Quilt festival quilt - my biggest quilt treasure

Welcome to my little corner of the virtual quilting community - I am glad you stopped by.

My quilts mean a lot to me – and for a variety of reasons. Some because of the colors, the pattern, or the bold fabric, some because of who I made them for and how they were received (like Grandpa’s quilt or the quilt for my best friend). My quilts are little love letters and there is a piece of me in each of them and a ton of good thoughts to the receiver. So picking just one is hard.

There is however one quilt that is very special for me. And it isn’t about the fabric at all, it isn’t about the design. It’s ALL about the process and who I made it with. It’s the Star quilt.

I made this with my Mum, who daringly took on the project even if she had never quilted before. We live in different countries so a big part of the quilt is made while apart. We started off selecting the fabrics in February 2011. Every time we meet we would compare the progress and plan the layout. The weekend of the Royal wedding in the UK we started adding hexagons (funny how you remember things by events not by dates – I don’t even know what month it was. Only that I estimated that I would be able to make a quick run to the quilt shop before the wedding started). This autumn we made the final personal touch by embroidering our names onto it.

The process – good grief – almost got to me. All the piecing is done by hand and I don’t even dare to count the number of times I threaded the needle. Or the number of times I used the seam ripper.

  

 

Sometimes I wish that we had made it with more modern fabrics but I have to admit that even if this isn’t my favourite fabric choices the blue and brown colors are beautiful and deep. The quilt has calmness that none of my other quilts has. I can’t help but love it because I made it with my Mum.  It’s a quilt I will treasure for as long as I live.

Update august 2013: The quilt was at an exhibition in Sweden in June. Unfortunately I can't get the pictures from Picasa to show in this blog post. Her's the link to the gallery
https://picasaweb.google.com/114626731273016932343/Utstallning2013#

Wednesday WIP

It’s Wednesday morning, it’s dark, rainy and windy. My Grandmother used to call these kind of days ‘Coffe, Cuddle and Sleeping day’. I couldn’t agree with her more. Unfortunately there is a full workday and a basket ball training on todays agenda.

It’s also Wednesday WIP day – be sure to stop by Lee’s WIP Wednesday  for more updates and lots of inspiration.

My week was quite productive. I started two and finished one top. Also re-arranged one quilt into two. In other words lots of new projects and no finishes.

First update is without pictures – The Kaffe Fasset Sached Boxes quilt. I brought the diamonds to Sweden to do finish off the pile and maybe decide on the final layout. The boxes came out way stronger than I liked because of the colors I used and to be honest I didn’t like it. My  Mum has a good sense of colors and saw the problem immediately.  I ended up separating the diamonds into warm and cools colors. And I will make two quilt tops instead of one. Of course it now means a slight set-back because I will have to do a lot more diamonds but I am sure it will be worth it in the end.

I started and finished another quilt top using my stunning Heirloom FQ’s. The pieces are gigantic and it goes together in no time at all. As much as you know I love the fast projects I thought this one was almost a bit too easy and too fast. I am thrilled however of the result. The blocks are perfect for showing off the beautiful fabric and I wouldn’t change a bit. I am currently working on the back piecing the cut-offs. Can't bear to waste as much as an inch of this wonderful fabric.

Also started another new project – no pictures of this one either. I am piecing my leftover Prince Charming stripes to triangles to make this quilt http://www.filminthefridge.com/2011/10/04/a-nautical-quilt/. I have 12 generous sized triangles now but need some more. These will come as the diamonds progresses. Think I will will use a dark grey as a background

So the stats for this weeks:

New projects: 2

Worked on: 3

Finished projects: 0

Ongoing:

BOM

The warm palette Kaffe Fasset diamonds

The cool palette Kaffe Fasset diamonds

Circles appliqué

The Pendant quilt

Leftover Prince Charming striped triangles

et voila.... BOM #2

Rushing a bit as the troops are getting hungry but it was fun, fun, fun... The green background is not as harsh as it looks on the photo. It's more like a a dark lime green color.

Quilting bug - Sew and Tell

This week was fall break in Denmark. We all are still feeling emty with the passing of my FIL but life is slowly getting back to normal for all of us. It's the way it should be I guess...

The boys and I went to Sweden to visit my Mum for a few days. While the boys were busy playing with a 4 wheel tractor, doing dirt bike cycle racing and fishing while the rest of us stayed inside and did a little quilting. Nah,  more like a lot of quilting.

I'm linking up to Amys Sew and Tell for this post. It more about the new quilters in my family than me. Doing my best to spread the quilting bug. It's going pretty darn well if you ask me  :)

My niece Freja ( who is one day older than my youngest!) got the quilting bug. She made a blanket for her bunny Bella. My youngest who usually plays a lot with Freja asked us to ‘take the quilting medicine out of Freja’ – LOL - he missed his playmate.

She was amazing. I only had to show her things once and then she did the rest of it herself except for the cutting. When she hand sewed the border she almost hit her limit but she’s quite persistent and with a little encouragement and help to get around the corners she managed.  I think a few charm packs will be the perfect Christmas present for her.

My mom has got the quilting bug pretty seriously as well. The quilt behind her on this picture is only her second quilt. Can you believe it? It was a quilt I saw a long time ago from Red Pepper Quilts and when she saw the picture she fell in love with the graphical expression immediately. It was a technical challenge to make this one come together but she did a great job. It's really a beautiful quilt. 

