HOLIDAYS

I am going home! Only two days left and we will be on our way with a short stay in Paris. We are heading west to Brittany, hence the flowers (Hydrangea is a kind of national flower there where most of them are blue and huge 4 meters high and 4 meters wide). My Hydrangea don´t get that big and turn all pink, still I like them.

Before I go, I will show two small quilts I made to try a method to make curves without sewing round seams. It is a folding method where a lot of pieces are made out of a square folded diagonally in two. When you fold back that diagonal, it gives a curve as it is on the bias.

The first quit is machine sewed and machine quilted with a variegated gold thread which sparkles very nicely against the black fabric.
The second one is machine sewed and machine quilted in the ditch.

I hope my explanations were clear! It is hard to explain in a few words and without being able to show face to face.

If any interest is there, I could make a tutorial but first after my holidays!

I will be gone about three weeks without computer. I will try to take some pictures though as I have a few quilts in France as well which I haven´t photographed with my digi camera yet.

I wish you all a nice month of July.

BUSY WEEK

I don´t have much to tell this week about quilting. The summer holidays are next week and in the last days we have much to do. In 10 days we are leaving for France and before that a lot of things need to be organized. Anyway, I still had time to go to my LQS as I wanted to buy some fabric for a dear friend and then I saw these sweeties and I had to have them. I don´t know yet what I will do with them, maybe a bag?!

In between I knitted some socks for my DS. It seems I can see his feet growing at the moment and next winter is around the corner (said she, sweating under the burning sun!).

I am still quilting with my new hoop (a dream!) but it will still take some time before my basket quilt is finished.

I wish you all a nice week with a lot of time for your favorite passtime.

PRESENTS

At the beginning of the week, I had my birthday and that´s what I received from my DH! A great quilting hoop, I can move it the way I want, I can turn the hoop without turning the foot, I can bend it at every angle, it is a bliss!

On the second picture, the quilt I am quilting at the moment, now I have no excuse for not quilting it anymore!
The card is from my DM. She made it herself with ribbon embroidery and I like it very much. Beside is a little pouch I made after seeing this . It was fun and quite fast (not as fast as what the woman said on the video though!). I don´t know yet what I will do with that pouch, probably give it as a presie to somebody.

I made the cushion cover for my DS (she has a cushion tic!). It is redwork and from Rosalie Quinlan Designs which I modified a bit.

It was the first time I did redwork embroidery but I enjoyed it so much, I will certainly make some more.

Thanks a lot for the kind comments on my mother´s work. She was very pleased with them and she is thinking even more of getting her own blog.

I won´t stop her!

I wish you a restful Sunday full of quilting time.

BONNE FÊTE MAMAN

In France, tomorrow (!) is Mother´s Day. My mother is a quilter as well, I gave her the quilting virus some time ago and now that she is a pensioner, she has more time to devote to that great passtime. I thought it would be nice to show today some of her works as she hasn´t got a blog (yet!). As we live 1000 km apart we don´t see each other that often and I can´t admire her projects. But now she has a digi camera and learned to send the pictures per mail so here is HER show:


The first quilt is a BOM from her quilt group, she told me she had had some problems with some of the blocks as the pieces were so tiny but I think she did well and I find her quilting very nice in this quilt.

The second quilt was made after a swap I think (!). I am very lucky because my mother told me I could have this quilt as it goes so well in our TV-room (you know the red and cream one!).

Here are some bags. The first one was made for my DB´s girlfriend (the lucky one!). The pink pouch was made during an ribbon embroidery workshop my mother took part in. She was quilte disappointed after that workshop as she thought she hadn´t had learnt enough. She is a quick learner and the teacher was very reluctant at showing more than 3 or 4 different stitches which my mother found a bit too few. the third bag has a funny history. I made first a bag like that to my mother for Christmas, then I liked it so much that I made another one for me as well. And my mother liked it so much as well that she made ANOTHER ONE. Aren´t quilters a bit mad, well we definitely are, my mother and I.

The last pouches were made during a regional quilting meeting my mother attended to and they are exactly the same as some I showed some time ago, crazy! I hope you will leave a lot of comments so that I can convince my Mum of having her own blog where she can show all her nice works!

So once again: BONNE FÊTE MAMAN!

SET-IN SEAMS

This quilt was an attempt to master set-in seams! The blocks consist nearly only of set-in seams and I thought if I can´t make them aften so many blocks, I will never do! The quilt is yet another pattern from Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine and it is machine-sewed and hand-quilted. It is called En passant chez Ursel. Ursel is the owner of my LQS and she sells surprise brown bags full of scraps, mainly stripes. We buy these bags without knowing the contents and I love it. As I needed 6 or 12 shapes from the same fabric for each round of one block, I thought that was the time to use these scraps. Well, you have probably guessed by now that I love scraps and that´s a great pattern to use them.

I made 2 more magic card holders as well with the ribbons I got last week-end. These small gifts are easy to make and they are fun: once again the explanation, when you pull the small ribbon the business card pops out of the holder.

I wish you all a nice week. Here in Germany it starts well as we have a bank holiday tomorrow!

TEXTILE FAIR

Saturday, we went to the textile fair (see my last post).We had a wonderful time. The weather held. On the morning it had been raining but as we got there, the sun was shining. Here are some impressions:

The first two pictures are from Sabine Taubert-Jüttner ´s stall. She had very nice felt objects.

A bit later I came upon Wiebke Steinwedel´s stall. She had very original cardboard boxes with felt. And I liked so much the colours and the way she had arranged everthing that I had to take a picture.

Then came Ute Senkel-Weinberg ´s stall. She had wonderful cross-stiched and petit-point works. Not that I would do something like that but very nice to look at. I still bought some variegated embroidery thread for a redwork.

As I saw Dagmar Clever´s stall I had to take a picture! I didn´t buy any fabric though.

Then I went to Frauke Kafka´s stall for ribbons. I bought some wide and narrow ones of different colours. It is difficult to choose as they are all so lovely.

Finally I found Birgit Schauer´s stall where I bought some perls. Only 4, not all these ones!

At a book stall, I also bought a japanese patchwork magazine. I can´t resist these ones!

All in all it was a lovely day and I will certainly go back next year if I can.

FLOWERS AND BAGS

I have been trying new settings with my camera! I am quite happy with the results, especially with the picture of the poppy. Red and purple, that´s an inspiration for a quilt! I love roses and that one was given to me by some dear friends. The bush is big (over 2 meters, or 7 feet), it is very robust against deseases and it has flowers the whole summer. Plus the roses smell lovely.

I have been making some bags or pouches. Danijela has been making some lovely ones as well and Fiona too. I think I saw some on a french blog as well but I can´t remember where! The blue one was made with some left-over triangles from my sampler blocks and the grey one with a nice wide ribbon from a local weaving mill. On Saturday I am going to a textile fair where this weaving mill will be present as well as stores with hats, perls, buttons, felt, wool, etc... I will try to take pictures and not to spend too much!