UPDATE: WWW.LYSAFLOWER.COM’s new site will be going live September 5th, instead of the 1st. See you there!

Hello you! How have you been? How’s your summer been? A whirlwind, like most summers? Our family just got back from a typical family wedding.

In Italy!!! That part not so typical for us! For those of you who followed me on Instagram, you know what I’m talking about. It was marvelous. Like most people I love traveling but my two favourite reasons are:

1) I get caught up on my reading (I may need an intervention a some point. My stack of books is growing faster than they’re getting read). I was thrilled that I got through all three books I brought with me on our trip. Now if I can just resist buying more books…

2) Travelling gives me time to reflect on BIG PICTURE stuff. What I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

And with number two I’ve made these three decisions:

     1) I’m retiring my drawing project (at least for now).

     2) (so I can) Focus on my surface pattern and sewing designs.

     3) Create a website that reflects and shows my work more prominently. Still including a blog where I’ll continue to share projects, inspiration and my creative journey.

Which  means this will be my last blog post from this site. It also means if you subscribe you’ll no longer receive email updates from this site.

So how will we stay in touch then?

I will continue to use WWW.LYSAFLOWER.COM for my new site and bonus! It’ll also have an email subscribe.

I cordially invite you anytime after September 1st to visit WWW.LYSAFLOWER.COM. I’m beaming with pride about it. I’m so excited I can barely contain myself!!! It’s so pretty! I can’t wait for you to see it.

I’ve always been so grateful for, loved and enjoyed you all so much. Thank you so very much for all the support, comments and camaraderie you’ve been so kind to give…

Now, let’s see what kind of trouble we can get into over there!

Here are a few other things that are in our booth. Aprons!

I created two kinds. One for gathering your garden’s harvest.

And one for holding all your tools, you know when you have to hunt those pesky weeds.

Each apron has a clip for your keys and a unique back to it!

Then there are the chairs. I LOVE the chairs!

And last, but not least Hot and Cold packs, which after yesterday’s breezy weather was a delight to use!

Thank you everyone who came out to Mini Maker Faire. It was SO fun to visit with all of you!

Today it the day! Mini Maker Faire opens today! Lori and I have our booth all set up and ready to go!

Here’s a preview of the bandanas. I can’t even begin to tell you how thrilled I am with the way they turned out!

My dear sweet friend Jonna (@bespokeoutlaw on instagram) hemmed each and everyone for me! She did such a gorgeous job. I was blown away when she offered to sew them but then when I saw how she did them – M I N D B L O W N!

Lori had mentioned how hard it was to find bandanas large enough to tie in her hair so I made sure these were plenty big. Their 27″-ish square.

Getting ready for this show was an amazing experience. Especially with so much encouragement from those all around me. My father in law cut the wood for these boxes.

And my Mother in law put these together.

I painted them and ta DA! This is what a group effort looks like!

I’ll be posting about my garden aprons, chairs and the hot and cold packs tomorrow but for now I’ll leave you with a few shots of the kneeling pads. Made from up-cycled foam, these are covered with 100% cotton sateen washable covers.

If I see you this weekend GREAT! If not, thanks for all the encouragement and I hope you have a LOVELY weekend!

Right! At the end of last year, artist/author/friend Lori Weidenhammer and I decided we were going to do a booth together in 2016. At the booth we we’d be promoting her book, Victory Gardens for Bees, and I would create a bee themed fabric collection and garden themed projects. We set off to decide which venue would suit us best. We both agreed Mini Maker Faire in Vancouver was the way to go!

While Lori was finalizing her book that gave me to time to figure out what I was going to make for my fabric collection. We talked about making bandana’s so I knew those would be a must! The five images above are my bandana designs.

