Summer Sewing

Despite having a busy summer I did find time to sew. I have several that are nearing finishes but I thought I would track a bit of what I have been up to!

My Aviatrix Medallion is almost done! I just need to get the binding on it and then it is going right on my bed!

I had it quilted because I was worried that I would mess it up. I chose an edge to edge pattern and Quilting by Design quilted it for me.

The binding is ready to go on. It is the same fabric as the backing, an Alison Glass fabric from my favourite of her lines, Ex Libris.

I have also been hard at work on my Polaroid quilt. The top is actually all finished and I just need to get the backing made. I even have the batting ready to go!

I also have been enjoying Summer Sampler 2018. You receive a new travel-inspired block pattern every Monday. This coming Monday, September 10, will be the last of the blocks. I have managed to make every block on time! I challenged myself to do them in neutrals (blacks, white, grey) and with scraps. It has been such a good exercise for my creative brain! Here are the first blocks!

I will have to decide how I want to finish this one up.

I also did LOTS and LOTS of fabric purchasing this summer. I mean, that is not unusual but I am definitely ready for a fast. From September 1 to January 1 I will not buy any fabric with the following rules: 
1) I can preorder Lizzy House Constellations. She is THE designer for me and she is not even designing fabric anymore so I absolutely need her to add to my giant stash of LH.
2) My guild has a shop hop on October 20. I will try to be modest but to not be able to buy anything will make it much less fun.
3) I can buy materials that are required to finish a project. Batting, more of a solid that I need, zippers, fusible, etc. If it is for a specific project that can't be completed without that then I can buy it.
4) Spending gift cards doesn't count.

I think the just because buying will be shut down with this fast but note that I have many preorders arriving in the next few weeks because of preorders so I will still be showing lots of pretty on my Instagram account!

Hope everyone else has been getting lots of sewing done!

#QBtravellingquilt and One More Shop Hop

The #QBtravellingquilt continues. I finished my addition to A's quilt by using From Blank Pages' pattern My First Alphabet (this is the 3" size). I also, as per our challenge, used a new skill which was layered applique with free motion black outlines (say what??! I did applique??).

I love the result and she seemed to like it. Her quilt is colourful while still being quite soft-looking. The other two quilts are sooooo saturated by comparison but they all look amazing. I wish I had taken a picture of what my quilt looks like after C added some EPP stars (EPP!!!).

So pretty, isn't it?

 With my QB peeps we decided to go on a Toronto shop hop since our July shop hop took us West. We went to four stores: Sew Sisters, EweKnit, The Workroom and Len's Mill Toronto. I had never been to that Len's Mill and I loved it. Great selection, better organized than the Guelph location I usually go to and I found several yummy purchases. Plus the woman cutting our fabric was chatting with us and totally our kind of person. We invited her to come to lunch with us but she thought perhaps her boss would disapprove.

I only took pictures at The Workroom because it is in the new location and I had not yet been there. But I also had to take a picture of this graffiti mural right next The Workroom because it was just so good.

There's lots you can interpret from Make Good.

One angle of the new space.

More of the new space.

The Workroom is not my favourite, mostly because of their very high prices (most fabric is $19.99/m) but the space sure is beautiful! I found some fabrics that I liked and splurged. 

The end result of the trip was a lot of fabric- mostly reds because I needed a ton more reds to make a pineapple quilt for my mother-in-law for her new house (look for a future post on how that is going). There is a healthy amount of Alison Glass (from Len Mills) and that bottom fabric is an old Valorie Wells fabric I got at Sew Sisters that was in the extreme discount bin ($4.99/m). It is not my colour BUT it is perfect for the colours my MIL wants in her quilt, the fabric works well in terms of scale and the pattern sort of looks like fronds which works for pineapples and it was CHEAP. Sold. They only had 3 3/4m and I technically need 4 3/8m but I will piece something together to fill it out!

It was a great trip with wonderful friends and the high will have to last some time because C and I are going on a fabric fast from September 1- December 31. Note that the rules are:
1) No new fabric purchases from September 1-December 31.
2) Using gift cards doesn't count.
3) You can make one preorder of a must-have fabric.
4) You can purchase one pattern during that time if desired.

