No lazy days....

Been to my old home town Innsbruck last weekend to visit friends and to attend the "Free motion quilting with your sewing machine" course with my guild "Quiltirol". 

Barbara, our tutor did a fantastic job, we all gave our best but one thing was sure: it takes time and a lot of patience to handle your sewing machine. That´s a fact. At least it is for me. And it is also a fact that if you don´t take the time to get to know your sewing machine it becomes very, very difficult to get the results you want.

And: practice, practice, practice. Practice quilting and it will get better. I do hope so. Otherwise I will go back to hand-quilting. 

I´ve been busy too with sewing a pillow (I had a lot of fun doing that) and two more blocks for the Christmas Tree Quilt-Along with Sandra and Aylin. Again, one mistake gave me the advantage of something else. So, making mistakes isn´t always bad, sometimes it serves another purpose very well. See for yourself!

I wanted to do the Chevron pattern for a long time and making a pillow is the perfect thing to try out a pattern (size-wise). I cut up a XXL-sized jeans shirt and cut many, many squares (as it turned out too many). 

I also had this cute fabric with "Vespas" (I would love to ride one, even at my age, really). And for a girl of 13 years it seemed the perfect fabric to me.

Making HST´s

 Front

and back

Block 3 and 4 - my mistake was not to realize that block 3 should have been size 15" and block 4 size 9" - so when I realized my mistake (I did block 3 in size 9") I simply switched sizes and I´m happy with the result.

Christmas Tree block 1 + 2

Of course, I should have done a sample first, see how my HST work. I did not do that. And my sewing my sewing machine didn´t want to sew well (which means I have to take her for a check up).

 

For all my meticulous preparation (ordered a new ruler, put everything else aside, ironed the fabrics really well) I did not consider making a sample.

 

So those 2 blocks are now rather samples because only after sewing them I got the hang of HSTs for the next ones to come. And of course I made a mistake in block 2 with cutting the fabrics, can you see it?

 

Preparations here and there, learning by doing is the most important thing to consider!

 

Block 2 + 3 will benefit from my mistakes in block 1 + 2, so will all the others, too.

 

 

 

UFOs and Christmas Tree QAL

After the crafts fair I had to re-organize my pending projects and as it turned out I have 8 UFOs to finish (4 of them are still in planning state). Nevertheless this motivates me vigorously to sew on and on and on!

 

The first one was selecting the fabrics for the Christmas Tree QAL by Sandra from Hohenbrunner Quilterin and Aylin from Aylin-Nilya. This project also made me do something that I had pushed away for some time because of being afraid of the unknown. No, really: I love working on the computer but things like Flickr or Instagram were not on my radar - I like to view the images but I never wanted to participate myself. Well, that´s over now.

 

After receiving such a nice e-mail from Sandra I pushed those silly doubts away, signed in on Flickr and there I am, participating in this Christmas Tree QAL.

 

Tomorrow I will start cutting block 1 and 2 - pictures to come next week.

 

 

 

Forgot to add:

I chose grey, green and brown because the last two Christmas´we did NOT have snow and in such a case we call it GREEN Christmas!

 

Recollections of an arts and crafts fair

Huuuh, it´s over but I´m still thinking about it: even with all my nervousness, cold weather and wind it´s been a great experience. I presented my quilts for the first time to the public and one which is not as familiar with quilts or patchwork as in America, England etc. 

I sold one of my dearest and most favourite quilts and hope that it will be as dear to the new owner as it´s been to me. Parting with a quilt that you have spent a lot of time making, pouring in so many good vibes and feelings is not easy. If someone told me that before I would not have believed it up front. But now I know.

The most rewarding thing for the day were all the compliments that we got from the people walking by, seeing, touching and feeling the quilts. Some were really amazed about the quilts, some made compliments that made me smile and grin for hours (I still do that when I recollect that day).

All in all it was a great day with my Mum, we met new friends and I got an invitation to take part at a Christmas fair in December. For that I am now going to spend a lot of time preparing, sewing, quilting. 

But a lot of time will also go into another project that I will post more in the coming weeks. 

Here´s my Mum

 My Mum and me, freezing but having fun!

Kunsthandwerksmarkt Leoben

Every day is filled with last minute works for the upcoming Kunsthandwerksmarkt in Leoben (craft fair).

 

For me it´s the first time to have a booth (white tent 3x3 metres) and to sell my crafts to the public. So I am pretty nervous about it as quilts and patchwork are not a very known craft here, really.

 

I know there are hundreds of talented quilters and textile artists and many small quilt guilds in Austria but when you ask people around you (like at your working place, people in public) there are not a lot that know this craft.

 

That´s why I am working on a few decorative things to explain quilts and patchwork, the cutting, sewing, quilting and fun about it.

 

But I am also really looking forward to this fair and to have fun at showing people my quilts and patchwork things.

 

Maybe I will see you there this Friday?

 

 

Long-arm quilted hexagons and "Where is Hugo"?

After making a huge hexagon quilt for a customer I had hundreds of scraps (mostly shirt fabrics) and thought "well, why not make another big one?" But for this one I took my time, almost 2 years. Whenever I was travelling I took a box full of hexies with me and during 2 winters I sewed them in the morning at home because with time it became so big (165 x 215 cm) that I could not sew on it anywhere else. 

But to hand-quilt it I did not have the time so I sent it together with the Autumn Leaves quilt to Jana in Prague the get them longarm-quilted. This week I got them back - see for yourself, I am very happy with them!

You´re probably wondering about the "Where is Hugo" in the post-title, well I have one hexagon in the quilt showing Hugo, can you find him?

I did not want the quilt very densely quilted so I am more than happy with the big flowers that Jana did. The dark grey fabric on the edge and the flower-surrounding hexies is shimmering slightly (which doesn´t show very good in the pictures) and I love that contrast to the cotton fabrics.

Last time by the lake

Last weekend has probably been the last time by the lake this year (or maybe not?) but as always it is so relaxing and enjoyable to spend a day at either Lake Turner or Lake Kraubath - they are both beautiful, clear, blue-green water and without masses of people, rather the opposite.

 

All that makes hand-sewing a heavenly delight!

 

Lake Turner in Carinthia:

My mum.....

 

View over the lake - it is quite big and I only swam through once.... but that was a long time ago.....



Lake Kraubath in Styria: not as big as Lake Turner and also quite colder.