Happy Zombie

When the Portland Modern Quilt Guild held our meeting slash picnic in Laurelhurst Park (that’s us, in the grove - behind the hula-hoopers), my friend Elizabeth asked me if I’d like to come along while she took photos of her quilt in the park.  Heck, yes!

Fun watching Elizabeth try to keep the falling pine needles off her quilt. Trees vs Elizabeth - final score: 154 to 3.

The fruits of Elizabeth labors can be found here.  And what Elizabeth indulged me in during her shoot and the rest of this story - can be found on my guest post on WhipUp.net today!

(This post is best viewed with Right Said Fred’s “I’m Too Sexy” playing in the background)

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Posted in Quilty n Crafty, I Heart Oregon | 8 Comments

I just got a big box of Lecien fabrics designed by my Lecien sisters - and holy edemame and wow, wow, wow are they beautiful! Please don’t hate me - I show them not to make anyone envious of my loot, (especially since it’s not yet available) - but rather as a public service announcement.  It’s for the greater good.

1) If you’re going to Quilt Market and plan on going to Sample Spree - GET TO THE LECIEN TABLES FIRST. These puppies are going to sell fast.  Fast.  Fast, fast, FAST!  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard, “I didn’t get there [Lecien table] in time!”… I’d be loaded.  Don’t make me make you give me a dollar.

2) Make your local quilt shop aware of these fabrics and ask them to go visit the Lecien booth at Market and place orders to fill their shop with happiness for you.

And now for the show.

Woodland
Lecien’s newest designer (squeal!) is Natalie Lymer, and wow, wow, wow how beautiful her Woodland line is! So cute and so rich in color - every thread sings with cuteness and is pure Natalie. I love Woodland so much I cried. And then I hugged it.  And I’m soooo happy Natalie is a part of the Lecien family!

St. Ives
Sarah Fielke does it again - another beautiful line I can’t wait to dig in and cut into. Something about Sarah’s designs that make my heart race and have me wanting to cut them up and put them back together again - and see what happens next! It’s like Sarah’s that beloved jr. high science teacher (like mine - Miss Edna Finger), and she’s got beakers of bubbling and gurgling ingredients, and you can’t wait to see what happens when they all come together. It’s gonna be magic!

Folk Heart
Every time Rosalie Quinlan comes out with a new line, I swear she’s crawled into my head and made it just for me. Now that I’ve seen Folk Heart, I’m checking for cameras and monitoring devices in my house. Rosalie captures all the things I love like no one else… vintage 30’s fabrics, modern fabrics, German looking designs and the candy colors I love so much. Thank you Rosalie for designing Folk Heart just for me for us!

Flower Sugar
I think I weep every time Lecien comes out with a new edition of Flower Sugar. I love you Flower Sugar - will you marry me?

Whitewash
It’s already in stores and debuted at Spring Market in Salt Lake City, but I just now got my hands on it. Whitewash is by Meg Hawkey of Crabapple Hill, and is just as the name implies.  It is neutral utopia and so beautiful!  It’s calling to my inner harvest and begging me to use it in a Halloweeny way with some of my Happy Mochi Yum Yum.   Thinking I just might have found what I want to make -  my Swoon pattern from Camille!



~Whew. I need a nap!
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Posted in Quilty n Crafty | 70 Comments

Harvest - my favorite time of year. Harvest. Fall. Autumn. This is my Spring. My time of year when I feel most alive, most energized, most creative and most cozy. The crock-pot comes out of hiding. And so do I.

I got all nostalgic and harvest happy looking at a past blog post - so I thought I’d revisit it and re-post it… because Autumn is just around the corner and I CAN.  NOT.  WAIT!

From Fall 2008:
Ever feel like you’ve walked straight into the pages of a magazine?  Me neither.  Until Saturday, that is.  My kick-ass girl gang trip to Barn House was heavenly and I had to touch everything to make sure it was real life - and not printed pages.  Heavenly.  Delightful.  Magical.  Beautiful.  Breathtaking.  And a little macabre-larious too (saving that for the end of the post - no skipping ahead).  My challenge was to whittle down all my photos into only 3 dozen.  Between Paula and me, I think we snapped a couple hundred photos.  Click.  Click.  Click…  we just couldn’t stop.  Barn House is located in Battle Ground, Washington… which is about 30-40 minutes NE of Portland, Oregon - and about a 2 hour drive SE from my house (in Astoria, Oregon).

Mother Nature put on quite a show for us - the fall colors looked like they were airbrushed on.

Entrance to the barn - this is such an E Ticket!

Our hosts.  Far right is Jermonne, one half of “J & J” of Barn House, aka Joe and Jermonne. Everyone at Barn House was so friendly and gracious, and made everyone feel like a VIP guest.

A chicken feeder - something ordinary into something beautiful.

Terracotta pumpkin patch.  Ishy.

