A new technology affair and some quilting

Where have I been??

I have fallen in LOVE...with an iPad. (Yes...I realize that this may make me sound like I have my priorities out of whack....and YES, I do know that it is not a person...but I still have a deep affection for my iPad). This is the first big tech item that I have ever purchased for myself, and man is it FUN!


Also...have you discovered Pinterest yet? If you are a visual person (like me) then this is the place for you. It is essentially an on-line version of an "ideas" bulletin board. So much inspiration! You can find me on Pinterest here. The combination of the iPad and Pinterest together is deadly. It's like a time sucking vortex. You have been warned.

In spite of all of the summer time spent with my family and iPad, I have managed to complete some crafting. A long time family friend had a baby this month. I didn't know if the baby was to be a boy or girl, but I did know that her parents like colour!

Tada!
Close up (with polka dot binding):


The back (you can see that I opted for my usual favourite - straight line quilting 1/4" on either side of the seams):
This quilt definitely delivers on the colour front! I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope that baby Marion and her parents like it as much as I do.

With great power comes great responsiblity

Yes...my husband is a comic book geek (and the most lovely man!). My craft geek honours his comic geek with this Spiderman post title!

I was the lucky recipient of a DSLR this Christmas - a Canon EOS Rebel T1i. Fancy-dancy.

I have long hated my little point-and-shoot piece of nonsense. The quality of the pictures was so low that I was rarely taking pictures (and was frustrated with how few were usable!). It was the second point and shoot that we had purchased in as many years.

OK - the truth people??! I am just a little bit afraid of this camera. It is intimidating. Somebody who carries this kind of camera should be able to take a decent shot.

I am looking into courses. There doesn't really seem to be much for somebody who really just wants the basic "tell me aaaaall about exposure, f-stops and the like, please". Mostly they are "make me into a creative genius" courses. Maybe I just need to read a book to start??

Was anybody else intimidated by their much desired piece of technology? How did you start? Any recommendations?

I thought about not telling you all about my new exciting Christmas gift (thus the delay in posting about it - it's February!?!). I hoped that you might think I was becoming more talented with my point and shoot. ;)

The quality of images on this blog may or may not get better! In the meanwhile, bear with me. Some of my shots will be weird.

Down for the count and the fabric flea market

It's been a while since I have been around these parts. I have been down for the count over the last couple of months. Turns out that my never-ending autumn cold was pneumonia. I have mostly been sleeping over the last 6 weeks. BORING! I'm starting to return to my normal self (thank you antibiotics!) and so I hope to see much more of you around this blog. I also hope to be back into some crafty pursuits. Sleeping is not a very creative pursuit.

I wanted to share some of my happy finds from the "Fabric Flea Market" this year. I look forward to the market day like a 4-year-old looks forward to Christmas morning. The sale this year did not disappoint! Here are my acquisitions. Feel free to drool a little bit.

Hoops. A hand stitch lover can't have too many of these! (yes, I also bought the gorgeous vintage fabric underneath the hoops. I think that it is a "brocade"?? It has a texture to it - feel free to correct me if I am calling it the wrong thing).




Buttons. Yum. You may remember that I love them so.




Love:

Vintage cotton thread on wooden spools! I adore the flood of colour. Just one question....Can you actually sew with old cotton thread? I'm inclined to say yes...is that just wishful thinking on my part???

FABRIC!:

Looks like vintage sheets, but is really vintage fabric - love it!:

I think that this fabric is my favourite! Do these ladies remind you of anyone?

Don't they look like Mary Poppins???

(image source)

Lacey bits. Some seem to be vintage. I suspect that some are not. I have no idea what I will do with them, but I love them!

Last year I bought every piece of gingham that crossed my path. This year I couldn't pass up a polka dot. (Why yes! That is some Amy Butler fabric on the top of the pile.).

The fabrics have been washed, ironed and added to my stash. now I just need to come up with the perfect projects so that I have the courage to cut into them.

Loveliness...

I'm sure that you have heard by now that the Victoria & Albert Museum (in London) is having a quilting exhibit.

When I travelled to London a few years ago, missing the V&A was high on my list of "Oooo....I wish that I had more time so that I could have seen that!" regrets. I am practically frothing at the mouth now with all of the exciting details of the quilting exhibit!

I followed the links to the V&A on-line shop. Loveliness! I am particularly taken with these scarves, which are crocheted, not quilted, but remind me of all of the hex-y love that is happening in the quilting world.

link to scarf in the V&A shop

fabric-palooza

OK, so this is really just a greedy post about fabric. It looks like a LOT (and it is a LOT), but I hasten to point out that it comes from three separate purchases over the last few months (some of which were gifts). Please don't judge me harshly for my greedy fabric addiction. I am planning to join a 12-step program as soon as one is available for fabric collection.


My mom came for a visit and asked (naively and sweetly!) if there was anything that I would like her to bring. UMmmmmm...our IKEA doesn't sell any fabric, but it sure looks fun. I sent her and my sister off on an expedition to pick out their favourites and surprise me. Here is what they liked:

This is the only one that I specifically requested, I kind of like the idea of it pulled over stretcher frames as an artwork:

The the lovely Donna (have you noticed that I always call her the lovely Donna?) from Kindred Crafters was placing an order with Pink Chalk Fabrics (a great place to buy fabric!). Sometimes we pool our orders and save on international shipping! Here is what I succumbed to:

Kona solids (pomegranate and celery) and one Japanese print

Some lovely Denyse Schmidt Hope Valley in the New Day and Fiesta colour ways.

