Christmas vacation: time for a Christmas bouquet

So this post has nothing, really nothing to do with quilting, sewing or fabrics but it's the time of the year, no school, no job, and so we made this together with my mum and daughter today!

The ladies are working very hard...

... and here you can see what we made!

It's becoming to look a lot like Christmas...

I wish you all a merry Christmas!

Love,

Anita

More pink flowers!

First: it's not that I quit with the Nativity quilt, but I have so much other things to do that I can't find the time (and concentration) to make a new block. And since I planned to complete the Nativity quilt for Christmas 2011 I think it can wait a little...

So now I'm working on a pink project, which excists of lots of tiny little quilts. And as you can see, it's going to be a nice collection of quilted hexagons:

I'm using fabric with flowers in a range of white-pink-purple for the foreground, and dots, squared or plain pink for the background. I've collected different fat quarters with flowers, but still looking for more! No plans for the final size yet, in the original pattern (king size bed) there are 267 (!!!!) hegaxons, and of course lots of half hexagons (no idea how to make those... I'll find out later).

Here's a pic of the work in progess. Nice fabrics!

Have a nice day!

Something different with hexagons

In my last post I showed my first completed quilt. In the meantime I allready have almost completed the Pink and red one too, I'll show you later. So I'm thinking about a new project (next to the Nativity quilt, I'm not quitting!).

Today I read in a few magazines and saw a (to me) new technique with hexagons, and I tried a few. Here are some pics:

Every completed hexagon is made out of a big and a small one of pink fabric, and a fiberfill one.

Press the seams of the fabric hexagons and ...

... fold the fiberfill in the big one, put the little on top of it and sew together.

The fun thing is, after sewing the little one on the big one it's already quilted!

You see, I only have to sew them together... but I'll wait with that after making a few more hexagons.

Have a nice day!

Yeah!!! my first completed quilt

Well, what can I say, the title is enough for this post I guess :)
Yesterday I completed my first quilt, the Delft blue one. And here are the pictures!

Here it is,made for Thijs as you can read. All the fabrics are in blue-white, so I choose red thread for the stitching, to give it a little more power.

After the sewing I washed and dried it in the machine, a little excited (wouldn't it shrink, or fall apart) so my husband took it out of the dryer (I didn't dare). Well, I'm happy with the result, ready for a new one!

Here I was a little to enthousiastic with my Singer, I sewed the pin onto the quilt... no worries, I removed it before I gave it to my son.

So one last picture of this Delft blue one, and then it's time to move on! There are lots of other projects waiting!

Dec 13th: the shepherd gets a little sheep

Today it's time for Dec 13th (I'm coming closer to the real date!). The block shows the sheep that's with the shepherd I made earlier (Here he is with his crook).

Not a very difficult one, nice for this time! I made a picture of this new block together with the shepherd. The sheep has a bit of a strange head, but I hope that is solved after sewing all the blocks together...

With this block, I'm more than halfway through!

Have a nice day!

Starry starry night...

After two busy weeks (nothing to do with quilting, lots to do with kids, work, sinterklaas) a new Nativityblock!

And the title of this post doesn't mean that I compare myself to Vincent van Gogh (like Don McClean sang) but to the block I made: Dec 12th.

I started like this today:

And with a little work it first became this.....:

.... and then: it finally looks like a starry starry night :) The little brown piece on the left side will become an angels' foot, the green piece is a leaf of a palm tree.

The complete picture so far:

 

So 12 blocks ready, 13 to go!

The second shepherd

Yeah, time for another Nativity-block! Today I made the block of Dec 11th, the second shepherd. Here it is:

I pinned it at my couch to make the picture, so it's quiet a special perspective... but if you look good you can see the foreground, a kneeling shepherd (with brown beard) and the dark brown background.

11 done, 14 to go!

First time

A few days ago I received a parcel, with a darning foot for my singer. Today I had enough courage to try it.

And these are the first tryings - no, it's not my little daughter who played with my sewing machine :)

And it's also interesting to see it up-side-down!

And here's another experiment... lots lots lots to learn. I guess (hope) that practise makes perfect!

Have a nice day!

Relax!

Tonight I did some very relaxing hand-quilting, watching Project Runway and the Benelux topmodels. And I know my sewing has nothing to do with fashion, but it feels like a good combination.

"As you know in fashion, one day you're in, next day you're out." Well, my needle is 4 times in my quilt - at the same time!

"In front of me, I see four beautiful girls. Only one of them can be the Next Top Model". Unfortunately, I see only one quilt, more or less beautiful...

With special attention for the yellow ...ehhh... thing. My sister bought it for me, and it's really useful!

Thanks to Heidi and Tyra for these inspiring quotes :)

And there is Dec 10th!

Today I made the block of Dec 10th, so 10 blocks ready (15 to go....). The block of today shows the shepherd's crook. I made the shepherd before, and together it looks like this:

Today's block is the right one, I put it next to the shepherd to see what's it going to be. I like the way the road is made behind this man.

I also started with the 11th one today, a kneeling shepherd with so many pieces I 'll have to finish it later.

I really like the result, but I have my doubts if I'll ever be able to finish this quilt. It's so complicated, not only sewing the blocks, but also to choose the right colours, and later to sew the blocks together. I wonder how I ever had the courage to start....