Bulbs.

A sweet little garden just outside of the refreshment tent.

Seriously.  I feel like I walked into the most beautiful wedding or party setting ever.  Over the top, but the good kind of over the top.

All creatures great and small love Barn House.

Beverages. For all.

Breathtaking.

Cardamon bread, pumpkin bread, marionberry bread… I was in bread utopia.  Oh so very good, especially the cardamon bread.   Also on tap was coffee, mimosas, fruit… just so much good stuff.  Edited in:  I found out who the mystery baker was (all we knew at the time was that her name was Karen).  One never knows who they’ll meet in our wonderful little internet village… and Karen is from an IRL village just up the road from me!

Fantasy tables and settings.

My inner harvest is tingling on high.

Harvest.

I love this lamp idea.

Brave? Ballsy? Either or both… I loved it.

My inner harvest is now past the tingling stage.

My inner harvest is smokin’…

… my inner harvest just exploded.

So macabre, so hilarious… so something that I get such a kick out of.  Dexter meets farm house chic.

This photo should probably come with a warning, but what the heck…

Not the end - I may revisit the rest our of wonderful day, too.

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Posted in Field Trip | 22 Comments

When bad things happen to good people: Amy & Anabel.

When good people do things for good people: Katy & Sarah. Comfort, kindness and goodness prevails. Click here if you’d like to do something - give hugs with blocks.

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Posted in Do Something | Comments Off

Melody said she’d be honored if anyone shared her video.  Seriously, how can anyone bee so clever, and bee so creative and bee so damn cute all at the same time?!

One recent sunny Saturday morning in Portland… we got to have some Yammie-time with sweet, kind, bubbly, adorable Melody and Mr. Ruby Star (who is also pretty dang adorable).  Today’s secret phrase was “Bloddy Mary, please”.
Melody and Jen

Violet and Jona

Violet and Traci

If one were to count my wealth by the greatness, awesomeness and kindness of my friends… I’d be in the top spot at #1 in Forbes Magazine’s richest people. Surround yourself with amazing and remarkable people - and you will live an amazing and remarkable life.

Posted in I Heart Oregon | 19 Comments

Today’s the big day… my project day at camp for Lizzy’s 1001 Peeps Summer Camp! This year I’m making a scoodie (scarf + hoodie) to go along with my last year’s Dragon Slayer Satchel. This year my project is Scoodie in The Hoodie - scarf + hoodie all rolled into one, and fabric can be purchased at Sew,Mama,Sew!  Yardage will yield: one adult 12″ or one large kiddie 10″ and one small 8″ or medium 9″ kiddie sized Scoodie’s. Mix and match.

Yardage:
1 yard outer fabric
1 yard liner fabric
10″ strip for prairie points

1. Cut six 4″ and six 5″ squares for prairie points. For each square, fold over (wrong sides together) diagonally, and press. Fold over diagonally again, and press. 4″ prairie points are for small and medium kiddie Scoodies, and 5″ prairie points are for adult and large kiddie Scoodies.

2. Lay out your yardage of outer fabric, fold wrong sides together selvedge to selvedge.

3. Cutting on the length, cut two 12″ units and two 8″ units. Repeat with liner fabric. *For a kiddie medium size, cut your fabrics in 9″ strips, kiddie large size cut in 10″ strips, so on and so forth, and tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends…

4. Pin two 12″ units at an end (to from one long 2 yard strip). Watch your directional print, and pin rooftops at the top. Repeat with liner fabric, and 8″ units.

5. Place 3 prairie points to each end of the strip, and layer outer and liner units, right sides together with the prairie points tucked neatly inside. Pin.

6. Leave about a 3″ opening (between red and green pins in photo) for turning about an inch from the center seam, and stitch around all four sides.

7.
Trim corners off, turn and press.

8.
Fold unit over in half on center, outer side together. Measure the length of the your center seam, and that will be your side seam’s stitching length to form the hoodie.

9.
Stitch a ⅛” seam from the hoodie’s tip/pointy part to your marked point. Your stitching will also close your turning opening.

10.
Go forth and live the scoodie life.

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Posted in Quilty n Crafty, Make Something | 43 Comments

When the nice people at Basic Grey asked me if I was interested in having some fun with their products, and as soon as I spotted these A-freaking-dorable Monster Gift Cards… I think I replied a OHHECKYEAH even before I finished reading the entire email.

These gift cards holders were screaming to me (one even ingested a fly) to “sew me on to something”.  And funny thing… they said it in robot-voice.

I thought the monsters cards would be a great “secret pocket” sewn inside a kid’s jacket to hold notes with important or emergency info.  Or keys.   Or money.  Or gum.   Feeding the monster.  Also fun, the monster cards are so great slip-stitched on to the backs of quilts.

Use to put in secret notes - like when your little kiddle goes off to Grandma’s or a sleep-over - and put in a little “I love you” note.

