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!

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 have to admit, I’m speechless. Still. It’s been so long in the making and here it was, finally hanging a show of my fabric stash drawings in the perfect spot, Drygoods Design.

We packed everything up, headed out on the road and within four hours we were hanging the show.

I was so grateful for Keli, Drygoods owner and my husband for all their help hanging the show.

I brought some pencils as “business cards” to give away at the show. And yes, I hand pressed each letter to spell LYSA FLOWER into each pencil. Is that crazy?

I like to think it’s HARDCORE!

After a few little adjustments, adding the write ups about Berene Campbell’s, Lesley Stenning’s, Krista Hennebury’s,  Cheryl Arkison’s and Cathy MacKay’s stash, just like that…

it was hung! And it will be up until the end of September.

Have you ever had one of those days, weeks, months where EVERYTHING is happening? That’s my life right now. I’ve been down to Seattle three times in three weeks. First it was going down for the PNW meet up (If you are looking for the Match Needle Book Pattern- you can download the PDF by clicking HERE. I have plans to tuck it neatly in a widget that will stay on my website permanently but… ya, life). Then we were down for PAX . The final visit was for hanging my Stash Drawing project at Drygoods Designs. It’s up for the entire month of September. I’m dying to post about it but… ya, life. Birthdays, a new school year, visitors, meetings, yada, yada… without further ado, I’d like to introduce a very lovely lady who was gracious enough to jump on the stash drawing project train (and answered five questions about her stash). Another prairie girl like myself and author of the newly released You Inspire Me to Quilt, Cheryl Arkison.

I met Cheryl in my first online bee. A little message was sent out shortly after it started, “Hey, guys, look at this! Cheryl has a book.” That was Sunday Morning Quilts. “WOW!”, was my reaction. A few months went by and the next message we received, Cheryl just had a baby! It was her third kidlet. <insert> “WOW!” again! Yup, pretty impressive on both counts!

Around the release of Cheryl’s second book, A Month of Sundays, the FVMQG and the VMQG brought Cheryl out for a trunk show and two workshops. At the time I was the workshop/speaker coordinator. While emailing back and forth I took a chance, described my project and asked Cheryl if she’d like to join in. It wasn’t until we were in the middle of the trunk show while Cheryl was showing off one of her fabric boxes (that happened to be filled with fabric) that she mentioned it was for me (to draw). Yesssss!

1. Is there someone’s stash that you’ve been gaga over, maybe a little envious of, and or inspired by? I’ll admit that I get jealous of the stashes that look like fabric stores – everything on mini bolts and sorted so nicely. But only a little bit jealous. Fabric preferences are so subjective, as is the storage of it. I’m less likely to be jealous of the stash than I am of what they make from it.

2. You travel quite a bit to do trunk shows and workshops. Leaving from your front door, what is the farthest you have travelled to do a trunk show or workshop? In over a year I made it to all 3 Canadian coasts to teach – Vancouver, Pictou, and Inuvik. As I stood and drove on the Arctic Ocean that specific thought occurred to me and I was blown away by the opportunities that have come via teaching.

3. On your travels what is the largest fabric store you’ve come across? What about the smallest? You know what is funny? Most of my teaching is with guilds, not stores. So I often don’t make it to stores while I’m on my trips! It’s crazy, right? The smallest store would have been the mobile store Myra’s Stitch N Post brought to the Mayflower Retreat in Pictou Country. But she had some gems in the small stash! I’m spoiled with so many good stores in Calgary that I don’t shop too much outside of town.

 4. In 2013 you organized “just one slab,” for the victims of the Alberta Floods, which was an amazing project. Was there ever a final count as to how many slabs were donated? What was the final count on the number of quilts? I’m curious as to how many hours went into quilting and binding those quilts? Well, I didn’t track the hours of work, but let me tell you that if it wasn’t for volunteers and friends helping me the slabs would still be sitting in my basement!

The final count for slabs donated was over 2250. That makes for 112 quilts, at least. And that doesn’t count the quilts, quilt tops, batting, backing fabric, and cash donated. Most of the quilts have made their way into homes throughout the city and surrounding, affected communities. The last stash of 30-40 quilts is set to be donated to a seniors home in High River, just as soon as they are allowed back into the building. That’s right, they are still living out of hotels.

Slabs arrived from all over the world, the response was incredible. So proud of quilters and their generous hearts. And I must give thanks to local volunteers for stepping up to get them all done and ready for donation.

