An old friend revisited

Remember this sweet baby quilt? I made it years ago and was never able to let it go (aka give it away). But I finally found a home for it – my sister’s third baby received it for his christening.

I had to go back to fix it before wrapping and gifting, though. Back then I chose a zigzag stitch that was too narrow for the raw-edge appliqué. So the fabric began to fray after the first wash. Duh.

So I added another MUCH wider zigzag stitch to stop the fraying…

… and I added the little boys name, too. Thankfully my sister and my BIL chose another short name – very sewist-friendly (o;

Here’s a full view of the fixed version. One hardly recognizes the added stitches from a distance, does one?

I am happy I was finally able to let it go. Because that’s what quilts are meant for, aren’t they? To bring joy and comfort to someone we love.

Happy quilting!
Christine

Quilts for brothers (2)

Here's the second quilt I made for the boys: another strip quilt, this time with 60° triangles.

 

 

Once I had all those triangles cut and sorted, I pondered about the layout. On the left you can see monochromatic spiderwebs, on the right I layed out multichromatic spiderwebs.

 

 

 

I liked the multichromatic version better so I started sewing those webs together: I had to use tons of starch to get acceptable results.

 

 

 

Like the first quilt I made for the boys, I only quilted within the white strips. This time choosing a single, simple quilt design, because I thought things were already varied enough. So, simple steep loops, many "l"s was all I quilted in light grey Aurifil thread throughout those light parts of the spiderwebs:

 

The backing is the same on both quilts: black pindots on white. I used the same fabric for the binding.

 

 

Here's a close-up shot of the quilting:

 

 

And this is the quilt in it's entirety:

 

 

I hope that these two quilts will be loved by the boys, now while they are still small and also later when they grow up. I chose those contemporary colours and prints so they can still use them when they are teens or twens or "really old" (o;

 

Happy quilting!
Christine

 

 

Quilts for brothers (1)

When our friends moved away, I made quilts for their boys as a special memory to take with them, to remember us from time to time. The boys used to share one bedroom so I wanted to make similar quilts, matching in colour but not strictly in design.

I chose low volume grey and white-ish prints and accent fabrics in blue, green, dark grey and turquoise and started sewing 4 strips together. Out came my 90° ruler and I cut striped triangles from each 4-strip-set.

 

Then the fun pain of trying out different layouts began... I opted for a giant arrow, diagonal rows, chevrons and diamonds. Which one do you like best?!

 

 

Once I decided on the design (Diamonds, because it matched my choise for his brother's quilt best), I started sewing the blocks together. Trying to match those points and cursing when the bulky seams made things difficult...

 

I only quilted within the light strips with a light grey aurifil thread and tried out different fmq designs...

 

(oups, can you see how I kept myself going while struggling with the quilt...? What is you prefered beverage during fmq sessions?)

 

I tried waves...

... and leaves...

... and triple loop-de-loops...

... and feathers.

 

I added his name and used a scrappy low-volume binding, finished off with a triple-zig-zag-stitch.

 

 

And here it is... the first of the two quilts for brothers...

 

I'll be back with the second one shortly...

Happy quilting
Christine

 

 

MQG Bee Quilt

At the end of November our Modern Quilt Guild Bielefeld received a new addition: our second Guild Baby!! We knew beforehand that our Guild member and my close friend was expecting a boy. So we considered several blocks and colour schemes that suited our plans for a bee quilt for the little man.

Not too many matching points (for easier assembly – somehow the quarter inch of seam allowance varies with every person?!) and not too difficult so that even the newbies could join in.

We decided on a wonky pinwheel design, using low volume prints for the background and blues, greens and greys for the pinwheels.

I volunteered to make the quilt top, baste, quilt and bind it, so I was in charge of the layout, too. This was the first attempt: All blocks arranged, I tried to spread the colours evenly. (Sorry for the bad shot, the blocks are hanging on my design wall, down in the basement –> bad lighting)

I thought the effect was too chaotic and that the wonky pinwheels were not as clearly visible as I had hoped for. So I made some more blocks and added a border.

I quilted it with semi-leaves (is there an official name for this quilt design?!) and stitched in the ditch to reach the next pinwheel. That way I could quilt coherrently, without breaking threads for every new pinwheel.

Here’s a closeup. I used a white Aurifil so that the thread blends with the background fabrics where I stitched in the ditch while it stands out within the pinwheels.

I machine embroidered the quilt label and one of our bee memberes stitched it down by hand. Who would have thought that Aurifil’s cotton thread doubles up as embroidery thread, too?!

This is the finished label and you can see the flannel backing I chose. Don’t you love it when the stars line up and you find the perfect backing?!

As for the binding… never change a winning team, right? It seems like my triple zig zag stitch and I are BFF.

For the binding fabric I chose a rather subtle one. I tried different colours from the original colour scheme but all blues and greens that I tried were… just… too much.

I rather like the effect of this lower toned binding (if I dare say so myself).

Here’s one last shot of the quilt with part of the backing flipped over.

If you’d like to see my friend unwrapping the quilt during our last MQG Bielefeld sew-in, hop over to our website.

Is anyone interested in a tutorial for the wonky pinwheel blocks? I wrote a quick and easy tutorial for our bee members. It is in german but I could translate it if someone should be interested. Just leave me a comment (o:

Oh and by special request I took photos of the binding process so there’s a tutorial on that triple zig zag binding coming soon!

Thank you very much for stopping by.
Happy Quilting!
Christine

A new habit and a gift

Last year in London I took Trudi’s Class “Free Motion Quilting”. In her workshop we learned to doodle with pen on paper.

During the last exhausting weeks I was often too tired to sew but I discoverd that doodling or drawing a bit would “bring my mind down” as well.

So I thought I’d doodle a bit daily. Well, it turned out that DAILY was out of the question but OCCASIONALLY was fine (o;

This is one of my doodles that one could quilt coherently (I can see a baby quilt!):

Then I found this book in a shop:

…and started drawing rather than doodling… because I liked those organic designs and some grasses, feathers and ferns could easily become quilting designs:

  

On instagram we created a hashtag for everyone who wish to doodle along: #showyourdoodles

  

And then something awesome happend: Claudia (machenundtun) saw my doodles on instagram and send me this:

Two awesome booklets about zentangling. I immediately tried some of the designs and got hooked (my birthday is next week and I put more zentangling books on my wishlist).

Those Zentangling books are great, they both provide general information about the materials and the technique. The first one (Basics) is more thorough on this topic. If I got it right, each new book introduces new designs and shows further possibilities to use your finished zentangles (on postcards, bookmarkers, gifttags, etc.) The book encourages us to just do it without overthinking things to much. To just keep going and accepting that some tangles are great while others are … well… not so great.

This is what I tangled before our holiday trip - to be honest, these are the slightly greater ones (o;

  

I took a sketchbook and sharpie with me and started more doodles and tangles during our vacation (the sun is yet unfinished):

  

Thank you so much, Claudia, for those great booklets. Zentangling is a great way to do something creative while doing something else (talking on the phone, listening to an audiobook, watching after the kids, attending a dull meeting at work (don’t tell my boss!), etc.). It is calming me down and I also have the feeling that I did something to train my hand and my brain for free motion quilting. I will surely continue to doodle and if you don’t mind, I will share some tangles and doodles here.

Are you on instagram? Then come and #showyourdoodles! We would love to see your tangles and doodles and drawings!

Happy doodling and tangling!
Christine