Teacup & Laptop Cozy

Here's a couple things I made as presents last year...

Enjoy your afternoon tea & quilted crafts :o)

Colourful Autumn

Here are a few photos of my colourful Autumn. Some from Halloween...

Some of a quilt I'm making for myself based loosely on the Colorbrick quilt tutorial by Rachel of Stitched in Color. Working in these brighter colours was exciting & fun and the quilt is already making me happy :o) My plan is to quilt a double line around each brick and hand-embroider a running stitch between the lines in various colours but that seems like a LOT of work because there are 108 bricks!

A new chair from Ikea. Oh how I love gingham! I may eventually paint the base white.

And a rainbow CoffeeMug pouch I made for Krista when my friend Sonja & I went to see her quilt show at Island Quilter on Vashon near Seattle. The show was awesome and Krista's quilting never ceases to amaze and inspire me. Island Quilter was floor-to-ceiling walls of bright rainbow fabrics! I bought some organically patterned fabrics and began designing a butterfly quilt as Sonja & I drank chai & sketched at a local cafe. It was such a fun road trip and I can't wait to do it again! (some photos courtesy of Sonja)

Some coasters for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild table at Got Craft? and some rainbow cupcakes I made for my daughter's birthday.

Enjoy your afternoon tea & quilted crafts :o)

Gardening on my Mind

I started my seeds in newspaper pots this year so when I saw this fabulous "Seed Tray" paper-piecing block by Amy of During Quiet Time I knew that I had finally found the perfect use for that newspaper fabric in my stash!

These 10.5" x 10.5" blocks are quite challenging but very fun to make. I have purchased the first eight garden patterns from Amy's shop and plan to buy them all as they become available!

I may add some other garden blocks such as the magical Vintage Mason Jar Tea Lanterns block by Sonja of Artisania, and maybe try piecing some of my own so that I will end up with a queen-sized garden masterpiece!

We have had a lot of rain lately which means that my plants are small but on the other hand I haven't had to water my garden much! I whipped up Christie Fowler's "Rain Cloud" mugrug from Zakka Style that I was most recently published in.

Speaking of books, you will be able to find an article on my blog in this month's Russian CrossStitcher magazine! I think it's quite exciting because this is the first time to be published in Russia. I will give you all a peek at the article later :o)

Here are some more leaf potholders that I made for a friend's housewarming present a few months back. She loves purples and blues and celestial as you can probably tell by looking at them because they are not my usual colours to work with. I pieced together the fabrics in straight lines but curve-pieced the centre vein of each leaf. I like them even more than these crazy patch leaves.

And last but not least, after 5 years of using my Teacup Pouch every day I had finally worn all the fabric off the handle. It was time to make myself a new pouch... and of course it had to have something about gardening on it... and linen of course!

Enjoy your afternoon tea & quilted crafts :o)

House, Leaves & Teacup

Here are a few more gifts that I made for friends & family. I made this sweet little Welcome Wall-hanging for a friend. The background and main part of the house are all pieced.

All the other small pieces including the letters, windows, doors, birdhouse and hearts are raw edge applique with fusible web. Note the mismatched socks hanging on the line ;o)

I noticed than I have been adding a lot more embroidery to my creations now and I am enjoying the hand-sewing immensely! I believe my method of embroidery is different than the regular hoop method. I make the quilt first and add the embroidery as the last step. Working from the top of the quilt, I sew through the top fabric and some batting and I avoid piercing the backing fabric. It works for me!

And of course I always love to add buttons! I usually finish the back of little wall-hangings with these little corner pockets sewn into the binding. Just add a small stick and it's ready to hang!

These scrappy Leaf Potholders are for my Mom on Mother's Day! I whipped them up yesterday using a tiny bit of my green scraps. I actually had no idea that these would turn out to be leaves! I started out sewing scraps together in a crazy quilt fashion :o)

I made the mini Teacup Pouch for my daughter. She said she needed somewhere to put her chore money :o)

Enjoy your afternoon tea & quilted crafts :o)

Gifted

Here are a few things that I made as gifts that I never got around to blogging...

A teapot eyeglass pouch for my Mom. She really likes the cherry fabric :o)

A lemon potholder for a friend. This was the first time I did curly quilting and it was super fun but things got a bit crazy at times!

A scarf for Claire's friend. I didn't have any fleece so I used flannel for the backing. It's not often you'll see me use hot pink and purple!

And Claire's first fusible web applique project. I helped her a bit with the ironing and sewing but it was her first time using a real sewing machine. She had fun sewing the stars with my Elna. She was quite proud of her finished coaster and I was quite proud of her!

Enjoy your afternoon tea & quilted crafts :o)