5. You’ve been discovering UFO’s (Un-Finished Objects) this past summer (2014) in your garage lately, which has been pretty entertaining to watch on Instagram. Let’s pretend a real UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) swooped in over your house and started to beam up your entire fabric stash. Of course you don’t want to risk getting beamed up yourself, however you have just enough time to leap into the air and grab three pieces of fabric. Which ones would you grab for? Any reason you’d grab for those particular three pieces? Ooh, fun question. I tend to get bored of a fabric if I use it a few times. There are a few, however, that still get me excited. And that I will happily use again and again until I can’t get it anymore.

Ledger from Carolyn Friedlander’s first line, Architextures. Preferably in the black and white.

Daisy Chain from Amy Butler. It’s an older one but I can’t get enough of the turquoise/navy combo.

The square dots in grey from Sherbet Pips from Aneela Hoey. It is the perfect grey to me.

For more fabric stash drawings and stash interviews, click HERE.

Are you going to be at the Pacific Northwest Modern Guild Meet up in Seattle this Weekend (Aug 20-23)? They say it’s going to be EPIC!

If you are, you’ll be getting one of these!

It’s a Lysa Flower Match Needle Book Kit! For the kit instructions click HERE.

It’s a FREE Make + Take sponsored by Circa 15 Fabric Studio!

I’ll be giving a demo on making it Saturday 10-10:30 am  in the Sew-in Room. I hope to see you t here!

You know what would be SNAZZY? Is if you tagged me @lysaflower on Instagram or #sewinglikeamothertrucker, I dying to see how they turn out!

Let me start by saying, Happy Birthday Mom! Everyone sing it with me, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you,  Happy Birthday dear Lysa’s Mooooom, Happy Birthday to you! Today isn’t her birthday but it is her birthday month. My Mom is the hardest person in the world to buy gifts for.  This is the conversation we’ve been having since I was little:

“Mom, what do you want for your <insert occasion>?”

“Hmmm, I don’t know. Oh you know me, anything is fine.”

That’s all of not helpful. Like not even a hint or a crumb. This year she changed it up a bit and was a little more cryptic, I sent her a text, it went like this:

“Hey you (see I’m getting more direct now, Ha! Lovingly direct however <3) What do you want for your Birthday?”

Her reply,  “Hey you! (appropriate directness, I thought) I don’t know same as last year only a differert type.” Ended with two emoji hearts and a blushing smiley face.

Problem is I can’t remember what I got her last year. What do I do with that?

I do toy with just getting her things I like. And I LOVE these folding rulers. Well, I love rulers (and measuring tapes) in general but a folding one, c’mon! A Merchant and Mills folding ruler. You know I’m a sucker for that kind of stuff. And now you can have a picture of one too by downloading it here.

I wanted to send out a big thank you as well to Esmari for displaying my calendars in her booth at the Creativ Festival this past weekend. It’s always a treat to show your work. I do believe my work enjoys sitting in my closet but still it was a real treat for them to leave the house, travel and go to a show in the big city of Toronto. Even better, some of them are getting settled in their new homes. I have Cathy from Steam Trunk Craft Works to thank for transporting them.

Happy November! And if you see my Mom tell her I said Happy Birthday!

“So what do you guys want to do this summer? Where do you want to go?” Asks the mom that doesn’t have much planned, other than a UBC science camp.
“I want to go up North. Or to Alberta!” Says the child who wants to search for fossils.
“I want to go where there’s snow!” Says the child with allergies.
My husband and I look at each other. “Well, it’s going to be hard to go somewhere that has snow in summer. As for Alberta, we are going there in September for a wedding.”
“How about Oregon?” Says the husband who doesn’t want going up North as our only option.
“Can we go to the beach again?” Asks the excited kids!

“I want to spend some time in Portland then.” Says the mom who wants to stop at Modern Domestic, Collage and Powell’s Books again.

Everybody is happy!

It’s been two years since I set foot in Modern Domestic. It’s been far, far too long! When I was there, I ran into Meredith (she works there). We met attending a Denyse Schmidt workshop last time I was in town. It was great catching up… she just got married! As for our blocks we made at the workshop, neither of them are quilts. Yet! Soon though, I’ve got something percolating and it sounds like so does Meredith.

At Modern Domestic I stood in front of the entire, yes! entire!  (minus one bolt that’s already sold out) Cotton and Steel collection! Meredith was saying they bought the whole collection site unseen! And it’s pretty brilliant!

Yup, everybody was happy, especially me with my little mini pencils (splurge), mini mason jars (splurge), book (splurge) and my fabric (splurge)!