I am happy to announce that Kathy from Australia won the giveaway! Congratulations, Kathy! I will send the prize to you as soon as I can.
I was a very lucky girl myself, because I also won a giveaway! I won a lovely FQ of Suzuko Koseki fabric from Dapple & Grey. Thank you very much!
Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway. It was fun to have so many visitors, and some even started following me on Bloglovin', great!! See you again soon!
I've joined a group on Flickr that is dedicated to finishing a project each month this year, A Lovely Year of Finishes. Wouldn't it be nice to have lots of finished projects, more room for new ones!!
Because it is month by month I think it will be easier to plan and set realistic goals for that particular month. Better than having a vague plan of what I want to do for the whole year; it's way too easy to put things off till later, later, too late.
So, my goal for January 2013 is to add the next round to my Medallion quilt. This is what it looks like right now:
With this quilt I am following the tutorials of the Medallion Quilt Along by Anita of Bloomin' Workshop. I started in June 2010. The last round I added was round 8b, so this month I want to tackle round 9, which consists of flying geese. It is the best border of the whole quilt (I think) so it shouldn't be a problem to work on it. On the other hand, I will have to make 112 flying geese units, which means 112 large triangles, 224 small triangles, 4 corner units consisting of 5 pieces: 356 pieces of fabric to sew onto the existing quilt... So even though the quilt won't be finished after this round, I think it will be an accomplishment nontheless. Who knows, I might do the last few borders in the months to come. One border at a time.
I'm starting tomorrow! Everything I need is already standing next to my sewing table.
I'm linking up to the linky party at Fiber of All Sorts. You can link up your own goals for this month there too (and read more details about prizes and such).
Together with Mari (PiecesOfFab) and Marjolein (Betty van Os) I set up a mini round robin. We gave eachother a quilt block and the assignment is to add a border of 3 inches wide and send it to the third person in our little group. I got a 12 inch square block from Mari and yesterday I turned it into an 18 inch square. This is what it looks like now:
Can you see the original block? On point it looks interesting too, harder to spot the original:
Now I'm sending it to Marjolein. I can't wait to see what she adds to it...
Have you seen the Grandmother's Choice block of the week Quilt Along? It is a project by Barbara Brackman is which she weekly provides a quilt block tutorial and gives information about the struggle for the right for women to vote. Every Saturday morning (in the USA, so for me it is the afternoon) there is a new post with an interesting story and a block tutorial.
Sometimes the blocks are quite easy to make, but some are a big challenge. Luckily there is also a Flickr group in which people show off their blocks, and this group is proving to be very motivating and supportive! People leave lots of very sweet comments on my photos, and when I see that a particularly hard block has already been made by several stitchers, it gives me the confidence to at least try, and persevere to get it done.
In The Netherlands we vote by coloring a little circle with a red pencil. That's why I have decided to make all these blocks (there will be 49) in red and white, with the red varying from pink to rusty brown. When you look at the image of the red pencil, you can also understand some of my fabric choices (I mean the Aneela Hoey circles in squares fabric). Another private little assignment for myself is that I am going to photograph and upload these blocks only using my iPhone and Instagram. That makes it nice and quick, a no PC project.
This project inspired me to find out a bit more about women's right to vote in my own country: In The Netherlands women received the passive right to vote (the right to be elected) in 1917, in 1919 they were allowed to actively vote, and in 1922 the first elections were held when women actually were sent a ballot and voted. That is only 90 years ago!! A very important person in the fight for all kinds of women's rights was Aletta Jacobs. She was the first girl to attend higher education. In 1878 she became the first female doctor and later she introduced contraceptives in The Netherlands. She was a peace activist and also chairwoman of the Dutch society for the right to vote for women. Here is a link to more information about Aletta Jacobs.
There is still time to join the project! Nine blocks down, forty to go...
I thought I would dedicate a post to all the wonderful information on patchwork and quilting on the internet that has helped me to learn what I know about it. So if you want to learn how to construct quilt blocks and make quilts this post could be a place to start.
I learned how to make a quilt from start to finish (all the basic principles, including how to add the batting and backing, and how to bind a quilt) from the Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt pattern by Alicia Paulson of Posie Gets Cozy. When you are a total beginner and you want to make a really fun quilt, I highly recommend this pattern. I learned tricks like assembly line sewing from this pattern and everything is explained step by step, with photos and all.
The Ollalieberry Ice Cream Quilt I made for Damaris
I started making individual quilt blocks following the tutorials on the Modify Tradition blog. The blocks are classic (traditional) but executed in modern fabrics, and everything is explained in detail. If you are a total beginner, I recommend you start with the nine-patch block and work your way from the oldest to the newest post on the blog. I still remember how I was sweating when I made that first nine-patch, because I wanted everything to line up perfectly. As you know practice makes perfect, so I guess perfection (or almost) came later. I did enjoy all those tutorials, and use them often for bees and such.