Before I knew it, hey, look at that, its March (almost April) and Elizabeth Olwen is offering another Skillshare class. Bada bing, bada boom DONE! Honestly, I wish it was that easy. This collection and I started off rocky and we had ourselves an old fashioned rumble. For a time I was worried that this wouldn’t come together. Feel free to take a peek here HERE in my classroom to see how it all went down. Oh and you’ll see my googly eye magnets, I’m especially proud of them. I made them myself! (Big GRIN)

One thing I adore about Elizabeth’s classes are her use of mood boards. This is an image that no one else sees and I used to try and skip this step. Not anymore! Hand on heart I will never skip this step EVER again. Even though no one sees them it adds so much flavour to a collection. I also have started including a written intention behind each collection. I wrote this for my new collection, which I call, “Just Bee”:

It would take us an hour and a half to drive to my Grandparent’s farm. With the first steps out of the car, I’d feel the sun on my cheeks and a cool breeze in my hair. I’d hear song birds with the hum of bees hustling around every blossom. The sky was blue and the air smelled sweet. They’ve long since sold the farm but those quiet days exploring the farm will always be with me.

I’m so relived that in the end it all came together! Phew! Like I said, we had ourselves a rumble. There were times it felt like, okay, this is good… to, oh? Wha? YIKES! It’s falling apart… ACK! What’s happening?!!… Okay wait, wait. This could work… Not bad… okay, I can work with this to… I FREAKING LOVE THIS!!!!!!

Then the cherry on top was when Elizabeth left this comment for me:

“Love love love! Oh Lysa, this is fabulous! And clean and fresh and lively and fun. So much good energy. I love all the interpretations on bees — like the hexi hive pattern, so clever. You clearly think wry conceptually about your collections and it serves you well. So pro!!!!”

I’ll admit it, I LOVE teacher’s gold stars and that one, well that one was a pretty shiny big one. I can’t thank Elizabeth enough for her feedback, knowledge and her encouragement. Artist don’t always share their knowledge with one another, so when they do, it’s pretty incredible. I’m so very grateful. It’s not easy being a newbie.

Venue-check!

Fabric collection designed-check!

Next up: Printing the fabric!

On the 11th of May, I joyfully attended my friend Lori Weidenhammer’s book launch dinner. I can’t even begin to tell you how proud I am of her!  Lori and I met 16 years ago at a Momma and baby group in Vancouver. We were both transplanted prairie girls, her from Saskatchewan and me from Alberta. Her son had the BEST moose hat and Lori has the most contagious laugh! Seriously I LOVE her laugh. When I heard her laugh and saw the moose hat I just knew we were going to be friends!

A few years later we moved away from Vancouver. Somehow, thankfully, Lori and I continued to stay in touch. I remember the beginning of Lori’s love for bees and gardening. I also remember her telling me about her Madam Bee Speaker persona. It was so fascinating watching on Lori’s blog, Bee Speakers Saijiki, as she worked with various gardens and started to educate school children about bees. When she called and told me she was doing a book on bees, well, it was just perfect! It was totally meant to be. And totally a labour of love.

Fast forward to this past November, I received this little email from Lori, “hey wanna do a poster illustration for my book?”

“Um. YEAH I do!”

I was thrilled and excited just to be asked. I have to admit, one of my favourite parts of working on new designs is the research. Lori pointed me in the right direction and off I went, learning everything I could about Bees and Victory Gardens. This isn’t the exact illustration because… well you’ll see in the next two scheduled posts. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

A few months after finishing the illustration, Lori and I met at Shatkea, the place she wrote everyday while working on her book. As we chatted I suggested we do some kind of booth together, either a craft fair or farmer’s market. We could promote and sell her book and I could do up some bee themed fabric and garden wares. We looked around and decided Mini Maker Faire would be the best fit. So that’s what we did!

Booth 2103, that’s where we’ll BEE! (see what I did there? wink, wink!) Save the date and if you’re in the area, pop by and say hi! We’d love to see you!

Okay, you know I’m a super duper Uppercase Magazine fangirl, right?! It’s my go-to magazine for inspiration and research. I keep each and everyone… and well, being gorgeous inside and out doesn’t hurt either! I’m super excited that they’re ALSO coming out with FABRIC! Fabric inspired from the magazines spines! SO SO pretty! I can’t wait to see in on the shelves!

