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!

Plan for tonight? No sewing!

Here is my finished random reflections quilt! Tonight I will just cuddle under my quilt, enjoy a cup of tea and read "the hunger games-catching fire" :-)
But to you: happy crafting!

Update on Stars and my very first pattern design!

You might have noticed that quilting has changed my life completely. Although I will go back to work as a graphics designer in January, I decided I wanna start a career in quilting as well. And although it may sound strange, me being a beginner, I will give a beginners patchwork class in April 2013 at our local craft school. Yay! All I want to do is spread the joy of quilting and that's how I'll start!

So besides working on my stars (I completed ALL the stars and joined them together) I have also worked on my very first design for a quilt pattern using HSTs and squares only. Check out the pictures of the process! And I have just sewed the first two test blocks. I wanted to go for solid colors so the contrast of the pattern shows really well, but the students should interpret that block with their own style of fabrics! Can't wait! After playing with colors I decided to go for the strongest contrast there is: black and white!

I am so excited about this! I just hope that enough students sign in, so it doesn't get cancelled!

Anyways. The pick up sticks is my next challenge to quilt! I have baught backing and bating and found a cool design on a ikea fabric that would go great with the piecing!

Enjoy the pics, and happy crafting!

Twinkle twinkle Little Stars

I have completed more than 2/3 of the stars! Woohoo! So I might actually finish it before December!

I could really need a warm quilt right now. We had like 20 cm of snow last weekend and I'm freezing!

Although I must seem to have enough of stars, I have made an additional star (actually made two of those).

The secret behind this special blue star will be revealed on Christmas!

Happy crafting!

A month has past

It's been a month since my last post. A lot has happend. I have been on vacation with my family (no sewing for 2 weeks AND I made it ;-) I read 2 Books instead...

My last post ended with two finished Baby Quilts, and I will start this one by telling you about my two (!!) large Quilts I have started, both for my Couch! Yes, finally I am making a Quilt for myself.

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I have been surfing through a lot of Blogs on quilting and found this awesome QAL (Quilt Along) "Oh my Stars"

I found that every QAL has a Logo that you can put on your blog to provide the link to the orignial page. But since I am totally new in blogging and still haven't had the time to deal with this program I have no Idea, how to do that and am just hoping this Link above is working.

This QAL just caught my interest and after reading and going through the tutorials I decided it was about time to make a full size Quilt for myself. Days have become cooler and since Christmas is just around the corner I decided to make a Xmas Version of Oh my Stars and will name it Oh my Xmas Stars. (Not very creative, I know). I ordered some Christmas Fabric and made my first stars, and they turned out really nice. Although I am not a very accurate sewer, everything fit together just fine! Awesome! The tutorials are so clear and step by step, anyone could do this!

So here's my first Star :-)

YAY! I think it's awesome ;-)
And after making a few stars each size, I started cutting more fabric at the time, so I would have a bunch of stars to start with. I am not the kind of quilter that cuts a few days, sewes a few hours and presses for a loooong time. Instead I like changing the routine.

http://thoughtandfound.wordpress.com/oh-my-stars/