Frustration - Tears - and two finished Baby Quilts

Argh. I do not know where I sould start this post. A week has past since I quilted the Snowball-Quilt for my Godson in Canada. It was some frustrating day!!

But lets start with pictures of the Lemon Fresh Summer Quilt. That was an easy, but still very pretty looking quilt to do. I LOVE the pattern that I used on the free motion quilting! I really should have used an all over pattern for the Snowballquilt as well... But you're always smarter after...

Okay. No words, just pictures:
The Lemon Fresh Summer Baby Quilt for my friend Sarah's nephiew!

 I am not writing this post as the things actually happend. I quilted the Lemon Fresh Summer Quilt a few days after finishing the Snowball Quilt. The quilting of this one above really lifted me up again and draged me out of a very strong frustration in quilting.

Lets start with these pictures of my designing a pattern for the snowball quilt:

I used tissue paper to draw my design. This picture also shows the backing and my thread I was gonna use

On my "Test-Sandwich" everything worked just fine and really liked how the little paw turned out!

 Thread and Design ready, I was keen to start quilting. I made my sandwich and got my machine ready. Both my kids were taken care of and I had a full 6 hrs for myself and I was very confident that I'd be able to finish the quilting. I did. but I was very frustrated at the end of the day...

I was confident, but in the first few blocks I did really bad. Just as I started to "get in the flow" the bobbin ripped. NOOOO! After getting everything back in place! The tension was off! NOOO! After getting that fixed, the top thread ripped! NOOOO. I was struggeling and struggeling. Don't know what was wrong with my machine, but it just kept bothering. The terrible thing is, that I just never really got into a good flow in free motion, so most of the pattern looks kind of... I don't know... just messed up :-(

Then I started to quilt the border. I did fine, but I struggled with "going down" with the quilt. I just had to stop every 8 inches or so and everytime I started again, it would make this horrible corner.. I just decided to do the wavey line over and over until it didn't show so much anymore. Thank goodness the paws turned out just fine! I think the reason is, that I am really good in round patterns... That's why the lemon fresh quilt turned out so pretty.
Anyhow here the pictures:

I did get by and I am not so frustrated about the quilting anymore. I really like the look of the quilt in whole now! And it is soo sooooft! I love the moda fabric! It feels so nice! Perfect for a baby!

Next, I made my first Quilt-Label. I decided to stich it and I wrote down the words with this blue pen, that will fade by washing. Now instead of washing that out before putting the binding on, I binded and then realized: "Oh no, the pen still shows! I'm just gonna put it in the washing machine, cause it needs to be washed anyhow, since it's gonna be a babyquilt." Ahem. Have I mentioned I pre wash my fabric??? STUPID ME!!!!!

So this is what made me cry...

The seams on the outline ripped open! You cannot believe how I hated myself and how frustrated and discouraged I felt. I took a seat in front of the TV one night and sewed it all back together by hand.

I do not have to mention I am a really bad hand stitcher...

I got the quilt ready. It looks just beautiful and I am sure my Godson will love it and his lovely parents will appreciate my work!

It will go in the mail tomorrow.

You see, I am going through ups and downs, but I am not letting these frustrating moments discourage me. I still love doing the patchwork and the quilting! Quilting is terribly addicting! It totally changed my life and the way I look at thinks (I think in blocks and doodles now ;-)

I hope you enjoyed this post and watch out, there is more to come! There's a new project on it's way! It's gonna be a Full Size Quilt this time!

Until then! Happy Crafting!

Lemon Fresh Summer Babyquilt!

I had to quickly decide on a quilt design for a baby! My friend Sarah wanted me to make a quilt for her sisters baby boy, who was born early this morning! I just bought striped fabric at Ikea that I already had in mind, but wasn't sure of what to do with it.

I decided to make a stripy tube technique, cheating a little with sewing strips together, but just cutting off striped squares. It was more of a test, but it actually worked as planned! Wow! I made this in about 20 minutes!!!

I named it Lemon Fresh Summer Quilt cause the colors really look fresh and lemonade like!

So that's a quick in between project.

Having that finished by the weekend, I hope my yard of "Max and Whiskers" for my snowballquilt arrives! So I can start quilting that one. I have made some sketches on quilting ideas... Will have to make a test with tracing paper. So that'll be my first quilting design.

