A finish.

The last couple of weeks I have been patiently working away on hand quilting my Dresden Chain Quilt. I finished that around two weeks ago. The next day I sewed the remaining jelly roll strips I used for the Irish Chain together to make a scrappy binding. After hand quilting for such a long time sewing on the binding went so incredibly fast. The moment I snipped the final thread I couldn't believe that I was actually finished.

I didn't wash it right away. I was still contemplating whether or not to quilt around each of the Dresden Plates. Until I made that decision the quilt was put into good use by everyone of us. Both Elmo and Mathilda love my quilts. They are the ultimate comfy space to take a good 6 hour nap. Elmo prefers to sleep on top of them, Mathilda prefers under. In the evening when Mr. A and I watch an episode of Dexter or two, we both snuggled up under it, because although summer is finally here (thank god the rain is finally over. I'm still praying for all the victims of the flood all over Germany) our apartment is wonderfully cold.

Two days ago I finally told myself, that I'm either going to wash it the next day or hand quilt it immediately. I settled for hand quilting. It took me three hours total to quilt around all six of them and now that it's finally finished and washed and dried regret not quilting the final bit a little earlier. It just adds the final touch the quilt was missing the whole time and it looks wonderful on the back.

When it was hanging on the clothes line to dry yesterday I called for Mr. A and made him look at it. "Looks nice." he said. "Finally done with it?" And I nodded. "And I have to admit I'm damn proud of it."

Because I am. It's my favorite quilt so far. And Mathilda's too.

What I've been up to.

So, I have not blogged for a while. Shame on me. Not that anybody reads this, but I had plans on documenting the things I make. And I failed, because I crafted a lot the past 2 months.

First up, I made my Chevron Quilt Top. I cut 42 10" squares out of white yardage and then, using the Missouri Star Quilt co. method, I pieced my quilt top. I had a few troubles at first with the layout, but after a few hours sitting on the floor and rearranging I finally settled on a way to sew this up.
I plan on using the Polar Fleece that I have left over from my mother's quilt for the backing, but the top ended up being a few inches wider than the fleece, so I have to order some more. But that has to wait.
Oh, and excuse the crappy photo. I was balancing on the edge of the couch on one leg to get all of it in the frame. Well, most of it.

I also tried my hand on FMQ my Dresden Chains Quilt and failed miserably again. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but instead of letting it sit for weeks again like I did with my Swoon Quilt, I picked it up a week later and started hand quilting it. And it's so much fun and relaxing. I quilt  around the chain and plan on echoing the Dresden Plates in a coordinating color. I don't use pearl cotton, instead I use some very thick cotton sewing thread that my mother gave me for my birthday in 6 colors. I didn't know what I could use it for, because it's too thick for my sewing machine, but it works perfectly for hand quilting. Right know I am halfway done with echoing the chain and I'm still enjoying it. Obviously, Mathilda is enjoying it too. It's not that she's very big, actually the hoop is just small. Mathilda is tiny. People often ask me how old she is and whether she still grows.

I also started a new quilt this week. As everyone else I have fallen in love with all the lines and patterns from Bonnie & Camille. Unfortunately this month there is no spare change left to buy me some Happy Go Lucky, but I thought I would give a new pattern from Camille a try. I love her pattern Round & Round and figured that I could try it out in a two color version. So I ordered some bright red fabric, purchased the pattern and started cutting. I cut all 295 pieces in one evening. I'm not a big fan of cutting, so I am glad I have it behind me now. Of course with every block there is some trimming to do, but at least I don't have to sit down and cut the fabric for each and every block by itself.
When I laid the block out at first I was a bit worried that the pattern wouldn't show up as pretty because I just used solid red and white, but after piecing it together it looks beautiful. Since I haven't worked on my Farmer's Wife Quilt at all after making the first two blocks, which I want to make in reds and whites as well, I think this one here will look pretty amazing around christmas. I just love red and white quilts. Or blue and white. Guess that's what's next on my to-do-list. And remembering not to leave my blocks on the table overnight when it rains. Thanks kitties.

