WINTER TRIP AROUND THE WORLD

My 4SSQ is finished! I need to wash it and then I will post it in about 2 weeks´time. So I still have 2 weeks to enjoy it. I hand-quilted it as my parents were here and we had some fun deciding on the binding. We tried red, yellow, light grey, dark grey, etc ... each time with one of us not agreeing with the others!

At the end, I chose one we had not thought about! I will put the label on with the title " Winter trip around the world" ( how original!).

It is very interesting to see what the others are coming up with in the winter swap and I am very impatient to receive my quilt!

In the meanwhile, I want to wish you all

a happy new year !

P.S.: There has been very many visitors on my blog the last two days from some yahoo quilt list it seems. Could any of these visitors please tell me who recommended my blog and why. I am curious! And if they have any question, I will be very pleased to answer.

WINTER SWAP

Winter is here at last and it is COLD! Maybe we will have a white Christmas if we are lucky.

The top for the Winter Swap is finished. I chose Trip around the world as the quilt will have to travel a long way before reaching THE RECIPIENT!
I have started hand-quilting it and so far I like it so much, I will probably make it once more for me to keep. The colours reflect my feeling in winter, a bit melancolic, the days are short, the sun rare but there are still nice days (hence the yellow) and the warmth of my home (the red).

I finished stitching this funny stitchery too and today I went to my LQS to get some red fabric to frame it. I wanted to have it finished before Christmas!

At the LQS, I bought some nice stuff for my Mum (sorry no picture there, it is for Christmas!) and I met a reader of my blog who I didn´t know. It was very nice to get some feed-back and encourages me to post on.

My parents are coming over to spend next week with us and so I don´t think I will have much time to post next week and that´s why I wish you all now

A MERRY CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS QUILT

It seems on the quilt blog world that everybody is busy sewing hundreds of wonderful presents! I can hear the sewing machines purring!

This quilt hangs at Christmas time in our living-room. In real the colours are warmer and the wall is vanilla. It is machine sewed and hand quilted.
I got the pattern from there. It is in german but the drawings are easy to understand. If problems, please contact me!

Then I have been making some Christmas decoration:

They are made out of felt and hand stitched. They are great small presents to thank special persons and also they are nice bring-alongs to Advent coffees.

Then I made some bags to put presents in. I won the panel fabric at Nadine´s and I thought it would be just right to use it that way. I even used the border pattern as a ribbon! These bags will prevent having to wrap up to many presents and save on paper too!

Last week my DS was sick with a cold and now I have it. So for the next week, or the next 7 days with medicine (saying at our place!), I will go around with a running nose.

I wish you a nice third Advent.

ADVENT, ADVENT, ...

The month of December has started and with it our Advent calendar.
The quilt we use for that effect is an older one (about 10 years old) from a Fons and Porter book, with a lot of buttons. The quilt is scrappy, machine sewed, hand appliquéed in buttonhole stitch (before child time!) and hand quilted.

It hangs the whole year long in our kitchen and brings a bit of colour on a white wall but in December it looks like this:

The buttons come very handy! I don´t think Fons and Porter had thought about that when the created the model!

The little bags are full of treats like tatoos, playmobil, tapes and sweets. The big yellow bag is for St Nicolas on the 6th of December with two treats!

On my free day last week, I sewed the cushion for my nephew. I got the pattern for the digger from a colouring page. It is machine appliquéed and machine sewed.

That´s one more Christmas present finished!

Tomorrow I wanted to do some shopping for some more pressies but my DS is sick with a bad cold and a nasty cough so I think we will stay indoor, drink a lot of herbal tea with honey and make some Christmas decoration.
I wish you a nice week.

NOT NEEDED NEW BAG!

I needed a new bag like a hole in the head! There are quite a few persons among my friends and family without Christmas presents and still, what did I do last week-end? I had a look at some japanese quilting books and then no one could stop me!

So this is the result. Mind you, I only used my stash, the magnet closure is from a second-hand bag as is the shoulder strap too.

The apple-cores are hand-sewed and hand-quilted and the rest is machine-sewed. To hide the back zipper I used a ribbon from my collection.

So now I have even less time for presents!

Last week I managed to finish the cushion covers for my DS. She had given me the fabric and the trims in October.

On the picture the green colour is not true, all the greens are about the same, not blueish nor bright. The fabric is silk and furnishing material.

As I am not working tomorrow, I intend to work on another cushion cover for my little nephew. Something with a digger or a tractor I reckon!

I wish you a nice week.

