Today when I came home from work, I collected the mail, and amongst the usual bills and importunate letters seeking my time, vote and/or charitable donation(s), there was a squishy package.

Now, ordinarily, squishy packages are a cause of much joy in our house, but I wasn't expecting anything, so glancing quickly at it, I saw that it was addressed to me and said "important documents enclosed".



I didn't think anything of it and brought it into the house with the rest, putting the mail in its accustomed place, (a large, flat, ceramic bowl on the kitchen table).  While I was taking off my outerwear, BSP sorted through it and inquired "Oh, did you get a present?" 

"No." said I.  "I don't know what that is." 
"It's a present" replied BSP.
"Really??!!??" I asked excitedly.
I gladly grabbed it and sure enough, it was indeed a present, from Elaine of Ultra Violet Yarns at La Belle Helen.



Inside I found the cutest little hat!  (Which I am modelling above.)


After trying it on several ways I've decided to wear it with the ruching on left side of my head above my ear.  That's probably exactly the wrong way to wear it, but I think it looks quite saucy.  *s*

BSP prounounced it "Very french."  It's chic and adorable at the same time.   

Thank you so much Elaine!  I have two coats and a jacket that this petite chapeau will provide a lovely contrast to.

I love it! 

Lovely readers, please take some time to visit Elaine's shop and her blog.  You won't be sorry you did!

For today's Friday Flickr Faves, I thought I would post some of my favourite detail shots of quilting.


1. Just Leaf It, 2. xylemdtl1, 3. convergence quilt 007, 4. Quilt Whisperer 101

From the beginning, as much I love colour and landscape in quilt tops, for me, the real beauty in a quilt is the  quilting . I have often spoken on this blog about "making the quilts of my dreams".  That phrase has always referred to learning enough to be able to quilt the patterns I see in my head.  I'm not there yet (yet!); but I'm getting there. 

The kind of quilting in these pictures inspires me.

I'm still working on my "long quilts" (as in, "Wow - these are crazy labour intensive") quilts, so in order to have something new to post today, tonight I whipped up a couple of small projects. 

One of which was this gym bag!



 Because I joined a gym in my neighbourhood today!  :)  I'm going to get fit - but first, I'm going to get really cute accessories!




(With cute pockets inside them!)

And I'm also going to make a little drawstring bag for my flat iron, combs/brushes and a little matching make up case, but this is all I have for now.

It was really fun making this bag (about 20 inches long by 10 inches tall) but I think my next prototype gym bag will be a rectangular one with removable inserts for stuff. 

And this is a not very good picture of the bag (I have the handles stretched so they look wonky but they're really not) because I wanted to show


part of my thread collection.

I've been collecting old spice racks at thrift stores and garage sales and re-purposing them into thead racks.   It seems like the more of these shelves I get, the more thread I accumulate, but I off-set the consumerism with eco-friendly storage.  :)

Hopefully, next Monday I'll produce something finished.  Or who knows - maybe this Wednesday!

Happy Monday everyone!

1. Block 23 detail A, 2. Nevena Uzurov - Water crown, 3. Under water world, 4. Astrattamente colorata

On last week's Friday Flickr Faves post, one of the commenters said something like "I'm curious to see what quilts you might make based on these photos".   So this week, I thought I'd show you how something like that might happen.

None of these photos are related, nor are any of them taken by the same photographer, but you can see in the quilt photos how someone might have been inspired by the water photos.

The photos I choose for Friday Flickr Faves are chosen for many different reasons.  Sometimes I choose them because I want to make direct interpretations:  the green fog with the tree in the foreground from last week, for instance I want to interpret quite literally and have asked the photographer's permission to do so.
But others may just be a "feeling" they inspire, whether it's an emotional feeling (hope/drama/intensity/etc.), physical feeling (movement/texture/shocked into stillness) or sensory feeling (lush/rich/voluptuous), or some combination of any of those. 

But sometimes it's as simple as the fact that I'm taken with the order in which the colours are falling in the original compostion as in the water photo on the right.  Blues into greens into golds into teals into loden into brown into blue into gold  - punctuated with intense dark red and feathered with icy blue-white highlights - I love the way it all draws your eye into the edge of...?  Whatever's next.

Also relating to last week's post - someone else asked how I make these mosaics.  I would have been happy to answer them directly, but their profile was set up as "no reply".  So, Michelle, if you're around, I make these and other Flickr toys through  Big Huge Labs.   There's a lot of fun stuff to tinker with there!

Have a great weekend.  See you Monday!

And in my defiance, when I went to my sewing room tonight, I didn't work on my Black History Month quilts, nor did I work on something warm and wintery/cuddly (although it's snowing like mad out there); no, no, I decided to make something to welcome spring!



It's a crazy drunk tote.  *laughs* 

I'm exploring my continued interest in this pseudo-crazy quilt thing that began last December (and looks like sticking around for awhile); and because my brain leaps like that, as I was pulling fabrics, I pulled the largest of my drunkard's path templates too.  And the result was a crazy drunk tote. 

*hiccup!*

SEVEN fabrics in this tote (which, is mind boggling to me - unless it's a monochromatic quilt, I rarely use more than four) so maybe I was druink - drunk on fabric!




And with my new seaming technique (okay somebody else probably invented it already, like somebody else [apparently] invented pinwheels, but I digress); with the seaming technique - the bag is reversible:


So, you could actually use it three ways! (Once I trim that errant thread, that is.  *ahem*)

I used blanket binding for the handles and the trim, batting throughout, and quilted the handles with extra batting for more stability. 

Fifteen by 14 inches wide, it's a Goldilocks tote (not too big and not too small) and I really like it.  Originally, it was going to be a market bag (which is why I didn't add pockets); but when I was adding the lining, I couldn't resist the lure of quilting.  *hee*  And now I have a crazy drunk tote.

Take that, Groundhogs of North America!

After some thinking last week, I decided to give myself a break and make something new. And I was pretty excited about it!

Around this time last year, I had made my second-to-last visit to a quilters' shop, and came across a fabric that I found sort of broadly appealing, but couldn't imagine actually using.  I circled the store a couple of times, and finally went back to it, deciding to pick up three yards of it despite my ambivalence.  I had the feeling that if I did find a use for it, I would want a lot of it.  *hee*

Although I have lots of quite concrete ideas for quilts dancing in my head, for some reason, when I gave myself permission to make something new, I pulled out the "African ladies" fabric, as I call it.  And the second I touched it, I knew what I wanted to do with it.  (The subconscious is a strange place.)


Without hesitation, I gathered together my scraps in golds and browns and oranges, rusts and greens and creams, and as if I'd been thinking about it all along, the pattern for my next quilt was in my head.   I made a couple of sample blocks for sizing and calculating fabric usage, and began sewing.

I decided that I would feature a single lady in each block, and scatter them with crazy quilt blocks in complementary colours.  I made enough crazy quilt and dancing woman blocks for a queen sized quilt, but once they were done, I realized that three metres of my cream linen would not be enough.  So, I'm going to make two versions of this quilt, both lap sized, one in cream and one in black. 


I'm really excited to be making these quilts and am looking forward to showing them to you when they're completed.  And when I'm done those, I'm sure I'll be content to go back to finishing up a WIP or two.  ;)

P.S. I started a Modern Quilt Guild and our first meeting was on Sunday.  If you're a local follower, please come and join us - clicky on the linky!

E.P.S. - Holy cow!  The last time I checked my followers in September, I had 35.  Now I have 89!  Welcome to all of you - thanks so much for joining me here.  :)   I think when I get to 100, I'll have to have a giveway celebration.  That'll be fun! :)