Charity Quilt Top and Getting Ready to Picnic!

The charity quilt top is now finished, and will baste and quilt it as soon as I can.

But first I will get my sewing machine off to a much needed service. It is not working as good as I would like, there are some tension problems and other issues that will have to be taken care of. The machine is in work almost every day, so the service is well overdue. I will have to pull out my 50+ year old Pfaff for the few days my Janome is in the shop. I haven't used it for almost three years, so let's hope it still works!

I have joined this fun blog hop over at Sew We Quilt, and it will start on Monday. My day is Tuesday 3rd.

Full schedule is HERE.

I can't show you any pictures until Tuesday, but I can tell you that the food was good, I had pleasant company, and nature showed itself from a good side even though the temperature could have been just a teeny bit higher. My picnic quilt brightened up the place and made us in a good mood. 

I'll see you on Tuesday and show off my new picnic quilt!

New blog banner!

DS2 came home from University for summer vacation, and one of the first things he did was to create a new banner for my blog.

He used images from some of my latest quilts and created this collage. Here the banner is shown without the text. He really has good imagination, and great design skills!

I love my new banner!

Work in progress and Star Block Challenge

I have not had much time to sew lately, because lots of things are happening at the same time. Yesterday I felt that I just HAD TO SEW, otherwise I would go insane! So I pulled out some fabric to make a Charity Quilt for the children's ward at my local hospital. This will be a girly quilt, there is a lot of pink fabrics and flowers, but also some light blue in between.

I am centering the design around the cute panel of the little girl. I am making it scrappy. Let's see how it turns out.

Last week I made a star block for the Astronomical Block Challenge. I sent the block to Houston this week. My block will be combined with many other blocks in a quilt that will be displayed at the 2014 International Quilt Festival!

Imagine: my work will be on display at the International Quilt Festival!

Here is my contribution, 54-40 or Fight Quilt Block. This one was fun to make.

Happy quilting!

Peacock in Borrowed Feathers: Blogger's Quilt Festival

Thank you if you are visiting from Blogger's Quilt Festival, and thanks to Amy of Amy's Creative Side who is in the background organizing everything.

This is my entry in the category Original Design Quilts.

Peacock in Borrowed Feathers

This is a quilt design by me, originally posted in the Think Ruffles Blog Hop, where you can see more pictures.

The inspiration for this quilt came from a drawing in an old book, 

The background of the quilt is made with a layer-upon-layer technique, and is quilted with vertical random lines in multiple colors. The tree and peacock body is appliqued. The tail of the peacock consists of ruffles made from 8 different batiks. Beads act as the crown of the bird.

Details:

Finished quilt measures: 20" x 25"
Techniques: Machine applique, ruffles, mixed media, beads
Quilting: Machine quilted, straight lines and FMQ
Category: Original Design Quilts

Happy quilting!

Jewel Box: Blogger's Quilt Festival

Thank you if you are visiting from Blogger's Quilt Festival. and thanks to Amy who is in the background organizing everything.

This is my entry in the Mini Quilt category.

Jewel Box

The above picture is taken in the woods. The stippling in the white areas makes the bright jewels pop. The straight line quilting in the blue/green areas gives the quilt a modern touch.

More pictures from the process of making this quilt can be found HERE.

Details:

Finished quilt measures: 16" x 24"
Quilting: Machine quilted, straight lines and stippling, done by me
Category: Mini Quilt 

Happy quilting!

Jewel Box quilting

I have decided to rename my wall hanging in the previous POST.

The old name didn't give the wall hanging enough credit, so the new name is Jewel Box. That's a more appropriate name, as I feel the jewels popping out of the blue/green boxes.

Here's a picture showing off the quilting. The late afternoon sun rays helps showing off the design. Straight line quilting in the blue/green boxes, FMQ triangles in the jewels, and small stippling in the white background to make the jewels pop.

A close-up of the quilting.

I am currently hand sewing the binding on the back. I'm coming with an update soon.

Happy quilting!

Linked up to Let's Bee Social and Linky Tuesday .

Stitchy Flippy HST Wall Hanging

After seeing this tutorial by Buttontree Lane, I wanted to make my own. I needed a little wall hanging of approximately 16" width.

The quilt top looks good on my (portable) design wall. It looks like gem stones on the white background. The blue/green backdrop makes the jewels pop!

My HSTs are 4.5" unfinished, which makes the whole quilt top 16.5" x 24.5". This is another scrap project, all the fabrics are from my stash.

My little, or actually quite big, quilt helper did not want to get in the picture. He is kind of picky that way. So this is the best result I got.

This will be a fast project to baste and quilt, and the quilt will look fabulous on my wall!

Linked to Fabric Frenzy Friday #15 and Finish it up Friday.

Roosters and Hens

I made a little zippered pouch of one of the fabrics of Lynette Anderson's fabric lines, Mending Fences.

I have plans for this little pouch, but you will have to wait until early June to find out exactly what.

The lining fabric has a zillion small snowflakes, something that is very appropriate. The last four days, that's actually the first four days of May, we've had snow showers, hail and sun, all in a very good mix. The temperatures were very low, and I had to pull out my winter jacket and woolen hat and mittens to be able to go out walking. And the calendar says May! This morning it was freezing, literally.

Let's hope the winter is over for now, and that we will get some warmth in the rest of May. We need it!

Happy quilting!

Globetrotting - London, England

The May block for Pat Sloan's free BOM, Globetrotting, is released.

This is my version. The emerald green got a more prominent position in this month's block.

Here all the 5 first blocks are laid out in their proper position. The small blocks are 10.5" square.

Happy quilting!

2014 Aurifil May Block

May's block is designed by Amy Smart. Sorry about not getting the block smoother for the show off, but the light was difficult because I had to take the picture indoors.

THIS is the reason! The calendar is saying May 3, but we have had snow showers the last 4 days! Spring took a break when winter returned. I'm cold!

May Goal for ALYoF

My goal for May is to turn these fabrics,

into a beautiful bag like this:

The above picture is borrowed from betweenquilts.blogspot.com/ .


The designer of the South Park bag is Ellison Lane .

Linked to May ALYoF goal setting party .