Wednesday 30 January 2008

AND YET ANOTHER ATTEMPT

I have started yet another attempt at reducing my stash of old, flowery, 80´s fabric. I got the pattern for the "Delectable mountains" at Bonnie´s and I just add the small triangles at each side of one mountain. I am planning of doing 4 or 5 rows and adding a string star in the middle. I am so serious about that reducing attempt that I want to add prairie points all around the top. Lots of fabric there!


This week I also sewed a coaster to go with a mug for a friend´s birthday.



I had the right fabric in my stash! It is the first coaster I made but I am very happy with it and it won´t be the last.




One of my students, Monika N. finished her sampler. Congratulations Monika!
I like it because of its scrappiness and because of the nice quilting.
Today I borrowed some quilt books at our guild librairy. One on the Nebraska quilt documentation project. I like the quilt doc. project books as they tell the stories of the women who made the quilts and present the state where the survey took place. It is like applied history.


So now I am off to my settee with a big book on my lap full of beautiful quilts!


I wish you a nice week-end.

P.S.: Don´t forget, tomorrow Bea posts a new BOM!

Wednesday 23 January 2008

1 YEAR BLOG ANNIVERSARY

Today is my first year blog anniversary! Time flies. I have enjoyed this first year very much thanks to all of you out there. I want to thank you all for your comments, your inspiration, your advices,... I am looking forward to many more years of sharing, swaps, BOM, ...


Today I will show your a red and white quilt I made in 2004. It was my second or third attempt at machine quilting as you can see in the last border! If I were to make this quilt again I think I would quilt feathers in the border.


Another problem with that quilt is that I had used some swatches of fabric samples which were too small to wash and so it bled when I put some water on it to withdraw the marking. Now I am afraid of washing it at all!

My first socks from the toe up are finished! Here they are modelled by their owner, my DH. He seems quite happy with them and said they were very comfy.
Well he´d better or he won´t get any more!


I found the pattern for the Diamond waffle socks at KNITTY. The heel was a bit tricky but now the penny had droped and I can imagine knitting more socks that way.


I am off to my quilting group! I wish you a very nice end of the week.

Friday 18 January 2008

TRADITIONAL BLOCKS, LIBERATED BLOCKS

A new session started with my quilt students and as the tradition goes, I showed them a new block. I saw that pattern on a blog but I am very sorry I can´t find it back. I had a look around the blogs I usually visit but it was not there.
Anyway, all the fabrics are from my stash and my students sewed them together. We decided that we will add two rows and then the top will be won at a lottery by one of the students.

That way, I can get rid of some of my older fabrics (and have a excuse to buy some more!).






The second quilt is an older quilt I started at a retreat where we were supposed to sew something free cut. The retreat was a lot of fun (sorry no picture there as it was way before digital camera time!) and I tried some new to me colour combinations. The top came very fast together but the quilting lasted a bit longer!






I am especially happy about the purple as it brings some warmth although it is not my sort of colour at all!
The quilt hangs now in our staircase.

I could not help starting on a new pair of socks, this time for my DH with a new method from the toe up. The first one has a few mistakes. The explanations were in english (or should I say english abbreviations!) which I have some problems to understand and a lot of stitches were new to me too. But I think the second one will turn better. Pictures next week!

I wish you a restful creative week-end!

Friday 11 January 2008

AWARD!









I was lucky this week to receive twice the same award! Once from Marcie and once from Pamina. How nice! Thank you very much,
I am very honored and will try to keep up with the expectations during the whole year.


I enjoy reading a lot of blogs and I do get inspiration from a lot of them too and so I will give the award to some new to me blogs and to some "classical" (to me!).


I haven´t been doing much on the quilting side this week. (the laundry baskets were overflowing after the holidays!) and work started again.


I am still hand-quilting on my basket quilt. I plan to finish that one at least this year!




I finished the socks for my uncle. As you can see they are a bit too big for me!
And I finished the cushion cover for my dear sis (sorry no picture).

Next Thursday I will go to our monthly meeting where I will meet Bea (you know the one with the hard-to-resist stitchery BOM), so if you want me to hug her for you, or scold her for tempting you to yet another project, let me know!


I wish you all a very nice week-end!


Friday 4 January 2008

NICE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR

Comes the new year, come new projects! Here the stitchery BOM from Bea.
My version of it is stitched on tea dyed fabric with "Wildflowers" by Caron in colour "bark". The squares are small and it goes fast so come on, have a go!





And if you don´t feel like sewing the 12 blocks, here is what you can make with one block. I was inspired by that to make this backpack.


I will show it to one of my quilt groups. It is easy to make and would look good with jeans as well I think. I sewed mine with furnishing fabric (just the right thing to make it a bit sturdier). The shoulder strap zipper is a nice feature too.
There is a pocket under the stitchery.


At the moment I am knitting socks for my dear uncle and I have to make one more cushion cover for guess who?! Yes, my dear sis!

I wish you a nice week-end.