My good friend Cathy was given a surprise birthday party back in April. Yay!  Unfortunately it was the last night of our guild  hosting Happy Zombie so I wasn’t able to make it. Boo! But later I gave her a wood 6 inch square canvas and told her I’d draw what ever she wanted on it.  To my delight Cathy landed on the idea of her favourite buttons. Yay! I love buttons and together we came up with the idea of turning the drawing into a clock. Yay! Her buttons were quite large so I had to scale them down to fit. That’s one boo and three yays! The yays win!

Cathy and I have an mutual adoration for buttons and get weak in the knees for our favourite ones.  I think it’s fair to say it’s the same affliction we have for notions and trims, which I suppose might seem strange to some, unless you have the same affliction. Lucky for Cathy, she own’s Stream Trunk Craftworks so she can get her fix through her store. Lucky for me, not only do I get to draw a lot of her trims notions and now buttons. Cathy has has been one of my biggest cheerleaders.  She has always been very generous with her encouragement, she’s commissioned my work and more recently licensed my work, for which I’m very honoured and grateful.   Plus she’s just so darn cute, smiley, sweet and can give it to you straight, which I really appreciate. Not to mention she has a great giggle!

Next weekend is the Creative Stitches show at the Abbotsford Tradex.  Our guild, The Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild will have a booth again this year (feel free to pop by and say hi!). It’s always fun with lots of shopping opportunities. One of the booths I’m most looking forward to is The Steam Truck Craftworks. These are some goodies I bought last year!

Vintage ribbons, spools and laces. Eep! I can’t wait!

And as if it couldn’t be any more fantastic, Cathy the owner of Steam Trunk, is… awesome! She gave our guild, to whom accepted the challenge, each a pack of Sari silk. The challenge was to make a project with it. Immediately I knew what I wanted to do. The Madrona Road Challenge fabric had just came in from the MQG and when I saw that fabric I knew I wanted to do a Chickadee sitting on a branch. I’ve been wanting to do something with Chickadees (my favorite bird) since last year and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Then, when  I saw a green pack of the Sari Silk, I knew what I could use it for.

First I started with some sketches.

And this is what I came up with… Ta

HEY! NO Photo BOMBERS!

Um, EXCUSE ME, I’m kinda doing a thing here!

Yes, you, I’m talking to you…

Okay sure, why don’t you make yourself comfortable then? Okay, now..

I didn’t mean literally, clearly you missed my sarcastic tone.

What, oh no, don’t… don’t go to sleep! Seriously! How can you fall asleep that fast? C’mon!

*Shuffling around* as I move the cat delicately to another comfy location so as not to wake him. Good Grief!

Ahem… now where were we… Oh yes,  so I did these sketches trying to decide which Chickadee to put on the pillow. In the end I couldn’t decide so I put a bunch of them on.

I specifically picked out green Sari Silk so I could do the buds on the trees, then later came up with this trim for the pillow, which I love!

The tree branches and all the birdies were raw edge appliqued.

Then machine stitched on.

I sewed beads on for the eyes and hand embroidered the feet.

I just loved the Madrona Road colours.

For the back I used a full piece of fabric,  I couldn’t bare to cut it up! It’s so beautiful.

Then of course I added a little label. Amy Dame would be so proud, she’s always after us in the FVMQG to label our work.

The best part is I still have fabric left from the Madrona Road Challenge to make another project! Well, I might have to buy a bit more but I’m  not too upset about that.

Thanks for popping by!