Storms & Fabric

A little fact about me...I am married. I live in Ottawa, Ontario and my husband lives in the Catskills in New York. Sure, long distance relations have their challenges, like super storms coming aground and you are not together. So this week, as Cyclone Sandy threatened NY, I headed South to hole up with my hubby and our "Kids" (two cats and the sweetest dog ever). We were a lot luckier than those on the coast. We did have rain and wind, but with our 12 hrs of power loss and all of our trees still standing we consider ourselves very lucky.

When the power goes out - it's card and ice cream for us (It could have melted and been wasted!)

One of the benefits of a cross-border romance is the shopping! I often order fabric from US websites and have shipped to my NY home (I sound pretty important huh? "NY home", trust me, not so much). The thing is, when I visit NY I get super surprises in the mail, because I often forget what I have ordered. So this visit was awesome, because there have been some great sales on at Pink Chalk Fabrics and the Fat Quarter Shop. Here's what I got:

Perfectly Perched – Laurie Wisburn

Kumari Garden – Tara Stone

Hope Valley – Denyse Schmidt

Le Dee Da – Erin McMorris

Bijoux & Nicey Jane – Heather Bailey

Baker Quilt Blocks – Ellen Luckett

Cameo & Midwest Modern– Amy Butler

Bella – Lotta Jansdotter

Metro Heaven & Helsinki – Patty Young

And a great pattern - cannot wait to try this one.

So, with all of this travelling, storming and shopping, there has not been much sewing this week. But things are looking up...next week is vacation for me, and I have brought my postage stamps along with me to work on.

Next week is all about sleeping in and quilting. Yay me!

Thanks for stopping by

Adrienne

Stamps: W.I.P. Wednesday

1,200. That is the number of 2" squares I placed and fused yesterday.

I am following Elizabeth Hartman's tutorial using fusible interfacing to make 100 square blocks. The technique is just awesome. I needed to start by making myself a pressing board. A quick trip to Home Depot and I had a piece of plywood. Some spare fabric, batting, a staple gun and good ole' duct tape (my Dad's fave) and I am set!

Another trip to the fabric store and I found a rocking deal on fusible interfacing. It was marked with a grid, but I found my 2 inch squares overlapped the grid, so I just made sure I started with one side of super straight blocks and then moved out from there. Elizabeth was right, you really need a "scant 2" block" for this project. Nevertheless, I am super happy with how pretty they look. Now to sew all of those suckers together!

So when I started cutting my scraps up, I thought I might have enough for two or three 100 square blocks. I had enough to make 12! So depending on layout, I could make one or two quilt tops... Any layout ideas for me?

Thanks
Adrienne

W.I.P....Thursday?

Still on the road, in the hotel, working. So that is my excuse for being a day late with this little post. And by little I mean brief. Not too much done on my postage stamp quilt except that all the "stamps" are cut!

Now I am feeling a little nervous about how I am going to handle theses 2 inch gems. Stay tuned to see if I get my nerves settled and make something gorgeous...

Thank you for stopping by
Adrienne

Getting Creativ

Yes people I can spell...but I am trying to be clever here, bear with me. Today I had to come to Toronto for work, so I took advantage of being in the big city and went to the Creativ Festival.

Here's the thing - I hale from Halifax Nova Scotia, population 300,000. I currently live in Ottawa Ontario, population 900,000. Today driving in Toronto I had to deal with 2.6 million people. OK, so maybe not all 2.6, but a friggin lot of them were in cars, in traffic. Bottom line of this little numbers lesson - I never want to permanently live in a big city, too many people.

                              these are all new buildings downtown to house ALL of the people...

But I did have a good time at the Festival. Of course, the best fun was buying some new fabric. Mad About Patchwork was there with all kinds of goodies...

I treated myself to a half-yard bundle of Bella by Lotta Jansdotter. If you have not seen this yet, you are going to want some... so pretty, clean and a little Swedish!

Also, could not help getting a couple (OK, maybe 13) FQs of Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee. Just plain lovely.

and... my dirty secret, I find it hard to leave a craft show without a piece of jewellery. I was trying to be strong this time, but I happened upon Dotti Potts Clay Design & Pottery and bought this adorable pendant. Cute right!?

So I am going to be away from the sewing machine for a whole week, but I was determined not to get behind on my postage stamp project. So while my hotel room usually looks like this...

                             Process mapping madness

This week it looks like this

                               Cutting station!

Here's to travelling quilt projects! What do you do with your projects when you are away from home, leave them home alone or take them with you?

Thanks for stopping by

Adrienne

W.I.P. Wednesday

You know what? There is a whole lot going on in the on-line modern quilting community. I find I have been spending more time looking at others blogs than I have been actually working on my own quilts. Enough I say! Time for me to get back into the swing of things. About all I have had time for lately is Bee Blocks, but I long for the feeling of a big finish!

So, I am making a commitment to you and ME to start bogging at least once a week. I definitely work better with a goal, so here we go! I have seen W.I.P. around a lot in my surfing. If you are like me, you did not immediately know that it stands for Work In Progress. What a better way to kick off my weekly update than with works in progress. Thanks to Lee at Freshly Pieced for coming up with the W.I.P. Wednesday gem.

After my Sunday Post, I looked at my scraps, and I looked at the HSTs and the scraps won! They were too delicious to pass up.

Once I had decided what fabric I wanted to use in my next project I spent way too much time thinking about a pattern. Let's Keep it simple - Postage Stamp it is. The best thing about a postage stamp? It will go together easy, and I can see all of those awesome fabrics in one place!

I don't think there is a wrong way to make a postage stamp quilt, but I did see a great tutorial at Red Pepper Quilts that seemed nifty. I think I might also try some quilt as you go in this project too, I'll keep you posted!(get it :)).

So tonight I started cutting....

For my bigger scraps, 2 x 7 strips with a plan for 16-patch strip pieced blocks with a random layout. I do have a lot of smaller scraps which will need to be trimmed to 2 inch square. I see a lot of cutting in my future.

For the fabric devotees like myself, in this pile of scraps you will find bits from: Lotus - Amy Butler &
Fresh Cut - Heather Bailey(which I am excited to hear is back in print).

Better get back to cutting. Thanks fro dropping by.
Adrienne

October...A fresh start?

So at least I am hear just a month late! My big project at work is starting to slow down, so I am finally home, having some quality time with my sewing machine (and my very own bed!). Being on London Ontario for the last four months has been a huge learning experience. But now I want to do some more learning with fabric and thread :)

So, after much turkey and all of the fixings I am at the machine today catting up on some unfinished projects and maybe starting a new one (cross your fingers!). 

So what did I catch up on you ask? Stash Bee Blocks!

A Wonky Log Cabin - this block was fun and easy to make. Even though I know this is meant to be a stash busting bee, I am always worried the fabrics that I pick will match with the other participants. But from the in progress picture below, it fit right in.

A Dresden - All I can say about this block is AGGRAVATION! I invested in a new Dresden ruler to make life easier, but after two tries I could not get the block to "close" without significant puckering. The worst part is that I am not sure what I was doing wrong. I ended up sending this block (such as it was), and a lot of extra fabric so that the hive leader for the month could make another...

A Flower - This is October's block and I am not going to lie, it freaked me out! Design a flower in my head and then make it! Crazy talk. But some exploring on flicker, I found some inspiration and off I went. It was very simple and I got a chance to play around with the applique stitches on my machine which was fun.

So, it's 3:30, plenty of time to put in another movie and start something new. I have a pile of scraps on my floor begging to be made into postage stamps, and I have some amazing fall color squares waiting for half square triangle time....what to do?

Come visit again to see who won!

Adrienne