SUMMER PROJECTS ON: Lysa Flower's Daily Design Diary

Some of my favourite summer moments growing up were at my grandma's farm. I especially loved being given embroidery kits (probably to help keep us out of trouble!). I'd like to share with you a few projects put together by my friends that may help you or help keep someone you're spending the summer with keep out of trouble *wink!

Top row:

1.Embroidery Kits from Sheri of Whole Circle Studios

2. Zippy Pouch Kits from Sheri of Whole Circle Studios

3. Truffelkins Coloring Poster 24 x 36 inches Myra of Fuzzy Little Mangos

Middle row:

4. Cut & Sew Trufflekins from Myra of Fuzzy Little Mangos

5. DIY Paint Kits from Nelani of Owlina

6. Gist Curious, a new Instagram page ful of fun facts from Nelani of Owlina (keep an eye on her, I know what she’s got cookin’ and you’re going to love it!

Bottom row:

7. My FREE Cassette tape PDF tutorial (the Cassette Tape PDF Quilt Pattern is required) *allows to make multiple sizes

8. My FREE Matchbook Needlebook PDF pattern

9. My FREE Cassette Tape Book Cover PDF tutorial ((the Cassette Tape PDF Quilt Pattern is required) *allows to make multiple sizes

Happy summering and making!

 

Lysa Flower's Daily Designer Diary : : Rust?! Is that even a colour?

I use colour as an act of rebellion against the boring and the blah of beige. My sunshiny modern illustrations, prints, patterns and designs are the antidote! Here’s why…

Growing up my mom was a secretary and I dedicated my 9 to 5 collection to her. That’s why there is an A on the cup, it’s the first letter of her name.

Like most moms she dressed me similarly to her taste, which was grey slacks and white blouses (yep blouses with skinny ribbons that went around the collar and tied in a bow). I also always had a cream cardigan.

The most wild colour I wore was a red blouse, but I’m here to tell you, it was the most muted of all reds. My barrettes were brown and beige and in grade 3 when I had to get glasses, can you guess what colour they were? Yep, beige!

BUT, I LONGED for the colorful barrettes and multi coloured wooly ties my best friend wore in her hair.

As a kid, when I was 7 or 8, I asked my mom what her favorite colour was. She said… wait for it…

RUST.

I looked at her blankly. Rust? I stared at her face. She wasn’t kidding. Rust.

“Like the stuff that grows on old Toyotas?” I asked.

She just looked at me blankly and said yes. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, I let it go but I walked away thinking, Rust? Rust? Is that even a colour?

At 10, I asked for my room to be painted yellow. We agreed on a colour and my mom started painting the closet and quickly decided it was WAY too bright. She promptly took the paint cans back and had more white added to them. My room ended up a shade of white, with a slight tinge of yellow. I took what I could get because the rest of our house had beige wallpaper, beige-y white painted walls. Everywhere I looked it was beige.

Maybe it’s no surprise colour is my act of rebellion. I crave it. I’ve never feared it. I can never have enough. It gives me dopamine hits like nobody’s business! When I see colours I love my instant reaction is to call them yummy! I get excited to use them and it’s my favorite part of the design process. I know some designers leave it to the end but I lead with it. I decide on a colour palette straight away.

So thank you mom! Thank you rust! And white tinges of yellow and of course beige! You have shaped me into radiating joyful, happy colours into peoples homes, neighbours and lives!

 

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!

 

UPDATE... and what's with Rick Springfield's suit?

Before we start I have to take a moment and give a shout out to Stephanie from @simplesewendipity who BLEW MY MIND! And then I saw her flimsy! And then I saw it all quilted up! I've made my share of cassettes in my time but Stephanie made made 28! 28 Rainbow cassettes to border her Boombox quilt! UNBELIEVABLE! Love, love, love!

...Here's the latest UPDATE: I'm not sure where the time goes. And why does everything seem to happen all at the same time? Here's my best way to organize it:

SECRET SEWING: Postponed. Do you remember a few weeks back when I told you I'd be able to reveal my secret designing at the end of the month? We're going to have to hold on just a bit longer. Oh and to really make it titillating, I've recently been working on a second secret sewing project (dream project actually!... now that I think of it they're all dream projects)! Gosh, I'm so grateful for the things that have landed in my lap. Thank you universe, I sure appreciate it!

UP COMING TRUNK SHOWS, WORKSHOPS AND SHOWS: 

  • MINI TRUNK SHOW: Monday, April 16th for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. I'm going to do my best Brene Brown inspired talk (gosh I love her!). Do you know her work about vulnerability? I'm going to open up and be really candid about my work and my journey on how I accidentally on purpose became a sewing pattern designer. 

