Sewing machine cover

I finished peicing my sewing machine cover. This has ended up being a little bit of a crazy scrap adventure, and I'm going to have to quilt it carefully to add some structure and clarity to the improvised design. But I think it will look pretty cool when I'm finished. My castle peeps in the maze didn't work on this small scale, so instead I started with the Owl and the Pussycat out to sea at night with stars. Well, I was thinking I would have a lot of negative space and have the girls and mermaids swimming below them in the ocean, but that just wasn't working. So instead I just started sewing things together improvisationally and pulling scraps out of my bin.

Its pretty crazy. I'm regretting the cream butterfly, as it takes away from the "pop" of the three stars, but you never learn if you don't experiment, right?

The top is a row of leftover strip scraps from Olivia's quilt:

And I really do love this side -- I think its much more successful. I can always put this side on the front if the other side really irritates me once I'm done. Now I just need to quilt it, add ties on the side and bind it up.

DQS10 Ideas

So, I'm trying to think of something really fun for my partner. I must say that both the ideas I have so far are sort of more "brainstorming" than anything -- they are probably both really too complicated to accomplish in 24" square. But still, its fun to dream. This first one is based on fussy cutting Castle Peeps fabric. I tried to make a maze with them for my sewing machine cover, but it didn't work. I thought it might be fun to make a multi-level castle, including a portrait gallery, a peasant in a field and a swirly magic block:

So it would be a rather kooky mix of patchwork and applique. I'm not sure it would really work or not.

My other idea would mostly require applique and thread painting. It is titled "When the Quilter's Away . . ." and obviously speaks to the messes cats love to make of fabrics, quilts and threads. The two "quilts" would be done by appliqueing tiny pieces of fabric onto fusible web and sewing around them, and then the cats would be appliqued and thread painted on top. I would do some peiced blocks on the top and bottom just so there's a bit of traditional patchwork in the mix.

Right now I'm leaning towards doing the cats idea, but maybe just focusing on the cats on the quilt and the cats on the chair / quilt stack. That would simplify the design a little without losing the humour or whimsy of the peice. I think I would also pick one or two blocks to use in the border on the top and bottom for the sake of simplicity.

My third idea is to do a spiderweb quilt, which I want to try too. I'm considering adding some spiders to it, but we'll see.

Anyway, I'm going to think on it for a few days before I start experimenting to see if I actually have the technical skills to do any of these things. Wish me luck!

Dear DQS 10 Partner . . .

DQS10 Mosaic
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

Hello! Nice to meet you! I'm so glad that you are making a quilt for me. As you can see from my inspiration mosaic, I really like bright, colourful, whimsical quilts. If you click through to the mosaic, I left some notes on Flikr about why I love these quilts.

Please take these as a jumping off point. Take anything you like from the mosaic, mix it up with your own muse, stir in some of your favorite techniques and fabrics and I'm sure I'll love whatever you make!

To answer a few of the anxiety questions that often get posted on the DQS site, I like washed, crinkly quilts, but if there is some reason that your quilt would be better smooth and unwashed and ready to hang on the wall, I would be okay with that, too. I love both wonky and precise piecing, so I'm not too worried if everything is not impeccable. I have highlighted some of the colours I love the best, but there are no colours or mixes of colour that I hate, so use what works best with the project. As long as it is made with care and love and fun, I will love it.

Please have fun, be creative and enjoy the process of making a little quilt for me. Thanks in advance for your thought, care and work.

Jill

So excited to be in . . .

Woo hoo! I haven't done any swaps in a long time because life has been so busy. Life is slowing down a little, so I have time for just ONE swap. Repeat that again, Jill. JUST ONE. (The abseloutely amazing {Urban} Home Goods swap is also open for round 3 and I'm really tempted to play). So if I'm going to be in one, I'm glad to be in such an awesome swap. Can't wait to get my partner and get to work!

Made in 2010

Made in 2010
Originally uploaded by davenjilly

This is not a huge, huge mosaic like some you might see on Flikr, or like some of my past years. But look closely -- there are 5 baby quilts and one twin sized quilt in the bunch, and it doesn't include the two picnic quilts I put together too. And I made a few more baby items, I do beleive (have I ever showed you guys Emma's adorable dress?)

