Hopfaldera

Finished picknick quilt

I completed my Lovely Year of Finishes goal for April: to make a picknick quilt out of a quilt top I had made a long time ago. Here it is:

The quilt is made of 14 Friendship star blocks and 2 Ohio stars. The binding is my favorite part because it is made of strips of all the fabrics that are featured in the quilt. The fabrics were a fat quarter bundle that I bought at Sew Mama Sew and that was put together by Hillary Lang of Wee Wonderfuls. I added the turquoise background fabric myself. It is a rather sturdy fabric. That's why I made this into a picknick quilt; it is a bit too thick to snuggle under. 

At the last minute I thought of the idea to add a carrying strap to the quilt. The strap also keeps the quilt rolled up. It is integrated into the binding so you can't lose it, handy feature!

the label: made by Muriël

a colorful detail on the back

Size: 55"x 55"

Spring and summer can come now!! 

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

I'm still debating what to do next month... I have another week to make up my mind.

But it is a strange week. On April 30th our queen (of The Netherlands) will abdicate and we'll have a king, Willem-Alexander. It is going to be a very festive day I think, so that is something to look forward to! But last Sunday night we got a big scare in my town, Leiden, to make everybody think twice about big festive occasions. Sunday the police found out that someone had made a threat on an internet forum to carry out a school shooting at a high school here in Leiden. It did not say which school. My daughter is a high school student. She had to stay at home on Monday because all schools (20) were closed. At the elementary schools the children couldn't play outside that day. On Tuesday schools reopened, but because there was still no resolution, armed policemen and women were posted at every school and only one entrance could be used. Today was the same. And we still don't know who made the thread, if it was serious in the first place, and what this all means (they arrested someone and then released him). It is really scary, but it also feels like this doesn't apply to us at all. I mean, how can a high school student have a weapon here in The Netherlands? And how come they can't find out who posted the threat? Will it all blow over? Will we just forget about it, and feel safe again after the spring break? Will we get more clarity? Not the best week.

update: The Dutch 18-year-old that made the threat was arrested in Costa Rica and brought to The Netherlands. After telling a judge that he hadn't been serious about his threat, and handing over his passport, he was left in his parents' custody.

 

On with the sampler

I made another block for my sampler of some sort. It is the Squash Blossom block from a tutorial by Anita of Bloomin' Workshop.

In this block you can see the background fabric that I'm using for this sampler. It will be in more blocks, together with fabric from the two FQ stacks that I'm using.

I put all the blocks that I have so far together in different ways to see what that looks like.

My conclusion is that I need more blocks before I know anything about a layout. I do like the symmetrical layout though. I think my original idea was to have asymmetry, so that changed... we'll see what happens next...

From Hope to Comfort

From September 2010 until now I have been part of the Hope circle of do. Good Stitches. Do. Good Stitches is a charity quilting bee consisting of (many) circles that make a quilt each month for various charities. Hope circle is one of the first three circles of the bee and the charity we most often make quilts for is Threading Hope, an organization that distributes the quilts to children in underprivileged countries. I made many many blocks (57, I had to recount because I couldn't believe it) for the Hope circle and sent them (most often in pairs) to the quilting members of the circle who live in the USA.

first block I ever made for do. Good Stitches

Last month I offered to make the quilt, so this time everyone has to send their blocks from the US to me (in The Netherlands). I didn't really have a problem with paying the postage and I didn't hear from anyone else that they had, but of course it's all rather costly when you add up all the small amounts.

So I was pleasantly surprised when Rachel (the brains behind do. Good Stitches) approached me about moving to a European circle that Nicolette, another Dutch quilter had thought up. I said yes, then everything went very quickly, and now I am part of the Comfort circle, with people all based in Europe, benefiting European charities.

I already made my first two blocks, that will not have to travel very far.

my first blocks for the Comfort circle

Bye bye and good luck to everyone in the Hope circle! I had a great time!! Of course I will still finish the quilt for March for the Hope circle and show photos of it here and on Flickr.

 

 

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Plan for April

It's Lovely Year of Finishes goal setting time again! This month I want to finish a quilt that I have started a very long time ago. Years ago actually, way back when I was just starting out. I think I even calculated the measurements in centimeters for this quilt, because I didn't have rulers in inches yet. The quilt top is all finished and made up of 14 Friendship star blocks and 2 Ohio stars. The backing and binding are also ready. The only thing the quilt needs is basting, quilting and adding the binding. So that should be possible, right... 

First thing will be to unfold these piles and see what I actually made more than 3 years ago. I'm looking forward to that! 

I think this quilt will become a picknick blanket because the background fabric that I used is quite sturdy. Did you hear that, Spring? A picknick blanket. Don't you think it is time to come out now, Spring? I hope it will work!! (I heard on the radio it might snow again tomorrow, oh no...)

