Rotary Cutter : 1 Quilter : 0

Hello people of the blogging world! Sorry that you aren't getting a post by Vivian, (a.k.a. Mom!), she's not feeling all too great, so she sent me to write up a post! (BTW My name is Jenny! First, eldest, and the BEST of any of her children. Well, I've only got one other sibling so... not much competition....LOL)

First thing's first, I might as well tell you why she's not here, since I know you must be pretty darn curious. Well, let's just say, she had a little accident.....

Yeah..... it wasn't a pleasent experiance for any member of the family. So, as you all know, my mom is an excellent quilter! She has the best taste in colour, matching up fabrics, finding the perfect patterns, and you really gotta agree with me on that. I mean, look at what she was working on BEFORE the incident!







Beautiful, right? I'm absolutely in love with the moose fabric! It's just really nice to look at and it goes really well with the blue background, I find. I'm not sure exactly what she was gonna do with it, but with her "expertise" and her natural creativeness (is that a word?), I'm sure she found something to do with it all.

ANYWAYS

So, last night at about, 9 o'clock? We were all home, my sister and Dad were watching T.V., and I was in my room listening to music, when I heard my mom scream. At first I thought "Meh, whatever. Maybe she dropped her fabric in dish water or something." until I paused my music and realize that she was still screaming. Finally I got up and went to check everything out, and I saw several splatters of blood all over the floor and on her cutting board. Now I was freaking out. Then I almost stopped dead in my tracks when I saw, well, I wasn't sure what it was at first, until Lisa pointed out it was the tip of mom's finger. Ew.




(Here's the last of the blood that we found. It looks like she won't need this piece of fabric anymore....)


So Mom was freaking out, holding her hand under running water, and my Dad was like "OK just stop freaking out, sit down, and relax." so my Mom sat down in her chair, in tears, holding just paper towel to her hand. My Dad broke out his work tape and was about to just tape up her finger, but after a while of "Take me to the hospital, please!" "No! You're gonna be fine! Stop freaking out!" my Dad finally gave in and we went into the emergency building at the hospital.


WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?!?!

Well, the lady at the front desk was all like "Yeah, you can just go walk down there right now and into the emergency room..." So my mom left me there with her health card to handle all of the information and, stuff. As she was walking down the hall the woman at the desk picked up her phone, "Yeah there's a lady in a blue shirt coming your way and it looks like she's uhh, bleeding pretty bad, from her, umm, hand." Even the secretary looked freaked out.

SO!

When I walked down to give the nurse all the medical forms, they explained my mom needed to get a tetanus shot. NEEDLES?!?! OK I'M SO OUTTA HERE!!! So I went out and sat in the hallway with my dad.

After a REALLY long time, she came out and told us they apparently gave her T3's? I think that's what they called it. Anyways, the doctor had said she amputated her finger. Ew, gross. Now, she's gonna have a crooked finger and finger nail. The doctor said if he had the other part of her finger, he could have sewn it back on. UNFORTUNATLY,my dad threw it away. Oh well.

ALL QUILTERS! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!! PAY MORE ATTENTION OR YOU MAY ACCIDENTALLY AMPUTATE SOMETHING!!!


So, yeah, that's my story. That's all I had to say. :)

Hopefully my mom will be back quilting and blogging by next week? The week after?

Oh well, thanks for listening.

BYE!!!!! :D

Cindy Shake Design - New Favourite

Greetings my fellow quilters and enjoyers of quilts!

I have a new favourite designer. I've only made one of her quilts but it is by far my most favourite project made to date. I look at it and it just makes me smile. Let me introduce you to the world of Cindy Shake.

Is that not amazing? It's cheerful, and detailed and brings to life our territorial bird, the Raven.

I chose a meandering side to side quilting, it just felt like movement to me, and believe me, these guys are always in movement.

Here is a look at the label I created for the back, I tried to mimic Cindy's "look" in my doodling.

This quilt didn't take me very long at all. I started it on thursday night and had it completed by midday on Friday, after of course my applique mishaps that I mentioned in my previous post.

Have I mentioned how much fun it was to make? It was fantastic! I have to make more. Actually, I have a second pattern of Cindy's called Raven Says Hello. I can't wait to pick out some fun fabrics to use with him!

You can learn more about Cindy (she's a fab metal artist as well, holy smokes I have to buy one of her metal pieces...hmmm...I am hoping to drive with the girls to Anchorage in July...this could work), you can visit her website at: http://www.cindyshakedesign.com/ Go have a look, I think I have to get the husky pattern as well when we go to Anchorage (unfortunately we only have 3 of her designs locally, I need more!!!!). Oh, did I forget to mention she's right across the mountains from me? She's Alaskan! Who knows, maybe when I do make it to the quilt shops in Anchorage she'll just happen in looking for fabric. Wouldn't that be cool?

You can also follow her blog (newly added to my sidebar!) at: http://artmakinginthenorth.blogspot.com/

I haven't a photo yet of the other two projects (unfinished but one is oh so close to being a completed quilt top) I worked on this weekend, I will get to those I promise!

Take care and happy Monday!

Vivian

What I Learned This Weekend

I had the best weekend!

I spent the entire weekend (thursday night to sunday afternoon) at our local quilt shop, Bear's Paw Quilts (http://www.bearspawquilts.com/). It was our Longest Days Retreat, what better way to spend our near 24 hours of sunlight then sitting in a basement quilting away for days.

