i heart anatomical hearts and i heart me!

one of these days i'll start working on larger scale projects again, but not today. i've been having so much fun with mini quilts the past few months!


i just finished this one today - which was good, cause today is the (extended) deadline!



a while back, Jenna from SewHappyGeek posted about a challenge that she was hosting. the idea was that participants make a mini-quilt based literally or figuratively on a single playing card. i immediately thought that was an awesome idea, and tucked it away in the back of my mind to stew over.


(i know a lot of you reading my blog now are sewing and quilty friends, but i used to do quite a bit of mixed media art work, and i always loved the imagery of playing cards, and the awesome backs of vintage ones. i was way too lazy to dig out my own stash, so i spent some time one night searching flickr. i found so many gorgeous cards!)


in the meantime, i was sewing up the hearts for Cynthia's bee blocks. remember those? i wanted to do a sample of the anatomical heart applique before i cut into Cynthia's fabric, so i cut it out in these red prints first. i ironed on the freezer paper and turned the edges down, then basted it into place on the background. and then it sat there.



i didn't start on it until long after i finished Cynthia's, and i've been working on the hand applique whenever i had a few minutes in waiting rooms, etc, but omg, hand applique takes forever! and honestly, my stitches weren't even as teensy on my own heart, since i knew it was going on a wallhanging, not a quilt that would be used and laundered. i also switched my technique, as you can see quite obviously from the back! part way through the applique, i decided that the teensy stitches were putting too much strain on the fold of the applique, and i really think making longer stitches helped. after i'd finished the hand work, i pieced together a 1/2" border using the same prints as those in the heart.



i was so indecisive about this mini quilt, about how i wanted to do the letters, how i wanted to do the little hearts. i definitely wasn't going to do raw edge applique, after all the time i spent on the freezer paper applique! but i couldn't decide. i was going to piece the letters, and then i decided to paperpiece them, so i spent a whole bunch of time drafting up a paperpiecing pattern for the letters and the small hearts. and then i changed my mind AGAIN, and made little improv hearts and machine stitched the letters. in between there, i also considered hand embroidering the letters and the hearts, but i knew i wouldn't have time. machine stitching it is!



i went through the fonts on my computer and chose my two favourites that seemed to match the hearts as well. i printed them out in a few different sizes, then traced them onto tear away stabilizer. i sewed along the outlines of the letters and removed the stabilizer. then i put more stabilizer underneath the pieces, and filled in the centres of the letters. i did manage to get most of the stabilizer out of the stitches, but i didn't want to take the chance of leaving visible stabilizer on the front.



i spray basted the quilt front to cotton batting, but because i only had unbleached batting, i put a layer of white cotton in between so that it wouldn't show through. i echo quilted around the heart - i assume i'll eventually get bored with echo quilting, but it won't be any time soon! i love how it looks so much.



i also quilted around the outer border, but then i changed my mind and ripped it all out. so indecisive! i'm so glad that i did rip it out though, i like it much better like this. you can still see the stitch lines, despite my excessive steaming, but i'm going to wash the quilt so that it will shrink up a bit, and the stitch lines will come out then.



i added triangles in the corners for hanging, and bound it in the same fabric that i backed it in, a darker red cotton. i won't show you the back, my binding is terrible! i was rushing, and i was totally struggling with it. i don't know what i did wrong, it's totally uneven. it's fine from the front, but it definitely won't hold up to scrutiny! the quilt ended up being 10.5" x 12", barely squeaking past the 10" x 10" minimum.


so why Ace of Hearts?

hearts was pretty obvious to me, because i love heart imagery, whether it's anatomical hearts, flying hearts, sacred hearts, whatever. i thought about the Ace of Spades, because they're so often the most gorgeous card in the deck, but i wanted to stick with hearts.

i thought about the Two of Hearts, which is used fairly often in a romantic context, but i'm more interested in talking about less-traditional forms of love. in addition to that, i'd already drafted the pattern for this heart for the bee block, and using two of them would have made this quilt much bigger than i wanted it to be.

