A Birthday Quilt

Yesterday was my girl's fourth birthday and I did finish her walk in the woods quilt! It turned out really sweet, I'm just a little disappointed it turned out so small. I thought that using 2 charm packs would be enough. It wasn't. But next time I use precuts on a quilt I will surely calculate how much I need at the beginning. I would have just ordered more fabric, but it was already too late. I wouldn't have finished it on time if I had. Also it is moda fabric and ordering that over here is so expensive and of course over sea I would have to wait a long time and nobody I knew was recently traveling over there.

I quilted it with a bit thicker thread than usually and I quite like the look of it. No real free motion quilting on this one. I didn't have any planned cause I saw a chevron design like this quilted like that.

My girl really loves it! She's been waiting for her rotkäppchendecke (red riding hood quilt) for so long ;-)

I also made her the little draw string bag for her p.e. clothes at day care. She loves that one too and I need to make another one for her filly ponies... Are those popular anywhere else than Germany? They even replaced hello kitty.....


Another post will be done soon, for of course: I have started another quilt... :-)

Also I am waiting for my host-mom to get my new quilt block for our little project, so I can post the pictures of creating that, as well!

Until then, happy crafting to all of you!

HST Attack!

I came across this Tutorial on how to get 8 Half Square Triangles (HSTs) out of 2 Fabric Squares. I adapted the Idea and made it 18 (!) HSTs. I used 7,5'' Squares and endet up with little 2'' HSTs! You could get 2,5'' ones if you started using a 9'' Piece to start with. If my calculation is right (and you should really check that, cause I am really bad in Math) you should get 3,5'' HSTs by using a 12'' Square.

Using this method you can just add squares and get even more finished HSTs. For example, if you divided the length by 4 (with a 12'' Square you'd have four 3'' elements in 4 Rows) you would get: 32 !!!! HSTs! WOWOWOWOW! Isn't that the coolest Method?

Imagine, you could use a very large piece and make larger Squares and get the Elements for a whole quilt-top in only one Sewing Session! Cool, huh? I'm going to try that someday with maybe 4 solids!

Before I do, I will finish my Walk in the Woods quilt. There's only one row left to be sewn and then I'll start quilting.

Enjoy this Tutorial.
Happy Crafting!

Here are my two 7,5'' Fabric squares, right sides together.

Next step would be drawing these lines. I divided 7,5 by 3 and got 2,5'' and this is where I drew the vertical and horizontal lines. After that I drew the HST Lines for each square like shown in the picture. These will be the line you will follow using a 1/4'' seam.

Sewing along the lines is really fun!

This is how the sewn piece looks like. I made two and am showing the black side to get a better view of the sewing!

Next thing you do is cut out the squares you drew in the beginning.

Now you have your Sewn HST Elemts that you just cut between the Sewing lines!

Here you go!

18 HST elements in only 10 Minutes. of course the pressing takes a little longer :-)

I proudly present....

... The Oh my XMAS Stars Quilt. I finally had time to put the binding on! That was some work.

Right now it is my grand masterpiece! The quilting was so much work on my little machine! I can hardly believe I got it finished!

Here are the pictures! Even if Christmas has been over for a while, we had enough snow to get a perfect presentation for the quilt-photos! Luckily, since the snow is melting away now. You can now find all of my quilting-pics on flickr , too!

I think even folded it looks beautiful!

I really like this nested star!

Me all wraped up in the quilt.

The Quilt in it's full view 

Also this Chevron Star
is one of my favorites

Beauty-Shot of the Quilting.
I did loops only. I tried some creative quilting
on the large stars and did loops inside the dark parts
of all the Windmill-Stars, as you can see on this picture 

I think the nested Stars
are the most beautiful!
Here with the JOY line from moda.

This is my Backing! The fabric wasn't wide enough so
I added the White strip with the large red star.

AND very exciting: My US-Mom's Block arrived! Remember the Icy Star Block I made and sent her for christmas? Now she has made the next Block. She says it's called Star in a Star! Lovely!!! I like like like the Block so much: She used different Background fabric in white, with butterflies on it to remind me of the town I used to live with them! Your guess!

Cheryl's Star in a Star on the left,
and my nested Star on the right! I'm soooo excited!!!

Also she has been using fabric from an old shirt and a sheet. I so much love this idea, that I have to rethink my fabric choice for my turn of a block! I'm not gonna say anything on this blog for now, since it must be a surprise! But I already found cute fabric which has kind of a meaning!

Right now I am very busy moving stuff from one room to the other because the kids will get a new bed and the larger room. This means many boxes are in my sewing room, not leaving me a lot of creative space, but enough to get some sewing done. I will have to finish my girl's quilt by March so I better get going ;-)

I will do and to you too: Happy crafting!

Following quilters rule #1: Never Finish a quilt before starting a new

I had to start a new quilt before finishing "oh my stars"! I can proudly say that that one is almost completed! I will post pictures asap!

My new project is a quilt with lots of love! It will be for my daughter who turns 4 in a few weeks. I baught a charm pack of modas "a walk in the woods" which is very cute. In addition with solid white charms I made all HSTs last night and will iron them and lay them out this weekend. My plan is a chevron design.

