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. 

Les Petites Mug Rugs

How about a little French cafe in the kitchen? Or on the desk? I took my own advice and made these two mug rugs out of my twofer HST's left over from my Dresden Plate pillow. No idea what the heck I'm talking about? It's all here.

Since these are made entirely of French General's La Petite Ecole line, I thought I'd throw a little French on the 'mug' side with some embroidered backstitch. D is enjoying Late Immersion (grade 6) and my French vocab is slowly coming back as I fulfill the role of 'Mother Who Speaks French comme une petite enfant" while simultaneously acting as "Homework Support Staff".

I'm the kind of person to put leftover HST's into a little ziploc baggy, stuff them in a drawer in my sewing room and never do anything with them again.

Not this time.

No way.

I am going to use every last scrap of the La Petite Ecole charm pack that I paid a whole $7 for!

I only have 2 full charm squares and some angled scraps left over from cutting Tracey's Dresden Plate petals. Not to worry, though, I have a plan! I'm going to use the scraps to make a pair of boobs for Mrs. Moen, using a design similar to my Allium rug rug.

I'm not yet sure where these 2 mug rugs will end up - teacher gifts are a distinct possibility. I just need D to do some covert mug sniffing on the teacher's desk to figure out who drinks tea and who drinks coffee!

Tomorrow night is the VMQG meeting. This month Felicity issued a nametag challenge. I best get working on that!

Flickr, how do I love thee?

According to the statisticians over at Flickr, this photo of my little quilt has been viewed 2172 times, made a favourite by 107 people and received 91 lovely comments.

If you make stuff, if you enjoy photography, if you like to share, then Flickr is for you. There is no other way I could have made a little 9" X 14" quilt and had that many people look at it, like it and tell me so.

When you spend a day in your sewing room all by yourself making stuff, sometimes you wonder (well I do, anyway) where it's all going? will anyone else like it? am I doing this right? Of course we should know the answer to all those questions intuitively: does it matter? It makes me happy to make stuff, just like it probably makes you happy, too. What makes me even happier, though, is being able to share and receive feedback from all over the world.

1,415 views, 96 comments, 94 favorites

Perhaps the even more a.may.zing part is that I would never have even made these two small quilts if it had not been for flickr in the first place. I wouldn't have even known about mug rugs, what they were, or even how to swap them, if flickr hadn't been the catalyst and meeting place for creative people to share with each other.

B and I got a flickr account a few years ago so we could share photos with our faraway family members. I had no idea that flickr was a community. I thought it was a giant server that functioned as a back-up for storing digital photos. Once again, I underestimated the power of that interweb thingy.

So, to the smarty pants that thought of and created Flickr before I could, thanks pal.

Mug Rug Made It!

Wouldn't you know it? I just sent a note to my swap mama yesterday asking if my mug rug had been posted, because I've been waiting patiently, and it just hadn't come yet, and all the ones I love are being received by other people, and I was just feeling a little left out. Waaaaaah!

Then boom. Today it arrived! And it was totally worth the wait! My mama reassured me that I had an excellent swap partner and there was absolutely NO WAY she'd flake. Now I understand...my partner is non other than the amazing flickr swap queen chickenfoot (otherwise known as Susan to her real life friends...I think).

Isn't it great? I have not yet been initiated into all things red/aqua/Little Red and couldn't be happier to have this sweet little mug rug to keep my afternoon teacup cozy.

This swap was so great. The creativity and originality that resulted from it on flickr is just astounding. I ended up making 3 of them. It's so fun - give it a try! Christmas is just around the corner and mug rugs make great gifts....especially when a groovy matching mug is included.

Don't forget, exciting stuff coming in about 13 hours!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sweet P is such a Sweet Heart!

Continuing my fabulous weekend of quilting celebrity meetings, on Saturday morning double 'n' Dianne and I headed out to Boundary Bay, B.C. for a quilt show. I had read a few days ago on Paulette's blog that she and some friends were heading over from Vancouver Island to speed shop and cruise the show before jumping back on a returning ferry. I would have just a few minutes to meet my blogging buddy before she had to leave! [If you're a long time reader of Poppyprint, you may remember this story....the one where I met Paulette's sister in Barbados right after Paulette won my first ever giveaway. Now, that was crazy!]

Picture by Claire, scooped from Paulette's blog

Paulette, Claire and Dawn were waiting for us in the front entrance surrounded by shopping bags from the merchant mall. We had a great big "so happy to finally meet you in real life!" hug, and then she did it....Paulette gave me the sweetest present! Knowing I've been having a ball in the flickr mug rug swap, she pulled a fast one and made me a gorgeous fall rug from her hand dyed wool collection. Check it out, here on my desk this morning.

Paulette said she brought the mug home and found all the right wool waiting in her stash. Amazing. The colours are just beautiful.

And my morning latte fit perfectly. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Paulette. I hope next time we can have a nice long visit and maybe do some stitching together. Mwah!

If you're looking for my blogiversary giveaway of Kaffe Fasset FQ's, then you need to head over here!