Lumos/Nox

Hey y'all! Some of you may know that I am a bit of a Harry Potter fan (and I know that I'm not alone). My dear lovely friend Amanda is too and when her birthday rolled around I knew that I needed to make her an HP-themed present.

Originally, my only two ideas were Harry Potter and mini quilt. I started thinking about the spells in the books, then I remembered Elizabeth's Refrigerator Magnets alphabet pattern (which I also used here), and then I spotted all of the wonderful scraps of Constellations I had left over from making Orion.

In case you don't know, Lumos is the spell used to illuminate a wand's tip (like a flashlight) and Nox is the counter-spell that turns that lights off. For the Lumos portion of the quilt I used the light blue fabric to reflect the casting of light, and for the Nox portion I used black fabric to reflect that that the wand light was out.

I love Lizzy's Constellations line so much - it is just too too perfect! I still have some scraps left and I might just need to hoard them for awhile.

When it came to quilting this little guy, I knew that I wanted to put some sort of picture from the series into it. Originally I was going to do a lightning bolt that echoed out, but while looking at various symbols associated with Harry Potter, I spotted the sign of the Deathly Hallows and knew that it was just perfect! I traced the single symbol out using a washable pen and then echoed around it used the width of my walking foot as the measure.

I used fabric from The Ghastlies for the back which I not only thought worked well, but was also my little ode to Severus Snape. The binding is Sketch in Mist.

I'm happy to say that this mini arrived at Amanda's house last week (only a little bit late for her birthday) and is now up on her wall. It was pretty hard for me to give this little guy up because I really love the way that it turned out, but I knew that Amanda would appreciate it and she sent me some pretty awesome goodies recently too including a handmade Harry Potter tote - I'll have to share that one soon!

Are you a Harry Potter fan? If so, which is your favourite book and/or scene? I might just need to make myself a little HP mini and could use some inspiration!

Introducing... Doughnut Kiss!

Hey y'all! So, it's been a little while since I've been seen around these parts, I'm finding that with work and some other goings on that I don't have quite as much time to sew as I would like. That's not to say I haven't been doing anything though - I'm still working away on my Hermione socks, am writing a new quilt tutorial (yay!) which will hopefully be here soon, and have been finishing up my sample for my Sewing Summit class.

Since, I'm trying to make a fresh start, I decided that I might as well welcome myself back to this space (haha!) with a little something for you! Since my Sewing Summit English Paper Piecing class is less about the pattern I'm sharing, and more about tips and tricks for EPP, I thought that I would share all of the templates and such for my sample here. How does that sound?

So this is the sample I sewed up recently for my class, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to sew up another quilt version that includes interlocking Doughnut Kisses. I don't even know where the name Doughnut Kiss came from for this, but I just thought it was so funny that I'm sticking with it!

Now, I'm not going to go into a whole EPP tutorial here, but I'll give you a couple of tips. Since these pieces are a bit bigger (2"-4" sides) I used the EPP method where you sew through the templates rather than just whipping around the corners like I demonstrated in my QAYG Hexie Coaster tutorial. This helps to keep the 1/4" seams from popping out away from the template.

Even though I included a template page for the 2" squares to download, to be a bit more environmentally friendly, I recommend just cutting the square from a regular piece of paper. You can get 20 2" squares out a regular A4 piece of paper - you will need 21 square for the pillow so just cut the remaining square from the scrap generated by cutting your other templates.

I just wanted to share the back because I love it! I did the standard envelope back that I demonstrated in my Not-You-Traditional-Log-Cabin-Pillow tutorial (it's even the same size so you can use all of the same measurements). This is the first time that I've ever finished the whole way around a pillow with binding and I really love the look!

The templates for the squares and both sizes of the elongated hexagons, as well as a colouring sheet featuring the interlocking design can be found here. Just a note on the templates, all sides should measure 2" except for the long sides are the larger size of elongated hexagons which should measure 4". Be sure to print out the templates at 100% without scaling; if you have any problems, you may need to fiddle with your printer a bit.

Here's just a little example of a coloured in sheet. The sheet contains a finite number of sections so if you want to make it bigger you may need to do some creative taping together. For the crosses you can be super scrappy, or go more tonal with you colour choices. It's really up to you and each different combination of fabrics will create entirely different looks!

I really hope that you enjoy the templates and I'd love to see any example using the Doughnut Kiss templates that you come up with!

Templates Download

Another Vox Case + the Giveaway Winner!

Hey y'all! Some of you may remember the Kobo Vox case I made my mum two Christmases ago, well, I made another one.

This one is for my mum's friend D. She not-so-subtly hinted that maybe I should make a case for her Vox too seeing as she does my taxes every year (for free *cough*). For those of you who don't know, a Kobo Vox is a tablet e-reader similar in many ways to the 7" Kindle Fire.

If you saw the post with my mum's case, you'll notice that I used the same fabric but in a different colourway. It's pretty hard to say no to fabric with books on it for this purpose and D's favourite colour is pink. Plus, knowing my mum and D, they will probably think it's a hoot that they have matching cases to go with their matching readers. Girls.

The exterior fabric is from the Grand Tour by Victoria and Albert for David's Textiles and the interior solids is one of the newer Kona colours which I believe is called Iron. Once again, I resized Amber's iPad cover tutorial to fit the Vox (which is a really great tutorial!), which was a feat in and of itself let me tell you! I didn't have any measurements written down from my mum's case (I probably did at the time) so I had to figure out the adjustments all over again; I'm really hoping the Vox fits well since I didn't have one in front of me this time either to test out as I went. I hope she likes it.

