get anything done for the big reveal at our one year anniversary meeting in June, but I did manage to have my quilt ready for show and tell at our August meeting.

The dark colours reminded me of book bindings, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make a bookshelf quilt. Since the pieces were only five by five, I had to piece every single book using three to seven pieces. Observant Harry Potter fans may notice a few familiar spines. 

The state of my quilt as of August, 2011 (note stray threads and binding pinned down)

Since all the fun stuff was done, this is where the quilt sat for months. Finally, I pulled it out at the November sew-in and added the sleeve (thanks to Terry for giving me some tips about pulling the sleeve up a quarter inch before hand stitching it down to allow for a hanging rod!) and stitched down the binding. Now, I only had to add the label. I really wanted to continue the library theme and make the label an old school paper due date card. This is what I came up with:

Here are a few pictures of the finished quilt: 

Book titles (thanks to Dean for mentioning I was about to fuse them on upside down!) read:

Red Letter Day by Lizzy House (because retirement is a red letter day!)

It's a Hoot by Momo

Sophie's Garden (a nod to my daughter, Sophie)

Flights of Fancy by Paula Prass

Central Park by Kate Spain (in honour of our family's frequent trips to NYC)

Quilt back complete with hanging sleeve, label, and every square inch of the remainder of the charm pack

Label detail

Books detail

Details:

19"x26.5"

Kona cotton charm pack (dark)

Assorted selvages fused on with Wonder Under

Kona snow as background

Kona coffee (mmm, sounds yummy!) for bookshelf and binding

Cotton/bamboo blend batting

Quilting: outlines just inside each book as well as around the tops of all the books

Potholder progress

The current state of my potholder 

(sorry for the bad photo, it's a dark and rainy night here in Vancouver)

After carefully (I thought!) going through all my works in progress in order to write my first WIP Wednesday post, I neglected to list the potholders, my most time-sensitive WIP! This is why I need a list!

Here in the Lower Mainland, we're lucky to have two modern quilt guilds, the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild. To build community between the two groups, we're having our first VMQG-FVMQG Swap this fall. We're making two potholders for our partners and the deadline to send them is November 30th. 

I've been going back and forth about my design for weeks but have finally settled on something I've been wanting to try for a long time - equilateral triangles. I've cut enough triangles for one potholder and now I just need to piece them together. I'm thinking I'll do them in strips but wondering if I need to press the seams after every triangle. Does anyone have any tips?

WIP Wednesday

At the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild Sew-in on Sunday, I told Amy I was planning on joining in on WIP Wednesdays, so I thought I'd better live up to my word and write this post!

My sewing space

I loved the idea of checking in on my works in progress, but I didn't have a list of them and I was starting to feel scattered. The other night, I sat down and broke down my projects into three categories: 

1) Works in progress

2) Planned projects that aren't started yet

3) Wish list for when I have oodles of free time (aka never)

Here are the details:

1) Works in Progress (8):

•  Kona challenge bookshelf miniquilt (binding finished, just needs label)

• Colour wheel quilt (rainbow wedges are cut)

• Habitat challenge double diamonds baby quilt (quilt top is pieced)

• Red and Aqua Bee square in square quilt (quilt blocks arrived in Spring 2011)
• Little Folks voile patchwork quilt for me (fabric cut into squares)
• Spring Garden Rainbow baby quilt (blocks made but I don't like them)
• Strip-pieced picnic quilt (I've cut a few strips of old fabrics)
• Paper-pieced hexagons (basted a couple dozen hexagons)

 2) Materials/pattern purchased, no work started (10):

• Gift for someone who reads my blog
• Ditto
• Ditto
• Ditto
• Gift for VMQG holiday exchange (December 15, 2011)

• Busytown pillowcase for Sophia (Christmas 2011)
• Log cabin pincushion from kit I won at November VMQG meeting
• Ladybug costume for Sophia from fleece
• Gift bag for Grandma Lou using Xmas fabric she gave me 

 3) Ideas/Wish List (8):

• Wonky stars quilt in blue and orange for the preschool (either for house corner or silent auction or both)
• Label for Sock Monkey quilt given to me by VMQG members in December 2010
• Label for Eleanor’s baby quilt
• Stockings for our family for Christmas 2013
• Christmas tree skirt
• Bunting flag banner
• Swoon quilt
• Valentine’s heart flannel pillow for Sophia

That's a total of 26 projects I'm either working on or would like to do. That's a pretty full list! And don't get me started on my Pinterest tutorials board full of projects I'd love to make sometime. Well, at least I've started keeping track. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it, right?

Habitat challenge progress

The big reveal for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's Habitat challenge happens tomorrow night at our guild meeting. This is where I'm at right now. 144 HSTs, all trimmed to four inches. Will it become a quilt top by tomorrow night? Attend our meeting* and find out!

*our meeting location has changed and our temporary spot for tomorrow night is at a private residence - spread the word and email president@vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca for more info!

p.s. if you need more incentive to come to the meeting, check out what arrived in my mailbox today to add to the door prize stash:

Yes! Lark Books kindly sent our guild a copy of Pretty in Patchwork: Doll Quilts by Cathy Gaubert for one lucky member. Will it be you? Here are a few peeks into this lovely little book:

Diamond Lattice

Cupcake Quilt

Mod Log Cabin

Happy Halloween!

Carving elaborate pumpkins is a tradition for us. We've been at it since university, so we've had over 15 years of fun. You can see many of our pumpkins from 2003 to the present in Dean's flickr set. Every year we choose a theme (a few recent ones have been "Where the Wild Things Are", Popeye, Asterix, and Star Wars). 

2011 has been the year of Shaun the Sheep around our house, so we thought it fitting to carve Shaun the Sheep characters for our 2011 pumpkin theme. Shaun and his gang get up to all sorts of hilarious adventures and they've brought lots of laughter to our lives this year! 

Here they are:

Shaun the Sheep, carved by Holly

Timmy, the baby of the flock, carved by Holly

Bitzer, the beleagured sheep dog, carved by Dean

One of the naughty pigs, carved by Dean

 

Happy Halloween!

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!

Halloween Guild Meeting

It's the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's October meeting tonight, hooray! I always look forward to these meetings and have a great time at them. Tonight will be my first meeting as guild president, wow! I thought I'd add a little seasonal decoration, so I made a VMQG mini pumpkin (It's proudly showing off on top of the sock monkey quilt the guild gave me last year). See you there!