Yippieee- it is Bloggers Quilt Festival

Amy is hosting her wonderful and inspiring Quilt Festival again. In the very last minute I decided to participate again, as it was so inspiring last time I did.
This year I would like to enter a quilt which has been quite special to me this year.
It is my Gees Bend and Andalusian inspired Quilt.

 It was a total experiment. When I visited my parents in Andalucia, Spain this summer, I knew I couldn´t go without some project in mind. I knew that there would be a sewing machine waiting for me, because my mother is the one who told me all about sewing. Not quilting, but garment sewing. In fact I started teaching my mom English Paper Piecing this summer, she loved it.

 Anyway- I brought some scraps and had a very impro style quilt in mind. Sweating and burning in the spanish summer sun I worked on some blocks.

 There was also another plan with the quilt I had in mind, when I would come home. I had recently bought Angela Walter´s book and was itching to try some free motion quilting with this  improvisional quilt.

 

 After I came home, I finished the top, basted  and prepaired everything for the quilting. I tried nearly every pattern in the book, and WOW how I enjoyed the quilting. Here you can see some closeups of the beauty.

 I really love this one and am proud to share it with you readers. I hope you like it like I do. And I just can encourage everybody to dive right in and do the free motion quilting. IT IS POSSIBLE!

 

Now I am off to look for all the wonderful quilts which are shown in the festival.

Some Stats of my entry (No. 568)
Quilt measurement: 45"x65"
Technique: Improv Piecing
Quilting: Freemotion quilting by me on my "Elna Quilting Queen"

Best Category: Throw Quilt; Homemachine quilted 

Where there is a will there is a way

I am a bit desperate at the moment. I would like to finish a few project, but as I told you there is no machine in my home at the moment. Well I could patch at work, but when do I work then? So I had no other possibility to start something new. Well and as there is christmas just around the corner (WHAT???) and my best friend (who doesn´t read my blog I think), still needs a nice quilt for her couch, this will be it. I have a design in my head, but I am not totally sure yet. But in every case, it is a handsewing project. No machine-no machine project. Clear isn´t it?
 
 So I picked up some Anna Maria Horner fabrics and started a Diamond Hexie thing which is going to look awesome when it is done. I can´t wait until I have all six diamonds finished. Just two more. I can´t wait. I am itching. Tomorrow I will be on a arts and crafts fair here in Berlin and when in a ( unpossible) moment there are no people who want to buy cute scarfs and supercute underwear (have a look here!) I will have a few minutes to go on stitching. I love that about EEP. Always possible to take on the go.
So wish me luck for the fair tomorrow ( need money for more fabric...;-)), and have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

Miriam

What do you see?

What you can see here is where used to be my wonderful oh so stylish and wellworking singer sewing machine from the 60s or 70s. It is gone. Luckily not forewer. While straightlinequilting intensively it just desided that it needs a break.
The attempt to repair it myself (do you see the "tools" on the left side of the picture?) didn´t work out. And now it is at the mechanics. It will be about fifty Euro. About twice as much as I paid for it at the thriftstore (including the table). Lucky me.
Unfortunately it will take at least two weeks. Poor me.
So up to more English Paper Piecing.

Tova No.3

 I made two new Tovas recently one as a tunic and the other one as a dress. I like both allthough I ask myself, why do I tend to look like the 60ies houswife in it.

  Do you remember this post? Again I have the feeling that I want to go, get the vaccum cleaner and wipe the house (this would be really neccessary by the way...).
Is it the fabric I choose? A wonderful Cool Wool in teal and the Drops fabric by Tula Pink. I don´t know. Or is it me, who let every garment look like a duster? Well let me not be unfair to myself. There are definetely things I look awesome in and even the 60ies housewife look starts to please me.
When the other Tova dress comes out of the washing machine I will show it to you, I like that one much better.

Further on there are a lot of things on my table. For example I am working on a Anna Maria Horner Feather Bed Quilt.

  I loved that pattern from the very beginning that I saw it.  But I must say, making the pattern takes me ages.

 I did some chain piecing but I just  have about 20 feathers finished now, I want to make a Bed Quilt, which means I need about twenty more.
 
 This is it for now,
What are you working on at the moment?
Do you like everything you make?

PinPinPin

Hi folks,
you might have heard of this very generous Giveaway from Freshsqueezed Fabric. You can win a fabric bundle by pinning it on pinterest and getting it repinned as often as the worth of the fabric.
I chose the wonderful madrona road bundle which you can repin here.

 
Please let me know that you repinned, as I can repin yours, too. What a fun Giveaway. Thank you Freshsqueezed Fabrics!!!
The complete rules you can find here!

About me putting fabric together

Sometimes there are things I really feel unconfident about, even if there might not be a reason for that. I guess most of you out there know these feelings. If it is about how to approach people, how to cook a five course dinner or in this case how to put fabrics together.

One day at the shop with my business partner I was complaining about my lack of knowlege and confidence to put fabrics together for a quilt. And she (not at all knowing anything about this quilting stuff) looked at me quite surprised and said: "You are  putting together different fabrics for your clothes designs every day, so why shouldn´t  you be able to do so with the quilting fabrics?"

I thought about that and noticed that she was right. With just one difference, I am not thinking when I put together the fabrics for the clothes. I just hold them together and look (feel) how I like the combination.
So, why couldn´t I do so quiltwise? I think my problem might be, that I see so many gorgeous outstanding projects out there, fabrics chosen so wisely. I tend to compare myself a lot to much and always think I could never ever put something so beautiful and appealing together.As soon as my head gets the control to much, its over. And this is why I often tend to use whole collections for a project.

Why am I telling you this? Because for this quilt I didn´t. I started with this lovely fabric in the middle it is from Birch and  is called Happy camping,I love the Mid mod design of it.

 Going from there I chose the other fabrics (some Anna Maria, some Denyse, some Tula, some Joel and others)  that I thought could fit colourwise. I have to say I am really pleased how that turned out. I used the one seem flying geese technique again, I really love this technique because of the 3D effect it gives. I quilted it really undramatically with straight lines. The back is a lovely fabric from Ikea and the binding is a Joel Dewberry fabric from the heirloom collection.
I think this is a lovely quilt in fall colours. I might put it in the shop, still not sure about it.

 

How are you dealing with colour and fabric choices for a quilt?

Original Plans...

 I planned a proper Photo shoot for this new finished quilt. As today is one of the last sunny days of summer (thats what they tell us in the weatherforcast) I wanted to go to the "Tempelhofer Airport"  which is a wonderful huge park today. I planned on taking some food, something to read, the camera and the quilt. But you know what happened? Life happened. I AM TIRED! The last two days I stood on fancy art and crafts markets, I talked a lot to people who wanted (or not wanted) to by my designs. And it was really exhausting. Successful, but exhausting.
So who am I to be blamed, I ask myself. Who says I have to go out, just because it supposed to be last day of summer?

 NOBODY, but my sometimes stupid inner voice. So today I just don´t listen, or I listen to the other voice, the nice and clever one, who says: it is your day off, do whatever you want to do! So it is. I took a few really nice pictures in my backyard, and here I am blogging.

 And you know what? I have a quite sunny balkony. There I will be, reading a funny book, and as soon it hits me, I will jump to the sewing machine and will do some stitching. That is what I am supposed to do. ENJOY!

 Did I mention that I a quite excited about the quilting I did on this one? Thank you Angela Walters!