I'm an Island Batik Ambassador Again!

I am thrilled to announce that I am once again an Island Batik Ambassador. Last year was an amazing year of challenges, that pushed me out of my comfort zone, and it helped me spread my wings as a pattern designer.

This first box arrived a few weeks ago, but due to the Getaway Blog Hop, we were asked to wait to share all our goodies until the hop ended. Within this post is the announcement of the winners of the giveaway I hosted on my blog for that hop, so read on! One favour I am asking of my readers who subscribe via email: can you let me know if the link that says "Continue reading..." works for you please, or if the way it comes in has changed at all? I am having some extremely annoying issues with blogger and gmail.

TBT #14 A Cozy Quilter's Christmas

Would you believe I have a couple of Christmas items still around my house? A snowman quilt or two, à propos for January wouldn't you say? A Stars and Mittens quilt... and this cushion, or pillow.

That other cushion is one of the items I made when I was chosen to do the Desire to Inspire Challenge for Henry Glass Fabrics back in 2016

I need to get back into stitchery. It is so portable, I enjoy do it, and I love incorporating it with quilt blocks. Welcome to Throwback Thursday Quilts if you are new here! This is a place where we can write posts about those quilts we made prior to our blogging days, and let others see our quilt journey. I find it's kind of therapeutic to revisit these, and discover stories you might not have realized are held within the fibres of those projects.

I Like/Love #24

This is the first gratitude post for 2019 for me. I join in with LeeAnna each month at Not Afraid of Color. She hosts a weekly link-up on Thursdays where you will find many like-minded, gratitude-aware peeps. I just link up once at the end of each month. It's not that I'm not being grateful the other three weeks, au contraire, I am always aware of how many blessings I have (just ask my family, who get annoyed by me in a loving way when I often acknowledge my gratitude and loves aloud). I try to limit my monthly list to ten items.

1. I love my kitchen. I love early morning, and I love these fairy lights, and their warm, soft, golden glow. On a bitterly cold morning like today, it makes me feel even more cosy in my little house. Yep, I still have a sparkly silver-sprayed wreath in my door to the deck, and four red berries twig wreaths in each window; I like them all and the ambiance they create. A few of the pics in this post are taken in that warm golden light this morning.

Getaway Island Batik Bloghop & Giveaways Week 4

Wow! Inspiration overload, right? Wrong! One can never have too much quilt inspiration and eye candy, at least in my humble opinion. Fabulous fabrics, gorgeous, creative quilts, ahhh. We are entering the final week of the month-long hop. My own post where there are three giveaways (I remembered I have an extra copy of January/February American Patchwork & Quilting, so I'm giving it away too), can be found here. The finished quilt can be found here, and seen below!

DrEAMi! #24

Welcome to the first DrEAMi! linkup for 2019! This is the third year I've hosted this party for those of us with Quilter ADD.  If you're not sure what I'm talking about, have you ever come across a quilt project (pattern, actual quilt, idea, etc) that just BUGS you so much that it takes over your life? You have to literally stop everything you're currently sewing, forego any house work, ignore social media, your kids, your husband... and sew your hiney off until that project is done and you've got it out of your system!

Oh! The Places You'll Go! Finish!

My first finish for 2019 is a wrap! This is also a goal on my Q1FAL. My list is here.

It's not the greatest of photos, but let's just say my trusty quilt-holder was a little exasperated that a quilt put us behind schedule...
This is the quilt I made as my final challenge for being a 2018 Island Batik Ambassador, a position that has really helped me grow as a designer. I am so grateful for being accepted as an ambassador, I'm honoured to have been able to showcase these rich beautiful fabrics, I'm happy to have made new friends, and excited to have been offered new opportunities. Most of all, I am still in awe of receiving such beautiful fabrics from Island Batik, gorgeous threads from Aurifil, and wonderful batting from Hobbs Batting. All shine in this quilt. I'm also super-excited to start my second year as an ambassador in February!

Modern by the Yard New Issue and I'm in it!

And it's not a quilt of the fabric kind but a block of the digital kind!

MbyY, in case you are not familiar with it, is the ezine put out quarterly, for free, by Benartex Fabrics. You can get your copy by going to their blog, Sew in Love With Fabric, where you will find the link to the ezine on the sidebar. When they contacted me to ask if I would like to design a digital block, the assignment being a modern twist on the Log Cabin block, I jumped at the chance for several reasons. First, I love a good challenge to my creativity and second, it was another opportunity to work with EQ8, and third, well, being published is always a thrill that never gets old. Fourth, I'd just played with a log cabin challenge for November's Island Batik challenge, so log cabins were still bouncing around in my head. You can see that quilt top here.