MANY PICTURES OF MANY PROJECTS

A lot of pictures to show what my mother and I have been busy with.

I finished machine quilting the baby quilt for my cousin´s daughter:



I must say, I am pleased with the result. The colours were a bit out of my comfort zone but I got used to them. So much that I made a bag to go with the quilt!

The bag is not big enough to store the quilt in ( it is 10" x 9") but maybe big enough to put some nappies.

When my mother was here over Christmas, I gave her bits of fabric from the baby quilt and that´s what she made with them.


It is a wall hanging with appliqué and hand quilting.


Now the little girl will have something to snuggle up and something to look at!


Still no snow around here, not that I complain but my DS would like to use the sledge he got at Christmas!

Keep busy and inspired.

WELL, WELL, WELL

Runs in cold mornings, pumpkins galore and less work than usual: that´s what it looks like around here at the moment.

My mother likes sewing and has a lot of time in winter so that she can finish a lot of tops. But she does not feel like quilting them all (she quilts only by hand) so from time to time she gives me one top to machine quilt.
This is one of them:

I was inspired by Fall and quilted leaves and pumpkins. I hope my mother likes it.

At our quilt group we have a haiku project going on. It was my turn and that is what I came up with. It says " forgotten dreams, whispered words, the pictures of the past have disappeared"

When the project is over (in february), we will have around 20 little quilts which will hang together. I will show more pictures then.

Till next time!

CREAM AND BLUE

Well, that was a quick finish. I quilted the baby throw on 2 afternoons in a meander pattern and I must say that I really like it!



The colours are muted but I tried to vary the textures for the baby. The quilt has linen, cotton, ...
and some "teddy bear" fabric!
Only 2 weeks til the holidays and I am really looking forward to them.

Have a nice time and enjoy your favorite hobbies.

SEWING MACHINE HERE I COME!

Gosh, it has been a long time! I am at the computer every day and still it takes me so long to post something. Just because of all the other interesting websites, blogs, videos,...
But as I am teaching a course on machine quilting soon, I spent some time with my sewing machine too. I tried new motives and I like them, especially the top left; it looks like coffee beans!

I knitted a small jacket for a sweet baby girl. Baby things get knitted so fast. It lasted me a bit longer to spin the wool first and dye it. The mother liked it and was glad the jacket was not pink!


As I said before I am trying to learn drawing and I started an art journal which is quite addictive. I will show more of that next time. Til then Happy Easter!

FEBRUARY RANDOM

Winter lasting a bit longer than I like, I tried to bring some spring at home. Inspired by this lady, I sewed first a square to see how it goes. I am glad I made first a small quilt as I learned a few things in the process.


But I like it and I think I will make a table runner out of the rest of the fabric. I can imagine it will look good with some fresh flowers on top. Spring can arrive!

I made another sketchbook, this time for my favorite niece (mind you, I have just one at the moment!) as she is a keen sketcher.


I had fun playing with gesso and gel medium, making the green paper.
I made a drawing of a lady to send with the book and you can see there what my niece and her mother thought about it ( as I have said before I am just a beginner!)

I started a new jumper out of recycled wool which I hope to show next time.
Til then have a nice time.

FINISHED BEFORE EASTER

It seems that the blog wants to cooperate today. I tried to post yesterday and it just would not work!
Anyway, one quilt finished!

I quilted it with a variegated cotton thread with tulip motives. I used a fusible batting for that one and it was a nice experience. I did not have to baste anything. I just ironed the top to the batting, turned it over and ironed the back to the batting. They all stuck all together long enough for me to machine quilt in the ditch.
The quilt has been washed and it feels like normal cotton batting now.


A friend of mine has her birthday soon. As I infected her with the knitting virus I sewed her a bag for putting her knitting needles in. I bought some needles too to put in the bag so she can have more projects on the go!


And this is what I made with the 80´s fabrics I STILL have around. I dyed them.
Here are the original colours:


That was the first batch with a mixture of several dyes I had at hand.
And the second batch with a brown dye.
It is very interesting to see how the different fabrics absorb the dye. They were all put together in the washing machine and still there are so many shades. I am very happy with the result and I am sure I can use those colours more easily than the original ones.


I wish you all an happy Easter!

BACK TO QUILTING

Remember that top?! Well, I decided to finish the quilt which it was supposed to become sooner or later. As the top was an attempt to reduce my 80´s /90´s fabrics, I chose to piece the back too:


Then I added some prairie points (that uses up some fabric too!)

And now I am quilting it. I hope to finish it soon.


The problem is that I still have yards of that kind of fabrics. But I tried some experiment with some of it. More of that next time!

On my commuter train I can´t quilt so I knitted some more socks. These are made of my own spun yarn with that pattern.
They fit really well which is just perfect as it is freezing cold over here.

I wish you a nice time in early spring.

AARRGGHH!

I was quilting along with quite a lot of pushing and pulling as the backing is a coarse old bed sheet when I had a look at the back!

AARRGGHH!

After 2 hours of ripping and some of these (well quite a lot actually!) to calm my nerves,

the quilting is finished.

I will send the quilt back to my mum for her to put the binding on.

Even the back does not look that bad anymore!

This week the temperatures are back to normal, the snow is gone. No more mopping the floor twice a day to get rid of all the dirt. That means more time left to quilt and knit!

I wish you a nice week. I will ignore the comments on the nice weather on some other parts of the world, they would only make me jealous!

END OF FALL BREAK

We are back after a great time at my sister´s in Great Britain. She liked her socks (main thing!) and we did a lot (like shopping at the interknit café, going to the cinema to watch Mamma Mia, or spending a day in London).
All that time I could not sew nor knit so I haven´t much to show this week.

I had finished quilting that piece before going. The blocks were friendship blocks from allover the world. I machine quilted it and then washed it to get the antique look.

While in Great Britain, I bought some food colouring to try some more yarn dyeing. And this time I am very pleased with the results:

The three skeins were dyed with a mixture of Kool Aid and food colouring. Now when am I going to knit all those socks and/or scarves?!

Not tomorrow as I will give a workshop on machine quilting! I will show the result of the course next time.

I wish you a nice week end with a lot of sun (as we had today).