Happy Zombie

I’m ready to go to Market - all my Winterkist samples sewn, all my photos taken, all my lovely email answered, all my clothes packed and all my hairs dyed.   I even managed to get my freebie pattern ready for the printer on the day of the deadline and not after.  The earth just tilted on it’s axes a little bit.  All that’s left now is to pick up Mo, and off to Kansas City we go for our Mo & Mo Go To MO adventure!

My free Peek-a-boo Gnoma pattern for Winterkist is availble here.  Whew, I got it done just in the nick of time.  The Universe was smiling on me, it even provided a sunny day for photos.

This shot is solely to brag on our sunshine - but it’s not really bragging since I live in the greyest city in the United States (fact. for real). Confession: I did not baste or pin my layers before I machine quilted this. Fact 1: I’m nuts. Fact 2: I’m lazy. Fact 3: Flattest/no lump quilt I ever made. I KNOW, how crazy is that. Fact 4: I will never, ever baste again.

There really must be gnomes in my woods - who else could have chopped this nice stack of wood. Actually, my nice neighbor across the street…

…but it’s more fun to pretend it’s Gnoma’s ancestors… Heinzelmännchen.

Some more goodies for the Lecien booth.

This is a sample for Elizabeth’s schoolhouse - for the debut of her freaking-awesome-beyond-words new book Modern Patchwork. All of the quilt patterns in Elizabeth’s book also have a mini version of each quilt, and the one I made is from her Metropolis pattern. I had so much fun making this mini-quilt, and I plan to make each mini-quilt in the book. I’m going to lazy-ass Julie-Julia my way through Modern Patchwork. I have a copy Modern Patchwork (no, I’m not giving it away - oh hell no!), and it is incredibly, jaw dropping beautiful, clever and fun, and I each projects leaves me marveling how Elizabeth thinks those designs up.

I went a little bag crazy.

Anna’s 241 Tote pattern. I FREAKING LOVE THIS PATTERN. And I love seeing all the different ones that are being made. I see many, many more of the 241’s in my future.

My Better Homes & Gardens Six Pocket Purse pattern and Ayumi’s Lunch Bag purse pattern. I can’t stop making the “Ayumi bag” either.

My newest baddiction (bag addiction) is Jeni’s Drawstring bag pattern. So cute and so fast, and also fun to see the different ones being made. LOTS more of these are going to be in my future, too.

A little give-away of Winterkist. It doesn’t hit the stores until this summer (you can put yourself on the Winterkist email notification at Fat Quarter Shop), so this is a chance if your not going to Sample Spree at Market (or going to Market) - to get a little sampling of your own.  I’ve got two little 6″ charm-pack bundles (each with a Gnoma of each size in the bundle).  Leave a comment and when I get back from Market I’ll draw two winners on Sunday, May 20th.  For kicks, if you want… you can tell me your favorite color at the moment. And because I love knowing what colors people are diggin’ these days. Editing in: drawing winners on Monday, May 21.

RESOURCES:
Peek-a-boo Gnoma Quilt pattern
by Monica Solorio-Snow
thehappyzombie.com/pdf/peekaboognoma.pdf

Six Pocket Purse pattern
from Better Homes & Gardens publications by Monica Solorio-Snow
allpeoplequilt.com/533

Metropolis Quilt (mini version)
from the C&T book Modern Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman
www.ohfransson.com

Lunch Bag (purse) pattern
from Pink Penguin tutorials by Ayumi Mills
ayumills.blogspot.com/2010/08/tutorial-lunch-bag.html

241 Tote pattern
from Noodlehead Patterns by Anna Graham
noodle-head.com/p/patterns.html

Lined Drawstring Bag pattern
from In Color Order tutorials by Jeni Baker
incolororder.blogspot.com

PS, if you want to see Winterkist at your favorite LQS or fabric store, gently bombard your favorite proprietors with a Winterkist wish and Winterkist kisses. Or send them a link to the Winterkist book and ask them to visit the Lecien booth 1124, 25, 26 in Kansas City this weekend!

PS2, I can’t thank everyone enough for all the kind and heartwarming emails and comments I’ve gotten recently and haven’t been able to answer. I hope maybe I can have a little in-box amnesty and please know how much I cherish your kindness and sweet words, and plan on responding soon. Ish.

