A piece of quilt

I just practiced a bit more in stippling and found a good way to get it smoother and be more relaxed while sewing: I did draw the stippling pattern on paper a few times so I got a better "flow" of the pattern! That worked pretty good and the finished scraps are fairly satisfying!

After that I decided to finish the piece up and put a binding on! I got this huge piece of non bleached cotton fabric at Ikea and took a good strip off it to make a binding for my quilted piece! So before I go on binding a finished project, I'll definitely have to practice!! Doesn't look very nice, but when I think about it while writing this, it's not so bad, considering I just started sewing a few weeks ago and this beeing my first piece!

Practiced stippling!

It's awesome! Can't wait to practice more! Once I get in the groove and stop worrying it suddenly gets easy and smooth!
I think I'm gonna stipple the whole project #2, cause it will really suit the scrappy look! Until then, I'll try to practice some more!

A free motion session

First thing I've gotta say is: I'm posting this from my iPhone, so again, the pictures probably won't be in the right order.

Tonight I sewed my pieces of project #2 all together and I'm very pleased with what came out. It's about the size of a baby quilt and maybe that's what it's gonna be..? The scrappy look makes it very modern and really hides my bad sewing skills ;-)

Satisfied with that, I decided to clean my machine and change the foot! And while I was in the mood I decided to just go for it and try the free motion quilting! YEAH! Was sooo excited! Of course the piece looks awful but I still kinda like the look it gives the material! Rome wasn't built in a day, right? I really need a few hours to practice though! But it was so much fun!!!! Next thing to do is take some of my bed sheets that I don't use anymore and make a few sandwiches to practice on! In the meantime I will really have to finish my tops!

I have so many ideas for patterns and styles in my head! Only the lack of time is stopping me!!! So the artist in me is finally back! She has been slumbering inside me while getting stupid on layouting magazines and ads... I feel so good doing this!

Of course I know that quilting in the US has some great tradition and most people learned it from their mom or family! My mom never quilted, I doubt she had ever heard of it, nor have I learned sewing from her.

But why not start a tradition??? I have the feeling that quilting is gonna be the next big thing, just like knitting has become popular again a few years ago! I just always thought quilts have to look all old fashion and have to be in their traditional patterns! Wrong! It is a craft that has modern styles just as in painting! What ever you like!

You see I'm overly excited about this!
Happy crafter I am !

So I'm gonna let you go!

Happy crafting to you!

A little step forward

I finally worked on my project again! Also my open foot arrived, but I haven't had the time to try it yet. Just wish I had more time. I don't want to start practicing and then having to stop when I'm starting to get into it... Oh well. The day will come!

The good news is, that my little one will start daycare in July, which means I will have a few hrs in the morning to do some work.

Back to my project!
So this is how it looked like before I started on it again:

I cut it in two pieces and picked out some fabric to go with it. I really loved the pink tiger pattern! So I decided to make a big center piece of it and frame it in pink.

This is what came out. I love it! Would actually make a good table top, but I think it's gonna be a lap size quilt for the couch!

I think I'll frame it in a dark purple and bind it with white! Be free to make comments and suggestions!

Also I made a sketchbook for patterns and notes! Look at that!

Unfortunately the blogger app on the iPhone doesn't give me the choice to place photos within the text, so they are all in the end and not even in order :-(

Since I hardly ever start my computer I find the app very comfortable so I can just take the pictures with my phone and post them. Just not very happy with the layout. Can't have everything!

Now I hope I will soon have a few hours to start quilting and finish my projects. Or at least one!

Happy crafting!

My very First Project

Finally I'm finding the time to start serious writing on my new blog. Freestyle Quilting is kind of a working titel, but will probably stay like that... 

I am the mother of two girls (11mths and 3 yrs) so you can imagine how hard it is to find the time to work on my projects and also to keep this blog up to date. We live in a suburb of Munich, Germany, but still I decided to write this blog in English to reach more people and also keep my English Speaking friends up to date. So please forgive me if my grammar, spelling and vocabulary is a bit weird sometimes. 