And me? Well, I finally digged into my Heirloom FQ’s (See the picture of Freja and her bunny Bella above - it's behind her). I loved the fabric before I cut it but even more after having looked at them for 2 days. It is utterly amazing. I think I might just have to get myself another bundle or two for future projects.  I looked for a pattern where I shouldn’t cut it into itsy bitsy pieces and this was perfect. Thought they were a bit too big when I first cut it but the more I looked at it the more I realized that they were perfect to show of the amazing fabric.

I also made some major progress of the Kaffe Fasset diamond quilt. My Mum helped me finding the final layout. I had trouble liking the planned layout because of the colors went in every direction and it looked ‘messy’. With her clear sense if color and balance she saw it immediately and rescued me  J. More on that in a separate post as I have no pictures yet.

Radio silence

I am sorry for the radio silence here. My FIL passed away on Friday and even if it was expected we're all feeling a bit empty right now. I'm glad though that his quilt was in his bed when he passed away, keeping him comfortable.

Wednesday WIP

It's already Wednesday again and time for an update. Be sure to stop by Lee's to see more WIP's. It's my favorite surfing of the week - I get so inspirered :)

Mostly I worked on the circles quilt. I've made 3 out of 4 squares by now (the pattern is a baby quilt - I'm making mine bigger and are doing 6x6 circles).

It fast, fun and gives instant satisfaction. Unfortunately I need to get some more grey background before I can finish it. The piece I have left is 10 cm too short.

 Also made some Christmas presents this week - bags, bags and more bags  :)

On Saturday I had the first day in my new quilting group. Mostly we will be working on our own projects but once in a while we'll all do a small project to learn new techniques. To kick off this season we did a little bird.

We were asked to go to the scrap pile and pick out colors to a bird. Then we had to cut tiny (really tiny)pieces of the fabric and place it to show a wing. Houndres of small pieces I tell you. Finally we covered the whole thing with some kind of medical plactic, which we quilted over with tiny freemotion circles. We then cut the bird and placed it in water which dissolved the plastic. After the bird had dried we added it to a background, which by the way also is my very first attemt to freemotion quilt ever. It's fun... al lot more fun than I thought it would be. Need to practise still though.

It's kind of funny because I don't like this technique very much and would propably never use it in a big project but yet I went away with some HUGE learnings. About colors. About free motion quilting. I will definately keep the little birde over my desk as a good reminder :) 

Last thing I worked on this week was finishing up one more embroidery for the Christmas quilt. 

I have a stack of Heirloom waiting for me to finish up some of the above projects. Finally found a good pattern that will showcase the prints and I can't wait to get started on it. It's a pattern for a Pendant Quilt that Joel Dewberry made for a previous line of fabric.

Summing up this rather un-productive week in numers:

Worked On Circles quilt
New techniques 'Birdie'
Christmas Quilt
Bags

What I couldn't find time for this week
Kaffe Fasset's hexagons

What I'm itching to get started on
The pendant quilt by Joel Drewberry
A stripes /triangle quilt like this one using leftovers
A turn over applique project from the book From Little things by Sarah Fielke

Eye candy

Yesterday evening after the kids went to bed I whipped up some more bags using this great tutorial.   I almost finished a scrappy version with Prince Charming leftovers  but unfortunately I ran out of interfacing so I had to put it aside until I can go to my LQS. Yes - almost 3 bags in a night. Not too bad  :)

There are so many small bags out there but I just love the shape of this one. And the tutorial crack me up every time. Take a look yourself...

The one I’m keeping myself (the dark one - the first I made) will definitely spice up my LBD. The others are going straight into my gift basket for Christmas gifts along with the matching key straps.

This bag is really fast and easy to make and there’s no limit to the creativity you can put into them. I of course droll over Kat's scrappy bag thinking I need some bird fabric (who wouldn't) but I made mine less scrappy just playing with the outside, inside and the flab. Next I want to do in raw silk with embroideries as a party pouch….  They really have the prefect party size for the ever essential lip balm, mobile phone and a credit card without looking bulky.

Wednesday WIP

Time for another mid-week update from me. Be sure to stop by Lee's blog for more Wednesday WIP's and to see her new Moda Bakeshop recipe. I love it and itr will definately be on my want-to-do list

Finished:

I made a pouch using this tutorial. I didn't do a scrappy pouch as I had a very busy piece of fabric. I lined it with dots and it's really very cute. I decided I will keep this one myself as it is a first and I think it shows. Like the placement of the magnet. I will however make a few more bags like this one for Christmas presents.

   

New project:

Another Christmas present - brand new tutorial on Moda Bakeshop. This will be for my niece as it's just as funky as she is. This is only 1/4 of the quilt. It will be 6x6 circles and then I'll add a border. The background is light grey and the prints are leftover from a HST quilt I did a while ago.

Yesterday I got the light grey fabric and glued on the cuts. Next is applique  :) I know the colors are really bad but I can only photograph at night.

Ongoing:

The Kaffe Fasset Sashed Diamonds quilt is slowly growing. I still can't decide if I want to do traditional diamonds or boxes. Luckily I have plenty of time to decide - there is a long way yet.

That's all for me. Life is busy with work and family but I'm happy for every hour of quilting I can squeeze in my schedule. Quilting keeps me sane  :)