When I give a quilt I’ve made, I usually give instructions like:
- Launder like everyday laundry.
- Do not use fabric softener.
- You better use this quilt and not store it away.  I expect to see stains and wear… signs it’s been loved and used.  Don’t make me come over there and kick your [body-part of choice].  The little monster “pocket” would be perfect to slip the instruction note in to… or just a note, “why yes, this is a quilt made with Kate Spain’s Central Park and Terrain, and backed with my Happy Mochi Yum Yum - and yes… it’s a blog post for another day“.

Here’s the give-away juicy juice:
I’ll draw four winners, one winner for each Monster Gift Card plus a package of Basic Gray buttons with each monster card.  Leave a comment by Saturday 8/27 before the stroke of midnight (11:59 PM PST) to be entered.  I’ll use random.org to pick the four winning numbers.

What would you feed the monster?

August 28, 2011 Edited in:
Winner, winner, monster dinner!  Give-away of the Basic Grey gift card monsters & buttons has now ended - and are all enveloped up and will soon be heading out to the winners! Thank you all for joining in on the give-away! Using random.org for comments 1-335, the winners are:

Edited in:
Winner #1: Comment #65 - Tracy
Winner #2: Comment #161 - Char Billow
Winner #3: Comment #190 - Liz Boswell
Winner #4: Comment #291 - Keri P

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Posted in Quilty n Crafty | 338 Comments

Shortly after the devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, Daniela and Susan sprung into action and established Quilts for Quake Survivors. Not only was QFQ to be providing love, warmth and comfort - it in turn gave many an opportunity to do something.  I know this to be the norm amongst all quilters - in times of tragedy our immediate instinct is to MAKE A QUILT.  Now.  Pronto.  To comfort someone else - and the by-product of that is it comforts ourselves.  Thank you to Daniela and Susan for the do-something-good double whammy.

The third by-product of QFQ is the community esprit de corps it fostered.  The feeling of an old fashioned quilting bee - or a barn raising. On one QFQ occasion, Cherri opened her doors to her beautiful Sew On Studio for a night of QFQ sewing. Most of us there that night were from the Portland Modern Quilt Guild along with some new friends we got to meet and sew with!

Clockwise:  Finished quilts and works in progress.  Jen holds up a quilt made by Alicia (no one could stop ooohing and ahhing).  Alicia has two posts about her quilt here and here.  Marsha points to a Kaufman solid we’re all in love with on Paula’s quilt top.  Awesome spiral quilt!  Paula showing her gorgeous quilt - her FIRST QUILT SHE EVER MADE, and not only that… but PAULA DONATED HER FIRST QUILT SHE EVER MADE!

Cherri’s design wall saw a lot of action that night.

Sweet, sweet, sweet Susan gave me two of her books that had just been released.  TWO.  Yes, TWO.  Susan has TWO books out at the same time.  The same time!  Sorry, am I shouting?  Just that Susan gets me all excited and happy.  I just L-O-V-E Lhhhhhhove Modern Log Cabin Quilting and World of Geekcraft (and BTW… best book title ever).  Susan’s such a crafty goddess, I think this makes 5 books for her?  But these two are my fave and kick serious book ass.

Daniela, Suzanne and Michelle admiring a beautiful quilt (and Patty’s beautiful fabric used).

At a prior QFQ/Susan’s Modern Log Cabin book signing event at Modern Domestic, I started  some log cabin-ishy blocks out of Bari’s County Lane fabrics - I then finished the blocks this night at Sew On.  Jen plays with setting them on the design wall.  The blocks then went in the pile and on to some other loving hands to finish the next stage.

The wonderful thing about QFQ, it wasn’t about making a quilt, it was about participating in the making of a quilt. To do what we could. Some of us pieced blocks. Some of us pieced quilt tops. Some of us quilted. Some of us bound. Some of us made an entire quilt start to finish. We all did something different, and we all contributed with our hands together in a common goal. I had made the blocks above and off they went to another person.  As well, I had donated a top - and Kimberly beautifuly sandwiched, quilted and bound it (her photos here and here).  At our July guild night-park picnic, Susan had a huge IKEA bag full of QFQ quilts and tops that needed finishing.  There was this one super pretty quilt that was calling me - not only made in Lecien’s Flower Sugar line… but it kind looked like my blog.  Hello Monica, this is Destiny calling - please pick up line two.

The Flower-Sugar-looked-like-my-blog quilt was pretty much done, only a little bit of quilting I had to do plus I bound it.  I didn’t know who made the quilt… that is until I posted it on flickr and Amy kindly left me the answer.  I had a triple OMG moment when I discovered it was my friend Kristyne who had made it!  I had the best It-Takes-a-Village-moment ever!  And so global too, as Kristyne is in Canada.  Remembering Hands Across America - this was kind of a Hands Across North America to Japan.  I feel so blessed to have had this quilt+love+barn+raising+goodness moment with Kristyne even though we didn’t know it.  Is there a saying when you give one thing, you get a hundred things back?  Yeah, I feel like that.  Awesomeness bathing in a pool of awesomesauce while sipping an awesomegarita.