In this post I would like to tell you why I started patchworking and will tell you my first experiences with the sewing machine:

After spending a three week vacation in the United States, I got fascinated on the subject "quilting". In fabric stores and at magazine stands it seemed to me there is talk about quilting everywhere. So when I came back I started watching youtube tutorials and bought myself a book about quilting and found myself really drawn into the subject. Actually I got really excited about this and decided I wanted to try this. 

I have had my moms Sewing Machine for years now, after she had died, but had never used it. At Art School I had a sewing class almost 20 years ago, but I never really liked it. So my first struggle was to get to know the machine and find out how to adjust the yarn... tough one. For hours I didn't get the bottom thread to come up with the needle... haha. But in the end I managed it!

In Germany you hardly find Quilting Stores like in the US and UK! It took some reasearch and I found this really cute Shop Downtown Munich (actually just around the corner where I used to live, but never recognized it, since I just never was interested in fabric and Texitle-Arts). The shop is called "Quilt et Textilkunst" (Quilt and Textile Arts, www.quiltundtextilkunst.de/) and has a Gallery with Quilt-Exhibitions and offers workshops. Unfortunately I missed the "Beginners" Class, but will try to get in in September. 

When searching the Net for Tutorials I found the one on "Jelly Roll Race". Which really amazed me and I thought it would be a great jump-start project. You can buy moda-Jelly Rolls on German Webstores, but they were a bit too expensive so I almost gave up. But then I stepped into the Shop (Quilt et Textilkunst) and found, they made their own jelly rolls of left over fabrics in matching colours and styles! So I bought two of them as you can see on the picture.

So I started my very first jelly roll race, without thinking about anything, just sew sew sew, as shown in the tutorial:.

I was soooo excited, and had a lot of fun doing it. Of course my bottom thread ran out like two times, but that was good for me practicing to change it. And pull the thread up with the needle hehe.

At the end, of course the sewing wasn't perfect but the piece of fabric that came out of that little jelly roll was just so pretty:

The only thing I was a bit disappointed about was, that the piece turned out very long and thight, which you can't see on the picture. The reason is simple. That jelly roll from the shop only had 22 strips, while the moda jelly roll, as shown in the tutorial has 42! So I set the piece aside, for I hadn't decided what to do with it, to start another jelly roll project.

I have to admit, that I'm not a big "thinker" when it comes to planning things. I am the kind of artist that just takes the brush and adds colour without knowing what will come out. That's maybe why I like to call this "freestyle quilting".

So for the second Jelly Roll, I took another tutorial and sew sets of 4 strips together, this time I was not taking the strips as they come off the roll, but tried to match them together. After that I cut them in blocks and laied two different blocks right sides together, but one vertical and one horizontal and sewed all around. After pressing I cut them in a 45° Angle into four pieces and pressed them again. This is what came out:

Isn't that totally awesome?? And it was all done so quickly! I'm getting so excited about that! That's why I started this blog! I just have to share my excitement. Of course I sewed one block together wrong, but I'll just have to see what I'll do once I get futher with this project.

The last few weeks I have bought some fabric to have a little stock of material, washed and pressed it and I'll see what turns out of these two jelly roll projects. I'll keep you posted on that!

Last week I bought this little ironing Board at Ikea so I can press my pieces on my desk now. Isn't that cute? It was only a couple of Euros!! 

So this is how my little sewing station looks like now!

Yesterday I have finally ordered an open foot for freehand quiting and a large piece of batting. I still haven't decided which of the two projects to finish first so it will take a while till I can get started on the quilting. But I am already very excited about it!

Okay, that's it for today! I'm gonna go and get some rest and I'll keep you posted on my projects!

Happy Crafting!

Finished knitting Project

I have finally finished my knitting project that I've been working on since march! It's a baby blanket for my little niece, that will be born this July. With that finished I am ready to work more on my patchwork projects.

First post

Hi! I only recently startet quilting. Well, actually I havent quiltet at all - yet! But I have made some Patchwork pieces which I'm about to quilt.
To share my excitement I have decided to start this blog and will soon start typing in how I got into quilting, and how I started to work on my first projects and what I had to struggle with.
So watch out for my posts within the next few days!
Happy Crafting!