Black With a Pop of Pink Tote Bag

Another one of my yoga peeps in my Yin classes have asked me to make her a tote bag. She wants it for a carry-on for travel to Vancouver in July. She had a look at my Etsy shop and was drawn to the black and white makeup bag. So that’s where we started. She also asked for a pop of pink in it.

She asked for a button and loop closing as oppsed to the magnetic snap I often use.

After several photos and back and forth emails, she settled on these seven fabrics and their placement. I fussycut the Eiffel Tower fabric so that the panel featured two completed images. Those towers are 6” high!

Arabian Nights

I first put this collection of fabrics (minus the tan and gold leaf fabric) together probably a year or two ago when I was either combining fabrics for a totebag for someone or my Etsy shop, or combining fabrics for a a Project Quilting prompt. I am glad to have found a design that lets them shine.

This is a third option in my latest pattern release, Lyra. 

Lyra Quilt Along - Quilt Parade

I think a few of us have been looking forward to today! It is the culmination of my tenth quilt along where we show off our finished quilts! I’ve seen a few floating around the internet, and it truly gives me a thrill to see the variety.

Today would have been my dad’s 100th birthday, that famous Canadian father of mine.😉 Today is also the New Moon, as well as the start of the G7 Summit which is in Evian, France this year. Quite the date!

Leo the Lion

Brady’s Leo the Lion quilt is a very happy finish. As I stated in the progress post, this is a pattern I bought from Tartan Kiwi Designs ten years ago, knowing I would one day make it for him. I intended it to be the centre of a quilt, and even when I first started making it, that was the plan. However, as I often say, quilts talk, and this one decided it wanted to be THE star, and so it has become a wallhanging.

I think he was right: he is the star.

Gratitude & Glimmers #107

The significance is hiding in the insignificant.

Appreciate everything.

—Eckhart Tolle

Welcome to my post of glimmers (of joy and wonder) and gratitude for the month of March. You can find links to more posts like this one at LeeAnna's blog, Not Afraid of Color. My apologies that this was not out on Thursday, but where did May go?

1. For the third year in a row, we attended a couple of Jane's Walks in Windsor. Jane’s Walks celebrate our local communities: "neighbourhoods, and the people who live there.” This year Windsor’s festival, the last weekend in April and the first one in May, was the fourth largest in Canada, pretty good for a smaller region. One of the two we did was in Butterfly Lane, a nondescript back lane in Walkerville, which is a neighbourhood in the east end of Windsor.

Homeowners gave permission for artists to paint on their fences or garages.

Local artists did the beautiful butterfly artwork in the lane to raise awareness of brain injury in their community. There were many beautiful pieces.

The Making of a Lion Quilt

Brady turns 18 this summer (how is that remotely possible?) and so I’m making him a lion quilt as he is a Leo.

This is Lion, a paper-pieced pattern by Tartan Kiwi Designs. I bought it ten(!) years ago, knowing I’d make it one day for Brady. Well, that ‘one day’ has arrived. It is a huge block, the biggest one I’ve ever paper-pieced, at 24” finished. The cows quilt blocks were 12”.

Lyra Quilt Along - Sashing Units and Quilt Assembly

Aaand… just like that - we are done until the final parade opens on June 15! A few of you have gone ahead and got your quilt top together, so I do hope you'll have a completely finished quilt by then. Know that both tops and finished quilts can go into the parade, though I truly do hope that you finish your quilt. I'd hate to be the reason more WIPs show up in your quilt rooms!

The sashing pieces will go together in a jiffy. Then it's basically a 9-patch layout with borders. But I'm a bit ahead of myself.