SOME GOODIES!

Some parcels arrived this week.
First the beautiful summer quilt from Wendy. I am very lucky that I was her partner this season. The quilt is very, very nice. The piecing, the appliqué and the quilting are perfect. I love it and it hangs already in my sewing room. Funny that the summer quilt I made has nearly the same color scheme.



I got the autumn delivery from my yarn suscribtion with a nice extra skein (the blue one). All the colors are so yummy, I could start straight away some new socks or a scraf. I could ... if I didn´t have around 50 (!) other projects on my queue.
I finished the socks, which yarn I had dyed with Kool Aid. This time it was grape flavor.
I found the pattern at Ravelry which has around 1500 free sock pattern so it was hard to choose only one. But with the new yarn I got this week, I should be able to have a go at some more patterns.
I knitted the socks for my mum if she wants them.

School starts tomorrow after the summer break. Today we have been packing my DS´s school back pack with new exercice books, pencils,... but still enthousiasm has not appeared yet! Let´s see what the first week will bring.

I wish you a nice week too.

FLIMSIES, TOPS, QUILTS, ...

As promised last week, here are some of my mum´s latest works.
The first one is a flimsy (but not for long, I know my mum!).


The second one is being quilted.
And the third one is finished. This one was a mystey from her quilt group. That means she did not know how it would look like at the end before she started. I think she did a good job with the color choices without having a clue of the end result.


Then this week, I finished my version of summer for the 4SQS. It is now on its way to ... far away!
We renovated my DS´s room this week so that I didn´t have much time for quilting. I did sew some curtains though so that I could spend some time in my sewing room! Next week should be calmer and I plan to machine quilt my scrappy stars top.

I wish you a nice week too!

BACK AND RESTED

After 3 weeks of that (see above), it was time to come back home. We had a wonderful time, lots of time without kid (he was at my parents´), nice food and even some sunny weather!


In Brittany I managed to find an original fabric for the summer 4SQS and that is what I have sewed with it so far. My partner likes bright colours so I hope it is to her taste. I hope I can finish it over the week-end so that it is on the way to ... before the deadline!
On holiday I had a few magazines to read. Some I bought in Paris and some my DS and my Mum brought back from the USA. I love magazines, the only problem is that I want to start a least 2 or 3 projects per issue at once and as I did not have any sewing stuff with me, it was difficult!
At least I knitted a bit: the socks are made for my Mum (and modeled by her). We had some fun dying wool yarn with Kool Aid (here orange flavor) and I am quite happy with the result.

We dyed the other yarn with grape flavor and it turned out pale purple. I will show pictures when the socks are finished.

Next time I will show pictures of my Mum´s latest quilt works.

SUN, RAIN: SRING!

The weather was so nice last week and now it is only rain, rain, rain and snails!
This week I have been busy sewing some hearts for my DS. It is her birthday soon. She wants some hearts to hang at door knobs and at bed posters. Let´s hope it is shabby chic enough to her taste.

I have been hand-quilting on my scrap basket quilt. I wonder wether I will finish it one day. Each time I start quilting on that one, another project appears which has to be finished before it!

I have registered for the last round of the 4SQS. I wonder who will be my partners this time. The picture shows the mini-quilt wall in my sewing room. The summer swap quilt (when I receive it) will hang where the black quilt hangs now. This quilt was my first attempt at free machine quilting and does not have to be on show all the time!
And finally, the socks I have finished this week too. They are the Leyburn socks which I knitted from the top down with some of the handpainted yarn from my spring parcel.




I like that pattern a lot and it looks nice on variegated yarn I think.

That is all for today. Snails and slugs here I come!

SPRING SWAP QUILT

My Spring Swap quilt is here! Margy sent it to me from from Belgium.


I like it very much. It conveys very well the idea of spring and I like the quilting.
The back is lovely too. Margy also sent me a lovely card and a needle holder full of needles. Thank you again Margy for the nice parcel.
I heard as well that my partner has received my quilt so everything is for the best.
Now to the last round. The Summer Swap.





Here is a sneak peek of what I will show next time.


The weather is wonderful and so I spend a lot of time in the garden, just a shame that my DH has such a bad hay fever.

I wish you a nice week-end.

