Katy Devlin, quilter.

When I was younger I took dance classes, mostly ballet, but some modern and jazz thrown in there. I have always loved musicals and my dream was to be in A Chorus Line one day. I have seen the stage production at least three times as far as I can remember and the movie version quite probably more than 50 times. Dance was my love, my passion, my dream.

I bring that up because just like a highschool romance I can see that dance was my puppy love. Quilting is my love. I have never found something that brings me so much joy and confidence. I could spend hours designing, sewing, trying new things (in fact I do lol).

For our June Bee a Lone Star{Burst} bee, Natalie asked for ombre stars, one going from light to dark and one going from dark to light. I have to admit to having some brief nasty thoughts about her. How dare she make it so difficult, this is supposed to be fun!! See, I'm not very comfortable at choosing fabrics and this just seemed beyond my ability. The first one I relied somewhat on the solids, and then just small prints.

I ended up getting a ton of compliments... hmm... maybe I *can* do this after all.

So I decided to just go ahead and tackle the second one. In two and a half hours, from choosing the fabrics to ironing the last seam, I finished this.

I couldn't believe it! I had made this! Every section I would stop and just feel thrilled at knowing I was making this. Me! It was then that I realised that I am good at this. I really, truly am good at this! I am not a professional by any means, and I have a TON of things to learn still... but for the first time in my life I feel a confidence and satisfaction I have never had. It is an amazing feeling and I am so glad that Natalie asked for her stars to be ombre so I could learn to be proud of myself.

There might just be hope for me yet :)

Oops!

Here I go and promise that I would be back yesterday with updates, and then I couldn't even do that LOL... well here goes. Let's look at the list and see what is what.

4 sleepmasks (store)
My Precious QAL (mine)
My Brrr! quilt (mine)
Snuggs quilt (Kelli)
My Granny Squares quilt (mine)
*new* 2 lone star blocks Lee
*new* 2 lone star blocks Undercover Crafter
*new* 2 basket weave blocks Melanie
*new* 2 basket weave blocks Solidia
*new* cow paper pieced mini quilt (mine)
And now some pics :)

So that is 2 lone starburst blocks for Lee - done!

2 more lone starburst blocks for Hollie - done!

1 more square for my granny square quilt, and I have one more ready to sew.

2 basket weave blocks for Melanie - done!

And Bessie the cow in the previous post - done!

So now the list stands as so.

4 sleepmasks (store)
My Precious QAL (mine)
My Brrr! quilt (mine)
Snuggs quilt (Kelli)
My Granny Squares quilt (mine)
*new* 2 lone star blocks Lee
*new* 2 lone star blocks Undercover Crafter
*new* 2 basket weave blocks Melanie*updated*1 basket weave blocks Solidia
*new* cow paper pieced mini quilt (mine)*new* 2 lone star blocks Natalie
*new* 2 lone star blocks Solidia
*new* 6 herringbone blocks Jessica
*new* 2 basket weave blocks
*new* 2 basket weave blocks

I am too lazy to go look up who the new basket weave blocks are for lol... I am almost done the Snuggs quilt so hopefully I will be able to knock that off next time. Sorry for the boring post, but housekeeping must be done :)

The a-moo-zing Bessie!

As usual I found myself going off-task for a while to do something completely new and previously not even on my radar. This time I decided I wanted to do a fun paper-piece block and so I went looking for patterns. I found this amazing cow block by the wonderful Cyrille.

Here she is, the a-moo-zing Bessie! I am completely and totally in love with her :) The next time I would probably use a darker blue for the sky to show the distinction more, but I am still happy with it!

I am planning on being back tomorrow to update my list of tasks. I have completed quite a few, but just haven't ticked them off so it should be a fun one LOL.

Quilt show

So today I went to my very first quilt show. I had a blast! I was by myself so in some ways it was nice to go at my own pace, but it would have been nice to have shared it with someone.

I was able to buy a few fabrics as well so that was nice, and for Canada they were great prices. I really loved meeting the woman behind Mad About Patchwork and was pleased to find some fun pieces from her shop.

I took a ton of pictures but will share just some of my favourites.

 I love poppies, and seeing them in quilts or fabrics is always a win for me!

I love the shadowed effects of the blocks... not normally my colours, but I think they work well here.

This one is very me. The rich colours, the simple blocks, I just love it!

Once again, very much my colours. I love how now I am starting to recognise how something complicated looking like this is actually just made up of two blocks. It helps to make it feel do-able :)

And this one I loved for it's cleverness... I love witty quilts and this one fits the bill.

That's all I will share/bore you with LOL... you can check out my Flickr for some more pics.

Negative is the answer

Anyone who knows me, knows that mail is my favourite thing. Even to the point that I will welcome bills over no mail!

Growing up in different countries, mail developed an extra magical status as it usually came home with Dad and not to the house. My Dad, who has always had a quirky sense of humor, came up with the question "is negative the answer?" which we asked everytime he came home. If he answered "negative" then that meant mail (two negatives make a positive :)).

This week negative was my answer twice!!

This amazingly generous package came from my friend Synnoeve. This is not the first time she has spoiled me as I have been lucky enough to have her make for me in a swap and we did another private swap before. This time she emailed me to ask if I wanted some more 2.5' squares as she had a whole bunch extra. I immediately said yes as she has the greatest fabric selection (I would love to see it all one day lol). Then there was the hint that something extra was in the package... I had no clue! It ended up being the blue tiles from FMF that I had in my ISO list!! Unbelievable that someone I have never met in person could be so thoughtful and kind!!

This amazing package arrived today from Lauree who had me as her partner in the Table Top Swap - Napkin Edition. My favourite colour is brown and I adore yellow, so really, these are my idea of perfect! I used the first one tonight and am thrilled, plus the earth is happy I used one less paper towel LOL. In addition Lauree sent chocolate, hickory smoked almond chocolate. YUM!

These ladies are two people who brought smiles to my face this week. Thanks so much!!