ENDLESS SUMMER : : VANS

One of the very best parts of Tofino, other than the beaches and waves, is Tacofino, a parked food truck that serves tacos and my very favourite, Diablo cookies!

So there we were, after a day of attempted surfing (but successful boogie boarding), we thought we’d head into town to Tacofino. As we were driving to it we saw it! The most beautiful van I had ever seen…

The next day we went back to Tacofino for round two, and we also enjoyed ice-cream at Chocolate Tofino. While waiting in line for the ice cream I noticed this chalkboard painting of a van with surfboards stacked extremely high on it (I thought it was funny and took a very fuzzy photo of it). While I didn’t stack my surfboards that high on my vans they definitely influenced mine! Inspiration was everywhere on this trip!

I haven’t even told you about the sunsets yet! They were blazing and reminded me of the Endless Summer movie poster, hence the name for the top left print.

With every collection I love to do a standalone illustration for the name of the collection. While playing with some markers, I came up with the goin’ surfin’ lettering and ended up incorporating it into a tossed goin’ surfin’ van print.

So the moral of the story is, eat Tacofino, it’s good for your health, especially the diablo cookies, as is ice cream at Chocolate Tofino! Oh and yes, inspiration is everywhere… especially in Tofino!

 

SEWING INSPIRATION + A GIVEAWAY!

Spring is in the air! Which means time to get out the … Le Mini Golf Fabric! Me and my friends took a whack at playing with the Paintbrush Studio fabric... the results… well they just knocked it out of the park! Wait! Or in this case I should say, got a whole in one! Enjoy the inspiration and the makers below!

Lysa Flower : Um, bags are HARD, lol! I have a much greater appreciation for bag makers. This is a pattern I picked up from Oliver + S, called A Day In the Park Backpack Tote. It’s a little hard to see from these photos but I loved the handles also being backpack straps. So Clever! I had fun with the inside pockets of the bag, a little treat for the user. Plus you know my moto: it must be as pretty on the outside as the inside!

Then of course there’s something so lovely about a nine patch basic baby quilt!

I recreated the above triangle quilt (or flag quilt as I like to call it) using most of the prints from the collection. I LOVE how it turned out and how retro it looks!

Luckily our friends had the perfect model for this new collection. She was adorable! Especially in her large golf ball polka dot See Katie Sew, Infant Gold Collar Dress! We excitedly tucked the Flag quilt into her crib and handed her all the toys: flower golf balls, a putter and a score card. I really got into toy making and added a pencil from the scorecard fabric to the green score card. All the toys were made from the Le Mini Golf panel. A tutorial for the putter can be found HERE.

One of my very favourite parts of this collection was the panel. I wanted to create the easiest baby quilt EVAR! Sandwich, bind, done!

But I also had dreams of …

PILLOWS!!! And I absolutely loved how the quilting turned out! I backed each one with a different print from the collection. I did a snazzy little video of it on Instagram!

Arabesque Scissors : I am so in LOVE with Ali’s Compact Carry Bag! She wrote a Tutorial and a Blog post about it HERE.

Rock Baby Scissors : Kristy has an AH-may-ZING Etsy shop!! While it looks like her Sew Together Bag in the photo below is gone, the booklet pouch is still listed!

Ember Craft Company : This girlie is ready!!! She’s got her Sorrento Bucket Hat, her Ferris Bag and she’s standing in front of her Hexie Pop Quilt ready to go! Side note, I was deeply smitten with Mary’s scrappy binding. It inspired ME to give machine binding a go again! And I’m loving it!

Modern Handcraft: Nicole did her Asterisks Quilt - Le Mini Golf version and wrote a blog post about it HERE. I couldn’t get enough of watching it in progress on Instagram! Then to see it styled all dreamy on a bed… PERFECTION!

Marvelous Auntie M: This quilt has over 300 HSTs!!!!! That’s insane and AWESOME!!! Maryanna’s adorable dog Tank, LOVES it when she unpacks her quilts from her longarmer @hellomynameisquilt. You can watch a video of it HERE. How does he do that so perfectly?! He’s such a good quilt dog!

Holly Clarke: Inspired by Argyle golf pants, this quilt may look like two quilts but it's actually only one! And you can see by the second photo the hand stitching she did. She claims she’s never hand quilted before but I don’t know. I think she already looks like a pro!