A ton of information and practice can be found in quilt alongs too. The first quilt along that I joined (and actually finished too) was the Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along (scroll down to the second header on this page) by Rachel of PS I quilt. All there is to know about half square triangles is there, and Rachel explains it all very well.
The pinwheel sampler I made for Emil in the basting stage
There are so many quilt alongs all the time. You can find them on Flickr, via google, blogs (once you get into this, you'll know) Just join in and you'll find information and a community to share your experiences. Flickr has many groups to share photos of what you make and even exchange actual work, like in quilting bees. This group is the place to start if you want to find a bee.
After you tackle blocks from those tutorials above you are ready to explore the massive amount of block patterns all over the internet. A great place to find them is Quilt Block Galore on Quilter's Cache. Not all of them are explained in detail (most are), but by now you will have the knowledge to make blocks just by looking at them. A lot of the information is free of charge, wonderful! But sometimes it is not a bad idea to pay some money to get more in depth knowledge, for instance from books, patterns, and online classes (like the Curves Class by Rachel of Stitched in Color, I learned some great skills there).
My most recent bee block (a Hawaiian surfboard for Tamiko) that I couldn't have made without my Curves Class skills
If you follow these steps and get as excited about quilting as I did, you will start to follow your own path and who knows what you'll make, and do, and design! Have fun!!!
I'm still learning, as everybody is; you never know enough (and certainly not me). A new, and very interesting, quilt along has started. The Value-Added Quilt Along with lots of information about the value (relative lightness/darkness) of color in quilts. Again traditional (and even technical) principles applied to modern quilting. I'm excited to see where that information will lead me.
A look at the fabrics of Chicipee in black and white to learn more about the value of these fabrics
Today I am linking up to Lynne's blog feature Fresh Sewing Day. Lynne taught me how to make a Union Jack pillow at the Fat Quarterly retreat in London, and look at her beautiful Jack Attack quilt that she finished last month. My Union Jack pillow is still not finished (almost, almost), but I have made other things last month. Here they are:
Five blocks for the Grandmother's Choice block of the week quilt along, four bee blocks, a Chicopee pillow cover in the making, and a basket totebag.
I'm also linking up to the Small Blog Meet (can't get that button to work though...). I would love to have a few new visitors here, so WELCOME if you came through that link, or otherwise. I am Muriël from The Netherlands and I love to quilt and sew. I'm part of some online bees: Bee Europa, Sew Buzzy, Cocorico, do.Good Stitches. I share a lot of my work on Flickr, and also here on my blog. Over here it's easier to give a bit more background than in the descriptions of photos on Flickr, and also to show a few more shots of the same object. You're more than welcome to visit again!
Where to begin?! Last weekend we went to London. Of course I went for the Fat Quarterly sewing/quilting retreat, and Frederik, Damaris and Emil went with me. Afterwards Damaris and I said to each other: we have had this much excitement before but not in such a short time. I'm still a bit quiet about it, it was so wonderful, overwhelming, fun, like nothing else! And we're tired of course.
Damaris blogged about her experiences on her Dutch fashion blog (she's 14 and has this blog with her best friend).
So now for my experiences. I'll start with some photos and then hopefully the words will come.
We flew to London from Rotterdam on Friday. It took only 4 and a half hours from door to door, which I thought was incredibly fast! We had dinner at Jamie Oliver's Barbecoa restaurant, great food and fun!
Royally approved!
Then, on Saturday morning I went to the Baden-Powell House to the retreat. I was greeted by lots of friendly and familiar faces, the nerves left immediately. The main hall was already filled with lots of people and the great opening game was to talk to six people whose names I had on a card, and get their autographs. It was a great trick to break any ice that was left, and I had soon met all kinds of people that I had only known through the internet up to now. John (Quilt Dad) made a little opening speech and then some classes and other activities started. I first went to swap some nice FQs of fabric.
This is what came home with me
After some coffee and chatting to people, my first workshop started: the Design Challenge. John, Brioni and Lynne talked about the design process for the Fat Quarterly book and showed some samples from the book. Then we got some short assignments (like draw a block with squares and rectangles), did some drawing and talked about what we had come up with. This was a fun exercise that I want to do more often. I usually start by looking at fabric, or with a theme.
These were my sketches
After this it was lunch time (actually it was Sample Swap time, but Vicky and I missed that a little bit and upset Trash's plan somewhat (sorry!), all was fine in the end though (I hope for you too, Vicky!))
I swapped my samples with Annabella, Linda, Lorna and John and got lovely gifts back from them. Thank you all so much!
After lunch I was in Lynne's class to make a Union Jack pillowcase using foundation paper piecing. Lynne was a fun teacher and had made an excellent pattern for us. Working in a different place than usual and with a different machine than at home is not easy, so I made a quarter of a Union Jack with some Lotta Jansdotter and Meadowsweet fabric. I will definitely finish this at home because it will be a great souvenir from the Jubilee weekend spent sewing!
