(where the horrible lighting presents a big challenge for me to overcome this year…. *whimper*)

Here are some shots I snagged at our December meeting:

Kona "dark" solids challenge finish by Jessica Wang

Kona "dark" solids challenge finish by Jessica Wang

Zig Zag Top by Paul Krampitz

The illustrious Paul

I spy Felicity Quilts!

My Sunburst of Carrots topper published in Quiltmaker

Winter Critters Wallhanging - published in Quiltmaker Nov-Jan 2012

The great snail race wallhanging - published in Quiltmaker 100 blocks vol 3

A custom portrait by Terry Aske

Another custom portrait by Terry Aske

Laurraine Yuyama was interviewed in Patchwork and Quilting

Laurraine Yuyama's project published in Zakka Style

Custom potholders for Heather from a FVMQG member

The awesome potholders received from the FVMQG

Wanna see some more shots from that night? You really should come on down and join us!

And make sure to check out our member spotlight – Janet was our first guinea pig, and it’s neat learning more about her amazing talent.

Her Flickr handle is “what comes next” and she’s got some mad skills I tell ya!

Photo rights Janet Archibald - 2011 finishes

By the grace of the quilting gods above, the top and back for the Halloween Quilt of Awesomeness are done!

I’ve been working like a madwoman all week finishing up the last little details.

like noses, you know so people can smell…

and tombstone engravings..

I don’t know how I could’ve done this without my new table!!

As soon as that table was set up, someone claimed the under left side as her new little hidey-hole reading nook..

and I’ve had some regular company during my busy evenings.

Hmm, it seems that KONA has changed their black since the last time I bought it. The extra sashing I wanted to add was just not going to work beside the old one! It’s visibly lighter! *ACK*

After frantically driving around the entire lower mainland in hopes of finding a better color match before school let out, I decided to insert a thin strip of a dark grey tonal between the blacks. It created a nice subtle inset frame without drawing your eyes away from the main event, but was enough of a break to distract you from the color difference of the blacks. And for some reason I didn’t snag a shot of it, weird! Anyway, you can rest assured I’ll shoot the heck out of this puppy the second I get it back from my fabulous quilter!

I also decided that an extra large Larry the Creature from the Black Lagoon needed to adorn the backside. Here’s my plan:

How am I applying the lettering you ask? Hehe, you’ll just have to wait until I show you. It’ll happen after it’s quilted!

Larry in progress…

It took me a whole evening to tidy up the all the loose threads from the back, and de-lint the thing! And now it’s on it’s merry way to Seattle. Oooh I can NOT WAIT to see what Krista does with it!

Step one was to put my foot down and declare the upstairs shared office, my sewing studio!

Which, for my dear hubby meant taking his tv off the wall. *gasp* Honestly, the man stuck this humongous tv on prime wall real estate, and never, ever watched it. Being the loving man he is, he begrudgingly removed his baby.

But then, obviously realizing the mortal danger he so deftly sidestepped, he suddenly offered to move his DVD/Blu ray collection down to the garage, to free up the other big cabinet for my piles of homeless fabric! *gasp gasp*

He helped me move the sleeper sofa and the horrible glass display cabinet, and then he brought our spare fold up table up from the garage for me! *gasp gasp GASP* He even took the kids downstairs for the rest of the day. *grin*

Which left me with this scary mess: Please excuse the craptastic iphone shots. My camera was nowhere to be found for most of the day.

My favorite part about organizing is making my fabric all nice and pretty…

Followed closely by hanging happy backdrops…

Here is some Ruby Star Spring by Melody Miller waiting patiently…

Hey, look what I found in the bottom of some random box! Man, I was a chunky baby…

By 9pm Operation Studio Makeover – Phase one was nearly complete..

Phase two includes creating a photography studio with fun backdrops and light diffusers against that wall you can’t see over on the right.

It’s already such a huge improvement! That table is perfect – Yay!

*ack*

Ever do that? Brainstorm a zillion amazing ideas and decide that you need do them all? Yeah, this is me hyperventilating over here as the reality of my decisions have sunk in…

Some things I’ve already sunk my teeth into and crossed off my long list include:

1) Say hellooo to my pretty new Pattern Shop!   (and pretty new Etsy photos!)

Yes ma’am, I’ve been hard at work (read: drowning in css stylesheets) the past few days making a better home and look for my patterns. Go on over and give ‘er a whirl! You’ll see all the patterns in categories, with photos you can click on and zoom in, and as before – all the patterns are instant downloads! I know some of you have had some weirdness with my previous provider, and these guys come highly recommended.

THANK-YOU LAURRIANE!!! *HUGS* This amazing woman totally held my hand through the whole store tweaking process and I’m so so grateful!  Just to give you an idea of the miracles she’s performed, our stores started from the same totally boring generic template. You’ve seen mine above, here’s hers:

I love the basket icon. You should totally check out her patterns. She’s been published a gazillion times and her stuff is really well done!