SPRING SWAP

My 4SSQ is finished. It is quite lush and bright and now I wonder what I will sew then for summer. (In real it is a true rectangle, my photographic capabilities are still to be improved!)


This week I also knitted some Primavera socks. I had the yarn from my spring suscribtion and it looked much lighter unknitted. I would not say that these are my favorite colour combination but they don´t look that bad with denim.



I started a jumper from the "Fitted Knits" book and so far it fits! More pictures next week.

I wish you all a Happy Easter with a lot of chocolate bunnies and ladybirds (what we have in Germany) or chocolate church bells (what we have in France). I will eat them all as long as it is dark chocolate!

THIRD BOM

Bea´s third BOM is finished! I have run out of embroidery floss, but fortunately we have next week our yearly CREATIVA where this kind of floss is sold.

I am thinking of a few other items to put on the list like batting, knitting needles, maybe some yarn and of course 2 or 3 (sic!) fat quarters. I can´t spend so much this year because of the last repair on my sewing machine. Still it is usually fun and I can spend a nice day with a dear friend of mine.

At the beginning of the week I received the name of my partner for my 4SQS for spring. As you can see the center of the top is done. I made it with a charm pack from Moda called "chez moi", very fitting for a french woman like me!

Although I would not have bought bigger pieces of those fabrics (not really my usual colour choice) I see now the potential of the design. I think it has something from "Blended Quilts". Maybe my shopping list for the CREATIVA is growing afterall!

I will frame the center with a fresh green fabric and then hand-quilt it with some variegated embroidery floss.

My second Icarus shawl is growing too. I am on the last 25 rows with more than 400 stitches per row. I hope to finish it this week-end.

I am off now going to look at the blogs taking part in the 4SQS and get an idea of spring! Have a nice time!

4SSQ ARRIVED!

Today was this cuttie in my letter box. It was sent from Melinda. Melinda is a professional long-arm quilter and you can see it! This cheerful quilt is hanging now in my sewing room, beside the other miniquilts I have received and made so far.



Last week-end the weather was wonderful here and I was having some quality time with my sewing machine finishing that top.

I opened the window of my sewing room and went to fetch the camera to take a picture.

Then I sarted sewing again to finish zigzaging the border of the quilt when suddenly my dear Bernina switched itself off!
It is BROKEN. I could not switch it on again.

It doesn´t like an opened window or being taken the picture of or what?!

Of course I went to the repair shop first thing on Monday but still haven´t heard anything.

And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I could hand-quilt, I could knit, I could stitch, well I just have to wait patiently and hope for a not too high bill.

I wish you a nice weather AND a working sewing-machine!

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

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.

SIDE-TRACKED!

At the beginning of the week, I was minding my own business, trying to finish my quilt-as-you-go blue sampler as I had planned to do last week when on Thusday, I received that:

Of course I knew I would become them, I had ordered them on Ebay, but they arrived so quickly, I was really surprised. Then I got side-tracked! All those nice strands of floss were begging me to make something out of them. So I thought, all right I will make something small, just to have a look and get a bit of stitching exercise for my fingers. But then this small thing looked so lost alone, I could not possibly leave it alone either and so this is the result of a side-track!

I don´t know at all what use I will make of it or if I will keep it at all but it was nice to see some colours other than blue and brown and it was really quick.

Guess what: I have ordered on Ebay some old issues of Australian Country Threads so I really have to finish that quilt before my postie brings me some more treats!

I managed to put the label on my 4 seasons quit too. It is ready to be sent to...!

I wish you a very nice sunday.

QUILT BACKS

As promised, here is a picture of the 4 seasons quilt´s back. The green is much more olive green in reality and I think it depicts well autumn in the south of France. I still haven´t done the label, I am waiting for inspiration!







Some of you had asked previously if I machine quilted on a long-arm. Nope! I quilt on my dear Bernina and without a stitch regulator either.

Here is where I am so far with this blue sampler. I will put some borders and then it will be done. I hope I will finish it this week as I want to start some stitchery.

I feel like doing a hand project after all this machine sewing and quilting.

On the back one can see some of the quilting and the quilt-as-you-go sashing.

You see from the lush green in the garden that we don´t really lack water this year! I am still waiting for the summer!

I wish you a happy start in the new week.