Edited in: The giveaway has now ended. Using random.org for comments 1-254, the winners are #14 by Jenelle and #67 by Heather!

Round 4 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has again made it’s way to my house. I now have Alissa’s quilt-in-progress with the addition’s of Elizabeth’s quilt-werks and Heather’s quilt-werks. The QIP started with Alissa’s center block, which Elizabeth built around it, Heather built on to the right side, and then I added to the top and left side (if you view the photo in Flickr, you can mouse over the photo and internetgalaticamagicly see who did what).

Bottom right is Alissa’s “starter block”.

I crazy love the citron-ish yellow (Art Gallery’s “Empire Yellow”) solid Alissa added to her traveling bundle, especially with all the greys.   Mad love.  I see a shopping trip to Fat Quarter Shop in my very near future.

I turned some of the fabrics around - it’s like getting a bonus fabric. The little Echino in the center is a scrap that started at Ashley’s house, then went to Elizabeth’s house, and then came to my house… I just HAD to use it. At some point it’ll go back to Ashley house once the Alissa’s QIP makes it’s way there. I wonder if the fabric will recognize her? Mommy, Mommy… is that really you?

I had so much fun making my addition, and each little log cabin was a different treat. Elizabeth had a great idea that I attach my lil’ loggies in the same manner as I did her QIP and Heather’s QIP.  I liked her idea, and maybe the L7 is now my new thing. The fun thing is not knowing what I’m going to do for the next person until I get that person’s QIP.

This bee is the ultimate in creative challenges and so much fun. Most fun I’ve ever had on a quilting project/group adventure. And speaking of fun… I’m DYING over Penny’s addition on my QIP!

Last February the Portland Modern Quilt Guild had a very special visitor - Kathy Miller of Michael Miller Fabrics.  It was a fun and so very interesting evening, but nothing could top the excitement when Kathy handed out color cards of Michael Miller’s dreamy new Cotton Couture solids to everyone.  It was definitely an Oprah handing-out-keys-to-new-cars moment.  A color card for you, and a color card for you…

We also learned that Michale Miller Fabrics chose our guild to participate in a block challenge, and the winning blocks would be made into a quilt and displayed in the Michael Miller booth at Quilt Market (next week!).  Oh boy, I don’t think Kathy knew what she got herself into. I don’t know how she is going to pick winning blocks - when they are ALL winning blocks.  HOLY SQUIRREL NUTS, they’re all so amazing!  Edited in: the selected blocks and quilt.

I love how the blocks look against the white brick wall.

Each block could easily be a full size quilt version of itself.

This is my block. I had no idea what to do or what direction to go in… so I went in all directions. I don’t know how I feel about it, kinda meh, but it was fun to drive to the fork in the road and take all the roads at once.

I fell in instant love with the new Cotton Couture.  The colors are super saturated eye candy, and the fabric feels like little heavenly clouds of cotton that angels farted out. Poof.  So much for any hope of me becoming a Michael Miller copywriter. But seriously, Cotton Couture is so dreamy, and now that I’ve sewn with it - it feels like I’ve flown first class, and I can never go back to coach.

I harvested all my leftover scraps, tiny little flakes of cotton happiness just begging me (in a Kool-aid pitcher man voice) to be used.  In a granny kind of way.  Fiber filled Gran Flakes.  Oh yeah.

I’m seeing the grannies all over, and just loving seeing them. I know there are different methods being used, but I have a thing about bias edges - so I made my sides with 3″ quarter-squares and 2″ half-squares for the corners.  The center squares were cut at 1½”.  It’s a little over-kill on the sides and corners, but I like having room to square-up and trim.  Kinda like wearing an elastic waist-band skirt when going to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.

Simple sashing and auditioning floss. Mmmm, any excuse to use Cosmo.

Some hand quilting.

Two things I love doing - hand quilting and big stitch embroidery quilting.  Edited in:  I use two stands of Cosmo floss and a Piecemaker embroidery needle. Even though an embroidery needle feels like a quilting needle from Land of The Giants, I do use the same rocking method to quilt as if it’s thread. It just somehow works.

I love quilting so much, that I get a little sad when I’m just about to finish a quilt.

Bam. Snuck in some Happy Mochi Yum Yum, and I love that it does not even come close to matching or go together.

