Potholder swap, owl pattern & good karma.

Our friends at the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild invited the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild to do a potholder swap. I signed up and got the brief on my partner, Eryn: Likes turquoise, colourful decor, anything funky, “Value Village chic”, modern quilts, Gees Bend quilts, Japanese coffee mugs and loves owls. She also mentioned that she has Helen Dardik prints in her kitchen. And to finish off, she  wrote that she is a “mix of modern/retro and minimalist traditional.”  OK, well, plenty to work with there!

I started off designing an owl potholder with the thought that if it turned out OK I’d make a pattern out of it. It was a great design for using up scraps. The turquoise feathers are scraps of shot cotton from the special Rob quilt. The little heart print is one of my Happy Sew Lucky Spoonflower designs. The divine blobby yellow binding is Brook Sunshine Dots by Studio E.

On the back I decided to piece the word “HOOT” which co-incidentally also kinda reads as HOT. This serendipitous little fact made me happy, given that it was a potholder. I know. It doesn’t take much to amuse me. Whatever!

Lovin’ that Hugs & Kisses Candy Loulouthi fabric in the “H” by Anna Maria Horner. The yellow daisy fabric is also a Happy Sew Lucky design available at Spoonflower. I’m super happy with how the owl potholder turned out, but thinking about it now, it’s a fair bit of work for something you’re likely going to dunk in lasagne sauce. So maybe this pattern is better suited for a cushion cover or small quilt. Opinions welcome / encouraged on this debate.

For the second potholder I seriously lucked out. I was at the fabric store looking for the tree bark on the owl one, when I walked past a display of fabulousness that had a sign on it that said “Designed by Helen Dardik.” I nearly keeled over. I knew Helen’s work as a Canadian illustrator, and had admired it for some time. But I’m obviously not an avid enough follower, as I didn’t know that she designed fabric. This is her second fabric line. Her style is retro-funky, whimsical and colourful. Her latest line is called Toomuchery and when I looked closer at them in the store display, I realized that I had already bought a few of the designs in the past, not realizing that they were Helen Dardik’s. The design that caught my eye on this day though, was a series of 6″square panels – they practically had “potholder” written all over them!

Talk about karma, huh? So I snagged some immediately, and here’s what I did with it:

Well, Eryn, the type is kind of Gee’s Bend-ish at a stretch, there are no Japanese coffee mugs, and I am physically incapable of doing minimalist or traditional, but aside from that I think I got everything covered.