In the main hall some exciting things were going on. One of them was that a representative from Liberty came to show us their new range of quilting weight fabric, Liberty Lifestyle. This was just awesome! Such beautiful prints! I cannot wait to buy them all! I received a pretty tote bag from the Liberty lady (as did a lot of people).
Liberty Lifestyle
Liberty totebag and contents of the goodie bag I received from the FQ team
Another thing was the Iron Man challenge. I was in group 5 and with Lucy, Amy, Tammy, Elisabeth and other that joined us we worked on designing and making a quilt top.
Our finished Iron Man quilt top
Of course we had to swap our ugly fabric too. Some were really ugly, but some were okay. This is what I ended up with:
what do you think: ugly or alright?
After this was the raffle. There were lots of prizes, I was impressed. My family had already come to have dinner with me and they saw me win a huge prize: A fat quarter set of Blitzen by BasicGrey, really good!! Thank you!! I want to make a quilt with stars from it, because it is Christmassy fabric (but I won't promise it will be done this Christmas...).
my super prize!!
During dinner I almost fell asleep, so after that I only went back to collect my things and went straight to bed after that!
The next morning Frederik, Damaris and Emil got up very early to go to the Harry Potter Studios, so I had breakfast by myself. I think I saw some wizards posing as muggles in the breakfast room though... Then back to the retreat!
First I had a freezer paper piecing class with Kerry. She is in the Cocorico bee too, and she's just really good, technically and creatively!! It was fun to meet her, and learn tricks to conquer the dreaded y-seam (just do it, step by step, leave the paper on until the end, use tick marks), and it worked! I only finished one block, because I sewed by hand (not my favorite thing). And also because I had a fun chat with Ulrike (Floh) and Mary about our various bee experiences. At home I turned my little block into a pincushion.
After another great lunch I chatted for a while with Nicole, Tacha and Linda. And I listened in on Lucie Summers porthole technique class. Then we found out that the frame purse class from Katy had started and we rushed upstairs. I managed to finished my frame purse, and I was so happy! It's really not that hard (Katy explained it step by step), and the result looks great! Next day at home I ordered frames, glue and piping cord from U-handbag to make some more of these purses.
After finishing the purse and saying goodbye, I went back to the hotel and waited for my husband and kids. They had managed to see a glimpse of the Jubilee boat pageant, and they made it back in time too. I heard all about their wonderful time at Harry Potter in the taxi to London City airport. We made it in time for the plane back home and Nicole, who had taken the tube had luckily also made it through the rush, she was on the same plane.
Okay, once I got talking, the words did come; this is a very long post. I want to thank everybody for making the retreat so wonderful: the FQ team, the teachers, all the other helpers and all my fellow participants!!! Let's do it again next year! I loved it!!
I want to tell you about a few things. All very exciting and all quilty!
First of all, today starts Curves Class! Rachel of Stitched in Color has organized and put together a 5 week class for quilters that want to learn how to sew curves. I subscribed to the Premium class which includes videos and an e-book at the end. I'm looking forward to learning more about sewing curves with confidence! I have worked on a few curvy projects, both of which are UFO, but I usually try to stay away from sewing curved lines. Stay tuned for hopefully lots of photos of wonderfully confident curvy projects!
my curvy UFO
Second, today is the kick-off of a new Quilt Along, Sew Out Loud {quilters' wordplay}. It is a Quilt Along with blocks that are related to sewing, sewn with wordy fabric, pieced words connected to sewing, etc. There will be 11 block tutorials offered for free and the 12th block will be designed by participants who can win wonderful prizes and who will be judged by a celebrity guest judge.
Guess what, one of the first 11 blocks is designed by me! I've designed a fun block and I'm working on the tutorial as we speak. Today starts the kick-off giveaway (great prizes too!) that you can enter via Joanna's or Julianna's blog. The block tutorials will be posted once a week starting from February 13th. Be sure to check out the giveaway, and the schedule for the Quilt Along!
Some wordy and sewing related fabrics
Thirdly I wanted to mention another exciting event, the Fat Quarterly sewing retreat in London. The retreat will take place on June 2nd and 3rd, and I signed up to go!!! Very scary, and fun and exciting! I'll get to meet all the quilty people I have previously only known through the internet, and we'll get to sew and take workshops together! My family will also come to London, and they will do all the other exciting things that London has to offer, but I will be sewing with like-minded people, how cool is that!?!!!! If you also want to come, sign up via Fat Quarterly.
A Blogger's Choice Fat Quarter Bundle.
There is a contest going on, on the Quokka Quilts blog. You can select 12 prints and 3 solid fabric colors from the Fat Quarter Shop and then you might win your own chosen bundle! It was fun to choose the fabrics, I just chose what I liked and what I thought would look good together.
Here's my bundle:
