Meet Wendo Van Essen

I met Wendo Van Essen during an Artists' Studio Tour in our area today. She is a fibre artist using wool and needle-felting as her medium. Wendo is also starting to add stitchery to her needle felting work and she had a wonderful example that you can see in the photo below. You can see more of Wendo's work on her website, fibreartbywendo.com Just click on her name to enter the site.

Redwork Cottage by Sue

Sue was in my "Redwork + Applique" class at the CreativFestival in Toronto. She sent me this picture of her completed "Redwork Cottage" quilt just 2 weeks after the class. Great job, Sue! I will be back at the Spring show in April and hope to see you there.

New Fabric from LakeHouse Dry Goods

This great collection of fabric from LakeHouse Dry Goods was hand-delivered to my door today. I saw the fabric in the LakeHouse booth at Quilt Market in Houston and just knew it was my kind of design. I enjoy doing Redwork designs and it is really hard to find a real red fabric, so this one is going to be perfect! Thanks Holly!

You can check out all the great fabric and projects at the LakeHouse web site. Holly also has a Blog that is fun to read.

Granville Island

Granville Island is one of my favourite places to visit when I am in Vancouver. Here are a few pictures taken when I got to play tourist for a day after my classes at BC Creative Expo were over.

My most favourite counter

Granville Island is famous for its strawberry towers

There are always lots of buskers around to entertain the shoppers.

Beautiful flowers

Wonderful produce. I saw lots of unusual fruits and vegetables - certainly things we don't see in Eastern Canada.

More fruits

My Classes at the BC Creative Expo

I had the most amazing group of students in my classes at the BC Creative Expo event last week in Vancouver! Everyone got the class project finished. Here are some pictures of a few of the students.

Hip Hop Houses class

Pop-Out Picture book class. Everyone got 1 page from the Sentimental Journal book completed. All they have to do is add the pictures! These 3 students were all friends from Whitehorse in the Yukon.

Little Picture Quilt class. We used my Little Picture Quilt #1 pattern for the project.

Redwork Cottage class. This is a combination of traditional redwork embroidery and fusible applique.

Daily Photos November 7 - 11

Here are the daily photos from November 7 - 11, taken while I was at the BC Creative Expo show in Vancouver. More pictures from the show and my classes coming soon!

November 11: The perfect quilter's tattoo. Way to go, Tricia!

November 10: Totem poles in Stanley Park

November 9: Roasted Chestnuts at Granville Island

November 8: Pansies in the rain at the Convention Centre in Vancouver

November 7: African baskets in Pippa Moore's booth (Kitambaa Designs)

Greetings from Vancouver

I have just finished teaching my 4 classes at the BC Creative Expo. The classes went well and the students were all very enthusiastic. I will have lots of pictures to post when I get home on Wednesday, so be sure to come back and have a look!

Ribbons, Trims and Lace

Yesterday I received this wonderful box of ribbons, trims and beaded appliques that I ordered at Houston Quilt Market. Now I need time to play!

Today I am leaving for Vancouver where I will be teaching 4 classes at the BC Creative Expo. This is a large retail show that also offers dozens of classes for quilting, scrapbooking and needlework enthusiasts.

Ribbons and trims that I purchased at Houston Quilt Market.

More Famous People Sightings at Quilt Market

More pictures of the "famous people" who were at Quilt Market in Houston.

Here is Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero, who with her husband, designed the Kaleidoscope Kreator software. It's a great product for designing both fabric and paper creations.

Mark Lipinski, editor of Quilters' Home magazine, telling his famous girdle story.

This is a preview of Mark's new "Krakow" fabric line which is available from Northcott Fabrics.

Jane Sassaman with her new fabric line

Ricky Tims autographing his newest books

Famous People Sightings at Houston Quilt Market

Here are a few of the pictures I took at Quilt Market in Houston last week. It's always exciting to meet the people you often only see in the magazines!

Patti Carey, Marketing Director for Northcott Fabric, with one of the new Northcott Fabric lines

Marie Osmond was showing her new fabric designs.

Eleanor Burns was dressed as "Rosie the Riveter" to promote her "Victory Quilts" book.

Eleanor's son Orion forgot to bring the projector for the presentation, so here he is, holding up the laptop so everyone could see the screen. Sorry, Orion, it didn't quite work - there were 150 people in the room - but everyone enjoyed the show anyway!

Another staff member from Eleanor Burns' company showing one of the "Victory Quilts"