  • SHOW: VMQG Quilt Showcase. Saturday and Sunday, August 25th and 26th at the Pipe Shop (115 Victory Ship Way, North Vancouver). They put on a show two years ago (it was my very first Newsletter post on this site. You can see it HERE). It was fresh, modern and inspired. I was thrilled to have work in it last time and I'm super excited to enter work for this one too!

UPDATES ABOUT PAST INTERVIEW SERIES PARTICIPANTS (wow, that sounds so official, doesn't?!):

NATALIE SANTINI : : from NOV 2017 INTERVIEW SERIES PART 1 / PART 2 : : Recently was on episode 158 of Modern Sewciety Podcast. You can listen to it HERE. It's the next BEST thing to hanging out with her in person! She always brightens my day! Oooh and she also has a new messenger bag pattern coming out soon too. Be on the look out!

JENNY HAYNES : : from JAN 2018 INTERVIEW SERIES PART 1 / PART 2 exhibition at @artyfactgallery is up and it's a SMASH HIT! Join me in a hip hip hooray for her!

... and lastly...RECOMMENCED FOR YOUR PLAYLIST: Two song this week. A call and response if you will. Ready?... Rick Springfield's JESSIE'S GIRL (quick question Rick, why the suit?! and isn't smashing the mirror a bit extreme? It does crack me up though!) and the Car's MY BEST FRIENDS GIRLFRIEND with a lovely intro appearance by Alice Cooper! 

 

YOU GUYS ARE KILLING IT!

This past weekend was KER-jammed packed with all kinds of GOODNESS. First off my Instagram blew up with all kinds of Lysa Flower Pattern finishes! Kim from @iadorepattern posted her finished embroidered and bias tape LOVE cassette block. You may remember me posting about her block this past summer. LOOK at all that pinning?! Now that's a good friend. Recently Kim gifted this block to Darci @darcialexis who moved away and had a baby. Darci quilted it all up and the results are stunning! I get all, "awe", when I see babies on quilts. 

Next up Stephanie from @simplesewendipity belted out a whole BOOMBOX and a whack of CASSETTE TAPES during her #bostonmqgretreat2018. Seriously my mind was blown... I know how long those take. I can't wait to see it finished. 

Then Ashely of @amueller recently gifted a Control Freak project she made and posted about it. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE what she did with the cord! I always hoped my patterns would be a jumping off point and I'd one day see people putting their own twists on it. AND it's happening AND it's even better than I imagined! High fives all around!

This past weekend was the Creativ Festival show. It was LOVELY to see everyone who stopped by at our the FVMQG booth. Sherri Chalke and I were the featured Makers and we loved meeting and visiting with everyone!

The FVMQG also had a group show. I swear the show gets better and better every year. Here's a few highlights: 

Barbara Macleod's (quilt pattern Tula Pink and long-arm quilted by Kathryn Davies) "Ghost Blossoms".

Cathy Erickson's (pattern by Nydia Kehnle) "Dimensions". The FVMQG had clips on the quilts so you could look at the back. It's always so fun to look at them. I feel like it's learning someone's middle name. 

Sonja Oblak's (a block study from the MQG) "Vintage Modern". I LOVE that Sonja used a vintage table cloth and look at that hand sewing!

Kathryn Davies's (pattern Celery Sticks by Jeff Gully & Marny Buck, in Quilts du Jour) Crossroads. Look at that quilting! I love the puffy squares

I didn't post all of the quilts because we'd be here FORever... but be sure I LOVED them all.

And of course there was A LOT of shopping at the show. I stocked up on all my goodies from The Steam Trunk Craftworks! Rainbow jars of rick rack! Be still my beating heart!

RECOMMENDED FOR YOUR PLAYLIST: I might be bending the rules here (but isn't that what rules are for?! wink-wink)... check out the Foo Fighters mash up of Imagine/Jump!

 

 

LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!

I've said it before, I'll say it again... by far my favourite part about writing patterns are when you guys sew them and make them completely your own. My intention has always been for my patterns to be a jumping off point... and boy you guys sure know how to nail it! 

  • Kim (@iadorepattern) slayed me with her crisp monotone cassette tape block. I'm eagerly awaiting her embroidered label. Remember the collection Good Hair Day? That super cute collection for Windham Fabrics was hers! 
  • Chelsey (@chelseylanefeilds) recently made a Boombox pillow. With piping!
  • Angelini (@suchastitch) has finished the front of her boombox. Gah! I'm loving the prints she's used.
  • Saru (@sewaftersix) has just begun her Boombox sewing machine cover journey. I'm LOVING her fabric pulls! Even though technically the sew-a-long is over, the instructions are still up on the newsletters. This fall I'll be compiling the instructions into two tutorials: one for the sewing machine cover and one for the zippy pouch.