There was a lot of laughter, a lot of fabric, a lot of fun, and a lot of mess LOL. Seriously, my table mate had her entire floor area covered in little bits. I will have to say in her defence though, she was working on a loose woven fabric that just falls apart when it's in small bits.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera. I'm going to try and have up soon photos of what I worked on. I started and finished a wall hanging, I nearly finished my jelly roll quilt top and I started my summer quilt project. I was quite industrious!

I did learn a lot this weekend:

1. do not fuse Steam-A-Seam to the paper, it doesn't work;
2. do not fuse Steam-A-Seam to the right side of the fabric, it's actually the wrong side; and
3. if you are replacing a blade on your rotary cutter, do not replace it with 2 blades, it just wreaks havoc on your fabric.

I did learn some good things though:

1. go with my gut instinct when picking stop border and border fabric, I don't need approval, I know what I like;
2. mitered corners (yay, only 3 more corners to sew up and my jelly roll quilt top is ready for sandwiching!); and
3. I am so fortunate to be surrounded by a community of wonderful women who love to quilt, their skill, their abilities, their wisdom, it's inspiring and one day I hope to be as helpful and reassuring to new quilters as they are to me.

Stay tuned for photos, in the meantime, have a great week!

Vivian

River Song

OH MY WORD!!!!! We just finished watching the latest (here in Canada) episode of Dr. Who. Wow...we're all just sitting looking at each other going...wow...

Anyone else a fan?

Cool Cats and a sneak peak!

Over the winter I was part of a Canadian quilting bee on Flickr, called the Great White North Bee (http://www.flickr.com/groups/greatwhitenorthbee/ ). We all did two blocks for each other and we managed to create quite a variety amongst ourselves.

I had been saving some novelty fabric that I didn't know why I purchased, you know those impulse purchases you make and it later sits there and stares at you...and you end of up avoiding for the longest time. Did I seriously purchase fabric covered with cats in sunglasses? I may need a shopping buddy to keep me on the straight and narrow from now on.

I decided to bite the bullet and use it in my quilting bee (why not spread the anxiety around I say). I chose a simple 9 patch in two colour schemes. Once I received my blocks back I realized I kinda liked the fabric. It's got character, it's got spunk, it's now been cut up and used and I don't have to worry about it ever again.

I had a bit left over which was perfect so I made some extra blocks to make the quilt even larger. I matched seams, pieced together and added a flat black fabric for the stop border. Thankfully I found a flat black that was similar to the background of the feature fabric so it fit in well.

Here is a close up of one of my favourite cats...I don't know, he's just got attitude and I like it.

The next step in this cat quilt journey is to find a border fabric. Off to the quilt shop! Does anyone feel like coming with me so I don't fall victim to my impulses again? Any takers???

Speaking of impulses...I had another one. It involves Kaffe Fassett.

I've been participating in another online quilting bee and we are on our second round (http://www.thebeebalm.blogspot.com/ ). My month is September and I decided we were going to play with Kaffe Fassett. Look at this array of fabrics!!!! This is a little out there for me...but I like it. How have I not used this type of fabric before???

I purchased this fabric online at a Canadian shop called Hyggeligt Fabrics (http://www.hyggeligt.ca/). I will definitely be using this shop again for future Kaffe Fassett purchases...they were quick, the fabric was wonderful, and I got a cute little thank you bookmark! I love those special little touches, a little thanks for ordering makes such a difference. By the way, I can't get over how much I love this fabric. It's beautiful, it's joyful. Oooh I can't wait to play!!!!

Speaking of playing...see how I segue from one thought to another? I know, it's scary how smooth it is...you may remember back in May there were a couple of days of giveaways hosted by Sew Mama Sew. Yeah, that was fun. I was a winner and this week I received my prize package!!

I am now such a big fan of Fairy Face Designs out of Ireland. Sarah Flynn is just so much fun (and has a fairy-like name don't you think?). My package included ribbons and buttons, a beautiful sewn cell phone case and some fabric to play with, including a "Happy" charm square pack. You can meet Sarah on her blog at: http://www.fairyfacedesigns.blogspot.com/ .

Have a great Saturday everyone, only one more week of school left, summer is nearly here!

Vivian

Tip if you are having trouble posting comments

I thought it was just me!!!

I would write out a comment, sign in, and I wouldn't be able to post. I wasn't even able to comment on my own blog!!!!

Turns out it's not only me and my quilting buddy Teresa figured out how to do it and posted on her blog: http://fabrictherapy.blogspot.com/

I just unchecked "remember password" and it worked. Voila!

You learn something new every day.

Update on stitching for others!

I completed another month for our Bee Balm quilting bee. Aren't these fabrics gorgeous? Marls in Australia sent each of us the centre block, the black fabric and one of the outer fabrics. We then picked something from our stash to compliment to finish off the block. I hope she likes the fabrics I picked to go with hers!

I didn't mean to, but it just sounded fun. I joined another swap. Seriously, I can't resist them. This was a quilted basket exchange. The lady that I was making mine for likes greys and yellows so I went through my fabrics and found this black/white/yellow fat quarter that I had been saving. It was the perfect choice for her.

I received a great bag from a fellow Canadian, that I'll have to take a picture of later, I went immediately out of town for work after receiving it, so I haven't had a chance to take a photo of it. It's very cute, but you'll see that later!

Vivian