I'm sure we can do it. Especially because we both preordered a TON of new fabric from Dinkydoo fabrics that should be coming every day. Like, I need a new fabric shelf ton of fabric. :)

Shop Hop with Friends

My awesome quilty friends C and A and I had the idea that we should do a self-designed shop hop this summer. They were very accommodating because I am the only one with children and since my husband would need to take the day off to watch the kids it worked best for us to do a Friday to Saturday, and for one of them to drive. "No problem!" they said, and so plans were hatched. A arranged the entire schedule and C and I just went with the flow.

We went to a lot of stores, all in Ontario (since the dollar in the United States is so terrible right now). Some of the stores I had been to before and some I had not. I didn't end up taking a picture at every store, but a lot of them!

We started the day at Len's Mill in Guelph. It is a bizarre low-scale K-mart at the front and then there are rows and rows and rows of fabric in the back.

It is in a shifty looking sort of plaza, too.

 Len's Mill is a great place to find very strange fabric. Like this charming Hawaiian cat print. It made me laugh.

 What I actually bought was this:

This Lecien fabric from Japan, with a slightly rougher feel than normal quilting cotton, is perfect for fussy cutting.

We then went to Triangle Sewing, also in Guelph, for some notions. C bought a new 6" square ruler since she always manages to cut the edges of hers. Does anyone else have this issue? I've done it to one of mine, too!

 We also made our way to Quilter's Nine Patch which is a lovely store that sometimes has lots of gems and sometimes has very little.

They had some 40% off fabric and I scooped up these two prints:

When we hit up Creative Sisters it had been awhile since I had last been there, but C and A told me the selection had improved and they were right.

I did find some fabrics here as well, including a fat quarter of this Elizabeth Hartman fabric that I had used up for another quilt and was missing already:

Those pink fat quarters are from Pond which is a line I ordered a fat eighth bundle of and have since used up all the pale pink. Nice pale pinks are hard to find.

A found Spool & Spindle online and we weren't sure what we were going to get. It was tiny, and up a flight of stairs, but some awesome modern stuff and lots of different substrates for garment sewing. Their prices were very high, though, and so none of us bought anything here. I ended up regretting that since there was one print I wanted that I thought I could get at a later store but they didn't actually have it.

Our next stop was Quilting By Design. I had encountered them at Quilt Canada last year and since then C has had quilts quilted by them for a really excellent price. I was delighted by the set up and the selection in this store and bought a few things. I would definitely go out of my way to come back here.

Here is what I bought at Quilting by Design:

That navy C+S print may be is use sooner rather than later for a friend who is expecting this November.

Interestingly, A really racked up a huge bill at this store because she had called ahead and had them make her some quarter kits of Ocean, the new pattern by Elizabeth Hartman. 

We also went to this store, E&E's Fabrics, which was in a charming (and tiny!!) town. The quilt store is also the post office! Hah! The fabrics, however, were more representative of the conservative Mennonite locals than anything we would be interested in.

You had to walk past the post office counter and some rows of shelves with basic groceries to get to the fabric at the back.

C and I did have some success here, though, because they had the new Olfa blades that are supposed to last a long time and they were a good price!

We each bought one to try.

We made our way to Waterford for this quilt store, which is right next to the river. The wind was blowing gently and the sun was shining and if we had stopped and just sat on the porch for an hour I would have been perfectly happy!

I did actually buy some fabrics from here though the selection generally leans towards the more traditional:

I walked past that bundle of five Jingle fabrics at least three times before I gave into temptation. I think I will use them for reusable bags for Christmas gifts. I think the chicks in skates sold me in the end!

We spent the night in Stratford, Ontario, in a nice hotel that was on the edge of town. We had a great walk around town, visiting book stores, toy stores and the Indigenous Art store down there, as well as picking up some chocolate. We went out to dinner at a Thai place which was exciting because A had NEVER had Thai food before. What? She had her first ever pad thai and said she liked it and would have it again!

The next day we started with the quilt store in Stratford, Ye Olde Fabric Shoppe, which is terribly ugly from the outside and next to a 7-11 gas station. Inside it is PACKED with fabrics of all sorts, and it was here that I did the most damage of the shop hop:

Those whimsical children's prints were just too sweet.

