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.

With the feature in Love Patchwork and Quilting, I’ve realized, there is so much so of my work I have never shown. I’m not 100% sure why I haven’t. I think it’s partly because I’m shy (and slightly shy about my work) BUT 2015 is my year to “live fearlessly” right! Here is a little something I’ve been working on for a while:

In late 2009, I started drawing fabric, mostly dresses. In the early part of 2010 I first drew my own fabric stash. By 2012 I had exhausted drawing my fabric stash and couldn’t bear to draw it yet again. I came up with a plan and started asking people I admired if I could draw their stash. Since then I’ve drawn seven different stashes (inadvertently they were all bloggers… or at least were as some point)! I’m really excited that Florence from Flossie Teacakes has accepted my invitation for the next stash to draw!

In the meantime, I’ve compiled all the other drawn stashes under my DRAW button, over there on the right. If you click on Drawing project: Bloggers and their fabric stashes, you can have a sneak peak of what I’m going to post over the next few months. Luckily for me the owners of the stashes are great sports and not only let me draw their stashes, they’ve also answered 5 fun interview questions. The last question is my favourite!

I’ll start start with my stash first. Here are my 5 questions and answers. Sorry the first question is a little redundant of the information above.

How did you end up drawing fabric? When my youngest started grade one and was in school full time I went back to teaching. I taught a figure drawing class using a draped model. I’ve always loved drawing the figure but realized I was enjoying drawing the fabric more than the model! I began to draw dresses and piles of clothing. Then I began to draw my fabric stash, which led to a show in 2010. The following year I focused just on fabric. About this time I was really getting into the Modern Quilting movement. I soon realized there was whole world of stashes to draw! Which I began to do and will continue to do on an ongoing basis.

From right to left: “Lizzy-B” “Molly” Shannon” “Suki”

Drawn December 2009-March 2010

20″ by 30″

 

Who has the largest stash you’ve ever seen? Smallest? I met an art quilter in the summer of 2013. She was from the Ridge Meadow Quilt Guild. I got to have a look at her studio. She has and entire wall, like 30 feet of cabinets, all full of fabric (colour separated, of course.) She also had drawers and drawers of fat quarter. Personally I try to buy per project but will sometimes splurge on, “oh my God I can not live this out this!” fabric. And I love buying fabric, don’t get me wrong. This stash was so HUGE. I don’t know how anyone could sew all that fabric in one life time. Very impressive but HUGE!

However, I’d say the runner up to her would be Cathy from Blueberry patch. She has a pretty big stash, her husband calls it “the store”! The smallest would be Lesley Stenning’s. When she was living in North Vancouver she had a sewing machine in a small corner of her kitchen, with one or two cabinets of fabric. And oh, it was such a lovely collection! It may have been a small stash but the fabric was gorgeous!

“Essentials”

Drawn March 2011

24″high, 48″wide – 1″deep

 

Let’s talk about your stash and colour choices. Do you have a favourite colour? Colour combo’s? Colours you have aversions to? I love yellow but I’m really particular about the hue. My father in law loves yellow too but I don’t think of it as the same colour because the hues are so different . He likes school bus yellow while I like butter, sunshine, wheat yellow (see what I mean, I’m particular about my yellows).

Colour combos: I love pink and orange together and I’ve always loved teal and red.

Colour aversion? Hmm, I used to have an aversion to grey but came around to embracing it. I’ve never been a big fan of purple but I’m starting to embrace it too… mostly because it’s my youngest son’s favourite colour.

“Honeybun“

Drawn March 2011

12″high, 24″wide – 1″deep

(Interesting tid-bit:

Melody Miller tweeted that she thought these were insane! I took that as a good thing and kept going.)

 

 

Where do you keep your fabric stash? Do you have a system for storage and organizing it? The majority of my stash is in my studio work table. Although, when taking photos of my stash for a Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild feature, called “5 things about you”, I realized I’ve spread it around my house as well. Making it a bit bigger than I’m willing to admit. I try not to let it get to big… but sometimes I don’t try very hard.

You’re from the Prairies, the Prairies are prone to tornadoes. Let’s say your visiting and you’ve brought your entire fabric stash with you. Whoosh! A big storm sets in and you’re lifted into the air, Wizard of Oz style. You can only reach three pieces of your stash, which ones do you grab before landing on the wicked witch of the East and take her ruby slippers? I’d find some way to grab my Melody Miller’s Viewmasters, Kitty Yoshida’s City Girl (in the pink) and Suzy Ultman’s Coffee Cups! Oh and I love polka dots and gingham, which is great if I get to wear Dorthy’s dress as I skip down the yellow brick road!

“Criss Cross Apple Sauce”

Drawn March 2011

24″high, 20″wide – 1″deep

(this one I traded with Cynthiaf)

A drawing of a dress.

Which lead to a drawing of another dress…

and another dress…

to more drawing of dresses…

Which lead to drawing piles of clothing…

and to drawing my fabric stash.

Which became a show and lead to a second show the following year.

I was talking to friend earlier this week on how fall is a time to reflect. Which reminded me of these drawings and in a round about way this summer, I’m not sure why but it did. This summer had the pleasure of meeting up with my first art teacher Annalisa.

I started taking painting lessons from her when I was 12 and continued until I left home to study at art school. Every Saturday I was at Annalisa’s house from 10am until noon painting. Not only did I love the time I spent with her learning but I also very much enjoyed her company and especially her stories of Denmark, where she is from. We had a lovely time eating and visiting this summer, it had been far to long.  I’d like to think I’ve made her proud!