Yeah, yeah, yeah, but who’s the guy? One little tidbit that always stuck out in my mind while I was researching was a story about a man and his son who went out to Gee’s Bend looking for these quilts. I believe I read this on Wikipedia, which changes and morphs, so I can’t find the exact link anymore. (Note to self: reference guides in the future may be handy). It niggled at my brain, why would a guy and his son go looking for quilts? I can see a father and son bonding over lots of stuff but looking for quilts? Shrug, okay?

So there I sit Monday night (October 20th) in the middle of the Net Loft on Granville Island, ready to hear the Maiwa sponsored talk from two Gee’s Bend Quilters; Louisiana Bendolph (shown below with Sherri on the left) and her mother Rita Mae Pettway (shown Below with Vera on the right). Hmm, who’s the guy? He starts, Hi I’m Matt Arnett and back in 1998 my Dad and I… wait? What? He’s the GUY? He’s, the GUY! CLICK, CLICK, CLICK. Now it all makes sense.

He’s the guy who drove all over the south looking for a quilt his dad has seen in a picture.

He’s the guy who was looking for a bathroom in Mary Lee Bendolph’s home and by chance noticed a quilt peeking out in a closet.

He’s the guy that in 2002 with his father organized a show of 70 quilts at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston. Thus making all our Modern Quilter heads explode.

He’s the guy whose family saw the beauty in these quilts. Then they made sure the world saw them too, by publishing Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt in 2006.

He’s the guy that helped facilitate these women to be proud and understand the greatness of their work. Work that they were going to do, even if no one in the world noticed. And we are so very grateful.

He’s the guy who helped the world see Gee’s Bend’s brilliance… tremendously simplified down, yes, but you get the idea.

He’s THE guy.

In celebration of Krista’s book coming out in a few days! I’d like to share this interview with you. First let me set it up…

I first heard Krista talk at a Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild meeting in 2011. She gave an impromptu chat about do’s and don’ts in swaps. It was pretty pertinent information at the time, since I had just signed up for my first online quilting bee. I quickly realized Krista really knew her stuff and that she’s one smart cookie! It doesn’t take long to figure that out from reading her blog “PoppyPrint” As it happens at that same meeting I had shown a drawing of my own stash at show and tell. Krista was very keen about the drawing. In the spring of 2012 I started my Drawing project with Berene Campbell’s stash, who happens to be one of Krista’s BFF’s. After I finished Berene’s drawings I remembered Krista’s enthusiasm and asked her next. After seeing Krista skip wildly to the front to collect her door prize I figured she’d probably say yes to my adventurous invite. Which she did!

Krista has just released a new book called “Make It, Take It: 16 Cute and Clever Project to Sew with Friends” (due out February 10 of 2015!). We’re all just thrilled for Krista and can’t wait to get our hands on it! However, luckily for me Krista took time out of her busy schedule to answer these questions while she was in the midst of editing her book this past summer. She’s pretty awesome that way. 

1. You moved your stash since I last drew it. Where is it now? Did you do anything different when you set it up this last time? My daughter and I switched rooms, so now she sleeps with the spiders in the basement and I get a lovely view of Vancouver to Metrotown while I sew. I completely culled all of my out-of-date, out-of-my-style fabric and chopped it up into 2 1/2″ squares with an Accuquilt Go cutter over the Christmas holidays last year. I’ve already made 2 “scrap vomit” quilts out of the squares and I think I could make 3 more! I rolled all my yardage onto acid-free boards and arranged my stash in colour order on shelves. Everything is so much easier to see, find and use now.

2. I noticed you’re a big fan of wrapping your stash around comic book boards. How and when did that come about? See above! I noticed several bloggers I read were doing this and having worked at an LQS, I already had an affinity for vertically-displayed fabric. Now, instead of looking at a disaster of crooked piles, I have a pretty display. My non-quilting friends routinely react in shock at the sheer magnitude of my stash. Result!