Side note: Uppercase is coming out with an Encyclopedia set too! It’s going to be amazing!

At Quiltcon 2016 I was lucky enough to see Janine’s Vangool’s talk about how the whole Uppercase and Windham Fabrics team-up came to be. Mickey Kueger of Windham fabrics happens to be an Uppercase subscriber. That’s him on the right, in front of all the paper dresses that decorated their booth.

AND did you see the dress quilt?  It was A M A Z I N G. We were all smitten.

Okay back to the Uppercase, Windham fabric collection – keep in mind this is extremely condensed but basically, Janine sent Mickey an email about his subscription renewal. Which led to a whole Uppercase collection! What a great story hey! A short but a great one!

Fast forward a month or so later… so there I was. I had to make two flags for a swap.  On my studio table sat an Uppercase charm, a paper dress from the Windham booth and other un-put away Quiltcon bits. I knew I wanted to do something really special with my Uppercase charm pack and I wanted to make something really special for the flags.

Then BINK! A light bulb moment. Charm pack. Paper dress. Fabric dress. Flags… Ooo I could make fabric dresses for the flags AND for cards to send! Eeek!

I remember being told at the Windham booth they’d be putting up a pattern for the quilt on their site. I haven’t found it but maybe I heard wrong? Maybe it was just wishful thinking or maybe I completely missed it. They only have one MEE-llion patterns on their site! And that’s just the free ones. For real!

However, I did find their YouTube link for making the paper dresses. A little starch, a hot iron and some near misses with my fingers, a few buttons and bows later, I had all these pretty little dresses!

When my swap partner posted on Instagram the flags and card people were asking about them. And well, sharing is caring right. Have fun but we warned they’re a teeeeeeeeeeeeeeny bit addictive.

And all while Part 2: Surface Design was happening during the first half of March, this was also happening – creating and designing this puppy!

A big thanks to my husbands helping hand. He did inspire this quilt but also picked the most opportune time to ask if I needed the roller before this shot. He’s always there to keep me on my toes!

After spending so much time on the computer lately it was really nice to get back to my sewing machine.

BUT then this happened…

A power outage. They’re always so convenient, especially when you have a design and a quilt due all at the same time. We were 36 hours with out power. Let’s just say I LOVE POWER! I thought I was grateful for it before, now I really, really appreciate it!

Luckily I was able to hit all my deadlines before rushing off to our annual San Francisco trip. I found this stowaway in my pocket, I have no idea how he got there but I decided to show him the sites!

And of course what would  a trip to San Francisco be with out a trip to Britex Fabrics.

The day after we got home from San Francisco I was off to the Creative Stitches show to work my shift at our FVMQG booth. I didn’t get as much time there as I liked but I was happy to be greeted by these lovely ladies, Darlene (left), Brenda (top), Vera (right) and Peg (seated).

Phew, it feels like it’s been quite a whirlwind! Mix in Spring Break and ooft! I’m happy life is starting to get back to normal. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming!

I’m a super hero? Nope.

I’m a super fast bow and arrow shooting spy? Well… no.

They just stared up again after their mid season hiatus? Yup, nailed it! And on all those shows after their hiatus they have a recap. You know the part where they say “Previously on…”. Here’s mine (It’s quite long so I’ve broken it into three posts. This is Part I):

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

Previously on Lysa Flower… I had just won a portfolio review with Elizabeth Olwen from her Skillshare class, “How to create a Fabric Collection in Two Weeks.” If surface design is something you have a burning desire to do, I highly recommend any of her classes.

QUILTCON! It happened, it was amazing. We ran around the show acting like it was Halloween and ALL the people were giving out full-sized chocolate bars!

Here’s a quick recap of the highlights:

TOP Left: We met Janine Vangool from Uppercase Magazine (OMG! You know how much I love that magazine right?!), Kimbery Knight from Cotton + Steel! (Pinch me did that really happen?) Oh and the cute little red head was our fearless Sherri!