Round 3 of the Traveling Quilts Bee has made it’s way to my house.  I now have Elizabeth’s quilt-in-progress (here).

The beauty of this round robin bee is that the rules are really liberal - some participants are building to the quilt-in-progress (QIP) rounds, and some participants are making building materials.  I’m too chicken to use someone’s building materials (ie, Heather’s beautiful blocks) for fear I’ll muck them up, so I’m sticking to being a builder.

The instant I saw Elizabeth’s QIP, I KNEW that I wanted to have some fun in 8-bit and do something iconic 80’s like Pac-man.  I found some awefreakingsome paper piecing Pac-man patterns by Jennifer Ofenstein posted here.  It’s bananas how Jennifer has so many killer patterns.  How do people do this??  My mind boggles.

I printed the patterns at a smaller scale so I could border them into 5″ finished blocks.  I don’t know what I did, all I know is I got printer-lucky.

I grey’d-out Pac-man’s traveled path as he makes his way towards Clyde.

As Pac-man heads toward Pinky and Inky (ish), I decided to do the “dots” in tall segments vs alternating squares of black and white with long white boarders.  In my head I heard Pac-man chomping his way over the dots - and I feel like the segments enhance the visual chomping sounds, and the long white boarders would have felt like Pac-man would have been gliding over the dots.  Pac-man is not a glider.  Not that there’s anything wrong with gliding.

All done, and now Round 3 is off to Dan’s for Round 4.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the secrecy ban has been lifted in the TQ pool (yay!!!), and now we can all watch the QIP’s as they grow.  For example I got to see Dan’s addition to my QIP, and just recently got to see Elizabeth’s addition to Amber’s QIP.  Yeah, incredibly, amazing stuff to see.  An abundance of awesomeness!

I have to throw something on my blog so the first thing I see is not me with a toilet seat cover on my head.  Speaking of which, my mom told a lady at her gym what I and my girlfriends did, and the lady replied that she used to do stuff like that in high school, too.   Awkward.

I belong to the Traveling Quilts bee, and up until recently - we were not allowed to show our round robin progress other than peeks.  Not saying there was public outcry, or veils of threats (there may or may not be a table flipper in the group)… but the secrecy ban has been lifted, all who want to watch all the progress now can!   So for slight-of-hand-taking-focus-off my last post… this is a peek of my progress for Elizabeth’s traveling quilt.

And now to go finish it so I can send it off to Dan.

Last week when my friend Mo told our sewing circle about Nina Katchadourian and her Lavatory Self-Portraits blog post, WE KNEW WE HAD TO DO IT TOO.

In a nutshell, Nina’s ridiculously awesome post goes like this, “Seat Assignment: Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style: While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror using my cellphone.” That is THE BEST QUOTE EVER. EVER!

So while Mo was at work at an undisclosed location’s restroom, she sent me a text with her self-potty shot.  I busted a kidney laughing so hard.   Shortly after Mo’s world’s-most-awesome text, I was in Trader Joe’s and went to the restroom to try my hand at a potty shot.  I giggled, and giggled, and giggled, and this is my result:

I don’t know how to pull off the Flemish look, so I just tried to look serious. And it’s damn HARD to look serious when you’re giggling and cracking your S up. But I think I pulled off a rockin’ bunny suit look and look like I just developed the zombie antidote for The Walking Dead cast.

Later that night at sewing circle, I say to Mo, “I need to go to the bathroom [wink, wink], wanna come with me?” - so off we go to the building’s restroom. Heather comes along too, no knowing what Mo and I are up to. Mo heads one stall for “wardrobe”, I to another. And before we know it… we’re freak Heather out into THE ultimate OMG moment!

Mo and I look like we got caught escaping from somewhere that escaping is frowned upon. We had so much fun. Incredible, crazy fun. Like playing a grand prank, but no one gets hurts and nothing gets damaged. When we got back to circle, we showed our friends the potty pics, and gut splitting, side hurting laughing ensued. I won’t name names, but soon there were more potty pics zipping through the internet tunnels.