3.What are your top three go to online or brick and mortar stores to buy fabric from? Do you have a preference to online or in person shopping? And is there a reason behind your choice, for example I enjoy buying online but I still love and prefer to feel the fabric before I buy it. I freely admit to buying most of my yardage from U.S. online shops as the selection is always much better than what is available locally (plus, I am fairly in tune with upcoming lines and they are typically available sooner in the U.S.). I started doing this when our dollar was at par, however now that it has dropped again, my buying is much more selective and I’m trying to use what I’ve got first. I shop at Sew-Sisters, Mad About Patchwork (both Canadian Stores), Marmalade Fabric and Fabric.com. Locally, I look to Spool of Thread for modern prints and Kona solids.

4. Do you have a method to your madness, do you buy per project, when you find a good price or just when you see something you like? Price has a lot to do with it – I’m definitely a sale shopper. I am trying to avoid hype-buying (hello, Cotton & Steel?) because when I look at my stash I do see quite a bit of ‘trendy’ fabric that remains untouched. I have a large enough stash now that I don’t need to buy to fulfill most of the projects I have in mind.

5. If you were on a deserted Island and all your fabric was floating off into the water, what three pieces couldn’t you live without? Keeping in mind, these are shark infested waters and some of those pieces may have floated off into the distance. Is there a story to these three pieces or are they simply your favourites? I love my Liberty tana lawns and Echino linen blends the most. I’d fend off sharks for them, I swear.

Because this quilt was so large, it’s 90″x 96″, I decided to take it to a longarm quilter. I was surprised by the wonderful sense of relief I felt dropping it off . Unfortunately, I was also surprised by the dreadful feeling I felt  picking it up. I ended up reworking a lot of the quilt. Perhaps I should have gone back and said, I’m really not happy with this. However, when I saw the quilt all I wanted to do was get out of the shop as fast as possible and fix it myself. Which is what I did. I spent the better part of a day quilting and adding a heavier thread in random spots. I love it now. In hindsight if I were to ever have someone longarm one of my quilts I’d do up a sample to show them what I wanted instead of explaining it. I think what it came down to, the longarm quilter and I weren’t on the same wave length. Lesson learned.

My son hasn’t been one of those teenagers who’s been dying to shed all of his boyhood stuff. I’ve offered a couple of times to make him a quilt to replace the one I made him when he was 8 but he would always say, “why, I’ve got one.” Even when I told him, “you know you’re getting to a point where your friends might ask, “Dude what’s with the baby quilt?”, he ‘d just shrugged his shoulders like, oh well. So I made this one just in case he changed his mind. Okay, confession time, I totally didn’t tell him I was making him a new quilt. He caught me ironing it on his bed . “Um, what are you doing?”  I think he was slightly terrified that ironing beds was a thing, especially after I had just insisted he learned how to clean a toilet.  It wasn’t the Monster Hunter quilt with the teeny tiny pieces he’d been hoping for but it wasn’t rejected either. And good news, ironing beds is not a thing, unless you’re taking pretty pictures to show on your blog, or you work for House and Home taking interior shots.

Before:

After:

Now,why trees, you ask?  I’m a huge fan of Gig posters. One of my all time favourite posters is by Strawberry Luna  for the band Spoon . When November 2012 rolled around it was my turn  to be the queen bee. I sent out a picture of the poster for inspiration, instructions (a fill in the blank letter, for when I do other bees) and, of course, fabric. Each person was asked to make a brown or teal tree. Basically they made long strips, which made for an efficient way to piece a quilt top.  Then lastly,  I sewed up a sample block, posted photos,  sat back and waited for my sewn up trees to come back to me in the mail.

Skip ahead to March 2013, before this quilt landed on my sons bed it was displayed at the Creative Stitches show in Abbotsford. Oh, did I mention, when doing the extra quilting, Mr Aurfill himself liked  my photo of it on Instragram!

When I made my son’s first quilt  I was thinking of the little boy he was at the time. This time around I wanted to think of who he will be and make a quilt that will grow with him… and one that won’t embarrass him when chicks come around. What, wait? Did I just say that?

May was my month to be Queen Bee for Stash Fabulous, an online Quilt Bee. I had three inspirations for my theme this month. The words, “PILLOW FIGHT!!!!”

The colour from this:

… and as I’m sure you can recognize, Anna Maria Horner’s feathers (side note, she liked my skirt on Facebook! Squee!).  I asked my bee members to scale down the pattern and to use it as only a guideline so the feathers are all different sizes and shapes. They’ve been making one feather each (I got carried away in my example sewing – oops!)  and a 30″ strip using the same colours with a 45 degree angle. I have to say I’m lovin’ what I’m seein’! They’re a pretty talented bunch.