Nativityblock: Dec 9th

Today I finally had time for the next Nativity-block, the one from Dec 9th. It was not a very inspiring one, but I sewed it totally by hand while my daugther was working on her birthday-wishlist - which was very inspiring!

Here's the block of today:

It's not that I want to make it more exciting upside down, but I have some struggles with my Iphone to show the pictures in the right way. I arranged the blocks I made so far, and then you see what the block of today means (it's the one under the little angel):

Have a nice day!

Just a few little hearts

This week I had no time for the more complex Nativityblocks; instead of that I'm working on the pink&red one, handquilting. It's so relaxing and such a lovely result:

I finally get used to the techniques of handquilting, watched a lot of How-to- youtube movies, thanks to all the ladies who explain the way to handle your neelde, threat, fabric... and who don't complain when I watch it  over and over again!

autumn in the forrest

Yesterday we made a familytrip to national park De Hoge Veluwe, and the Jachthuis, designed by famous Dutch architect Berlage. Outside (on the white bikes you can use everywhere in the park) ánd inside we had a great time. Berlage designed every single part of the house. I made a few pics of parts that give some quilting-inspiration:

No plain white ceiling in this house, but stones in the colours also Mondriaan used.

Outside we saw the sky like other Duth painters (think about Vermeer, Rembrandt). Here are the kids and hb with the bikes, don't they look tough? 

After the cow it's time for a king

Earlier today I posted about the Nativity-cow I made. Since the kids were all playing with Lego building houses, I had time for another block. It was time for a king today - Dec 8th (acoording to the quilt; irl it's Oct 17th). It's not just a king, it's a kneeling king, offering a present to the newborn King. The blue fabric is from Josef's cloak.

8 blocks ready, 17 to go!

And something totally different but very nice: my sister gave me a very good birthdaypresent, I made a picture of it. The fabric is even more beautiful than you see on this pic!

Have a nice day!





New nativity blocks: a cow

Today it was a very sunny Octoberday, and after enjoying it with a familywalk I made a Nativity block - Dec 7th. Very complex with 44 pieces. Difficult part of making this quilt is to choose the right fabrics. Lots of it must be a kind of brown, and although I have a little collection of fabrics, I don't have so much browns:

Luckily my mother's collection is much bigger, with more browns, but still it's hard to fill in the colours in a right way. Here's all the stuff I need to make one block:

So today I made a checked cow. I had some doubts when I started, but I like the result, and it really is a cow!

How cool is this! And also in this picture: two pairs of brandnew very very sharp scissors! Thanks to my mum for this very useful birthdaygift!



Delftblue sewing!

As I wrote before, I started to quilt the Delftblue one with my Singer. I've done smaller projects before, but this is the first quilt (size: single bed) that I sew with my machine.

I talked to an older quilting lady the other day and she told me that only quilting by hand is quilting, otherwise it's sewing, not quilting. She said in a very strong way, so I got a feeling of being a very bad girl to think there is something like quilting on a machine...

As you see I use red thread, it really gives a bit of power to it. I combine sewing in the ditch and just straight lines, depending on the pattern of the blocks.

It's more difficult than I thougt it would be, but I like the effect. It's half done, I hope to finish it soon!

Tomorrow it's time for another Nativity block!

December 6th: a cat

Today I took some time to sew the Nativity-block of Dec 6th: a cat. Yeah, I didn't really expect that  too, but it's a lovely orange cat - inspired by the lazy one that lies on my quilts :). It's a small block, nice to sew.

And to show you where this cat belongs in a Nativity-quilt I have a pic with the overview. The scissors point to the cat in the overview:

So it's time for Dec 7th! I'm curious what's it gonna be, I'll let you know!

The pink&red one: still going strong

Goodmorning! Reading this blog, you could get the idea that I forgot about the pink&red one. Well, that's wrong. The quilt-in-pogress lies on the couch, and every now and then I sew a little block. And since this quilt is for my daughter, 6 years old, there was a strong need for some blingbling. So in one of the cornerblocks I made her initials, with ribbon and some (little sparkling) bangels. Here are some pics:

I'm working on the block top left, and the blocksdown under are still waiting for some quilting (and some ironing, I'm afraid the cat has tested this as a potential catbed, well he'd better forget about that!).

All the blocks are square, the strange model of the blocks in the middle are caused by the way the quilt hangs over a couch.

It's a nice thing to do, and I'm allready thinking about a new handsewing project.

Have a nice day!

A delft blue sandwich

Yesterday-night I made the delftblue sandwich! The most un-interesting but necessary part of quilting is: sewing the parts of the filling together:

The next step is more fun to me, sewing the 3 layers together with temporary threads. I'm gonna stich the layers on the machine (first time!). I hope I have time this weekend, my fingers are itching!

Have a nice day!

Nativity-quilt: an overview so far (1)

I know there are groups of quilting lady's (I don't know any quilting man, do you?) who make mistery quilts. Every week or month you make a block, without knowing what the complete picture of all the blocks is. Well, that's not my style! I wanna know what I'm working on! So today I made the first picture of the Nativity blocks in there righ places. I made 5 blocks sofar:

The fun thing about making this quilt is that I don't choose the parts I make, I just follow the numbers of the blocks. So everytime it's a surprise what's it gonna be.

To be continued, 20 blocks to go....

Have a nice day!