There’s something so fun about this and I HIGHLY recommend everyone who’s got a camera, a public restroom and a potty-protector sheet to take a potty pic! It will be a very long time before I ever walk into a public restroom and not crack up. It feels SO GOOD to do something some dumb, so childish, so weird, so embarrassing. In a weird way, it’s kind of empowering. I think anytime I’m scared to do something, and then do it - I feel very empowered. And with that said, last night at the grocery store I slipped into the restroom and had some fun. I was giggling like a school-girl all the way out the store. And in my car. And when I got home…

I didn’t know what I was going to get until afterwards.  I’m going with Ninja on one, but unsure what the other one ended up being.  Sigh, I love this game!  I’m really hoping others will play along, too (I’m going to tag my pics with #pottypicfun on flickr, and hope it catches on!).  And I’m hoping my girlfriends will show their potty pics - they are just too good not to be seen!

This is not a cry for help. I repeat, this is not a cry for help. At least not for now at this very moment.

Starting back when Lori and I did our iPhone sew-along (Lori’s, mine) with Ayumi’s Lunch bag (purse) pattern, I have not been able to stop making them or stop thinking about making them.   I see fabric and all I want to do it harvest a small collection that would make for a cute lunch bag (or as I lovingly call them now:  Ayumi Purses).

This last Saturday I made two more.  I couldn’t decide which Suzy Ultman Appleville brown or Appleville white to use, so I made both.  BOTH!  Paired with some of Tula’s Prince Charming and Robert Kaufman’s “ring” fabric - it would have been criminal not to make both.

It was a sewing-day with the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, and if I hadn’t spent so much time proclaiming (proclaiming = When Harry Met Sally deli scene) how cute the pattern and the fabrics were together, I might have even been able to crank out an additional bag.  That’s Susan waving hi - she’s so dang squeezably cute! And that unusual bright light emanating from the window in the top right of the photo - that’s sunshine people. Sun. Shine.  Dispelling all rumors that Oregonian’s are Mole People. Fact.

I’m playing with making the lunch bag bigger, so I decided to go all Scarlett O’Hara ish and use the (Darlene Zimmerman Mama’s Kitchen) fabric that was once my sewing room’s closet curtains at my previous house.

I love how Lecien’s red check from their Color Basic’s collection goes with Darlene’s fabric! Cutting and sewing next up (and fingers crossed my upsizing hacks work out).

As soon as I got wind that Michael Miller flipped the switch on the way-back time machine and was bringing back Patty’s Andalucia  - I flew over to the Fat Quarter Shop and ordered me some of the Andalucia II.

It’s not an addiction if everybody joins in with me, right? And now on to the next harvesting of lunch bag fabrics… what ever they may be… re-Flea Market Fancy…

I’m so excited I can hardly stand it! Next month in Kansas City at the International Quilt Market my Winterkist line is going to debut! Not only is Gnoma Claus coming back (ish), he’s going to be in SIX colors!  Winterkist is not a sequel to Holiday Happy - but rather Winterkist is everything I wanted Holiday Happy to be and then some (not that I didn’t love my first baby). Winterkist is a mash-up of rain, snow, puddles, Gnoma Claus on Botox, and crazy bright colors to warm up the dark Winter months (or as we call the dark of Winter in NW Oregon: Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall).

Another exciting change is that Gnoma Claus won’t come on a panel like he did on Holiday Happy - but now he’ll be on actual yardage. That means more Gnoma per yard + usable yardage! Fussy cut or not, it’s a gnoma-fiesta by the yard. You can see how it all works by having a sneak peek inside the little Winterkist Booklet I made for Lecien to hand out at Market.  Here’s a snapshot of the booklet:

There are 30 SKU’s in all, 5 prints each in Pink, Orange Sherbet, Red, Aqua (or teal), Lime and Graphite. I don’t know what I’m most excited about… the Orange Sherbet or the Graphite. Not yo momma’s holiday colors, fo sho!  Well, not my momma’s colors.  And if you are one of my kids - in that case it is yo momma’s holiday colors.  Winterkist is still being milled, so what I’m showing are my final round of strike-offs:

Pink

Orange Sherbet

Red

Aqua

Lime

Graphite

Since my sample yardage is not yet here, I’m waiting to share my freebie pattern that’ll be available at Lecien’s websites. The pattern will be available at Quilt Market time (end of May). I’ve been playing with color combos. It’s like play-dough for the quilter/sewist in me.

