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!

Okay, everyone with me. 1, 2, 3… Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Cyyyyynthia, Happy Birthday to you!… Aaand many mooooore! Yay! Yup, it’s her Birthday and to celebrate I thought I would post this! If you’ve ever chatted with Cynthia online, you’ll know how lovely and bubbly she is, which I think comes across like crazy in this interview. (But, um… I’m kind of biased.)

In the summer of 2010 I saw a tweet from Lesley Stenning talking about a call out for a new group called the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. Hmm, seemed interesting. I attended that “keener” meeting as it was nicknamed. Holly the founder the Vancouver group asked us to put a dot on a map where we all lived. Everyone’s dots clustered in Vancouver. My dot, well… it was about 5 inches to the right of all those dots. It took me over an hour to drive out to the meeting but I was willing to do that since I hadn’t met anyone out in my area that was interested in fabric and quilting let alone modern quilting.

The “official” VMQG meeting was scheduled a few weeks later. Holly generously offered to put me in touch with a few people out my way. Perhaps we could carpool? One of those people Holly email introduced me to was Cynthia. We instantly hit it off emailing back and forth. We made arrangements to go to the next VMQG meeting. Luckily we hit it off in person too and enjoyed the meeting and our drive. However, we did realize that our drive was as long as the meeting. As we drove home we chatted and figured we couldn’t be the only two people in the Fraser Valley that were interested in modern quilting . It was decided. We would start our own guild. Cynthia set up our online presence and I secured our meeting space, Quilt Essentials, a local fabric in Abbotsford at the time. The rest you could say was Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild history. In hindsight, we really didn’t know each other at the time but what fun we’ve had ever since! Plus, I’ve had the pleasure of learning from and watching Cynthia accomplish such awesome things. Like designing fabric for Robert Kaufman!

1. Of all the people I’ve interviewed, you’re kind of the trickiest because I know you so well. What are three things about your stash that would surprise me? Hehe my kindred sista from another mista! I don’t think you’ve seen a lot of my stash lately, it’s always changing. Three things that might be surprising, hmmm…

 3. Kind of an add on question to number 2. Picasso had his blue period and thinking about your go to colours, did you have a particular colour scheme say, in the 80s, 90s and the early 2000s? Black, black, and black for all three. No colour. The “Moody Broody Artist Chic” decades! Decades I tell ya!

I didn’t do quilting until most recently, so it was mostly garment sewing I did up ’til modern fabrics started appearing on the scene. Then I started being brave and accepting and using colour, purple was first. Now it’s all colour all the time and I rarely use black!

4. You collect vintage fabric… where is the oddest place you ever found treasure? Oh man! I found some pieces of vintage (1977) Marimekko shoved in a plastic bag in a shoe bin at one of the local thrifts. I saw the brilliant turquoise peeking out & was like hey. That looks like something. And it sure was!

That I actually am saving and have’t used yet. It needs the perfect project to showcase the large-scale print.

You always can find stuff at the bottom of bins where nobody dares stick their hands. That’s where the good stuff is!

5. You walk into the room where your stash is stored, Starr and Charlie have been having a grand time playing tug of war with your fabric. What 3 pieces of fabric doyou scramble to make sure they haven’t touched? Is there a particular reason they are your three favourite pieces? Honestly nothing is truly sacred other than my super duper old vintage pieces like one I have from my great gran, a hand beaded and embellished floral strip on net/tulle, with silk ribbons, silver beads, and truly vintage touches. It’s very fragile so I keep it stored way up high in a latched suitcase where my furry friends can’t get it. I love it because it’s truly handmade, likely from a beautiful 1800’s dress, and I like to imagine the story behind it, where it came from, and why my great gran so carefully kept it tucked away, and having it pass down to me is really cool.

I might also get pissed if they touched “my” stash- the sample yardage pieces of fabrics that I designed for Robert Kaufman, they are like my babies!

“Hello Cynthiaf, nice to meet you!”

Drawn November 2012

14″tall, 11″ wide, 2″deep

SOLD

Otherwise I think I would get a giggle them playing with my stuff, they always like to come and see what I’m doing and help me! As long as they don’t actually eat it, it’s all good.

We have our sit on the quilt for a photo thing too, as soon as I lay out a quilt on the floor to baste or take a photo, they go sit on it and wait for me to take a photo. It’s very hilarious!

Wow! Time has just been swimming by (see, what I did there, wink-wink) I realized the other day. There is so much work that I’ve never shown you. Time to correct that. This piece “Just Swimmingly” (drawn in March of 2012) was the first drawing I did in my Fabric Stash Drawing Project. Just like the pieces that were to follow, it was drawn on a wood canvas with coloured pencils (a fancy way of saying pencil crayons). This piece is 14″ high and 11″ wide, 1″ deep, to give you some scale.

Berene was kind enough to indulge me on raiding her (impressive) fabric stash to draw. In hindsight it was a huge leap of faith on her part, seeing that we hardly knew each other. True, we had just finished a inter-guild swap but still… Funny, I remember when I was given her name for the swap, I think I had blurted out, “Hey! I know her!” I had seen her work online and was impressed.

Eventually we met (actually we ended up doing a few other swaps together, such a treat), however in the beginning,  it was so nice when I realized she was as awesome as her work.

Photo credit goes to the fabulous Reaenne Schachter