The weather here started to skip spring and jump right into summer last month. This weekend though it feels like November has hit us hard. Two weeks ago though the weather was beautiful and Mr. A and I spent every afternoon in our local park with a homemade salad and a good book. The park is quite big and obviously it's full of people, but thanks to a lot of trees and different levels we can enjoy a little privacy with the cute little bunnies and squirrels that hop around there.

One day back then I bought some rhubarb when I went grocery shopping.
Mr. A isn't very picky with food but I knew he doesn't like rhubarb. I however grew up with rhubarb in summer. My mother made this awesome rhubarb cake, rhubarb jam, rhubarb soup etc. I had a lot of apples lying around so I thought I would give apple rhubarb sauce a try. And it was delicious! Even Mr. A loved it and ate more than half of it. I have to admit, I patted myself on the shoulder for that.

 I enjoyed it with some homemade Falafel for Lunch.

 Like I've said above we spent every day in the park with some salad. The most delicious one I made that week was hands down the warm pasta salad. I ate the leftovers the next day and the flavors were even better. I really need to make this one again soon.

And just because they rock my world. Those two really love my Swoon Quilt.

Dresden Chains.

Yesterday I finished my Dresden Plate/ Irish Chain quilt top. I think it turned out quite amazing. I am loving all those white spaces and the pretty little Dresden Flowers. I don't know what took me so long in the end. The blocks have been sewn together for ages now, I just had to make a few more nine patches for the chain border around. I am not so fond of cutting, mainly because I still haven't bought new blades for my rotary cutter, boo me. Cutting is just not any fun when you have to use your whole bodyweight to get through the fabric. 

I initially thought about adding a final small white border all the way around, but then decided to leave it this way. I think it is big enough for now. I haven't measured yet. It is all pressed and folded up nicely, waiting to get quilted. I think I will try FMQ again on this one. I really want to. And I think a loose loopy or stipple design in the white spaces around the dresden flowers would look amazing and really make them pop. I just hope my sewing machine and thread and needle and foot and whatnot will play along and not mess everything up again as it did with my Swoon Quilt. 

I am still not sure what to use for the back though. I want something with a floral print, and it does not need to be out of any of the lines I used, which are Vintage Modern and Marmalade as well as Millie's Closet, since I will most probably need to buy and let them be shipped internationally, which really adds up for a few yards. Probably I will hit up the German version of etsy and look if I find something cute. 

I also have a lot of strips left over from the Millie's Closet Jelly Roll, which are perfect for a scrappy binding to round things of. But before I dream of binding I have to find a backing fabric I like and get over my fear of free-motion quilting.

 I am stuck with a bad cough right now. No sniffing, no headache, not a real cold. Just deep, heavy, aching cough. I sound like a dog, my voice is scratchy and I don't sleep that well at night because I am constantly coughing. I am drinking tea like crazy, but it didn't get any better so far. Oh well, nothing suits this never ending snow outside more than a really bad cough.

An old one.

When I was taking photos of my Swoon Quilt yesterday it hit me that I never properly photographed the other quilt that is living on my sofa.

It's a hexagon string quilt. I found this great tutorial over on this blog called The Tin Whistle and fell in love with her quilt. It looks so happy and busy and I love the colors! I ordered some scrap bags, since I needed the strips to be the WOF. I never would have put those prints together in a quilt initially, but it turned out rather beautiful. I love the scrappy look of it.

It was the first quilt I made for me and my fourth quilt ever. I quilted some wide spaced crooked lines all over it, just to keep all three layers together. I wanted it to be finished and I wanted all the patterns to pop, not the texture. There are no points lining up, I didn't press properly so that I have quite the bulk in some places, but I love it to the moon and back. Whenever I look at it I have to smile.

It finished at a really odd size with 41" wide and 61" long. I didn't have enough fabric for another row so it would be a bit wider and I didn't want to buy another scrap bag and wait for weeks for it to arrive.

 It is just the right size to wrap around your shoulders and drink a cup of hot cocoa. Which is want I'm going to do right now. Cheers.

Finally. Swoon.

The past couple of weeks I have been really busy. Busy with finishing my semester in university, writing exams, finishing up forgotten papers and homework assignments, sewing, quilting my mothers quilt, visiting my parents (and giving my mother her quilt - forgot to take photographs though. Bummer.) and spring cleaning. Yesterday I gave the bedroom a facelift. I pulled the bed away from the wall and got all those ugly dust bunnies behind that out and even found our IKEA family card (I smell some nice fabric shopping coming in the next few days. 1 Euro off per meter? Um, yes please!).