Good night quilters! Dream of Blocks and Doodles! ;-)

promised Photos of the Owel Quilt

Busy Bee

A short note tonight:
I finished the little circle quilt and will post the photos in a view days! I need to get them from camera to computer, and as written in an earlier post: I hardly ever start my laptop...

So here's a view iPhone pics of the quilting process and also some new pics of the snowball quilt, from which the top is almost finished!

Good night!

Update on my Projects

Okay. I'm a really lazy blogger! I know. I just had to spend my time sewing and sometimes I even clean up the house ;-)

BUT I was pretty busy. I'm gonna drown in Quilt Tops now!
I haven't finished the Barbie Top, but started to sew the rows together.
In addition I have started a snowball quilt of a moda Charm Pack "Max and Whiskers", which is very cute. It is going to be a little Baby Quilt for my Godson who lives in Canada. He has been a really bad sleeper lately, so I decided to make a quilt for him in order to make him sleep better. I know it's gonna work, cause by the time he gets it, he'll be back to sleeping good. LOL.

As you can see on the bottom picture, I saved all the littel triangles that came off the blocks and sewed them into little squares and I might just make a border of it. 

 

I hope I can finish this quilt and get it in the mail to go to Canada soon! It is definately NOT gonna be a Christmas present ;-)

The reason why that little Quilt is gonna have to wait a while is this:

I went on a workshop on sewing Circles and this is what came out of it! Isn't it totally cute? When I look at it I can hardly believe I did this. But the tecniqhe with Freezer Paper is actually very easy! At first I wanted to do the beginner's workshop at "Quilt et Textilkunst", my new favourit store!

But we'll be on vacation that weekend and since I really, REALLY wanted to go on one of their workshops, I decided to just sign into "Circles", although I thought I might be to much of a beginner for this one. Nope! I did just fine! It was great talking to other Quilters and sharing the passion. For sure I will participate another workshop asap!

So here's a few pictures of making the blocks:

Now I have sewed all the pieces togehter and made a sample-sandwich to practice the quilting, 

that I want to make on the actual Quilt:

I just looped around the circle and I actually just made the circles around the inner circle, cause I really messed up stichin in the ditch, but I actually like it, so I might do that on the three inner Circles on the large blocks.

Before I do this I will definately practice a bit mor on little pieces to get into the flow. Now that I have so many tops finished (soon) I can get into Quilting. Maybe I will participate the workshop on free motion quilting. 

I got myself a sketchbook and when my brain is full and needs a pause I just skribble around and make patterns. I even practiced the feather a few times. It's gonna take a looooong time of practicing before I'll be able to do that on the machine! But I'm confident.

Her a few of my sketches:

And now the latest big news: I got an old sewing-machine of the 50s for free! 

It's gorgeous and I think the machine actually works. But my plan is to build in my machine, 

so I have the large space to do my quilting:

Okay, that was it for now! I'll keep you posted! Until then: Happy Crafting!

My First Quilt

I finished a Quilt! I'm very excited and a bit proud of what I've accomplished! Thinking that I haven't sewn before, and now doing free motion stippling on the machine is pretty amazing!

After finishing the top of the quilt, which by the way is going to be a birth present for my friends baby girl that is due in August, I realized that I have a large enough piece of the tiger pattern fabric left to make a cool backing! Wow! Just love that fabric! Looks so cool!
So I went ahead and quilted! Because I was a bit afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle the whole piece stippelng free motion, I decided to just stipple the pinwheel blocks! I stitched in the ditch across the diagonals to stabilize the quilt and stippled after that!

Looks pretty nice, although afterwards I think I should have just stippled the whole piece, because the quilt isn't that big and also I really felt comfortable with the free motion technique, once I was in the "groove"!

In the end I made a white binding, which turned out o.k. So all that's left to do is labeling the quilt! I'm waiting for the baby to be born, cause I want her birthdate and name on it!

In the meantime I was a busy bee and started a new project, that is slightly bigger than the last one and is again a tube-technique with this awesome "Barbie" fabric! Could become another birth gift..

And last but not least, I have worked on my first project and framed it with the dark purple.

Enjoy the pictures and happy crafting!