Hopfaldera

Indian Blanket quilt

Yay, I have a finish! My Indian Blanket from the Angled class (an online class from Rachel of Stitched in Color) is all done now.

Here is a photo of my fabric choices for this quilt. I used several solids, some Botanics/Architextures and Cotton+Steel prints, some other basics from my stash. An AMH floral print and Cotton+Steel horses (not in the photo) add some interest.

 

A bit of planning with a color sheet from the class. For each row I made sure that the triangles pointing upwards were more prominent, so the other triangles would look like the background.

There was a lot of cutting involved for this quilt (all those triangles), but the method in the class made it as efficient as possible.

 The quilting was quite a heavy task. I quilted horizontal lines with varying distances in between, most in a light pink and some in a purply pink.

 

Here is the whole thing.

 

There are some leftover triangles on the back.

 

And here is the quilt rolled up. I made the binding with Doe fabric. It's a tiny triangle print, so I thought that was appropriate. The quilt is very warm and I'm looking forward to sitting under it on the couch this evening!

Goal for June

I'm back in the Lovely Finishes game. I skipped a few months because I had no time or secret goals that I couldn't reveal beforehand. This month's goal is also a secret project, but I don't think the recipients read my blog, so I'm safe :-)

I want to finish the Charm Pack Cherry quilt that I started a while ago. The pattern was free from the Fat Quarter Shop (including a cute video). I was all uncreative and used the same fabrics as Kimberly in the video, but I loved the look so much. Also I thought the colors would fit my recipients and their "we don't want to know if we're having a boy or a girl"-situation/frame of mind. 

I found the loveliest and best fitting backing for this quilt at the market in my town. It's from Stenzo, a Dutch brand of children's clothing fabric. The binding I still have to pick, but that's fun. First I need to baste the quilt sandwich, a hot job with the temperatures we're going to have in the coming days...

I'm linking to the June goal setting party of A Lovely Year of Finishes. I'm #100, cool!

Sugar Block February

I have made my Sugar Block Club block for February. This month the name and theme is Mercy.

I added yellow like I wanted to. And also a bit of sugar.

Remember last month's block, Intention?

Together they are sweet but not too sweet, I think. A bit of spice, I hope.

I already have fabric picked out for next month. There will be pink and yellow, and also some pastel blue. I can't wait to see if the fabrics go with the block...

About the actual sweet part of the club, the recipes: I have made the pumpkin pancakes from January twice already, delicious! I haven't tried the chocolaty yumminess from this month yet, but I will soon, the chocolate is in the house... 

 

Plan for February - alyof

February is a short month so I shouldn't pick a big project to finish this month. Or I should pick one that I should just start on without any procrastination. I'm picking the same one as last year February and that I didn't do because of fabric mailing problems: Finish the quilt top of my Pippi Longstocking quilt.

current status of the project

The blocks were made by the excellent members of the Cocorico bee in 2012, and are all themed around Pippi Longstocking, my favorite childrens' book character. They are wonderful blocks, so I don't want to keep them in my drawer unit any longer. The world (or at least part of it) should see them!

the awesome blocks

I'm starting with assembling the quilt top this month. I will probably assign finishing the quilt to another month.

I'm linking to the goalsetting post of A Lovely Year of Finishes for February.

 

Giveaway Day

 

***Comments closed! Winner will be announced shortly*** 

Yes, it is Giveaway Day once again, or actually Giveaway Week, as this giveaway (and all the others over at Sew Mama Sew) will be open all week for you to enter and try your luck!

What will I be sending to my lucky winner this time?

These are the goodies:

A metric fat quarter of alphabet fabric, a good size scrap of fairy tale deer fabric, washi tape with happy bunting, and a card that says Smile! These last two are from the Dutch department store HEMA (the HEMA, as we say). Do these look good to you? Then you'll want to read on.

What do you need to do to win?

It's simple: please leave a comment on this post, telling me your favorite color. Everyone can enter only one time, international entries welcome! On Friday the 13th of December (will it be you lucky day?) at 9 pm (my time here in The Netherlands) I will close the comments and let a random number generator choose the winner. Make sure you leave your email address in the comment form or in the comment, so I can contact you if you win!

It is not a requirement for winning this giveaway, but it would be great if you would visit my blog again. Please consider following me on Bloglovin'!

Good luck and Happy Holidays!!

The terrors

So then why don't you start right away on finishing that red and white quilt?