I'm linking up to the April Goal setting party!

Round and round and round

I thought I would give you some eye candy to go with all the Easter candy that will be around this weekend. These are all photos of medallion type quilt blocks (or add-a-border blocks or round robin blocks) that I have been working on, either by myself or with the add-a-border bee on Flickr (always accepting new members as Dustin says) or with the Double Dutch group (Dutch quilters that have met on Flickr and have now already met off line three times, great fun!!).

Click on the photos if you want to know more.

 

 

 

This block has already grown quite a bit you can see it here

 

This one is much larger now too and looking fantastic here

 

This one looks like this now

 

Happy Easter!!!

p.s. I want to thank three lovely quilting and blogging ladies who nominated me and my blog for a Liebster Award! Really nice to think of me! These are the ladies: Anne, Celine and Alia; go visit their blogs!!! I will see if I can answer all the questions that came with the award later. Thank you to all three!!!

Converging corners quilt finished

Two bees with one stone... The members of two online quilting bees made blocks for this quilt using Kona Stone as the background fabric. Yes, I have finished my Converging Corners quilt (tutorial by Film In The Fridge) and so I have met my Lovely Year of Finishes goal for March! 

And it is a good thing we have another finished quilt in the house, because spring still seems very far away and last weekend we even had Siberian temperatures around here (this was what the weatherman on national television called it; he might have exaggerated a bit but not much...)!

on the back are four blocks from the 3x6 sampler bee and leftover scraps and yardage from the front

I used a teal solid for the binding

Quilt stats:

Pattern: Converging Corners by Film in the Fridge

Blocks made by: members of Sew Buzzy and Bee Europa 2012-2013

Batting: 100% cotton

Size: 48" x 72"

Sewn together, quilted and finished by: me, Muriël

A big thank you to all my fellow bee members!!

Getting there

How is it going with my goal for March? It's going pretty well.

the quilt top, consisting of 24 blocks

I have all the elements of the quilt sandwich ready to be piled on top of eachother and to be basted and quilted and I have already made a roll of binding. I chose a solid colored fabric for that, because there are already so many prints in this quilt. 

blurry photo of the quilt back, made from leftover scraps and yardage, and a few old bee blocks

double fold binding ready to go

Today I want to do the basting. I'm going to use my quilting safety pins. I want to try basting with temporary glue in the future, but I couldn't get it right now.

 

 

 

Goal for March

A dilemma: two days ago the fabric for my February goal finally arrived (safe and sound with a tax billl attached to it; 18.90 euro, I hope the government will spend it well ;-) ), so I could just repeat that goal for March but I really had a different plan. I want to finish a quilt that the members of two of my bees made blocks for, my Converging Corners quilt. Sorry Pippi, you will have to wait a bit longer, first those corners will converge!

The blocks for the quilt I plan to finish were made by members of Bee Europa (in September) and of Sew Buzzy (in November). I have 24 blocks, so I could use a layout of 4 by 6 blocks, or I could make one more block and make a square quilt of 5 by 5. I will have to decide.

The block I made for myself

This is the tutorial for the blocks by Film in the Fridge. I sent out Kona Stone for the background and strips from my stash for the corners. Also I sent everyone a square from a charmpack for the center of the block. The charmpack is from Flora by Lauren and Jessi Jung for Moda Fabrics and I also used it for color inspiration in choosing my corner fabrics. 

The charms I sent out for the centers

The fabrics I chose from my stash for the corners

I am very excited to see this quilt come together. It shouldn't be that hard: all the blocks are 12.5" and they are all in the house. I also have enough batting and enough fabric to make a backing. I will have to think about how to quilt it, but I will not make it too hard on myself. Making the binding is one of my favorite things, so I can do that when I get burned out on tasks that are a bit boring or take very long.

I am linking to A Lovely Year of Finishes, of course! What have you got planned? 

Lone Star

I did finish something this month, but not the project I had planned for A Lovely Year of Finishes. Unfortunately my fabric still hasn't arrived, but I still have hope, because just last week I received a quilt block that had been traveling since December 6th. Still I would say normally I don't have any problems with the mail to and from the US.

Here is what I started and finished in February: a Scrappy Lone Star quilt.

Size: 32" x 40", so it's a midi quilt, not really mini, but not very big either. I could say baby quilt, but there aren't any babies here to use it.

For the star I used this tutorial on Better Off Thread. And then I added a bit of my own imagination to finish the quilt. I love the prairie points that look like bunting. The whole project reminds me of Easter and spring in general. I'm so happy we are heading towards a fresh new season!

I already know my project for March, and I even have all the neccesities in the house already. That quilt block that I talked about above was the last ingredient. I'll post about the new plan at the beginning of March.