Wannsee

Today I took a day off! With all your lovely comments and advice (thanks a lot!!!) in mind I got up early, took the train and headed to the Wannsee. I walked for three hours and then took a historical bus back to the city.
I enjoyed this day extremely. Allthough I noticed how hard it was for me not to think about what is going to be with my business. I have no answer. But for now I take it as it is. I still have one month left in the shop, thats nearly four weeks. Weeks where so much unexpected can happen.
Until then I try to stay calm and relaxed and don´t stress myself about what should be, should happen or is going to come.

Lack of creativity

Happy new year to everyone!!!
I am doing fine, in case you wondered why I was absent for the past few months.
I have to say, I think I lost all my creativity. And this is not just in quilting. As some of you may know, I am a fashion designer, so being creative is my business. It is essential. Over the last months I worked extremely hard, preparing the christmas market season, which is very important for me as it brings a lot of money (if everything works out just fine). This year it was soso. Not terrible but not great either. After the sewing,sewing, doing markets, sewing and doing markets again, I got so extremely exhausted. I always told myself, when it is all over I will refresh myself and then do some exiting new things again. My partner in the shop and I decided to close our shop at the end of january. We both feel the need of more freedom. I had a shop for five years now and I think I need a break.
Now that I had some days off, I think I have to start thinking about all the new things I should start and organize and also be creative, quilt a little, think about new products and so on, but I have to say, I absolutely don´t have any ideas. And also no energy.
Well this answers it already, I guess I still need some more time off to regain energy, fun and maybe creativity will appear again (hopefully).
Does anybody of you have any tips how to regain creativity? I would be very thankful for every advice...

A long term project

This is about a quilt top I finished yesterday evening. For me it is a long term project. Allthough... sometimes I read about quilts that have been lying around for many years. That didn´t happen to me yet... But there are some bits and pieces in the depth of my drawer...:-)
But back to this quilt top.
I really love it.

A few months ago I bought "Material Obsession" by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke. This quilt pattern is not one of the books but I was very inspired by the way they put fabric and pattern together. So lets say I was hardly inspired!

So the first thing I had to do this morning, as soon as the light was right ( the sun just had climbed over Berlins city roofs) I went into my backyard and took some pictures.

Quilting it might take some more time, as I am really busy with work until christmas...and there are two other tops waiting.
But this op waited so long to be finsihed, it can wait a little longer to become a proper quilt.
Take Care and have a sunny day!

Blogger´s Quilt Festival

It is this time of the year again. Amy at "Amy´s creative Side" hosts the Blogger´s Quilt Festival. At this festival the most wonderful and creative quilters and quilts come together to inspire and be inspired.
This year I will participate with the babyquilt I made recently and blogged about it here.

It is a traditional double wedding ring pattern and I used some of my beloved selvages for it.  For the backround I used some vintage inspired fabric prints by Denyse Schmidt and Jenn Ski.
It is a baby quilt but at the moment it hangs on my bedroom wall and enlightens my mornings when I wake up.

For the photo shoot I went to one of my favorite spots in my city Berlin. It is a little island in the river Spree. I spent hours there, every spot seemed to be the perfect setting, but at the end I had to decide. These are the photos I loved best.

I enter this quilt and the photos of it to the category "Quilt Photographer".

Swappen- A german speaking pillow swap

Yesterday I finished my pillow for the "Swappen" swap hosted by Aylin.
My partner has a more subtle modern sense of style, so I had to go a little bit out of my comfort zone. At the end I quite like what I did and I hope my partner does,too. These where the fabric I chose, some solids, some "collage" and some "wordplay" one of my favorite fabric lines forever!

This is what I came up with. I quilted some parts with a red/orange pearlcotton thread.

I just have to say, this swap is amazing, the work that the participants do, is awesome and very special. Thank you Aylin for bringing this wonderful group of people together... again!

The Double Wedding Ring Selvage Baby Quilt

A few weeks ago I sat in my "studio" wondering what to sew next. I saw my selvages and somehow came up with the idea of using them in a double wedding ring quilt pattern. I enjoyed the making and the result so much, that I went on and finished four blocks of it, the perfect size for a babyquilt.

Today I have my day of, and so I took my good camera and the cute quilt and drove to a  special sight at the edge of Berlin to the "Insel der Jugend" ("The isle of youth"). This little island surrounded by the River Spree is very special to me, as I went there every day a few years ago, when I was in the middle of a heavily depressed time. The calm, the sun and the water helped me to recover and because of the nice landscape I came back later for fashion- and now even for quilt-shootings. As I did today.

Unfortunately it was very windy and I forgot to bring all the tools which could have fixed the quilt to trees, railings, bushes etc.
Because of that I was quite afraid a few times and already imagined me jumping into the icecold and dirty water to get my lovely quilt out. Luckily me and the quilt arrived safely back home. With some nice pictures on the camera.

Here you can see them, be aware, there are many of them!

By the way, the pattern I used is from Aneela Hoeys Pickledish Quiltalong from 2010. Back then I made my first Queen sized quilt with this pattern.
As some recommended I will enter this quilt in the DWR Callenge hosted by the NYC MOD Quilt Guild. Who knows... :-)

Stupid Instagram and New Flickr

It is really a shame and a pity. Instagraming made me a very lazy blogger. And also I don´t feel as inspired by browsing flickr as I used to. And this is definitively not because the work shown is less amazing, but spending time on flickr is not as much fun as it was before they changed everything. I can`t even explain, what it is, I just don´t like it anymore.

And then today when I posted a work in progress picture of a quilt I am working on instagram, I noticed that it really made me sad that you couldn´t see the nice colours that these fabrics have and  so I decided to get out my good camera and for a day not to use the crappy phone camera.
The light outside is quite dark anyway, its fall here now.

One more reason to stay inside, making quilts and music. This is what I do on my free day, today.
So, long story short, here you go, see some pictures of my latest work in progress quilt. This is the first time I wanted to make a fall quilt. I chose a lot of greens and browns and some aquas and I think the result will definitively have a autumn feel to it.

By the way I am using my Singer featherweight for it, as my very fast other vintage singer machine had a break down a few weeks ago. Gotta go to the sewing machine doctor soon.
Yesterday I cleaned and oiled the featherweight and at first I didn´t have the feeling that it run better, but now I am quite satisfied.
This is it for today.
I wish you all a calm and peaceful week!