Joe June and Mae : I had the pleasure of meeting Ingrid in person this year! Right before she was going to Paris! So when I told her about this collection, she was pretty dang excited! Which I was too when I saw the pattern she create for this fabric! C'est manifique!!!

The Zeyer Show : Tara has the cutest little girls who she makes the loveliest clothes for! I remember my mom making a few things for me when I was little, mostly I remember feeling itchy. These are clearly not itchy, which makes me adore these Peony Pattern dresses even more! AND not only is Tara and amazing maker, she also makes the most amazing videos!

A big thank you to all the makers! And for the heaps of sewing inspiration they’ve left us with! AND thank you for being here and sampling my newsletter! Subscribers get to find out about all the good stuff first AND they get 10% off my patterns!

Enjoy all your sewing fun times! Keep #sewinglikeamothertrucker! But wait! Don’t forget …

the GIVEAWAY!

Joining my good friends, Jenni from Nollie + Bean and Sheri from Whole Circle Studio, we are giving away bundle of PDF quilt patterns to celebrate spring!

Included in this bundle is: my never released before “We Got the Beat” pattern! Jenni ‘s beautiful Avalon Quilt pattern (see more details HERE)! Sheri’s Modern Moth pattern (which isn’t even out yet! It releases April 20th, wanna see a sneak peek? Check it out HERE). The giveaway is open until April 8th at midnight EDT. Good luck!

 

DESIGNER FEATURE : : LOVE PATCHWORK & QUILTING #121

Love Patchwork & Quilting has always been one of my very favorite magazines. They reached out to me for the first time in 2018 and inquired about doing a feature on me and my sewing designs. I had no idea I was even on their radar! In fact, at that exact time I was finishing up a quilt pattern to submit to them (that was the We Got the Beat pattern). Since then I’ve written 5 sewing patterns for them, plus that first feature issue (not including various "OUT THERE" fabric collection features). I was super excited when Sadina Nowshin contacted me about a fabric designer feature! In Issue 121 we chatted about my design process and comfort zones!

Thank you to Love Patchwork & Quilting for being such huge supporters of my work, love ya right back!

 

#HELLOQUILTCON

I finished my Boombox bag! It's so sparkly!!! I wanted to make a subtle version of the Boombox. Question: if it's sparkly is it still subtle? I'm going to go with YES! For the inside I used all my favourite printed linens: Enchino's Deer with glasses and flowers, plus Cotton + Steel's Tiger Stripes. I'm smitten. I even made two bottle holders... why do I need two? I have no idea but it seemed like a good idea at the time! 

I'm off to Quiltcon eek! I'm SO excited (I've got butterflies in my tummy). I put it off long enough but I finally took some photos for my #helloquiltcon Instagram post.  Honestly, I'd really rather be behind the camera than in front (note to self try to look adorable). I quite enjoyed the bloopers - do you like my Rocky Balboa impression, "YO Adrian!"?!.  So, if you see someone with Tin Tin (blonde) hair, Red Sally Jessy Raphael glasses wearing a Boombox bag, it's probably me! Please grab me and say hi! I'd love to meet you!

I had some more "I'LL STOP THE WORLD AND SEW WITH YOU" patches made up for Quiltcon trade-zees. In the one card photos you can see how sparkly the Boombox bag is. Tinkerbell eat your heart out!

Okay, RECOMMENDED BOOK of the week. I slipped into Opus last week and accidentally (on purpose, hee, hee!) found Andy J Millar's new book, Creative Pep Talk: Inspiration from 50 Artists. I recommended his podcast a few weeks ago. P.S. I think Erin Jang's, Make Work Play, illustrations needs to be a quilt don't you?

RECOMMENDED for your playlist: I have more than one song for you this time! Have you heard of Jam in the Van? Yep, it's a YouTube rabbit hole. So many possibilities!

 

 

What would be your best ROAD TRIP song?

It was an epic week, we covered a lot of ground on our road trip to Alberta. Less hand sewing happened than I had hoped but lots of reading. I brought along the latest issue of Uppercase magazine (appropriately titled). I also brought along my Uppercase Feed Sacks book. It's part of an Encyclopedia set that Uppercase is publishing. Which reminded me of the feed sack blocks I bought from a lovely couple when I was at Quilt Markets this past spring, Carolyn and Don Springer. Gosh they were sweet (notice the book on their counter). 

