Challenge - yellow, blue & silver

My participation in the 10th Anniversary Challenge for our Guild (Langley Quilters' Guild)

Criteria:    Make what you wanted
Colors:     Yellow, Blue and Silver only  (no other colours could be used).
Size:         160 cm maximum

Fantastic I thought yellow is my favourite color and I love daffodils too!

I created 10 daffodils of various yellow fabrics (1 for each anniversary of the Guild), added various colors of yellow crystals and some silver beads to them just for a little bling.

I made the lining out of various shades of blue and yellow log cabins, then sandwiched and quilted it. I added a little strip of silver fabric to the edges just prior to joining them in an effort to reduce the bulk on the side seams.  I sandwiched and quilted the otter shell of the bag with a very stiff interfacing and thin yellow fabric.  I wanted the outer shell to stiff, and once I put them all together my bag literally stands up on its own.  It's very stiff.

I added a tab inside the bag complete with a hook to attach my keys to (so I can find them, instead of searching for them all the time like I do in my purse).

... see the silver rope and dark blue fabric I used to separate the vinyl bottom with the top of the bag.

A close up of some of the daffodils.

I made log cabin blocks and joined them to make the lining, and then quilted them to create a stiff bag.  I also used very thick interfacing my friend Janie put me onto. Wow this stuff works really well (great stiffness), my bag literally stands up on it's own and stays open.

Helmut, Janie's husband found this little Silver Sunflower. I used it for the pull tab on the lining pocket zipper

my key holder...

Dark blue rick rack I wove through the chain for the handles.

The back of the bag (I left plain on purpose).

close ups

10 daffodils on the front

Close ups....

Happy Quilting and thanks for stopping by.  Hope you like my bag too!

Debbie

Vernon's - Creative Chaos

My trip to Creative Chaos in Vernon this past weekend;  Wow I have a marvellous time with my sister Shelly.  We went to the show, volunteered for the Garden Tour, went to her Zumba Class and managed to go on a Thelma and Louise style Wine Tour in her fast sports car.  It was a fun filled and packed weekend.

Here are some of my finds:

Stoneware Pottery by Laura  Vanderlinde.  I fell in love with this combination, to use for chips/dip, fruit/dip, just about anything together or each alone.  Love Love Love them.  Visit her web site at :   http://www.lauravanderlinde.com/

I love "dots" and swirls too!!! 

 These beautiful hand made bowls are even 'beautiful' on the bottoms. Made in Canada, which is even better. 

GARLIC - Dill Pickled Garlic - fantastic   "Everything tastes better with goodness of garlic"  I agree with Gail Szolosi  who's the owner of Goodness of Garlic, (she has this statement printed on her busines card).  located in Forest Grove, BC.  visit their web site at  www.goodnessofgarlic.com

Sterling Silver earrings (sorry can't figure out how to turn picture around, I've done it twice and it still seems to get inserted in this format. I'll work on figuring this out later,but you get the idea). Earrings by Between Friends. 

www.creativechaoscrafts.com  

A wonderful Quilt Shoppe in Kamloops

I was away on the weekend in Vernon, at the Creative Chaos (I'll talk more about this fabulous artisan show later), and on my return trip home, I stopped in Kamloops at a wonderful, very friendly quilt shoppe called:  Katja's Quilt Shoppe (www.katjaquiltshoppe.ca).  Katja the owner of the shop was on a day off, but I did get to meet Carla and the staff at the shop.  It's a busy place.

"Where your quilts come to life!"
I love this statement she makes, printed on her business cards.

Inside the store...  if you look to the left of the picture (I should have taken a closer picture) you will see a rack and they have Fat Quarters hunging from the pegs on it.   The fat quarters dangle from the top tab that has a hole punched in it to hang from the peg.   A very COOL idea!  You  get a much better look at the whole fat quarter . 

Carla and I in front of Katja's Hexi quilt top

Katja's Hexi Quilt (top) - awesome, bright and very exciting.

My purchase several pieces ....ah! what to make next.

 I found the piece of Canada Beaver fabric just as I was walking out the door.  Guess what, I had to have a piece of it too. I'm out of control.... I've started to make a quilt for my brother Brent , I'm calling it the moose quilt.  When we were kids, we all seemed to have a nick name of sorts and his was "Beaver."

I will incorporate this piece of Beaver fabric  in the quilt for him.

I left Katja's Quilt Shoppe a very happy gal!  I was using my creative brain all the way home, on what to do with all the pieces of fabric I purchased.

hmm...most probably won't have enough, and need another quilt store trip....hmmm

Happy Quilting
Debbie

PS...I bought a pin before I left too!

Travel Swap

Travel Swap, sounds kind of kinky, but it's not!

I belong to the FVMQG (Fraser Valley Modern Quilters Guild), and I participated in a "travel swap" with the Vancouver Guild wherein I received a name of a fellow quilter and made her a travel item, and she did the same.

I have posted prior the wonderful travel sewing kit I received, and now I want to share with you the one I made her.  It was sent some time ago, but unfortunately I don't know if she ever received it or even liked it.

But, I can wait no longer to share, so here it is.

Her fabric colors she likes are green & purple.  She said she travels a lot and could use something to hold her toiletries, so I made her:

close up of the top fabric for the front of the bag

The colors of fabrics and thread she likes (green, and purple).

