STRING STAR

It is Easter and beautiful weather outside, ground enough to show a cheerful quilt. This quilt was made some time ago (8 years) and it is from the same book as the last one (the scrappy blocks) I showed. The book is called Quick quilts from the heart by Liz Porter and Marianne Fons.
This quilt has been hanging in our living room for a long time and although it doesn´t get direct light from the sun, some of the fabrics are getting quite pale. The quilt is machine sewed, hand appliqué with a buttonhole stitch and hand quilted. I was childless then and had a lot of time!

I wish you all a happy Easter and for the ones who are allowed to, a lot of chocolate goodies!

Scrap quilt

A quick post today, nothing much going on on the quilting front, the weather is good and the garden needs attention.

I will show still a scrap quit I made 2 years ago as an attempt to empty my scrap basket. All the blocks and the small squares were made from it. I only bought the background fabric. It is machine sewed and hand quilted.

Its name is " L´art d´accommoder les restes" which was the name of a recipe book I got as a university student. It was a very interesting book with on each page a main recipe and a second recipe to use the left-overs of the main recipe. Clever and for a student very useful; you know purse tight, money needed to buy books and so forth. Anyway I thought the name was fitting for a scrap quilt!

Thank you all for leaving so nice comments on my blog. It is wonderful to hear from people from allover the world and to see their beautiful works too. I have been blogging for 2 months now and I wonder how I did without before! I wouldn´t want to miss you!

CREATIVA

I was there!
It was crammed like every year but we (a dear friend and I) went there early and so we could see a lot (at the beginning anyway!). I took pictures of two shops I like a lot: the first is a German local fabric maker called Westfalenstoffe who makes very nice fabrics especially for kids.
The second picture is of my LQS Quiltcabin (Hello Ursel!).

I did buy some stuff! Have I already told you that I like brown?!
I found some nice japanese fabrics, two japanese magazines I had to have, some rayon threads and some nice ribbons. I also bought knitting wool for socks, next winter will come some time!

All in all it was a very nice day.

Birthday quilt

Today I will show you a four hand quilt: my mother (another patchwork and quilting addict) made the center and I added the borders and did the machine quilting. The quilting thread doesn´t show that much in real, it is an off-white but I manipulated a bit the picture so that it shows better. The pattern is from Bonnie at Quiltville.

Thank you Bonnie!

The occasion for this quit is my aunt´s 60th birthday.

She will have a big party in September in Paris and the whole family is invited. A great occasion to meet all the people one doesn´t see so often.

The back of the quilt is pieced on purpose. Well actually I didn´t have enough flower fabric but then I thought that to put a white piece in the middle will enable all the guests to sign as a souvenir.

On Friday I am going to the CREATIVA, a huge hand craft fair in town. I hope I won´t have to take my wallet out too often!

To answer some questions after the last post: The sampler with the set-in stars was made mainly out of japanese fabrics but I added some dress fabrics as well as they are not so expensive!

I don´t know any book from Sharyn Craig, I had a look at Amazon and it seems she does a lot of traditional stuff, so the red and white sunflower could have been from her. I found the pattern in an Australian Patchwork and Quilting Magazine, another great source for traditional Patchwork.

Hand sewing

In April I will give a workshop on hand-sewing. For that I have to make some blocks as examples. The blocks have to have some difficulties like in-set or round seams.

I could not stop after one block for the first example! I need to put a border (maybe in a warm chocolate batik look) to finish it. Pamina (Laurence) made a similar block but in different colours.

I chose the colours of the second block after having seen some red and white combinations on different blogs, for ex. at Hanne´s and at Anne´s. The finished block is 12" x 12" and I still don´t know what I will make of it. Maybe a cushion?

Everything was sewed with freezer paper which I like because it is so precise and I can re-use it many times.

Update: Bea pointed out that 2 links didn´t work. I have changed them and I hope that now everything works.

Mystery quilts 2

Here are 2 more mystery quilts made by my students:

Mechthild

Marianne

I think all the students had fun in that session although it seemed like a lot of pieces to cut to start with, especially for the beginners. Some of them bought fabric on purpose, some used their stash, some made it square, some made it rectangle. I think the quilts reflect the quilters personality even if they are not aware of it. Now I have to think out a new project for the new session beginning in the middle of April.

The third quilt was our lottery learning quilt: At the beginning of each session, I teach my students a cutting method with fabric from my stash. Each student makes 2 or 3 blocks that they piece together to make a quilt top. The top was won this time by Marianne, she added the borders and machine quilted it.

P.S. for my little sister: no I haven´t started sewing your throw yet, well there is still some time til May, isn´t there!

Bag 2

Well, it seems that you like bags out there. So here is another one. I bought in a discount supermarket a cheap bag with an ugly synthetic lining and that is what I made of it. I got the idea from a japanese magazine and used some more of my dress, trousers, shirts fabrics and some japanese as well. Inside I used a Laura Ashley fabric and I put two pockets, one with a zipper. Unfortunately we don´t have any Laura Ashley shops anymore in Germany, maybe it is better for my credit card!

The bag is hand appliquéd and hand quilted.

Yesterday we had a wonderful meeting at our local guild. We were over 130 ladies and had a long and beautiful show and tell. Unfortunately I had forgotten my camera. As soon as someone else puts some pictures on the web, I will put a link. There were a lot of gorgeous bags as well!

Thank you for all the nice comments on my first bag, there are more bags to come. Did I tell you that I love making bags!?

Update:

Bea has put some pictures of the guild meeting on her blog. Thank you Bea!