I’ve also used this May to get caught up on my end. Phew… since February it’s been pretty full on around here between quilt shows, giving talks, doing give-aways, we lost our lovely cat LEGO (that wasn’t any fun),  a big zombie apocalypse birthday bash and then everyone got sick. Yowza! It’s been busy. Which is why it’s been such a relief to get caught up! The two blocks below are for Jennifer! Jennifer was the one who invited me to the Stash Fabulous Bee and I met her threw my first Sew Mama Sew Givaway. She has a great little blog called Second Hand Dinosaur. I’m always inspired with what I see there!

I had major disagreements with this block but in the end I think it came around to my point of view. Get it, point of view, wink, wink!

And then this a 16″ block is for Jan. She has lots of goodies to check out on Flickr. All the fabrics for her block I used were from my Warp & Weft fabrics. I’m so in love with these low volume fabrics, especially the Bark & Branch-Line leaf Grey and the Bluebird Park- Stone!

I’ve already posted about this one but I wanted to put a shout out for Joanne’s blog Don’t Drink and Sew. As she say’s “you might spill your wine on the fabric! And that would be waste of good wine and good fabric!” As you can tell Jo has a pretty great sense of humour and I love her quilts and her links!

Up coming in June is Liz’s block. She’s the Swedish Scrapper! She’s wanting us to make a Korean Pojagi (bojagi) inspired block. I had no idea either what that meant until she showed us these pictures and gave us these links, her Pinterest board and this blog link turtorial.  This is what I love about Bee’s, the exposure to all kinds of things and methods you wouldn’t normally come across if you were just sewing for yourself.

Well off to the sewing machine I go! Catch ya later, alligator!

This will be my third on-line quilt bee and it’s slightly different then the other two I’ve been in. For this bee instead of sending out fabric to everyone you sew from your own stash. It should be pretty interesting. I have an idea percolating for my month (in May)! I’ll keep you posted.

These two birds eye’s, in a happy accident, placed themselves perfectly. Do you recognize them? Do you know any of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems? “Don’t let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” or “Don’t let the Pigeon stay Up Late” (a personal favourite of mine),  just to name a few.  The idea behind these kids books is the pigeon has restrictions put on him and being a very clever pigeon he has all types of reason he should be allowed to do such things. They are very funny books and printed in the the most beautiful colourways. I found the fabric at Spool of Thread early last summer and just about lost my mind! I made PJ pants for myself and my son. I also made a reversible pillow case for him as well.

I think Mo Willems should do another couple of books called something like “Don’t let the Pigeon Use Your Sewing Machine” or “Don’t let the Pigeon Cut Your Fabric” or how about “Don’t Let The Pigeon Run Your Quilt Bee!” I’d love to see what shenanigans the pigeon would get up too. I’d buy it. 

We finished up Barb’s blocks last weekend. I have two confessions. When I found out Barb’s theme was nature I knew exactly what I wanted to do (this isn’t the confession yet). When we (FVMQG) put on Paul Klampitz’ workshop back in February, Barb’s blocks were amazing. She made these trees… amazing trees! It was kinda like, “dang, wish I had thought of that!” This is the confession part. So when I realized her theme was nature I knew I wanted to try those trees, and so I did! Second confession, I got so into the trees, I used up most of our fabric.

Hey I did leave Chris some but yes I pretty much hogged it all. What can I say? I was in the moment! It wasn’t until I was done that I realized, oops! For Chris’s block he decided with the fabric left over that he wanted to use grass as his inspiration. We were hoping the fabric would stretch a bit farther but still we were pretty pleased with it.

It’s very grass like!

Then, since we were on a roll last weekend we jumped in and sewed up Amy’s blocks too! Amy sent loads and loads of fabric. All kinds of colour, textures, Melody Miller prints and yummy goodness. We just kept sewing,

and sewing,

and sewing… ah, gust of wind!

There that is better!