Then I decided that my birthday was coming and that I should really treat myself since there was such an AMAZING sale at Fabric.com. I bought a whack of Anna Maria Horner (Garden Party) fabrics for almost free! I believe that they worked out to around $3/yard. It would have been silly to pass them up, non?

Some random other fabrics that I picked out because they were on sale (and I liked them!) and it is always $25 for international shipping. Gotta get my $$ worth from the shipping right? The only solution? Lots of yardage. Lots. It brings down the shipping vs. yard ratio and is therefore a bargain, right? Don't you dare correct me on this delusion! ;)

Finally, some decor weight Amy Butler August Fields. Hmm...the colour is mintier than I had imagined.

And so closes my chapter in greed. I have been busily stitching for my partner in the { Urban } HOME Goods modern swap. I'll post some sneaky hint posts in the coming days.

EeEEEE - look what was waiting for me at home today!

I quickly tore into the package to reveal:


Check out the sweet little gnome faces!:


I will probably drop these little gnome friends into the wash fairly quickly to make sure that they don't fade on me. There has been some talk on Flickr that the fabrics aren't as colourfast as they ought to be....although it sounds like this isn't true for all colours (luckily!).

The Spoonflower colours are lovely and bright (YUM!), but the fabric is not nearly as soft as Heather Ross's fabric from Free Spirit.

They do however, have lovely gnomes and mushrooms which I was not lucky enough to purchase on their first run. Don't you just love the selvage edges of the fabric?

I had to laugh...while I was snapping pictures (under my bad dining room light because I just can't wait until daylight tomorrow morning!), my son shoved his truck onto the table. "Here Mommy" he said "Take a picture of my backhoe so that you will have a really pretty picture!".

OK Evan. Here is a "really pretty picture". Lovely Heather Ross fabrics and my son's favourite "Mighty Machine". True loveliness!

Too much temptation

OK, so I was starting to loose sleep with worry....what if it was gone before I could get to it??? It's not good to live a life of stress. Not good. So here is what I did....

I went to the Spoonflower web-site just to see what Heather Ross had put together for her limited run there. Kiss of death. Here is what is coming to live with me at my house!

And this:
And finally, in all it's dotty goodness:



Perhaps it will become a baby blanket for a friend? Perhaps I won't be able to part with it! It may just end up washed, ironed, lovingly folded and stacked.

I do love the idea of doing this or this with the fabric! Any other ideas that this fabric inspires for you? Please do share!

The gimme gimmes

Oh dear...

Do you remember this playground song from when you were a kid?:

Gimme, gimme, never get

Don't you know your manners yet?!

Yeeeeaaaaahhhhh....that's what I hear running through my head when I see that the Heather Ross gnomes and mushrooms are being reprinted.

My next marriage...

....will be to this rug!




It is of course designed by a Danish company. I even looked up the price of it...y'know, just in case! If my calculations are correct, it translates to around $400 CDN for a 90cm rug and somewhere around $1000 CDN for 140cm (plus of course shipping costs). I didn't even look up the price for the bigger size. Our house was built in 1906. The living room is NOT large.

Don't worry...I'm not impulse buying a Danish rug...but it is fun to think about such a lovely bright item on a day that looks like this:

Grey...oh so grey!!!

Sara - thanks for bringing this bit of colourful loveliness to my attention (via this blog).

I stitched and stitched last night...I think that I should be done my next cross-stitch project by the end of the weekend to show...prepare yourselves to see some RED. It's another project from A Rainbow of Stitching...

Greedy girl treat herself

I travelled to the Boxing Day (week!) sales with restraint in mind. Truly not my forte if I'm honest. I had a 50% off coupon. It would have been wrong and wasteful not to use it, non?

Behold! The thing that I didn't know that I needed/wanted until I saw it:

Please don't misunderstand. I don't regret my purchase...just my lack of discipline! Please be reminded...it was HALF price!

I immediately set to work cutting all of my Christmas cards into tags so that they will be ready for next year.

Here is what I started with:

My clever new cutter even lets you "preview" where the cuts will happen.

Don't forget that there is prime tag making material on the back of the cards too!

Here is the cute little stack that resulted:

What a marvellous, non-wasteful self-serving purchase!

I was quite please with my work until my son (who is 3 years old) came into the craft room and asked why I had cut up all of his "happy cards". "I am very angry with you Mommy!" he scolded. Whoops.

Should I be ashamed to confess that I'd do it all again???

Oh joy! Oh bliss!

Look what was waiting for me when I got home from work today...A box full of surprises! (weeeell...not reeeeally surprises...more like impulsive Internet purchases).

Shall we take a look at all of the treasures inside?

Sorted and stacked and ready for inspection:

Fabric.com had the Denyse Schmidt "Country Fair" line on sale for $2.99/yard people! I would have jumped on the blog to share the happy find, but I discovered the sale around 11:30 pm and it was over at midnight. If you haven't had the chance to hold this fabric in your hot little hands you might not know that it is a lovely thick weight. I'm not really sure if they would call it decor weight, probably more like a linen weight?

I seem to have developed a fondness for toadstools. I believe that this fabric is from a line called "Shade Garden". It was also on a sale too amazing to pass up.

Finally, we have orange. Not on sale orange. Just orange. The fabric at the bottom is for the quilt that I am making my sister for Christmas. The other orange is going to be used for an iPod cover. There was a special request for orange...and who am I to pass up an opportunity to acquire some lovely cheerful orange for my stash?

Finally, thanks for all of the button comments. Glad to know that there are so many others out there who have such happy memories of sorting through button jars. I'll do a random draw at the end of this week. The lucky winner will get some random selection of buttons. That will be part of the fun...I'll just take a few mitt-fulls to provide some happy button sorting time for a fellow blogger.