At the beginning of the summer I made myself a nice hefty list... and now that we're down to our final weeks I'm getting them done! It feels SOOO good! Gosh, I love deadlines! Top of my list was to catch up on my ABOUT page and get the PRESS/TEACHING/SHOW section up to date. It's been a busy year... I hadn't realized how busy until it was all laid out. A few highlights that I haven't posted about yet were:

In both cases I am so honoured and tickled to be included with such talented makers. It's all been pretty surreal!

HAVE YOU SEEN: Felice Regina's (@lamlunasol) Quilting & Sewing Enamel Pins on Kickstarter? They are SO snazzy!!! I WANT ALL OF THEM!

Which leads me to...RECOMMENDED FOR YOUR 80's PLAYLIST this week: A good old Canadian band. Loverboy! TURN ME LOOSE and LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT. Which is how we all feel when we go fabric shopping right?! 

PS. I met Loverboys' front man, Mike Reno in the late 90's. Sadly he wasn't wearing his red pants!

 

 

A DRY HOT SUMMER, IS NO TIME TO PLAY WITH MATCHES!

Unless... they're made out of fabric and felt, right?! The very first pattern I ever wrote was for my Match Book Needle Books. That was back in 2014. In 2015 I was invited by the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild, who was hosting the Pacific Northwest Quilt Guild Meetup, to do a make and take for their sew-in. Circa 15 Fabric Studio supplied the materials and we made the cutest little match book kits for the Match Book Needle books (perhaps I'm bias, wink, wink!). Since then the pattern has been free and on my site. I've just recently added it to Craftsy as a free pattern now too.

These recent Match Books are mini's. I had scraps of felt and somehow thought they'd be faster if they were smaller. Nope! I would have been better sticking with the regular sized ones. Lesson learned!

Now, I'm going to come out and just say it. I'm ready for fall. I've started longing for it. I've been missing our regular routine. I've grown tired of everyone going in different directions. I'm also looking forward to cooler, sock wearing weather... you see, I really love socks! My lovey friend Reece @reecemontgomery recently gifted me these cassette tape socks. Gah! I'm dying to wear them! The bottom of them say "MIX TAPE"! Check out Woven Pear's nifty site HERE!

And in the theme of longing for fall, I came across these ribbon ABC blocks by Stephanie from @Patchanddot. They're so dreamy and they're free!!! Free I tell you, free! You can download them from HERE.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOUR BACK TO SCHOOL PLAYLIST: One of my all favorite time songs (it almost makes me cry every time I hear it), WE'RE GOING TO BE FRIENDS. SIDE NOTE: I found this interesting video called, HOW JACK WHITE USES COLOR. Perhaps that's why I've always been a HUGE Jack White fan. I'm such a sucker for colour and design!

BOOMBOX SEW-A-LONG! HERE WE GO!...

Y'all want this party started, right? Y'all want this party started quickly, right? Get this weeks BOOMBOX sew-a-long PDF instructions... HERE.

In it you will find the schedule, how to figure out the dimensions for your sewing machine cover, a list of extra supplies, fabric AND instructions for the first block: the radio (the top band). Lots of things to decide this week and a little bit of sewing. Next week there will be more sewing, so if you feel behind, there'll be time to catch up. Oh and if you've never heard of Bosal foam and are wondering what's the difference is, I found this link for you.  

I'd like to add that the Boombox pattern is a leaping off point, either keep it exactly the same or change it up. Don't want to make the equalizer, no problem, make more knobs. See easy! Also, if making the tape open makes your head spin, just sew the front all together as one piece. It's allowed. It'll still look awesome! 

I can't wait to see your fabric selections and progress! Remember to post on Instagram under #lysaflowerpatterns, #boomboxsewalong or #sewinglikeamothertrucker. If you're not on Instagram, feel free to post on the Lysa Flower FACEBOOK page. That's also a great place to post if you have a question. 

RECOMMENDED TOOL: Love it or hate it, hello seam ripper (again)! We spend a lot of time with this tool, don't we? I don't mind ripping any more but I've become quite fussy about which seam ripper I use. My favourite seam ripper is a Seam-Fix by Dritz. I LOVE how skinny the poky thing is (highly technical term). The rubbery ball on the end, I CAN NOT live without it! It's great for pulling out those straggler threads. And yes I decorated them with poop emoji stickers. HA!

Warning there are 1/4" pieces in the pattern. Hang in there, you can DO IT!  Oh did I mention I'm a TED TALK junkie?

RECOMMENDED PEP TALK: TED TALK, Grit: the power of passion and perseverance by Angela Lee Duckworth.

RECOMMENDED FOR YOUR PLAYLIST: NEW 80's sounding DREAMCAR! Dare I call them a super group?! It's a mash up between No Doubt's band and the singer from AFI. Totally RAD!