File Buz

Its a sunday, not a usual blogging day round here,

but the amazing DIY extraodinaire Barbara of the HodgePodge blog

recently asked me to take part in her So Canadian, eh? series,

and of course I said yes!

You can pop over and read it if you like...

Such an honour to be featured alongside the talented designers she always has lined up for us,

and its always so interesting to read how they got started, their best advice, and so on.

Thank you very much, Barbara, for having me over today!!

Hope that one day we manage to meet somewhere between Vancouver and Toronto...
maybe we can do a vintage run together somewhere around Calgary :)
I have a feeling you would be a fabulous thrifting partner, lol.

On the colour front, since weve already talked about
choosing a grey for your walls, pink and grey, and green and grey,
 I thought next week maybe wed talk about one of the most common challenges my clients
 are dealing with when trying to bring grey into their palettes -








hope youll stop and in share your thoughts.

happy Sunday, lovelies - x

TOP/ c/o Kit and Ace, JEANS/ Urban Outfitters, SHOES/ Doc Marten, SCARF/ Anthropologie (old, similar), BAG/ Prada 

 There is a finished quilt to show you here today...........i am so happy that my garden fence quilt made with pam kitty garden fabrics (and sunrise studio fence borders) is finished ........quilted in a daisy pattern and bound in red spotty fabric also from the collection............. (all fabrics are from lakehouse dry goods).....
 .............it was a lovely quilt to make as the four patch squares are so easy to piece together and a good way to play with the different fabrics..............i was wondering if the borders would be hard to do.....(i am not much of a large scale fabric wrangler) but thanks to the printed lines on the border design it is easy to cut and sew them to your quilt and i do love the effects..........
.....i chose my favourite print from the collection for the backing which has a garden catalogue text background and gorgeous florals strewn across it........years ago when we made quilts we used to just put anything on the backs, using up unpopular fabrics from our stashes perhaps.... but eventually i realised that choosing the backing was a chance to use a big piece of fabric that you really love and can keep on enjoying whenever the quilt is used...........
 .........the applique flowers were added using bondaweb and sewn round the edges with blanket stitch and matching embroidery thread...........i added a few to the borders, as i love how flowers in real gardens often grow through fences and twirl out onto the other side............
 .............some close ups of the quilting which was done professionally for me on a longarm quilting machine............
 ............i added some butterflies too, inspired by the ones in our spring garden.............
 ...............as you can see i took a lot of pictures of the new quilt :).............
.............i love all the colours in this line, which you can find here and here.............
 ..............last week i also finished another quilt but will save that one for another time......i have been working on magazine commissions this week, and working with a lot of disruption too as we have painters here painting the outside of the house.............even though they are very nice, it is always hard for me to work and relax in my house when the men are working here.........and being an old house we seem to have more than the normal share of work to be done.......
 .........i decided not to include pictures of the scaffolding, and the painters at my studio window, or at my sewing room window ;(........i would rather focus on the quilts and flowers, which is mainly what i have been doing :)......the sunshine and warmth of the past week has brought out so many flowers and blossoms it is so uplifting to see what is emerging each day both in the garden and the countryside around..............
 .............and lots of trips to the garden centre have been needed for things like potting compost, new gardening gloves and colourful geraniums to fill up the pots and planters.........
 ...........this is one of my favourite times of the year..........at the weekend i began weeding the garden and really enjoyed it.......though this might wear off soon.............
...............if you were to peep over my garden fence you would see primroses, blossom, tulips, catkins, bluebells in bud, marsh marigolds in the pond, daffodils, jonquils, daisies, pulmonaria, forget me nots, hellebores.......a small white fluffy dog............ and lots of scaffolding and paint pots...........as soon as the men have gone i shall take some garden pictures and spend lots of time out there enjoying the season............thank you for visiting me here, dear readers and sharing the creative connection........it is always such a treat to hear from you too.............wishing you a wonderful week with sunny spring days, beautiful flowers and plenty of crafty inspiration................back soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxoooooooxxxxxx

Listening to music w/ headphones @ coffee shop EXCEPT I JUST REALIZED MY HEADPHONES ARENT PLUGGED IN & IM SITTING HERE BLARING PAT BENATAR

— e.m. ricchini (@emricchini) April 6, 2016

And after that, it was just an endless parade of incompetence. I was Snapchatting a story about another embarrassing thing that happened to me at the coffee shop (follow me-- LARKANDLACE) and I walked into a pole. (Which, in a moment of anger and defeated ego, I deleted. Im really wishing I didnt though, because I could play it on repeat for hours and it would probably still be funny.) I popped a button on the side of my overalls because my butt is officially too big. I kind of have Steve Buscemi eyes in these photos. You know. One of those days.

Anywho, Ive been getting a lot of questions from you guys (which I love!) so Im going to film a Q&A at some point this weekend. If you have anything youre DYING to ask me, leave a comment, or if its something personal, feel free to shoot me an email: hello (at) larkandlace (dot) com.

xo,
e.m.


**photos: Danielle Conyers.