Ok, #2 on my grand to do list is finish the Halloween Quilt of Awesomeness once and for all, and submit it to the International Quilt Festival Modern Quilters Showcase in Houston by the end of February.

No problem right?! I just have some fun embroidery details to add, and then I ship it off to my new quilter. I’m so so excited about deciding to go with Krista Withers. She’s just the right combo of crazy talent, quirky and meticulous I’ve been looking for. Some of you might know her from Flickr as Loloblueocean. This is her new Flickr Group showcasing some of the long arm quilting stuff she’s done. She’s recently decided to stretch into more modern quilting which is perfect timing for me!

I met her last May at the VMQG Retreat hosted by another wonderful Krista:

I plan to blog the quilting adventure with any update shots she gives me *yay*

Since the quilt (should it get accepted) will likely travel around to two more international festivals, I’ve decided to get the rest of the patterns done and ready by August. (Oh god help me I’ve said that out loud.) I’m still deciding on the format it’ll be presented. Maybe a pattern booklet, maybe a book, I dunno. I figure it out once I get the graphics done.

The thought of publicly stating my other 2012 project deadlines is now freaking me out, so I’ll let those unfold as I get them done. Besides, I need to keep you in a little bit of suspense right?

Since they were all submitted last year, I can say that I have more patterns coming out in Quiltmaker this year,  and I will do my best to get more patterns up in my store. Oh! And keep your eyes peeled on this lady’s blog. That’s all I’m going to say!

Have a wonderful first week back at work my dear readers!

It might seem silly to say, but even the smallest and quickest little project someone may whip up on a whim, completely validates my work. You’re really the reason I do this.

Yes, I am trying to somehow make a living here, doing something I absolutely love,

but at the end of the day it’s so much more important for me to see your happiness and satisfaction.

Whenever someone emails me that one of my patterns, or video tutorials helped them learn how to paper piece I literally do a happy dance. I’m not kidding!

Hi Sonja!
I just wanted to let you know that I used your Lil Fox Pattern to make a mini-quilt for a friend’s holiday gift and she loved it! It is such a cute pattern and it was my first time paper-piecing. So thank you for helping me to get over that sewing hurdle.

I also wanted to let you know my purchase went smooth and worked fine.

Have a great holiday!

Jeanne

*squee*

I cried when Theresa emailed me about the memory quilt she made of her cat with my Oto pattern.

Jenny

It’s hockey season again and I have to say I LOVE Arita’s feminine take on the Canucks Hockey Stick:

And Halloween brought some fun sightings this year. CreativeDawn went Halloween gaga! I love all of it!

I could die, Jelleybeanlamb’sPeeping Horse is just all kinds of awesome!

Well done ladies!! What a fabulous collection of handiwork! Please be sure to grab a “featured” button from up on the right for your blogs!

So here are some of the highlights of 2011 which include all the new pattern releases, projects I completed, and any tutorials I made for Artisania. P.S. click the photos to see the blog post.

And here are some beautiful items I received this year from the few swaps I participated in:

Omgosh right? I bet if you went through your blog/photos etc. you’d find a bunch of gems you’d forgotten about too! (although my tea cozy and table runner are in use nearly everyday at my house!)

I need to do one more post about all of the projects you’ve made with Artisania Patterns this year, so stay tuned!

I sat in my office surrounded in fabric, quickly deciding against the white rabbits. “Maybe the plaid or stripes or taupe linen? What would they like best, my sweet little children?”

“And what about grandma and grandpa? Oh don’t forget Dad! What was I thinking? This idea is bad.” The project was simple and quick for one, but there were 6 handmade gifts that needed to be done!

For everyone I’ll make a cozy rice warmer. Simple and rustic, with their name on the cover. Do I put Grandma and Grandpa, or Michael and Heide? Or papa or dude or mom ..oh crikey…

I looked at the clock which blinked ten thirty, I’d better get sewing in a dang hurry. I measured and cut, and pinned everywhere, “Oh man I hope they can’t hear my sewing machine down there!”

I pieced each cover, all in a line, ” I must sew faster… is THAT the time?” I pressed my foot harder, right down to the floor, “This machine MUST go faster, faster than before!”

Suddenly there was this horrible pop! A screech and a clunk, and my sewing machine stopped! “Uh oh” I muttered in complete disbelief, and pulled out the fabric to look underneath.

“Oh for PETE’S SAKE!” I cried, at the huge mass of thread that was inside. I grabbed my seam ripper and took a deep breath, and began ripping and pulling at this unholy mess.

I found hunks fabric stuck down below, and mountains of lint in my bobbin hole. There was thread of all colors from my projects past, and the broken needle tip came out at last!

As quick as lightening my machine was rethread, and I tried not to think of the pain in my head. I sandwiched and basted and began to quilt, all 6 rice warmers I wanted to build.

