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!

The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meets this Thursday!

Sophia showing off the door prize

Each third Thursday of the month since June 2010, when I started the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, I have been laughing with, learning from, and being inspired by my friends at our guild meeting. The meetings are a highlight of my month and I love them! Our February meeting is coming up on Thursday the 16th and I've made a little Valentine's-themed door prize to give away. It's a log cabin needle book made using Christina - The Sometimes Crafter's pattern. I don't get a lot of time at the sewing machine these days, so it was fun to have a small project that came together quickly and easily!

What is a needle book, you ask? It's a handy organizer to keep your needles tucked away while you're working on a hand sewing project. I've never had one before and I've already picked out some fabrics to make one for myself!

The needles are pinned into the "pages" of the book, which are made from 100% wool felt that I found at local art shop Collage Collage. I've never used wool felt before and it's quite luxurious - the pins slide into it like butter!

So, if you want a chance to win this needle book and other lovely prizes, come on by the VMQG's February meeting at Langara College. I hope to see you there!

Sew-In Success!

One of the many things I love about being a member of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild is going to our sew-in days. I had a great time at the January sew-in and although I spent much of the time socializing and keeping Amy from her sewing machine, I was actually quite productive! I managed to piece the blocks I'd received in the Red and Aqua Bee into a quilt top. Since I had sewn up my sample block at the very first VMQG sew-in back in January 2011, I thought it was appropriate to sew up the quilt top one year later!

Seven-months-pregnant Holly with sample block, January 2011

Voila! A pieced top! (photo by Amy)

It was great to have a design wall at the sew-in so I could play with the blocks and get advice from my quilting friends. I'm happy with how the quilt is coming together and plan to give it to Eleanor when she turns one in March. Here's hoping I can keep up the motivation and finish this quilt by Ellie's first birthday!

Even though I haven't worked on this since January 22nd, I'm going to link up to Lee's WIP Wednesday on Freshly Pieced. 

Potential

This photo from last Saturday shows all my cross stitch supplies ready to be put into use on a new and exciting project. I haven't cross stitched for over a decade, but it all came back to me quickly and I'll reveal the project I made very soon (just have to finish a few last details!). In the meantime, you can browse weelittlestitches' pattern shop and decide which pop culture pixel people you just have to make!

Thanks to Austen Gilliland of the make + do blog for the inspiration to post a crafty photo today!

Star Wars Snowflakes

My Yoda snowflake

I saw these templates for making your own Star Wars paper snowflakes on Apartment Therapy, I had to drop everything and make one. We're fans of both Star Wars and intricate paper snowflakes at this house, so it was a no brainer. Twenty minutes with an exacto knife, my back-up cutting mat, and a piece of printer paper and my Yoda snowflake was ready for display. Now that it has finally snowed in Vancouver (a rare event, to be sure!), I thought it was the perfect day to show you my snowflake. Let me know if you make one!

WIP Wednesday

It's been a very productive week for me! I've finished off two projects and it feels great.

1) Kona challenge bookshelf miniquilt: sleeve added, binding finished, label added.

2) Equilateral triangle and patchwork squares potholders for VMQG-FVMQG swap: started and completed in four days.

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