Tie One On!

I finally managed to whip up an Apron for this month's "Tie One On" Flickr group. The theme for February's Aprons was Polka dots! I've been "thinking" about making an Apron for this group for the past year - every deadline comes and goes, and my apron remains untouched. Finally tonight I gave myself only 2 hours to come up with something simple. Better a simple Apron than no Apron! I've named this Apron "How does your garden grow"....The fabrics are random scraps that I had on hand and some vintage rick-rack I purchased on eBay (about a year ago) when I first started thinking about making Aprons!

More fabric!

I forgot to mention that I won some fabric in a blog giveaway before Christmas. I was lucky enough to score these great fabric prints from Linda Lum DeBono. If you aren't already familiar with her work, be sure to check out her blog or website! She is an accomplished quilter, knitwear designer, fabric designer and author.

Now, what should I do with these fun fabrics? Maybe a new Polka dot apron for this month's "Tie One on" Apron theme?

Something new!

Hello!

Finally a new project to warrant a blog post. The crafting has been few and far between these past few months. I spent the better part of my Christmas holidays making a cover for our new down duvet. I wanted it to "feel" like a quilt which is why I chose to do a patchwork composition for the main top part of the cover. I've been collecting Amy Butler fabrics for almost a year now and I finally had a place to use them all - yes I used every last fat quarter I had for this quilt top!

I really let the design of this duvet evolve organically. In the end it turned out quite different than what I imagined it would be when I started. This was due mostly to the limiting colours of sheets for sale after all the Boxing day madness (which I avoided). By the time I showed up in the stores all the good sheet colours were well picked over. Originally I thought would like blue borders and pillow cases. However I couldn't find any blues that worked with the colours of the prints. In the end I settled for something I like a whole lot more (and might not have even considered) if I had found blue right from the start. The coordinating sheets I picked are white with a small beige geometric print. I decided to go with beige and brown as my two border colours (due to lack of blues) and because browns are really the secondary colours in these prints.

In the end I think the cover turned out looking more modern with the brown accents. I'm glad I was open enough to consider other options - I also had cut out another Amy Butler print initially as the final border but decided it was just too much pattern and opted with the brown....

I tried to plan the quilt and lay out the measurements in Illustrator before I started but in the end resorted to quick pencil sketches and my trusty calculator. I still find this the fastest way to work!

As with any good quilt photo - I asked my cat Weasel to pose for me! She didn't really get into it until I had already started shooting with her stuffed cat toy....because she got jealous!