TOP Middle: Note to self, next time take pictures of the quilts AND the LABELS! D’oh! Hand smack to forehead! Luckily Instagram came to the rescue to identify most of the quilts, although I don’t know the name of the quilter from this middle picture. If anyone knows please let me know.

TOP Right: This mini hexi quilt ( 1/4″ hexi’s I might add!) was done by a 14 year old named Sophia Locke.

MIDDLE top: This bridge quilt was a guild challenge. Which Guild you ask? Don’t know. What was it called? Don’t know? I know, so helpful hey?! Labels woman, labels!!

MIDDLE Middle: We found my QUILT!!! Yay! (Check out Sherri’s awesome bag!)

MIDDLE Right: I adore this quilt! It was from Windham Fabrics booth. It was a stunner and they also had the booth covered with paper origami dresses made with all their designer’s prints. Did I mention we met Lotta Jansdotter!!!! Holy Moly!

BOTTOM Left: Hillary Goodwin’s quilt from Entropy Always Wins

BOTTOM Middle: Anna Marie Horners block of the month from Creative Bug

BOTTOM Right: The whole catalyst behind going to Quiltcon was to meet up with my Auntie Caryl (who knew more people there than I did! I guess owning a quilting shop for 22 years will do that). It was wonderful to reconnect with her and I adored our time together!

I made up a little name tag zippy pouch for the occasion (shh… don’t tell anyone but a tutorial is in the works!).

I also made up some #sewinglikeamothertrucker buttons for trade-zees!

This quilt by Alison Chambers summed up up the trip. At 3 am we left my house for Quiltcon. We closed the trip by getting home at 1 am.

My partners in crime Judy and Sherri, Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild peeps!

I was offered one piece of advice going to Quiltcon, never take more than two classes. Which is what I did. Now if I were to add onto that advice I’d say take them early in the weekend when you’re fresh. I loved my two classes but I was so worn out by then. Still super duper fun! I would have liked to have been a bit perkier.

The first class I took was from Lizzy House. Did you know she’s engaged? Anyways, it was really fun to meet her and take a block printing workshop.

The second class I took was a Valori Wells all day block printing workshop. I had come prepared with images from my Snail Mail collection. I had also wanted to take her silk-screening workshop but since I decided in July 2015 to go to Quiltcon they were all full. I was fine with that, feeling lucky just to get into this workshop, until we started playing. Now, it’s firmly on my to- do list!

Lysa Flower trivia, that’s what I studied in art school, printmaking. It was pretty nifty getting back to it.

It could have been the sleep deprivation but it felt somewhat like a dream!

And before I new it, “Wham Bam thank you Ma’am” it was over! I was back home and received this lovely swap package from Amanda. A pretty snazy welcome home if you ask me!

Is it too last week to talk about New Year resolutions?

… Well. I’m doing it anyway. And I’ll be”Outrageously Joyful” doin’ it! That’s my mantra for 2016. “Outrageously Joyful”.

Last year I declared 2015 was my year to live fearlessly. And I have to say, I did more things that made me cringe, want to hide and hold my breath BUT I also had a year where I felt more alive. A year that felt I was headed in a direction that I intentionally wanted to go. I was driving the boat instead of going with the flow. It was AWESOME sauce!

So what’s this got to do with cleaning my toilet and being outrageously joyful? The two usually don’t go hand in hand (at least not in my world).

When my world opened up with being fearless, I learned SO freaking much! But you know what happens when you learn stuff, you realize how much more you NEED to know. Three quarters of the way of through 2015, I realized there’s a lot of back end stuff I need to set up to for myself to move forward. Some of these things are big, some are small. Some things that I can get done lickty split and some things will be a grind. I have a lot of ground to cover and as I’m doing it I want to be outrageously joyful doing them. Reminding myself this is what I want, this is what I’ve chosen…

Here it goes: Yay! Cleaning the toilet! I’m so glad I have a toilet and I don’t have to go outside in the cold and use an outhouse. I LOVE indoor plumbing!!!