I’ve bought some the same Melody Miller fabric so it was really fun to see what colours she’s chosen to mix with these prints. I still don’t know what I’m going to do with my Melody Miller prints. For right now they just sit out as eye candy!

Same block, just turned on it’s side for fun!

Next I’m off to sew some quilts for some well deserving teachers. Our oldest son graduates from his school and we love the school! I’m not sure if I can get all of them done by the end of June but I’m going to try! Wish me luck… I think I’m going to need it!

Yup, it started out as a joke that we needed a dude in our Fab Bee online quilt bee and it’s an on going joke that we still don’t have one in the FVMQG either. Other guilds have them, sheesh VMQG has a handful of them! So I jokingly offered up my husband. That night as my husband and I were tidying up the kitchen after supper, talking about our day I broke the news to him that he was now in a quilt bee. To my astonishment he, without skipping a beat said, “I’ll do it.”

“What? Really? Are you sure?”

“Oh ya, I could totally do it.”

“Um, okay…”

And just like that he was in! It’s the last month of the bee and it’s his turn to be the Queen Bee… er King? Bee. Actually, April 1st we were to have all the fabric out the door, which we tried desperately to do before we left for San Fransisco. Since getting back, every weekend he has been working on his write ups.  Each one is different, with links, a history and trivia. Um ya, I kinda created a monster. He even wrote a program to generate images in a way that would make it easier for the ladies. His theme, video game pixel art from arcade games back in the golden era (the ’80’s).

While he worked away on his write ups I knew there would be no way he could get his sample block done so I did my block instead. We finally got them all sent out last week!

Can you guess what game it’s from? Do you remember the game Burger Time?  It was one of the games I was fairly good at and had a chance at being a wiener, I mean winner!

Did you have a nice holiday weekend? We certainly did (I even got my garden planted!) We got back from San Francisco last Friday and were very happy to be home, especially with all the great weather and the blue skies we’ve been having! Weather like that always makes me feel extra motivated. There is something about a blue sky that clears away any bit of sluggishness.  I guess that’s why spring cleaning happens, well, in the spring!  Or it could be because the sunshine lets us see how dirty our windows have gotten. The dirt blocks those tiny rays of sunshine and we can’t have that!

Yes, we were in San Francisco last week and it too was wonderful. It’s an amazing city and not just because of the hills, trolleys and bridges. In fact I didn’t even ride a trolley this time. We didn’t even make it across any bridges but I did walk a few big hills.  Mostly I walked around and soaked up the scenery and people watched.  It was such a treat not having to rush anywhere or to have to be anywhere in particular but just be an observer. This I find very rejuvenating and very inspiring. Not to mention they have the best food of anywhere we’ve ever traveled to. Even their food courts have healthy food everywhere, you just can’t go wrong.

I did get a chance to visit Britex Fabric and once again I spent most of my time (and my money) on the third floor, the floor with all the trims and buttons. Mostly I bought trims that I know I can’t get anywhere else. I was especially intrigued with the feathered trims-oo-la-la!  I plan on making us all new Christmas stockings this year. Our old stockings I made back in the 90’s. It’s definitely time for something new and decadent, as Christmas always is.

I also got a chance to visit Anthropologie, one of my all-time favourite stores! I have a secret to tell you. It’s kind of silly but true and since we’ve been going steady for a while now I figure I can let you in on it. The first time I went into an Anthropologie I teared up. I know silly right. I was like Sally Field but instead of, “You like me, you really like me!” It was more like, “You got me, you really got me!” I’ve never been in a store that I have ever felt so at home with.  We have one in Vancouver but I never get to it, oddly it feels more far away than San Francisco’s. Although maybe that’s why it’s so special, I only get to it once a year.

I always walk through the store and walk by each display savouring it. There are certain areas I always know I’ll find something special. This was my little indulgence that I found in the stationary section.  Okay, that’s not true! It wasn’t the only indulgence but since I only get to Anthropologie once a year, how could I leave it there?! I knew I’d regret it if I did. This was one part of San Francisco I really wanted to take back home with me.

