Flickrfaves

Ahhhh, the good old days. The days when we all hung out on Flickr, sharing our photos, participating in conversations and sending our happy little mini quilts, pouches and mugrugs to far away friends in swaps.  Angela started a new hashtag on Instagram for showing our old #flickrfaves photographs to new friends who may not have been on the quilting scene back then.  I know not all of you use Instagram, so I thought I'd repost some of my older work that you may not have seen before (also, most of what I'm making these days I can't share quite yet because they are for challenges or gifts or publication in the future).

Remember when we all started making Mug Rugs? These were two I put together with some leftover "twofer" corners cut off from some flying geese for another projects. All French General fabric. January 2011

This was one of two tree skirts I made using a pattern by Carol Turznik (mamacjt on Flickr). Carol kindly granted me permission to teach this as a class and it was a lot of fun! December 2010

Here's another mug rug made for a Flickr swap, September, 2010. This pear design went on to become a  bolster pillow pattern published in Stitch magazine.

Another sweet little art quilt given away in a swap. The theme was Spring Fling and completely unbeknownst to my partner and I, we both made a tiny quilt featuring a nest with 3 robin's eggs for each other! Sometimes swaps can have the most surprising results. 

March, 2010

This wallhanging was made in 2004 after a workshop with local teacher Barb Mortell, who taught the free-pieced paper dolls. It was my first 'original design' quilt and the first time I'd tried free-cutting and piecing curves with a rotary cutter and making improv-pieced flying geese. The quilt is called Mu-Mu Bijoux and is a remembrance of my late mother-in-law and her Maui muumuus.

This baby Storm at Sea was made for our former babysitter when she had her first child. I made it 10 years ago from all the soft Moda florals that were so in style back then at our local shops.

Here's a favourite of both my husband and mine. It was sent away in a mini swap with a 'house' theme. It's all wool applique and an original design inspired by a photograph I took near my parent's cottage in rural Ontario. A local resident has placed unique birdhouses on top of a row of fence posts by a hay field. 

And finally, I think this is my most-viewed Flickr photo, with over 6500 views. I'm not sure how that happened, but I think it was featured on the Explore page and then used in a bunch of inspiration mosaics for mugrug swaps. I actually kept this one because I was so pleased with how it turned out. It was my first ever project using Essex Linen, which started quite a love affair for me - it's my background of choice for special projects!

September has been so busy for me already. I presented 5 trunk shows/lectures in the space of 8 days to local traditional guilds, taught an Improv Under the Influence workshop, hosted a day retreat, delivered our son to university, made 3 mini quilts and a lap sized quilt top, completed a special gift, made two Stepping Stones table runners from Make It, Take It, and provided many, many Mom Taxi rides for our daughter (who has started supervised driving, thank goodness). In another week, I'm off on a very exciting adventure to Sweden, where I'll be teaching 3 workshops. I'm also helping organize a showcase of Modern Mini Quilts for the VMQG; we are showcasing our quilts at the Vancouver Quilter's Guild show on October 23 & 24.

2015 is a crazy, exciting, amazing year so far and the fun will continue right through to December. Somewhere in the next two months I need to make the QuiltCon entry that I'm dreaming about and get a start on some Christmas gifts. 

Phew.