My Quilt for Craft Book Month

Oh yes, I do love craft books. And there’s one that I bought just because I liked the cover and wanted to know what’s more inside ;o) And I wasn’t disappointed.

Imagesource: amazon.com

Jessica Levitt’s Modern Mix is all about combining your favourite prints with solids. So much inspiration! And in May I really made the cover quilt ;o)



Although I must confess that I changed the pattern a bit. It called for turn-under edges for the circles and I used raw edge appliqué instead. And I changed the dimensions according to my needs (baby quilt). I used Ann Kelle’s Urban Zoologie (again) and used my GO! Baby Circle Cutting Die. I had quite a hard time deciding on the background colour as Kelle’s colours are so bright and vibrant and I didn’t want to steal their show. But I am sooooooo pleased with how it turned out in the end!

I free motion quilted circles in different sizes all over the quilt – but behold! I cheated again – I was afraid of messing up the bigger ones so I traced around some large round objects (mostly lids) and quilted the shapes afterwards.



The only frustration is that I chose a zigzag stitch that is too narrow. Some circles start fraying and might be torn off entirely so I will have to secure them with additional stitches. Oh well.

You can find my initial post with more photos here. I’m going to link up to Craftbuds, you might want to hop over and have a look at what smarter people have come up with ;o)

Happy Sunday everyone!!!
Christine

FQSR London 2012 in retrospect (2)

After a short night, Sunday began with Tacha's English Paper Piecing. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! When I was terrified facing Paper Piecing, I was nearly shaking with fear at the prospect of Handstitching. I had deliberately signed up for it because I would have never given it a try on my own. 



And although I really dislike handstitching I do appreciate the advantages of it now. It looks nice and neat and with summer approaching I might be tempted to take some hexies out on the porch when the kids are playing outside. BUT if there's a sewing machine close by I shall always prefer using one :o) I'm happy that I gave it a try and Tacha did a great  teaching job.


After lunch Katy taught us how to make framed purses. 
What a unique girl she is :o) Tons of fun! 
I doubt that I'll do a framed purse again though. 
Too much glue. Too sticky. Too fiddly ;o)))
But see what we came up with 
(mine is the one in the lower left corner).




It was an incredible weekend, I met great people, acquired new skills and had lots of fun. And to top it off, there was an impressive Goodie Bag!!! Just take a look at these generous goodies that the numerous sponsores gave to each and every one of us: 



Several Robert Kaufmann fabrics, Oakshot fabric, Moda 2,5" squares,

 
Aurifil thread, Coats thread, needles, zipper, Prym trickmarker, stickers, elastic, a pincussion, etc.We were incredibly spoiled!!!

There was just one downer this weekend: I was awefully sorry to hear that Liz was too ill to come to the Retreat. She was one of the girls I "met" on flickr and we were corresponding every other day. I was looking forward to finally meeting her in person and so disappointed (for her but also for me!) that she wouldn't be there. Hope you are better now, Liz! If you send me a pm with your adress, I'd love to send you the goodies I made for our private swap :o) Hope to see your next year, girl!

Thank you so much everyone who gave me a warm welcome and made me feel part of the gang throughout the weekend. And thank you FQ Team (and additional teachers) for this opportunity and great experience. Pretty please, let's do it again next year!!!

Happy Sewing!
Christine

P.S. Some off-topic pics of what I did on Friday and Monday...

FQSR London 2012 in retrospect (1)

Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London is over :o(

It was super great and an experience I will probably never ever forget.

So this is how it all came along...

When I arrived at the hotel in London around 2 pm the hotel bar was already filled with chatter, excitement and laughter (and maybe even a beer or two). 

B.t.w. I'm very thankful for Katy's tattoos. Easily recognizable :o) 

But I'm even more thankful for the warm reception everyone there gave me. 

We had burgers and fries for a late lunch/ early dinner...

... and instead of joining the Tikki group, Laura-Jane, Justine, Amanda and I went to visit Regent Street and Liberty. 

Great evening, Ladies, thanks for taking me along!!!

Next morning, first day of FQSR: the Main Hall of Baden Powell House Conference Centre was humming as 105 sewists were greeting each other, double checking blog names, hometowns/ -countries, comparing class schedules,...

I finally met Vicky with whom I swapped name tags privately :o)

She made this super nice name tag for me 

(look at all this incredible hand stitching!!! 

She even stitched grapes and hearts for me!)

John (aka Quiltdad) kicked the FQSR off on behalf of the FQ Team

... and classes began. My first was portholes with Lucie Summers.

Funny, entertaining and a new skill learned.

Altough a video of her making faces would have been more appropriate than pictures :o)

Above you can see the pillow I made from the sample block (envelope back was done in class, binding still needs to be sewn on).

Before lunch we swapped our samples 

(Thank you Trash for organizing this blast!!!)

And look at these incredible goodies I received from these awesome Ladies above that were drawn by number to "my" group: An embroidered hoop with Rufus the Fox by Jo "Bearpaw", a purse by Tammy, a survival London lunchbag filled with numerous stuff (sellotape, candle, battery, eraser etc.) made by Amy and a selvage flower pin by Mary. Thank you very much for these lovely samples!

After lunch, I took Lynne's Paper Pieced Pillows class and she managed to kick my skills up from "terrified" to "confident beginner". I will definitely try this again and will probably aim at a more complex block next time! Below you can see the blocks I made during her class:

To be honest, I was quite overwhelmed by then. So many new faces, new techniques and the foreign language were fairly trying. Though in a good, exciting and cheery way. I had such a great day until then and it got even better. Before we left for dinner, John started the raffle. A big trunk seemed to bursting with goodies: books, patterns, thread, jelly rolls, fat quarter bundles, charm packs, layer cakes... you name it. And lucky me won an oakshot fabric bundle in my favourite colour line (grey-ish neutrals). Yayyyy! Thanks to all the generous sponsors, there were screams, squeals and applause everywhere!

It was burgers and fries again for dinner though with different people. This is Vicky, Caroline, Gemma, Helen and me.

There was more sewing and chatting and snacking at BPHCC throughout the evening 

(scheduled until 11 pm including Jelly Roll Race and the Iron Man Competition. I wasn't able to complete my Jelly Roll Quilttop - due to too much chat ;o) - so no pictures yet)...

... and more chatting, laughing and drinking at the hotel bar afterwards.

And all that fun was just Day One!!!

I hope to see you soon for a recap of Day Two.

Happy Sewing!

Christine