the Ace of Hearts appealed to me because i truly that think that focusing and working on self-love* is the most radical thing that a person can do. your relationship with yourself is the longest relationship you will ever have, and we live in a culture that continually tells us that we are not good enough. we're not worthy, we're flawed, we don't deserve to have a good life, to be happy, to be loved. we're not smart enough or too smart, not pretty enough or too pretty, too sensitive, or insensitive, we don't have the right kind of body, love, style, job. particularly for people who have been socialized as female, we have been under a barrage of messages from advertising and society since we were so young, and as much as we KNOW that the messages aren't true, they're sneaky, and they stick in our subconscious.

loving yourself can be a lifelong struggle, but it's so important. if you don't love yourself, it's way too easy to let yourself be treated badly. it sounds cheezy, i know, but if you don't feel like you're worth good things, good things don't happen to you. or if they do, you're too busy focusing on the bad things to appreciate them!

so that's why i chose the Ace of Hearts. i'll get off my soapbox now.


plus, the Ace of Hearts card has the letter A on it, and A is for Amy!




if you like my quilt, i'd be ever so happy if you wanted to vote for me! voting for the Most Popular quilt has started, and will be open until Friday 1 June at 10am GMT.

however, the other 13 entries are super freaking awesome, so i totally understand if you vote for one of them instead! ;) i can't even decide on my favourite, they're too amazing!




(can you believe that out of 14 entries, 3 were made by people named amy?)


(*did you snicker when you read that? perv. that's not what i was talking about, but the former sex educator in me feels the need to point out that taking care of your own needs is important too! if you don't know what gets you hot, how can you expect your partner to know?)


also, i'm linking this up to Fabric Tuesday at Quilt Story

things (and pouches) that i love

hi you guys!

have you had a good weekend? i know you americans still have one more day - i've gotten so many e-mails about memorial day sales! i'm not even opening them now, cause i read one on friday and ended up buying fabric, mere hours after i told myself that i was going to take a break from buying new fabric and actually start using my stash!

in my defense, how often do you find gothy quilt cottons? i HAD to buy Tula Pink's new line, Nightshade! and now i'm DEFINITELY on a fabric buying break.



in other news, i'm very excited about an upcoming swap! the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild (and a few friends, cause the numbers were off) are doing a group swap with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, and it's going to be AWESOME!

we're swapping pouches, which are an excellent opportunity for fanciness! they're little, so they're perfect for techniques that you wouldn't want to do any entire quilt out of, like english paper piecing, or to showcase more detailed techniques, like hand embroidery or intricate paperpiecing.

active flickr users will be familiar with the multitude of pouch swaps that have been organized, such as the Pretty {little} Pouch Swap, which has had 4 rounds, and the Mouthy Stitches Swap. even non-pouch-specific swaps have included some gorgeous pouches, such as the For The Love of Solids Swap. needless to say, there is a TON of gorgeous pouch inspiration out there!

the guidelines of our swap are pretty flexible. we're to make a pouch that's somewhere between 4"x4" and 8"x8", and it has to have a closure of some sort. that's it!

in addition to the basic guidelines, it was also recommended that we make a mosaic of pouches that we like and post them to the guild flickr group, in order to give our partners some inspiration.

as demonstrated for the Trim the Tree Swap i did last fall, i tend to get carried away with mosaic making!

i think i did pretty well though. i made three mosaics in total, with just one mosaic of pouches.



it's kind of a a big mosaic, but hey, i fit them all in! (for further notes/details/credits, click on the photo and go see the picture on flickr!)


my other two mosaics were about my style in general, and they were really fun to do. i do have a page of info for swapping, written back in the days of craftster swaps, but really, mosaics are more interesting!


one of the mosaics was all about fabric patterns and prints that i love.



everytime i look at this mosaic, it makes me happy, which i think means it's a pretty accurate portrayal of patterns that i love. i realized after i made it that i should've added a brocade print of some sort, like vintage wallpaper, but oh well. everything else is there!


the other mosaic is of things that i love, and it was prompted by the obvious patterns in my flickr favourites. there are, of course, things that i love that i don't really care about the imagery of, like grape flavoured candy, memory foam, or the television show NCIS... they're not in the mosaic! this mosaic is things that i love that i ALSO enjoy the imagery of!



woodgrain! especially awesomely coloured woodgrain!
chevrons! and typewriters!
crows, ravens, magpies, and red-winged blackbirds.
glasses AND paperpiecing. (i really love the imagery of glasses. i have a pillow on my couch that says "glasses are sexy!" glasses are totally hot!)
vintage buttons!