AND THE WINNER IS...

Here the innocent (!) hand of my DS:

And NADINE is the happy winner! I wish you fun with the give-away.

I have to thank you all for leaving so nice comments on my Blog-anniversary.I am sure I will have as much fun reading all your blogs as I have had in the past. You are a great bunch!

The following pictures are from the participants of the workshop on fabric postcards I gave last week-end. The students all had great ideas and they can be proud of the result.

Only 30 days til Christmas, arhg!, I ´ll better be going and get some more presents ready!

I wish you all a nice week.

50th. POST

Today is my 50th post and to celebrate, I have a give-away! Leave a comment until next Sunday, the 18th of November, 24.00 o´clock and you will take part in the drawing.
I tried to put in the packet some local stuff: the ribbons are from here, the home-spun from there. The big piece of fabric (2 yards but only 28" wide is from France).

After 10 months of blogging, I can´t imagine life without it! I have met (if only virtually) so many nice women who show so beautiful work and who are always ready to answer a question. Through the 4 SQS and other rings, I have seen the generosity of still some more women and through the drawings on other blogs I was inspired to give back a bit of that generosity to you.

So please, do leave a comment!


The next picture is the result of the Christmas mystery my students achieved. I got the pattern from here and it was really fun to do. The pattern looks great in every combination.

The week-end was very busy (see last post) but full of quilts and other treats. The guild meeting was very nice with a long show and tell and many different quilts in all sizes and styles.The hand craft market was interesting too. That is what I brought back from the two: some fabrics, embroidery floss and some bone-china beads.

I only have to transform some of these into Christmas presents now!

I wish you a nice week and good luck with the drawing.

A GREAT WEEK-END AHEAD

A new little stitchery was finished this week (between 2 cushions for my DS!). I don´t know yet what will become of it, maybe for a bag or as the center of a quilt,... Other ideas are welcome!



I made a AMC too as I am teaching a workshop about AMC and Inchies in 2 weeks time. It was the first time I tried 2 things: first I crayoned the background with pastel pencils (here they are called aquarelle pencils, just normal ones for paper), I then dabbed some water on it, being watchful not to mix the colours and then I ironed it dry. I don´t know if it is washable but then I don´t really mind, I am not going to wash my AMCs! Second I needle felted the roses. No, I don´t have an embelisher and I don´t plan to buy one either! I just felted with a felt needle until the wool stayed on the fabric and then I machine-quilted the lot.

I will certainly use the 2 methods again.

Something not quilty: we have got a new fellow occupent! This cat is from a neighbour down the road but it seems she wanted to change home and so now she has adopted us! She is a very good mice hunter and therefore we are very happy with it. She is not shy at all and guess where she prefers to have a nap! Quilts, quilted cushions, or my lap are all what she needs to fall asleep straight away.

Next week-end will be packed: on Saturday I am going to our regional guild meeting (more than 80 participants with usually a big show and tell) and on Sunday I will be visiting a local craft fair (new to me) to find maybe some goodies (remember CHRISTMAS!).

Talking about goodies, my next post is my 50th, so stay tuned if you want a bit of Christmas in November!

INCHIES AND SOCKS

This week, I managed to sew some inchies. These are a Christmas present for a dear friend or maybe I will keep them as I like them quite a lot! But then it is only 7 weeks until Christmas and I can´t keep on making presents and then keep them!


Those inchies are quickly done and one can use the smallest bits and pieces one has lying around. It seems I have a lot of these, especially LYING AROUND and not in boxes or bags!

I could finish the socks for my aunt too (another Christmas present).
Here they are modelled by me. Can you imagine how many pictures I made of these socks (on my own) before one was OK?

It is not that easy to take a picture without seeing what you are doing!

For my DS, I have sewed one cushion and I will post a picture as soon as I have made some more. (another Christmas present).

Maybe I should have titled this post Christmas Presents after all !

I wish you all a happy Halloween.

NEW FABRICS

Look what I got in the mail last week-end! Nadine sent me the prize I had won at her blog-anniversary drawing. A very nice panel with a lot of different Christmas illustrations and a cute B. Hayes stitchery.



The stitchery hangs already in my sewing-room and is according to my DH a good portrait of me (especially the hair!). Many thanks Nadine, I hope I can take part in your next drawing again!



On Saturday I went to the fabric market where I looked very closely, so closely that some fabrics and some buttons found their way into my shopping bag!

The fabrics are repro (the colours are not true in the picture) and the buttons will come in very handy for some inchies.