Since the bedroom now looks nice and fresh and polished I used the opportunity and threw my Swoon Quilt on the bed. It's snowing like crazy outside, so the snow gave some extra light, which is always welcomed in my dark apartment. It's been a while since I announced that I finished it back here. It's been in good use ever since I finished it. When I was away last week visiting my parents Mr. A slept on the sofa and used it as a sheet and a blanket and kind of wrapped himself up in it. We both hate sleeping in the empty bed when the other one is not there, so we both tend to camp out on the sofa till the other one comes back.

It's all soft and cuddly and the vintage sheets look so beautiful in those blocks. I already ordered new vintage sheets FQs, although I am still not sure what to do with them. They are a dream to work with.
I made one minor mistake (well, minor for me, major for other ones probably) and forgot to add the borders all around. Which lead up to the corners of the blocks being eaten up by the binding. I don't really mind since I was really grateful it wasn't any bigger when quilting it.

I washed it and let it hang on my clothesline to dry and it turned out just the right amount of wrinkly for me. I love how faded and vintage it looks and I love love love that I used this old flannel bed sheet I got from my mother for the back. It keeps me warm every evening since winter has decided to stay a little longer.

And the binding and corners up close. I bought the binding fabric over a year ago and was kind of disappointed, that it looked so different than what it looked like online. I put it away and never used it. When I was hunting my tiny stash for a possible binding fabric I realized how awesome this one looks with the Vintage sheets. Glad I found it again. And you can see a bit of the backing.

To finish it off: My favorite block, I just love the floral print.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will not only cyber-clean my apartment for some nice belated birthday-party-raving university-style with some friends on Wednesday. No, I will sit down and get some quality time with my beloved sewing machine as well. Because....

I am done sewing on the Dresden Plates. I like the look so far. I think the colors go together nicely and although I worried about the huge amount of greys in the Millie's Closet Jelly Roll I think that now in this arrangement they help make the Dresdens pop. And I love all those cute little dresses and bags you can spot on the little square throughout the chain. And I love me my photobombing Mathilda. I didn't choose the other photo I took where Elmo was walking through as well.

In the end hand-sewing those Dresens on went rather quickly. The first two took me quite a while, I managed to sew 3 on yesterday, today I did the last one. By the time I finished the 3rd it only took me about 45 minutes to sew one on, which might still be kind of long for experienced hand-dresden-on-sewers (official term here) it was incredibly fast for me.

I can't wait to sew the rows together, especially since it won't take any time at all, considering that the blocks are quite huge. Yay. 

What I'm working on right now.

I've been quite busy the last couple of days. I've been working like crazy on my Irish Chain Quilt. I think I've figured out a way I want to incorporate the Dresden Plates into the Quilt, leaving me with a design like this:

I've completed all the blocks so far, I just need to cut some more white squares for the border that goes around the marked blocks. Oh, and I need to finish sewing the Dresdens onto the big white squares. Attaching them by hand takes so long! But I'm getting there.

I'm also working on my mother's quilt right now. Yesterday I added the black border.

Today I finished the top by adding the crown-border.

It measures around 77" x 58", which is converted a few centimeters shorter than what my mother asked for, but the backing is just 60" wide, so I'm already working with very limited buffer-space.

So right now I am sitting on the floor, basting it onto the polar fleece backing (with batting in between of course) so hopefully, tonight, I will have finished quilting it. My mom didn't exactly order some specific quilting. She just said: "Do what you and your machine can do!" I think I will stitch in the ditch around the fussy cut squares with the images on it and then quilt a diagonal grid over the chains. And straight lines on the borders that will cross over in the corners. Something like that.  So that when I sit down after dinner with Mr. A for some serious TV watching I can finish sewing on those Dresdens, so that hopefully, by tomorrow, I can sew my own Irish Chain Top together. YAY.

 

News, news, NEWS

Last Thursday was my Birthday. Yepp, I am the lucky one who would receive Birthday presents AND Valentines chocolate, if Valentine's Day would be much of a deal here in good ol' Germany. It becomes more and more popular, but Mr. A and I personally don't get why we should need a special day to show love.

