Hopfaldera

Marcelle and Anouk

Today I want to show you my Marcelle Medallion. I don't have the book that the pattern is in (Liberty Love: 25 Projects to Quilt & Sew Featuring Liberty of London Fabrics by Alexia Abegg), but I do have the magazine (only available digitally now). 

This is how I planned my medallion and how it grew.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am now working on border 5. You can see the bricks above. I have already sewn them into strips, and next thing will be to add those strips to the medallion. It is a great project. I'm having a lot of fun with it. I'm actually cutting into my Liberty fabrics and some other precious fabrics that I normally keep in a separate place. Stay tuned for more of my Marcelle Medallion!

Today I also have to talk about the Eurovision Songcontest. Tonight is the semi-final in which Anouk will try to get a place in the final for The Netherlands. This has become a bit of a national trauma; we haven't gone to the final in so many years that I can't even remember when was the last time. And we want it so bad! So bad, that this year Anouk, who is definitely the coolest and maybe the best singer in the country, is representing us. If she doesn't make it to the final I suggest we forget about it and never enter again, with pain in our hearts. Here is the song (please vote for us if you are in one of the countries that can vote tonight, thank you!!):

 

Plan for May

It's time to set a goal for the new month of A lovely Year of Finishes. This time it will be a project that I haven't started yet, but something I have been thinking about for a while. Actually, I had a similar plan last year but I just didn't do it. This month I want to make a skirt for myself.

The pattern, or method because you make the pattern yourself, is from Sew What! Skirts. The fabric that I got for the skirt is a linen/cotton blend from Field Study by Anna Maria Horner (I ordered it from her own webshop by the way).

The first thing I need to do to make this plan a success is wash and press the fabric. Then I will make a pattern on paper. I will need to check if I have a good zipper, otherwise I will have to buy one. Then I will cut into the fabric and follow the method to make the skirt. It will be an A-line skirt with a zipper in the back. (I like to make my plan as concrete as possible, so it is easier to accomplish)

I'm linking to the May goal setting party of A Lovely Year of Finishes.

 

Sampler of some sort

Besides setting monthly goals to finish projects this year (January, February), I am also starting a new project that I want to work on during the year or even longer maybe. It will be a sampler quilt inspired by the Random Sampler on Bloomin' Workshop (I saw Lotje's version in real life), Liberated Medallions and the new free (!) block of the month (BOM) on Craftsy.

What appeals to me is that there is no overall symmetry in these inspirations, and that they all look like little individual quilts put together to make a larger one. It is also an opportunity to put together favorite blocks or techniques in different sizes and come up with something unique.

Not long ago I bought two inspiring fat quarter packs (Fairy Finds and Modernista) of Art Gallery Fabric from Pink Castle Fabrics, and I want to use these for this project. And I'm sure I will add more fabric to that. I still need a background fabric, but I don't want white. I'm thinking of something textured and lively while being neutral.

The first blocks I made for this sampler were the Craftsy BOM blocks for January. They finish 6" square and together with some flying geese they will act as a kind of frame around a larger block.

January Craftsy BOM

I also made the February Craftsy BOM but now I'll wait until June to make a BOM block again, because the blocks that come in March, April and May don't really appeal to me. My plan is to pick my favorite blocks from the Farmer's Wife Sampler and several Japanese patchwork books and make those for this sampler as well. And maybe the Schoenrock Cross block found at Leila's. We'll see, we'll see...

February Craftsy BOM

Japanese basket tote bag

When I was in New York this summer I went to the Japanese bookstore Kinokuniya. They have a wonderful collection of craft books there. These are the ones I bought.

Umami, about very modern and organic looking bags, Colour Couture by Suzuko Koseki, and Machine made patchworks 02 also by Suzuko Koseki. 

This week I found the courage to try one of the patterns from Colour Couture. The book is completely in Japanese except from some titles. But luckily the measurements are written in arabic numerals a.k.a. the way I do it, and even in centimeters! The diagrams in the book are very clear and helpful too, so it was not so hard to figure out how to make what I wanted to make: a very cute and clever bag.

Here it is, all finished. It looks like a cute basket, useful for when you're buying just a few things.

But when you decide to buy more, you can unfold the inside of the bag and turn it into a full shopping bag.

For the front panel I used a piece of vintage fabric I bought from Carina who was destashing a bit. The aqua tape measure fabric I used for the back is also from New York, from Purl Soho to be specific. The rest of the fabrics I pulled from my stash.

FQ London 2012 - preparations

In less than a week I will be doing something very exciting: go to London meet lots of fellow quilters and sewers at the Fat Quarterly sewing retreat!! Fat Quarterly is an e-magazine about quilting. They have wonderful patterns and projects each quarter and it is run entirely online, although the team have now made a book, Fat Quarterly Shape Workshop for Quilters, that is actually on paper.

Here are some photos of the preparations I made for the retreat. First of all, I made a nametag for someone (I hope she has received it because I didn't hear...)

And here is the nametag I received, made by Kelly! So lovely!! I'll wear it proudly! Thank you, Kelly!!!

We are going to swap some fabric at the retreat. Some nice FQs:

And also some ugly fabric:

I hope people won't think it's the other way round! And I'm very curious what ugly fabric the others will bring. I think we'll have a good laugh!