This fabric I purchased is from V&A Garthwaite (Victoria and Albert Museum), London for Rowan Wesminster Fibers, and Kona solid.

I fell in love with this fabric and sure hope my travel swap partner liked it.

I have sandwiched the fabic for the top/outside of the bag and are now trying to quilt it.  I wanted to do a simple "diamond" shape, as I don't want it to fight with the fabric, which already has a lot going on in it.

Quilting finished - aleast in one direction.

creating my diamonds

I put little strips of "post it' notes on the bottom of my foot, so it would not stick to the clear vinyl (okay this is very tricky to sew, not my favorite at all). 

Yahoo, the zipper is added to the clear vinyl toiletries part, this was not easy, the vinyl kept sticking to my sewing machine.  

 Creating the inside pouches.  I used the solid purple kona (sorry I forgot to get the actual color name), and I started to create the top pouch which would be zippered for small garments (bras, panties,nylons etc.  I added the hanger at the top, and created the elastic type pocket at the bottom for other items to be put away.

Eastic is added to the bottom pouch, and the vinyl centre zippered pouch is now added.

I've now sewn the two (front and back together), have now used binding to trim the edge, and am just about finished sewing on the binding.  I added a new toothbrush and toothpaste (small travel size).

I added two straps to the front of the bag, that will be used to close bag for travelling.

Pull tabs on the zippers

top of bag pinned to my design wall.  

Toiletries Travel Bag - folded overlapping and tied for security.

This was an great project to do.  I designed the bag and made it as I went along.  So it was most probably more time consuming to create, but I loved doing it for my partner in the Travel Swap and hope she likes it too.

Happy Travelling Karen.

Debbie

El Centro, California SUNSHINE

Our Adventure Journal

Hello to all...  (this is a very late post, sorry)

I've been away as mentioned in wonderful El Centro, California and must admit, I am having a very hard time getting my feet planted back on home soil and back to my regular life (not the lazy vacation Life).  I'm attempting to begin the process of catching up.

I had the very best of intentions, I was going to get all kinds of things in my sewing world accomplished while away.  Just think, I told myself, of all the time off I'll have to sew.

In my large wicker basket I package and organised all all kinds of projects, and stowed them away very carefully in the basement of the Merryacht (our motor home)....but...it's always the "but" that gets me in trouble.

      Confession: almost nothing got done in the sewing/quilting department.  In my previous blog I started the place mats for the table in the motor home, and that's about as far as I got.

     Instead, my adventures included sightseeing, bicycle riding, trips to Yuma, and happy hour, or should I say happy hours (as in plural and lots of them), golfing and ice-cream socials.  These events are all optional, participate if you like, or don't participate.  You decide.  We'll we decided to participate and meet a lot of wonderful people while doing so.

Our motor home was parked along the fairway of the first hole on the executive 9 hole golf course.  There was a beautiful sunset each night right out our front room window.  Nothing could be finer for us.  We kept repeating ourselves stating, "a sunset never seems to get boring, just more exciting."

The picture below is of a sunset on March 3, and as always things were looking wonderful, and then all of  a sudden a cloud arrived overhead. It appeared to be looking upon us, and we noticed it seemed to have a face looking down on us (see the picture). It only stayed a short while and then moved on.

The view from our motor home  front window

The wind came up and a cloud came by (do you see the face looking down on us in the cloud?)

Within about 10 minutes the wind slowed and the cloud color changed again to tones of rose/pinks.  It was really quite beautiful.


A great couple we met named R and S (our dun buggy buddies) - call it "Happy Camp" and we whole hardily agree.  Happy Camp it is!  PS: thanks again for the loan of the truck, so we could purchase our BBQ that was so greatly needed. 

We enjoyed the luxury of meeting many people with the assistance of our wonderful friends Dave and Cathie, and all those who welcomed us in, and shared their RV'ing knowledge and assistance.

We have created "our adventure journal" to journal all the fun adventures, places and great people we meet along this new journey in our "Merryacht" (aka: class A 38 foot diesel pusher motor home).

We look forward to many more adventures in our Merryacht (it makes us merry, we like the Marriott Hotel and it's the size of a yacht (38 feet), hence our name, "merryacht," and there are 2 of us, so visit our blogspot:  http://merryacht2.blogspot.ca/

Happy RV'ing to all of you out their, and hopefully some sewing/quilting along the way too.

Debbie 

My Wonderful Husband and me

Our "Merryacht"

Quilting...while on vacation

I am a little behind in posting, as I have been away on vacation in our motor home the "Merryacht" and I brought my sewing machine to get some quilting finished, and started.

My first project is some placemats for our table.

This is a panel, that I intend on cutting up into 4 place-mats, and then a small table cloth topper

I have cut out the 4 individual pieces for the place-mats (sorry about the sink in the back ground but a girl must use all space available in a motor home and if the sink works to hold my portable ironing board, that works for me).

Placemat center pieces

1 inch borders

Now I have started to add the little 1 inch red piece around all 4 sides on the center pieces.

Need to go to HH (happy hour now), sorry, I'll sew later again.

Hope you like them so far.

Thanks for stopping by.

Debbie.