Since my kids will move into a bigger room we bought them a bunk bed and it will arrive around birthday. So what could be a better present than a quilt for a new bed?

Here a few pics and more to come!

Happy crafting!

I put the squares right sides together and drew a 1/4'' line from the center from both sides.

I chainpieced the squares, following my markings

I looove chainpiecing. It is so meditative! Seriously, I totaly relax doing this. And I love the look of the finished chain!

I cut them apart with scissors. I could do that watching TV lol

I added this picture of my HST Layout yesterday. Whatcha think? I'm a bit disapointed the quilt turns out so small. I expected it to be bigger, using two charm packs. Oh well. Gonna make a large border then.

Pillow Case

The contracts from the school where I will be teaching beginners patchwork have arrived. It made me think about how to organize the class and what to teach. The class will start with a 2 hr workshop and actually I had planned to just make it kind of a show, showing a technique using jelly rolls and the students would be able to start the project but possibly not finish it. My friend who likes to be one of the students, suggested to maybe think of a little project, that is quick and can be finished within the time. She said that the students would be more excited and more likely to enroll for the following class if they had a finished project to take home and be proud of. I totally had to agree. So in my mind it was all about patchwork again.

So I came up with a design for a pillowcase using 7 jelly roll strips. I tested the timing and think that it could actually be finished within 2 hrs. All depending on how intense the quilting of the piece will be. I really wanted to make a project of jelly roll strips, for it saves us the cutting time and I will be able to provide a set of jelly rolls that the students can work with.

I used the technique I used for my very first quilt, but used 7 strips instead of just 4.

The calculation was a bit tough, because I was using the measurement of an IKEA pillow, that anyone will be able to afford. The size is 20"x20". It took me a while to figure out how I could calculate the number of strips I would need for the project.

I quilted an all over print on the design with clear thread. After that, I just took an equal size square and sewed it all around the quilted sandwich. Then turned it around, stuffed in the pillow and closed the hole by machine. That was really quick and easy. I really can't wait to show my students this awesome technique!

Here the pictures!

Happy crafting!

UFO vs The Host

Simply having a wonderful Christmas time!

I have been enjoying our family Christmas vacation the last two weeks. My hubby was home and I got the chance to go out see friends and see some movies in a theatre and we have been celebrating with family and friends....

This also means there was no sewing at all!

There still was a bit of quilting in my life: I got Maggie Malone's 5500 patchwork blocks for Christmas!! So my head is full of new ideas!

And also the secret off my winter star block has to be revealed: it was a special Christmas gift to my host mom in California who actually was the reason I started quilting. She had encouraged me to try sewing! So thanks a lot Cheryl! Love ya!

The sewed block included a long letter on how thankful I am for her encouragement and an offer, if she wanted to make a sampler quilt with me. The plan is that through the year 2013 each of us sews a block twice and keep one and send one to the other. So at the end of the year (depending on our discipline ;-)) we would both have a quilt that was made by both of us!! I think it is a great project of love!!! By that we will also be forced to keep in touch more frequently. I think writing old fashioned letters makes us spend more time thinking about what we write and be more emotional about it than by email or posting on Facebook ect...
How do you like the idea?
We talked on Skype on Christmas Day and I am pretty sure, Cheryl liked it!

What's left now is an UnFinished(pr)Object of Stars and I'm having a hard time getting back to it, since Christmas is over and the quilt will have no use until next season..
My hubby's out tonight and I had a rough choice: UFO or "the host". I decided to relax a few more days until the routine comes back next Monday.

Tomorrow is the last day of our vacation and also the 10th anniversary of my moms death. I will be thinking of her tonight and although it was her sewing machine that got me into quilting, I decided on staying on the couch cause we also shared a strong love for books! Wonder if she would have liked the twilight books. She loved Harry Potter and read the first 3 books when she already suffered from cancer. This might sound sentimental, but when book 4 came out my thoughts when reading it were with my mom and if she would like it. I'm sure where she is now, she knows all the endings of the fictions of good and bad.. My love goes out into the universe tonight! I love you!

Still, happy crafting to you!

Did I say December?

No way I'm getting the star quilt finished - ever!!!! I totally underestimated the quilting of this huge quilt.. The heavy quilt is giving me a hard time on my little Pfaff Varimatic.... Unfortunately I have decided, and started to first outline ALL the stars (as if I had forgotten how many there were...). This is not even close to finished. After about outlining 1/4 of the quilt I started free motion quilting swirls a bit, just so I wouldn't get bored. It looks really good and the stars pop out neatly.

The struggle already started when basting the sandwich together. It took almost the space of the whole living room, as you see on the picture.

The backing fabric is starry as well. I couldn't resist :-) but since it was not wide enough, I just sewed one last star and made a strip on one side. I like it. Do you?

Well, right now I am very busy with stuff that I need to get organized before going back to work. Also I'm on a business workshop the next few days, so really... The star quilt might have to wait a bit longer... Although I still wish it to be ready within this advent.

I'm exhausted, but to you happy crafting!