2015’s recap, left from right:

1. December-I released my # sewinglikeamothertrucker Hard Core Cassette Tape Pattern
2. November-Finished Module 3 of The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design!
3. July-Released my free Match Needle Book with a kit for the Pacific Northwest meet up in Seattle (Circa 15 provided the fabric for the kits)
4. February-Working in Module 1 (The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design) I designed my first ever repeat. I broke into giggles when it worked! I used cut paper (because I was being way to precious with my drawing)  and have since framed the cut out. I proudly display it in my studio.
5. September-A show of my Fabric Stash Drawing Project at Dry Goods Designs in Seattle. A dream come true!
6. June-A design from Mod 1 (The Art and Business of Surface Pattern Design) was featured on Print+Pattern (Brain completely exploded!!! Wildest dream came true!!)
7. January-My Fabric Stash Drawing Project was featured in Love Patchwork & Quilting. After being mentioned on Flossie Teacake’s blog, that happily fell into my lap.
8. Pretty much the same thing as #2.
9. July-This is the cassette tape book cover I swapped at the PNW meet up in Seattle. It was won by Jonna. Who’s Jonna? Jonna, tested the cassette tape pattern for me (and many versions of it!) We met in person for the first time at the there. She’s as lovely in person as she is online. She’s @bespokeoutlaw on Instagram. Definitely check her out, her feed is amaze-balls! Just like her!
10. 

Oh and not on the list but definitively a 2015 highlight, I was hugged by a Sea lion! It was an “Outrageously Joyful” hug!

Esmari has beautiful taste in fabric! In 2014 we joined forces and created an online calendar. These drawings weren’t in the Drygoods show as they sold last year (not a bad problem to have). Adding a new twist to “The Stash Drawing Project!”, Esmari supplied all the goodies and I supplied well, the drawing part. Through our online back and forth, although we did meet once in person, I’ve discovered she’s very funny, has great taste in music (similar to mine that is) and she can drive a forklift! You gotta love that! It’s on my bucket list!

Still how did this all come to be? How did we find each other? Well, we met through a challenge she gave our guild in mid 2013. At the time I was the FVMQG’s treasurer and needed to send her a cheque for the challenge. Naturally I used one of my cards to send it. Bada bing, bada boom… We got to chatting because she loved the card! Late in 2013, I proposed this crazy 2014 calendar idea. In turn she invited me to join her  Warp and Weft Sewing Society, an online community where several of us, with Esmari at the helm, sewed challenges using Lotta Jansdotters and Elizabeth Olwen’s fabric. It was such fun to see what everyone made! When we weren’t doing challenges everyone sewed all kinds of things and I drew these calendars. Everyone’s work, of course, was smashing, because remember Esmari has excellent taste in fabric… and people!

1. You’re the owner of Warp & Weft Exquisite Textiles. How on earth do you ever decide on what fabric and notions to bring in? Are they easy to pick? Do you have a system? Or do you just go by your gut? Hah! It’s never, ever easy. Unless there’s a quarter that’s really off for whatever reason it’s never easy to know which collections to pick because there’ll be so many fabulous ones to choose from. It’s torture, I tell ya! I do try to follow my gut, though, and I always pick something that I’ll be happy to use in my own home. I’m also quite critical of the designs and the overall look of a collection. There’s definitely a serious bit of curating that takes place before something hits the shelves at Warp & Weft!

December                                                            November                                                          October

 2. I’m intrigued by what you did before you opened your online fabric store. Can you tell us a bit about that? Ah well, yes, this is probably where the critiquing and curating of my inventory comes from. I trained as an Interior Designer in Belgium and have worked with high-end furniture and cabinetry manufacturers ever since. Most recently and before I started Warp & Weft I worked for a well-known German manufacturer in Toronto. The philosophy behind this company’s products is, purity of design, minimalism and the use of the absolute highest quality materials money can buy. That kind of set the tone for me with Warp & Weft too. Even though I’m not dealing with a super high-end product I still approach it from the same point of few as far as design and quality are concerned.