Tonight I have to go to bed very early as I have to get up before 5 pm tomorrow to go to work. The railway is on strike and I have to make sure I can catch one of the few trains still working.

Good night!

ANOTHER CUT-UP BLOCK

Nothing much going on on the quilting front this week. I have been busy knitting socks, sewing hanging sleeves for an exhibition and thinking very hard at the cushions I will sew (soon!)(this is for my impatient DS!).

Last time I showed a cut-up block and this week is another one which I designed. (By that I mean that I have never seen such a block, or rather half-block somewhere else but if someone has, please let me know!).
I call this block "Japanese basket" because it reminds me of a basket and I sewed it with taupe fabrics.


The quilt is machine-sewed and machine-quilted with an invisible thread and has a bit of machine-stitchery on the lower left side. I used a lot of different fabrics for the baskets: uphostery fabric, silk, shirts, satin,...
The fabric for the borders is a garment fabric.

And here is the way to sew a half-block. 2 squares cut diagonally in opposite directions and sewed together.

As you can see my students are very busy: Monika N. finished her sampler with the quilt-as-you-go method. I think it turned out really nice.

Well done Monika!

On Saturday I hope I can go to a fabric market and have a look at nice fabrics, buttons and stuff. Of course I will only LOOK!

I will tell you more next week.

GOODIES AND AN OLD QUILT

At the beginning of the week, I found this in my letter box, it is from Samantha. I had won at her September drawing. She sent me some unknown-to-me magazines and a nice card. Thank you Samantha, this is inspiration for sure!

Anne-Ida showed in her last post a quilt she had made a while ago using a block-cutting method and that reminded me that I had made something similar. Anne-Ida´s blocks are made of many stripes, mine just out of three but the rest is the same. 2 squares cut on the two diagonals and then rearranged to form a cross are needed to make one block.

And this is the result:

I used for this quilt a pack of not-so-nice-flower fabrics I wanted to get rid of, added a border of small squares on point and a border of flying geese with tiny baskets in the corners. I then quilted it by hand.

This week, school started again after the autumn break and I didn´t have that much time to sew. I just managed to get some AMC ready from a Moda charm pack I had bought some time ago. it was the first time I purchased a charm pack and I am happy so far at what I could get out of it. I made some hexagon pouches, those cards and there is still quite a lot left. I love scraps!

Last week-end, we had a very nice time with our friends in the countryside. We didn´t drive cows at the end but we picked up mushrooms, went to a nice apple market and made a bonfire. All things we don´t have in a big city.

It is really getting cold here but still the sun is shining. I hope the weather stays like that for the week-end so that we can go outside and enjoy.

Have a nice week-end as well.

BETWEEN TWO JOURNEYS

First of all, I want to show the beauty I found in my letter box as I came back from Paris. It is from Linda. I love the hand-stitchery and the hand-appliqué which are both very fine. When I see that, I see that I still have a lot to learn! Although Linda was in the middle of moving house, she still found the time to do all this work. Thank you again a lot Linda. I will hang this cutie in my sewing room so that I can enjoy it everyday.

In Paris we had a great time. We were even very lucky and got a private guided tour of the Opéra Garnier (merci Catherine!) through the sewing rooms, the stage, the horse stables (!),... pictures to come in a next post.

My last post on sun-printing raised some questions so here are some more details on the process:
I use normal fabric paint, mine is from Marabu (a german mark) but it seems that it works with any fabric paint. CAUTION: it is not a fabric dye!
I put the damp fabric on a plastic sheet and put some stones in the corners so that it does not blow away. Then I mix some paint with some water in a jar so that it is a bit easier to apply. I don´t mix thoroughly
and I mix two colors to get some interesting textures. Then I apply the diluted paint on the damp fabric with a big brush to cover the whole fabric.
The leaves are then pinned on the fabric. It seems one can use cardbord cut-outs too. I sprinkled some coarse sea salt grains on top to get some more structure.
The whole is let in the sun to dry completely.
When the fabric is dry, I remove the leaves and the salt grains and I iron the fabric to set the paint.
It seems that one can do the process a few times on the same fabric to add different shades. This is what I will do on the brown fabric when the sun shines again.
It works best on a very sunny day as the fabric dries quickly.
Once the colour is set the fabric can be washed.

I hope those details answer some questions. I don´t really understand how it works but it did and it was fun!

Tomorrow we are going away for the week-end, driving cows, attending an apple market, and maybe doing some inchies with our friends.

I wish you a very nice week-end too.