Not bad for a year that contained a new baby and a cross country move, if I do say so myself.

Fun with Sarah and Molly

Sarah, otherwise known as krommama, has started this super fun little quilt-along. She is showing us how to make liberated quilt blocks -- one or two a month between now and October. Some of us have partners where you make a block for yourself and one for your partner, while others are just playing along when they feel like it. Our first block was the mondo bird. This is my little bluebird of happiness, who I am quite pleased with:

Unforunately, Emma has been super fussy lately (except for right now, when she's sitting under the table foraging for food and refusing to eat anything I give her that is actually edible and not old and dirty) because she's getting many teeth and has a cold at the same time. This effected my sanity when I was picking out the fabrics for my second block, and also she kept knocking the loose bits of my sewing machine off, which resulted in much aggrivation and lack of concentration. So this is the block my partner will not be getting:

I think I shall make a grey bird and a yellow one and ditch the background fabric altogether. Ah well, I am always telling Andrew that we learn by making mistakes and then trying again. And its not like I don't have any more fabric to play with . . .

If you're interested in joining in or following along, you can find the group here.

And no, there are not supposed to be loose bits to knock off your sewing machine. My sewing machine has been a bit . .. altered by three children.

I Did Make a Few Christmas Gifts . .

None of the main gifts were made by me, since I'm not so good at creating the plastic molds used for creating legos. Although I did BUILD enough Lego on Christmas day that I should now be considered a Jedi Master of Star Wars Lego construction. Seriously, if only I could use the Force to put all those tiny pieces together . . .

On a complete tangent from the gifts I made, I was super proud of Andrew because he actually put together Plo Kloon's starfighter almost all by himself. He did get frustrated at one point, but that was because he had made a small mistake (that I also made when I went back to rebuild it for him) about fifteen steps before he got frustrated. So I unbuilt the ship, and rebuilt it (twice) up to the point where he had made the error, then handed it back to him. He did almost all the rest himself. That was some pretty intense building for a 6 yr old.

 Okay, right, so what was I talking about? Yes,what I made for Christmas presents. Well, mostly I made these for the boys,  plus one I have no photo of for my neice:

 These are the Child's Colouring Wallet pattern that I bought at JCasa on Etsy. It is pretty easy to follow -- I made three simultaneously in about an hour and a half, so I'm guessing that you could make one in about 30 min, maybe less if you had made some previously. One of the most fun things about this pattern is matching the fabrics for the outside and the inside.

The brown dinosoars / dots one is Aaron's, while the space on is Andrew's. Kaylee's was an irridecent orange Tina Givens print with crazy birds, plus hot pink polka dots and this cute alice in wonderland print on the inside (in other words, colours only a 4 yr old girl could love).

I also made the two year old cousin a sweet little playmat and pouch, but the photo of it is on the dearly departed Lappy. If you really want to see it, its on my Flikr stream. I just can't seem to figure out how to pull it over here from there right now when I'm typing with a sick baby on my back. We added about half of the boys' car collection, because they never use their cars anymore. The other half we'll keep for little car-obsessed guests.

Predictable.

So, we have made many purchases on EBay, and Dave has never had a problem with any of them. Until now. You know what is so predictable about this? Lets look at this list:

We have bought, without a hitch:

Shoes, for Dave
North Face Vest, for Dave
Winter Boots, for Dave
Laptop, for Dave
Motorcycle, for Dave
Car, for the family

We just got a bad seller who we paid for an item he did not ship (and incidentally also "sold" to two other people):

A Sewing Machine, for Jill.

Guess who was super excited about her Christmas present when she accidentally read the shipping notice in her email about it?

Guess who is pretty bummed out that her Christmas present never arrived, and that we will probably end up spending the money on a new laptop to replace the Lappy now?

Sigh. Some days I just feel like Charlie Brown.

Happy New Years!