So, I bet you want to know who won the giveaway?! Well, without further ado, the winner of the Winter's Lane fat quarter bundle is...

Congratulations Amy! Please send me an email with your mailing address and the good folks over at Fat Quarter Shop will get your bundle out to you!

It's Giveaway Time - Winter's Lane!

Hey y'all! So, it's giveaway time again - woot! Once again, the lovely folks at Fat Quarter Shop and I have teamed up to bring you some pretty awesome swag.

This time around we're giving away a fat quarter bundle of Winter's Lane from Kate & Birdie Paper Co. for Moda. This is a really great winter-themed collection, but one of the things I really like about it is that many of the prints could easily be incorporated into sewing year-round. The greys are my absolute favourite! It's been awhile since I've seen a winter-themed collection that doesn't scream "CHRISTMAS!", so this is just great.

Yep, super-pretty. I think I definitely need reams that print that looks a bit like pine branches, especially in the grey (and the ice-blue).

Okay, so I guess you want to know how to enter, right? You have two chances but please be sure to leave separate comments for each entry. Here's what you've got to do:

1. Leave a comment letting my know which item (fabric, pattern, bundle, etc)

is your favourite from FQS' Coming Soon page.

2. Leave another comment if you are a follower of my blog.

That's it! Two easy-peasy ways to enter! I will close the comments in a week (on May 28th) and announce the winner here on the blog. International entries are, as always, welcome! Also, please remember that I have comment moderation enabled so if you don't see your comment right away it just means that I haven't had the chance to approve it yet (duplicate comments will be deleted).

*the giveaway is now closed*

Sewing Summit 2013: I'm Teaching!

Hey y'all! Some of you may know about this already if you're following me on Instagram or have been reading the Sewing Summit blog, but I've got some pretty fun and exciting news - I'm teaching this year!!

Yay! I will be teaching English Paper Piecing and the class will be based on my own pattern. Although not available yet, the pattern will also be made available on my blog as a tutorial. I'm very excited to be teaching this class and I think it will be a lot of fun - you should definitely join me! *wink*

Here's a little screenshot of my bio for you! In case you haven't heard of it, Sewing Summit is a modern sewing and blogging conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year the conference will be taking place September 19th - 21st and I think (unlike last year) that there are still a few tickets available.

I had a really great time last year and am so excited to be seeing some friends again, and hopefully I'll be making some new peeps too! Make sure to check out the teachers page on the Sewing Summit website, but take note that all of the teachers haven't been announced yet - there will be more goodness to come!

To Boston With Love

Hey y'all! How's everyone doing? I have been quite the busy bee lately and have so much to share, but for today I just want to share one thing because I think it's important and because I want everyone to have the opportunity to participate if they so choose.

Have you heard about To Boston With Love? If you're on Instagram, I'm sure you've seen something about it. To Boston With Love is a project spearheaded by Berene and the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild as a means of uplifting the city of Boston after the events at last month's marathon. All of the Modern Quilt Guilds (and individuals as well!) have been invited to participate in making flags that will be hung over the Memorial Day weekend in a prestigious Boston location. I've made two so far, but am hoping to get at least one more done before they need to be mailed (which is soon).

This is the first flag that I completed. I used the paper piecing pattern from the original To Boston With Love blog post and went scrappy with the letters using colours that match those in our Toronto Modern Quilt Guild blog banner along with white Kona.

The second flag is a scrappy heart. I figured out the measurements for this one on my own using the HSTs I already had done as a guide. All of the outer HSTs are the corner cuts from my Poppy quilt which I had sewn into teeny HSTs many months ago while making the quilt. For both flags the binding is from Lizzy House's Constellations and the backing is from Anna Maria Horner's Innocent Crush.

These little flags are such a great project because not only are they super quick and simple, but I'm hoping they will also brighten up the city of Boston for many people.

And for a bit of a laugh (and in case there was every any doubt):

Yep, thug. A crafty thug, but still.

Socks, one of my favourite things!

Last night I commented to Alex's youngest nephew that socks are one of my favourite things, to which he promptly replied "no, they're not!" (which in turn caused Alex and I to start singing These Are a Few of My Favourite Things while chasing him around the house). But really, they are. Ask Alex. Or my Mum. I have all different kinds - plain ones, colourful ones, wool ones, cotton ones, fleece ones, and, of course, hand-knit ones. So far I have knit three pairs of socks (one chunky and two fingering weight) and am working on my fourth pair now.

This will become a pair of Hermione's Everyday Socks and I'm loving them already! I modified the pattern to be toe-up rather than cuff-down: I cast on 28 stitches using Judy's Magic Cast On, increased two stitches on each needle every other row for a total of 56 stitches, and I'm reversing the chart so that I work from rows 4 to 1. The yarn is Fibranatura Yummy which has, unfortunately, been discontinued.

Working on these socks reminded me that I haven't shared these socks that I finished a while ago.

These are my By the Sea socks in Madelinetosh Sock in Iceburg (this colour is discontinued I think). The sock pattern is actually available for free on Wendy Johnson's site and is called Seaweed but I renamed them because of the the names of both the pattern and the yarn colourway.

This yarn is so hard to photograph - it's a really nice blue in real life. I actually have a lot of completed knitting that I've never shared on the blog (including my first adult-sized cardigan) because it's hard getting a picture of myself wearing it all - socks are much easier!

In case you didn't already know, I'm a little bit of a closet Potter head and I have plans to turn all of Erica Leuder's Harry Potter themed (free) sock patterns into toe-up socks for me! I cannot wait for my Hermione socks to be done!