virgin mary, lady of guadalupe, etc.
neon signs!
pyrex, fire king, JAJ, milk glass, etc. (i love all of them, but i particularly love those particular mugs, they always reminds me of the flinstones!)
typewriter again!!
cuckoo clock! (i am so excited that they're so popular and on everything, i've loved them for so long!)

mail! envelopes and stamps and postal love.
more pyrex!
sacred hearts, modern and traditional.
more typewriters!
and boler campers! (that's what in the blank spot, cause that pic didn't work)

anatomical hearts!
birch and poplar trees. so lovely.
more glasses imagery!
wooden grain elevators. love so much.
vintage typewriters! and mid-century illustration styles!

chandeliers, especially bright coloured or black ones.
doilies, in their natural state and dyed
tuxedo kitties like my sofie-bean!!
elna grasshopper! vintage sewing machines!!
and another mid-century illustration! on a stamp! with an owl!!



i love so many things. what do you love?

WIPs and the week

whew, what a week!

yesterday was the last day to submit your nominations for The Blogger's Quilt Festival. did you get yours in? did you even manage to get through all of the AMAZING quilts?

i've had a rough week, feeling pretty crummy, so the eyecandy was a welcome distraction. i checked out all 621 quilts! i didn't comment as much as i would've liked, since i wasn't thinking super clearly, but as i came across quilts that i loved, i popped the link into a word file along with a mini description, and i'm hoping to get back to them as i have more time. it was REALLY REALLY hard to narrow them down!

some of the categories were tough too. it's hard to imagine size out of context! is it a baby quilt, a mini quilt? a lap quilt or a bed quilt? i'm super excited to see which quilts were nominated the most, but i feel so bad for Amy, having to straighten all that out this weekend. i'm sure there are going to be tons of quilts nominated in each section, there were just SO MANY amazing quilts!

i haven't decided on my "viewer's choice" quilt though. maybe i should just list all of my faves and draw a number or something!


and then it was Sew Mama Sew Giveaway week too! did you enter many? did you win anything? i honestly didn't really bother. i thought about doing a giveaway, but knew i wasn't up to responding to all of the comments, and i just decided to skip it. i entered a few giveaways, from blogs that i follow anyway, but i skipped most of those too. i always want to leave real comments (because i babble as much in comments as i do here), and if i don't have the time or the energy, it's not worth it. but hopefully i'll be prepared in advance and up to the next one!


in other news, jeez, am i behind! ohmygoodness, it feels like i have a lot of things to get done by the end of the month, and then by the middle of the month. i started thinking about a WIP (work in progress) Wednesday post, and just listing it all out in my head totally stressed me out.

but i did take a few WIP pictures, so i might as well share them, right?



a current quilt project that i need to finish ASAP!



and what my table has been looking like lately - bag making supplies! all sorts of closures! how many different kinds can you count? we'll see who was paying the most attention during my little talk at the last VMQG meeting! i'm hoping to get some bag examples blogged this week.




i'm off today to meet up with some quilty friends, and i'm awfully excited!

i was voluntold to bring my awesome/amazing/fabulous gluten-free cupcakes, which is no biggie, though yesterday was a lot busier than i thought it would be. but i figured i'd make them just before bed and ice them in the morning... as i was making them, i was thinking, jeez, this batter isn't really going far... i doubled the recipe and i'm still only getting 16 cupcakes. hmm, i must have made them fuller than i thought...

and then as i was tidying up the kitchen, i glanced at the bag of sugar and thought "oh shit"

i forgot the sugar! the recipe always looks runny, and i don't taste it as i'm making it cause it tastes nasty (the apple cider vinegar, i think), so i totally didn't realize until it occurred to me that i didn't remember opening the bag! whoops.

so i made another batch. at least they'll be appreciated!

Blogger's Quilt Festival - Whale Love!

hi! welcome!


i'm amy dame.