It was here I picked up 8 yards of backing for my goddaughter's quilt (paid for by her mother). That is the print on the bottom, which is by Lewis and Irene. 

We planned to head down to Bee Modern Quilts in Niagara on the Lake next but the traffic on the highway was absolutely ridiculous. We decided to back out of that and headed to Needlework in Hamilton instead. This ended up working out beautifully because we had more time, got to eat at a favourite restaurant of ours (The Burnt Tongue) and spent less time overall driving.

Crappy picture because I was rushing. Oops.

Here was what I snagged at Needlework:

Those owls! I couldn't resist.

The embroidery kit and cross stitch kit were not actually for me but for my husband. He has decided he would like to try both of them to see which one appeals to him more so as to pick up a new "in front of the TV" hobby. So far he has started the cross stitch and is enjoying it but made a major mistake and has to start from scratch. He isn't deterred, though!

We also went to a place called European Textiles. Obviously my memory was starting to go with all the stores because I didn't take pictures there either. C bought quite a lot here (including some of their incredibly well priced and high quality pillow forms) and I did find some gems:

The Rifle Paper Co. Alice in Wonderland stuff is for fussy cutting. That Ann Kelle print will be a starting print for some baby quilt one day!

As we were about to head home, C suggested we round out our trip with a visit to Len's Mill Hamilton. Start and finish at a Len's Mill! A was pretty tired at this point but she is always easy going and a good sport, and I am always up for another fabric store, so we were in!

And, of course, as a result of peer pressure mostly, I ended up with fabric from here as well!

They still had FIVE BOLTS of Caste Peeps by Lizzy House. That is INSANE. I was tempted to buy all five bolts in their entirety and resell it as fat quarters on Etsy! I also loved this Riley Blake arrow print.

In total I picked up a LOT of fabric. Here was my collection laid out on the floor when I got home:

(You may notice some C+S and Tula in the middle- that was purchased from Quilt Canada by A for me and she gave it to me the day we left on the trip so I threw it in to the picture)

And the stack photo is pretty impressive:

It was a great trip. Travelling with A and C is a breeze because everyone is easy going. We are always willing to accommodate the others (such as A being amazing and letting me sit in the front seat the entire time in the car since I get very car sick). We laughed a lot and encouraged each other to buy lots of fabric and had a great trip overall. And, for maybe the first time ever in the history of shop hops with these two ladies, A was actually the winner of the most money spent! She is usually the most cautious and the least likely to buy something "just because." Hooray for A!

Winter Blues? Go on a Shop Hop!

Due to the cyclical nature of my job (I'm a secondary school teacher) we have a fresh start at the beginning of Semester Two when we meet all new students and, in my case, teach all new courses as well. In many ways it is a fabulous refresh but it is also exhausting, paired with downright miserable grey weather that isn't going anywhere (winter lasts soooooo long!).

Enter a shop hop/ travelling quilt exchange/ lunch with friends! C and A and I agreed on a little shop hop to check out a new bricks-and-mortar store for an online store we all knew of, Fabric Spark.

Fabric Spark was having a birthday celebration!

 Fabric Spark is a bricks-and-mortar new shop from a combination of two online stores. It was cute but it was a long drive.

Bright, open shelves and pretty modern fabrics.

We then ventured on over to Ewe Knit in their "new" location which I have not yet been to. 

Their storefront is lovely.

The inside is even more lovely!

I really enjoyed the vibe, size and selection here at Ewe Knit. I bought a few fabrics and C bought a TON of embroidery floss. 

Then we decided to pop over to The Workroom.

This is the most "downtown" of the stores and also the most expensive.

I was able to score something lovely while at The Workroom, plus C was able to sign up for an EPP class she is going to take in March.

Here was my haul from the day:

Aren't they all just super yummy? That orange and yellow were a result of C challenging me to get something that wasn't green or blue or teal. That was hard. That background Alison Glass will be the backing of my #QBtravellingquilt.

The day was super awesome, but it took way to long to blog about it. Some of these have already been cut and put into action for WIPs!