Monthly Archive for June, 2011

HAND QUILTED HOOP TRAVEL BAG

Published on June 29, 2011 in patchwork, scraps and stitchery. 9 Comments Tags: hand quilting, sunday patchwork, The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery, Travel Hoop Bag.

No matter how busy I am, I make sure that I carve out some time in my week to sit down and do some crafting for myself. Especially right now, these little projects are keeping me sane!

You might recognize this as a Sunday Patchwork project. I had decided that the pieces needed to be hand quilted and made into a Hoop Travel Bag. I started the hand quilting back in March and I was finally able to finish it off when we went to the cottage.

Although I own a hoop bag already, this was the first one that I made. I had trimmed down my patchwork pieces to the final dimensions of the outside pieces in the Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery pattern and followed the instructions from there. It came together really quickly and was so fun to make. It took me just over an hour to construct the pouch and I was almost giddy when I finished it. Sewing is good therapy.

I am doing more and more handwork. It’s perfect for trips, stitching outside, watching movies and hanging with friends. Right now I’ve got an embroidery sampler project, a cross stitch project and an English paper piecing project in progress. Ideally, I’d like to have a hoop bag for each of these. So, I think I need to make myself at least two more. (an extra one for good luck)

COTTAGE

Published on June 24, 2011 in the workroom and traveling. 14 Comments Tags: cottage.

June hasn’t been my favourite month of the year, that’s for sure. It seems like I’ve spent the month focusing on problems and drama rather than moving forward. The biggest setback has been losing two months worth of our inventory and sales data at the workroom. I wrote about it here. It’s the kinda thing that you hope will never happen and when it does, (despite all your back-up systems) you are crushed with helplessness. Then you need to suck it up and work for several nights until 4am, 2am, 1am to start getting things back on track. If you’re really lucky, like me, when you ask for some help there is an outpouring of kind words, receipts (in person, emailed, photographed, scanned) and offers to do data entry. Thank you. So much.

If you’re just hearing about this now, we are still hoping to get as many of our receipts or emailed invoices from April 5-June 15, 2011. Even if it’s for a spool of thread or a class you took, we’d love to have a copy. No receipt is too small. We’ve been able to rebuild so much quicker with the receipts you have sent in so far. It’s taking a while to go through all your lovely emails, but you’ll hear from us very soon. Please read more details here, if you think you can help.

After four intense days of emergency computer mayhem. We took off to Andrew’s family cottage for 3 days. Perfect timing. Quiet. Escape. Hand stitching. Food. Naps. Nature. Family time.

NATURAL DYEING AT JULIE’S

Published on June 19, 2011 in clothing, delicious and natural dyeing. 8 Comments Tags: indigo, julie sinden, natural dyeing, shibori.

Thursday night, Julie hosted a fun backyard dyeing party for the students from the Advanced Natural Dyeing class. During the class we weren’t able to get the zinc lime indigo vat going properly, so Julie offered to have us over when she got one going successfully at home.

It was the perfect night to be outside eating fresh baked bread and cheese, drinking iced tea and experimenting with indigo. There were two indigo vats that Julie had going. One was a zinc lime indigo vat (you can see the ‘flower’ below that forms on top of the vat when it is ready for dyeing) and the other was a natural fermentation vat. We found the natural fermentation vat to be deeper in colour and I felt like I could try to do this type of indigo vat on my own. It was pretty exciting to try out other types of indigo. What is it about indigo blue?

I did some Itajime Shibori, which is created by simply folding and clamping your fabric. It’s so simple, but the results are stunning. I’m really happy with how my square window panes turned out and it was my first time trying to do triangular folds. I’m not too sure what I’m doing with these indigo pieces but I’m sure you’ll see them re-appear in another form in the future.

We also set up a pot of cochineal with lime juice, which seems to give some brilliant red results to the yarns that Susan and Julie were dyeing. We tried mixing cochineal and log wood into another pot and got a pretty purplish colour.

I over-dyed a few pieces that will go into my natural dyed quilt. I think I’m ready to assemble the quilt top and back. I can’t wait to see how all these dyed samples look together.

We stayed outside dyeing and chatting until it got too dark to see what we were doing and the mosquitos started to bite. We missed Carolanne and Margie that night, who couldn’t make it, but we talked about another get together since we had so much fun.

We ended the night with a raspberry pie that I got at Mabel’s on Roncesvalles. YUM. I’m plotting going back for another one that I might try to eat all by myself.

Check out Arounna’s photos here and Julie’s photos here. The top photo in this post is by Brian who took some great shots while I was unfolding my fabric.

p.s. Julie opened up a little shop on etsy to sell some limited run natural dyed accessories and yarns!

1001 PEEPS SUMMER CAMP

Published on June 17, 2011 in DIY and textiles. 1 Comment Tags: 1001 Peeps, Lizzy House, Summer Camp.

Summer camp fever is everywhere! Next year I’m plotting a trip to Squam in New Hampshire. Lakeside cabins and crafty workshops sounds pretty perfect to me. Check out Anne’s photos here.

We’re also getting pretty excited for the workroom’s Summer Camps in the city. There are still spots in our Amish Bars, Machine Foundation Paper Piecing, Natural Dyeing and Japanese Dress Books camps.

The incredible Lizzy House will be joining us in Toronto to wrap up our camp schedule with Colour Theory + Mini Quilts, Pattern Design + Block Printing and Champion Ribbon classes. There are still spots in the Champion Ribbon class and we are taking wait list names for the other two classes. It’s going to be such a fun week.