September                                                          August                                                                    July

3. In your 2013 Made In Feature I remember reading 5 thing people don’t know about you, that you can drive a forklift. Does that come in handy for moving bolts of fabric around? I can’t believe I didn’t think of that!! All this time I’ve been lugging bolts of fabric around and I could have been moving it with a forklift! Mind you, it would have to be a forklift that can do stairs because sadly my workspace is not on the ground floor…Let’s just say I’ve become quite buff since starting Warp & Weft!

June                                                                         May                                                                           April

4a. You know I’m enamoured by your Merchant and Mills line. I love the pins: the regular pins, the glass headed ones, the entomology pins (they glide like butta!), your safety pins (the black, the light bulb and the French ones). Then of course there is the sewing repair kit and the folding ruler! I had never seen this line before and I’ve only seen it in San Francisco since. How did you come across them? Mmmmh, I had to think about that one but I think this is how the story goes. I am quite a big fan of Uppercase magazine and I was paging through one around the time I was starting Warp & Weft and I came across an advertisement for a UK based quilt shop which looked quite interesting and in browsing through their products I came across Merchant & Mills. It was love at first sight. I then got in touch with M & M and the rest is history.

4b. I’m also in love with your Sajou line – I don’t know how I lived without the linen thread. It’s another line I haven’t seen anywhere else. Can you tell us about it? I can’t recall how I came across Sajou but I can remember the day I received the catalogue from them! You can’t believe how many beautiful things they have – let’s just say trying to stick to your budget is futile! Their story is quite interesting. The Maison Sajou company, which was started in the late 1800s, was revived by an avid haberdashery collector and graphic designer in 2005. Frédérique Crestin-Billet started collecting haberdashery items from a very young age and since she’s become involved with Maison Sajou she has made it her business to keep traditional and specialized French workshops in business. Each pair of Sajou embroidery scissors, for instance, is handcrafted in workshops that have often been in families for generations and Sajou linens and threads are all manufactured in the mills in the Northern parts of France, which is traditional the home of textiles and threads. So not only are their products of the same heritage and quality as back in the 1800s but they also still use the same packaging designs as back then which gives everything a wonderful vintage feel to it. I find it fascinating that in this day and age there are still some things we can use that haven’t changed a bit in more than 150 years. It kind of puts things into perspective for me.

* All calendars measured 14″ high by 11″ wide- 2″ deep

 5. Let’s say you were on the Newly-wed Game. Behind a curtain you pick your 3 favourite fabrics from your stash. Then your husband has to guess which 3 you picked. Would he pick correctly? You want to go test him now don’t you? Don’t worry we’ll wait… did he get it right? Which ones did you pick and which ones did he pick? Hahaha! I’d test him right now but as has been the case for most of this year my husband has been working away from home so the best I can do is send him the link to my website and ask him to pick three items. I’m pretty sure he won’t have a clue though…

I could, however, tell you which of my crafting and sewing items he really likes for himself. He has since been banned from using some of these – see if you can guess which ones they are:

1. My hot glue gun – I no longer know where it is or whether it is still functioning. It’s probably ended up in the garage. I do know that he complained to me about it being useless because the wires he tried to glue to the baseboards have come unstuck now. Go figure.
2. My rotary cutter – I caught him cutting something very random from the garage with it once. Once being the operative word her. Quite possibly it also had something to do with the hot glue gun…
3. My sewing machine – he wanted to take it apart the day I got it “because he’d never seen the insides of a sewing machine before!”. It led to use having a huge argument because he thought I was being selfish for not letting him poke around the guts of my brand new machine. He is an engineer after all – what could possibly go wrong??!!

Curious about the other fabric stashes? Just click HERE.