Because of the terrors, the scary stuff that creeps inside your head. Like: I worked on those blocks for 49 weeks and now they are going be ruined by:

-the layout of my sashing (the fear of going too modern for it to look good or too traditional for my own liking)

-the colors might run into one pink mess when I finally wash the quilt

-I won't be able to cut the fabric for the sashing straight and I'll have a pile of unusable scraps

So that's why I haven't started yet.

This is the design I decided on. I truly don't know if it'll work but I'm just going to do it. I can do some laying out on the floor before I sew everything together to check if it isn't horrible. So I think I have that fear covered.

I'm going to buy some super color catchers that looked amazing in the commercial (ha ha) so they should help me with that washing fear. Also I heard that the most important thing in preventing the running of colors is taking your quilt out of the washing machine right when the machine has finished. So no leaving it for a while. Stay at home, with your ear to the machine. I'll do that. (I always do that)

The last fear, well. I know I can cut straight enough. Maybe it won't be perfect but perfect enough is also really good. 

 

Just get on with it now!!

Plan for October

This is already the 10th goal I'm setting for myself in A Lovely Year of Finishes. And still I have enough UFO's to choose from. I hope we'll do this again in 2014, or otherwise I will just do it by myself (except I don't think it'll work as well if you're on your own).

This month I want to make a quilt top of my red and white Grandmother's Choice blocks (see them all in this Flickr set) I have made 49 blocks from tutorials by Barbara Brackman. I have white fabric and several shades of red solids to make sashing between the blocks. I haven't decided how to do the sashing though. So the first thing wil be to explore the possibilities a bit and decide what to do.

I'm linking to the October goal setting party.

Fabric for the Penny Sampler

One of my self-assigned tasks for this month is done. I chose fabric for the Penny Sampler I will be making in the coming months. 

I'm not really sure what I based my selection on. There are purples, teals, mustardy yellows, light cool colored solids, fluorescent pinks, bits of black and navy. I guess this is just what I like in general (purples) and what I envisioned for this Scandinavia-inspired project (a soft moody quilt with bits of very happy).

If you are in the Penny Sampler class you'll know about the fabrics that we are to pick first. My first picks are in the photo below.

I can't wait to work on this project with these fabrics!

Goal for June

A new month, a new goal. My goal for June in A Lovely Year of Finishes is to finish a quilt top comprised of blocks I received in a bee in 2011. The bee was Bee Europa 2011, the second round of Bee Europa. This month we are starting our fourth round, so I think it is time to finish the quilt from the second.

This is what the fabric looked like before I sent it to the bee members.

And these are the blocks (strips actually) that I got from everyone. They're wonderful aren't they. Here is a gallery to see most of them better.

The quilts from round 1 and round 3 are all finished and they're used regularly on our couch when we watch tv.  

My finished quilt from round 3

And my fnished quilt from round 1

So, what am I going to do to finish this quilt top? I want to add low volume print fabric or light colored solids to the ends of each strip to make them all equal in length. The dark green strip is a bit high so I will adjust that one a little. Then I will sew the strips together to form the quilt top. I will keep the rainbow order that I have in the photos. I might add a solid/low volume strip between some sections of strips. It will be a bit improv, so I'm curious how it will all turn out. 

I'm linking to the goal setting party for June. 

Two skirts finished

Woohoo, I completed my goal for May and just finished not only one but two skirts for this summer! 

It wasn't easy because I had to make adjustments to my selfmade pattern while I was sewing to make the skirts fit better and I kept having anxiety about the whole process. The only reason they are finished today is because I set the goal to finish them before the end of May. I'm happy they're done! And they fit! And I love them both!!

Some details: I made two a-line skirts with zippers in the back. I made my own custom pattern using Sew What! Skirts. The feather fabric is from Field Study linen/cotton blend by Anna Maria Horner. That skirt has a red zipper. The blue flower fabric is from Stenzo (Dutch brand) and I got it at the market last year. That one has a blue zipper. Both skirts have a facing at the top that I made 6 inches high (twice as high as the book says) to make the skirts feel less floppy (I mean you feel like you're wearing a serious piece of clothing instead of just some fabric around the waist). 

To celebrate I edited my photos in Pixlr today. As you can see, these are my skirts for 2013. There aren't going to be any more skirts this year. It's back to quilts again for me. There is just less anxiety that they have to fit...

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