Hello, friends! Sorry to have been away from this space for so long. The Lappy has been slowly deteriorating over the last few weeks, making it difficult to post anything (photo card wouldn't stay in the slot, Lappy was crashing and melting down all the time), and then finally the inevitable happened -- Lappy just stopped booting up anymore. I'm not really surprised. That computer had a hard, busy life of being stepped on and dropped off of things and having every piece banged around and prodded and bent . . . its not easy to be the computer that shares a house with my boys and their absent minded mom. So, new year, new computer. The one I"m typing on now is actually Dave's school computer. We'll get one for me in a little while. In the meantime, forgive my spelling as my fingers adjust to the size of this keyboard.

We had a good, but silly Christmas. The week before Christmas we were visited by three disasters - the Lappy meltdown, the theft of our credit card number and the stomach flu. The latter was definitely the worst -- there is nothing like tending two sick and one well child while you AND your husband are also both sick, and you are supposed to be driving 7 hrs for a week long visit that evening. We posponed our trip a day until everyone was at least done throwing up (for the first two hours of our trip, Andrew and I had the same conversation every 10 min or so. "Mom!" "Yes, Andrew?" "I didn't throw up yet." "Glad to hear it, son.")

After this we spent a week staying at Dave's brother's house in Cambridge. It was nice to have Dave around for Christmas, and not completely exhausted. The cousins got to have a good long play (they were all done with each other by the end of the week), the boys got out in the forest and snow plenty, and the adults reminiced and visited friends fromt he past until we were feeling old and infirm (at 35, no less). By the end of this time I had caught one of my famous Jill colds, complete with hacking cough and hoarse voice (which rarely stops me from talking, strangely enough)

Then we jetted off to Toronto to spend a lovely couple of days with Kris, my partner in crime over at Clever Mamas. She and her husband treated us to a wonderful spread of apetizers on New Years' Eve. On New Years day we took all the kids (all 6 of them) on a subway ride and a wander around the mall, and that evening I had my first taste of Settlers of Catan. I think I"m hooked. And how great is it that Kris bought the game for Christmas JUST because she knew I would love it, and left it out within view, knowing I would see it and say, "hey, I've always wanted to try that game". I felt thoroughly known and spoiled. Thanks, Kris.

Our last stop was to visit my lovely friend Sharon and her family. Ironically, the Hetkes followed us East and are now living 3ish hrs drive away. We were planning to stop overnight, but by the time we got there, we all really needed our own beds. The boys were getting worn out and my cold was not better, so we spent a marvelous day catching up and then high tailed it back home. It was so good to see my friends beginning to settle into their new space and to celebrate our mutual new adventures.

So, we got home last night, and today I spent the day cleaning (since I didn't get the pre-trip clean done in the midst of all the emergency clean up and packing I was doing before we left). Dave spent the day grocery shopping and getting bills and mail and the like sorted out.

 It is good to visit, but it is also good to come home. I missed my herbal tea collection and my blue kitchen and my sewing machine. I missed the red brick and the rumble of the trains and the sun peeking over the rusty back fire escapes of the appartment buildings behind our house. I didn't really miss the Asian pop music flooding from the basement, but all things considered that is a minor inconvenience.

I have more to say about the new year, but that shall wait for another day. Happy New Years, all.

A very, very simple Christmas this year.

It appears by the amount of crafting I've been getting done these days that I'm not giving many handmade gifts. At present I have one half of a car mat for my nephew made, an idea for a quick gift for my niece and that's about it. I don't even have the calender photos picked out for the grandparents, and my "ships by Christmas" date is fast approaching.

I am having a bit of an inferiority complex these days, reading along with all my favorite crafty mama bloggers. They are showing off their hand-made wreaths and their five sweaters and their delicious baking. I have baked one batch of cookies. I have plans for one or two more, but that's about it. Andrew's teachers and bus driver are getting . . . cookies. The boys are getting legos purchased with money mostly from their grandparents. Dave wants the new U2 cd and will probably get a fun magazine as well. The grandparents will get photos of the grandkids. And I think that's about it. I don't have any decorations up. We will get a tree, but we have a one year old in the house, so its not going to be a beautifully decorated blog-worthy tree because its going to be one of those all-the-breakable-things-at-the-top Christmas tree years. And that's all the Christmas we're doing, folks.

This brings me to a funny thought about Christmas. I am forever reading about how to have a simple Christmas in 49 easy steps outlined in 25 blog posts that you must read over the next two months. But a really simple, essential Christmas around here contains: cookies, tree, presents, turkey, the end.

