Orange peels in summer

I´ve finished my big hexagon quilt (180x200cm) a couple of months ago but still had no idea how to quilt it. After I finished the autumn leaves quilt I sent both quilts to Jana at Bellus in Prague to get them longarm-quilted. Which means I am sooooo curious and anxious of how they will turn out....

But the big question was: what am I going to do now, meaning hand-sewing-wise? Again hexagons? No, I wanted to try something else. And after surfing around in the quilter-blogs-universe I got lucky and found something that I call myself again addicted to: appliquéing orange peels !!

There´s a new book (For Keeps by Amy Gibson) which a lot of bloggers refer to and which I have ordered but still have not gotten it yet, so I took my newest accquisition (a GO BABY accuquilt die cutter) and started with what I had from tutorials and made my own.

I am sooooo happy to have this cute little "device", it saves so much time cutting the peels and squares and, in my case, also fabric. 

 

 

You put the fabric on the die then the plastic plate over it and roll it through the cutter. So within a few minutes I had lots of peels and squares to go on.

This is what I prepared for my "to go box": 

- several threads, matching the orange peel fabrics

- basting thread

- a basting needle long, sharp no. 10

- a gold eye quilting needle between, no. 10 (very small) for appliquéing

- three pins

- freezer paper for the paper peels (scaled down to 77%)

 

 

 

I cut one paper peel with the Go Baby and scaled it on the copier down to 77%. This one I transfered with pencil on to the big freezer paper sheet (which I had loads of, gotten some years ago without knowing what to do with it). On one sheet I had almost 30 peels, cut them out (a leisurely thing to do when watching TV).

Then I ironed the freezer paper peels on to the fabric peels (watch ouf of the glossy side down on the wrong side of the fabric, otherwise your iron will not be happy about it).

 

Now basting, again a fun work (at least for me) which can be done anytime and anywhere.

Iron the fabric squares in half (into triangles) and arrange the peels along the crease so that the peel tips are exaclty on the crease line.

 

Start with appliquéing stitches 1cm away from one tip and do the first half of the peel.

After the first half before the first tip remove the basting thread and take out the freezer paper.

Tuck under the protruding fabric at the tip and continue.

 

Cut off if the protruding fabric is to big to tuck under - but only a little bit !

Sometimes the tips end up not exactly on the line of the crease but that doesn´t bother me at all!

 

 

 

  To be continued......

 

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).

Love, respect and tolerance...

... is a matter of the heart, brain and soul - I started this quilt when terrible things happened in France. Since then I often remind MYSELF to love, respect and tolerate more even if my initial feelings tell me differently.

I sent the quilt to Jana from BELLUS in Prague to get it longarm-quilted. I was so excited when she sent me a  picture of the quilt. I´ll attach the binding and the love-respect-tolerance motto too, wait ´til you see the finished quilt!