(there are lots of amys in quilty blog land, aren't there?)

this is the second time i've posted for the Blogger's Quilt Festival, and the quilt that i'm sharing this time around is a little mini quilt that i made for one of my guildie friends. i haven't blogged this before, so i'm including more info than i would just for the quilt festival, so feel free to skim.


if you'd like to know more about me, i'll direct you over to the excessively long about me page, but the basics that that seem to either repel or attract folks are these - i hate capitalization, i swear a lot and babble just as much, i'm a bleeding heart lefty who's hella opinionated, i get distracted kinda easily, and i often get so excited that i bounce up and down and clap my hands like a 6 year old. (if you like me, you might find it endearing, otherwise, it's probably just annoying!)


and most importantly, i love quilting! i'm the secretary of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, and i'm a member of the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild. my guilds are amazing. not only are they full of incredibly TALENTED people, they're also full of incredibly AWESOME people!


do you know Sonja? she's pretty much the queen of paperpiecing. her patterns are all super fun, both the ones that she sells in her shop, and the ones that have been published. i've stitched up a few of her blocks, and recently she drafted up a pattern based on our guild logo, and i sewed that one up too.

she's also a fabulous photographer, and takes pictures at all of the VMQG meetings. a few months ago, some of us decided to submit quilts for the Modern Quilt Guild Showcase at the International Quilt Festival, and Sonja very helpfully took pictures of our quilts for us. at the time, i kind of spaced on thanking her properly, so i had it in my head that i should make her a little something. i was thinking pincushion, or needlebook, or pouch, but somehow it turned into an actual quilt!





ever since Sonja updated her blog, Artisania, with a new header, i've been in love with the little whale on it. i think it's part of a future pattern idea of hers (she's too busy designing patterns for books and magazines to finish the ones she's started!), but i just think he's the cutest thing. inspired by the mini-quilt that she made of her freaking adorable fox pattern, i thought two whales would be fun. a friend would keep one from getting lonely, right?

so i drafted up a pattern and sewed up the two whales, and added a little patchwork border around them. i embroidered their faces (twice actually, cause i hated my first attempt and ripped it out, i'd used too many strands of floss) and the little hearts between them. aren't they sweet?





i'm so happy with the water!! i was so proud of myself when it occurred to me how i was going to show the waves like Sonja's header does, without resorting to raw edge applique. when i showed this at guild last week, i said that it was a variation on cathedral windows, but i'm not sure anyone knew what the hell i was talking about.

basically, you start with strip of fabric that's got the top folded over by an inch or two. you tack the fabric down in multiple spots, and then curve the fabric between each spot down, pulling the fold into a wave shape. with cathedral windows, you're tacking down the corners, and then curving the fabric between them, right? so therefore this is a variation of cathedral windows.

well, in my head it is. that's amy-logic for you. i have just spent a ridiculous amount of time googling for faux cathedral windows quilts and haven't found what i'm looking for, or even as much info on the other kind of faux , cathedral windows, which is surprising, really. apparently i fail at google!

this is actually the closest i can find to explain what the hell i did - Tamiko at Patchwork Notes Hoo-Ha Pouch Tutorial, except that i just did one row, and i removed the straight lines of stitching. (as a sidenote, i just came across that pouch a week or two ago and damn, isn't it gorgeous? i'm slightly obsessed at the moment!)

i'm not quite as happy with my hearts. i was trying to make them look casual, freehand, less precise than i tend to do, but i think they might have just turned out a little bit wonky looking. hm.





i enjoyed echo quilting on the white, and really loved the contrast of the chevron like quilting around the whales with the curves around the hearts.

the water was quilted with four or five colours of blue thread, just freehand curves.

i used a synthetic batting, because it was the only pure white batting i had in my stash and i didn't want the cream colour of my cotton batting to show through the background. it was a bit puffier than the batting i usually use, so it added a bit more texture, which was fun.





the backing was this pretty print, and i included two hanging triangles in the upper corners. i didn't backstitch at all while i was quilting, because it would've shown a lot on a quilt this tiny, so i was VERY thankful for Krista's self-threading needle tutorial! this picture only shows the threads from when i went back in and added the quilting around the hearts, so you can imagine how many there were overall!


so! what do you think? it's a bit of a departure from the sorts of things i usually sew, but it was so much fun to do! i'm not sure if it's considered a wall hanging or a mini quilt for the new categories that have been added this time around. opinions? have you been keeping your list of quilts to nominate, as you've been surfing around?

i hope you've enjoyed the Blogger's Quilt Festival! as i click post, there are 28 minutes left to enter (i'm a master procrastinator), and 620 entries! that's amazing! be sure to pop over and say a huge THANK YOU to Amy for all of her hard work coordinating this!