THANK YOU Daniela and Susan for giving us all the opportunity to participate in the awesomeness that is Quilt for Quake Survivors, my husband for indulging me in a The Walking Quilted with Kristyne’s quilt, and to Kaci for nourishing us with rosemary fries from Burgerville!

Posted in I Heart Oregon, Do Something | 18 Comments

… because of this:

American Patchwork & Quilting October 2011 issue, and it features me. Yes, me! OHH. MMM. GEE… me! Profiled!! I still think they came to my house accidentally, and there’s another Monica out there still waiting for the Better Homes & Gardens crew to show up. PLEASE, rush out a buy this issue before it’s discoved they have the wrong Monica and the issue is recalled!!

Oh, and I have a project in it too - Bubble Runner! I’ll let sweet Sarah show it to you - because I’m off to hunt for some towels and a mop.

Posted in Quilty n Crafty, How I Live | 76 Comments

So this last weekend was the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. The Portland Modern Quilt Guild had an exhibit. And the Sweet Hot Yams set up camp… Yam Camp. This should be a 10-part post, but I’m too lazy so I’m doing a two-parter. This post is more for me than anyone else (I had such a blast I want to remember every second), but should anyone reading enjoy my ride with me… pull up a chair and buckle up. Pour yourself a G & T.

Sunny and gloriously arid Sisters made me forget all about putting sunscreen on my “sisters”, but luckily I was so proud of my SOQS name tag and ribbons that I snapped a self-photo of them. Showing my ta-tas on a post about a quilt show? Gravy.

And so it began. Violet, Heather, Traci, Irene, Joan and myself head up to Sisters. Elizabeth, Kristin and Gibby will meet us up there later. Sadly missing at Yam Camp was Mo, Jen, Shelly and Sally.

Violet makes a final shove at the fabric, sewing machines, clothes and *special quilting gear*.

We pass Detroit Lake on the way to Sisters, one of my favorite places on earth. Maybe even the universe.

Yam Camp! We unpack our priorities and our *special quilting gear*.

Then some of us go for a run, some of us pretend to go for a run and some of us photograph runners. Then we rest… photographing runners while sitting on the porch with a Sangria is E X A U S T I N G.

Dinner at Three Creeks Brewing, right next to the beautiful Sisters Movie House. (I’m so enamored with this movie house!)

A little beer tasting - and color inspiration. I see solids and I’m suddenly hungry for Autumn.

After dinner, our new Friend of The Yammies and dinner guest, Rob Appell invites us to see what’s in the back of his truck… QUILTING TOOLS - and he had prezzies for all of us. Confession: I’m totally name dropping and bragging that Rob had dinner with us AND he had treats for us. Double the treat factor.

Things Violet says, “I want a donkey and ride on it to my mailbox”. I did imaginary cart-wheels when I spotted this hood ornament. After dinner we head to the grocery store, with Traci as our official cart driver - we spend more time admiring the quilts than shopping. Quilts are hung EV. ER. Y. WHERE in Sisters. Before and after the show, there’s no shortage of quilts. Sisters is a well hung town.

The next day Elizabeth arrives, and that night Kristin arrives. Gibby will arrive on show day.

The floor is slowly disappearing and the fabric piles quickly growing.  I make my Pick a Pocket purse for Violet with her gorgeous new Peacock Lane fabric; Irene succumbs to sewing fraught…

… and I crank out two FWQAL blocks. Block 7 I loved, Block 8 had me dropping a lot of F-bombs (especially after the block finished smaller than my other blocks). My extreme ultimate super dislike for templates is substantiated.

And then Bari and Tula arrive at Yam Camp for a few hours of yammy good times.

We hit Three Creeks for a second time, this time Bari and Tula joining us. Bari waves hi to Pam and we WYWH’d her, Elizabeth and I split a beer sampler and Traci orders some ranch dressing on the sly to sneak some of Irene’s fries.

After dinner we hit the Stitchin’ Post - one of my favorite quilt shops on the planet. Elizabeth spots the Bari display; Violet spots her petal purse pattern (and just so happens to be using the purse!); Elizabeth, Traci and Violet spot Lizzy’s new book.

“OMG, Elizabeth… is this your book?!”. Ok, I was a little loud, but to pipe me down Elizabeth modeled with her book for me. And suddenly more hootin’ and hollerin’… Valori pops in the store. And as busy as she was, she stopped to take some time with us. LOVE. HER.

Next post quilt show pics…

Posted in I Heart Oregon, Field Trip | 52 Comments