North Shore: Lime - Aqua - Graphite

Citron: Pink - Lime - Orange Sherbet

m3: Red - Teal - Graphite

Pink & Orange Sherbet

Aqua & Lime

Red & Aqua

Cherry Lime

Aqua & Orange Sherbet

Wint-o-ween

(I want to throw in some Lime and some purple solids!)

I’m also really excited about my selvage.

I love a great selvage, and Lecien included some tiny baby Gnomas for the color dots. Squeal!

So with a deep breath I’m about to hit the publish button on this post. I so hope Winterkist will be liked. It’s a weird feeling to put something you made out there to be used. Worry, fear and self-doubt are part of the package - and as scared S-less as I am… I’m also so very happy.  To the moon happy! I can’t thank everyone enough for the sweet, kind and excited comments I got on my teaser post (I’m so touched!!), and I hope everyone still feels the same after seeing the rest, now.  At least I know my parents will want some. Gonna be tough to hang fabric on their fridge… but I’ll find a way.

Deets:
– Wholesale orders: Lecien USA - (510) 596-3085
– Ship date/in stores: Summer 2012
– Free pattern: lecienusa.com or lecien.co.jp
– PDF sales book: Winterkist Booklet
– International Quilt Market, Spring 2012, Kansas City, MO

Edited in 13 Feb 2013:
The pattern Patio (known as Taking Turns in the 2012 Quilts & More issue) is available in my PDF pattern shop!

+ my shop + Patio pattern + Patio on Pinterest

ORIGINAL POST, March 17, 2012:

Whoo whoo - I’ve got another quilt pattern in Quilts and More!   Ok, so the Spring 2012 issue has been out for a while - but I do like to wait until I actually see the issue on the newsstand before I blog about it.  And here in teenie little Astoria, magazines and mail apparently arrive by pony. If I can find an issue here, I know it’ll be available everywhere and it’s safe to blog about it.

Photo credit: Better Homes & Gardens, used with permission
In this Quilts and More issue, is a special “All About White” section devoted to quilts made with prints and white fabric.  Three quilts, four designers.  Oh yeah, the best part of seeing another one of my patterns published by Quilts and More (which is a thrill on it’s own) - was seeing who else was featured in the All About White feature: Aneela with her Picnic Play quilt, and Team Amazing’s Kate and Sherri with their Double the Fun quilt, and my quilt Taking Turns.  Also in the issue is some more project sweetness by more sweeties - Camille, Joanna and Vanessa. BAM, what an issue!

My Taking Turns quilt:

Photo credit: Better Homes & Gardens, used with permission
A very fat quarter friendly quilt that’s also large scale fabric friendly.  Sometimes I just cringe cutting into fabric, and this pattern is my little way alleviating some of the shear fear I’m constantly stricken with.

Sew Modern has made up a Happy Mochi Yum Yum Taking Turns kit for sale (gotta hurry, I hear they’re almost sold out!), and the BEST FREAKING PART is that you get to DIY your background color from Sew Modern’s complete collection of Robert Kaufman Kona’s.  This is like going to a U-pick orchard - but better because it’s quilty and you won’t get mud on your shoes or fall off a rickety ladder.  I gasped when I saw Lauren’s (Sew Modern’s awesome momma) blog with the shop sample.  I smiled so hard my face hurt.  Talk about an OMG moment.  All the photos MUST be seen.  Go look and then come back.  I’ll wait for you.

Photo credit: Sew Modern, used with permission

Here’s a pic I took of my quilt. Sucky photo, so I played around and made it even suckier. Sucky, but it was fun to play around with the settings in iPhoto. And this is why I don’t get stuff done.

I played around with my pattern, and downsized the measurements by half and made a little baby quilt for a cute little Turtle.

The other night at guild, Elsa showed a baby version she made of it, too. A super thrill for me, especially since she made it in Aneela’s fabric.

Also at guild, and this has nothing to do with anything - but look how cute Megan and I were sitting next to each other.

I’m not even going to pretend I’m not begging, so if anyone makes the Taking Turns pattern or uses it to insire their own version like Elsa did - I’d love for (“I’d love for” is code for “I’m begging for”) anyone’s photos to be added to my Happy Zombie HQ flickr group.

Edited in 13 Feb 2013:
The pattern Patio (known as Taking Turns in the Quilts & More issue) is now available in my shop!

+ my shop

+ Patio pattern

+ Patio on Pinterest

+ Happy Zombie HQ pool on flickr

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