Snow in the City

We had quite a dump of snow in the last few days. There was 30 cm or more, I'm sure, and it was blowing everywhere. The funny thing about snow in Montreal, as opposed to snow in Melfort, is that there's no place to put it. I had the unenviable task of shovelling us out while Dave was sick in bed, and I found myself wondering where to put the snow. We have our tenant's car in the driveway, our car on a cement pad that would otherwise be our front yard, our basement tenant's door and windows along the sides of the house, and our neighbour needs the path clear to his back fence because they run a home daycare and the kids go in and out the back door.

So, I and all the other neighbours put the snow on the road in front of our houses. This causes problems of its own, since usually the street has cars parked in every available space. This means that people who don't have a driveway are having to park farther away. I would hate to have to park on the road right now because the snow plows are just pushing the snow off the road right now and blocking in the parked cars and everyone's driveways.

The sidewalks are not all cleared yet, either, so when I walked to my tutoring job, I simply walked down the side of the road. I was thinking it would have been a lot faster if I had cross country skis. I could have simply skied along the bike path on the edge of the street.

One of my tutoring students is from Iran, and his brother was grumpy because there was snow and the schools weren't closed. His mother, apparently, said, "Its Canada, why do you think they would close the schools?".

One of the funny things about Canada, is that in every part of the country people are proud of their winters. If you happen to mention that the winter is worse somewhere else, all the locals will argue with you and explain why their winter is worse. "Sure, its not technically as cold, but its a DAMP cold" is the favorite here and in Southern Ontario. In B.C., where there are only about 4 or 5 days of snow except for one big dump every 5 years or so, people say, "Yes, but when it does snow its terrible because no one has snow tires" (which is true. People drive right off the perfectly straight highway when its windy and there's snow). In Saskatchewan they don't need to tell you how bad the winters are. Prairie winters are infamous, and they simply tell you to "Wait until you've been through one."

I must say that I was excited to see the snow. I love the sound dampening effect of snow, especially in the city. No matter where I am in Canada, snow is still snow. The cast of the light reflected off the snowflakes, the quality of sharp, cold damp in the air and the strange mixture of damp and dryness of the snow on my clothes never changes. Wherever I am in Canada, snow still feels like home to me.

Emma's B irthday Present

I decided to make a hand made gift for Emma for her birthday. Here it is all together:

She is in that stage where she loves to carry around containers and put things in and out of them, so I thought one of these tidy totes (free tutorial courtesy of JCasa) would be perfect. I modified the original design because i didn't feel like going out to get interfacing, so I used two of my quilt-as-you-go blocks instead. I felt like I was at a dead end with that quilt and didn't really want to make any more blocks, so this was a perfect solution for me. I used a ribbon for the handle, but next time I think I would make a fabric one or find some heavier twill tape.

This is the little doll I was talking about earlier. This is my third one of these, and the dress is still very much a going concern - I don't mind how this one came out, although it took a lot of messing around to get to it.

This is the doll quilt I made, matching the one I made for the church fund raiser (which sadly didn't raise much money). I used some 3" strips from a jelly roll. It made two doll quilts with a front like this:

and a back like this. I think the grey is really too dark for a little girl doll quilt, but I am short on time and brain power these days, so I just went with it.

Its strange when you move to a new place and your surroundings are so radically different. Your whole colour and design asesthetic undergoes this shift. I feel like I'm in the middle of a colour / pattern shift right now, or maybe just overwhelmed with images and colours and experience, so everything I've tried to make lately seems muddled and unclear to me.

In any case, we also had our first real snow on Saturday. This:

led to this:

The snow man is on scale with the size of our yard.

Happy Birthday, Emma!

I think the pictures say it all for this one. We had a simple celebration -- cake and presents for Emma after supper. The boys picked the bought presents, and helped decorate the cake. I made the doll and blanket. Emma, as you can see, was delighted. What more can you ask for at a one year old birthday?

So, my camera and my computer apparently need a cord to mediate between them now -- but they did agree to download some photos. These are my four quilt-as-you-go blocks so far. My original plan was to do one more black and red one and then four with red in the middle and then white on the outside.