In the meantime, get ready for 1001 Peeps Summer Camp online! In anticipation of Lizzy House‘s new fabric collection, there will be a summer long camp that you can participate in. It starts today with Sew Mama Sew and every week you can visit another blog to find a fun project to make with your 1001 Peeps fabric. There will be giveaways each week and Lizzy’s new book will be released in July. I’m am thrilled to be a camp counselor for this year’s camp.

Here’s the schedule!

June 24: Alexia Abegg, Craftopia
July 1: Beth, Lemon Cadet
July 8: The Fat Quarterly!
July 15: Susan Allen, The Quilt Asylum
July 22: Amanda, MrsMcPorkchop
July 29: Anne Weil, Flax and Twine
August 5: Heather Bostic, Heather alamode
August 12: Karyn Valino, Make Something – that’s me!!
August 19: Deborah Moebes, Whipstitch
August 26: Monica, Happy Zombie

If you’re joining the summer camp fun, you can grab this troupe button to post on your blog.

the workroom will be receiving the ENTIRE 1001 Peeps collection in July, so start planning your projects! Every single print in this collection is amazing and I’m loving the colour palette so much. I can hardly wait til it gets here.

AND. Today is Lizzy‘s birthday. Happy Birthday Lizzy!!!

bottom photo courtesy of Lizzy House.

SUNDAY PATCHWORK #7

Published on June 14, 2011 in colour and patchwork. 13 Comments Tags: half square triangle, hand, mini quilt, sunday patchwork.

This Sunday Patchwork spans the last three Sundays and lots of hours in between. It started with an idea to do a mini quilt in aqua, yellow and cream. A big part of my love for this colour palette was this Windham fabric. I picked out a selection of fabrics from my stash and had it in my mind to ‘whip up’ this mini quilt top in a night. I also had it in my mind to do it all in tiny half square triangles (HSTs) rather than my usual improv piecing style. I wanted structure and repetition for this mini quilt.

Well, that first Sunday night, I barely got through cutting all the squares of fabric, marking lines, sewing, slicing and ironing over 150 HSTs. The next morning when I got up, I jumped on the sewing machine and started to sew them together, but I didn’t get far. Those teeny tiny HSTs (they are 1″ finished) got really wonky, really quickly when I started putting them together. I could see right away that in order for me to get all my points perfect and to keep things square, I was going to have to hand piece this mini quilt.

I learned about the joys of hand piecing from Carolanne. It is an amazing way to sew incredibly accurately. When I made my patchwork skateboard last year, it was all pieced by hand. It might take a bit longer, but it’s so satisfying and you can do it on the couch or tucked in bed.

This hand piecing project couldn’t have come at a better time, it has been the best therapy for some long, stressful days. Completely focusing on the stitching gave me a great escape to clear my mind.

I put the top together with no plan and just randomly sewed the pieces together. I originally thought I would have all the HSTs facing in the same direction, but decided to do some alternating to create some movement within the piece. It will finish at 12″ square and is made up of 144 half square triangles.

I love to take photos of the back of my work, especially when all the seams line up and create perfect little shapes. That is the best!

I gotta say, I love it. A LOT.

Tonight at the Stitch n’ Bitch, I’m going to baste it and figure out how to quilt it. I’ll probably also be thinking about my next mini quilt, which is going to be inspired by ice cream colours!

SIMPLICITY 2226 : GREY POLKA DOT

Published on June 2, 2011 in clothing and stitchery. 24 Comments Tags: cynthia rowley, habitat, jay mccarroll, simplicity 2226, skirt.

I’ve been in the mood for full skirts recently, so I took a trip to Fabricland to scout out some patterns that they had there. I didn’t even look at anything else, I just went straight for the patterns. It is so crazy in there! I picked out a few Simplicity patterns to make for the summer. This skirt and a couple Simplicity patterns (this one & this one) by Cynthia Rowley.

As soon as this grey polka dot fabric came in for the Habitat line, I made sure I got some. A few of the prints sold out within a couple days and this was one of them. I have grown to really appreciate a good polka dot thanks to Celine.

This pattern is one of their Learn to Sew patterns and I found it very easy to work with. I love this style of pocket and I definitely want to include this in future projects. There were belt loops and a tie with this skirt, but I omitted them from my version. I made a size 8 and I find it a bit loose. It still fits, but sits lower on my hips than I’d like it to. I’m going to make the skirt again but will definitely do a size 6 next time.

This skirt is so comfy to wear. One of the reasons I love dresses so much is that the dress is a complete outfit. With a skirt, you need a top to go with it. Colette just posted a free tank top pattern that I’m going to make this weekend.

FAVOURITE THINGS

Published on June 1, 2011 in accoutrement, etsy, i heart and local. 5 Comments Tags: leah duncan, long winter farm, Spring Trunk Show, white elephant.

Two new prints by Leah Duncan that I bought at White Elephant in Hamilton. I am so in love with the colours of these prints and everything that Leah Duncan does.

Trying to decide what to put in this cool tin that I got at the 400 Market.

I haven’t worn fragrance in years, but when Bre mentioned Black Coconut perfume a little while ago, I really couldn’t resist. I LOVE coconut and this is absolutely yummy. Long Winter Farm also sent me a chocolate mint lip balm and it’s so great. I’m totally looking forward to exploring some of their other scents.

My mom recently got back from a trip to Scotland. She brought me Clotted Cream Fudge and it’s pretty delicious.

I bought this awesome necklace at the Spring Trunk Show. It was a collaboration between Rachelle Wilson and Emily Cumming.

Fabric is always one of my favourite things. I’ve been organizing my fat quarter stash into bins. Spending time looking through my stash always gives me so many ideas for new projects.