Photo session at the park

I finally got to make pictures of my quilts that I haven´t given away or sold yet. There is a local park in my town called "Europe Park" and we sometimes go there to quilt, sew and knit. 

You can find more detailed pictures of my quilts in the "my quilts" section of my blog. Enjoy!!!

Another summer day is ending today....

...as it has the last two days with rain, thunder and lightning. Whether it´s sunshine or rain, finishing quilt tops is always fun

Another lazy summer day.....

.... no way!! 

Not after having watched Jennys´ tutorial for cathedral windows (Missouri Quilt Star Company)! Jennys´ videos certainly fire me up to try the pattern at once even if 3 other quilts are waiting to be worked on.... what´s another UFO when all is so much fun? And as I swam laps for an hour this morning, sewing the whole day should be justified, no?

Well, sewing is not just sitting at the machine endlessly, I´ve been getting up and down from the chair a hundred times today, cutting the blocks was pure arm muscle exercise and ironing, haah, I certainly sweat off my ice-cream today at the iron board!

Go and check out Jenny´s tutorial, it´s worth watching, believe me. The blocks are really easy to make, you can choose your own size for the squares. The only thing that I advise: cut the inner square (the one you put on top to pull the fabric around) a little big bigger, otherwise they won´t fill out the corners when pulling in the fabric around.

I can´t wait to finish the top as I already have the quilting pattern in my head! Which means another lazy sunday tomorrow......

Summer days.....

...and I´m still working. Although I spend most of my time with quilting my Clamshell quilt, I could not resist cutting up the dyed fabrics to make an autumn quilt! Even if that takes until midnight.....

To continue on a day like this (perfect morning start with Stuart Freeman on FM4 morning show, sewing, ironing, sewing, going out for lunch with my Mum, having a delicious ice-cream dessert afterwards, back home sewing, ironing, sewing), what more can a quilters´heart desire?

Big blocks, easy to sew...

Small blocks for the stems....

I love to trim blocks, don´t know why but having them neat and straight after they are mostly wonky after sewing is a pretty good feeling. Maybe I should think up front before choosing stretchy fabrics.....

And trimming blocks on my "Turntable" is fun too, how have I done that before owning such a helpful tool??

Coincidence or not: when I started trimming my leaf blocks this morning there was a terrible noise from outside, caused by yard-men, trimming all the bushes around, getting rid of big masses of leaves. Lucky they haven´t spotted my leaves!

I love this easy quilt with hand dyed fabrics combined with bigger scraps!!

Summer time.....

....and our creativity is flowing! We added another Quiltirol afternoon to the schedule (normally we have a summer break from July to August and continue in September) but when Annemarie told us about fabric dyeing with all kinds of leaves we were all very happy to meet again and see what´s in store with this technique.

Annemarie had already done a lot of this dyeing with leaves according to the book "Naturdruck mit Pflanzenfarben auf Stoff, authors Brunhilde Scheidmeir, Fritz Jeromin, Andreas Scheidmeir". 

A lot of our members brought all kinds of leaves and branches so the choice was big - it took some time to do the layout, rolling up and "steaming" the fabrics but it was worth for all the fun. The results were surprising, unexpectedly beautiful and very inspiring for what to do next!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I will use my samples for a small autumn quilt that I have as a backlog (which I have many) using the design from Michelle Engel Bencsko, Turning Leaves (one of the Make It Sew Projects from Cloud 9 Fabrics).