I prepared some fabric for a paper piecing workshop; I'm going to make a Union Jack pillow.

And for a Frame Purse workshop.

I also made some pincushions to swap in the Sample Swap. I printed the text fabric myself. Here they are:

Now I will need to pack some tools and other sewing needs (and maybe some clothes and a toothbrush) and I be ready to go!! I can't wait to meet everyone!!

Hot pads à la Suzuko

I made two hot pads and/or potholders. I was inspired by two books by Suzuko Koseki: Patchwork Style and Natural Patchwork. These are great books, with lovely inspiring images and doable patterns. Suzuko is a patchwork and fabric celebrity: she designs fabrics that are very popular, lovely, and pretty hard to find (although it is possible on Etsy and her own Japanese website).

While I was making these pads, my sewing machine broke down.... A loud noise from the bobbin holder and lots of heaped up thread. OMG, it was a scary moment, because I can not live without my machine, really not! I took a deep breath, read the manual a bit, and screwed the machine open. Okay, there was a lot of fluff there, so I cleaned it out, even using the vacuum cleaner (the manual suggested this), and after that the machine worked like a charm! Pfff, maybe I should clean it more often... haha, maybe!

Haus Sweet Haus

I made this stuffed house toy from a pattern from Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love by Hillary Lang. I made the front Friday afternoon, and just finished it with the backing, ribbon gusset and stuffing this morning. Not hard at all! It´s a little break from making Farmer´s Wife Quilt blocks. I have about 10 new ones finished eventhough the quiltalong is officially on a break. I´m just always afraid I´ll get behind eventually so I frantically am trying to make up for that in advance. I´m sure I´ll take a break from them in the future, but for now I have 3 new blocks planned out fabric-wise.

I wanted to say Happy New Year too. Happy Chinese New Year: Xinnian kuai le! May the dragon fire us up to do wonderful things this year!! I'm planning plenty of them, not only Farmer's Wife's blocks, I'll tell you later.

Cocorico October

The October theme in the Cocorico Bee was Orchard! Annabel asked for blocks that were inspired by orchards, and that were 12.5" by 16.5" in size. In this post I'll try to show how I went from my inspiration to the finished block. I didn't take photos during the hardest bits, because I was sweating and sewing, and not thinking about blogging. But I hope the process will be a bit demystified :-)

This picture was my inspiration. It comes from a little booklet I still have from when I was a child. It has German rhymes in it, and cute drawings.

I asked Frederik to make an enlargement of the book illustration at his office. I used that to make a first draft of the pattern. What I did was put see through pattern paper on top of the photo copy and try to recreate the drawing with a ruler. My thinking was that if I can draw a straight line with a ruler, I can also sew a straight line there.

Soon I had to simplify the apple core with the pips, because sewing five was just too intricate.

I felt the magic number to show variety was three, so three pips I drew!

And this is the final pattern that I made. You can see I played around with different stalks.

Now comes the part where I don't have a lot of photos. I did show a sneak peek on Flickr here. But otherwise I was either procrastinating, drawing partial patterns, sick, or sewing...

Here is a photo of the back of the block just after I finished the piecing. You can see that I split the pattern into five sections that I pieced separately. This was necessary for inward pointing curves, very hard to explain, but you'll understand as soon as you try something like this...

Detail of the pattern sections. I made little notes about which fabric to use. Very helpful during the process, where you get caught in the details and loose the bird's eye view for a while.

And here you can see the enlarged illustration and the finished piecing. I was so proud when I got to this point. Proud enough to think about my camera again.

And here I show off the finished block. Including side borders, embroidery and an appliquéd leaf.

Bye bye say the happy pips!! I hope Annabel likes what I made for her. It was great to work on!

Souvenir from Sweden #4

We went to Sweden and we brought home

2 pelargoniums

a CD by Veronica Maggio

a sweet Dalahorse

and a Pippi sweater!!

 

It turned out that the sweater that I had brought with me to Sweden had shrunk in the wash: the sleeves were too short to keep me warm in the evenings! Then I saw a sweater that I knew... Pippi has one exactly like it!

Mine is knit with cotton, so it's perfect for summer. And the sleeves are long enough!

When I wear it I feel a bit like my hero!

Farmer's wife??

 

Yesterday I received this book (I had bought it from Amazon, here ). It doesn't really seem like something for me. I am more of a city person. At the most I am a farmer's grandson's wife, or maybe a wind farmer's wife... But I saw blocks from this book pop up all over Flickr and I really liked what people were making. Then I found out about a quilt along based on the book that is aimed at learning these more traditional blocks and the skills that go with them. I love learning more about quilting (I learned everything I know about quilting from or via the internet), so I got the book and joined the Flickr group.

The fabric that is used in the book are reproductions from fabric from the 1800's. Most modern quilters are not too fond of these prints and don't use them. But when I looked through the book I did like some of them. I went to the Fat Quarter Shop webshop and picked out a few reproduction prints that seemed more modern and that appealed to me. I can't wait to see what they will look like mixed in with the other fabric I will be using.

Right after receiving the book I made two blocks (#4 and #2). These are two blocks that I could figure out how to make without having to use the templates. Most blocks are more difficult though, and use templates that you print out from a CD that comes with the book. I haven't worked with templates yet, so I'm looking forward to learning...