But as I started making these I ended up using these prints with a lot of white for the outside of the square.

So now I'm toying with either doing a series of smaller log cabins in between these four blocks in alternating white and black,

or making the other blocks with white on the inside and darker blues on the outside. Hmmmm . . any thoughts?

I had a birthday about a month ago, and my presents finally showed up in the mail. Apparently I'm really into gray these days. These ones came from Pink Chalk Fabrics (an awesome online store for funky fabrics with fast shipping to Canada), along with two nice organic solids - one brown, one gray.

Aren't they pretty? Can I ever have too much orange? I don't think so.
These ones are from Sewing Geek, who was having a destash sale (go check out her fabric stream, she's got some awesome quilts in there). I wasn't a big fan of Hope Valley when it first came out, but the subtlety of shade and the small prints in these fabrics is quite a refreshing change from the big, bold, bright fabrics I'm usually drawn to. I think it might become part of the bed quilt I'm eventually planning for my bed.

I also picked up a few prints from Anna Maria's latest line, Innocent Crush (isn't it funny being a fan of a micro celebrity and feeling like you can call her by her first name because you read her blog?), which is lovely in person, and a few prints from Gypsy, which I think is a highly under-rated fabric line. I sort of wish I'd got fat quarters of the whole collection (because, you know, I need more brown fabric. I don't think I have enough . . . ), but I'm really happy with the blues and greens I chose .

I sent away the little doll and quilt for the fund raiser without snapping a photo. It was cloudy when I finished her and the doll was cute, but the quilt left a lot to be desired. I hope they can auction it off for something anyway.

Sewing Therapy

Well, I've been engaging in some sewing therapy. My log cabin quilt now has four blocks, and my four little dolls are shaping up nicely as well. No photos today because my computer and my camera are apparently not talking to each other today.

I had a fun experience when I was substitute teaching today. I brought Emma's doll so I could stitch the face on when I had a spare moment, and I ended up sitting at a desk doing hall duty (basically keeping the junior kids on their lunch out of the hallways where the seniors where in classes). I decided to pull out my little doll, and started stitching. I amazed me how many teenagers came up to me to chat about my sewing. They all wanted to know what I was doing, and some stayed to chat about sewing and crafts with me. One boy made oragami boats to go on the hands of the doll (he didn't have a big enough piece of paper to make a hat) and another girl showed me her bracelet. It opened up a whole new venue for chatting with the students about their grandmothers and relatives who had sewed things for them.

It is amazing how much hand stitched items become part of the family heritage. And how much interest these grade 7 and 8 kids had in making things with their hands. It makes me kind of sad that most schools have cut their home ec programs, and so these kids don't even get that basic introduction to sewing anymore. When I was in B.C., a crafty teacher friend and I talked about starting a lunch time textile club where we taught the kids to sew, knit, crochet, embroider, etc. I still think that would be a fun idea. How great would it be for these urban kids to have the tactile experience of working with their hands? Not to mention how great it would be for me to mesh my passion for sewing with my passion for encouraging and mentoring teenagers.

I think that's going to be something to add to my life list . . . start a sewing / textile club in a highschool somewhere.

Whew!

Sorry for my absence from this space, friends. We have had two wonderful visits in the last two weeks from out of town friends, and a large stack of unfinished seat work arrived home in the homework folder this Thursday, and we're trying to sort out child care for our younger two for January. This means I'm confronting the reality that yes, I actually am going to put my children in day care and no, this is not something I ever thought I would do. There is nothing like hitting that wall where you are about to do something that clashes with your high ideals of parenthood and draws out some of your greatest fears about your children being damaged by other people all at once. Conversely, I am asking myself if my children wouldn't be better off being parented by someone else. Maybe that way they won't have huge stacks of unfinished work sent home from school with them, as they will actually be able to follow instructions and work within an organized system like school.

There is nothing like a huge dose of mommy guilt to keep you blue.

In other news, it has somehow got around my church already that I sew, and they are looking for some hand made goods to auction off for a good cause. I have very carefully agreed to make a little something without over committing myself. Unfortunately I should have known what would happen when I started making two little dolls, one for Emma and one for auction. Word would get around that dolls were being made and then I would have three . . . and then four dolls to make. Ah well. They give me something to do besides be paralyzed with worry and guilt.