“The final touch before I go to bed, are the embroidered names all done in red.” The clock said four and my vision was blurred, but I got them all done before anyone stirred.

I wrapped each one carefully, and tiptoed downstairs, and under the tree they were laid with great care. I crawled into bed and tucked myself in, and I began to dream of this epic win.

Needless to say, at a quarter past five I was dragged from my slumber barely alive.

The end.

Merry Christmas to all of you dear readers, I hope you have a wonderful holiday full of laughter, amazing food, good company and happy memories!

Before I start, let me say that I know Anna, and she has a heart of gold. I’m sure she meant nothing of it except to be awesomely supportive, *hugs to Anna*

…but my own insecurities suddenly went into overdrive…

Have I been getting to big for my britches? Oh no… Have I become that oppressive show-off hogging her little corner of the net?

You see I found myself cringing as suddenly I was 11, and seeing the sudden seething look of hatred my best friend gave me when her mom said “Why can’t you be more like Sonja?”

It seems to be a depressingly humourous ongoing theme in my life.

A couple of weeks ago, as I excitedly showed my pattern in the modern blocks book to some of my “mom” friends at school, one friend suddenly seemed so threatened, and made some uncomfortable comment about me being amazing at everything I do.

It seems that to many people I come across as that über talented doitall person is just naturally great at everything they do.

This is just not so, people!!

I just get really focused, like OCD focused, on stuff I’m bad at and I can’t seem to let things rest till I’ve figured the heck out of it. That’s all. I don’t think I’m especially talented in anything, unless you count the tendency to obsess over stuff a talent?

Ok, so for the record, there is a lot of stuff I’m terrible at. For example:

1 – I can’t run.

It hurts to admit it cause I was pretty athletic in high school, and my brain fantasizes my run looks like this:

However, I’ve been told by several people that I actually run like this:

2 – I have no sense of rhythm.

I blame all those years of classical piano lessons. Even though I’m sure they have nothing to do with it.

I was in the jazz band in school. I played the piano, since my then 13+ years of piano lessons made me a good candidate for the spot.

Our band was actually surprisingly good, mostly due to the extraordinary drumming ability of my older brother and placed highly in a couple of those music festivals. I remember our band teacher Mr. Smith proudly took us to a recording studio. And silly me thought I was all that, imagining myself as the next Thelonius Monk.

Well, in the middle of what I thought was a great go, he stopped the band, pulled me aside and said “Sonja, will you please find a beat. Any beat, just stick to a rhythm, your chord shots are so off it’s killing me”.

3 – I’m mathematically challenged.

God help me if I’m ever stuck without a calculator.

I took and failed precalculus in university 3 times. This wasn’t even first year math, it was the class you took cause you couldn’t cheat in your grade 12 final and just passed by the skin of your teeth. The best score I ever received was 3 out of 150 because I added right in one of the steps of one question.

Don’t let my sneaky iphone instagram shots fool you. (My computer has decided to just not turn on so I’m resorting to posting from my phone)

My knitting isn’t perfect. I see lots of weirdness in those mittens, especially since I’m too lazy to block them and used some unorthodox color-changing cause I lack a darning needle.

Actually, it’s the same reason I had to cram all the dangly ends inside the mittens so they wouldn’t show in the shot.

In fact, the first pair of mittens I ever knit were for my husband. One looked like some sort of mangled chain mail gauntlet belonging to the biggest lobster you can imagine.

The second mitten looked custom made for the 3 fingered, horribly disfigured hand stump of the grinch’s poor cousin.

You can ask my husband if you don’t believe me, I think that whole experience permanently traumatized him.

Ok, I feel better now.

All I do is practice and try try again till the cows come home or I’ve driven someone insane.

My little brother still knows the whole first movement of Beethoven’s Pathetic off by heart some 15 years after I stopped playing it.

My son came up to me and said “Santa needs mittens….

…can you knit some for him?”

“They need to be red with white stripes..”

“Do you think he would like that?”

“He always gives everyone presents, I want to give him one this time”

“Maybe we can drive to the North Pole tomorrow and give them to him?”

Some eager beavers have already whipped up their own touque clad critters…

Karen who blogs at Laughter in Quilts made this beauty:

By Karen from Laughter in Quilts

Patty, a fellow Canadian who blogs at Retired to Quilt made this one, complete with a bunch of nuts for the little squirrel:

I adore the raccoon’s striped touque!

And Jen Johnston bought the kit from Quiltmaker and I had to do a double take as it’s nearly identical to the one I made!

I love seeing all the different interpretations of the pattern, and how the different kinds of quilting in the background lends a unique feel to each piece.

Well done ladies! I can’t tell you how fun it is to see your darling wall hangings! Please feel free to snag a featured button for your blogs! (they’re over on the right sidebar)