Speaking of shopping, I picked up a copy of Kathleen Riggens, Diary of a Swirl when I was at the Sewing Center in Camrose. I also had this plan, if I only bought fat quarters, I wouldn't buy/spend as much. WRONG. Oh my god so wrong. <hand smack to forehead>. 

I also stopped in to Chapters at West Edmonton Mall and found a Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine! They can be so hard to find since they carry only two copies at a time. I was very tickled to see Kerry Goulder's spread! Plus Felice Regina's AND Lindsey Neil's projects! I'm such a fan girl! These ladies have it GOIN' on!

BUT definitely a highlight of my trip was meeting up with my high school textiles teacher (I'm not going to lie, it was so weird calling her by her first name). I adore this lady, Karen (yep, still weird!). Her class was my happy place and her encouragement went a long, long way! Teachers out there... you do amazing work and it stays with us for the rest of our lives! Don't get me wrong, stay in school kids but I'd argue, for me Textiles (and art class) were the most important classes. My husband is in the photo too he went to the same school! Our own little reunion!

So there you have it, all wrapped up in a nutshell. The whole trip. And of course we listened to A lot of music. I found this 50 best road trip article. I don't think I'd say their number one track would be my choice. Mine would be a tie between Johnny Cash's I've Been Everywhere, Cyndi Lauper's I Drove All Night (does she age?), Cake's The Distance and Ray Charles's Hit the Road Jack. Which I oddly associate with Shake your Booty... I'm not sure why. As a kid I thought they said boobie which to me was was HI-larry-ous! And if I was really honest, I still do! 

BOOMBOX PATTERN COMPLETE! WOO HOO!

It's done. Holy smokes! It's done! The Boombox quilt pattern is done!

WOW! A LOT has happened in the past few months. In February Kim Kight, co-founder of Cotton + Steel, invited me to sew for her new Snap to Grid Spring 2017 Collection! There was (again) A LOT of secret sewing going on-whoa doggie! And then there was Quilt Market! That was a check off my bucket list moment! I'm still processing it all. That lovely lady on the left is Kerry Goulder. She did the awesome #HotSkatesQuilt behind us. I can't wait to make it!

I'm thrilled I can finally share everything with you! One project was my Boombox Sewing Machine Cover. Originally, I had a tutorial planned but then I thought, you know what would be even more fun?! A sew-a-long!! It starts next Tuesday, June 6 and will go for eight weeks. 

To get started, it's easy peasy...

Step 1: Subscribe to my newsletter to receive weekly instructions. New subscribers get 10% off my ETSY patterns! BONUS!

Step 2: Pop over to ETSY (or Craftsy, I'm on there too now. YAY!) pick up the Boombox Quilt Pattern and if you want to make the cassette zippy pouch that goes inside the Boombox, you'll need to pick that up too. 

Step 3: Post your weekly progress to my Lysa Flower FACEBOOK page OR on Instagram using the hashtag #lysaflowerpatterns

Post your completed Boombox sewing machine cover by July 30th midnight PST to either site and win a Sulky Snap to Grid thread pack! It's dreamy.

Please note: for the Boombox pattern it's important to have some experience with paper piecing. 

Any keeners out there? I'll have the schedule written up for next week BUT if you want to get your party started early, the fabric requirements in the quilt pattern are the same for the sewing machine cover, up until the "Face of the Boombox and handle". Stop when you get to there. Until then, enjoy the coloring/planning page! This is going to be, to quote Cypress Hill, "insane in the membrane!" fun! I added the fun part (wink).

P.S. Yes that is a cassette book cover. And yes a tutorial is coming for that too!

 

 

 

1989 called and they want their Boombox back.

Holy moly! Talk about sewing like a mother trucker. That was a whirlwind of a project. I posted it's making on Instagram. Are you on Instagram? Love Instagram. If you are on Instagram think of this as an instant replay. 

From start to finish this took about a month. You'd think a month would be oodles of time... but it's not. It's really not. I'd been sitting on this idea for a while now but when the idea did come to me it was as though I was struck by lighting. After my Mixed Cassette tape quilt I had been searching for something to new to do with it. Then BAM! Memories flooded me with my first boombox... and they ended with John Cusack holding a Boombox over his head in the 1989 movie, Say Anything. *Spoiler alert* I called this quilt, "Say Anything"

Okay, that's all I got, I'm going to go have a nap. I'm pooped!