We did have two lovely visits, though. I am so happy to be in a place where we feel like we have a great space to invite people to (even if they may have to sleep on the kitchen floor). I do love entertaining, so I am happy to be able to have people over more.

Well, I must go off and play "in" to the container, "out" of the container for the 100th time while I still have the time.

Time to play

Sometimes, I get a little too serious about my hobby. I feel the need to be too "creative" and feel like I need to reinvent the whole quilting wheel. Other times, I get stressed out because there are so many things I want to do and so little time.

One thing I've wanted to do for a while is make a quilt with these polka dots and Japaneese prints. I've been storing them in this vintage suitcase I found a while ago at a garage sale. They were supposed to be a baby quilt that looked like a comic strip, but that didn't happen. Then I felt the need to do something "special" and improvisational with them. The thing about little picture quilts is that they take a lot of thought and concentration, and I don't have a lot of creative time and space without little ones talking in my ear or climbing under foot.

So I've decided to give myself a break and so quilts with regular "blocks". After all, the thing that attracted me to quilting was that I could cut the fabric when the kids were asleep, and then sew them together without much thought when the kids were awake. Sometimes I forget this, or think it doesn't have as much creative "value" somehow as my more improvisational quilts.

I've been wanting to make some of these "quilt as you go" blocks for a while now, so I thought that rather than committing to a whole big quilt of them, I would just do 9 and make a little quilt for the kids. Fun. Simple. Freeing.

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments here for all to find and see.

Oh, Curtians, how you mock me.

So, apparently home decor sewing is not my strong point. Its all the measuring and precision that kills me, I think. I wanted to make something cool and airy for the windows in our living room, something that would let in the light but not the neighbours eyes. So I thought I would make some fabric panels with a linen / cotton mix on the top and some burnt orange home decor fabric on the bottom, inspired by Lotta Jansdotter. But when I got to the local fabric store, I found that they just had enough for me to make them with a tiny seam allowance leftover.

Until, that is, I realized that my boys climb up here all the time, so I was going to have to wash the white curtains, or suffer the constant indignity of fingerprints. So I washed said linen / cotton blend and it shrunk, and warped  little bit. So I had to trim the edges to straighten the fabric.  As you can see, this resulted in not enough fabric to cover the windows. And these, my friends, have not even been finished on the edges yet. I decided to hang them and see if they were going to work before I finished the egdges. Dave's response, "They look like you took a bedsheet, ripped it in half and hung it up."  Well, yes, because they're not finished.

So now I must rip them all apart and find something to make  a third fabric panel. Either another solid, or, as pictured below, another block of this fab Joel Dewberry print.

What do you think, friends? Any solutions to my sewing tradgedy?

Men at Patchwork in Montreal

In one of my favorite books, "The Gentle Art of Domesticity", Jane Brocket talks about allotments, and how they remind her of quilts. She calls them an example of "men at patchwork". The part of Montreal where I live is mostly populated by brick homes and duplexes.

Most of them are somewhere between 70 and 100 years old, with newer homes mixed in. Almost all of the houses are made of red brick. The newer homes tend to maintain the red brick and the same shape as the older homes, though, and even many of the apartment blocks are built with red bricks.

It seems that when you are a bricklayer, and you are building hundreds of houses that have the same basic shape and size, you feel the need to do something decorative, to make the homes distinctive. So, many of the homes in my neighbourhood have these wonderful little brick patchworks decorating the space between the windows of the top floor and the roof.

Okay, so this one is actually the new stone path at the rec center, but still, a great quilt-y idea

I love finding these surprising little brick quilts everywhere I go. Although I have to remind myself only to look at them when I am walking. I don't know what the insurance company would think if I rear ended a car because I was distracted by decorative brickwork.

I can tell this city is going to inspire many, many rectangle quilts.

We took a detour on our way home from the park so we could get these photos along a street with a really good variety of patterns. I don't know what the neighbours thought of me photographing right above their windows . . . ah well. The things I do for you, dear readers.

Maybe the rectangle is the new square?