midsummer post

Wow. 

It's been hot here.

I could handle the heat a lot better before I had kids.  Now I seem to overheat a lot faster.  Maybe that's because I'm sensitive to how my kids handle the heat.  D seems to take it in stride, and K gets cranky, though she still sleeps like a champ.

The other day I plunked the excersaucer in the pool along with D so K could get some cool feet.  She was happy for a good 20 minutes, and then she'd had enough of D's sporadic splashing.

Yesterday we hit 28°C, but with the humidity it felt more like 43°C.  It was an absolute wall of heat when you walked out of an air conditioned building.  Then that night, we had a flash storm - thunder, lightning, some hail, and it poured. 

Not so bad as to the south of us though.  Edmonton/St. Albert got large hail.  

And even further south, Calgary and High River have had severe flooding in the last month.  The water has gone down now, but many people have lost their homes and business, even jobs because of the floods. 

Cheryl from Dining Room Empire has put out a call to her quilty friends to make and send her slab quilt blocks so she can make quilts for those affected by the flooding.

She writes:

Just a slab. One slab. Grab some scraps of fabric and sew them together.

Maybe you can't spare the fabric or time or postage to send a whole quilt as we try to recover in Calgary and Southern Alberta. That's okay. But I bet you can make just one block. And the more of you that can make and send just one block, the more quilts we'll be able to donate. I will put all the blocks I get together into quilts. With an army of local long armers lined up to donate their time we will get some beds and hearts covered in no time

Can you make a block?

 I hope to make some in the next couple days.  I have the scraps for it, so why not.

I finally received my PTS10 package yesterday.  Turns out I needed an angel, and what a wonderful angel I was given!  Kristine made me this gorgeous pillow in some of my favourite colours.  She also sent me some scraps and my first ever roll of washi tape. 

And now that the heat wave has subsided, I've gone and sewed something!
This little beauty is my first ever attempt at QAYG, and it's not bad.  Not as 'focused' as I had hoped, and in some spots I actually covered an entire piece of fabric... oops.  But I love the colours.

This will become a mug rug for my Modern Scrappy Bits partner.  Not sure how to finish the back yet as the front is already quilted.  Maybe I'll have to quilt another piece and bind them together.

it's summer here

We've been having some gorgeous weather lately and I've been getting my hands dirty in the garden, mowing the lawn, sitting outside with D while she plays in her pool. Today she was running under the sprinkler with an umbrella.  We also recently got a buggy board for the stroller and we're back to walking again.  D is 3 and not fond of long walks.  I'm 30 and I am fond of long walks.  The solution was the buggy board.  Now D can stand and roll along with K and the stroller while I push all that weight and walk to my hearts content.

I've also had a few dress orders come through, so between all the summer fun, I've still been playing with fabric.

And I'm still sewing for the two bees I'm in.  This block I just finished today.

I sure hope I never have to make a block like that again.  It looks neat, but it took me forever to make and it took more thinking on my part than I think it should have.

I also made another block for the hexy bee, but I totally forgot to take a picture of it.

This is my Simply Solids reward.  

I got all the members to make a large triangle from small triangles.  They each got a random bunch of colours and had to randomly piece them together.  

By the end of it, one member seems to have disappeared and so no block from her.

I came with a solution to fill the hole though.  First I was going to just use a single solid, but after playing around a bit, I went with three colours in each other.

I love how this turned out. 

Right now it's between lap and twin size.  Now I'm debating adding a border or not.  If I do, I will probably do a solid... Dark gray maybe.

pts10 finished!

I finished it, and just on time too, as the deadline to mail is Monday. 

I really challenged myself with this pillow.

Drafting a paper pieced patter.

Setting a circle into a square.

Putting a pillow together in a new to me way.  The zipper is on the bottom so this is a double sided pillow.  I followed this tutorial for a Zippered Pillow Cover from Make It and Love It.

Doing some random piecing - completely new for me!

And after all that, I hope my partner will love it as much as I do!

swaps and a gift

I sent this pillow cover out this week along with a little cathedral window pin cushion.  I also added scraps to this package, but didn't take a picture

.

My partner was silent as a church mouse and so I was a little nervous to send it.  Also, sadly and maybe badly to say, a little less enthusiastic to send it.  A swap is so much funner when you have a chatty or even slightly chatty partner.

And I do have a partner like that in the Pillow Talk {Swap}.  After stalking her, knowing she likes Catherineholm and low volume, I've put this together.  Not sure what background to go with yet.  I have a good week to decide before I commit.

all yellows...

grays and yellows...

I also finished up this hexy butterfly for the Get Your Hex On bee. 

 

To top off my good week, I got a super surprise in the mail.  Remember I got 'published'?  Well, Sew Sisters, despite sending me fabric to play with in the first place and then letting me keep what I'd made, sent me a Thank You gift for writing up a tutorial for them!

They were absolutely generous and sent me a 1/2 yard bundle of Kona solids and a charm pack of Summersville Spring by Lucie Summers.

I sense a quilt coming!

it's the weather

Haven't been blogging much... you can blame that on the beautiful weather we've been having.  I've been outside watering my flowers and planting some of my garden.  We even spent the afternoon outside on Monday and played in the pool!  

Anyway, here's a blog post... who knows when the next one will come!

I spent weeks making a tutorial for this pillow and an a few days it's posted and a giveaway is won.

 

ps. love the table top my husband made for me!  I sure do.

I never realized how much work goes into making tutorials.  I will never take tutorials for granted again.  

Right now, I'm working on a pillow cover for The Pillow Talk {Swap}.  I was having a bit of trouble choosing what to make for my partner as she likes low volume fabrics and I still don't have much of an idea of what constitutes low volume.  

My partner also seems to like stars and Dresden plates, but there is no way I'm going to tackle a Dresden plate now. For some odd reason, they kind of scare me.

Instead, I chose something different.  Much different.  I stalked my partner and found she likes the Catherineholm lotus design.  

After much searching, I couldn't find a pattern for sewing it up.  So I made a paper pieced pattern using a free download program called Quilt Assistant.  It's not exactly symmetrical, but you can't tell from looking at it.

Just have two left to make and then I have a whole.  Then I have to find a way to make the blue round and then I will square it off with some, what I think are, low volume prints. Just hope she likes the graphic design of this pillow.  Wish me luck!

I'm also busy finishing off some orders for dresses.  Here's a Maxi Dress with a double ruffle.  Little D is a size 4, and she's modelling a size 3 here, so it's a bit short.  She also insisted on holding these silk flowers she found.

 

And you know what?  After I spent some time designing this dress and figuring out measurements, Violette Threads comes out with a similar pattern. 

Only differences are the flutter straps and their bodice is squares whereas mine is rounded.  

Great minds think alike I guess.

Last thing.
If you are Canadian and you're interested in swapping fat eighths with some other Canadians, I started a Flickr group for us called F8 Swap Canadian Edition. It's the first swap I've organized, but since it's not large, only 8 swappers to a group, I think it might be a good place to start. 
Wanna join us?

published!

A little nervous and a little excited - the first tutorial I've ever written has been posted over at Sew Sisters.

Go check it out and enter to win a FQ bundle of the blues I used to make the Tangram pillow.