The Spring is my Love

Ahhh, I really can´t wait for spring to be here so I take all the sunny days that we already have and they turn me into spring mood!! As for the sewing it means some projects finished, some new ones in between (ideas are blooming like flowers in my head) and a lot of preparation for the Kunsthandwerkmarkt in Leoben, 25th March. 

I finally finished my Cathedral Window quilt (tutorial video with Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company). I did not quilt it much because I wanted the fabrics to speak for themselves. It turned out a lovely, nice and warm lap quilt (going into my shop).

The Stepping Stone Block #4 for the Modern HST Sampler Quilt was also finished. As the blocks turned out too small I did them again with a larger basis. The smaller blocks I used for another pillow cover, sewing them together with jeans scraps that were left over from the LOVE-BUNNIES-EASTER EGG pillows. 

As the first round of the HST for the Stepping Stone block turned out too small I sewed them with jeans scraps into a top. I will quilt it today but not sure yet with which thread, white, red or the multi-blue colored one.

The jeans scraps were left over from the jeans pillows I made last week. They are for the Kunsthandwerkmarkt in Leoben. The pillow covers are all hand appliquéd and quilted.

With a such a pillow who does not look forward to Easter?

Two more blocks, one grey and one blue-green

Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons are reserved for sewing. Now that I am participating in two sew-alongs it is even more fun to sew as the results get presented and commented by so many lovely quilters/sewers! 

Here is the "Lantern" (Cat Cradle) block for the "The Modern HST Sampler" with Blossom Heart Quilts and the "February Sugar Block Club", an easy LogCabin block. And again, only when I finished sewing I realized that time has flown by, being dark outside and way past dinner time!!

 

The Sugar Block Club 3.0 and The Modern HST Sampler QAL - first blocks done

I love sewing in the afternoon, icy cold weather outside, good music on and coffee on the table. I finished the first blocks for The Modern HST Sampler (Blossom Heart Quilts) and The Sugar Block Club 3.0 (Stitchery Dickory Dock) and I think they turned out quite well.

For the HST quilt it will be primarily grey fabrics (no point saying that it´s my favorite color?) and the Sugar Block quilt will be mostly green in all tones, shades and prints, but background again grey. Go check them out and join the fun, still time for signing up with the sew-alongs!

Hello, back again in the flow

I took some time off blogging, enjoyed Christmas and New Year holidays, cleaned up my sewing room, shelves and boxes, did my paper filing and the computer filing took most of my time. But now everything is in top shape, I finally labelled my boxes to find the things I´m always looking for. It really is a great feeling to have everything in order and continue working on the unfinished projects.

My customer presents are all sent out, my Myster Quilt is finished (I will send it again to Jana to Prague, to get it quilted as well as my Christmas Tree QAL Quilt). But there are still a lot of unfinished projects lying around and my cleaning up gave me so many new ideas that they are now clashing with the ones not done yet. Make a priority list? Do the unfinished one first? I still have no clue yet how to go on, but with time it will certainly unravel.

See for yourself my finished and unfinished ones and the ones that I want to do as well within the next few weeks. 

The fir tree cushions were my customers´favourite in December, I made about twelve pieces. 

Making the tablet cushions as presents for my customers was a lot of fun, quickly done and according to the feedback from them they caused many "hurraayyyhh"´s.

My finally finished Mystery Quilt - will be sent off to be quilted.

My cathedral window quilt - tutorial by Jenny from Missouri Star Quilt Company - will finish quilting and then get it into my shop!

This quilt (made of men´s shirt stripes) has been hanging around for so long, now I will quilt it by hand, probably try out shadow quilting.

And this quilt has been around even longer than the blue stripes quilt. I handpieced it, because the material is silk and some other fibres which my sewing machine does NOT like at all. But how to quilt it, is still a mystery to me, do you have any ideas?

And the projects to come: during the holidays I read about sooooooo MANY Block of the month (BOM) and Sew Alongs, I really could not decide which one to take part in. Then I got the newsletter from Jessica Skultety from Quilty Habit. Here she listed many BOMs and Sew alongs, some free of charge, some to be paid or books and patterns to be buy. That made it easy to surf around and choose one or two. So here are the ones´that I will be doing. Progress to be reported about in February, after the first blocks.

The first one is the "The Modern HST Sampler" by Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilters. I love to do the Half Square Triangles and want to improve my sewing them. 

The second one is "The Sugar Block Club 3.0" by Amy Gibson at Stitchery Dickory Dock. I followed the last ones only online but now I want to take part in this colorful and exciting project. Tune in if you want to do so, too - there´s still time to register as only the January block is in progress.

I hope you will also keep yourself busy and creative - got any questions, let me know - would love to hear from you!

A happy and healthy 2016 to you all

Advent, Advent, ein Packerl kommt

In Europe we celebrate the four Sundays before Christmas as Advent. I LOVE Advent time with all the preparations, markets, candles, cookies(!) and the presents we get up front from people around us (office, stores etc.).

Yesterday I got my first (surprise!) present from one of our guild members as a thank you for the newsletter I´ve been sending (and will start sending again by mid December). Three beautiful GREY fabrics (already know which quilt they will go in) and many natural, handmade and deliciously smelling soaps. I was so very delighted and happy to get something out of the blue. Thank you soo much for it Gisela, you made my Advent!!

I´m again sewing jeans pillows with fir trees for a customer order. It is a relaxing and quite mediative work, to appliqué fabrics with ziggzagg stitches on jeans fabric.

Michael Miller Glitz Fabric Challenge 2015

Here it is, a weekends (day and night) work and as you might say: a last minute Christmas Card (XXL).

While I was sewing my last few lines (at 2 o´clock in the morning) my sewing machine wanted to quit! Can you imagine that? So I will have to rip off the last wobbly lines and do them again. But for the application I had to leave it at that. 

I have to accept that my small Pfaff machine is not fit for free motion quilting, no matter how many times I try to get the seams right or take it to the shop, it never will. Not to my judgement.  

But: I had sooooo much fun sewing this quilt, the Glitz fabric and the Michael Miller Cotton Couture fabrics were perfect to cut and sew and the colors are just candy (for me chocolate) to my eye. Otherwise I would not have done this sewing marathon, wouldn´t I? Or am I just a complete addict to sewing and quilting now?