Luckily with the wonderful weather this weekend it made easing back into real life a lot smoother.  Also with it came extra motivation and a titch of spring cleaning! In that spirit, I’ve been meaning to post these pics for a while now. These are some Fab Bee Blocks from January, Bea’s month whose theme was stars.  Chris, my husband kept singing Deep in the heart of Texas  while we sewed together. You see Bea is from Texas (she’s recently moved away form there) but my husband, who always seems to surprise me, of course knew all the lyrics to the song. Once he’s got a hold of a song he can’t stop! Then of course it’s kind of contagious.

The stars at night are shining bright…  clap-clap-clap-clap!

And these are the Fab Bee blocks for Sherri, from back in February. Chris and I took a different approach with Sherri’s and Bea’s blocks. We decided since we were sewing at the same time anyways we’d design together as well, instead of working independent of each other like on previous blocks. It worked out nicely. Plus Sherri ended up with a pair of socks that way!

Talk to you soon! Happy Spring!

So on that note… let me just reach down here… and grab my pom, poms! Aren’t they are a beautiful yellow? Can you hear them as I shake them? Okay, I haven’t done this in a while. Let me get up and stretch… Okay, one, two, three! Jump, jump bounce, Sis Boom Bah! Cartwheel and flip! Ta Da!

Wayyyyy back in November as our little Fab Bee trucked a long, it was my month to be the Queen Bee. This is where I send out fabric and my design to all the other members. They in turn sew up the fabric to my specifications and send it back to me. My inspiration for my block was an illustration from my very favorite book, Naive Folk prints. I bought it a couple of years ago on my birthday at Anthropologie (my very favorite store in the whole wide world!) Having been in an online quilt bee before I knew, even though you set parameters, sometimes you get back things you didn’t quite predict. So it’s important, in my opinion, to pick a block pattern that has structure. However it’s also really important not to squash the personality of the sewist. This has been a big debate around our house as my husband prepares for his month in April. That’s why bees are joined right, to get to know people, learn new techniques, not just be slave bots. So I came up with this tree idea. I asked all the members to sew an insanely long block (100″- 6″) so I could easily sew the trees all together. Even thought it was long I was pretty confident it wouldn’t be too laborious.

I also wanted to send out packages that were unique and pretty! Again, a couple of years ago I bought these standard thank you notes from Anthropologie, the ones where you plunk in descriptive words in the blank spots. Kinda like Madlibs but in a thank you note format. Inspired from these thank you Madlibs letters, I made up a quilt bee letter. Plus I thought if I do another Quilt bee, I could use the letter again.

Holly sent, along with her block, this wonderful letter that made me giggle!

I did make up my block beforehand I sent my packages out. Berene, who sent out her fabric package back in September, mentioned in her letter that coming from a long line of caterers it’s always better to have too much then not enough. In my case I come from a long line of frugal farmers and apparently I was extra thrifty with my fabric. Whoops, my bad! As a result some blocks were shorter than 100″. Some of the sewers requested more fabric and others agreed, if needed, I could add to the ends. It will all work out in the end. I’ve received most of my blocks back already (quite a few from our January FVMQG as shown in the photo below). I can’t wait to get them all sewn together. It’s going to be quite fabulous, if I do say so myself!

Photo by Carol Browne

I plan on giving this tree quilt to my son oldest son. Shhhhh! I made him a quilt when he turned 8 but I didn’t think ahead to who he was going to be. Instead I concentrated who he was at the time. Even though he is determined to keep the quilt I made for him (he is now almost 13 – gulp!) I think it’s only a matter of time before a friend comes over and says, “Dude, you’ve got a baby quilt on your bed!” Hopefully the Fab Bee tree quilt won’t age as quickly as his last one.

Okay, phew, I’m outta breath, hopefully that will pass the Hana test! I think I might have pulled something! Don’t worry I’ll rest up for the next post!

Thanks for Popping by,
Cheers
Lysa

PS. if you’d like to browse though other blocks made for the Fab Bee, here a few links:
Hurry up mustard and ketchup (one of six) Darlene’s block
Hurry up mustard and ketchup (two of six) Ellen’s block
Hurry up mustard and ketchup with sprinkles on top (three of six) Berene’s block
Hurry up mustard and ketchup (four of six) Eryn’s block

Day one

Day two

Day three

Day four

Day five

It’s a piranha plant from Super Mario!

My brave husband, Chris did a Super Mario Bob-omb for the Bee! I love those guys!