Bee Love!

hi guys!

can you believe that it's been two weeks since i last posted? where did they go? i could've sworn it was only a few days ago!

however, i HAVE been accused of having "no concept of time" on multiple occasions. and i gotta tell ya, i'm starting to think it might be true (shh, don't tell!). considering the TWO parking tickets that i've gotten recently were both for misjudging how long i'd spend in a store buying crafty stuff....

seriously, who puts parking meters outside the craft store? that is simultaneously a bastardly thing to do and a brilliant fundraising scheme. unfortunately (for them), it's also a big deterrent for me. michaels is overpriced enough even without paying $2 per 20 minutes! $6 an hour! and it's not even downtown!

wait, where was i? i got distracted. this is just proving the point further, isn't it?


last week! so last week was partially about my inability to accurately judge how long things will take, but my propensity for procrastination definitely played a role as well. i got it into my head that i would get a ton of things done for the VMQG meeting, and that resulted in me having a whole bunch of things in progress, and basically nothing accomplished. i'm still planning on finishing the examples though, so watch for those.

(propensity for procrastination? that should totally be my new motto. truthful AND alliterative!)


in other news, i have bee blocks to show you!

these ones aren't from the Unscripted Bee that you've seen me talk about, but from a whole new bee. very exciting!!! a few months ago the amazing Cynthia asked me to be part of a bee that she was organizing. how could i resist, really? the new bee is called the Fab Bee, and it's full of incredibly talented folks. we're mostly all locals, either members of the FVMQG or the VMQG, but we have two members further away as well.



Cynthia's vision was an "awesome bee full of original styles of modern blocks- no patterns (other than your own) allowed." it's okay to be influenced by another quilter's work or ideas, but we must put our own original spin on it. the idea is super creative!

and to get the party started, Cynthia was our first queen bee! her theme was hearts, hearts and more hearts!

(i couldn't resist the link! that was 10 years ago dude! how did that happen? earlier point proven again!)

the finished quilt is for her hubby Norm, and he directed the fabric choices, and will lay out the finished quilt. we were asked to make scrappy hearts of any kind, with piecing methods, design, size, etc left up to us. the fabrics were all greys, greens and blacks with a bit of white, and we all received several "special" pieces of fabric - fabric designed by Cynthia herself!

i actually uploaded "hint" photos to show before Cynthia actually got the blocks, but... i didn't get around to blogging them. though they are good close ups! so how about i post them too? you can just pretend to be surprised as you scroll down, kay?

 

 


do you see how the fabric isn't white? grr!! i love Best Press, it's like magic, but the non-staining claims are not true!

 


and now for the actual blocks!



because i adore them, i was determined to make an anatomical heart! the heart is made up of 7 grey and black prints, and Cynthia's Doodle Hearts fabric. it's freezer paper appliqued, with lots and lots of very very tiny stitches holding it on to the background. i know that the finished quilt is going to be used and loved, so i was really conscious of securing it well! i forget how large i cut the grey background, but the heart itself is 5" tall and about 3.5" wide.


this one has a paperpieced background that i drafted out on copy paper, so it's 8.5"x8.5" square. the centre heart was freezer paper applique, using Cynthia's Doodle Words fabric. i hadn't intended for it to look like a union jack, but apparently it does anyway!


this is a HUGE block. holy crap! i was determined to use up all of the fabric scraps, so i just kept making hearts! after i ran out of the grey from Cynthia i added black and white from my stash for the backgrounds. i used several different techniques for the hearts, based on the size of each of the fabric scraps. the block includes both of Cynthia's Doodle fabrics, and even a little bit of her Paris Peonies. i wish i could tell you how large this is - i KNOW i wrote down the sizes of the blocks, but darned if i can find that slip of paper now! i'm thinking that Cynthia should use this one on the back, though i also told her to feel free to cut it up!


these were so much fun to do, and everyone in the bee has done fabulous work. this is going to be an INCREDIBLE quilt! i can't wait to see all of the blocks together!




(if you're wondering, hey amy, what's the dealio with that giveaway, i don't blame you at all! i haven't heard back from the winner! i'm going to try to contact her one more time, and then i'll redraw if necessary, cause i let it slide a little last week. don't fear, i'll post the winner soon!)