So my biggest news is that I won a Ribbon at MQX for Potato Hank! It was Karen Blocher’s Judge’s Choice. I got this really nice ribbon (lives on my wall above my ironing station now) plus $50, which paid for the return postage, so Hank is safely back home, ready to go to the next show, which will be the Festival of Quilts later this month. It goes to show how drastically different shows can be, I went from entirely rejected on background choices for two of my quilts, to getting into my first juried show and getting a ribbon in the space of a couple of months.

There’s a few things going on round here right now. I’m trying to make sure I have at least 20 minutes each day to exercise because honestly I feel better when I do. I’m still sewing in the mornings though, and I’m working on something for Make Modern. 

While I was doing that, I thought it may be worthwhile to make a video on how to match seams on 45 degree diamonds. I maybe upload once a month now, so I promise not to spam you too much if you decide to subscribe to my channel:

The videos that are best received tend to be technique videos, so I’ll be mostly doing those as I find myself doing something that others may not know about. I do enjoy doing a tool/notion review though and I did quite a comprehensive test of Fabric markers that hasn’t been viewed as much as I thought it would.

I’ve also got two new patterns out, because it has been too long since I did that.

First up, I have a Himalayan Cat as an expansion for Paint by Number Quilts for $5CAD:

And then it’s been a year(!) since I released a non-PBNQ pattern, so I released Scallops, a modern, curvy design with applique. This one is $6 USD (I’m not sure why I have two different currencies either):

I also did a trunk show in Red Deer at the Central Alberta Quilter’s Guild which was a great experience and gave me a good excuse to take some relaxing time off work last week.

I’ve been experimenting with dressmaking with disastrous consequences. Thankfully the serger I bought second hand and put on a shelf untouched for two years works, but otherwise I’ve been making cutting errors, fabric placement errors, all sorts. It’s actually scared me off continuing for a little while. I made a top but the fabric was upside down, and I’m not too enamoured with my “fix”. Anyway, maybe more on that in another post.