So my Birthday. 21. I feel terribly old. I am still the youngest in every one of my university courses. But 21 doesn't sound cool. I get that being 21 is kind of fancy in America because of all the stuff that becomes legal. In Germany you are officially allowed to drink when you're 18, so being 21 is no big deal for me regarding alcohol or smoking or anything like that. 20, in my opinion, sounds pretty cool. I loved the 20th year of my life. I know 21 will probably be a good year as well (knocking on wood) but I miss being 20. 
I got some nice new "hey you are 21!"-hat though (well, actually five, thanks mom!).

I never had the the opportunity to make wishes for my Birthday presents. My mother was never a fan letting me chose. She gave me things she wanted to give to me. I always ended up with far too many socks. This year I just sent my Mom an E-Mail with three links and descriptions. The links led to a German Quilt-Shop. I kindly asked for one of the three Items, which were either one Salt Air Layer Cake by Moda, or The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Book or the Dear Jane Book. The next day my Mom called telling me, that I would get all three Items from my Dad, my Grandma and her for my Birthday, Easter and Children's Day and every other Holiday were I would usually receive a gift until Christmas. FINE BY ME.

So those three things were sitting on one of my dining room chairs for nearly 3 weeks now and I didn't touch them, since it wasn't my birthday. God, that was hard. But I did order some fabrics so I could start immediately after my Birthday. 

I plan on making my Farmer's Wife Quilt completely in Red and White. I saw one lovely Quilt Top (well, actually it's just the assembly) on Flickr and fell in love. I had wanted to make it in Red and White but wasn't sure but it wasn't until I spotted this one that I was certain that I don't want my FW Quilt to be in other colors. I have bought 4 prints for now and I will buy some more as I complete the Blocks. So I will probably make my first 5 or 6 Blocks out of those 4 Prints and my white Background fabric and then I will order some other prints to mix it up. 

I want my Dear Jane Quilt to be Rainbow-Colored. I don't know why, I just love me some good colorful Block-Quilts. I have ordered one nice pink print so far. I probably just buy 2 to 3 prints per color, I don't want it to be too busy. I want the colors to speak, not the prints.

I made some big progress with my mother's quilt in Black and White. The top is finished, next up are borders. She wants three borders, black, the crown print, and black again. We'll see how that works out.

I started my Irish Chain Quilt last week. I posted at the end of my last Post a Photo showing the strips of one Millie's Closet Jelly Roll and some Dresden Plates I made out of two Charm packs ( Marmalade and Vintage Modern). I want to combine the Dresden Plates and the Irish Chain, but I am still not really sure how. I will figure it out once I have my nine patches for the chain done. For now I have a nice stack already finished, I still need to make around 12 or so.

And, the most exiting news: I finished my Swoon Quilt. WOHOO. It was like the best Birthday Present I could have made myself. I actually squared it up the minute the clock turned midnight and my hand still hurt from cutting when Mr. A made me open my first birthday presents ( I really need to invest in some new blades, otherwise I will probably lose some fingers soon). After that I attached the binding and today after Dinner I buried the last threads. It still needs to visit the washing machine though, but for now it keeps me wonderfully snuggled up and warm while I have my nose stuck into "The Fault In Our Stars" which was the actual present I made myself. Mr. A, who was more excited to have it finally finished than me, didn't have a chance so far to enjoy the giant cuddliness of the quilt since I am constantly bundled up in it. Little does he now that I already make plans in my head for making him a big Yoshi-Quilt for Christmas this year. Gotta feed my Gamer-Boy some nice Gamer-Quilt.

On Monday I will have finished my last exam for this semester, so this weekend there will be no sewing for me ( at least no quilty sewing. I will probably sew up some nice butterfly potholders for a friend whose Birthday is on Sunday). After that I will finally add the borders to my mothers quilt, finish up all those nine patches for the Irish Chain and maybe - MAYBE - cut into the Salt Air Layer Cake to start the Chevron Quilt I plan to make out of it. And of course, I want to start the first blocks both for the Farmer's Wife and the Dearest Jane. So much to sew, sew little time! But till then, I will spent my time learning Japanese Characters in a way it looks like Dexter paid me a visit: