Incredible giveaway at Maureen Cracknell Handmade

The FAT QUARTER SHOP SPONSORS THIS INCREDIBLE GIVEAWAY OF 40 FQS OF KATE SPAIN’S SUNNYSIDE BY MODA.

Check out Maureen’s blog!

Good luck!

 

Finally another finish

                                                                 

All Framed Up Baby Quilt, pattern by Melissa Corry from Happy Quilting Melissa

I haven’t had much quilting time this year, but at least there are some things I manage to finish.
My friend is expecting a baby girl by around next week. In June I started a baby quilt for her and I managed to finish it this week. It is washed, dried and delivered already and ready to cuddle the new little girl.
So I made a baby quilt for our friends’ new family member. My friend didn’t want an all-girlish pink quilt, so I used a charm pack of Ocean View by Paul Brent for Moda and a lot of scraps from my stash, among it some pieces of Honey Honey, some Malka Dubravski fabric and some fabrics I got from my Pink Castle Fabrics stash builder subscription.

  

I made Melissa Correy’s All Framed Up Baby Quilt pattern from Moda Bake Shop.
But I was UNABLE to read the instructions properly… so I had quite a puzzle to solve in order to have all parts fitting together.

I used 5″ squares with sashings as center squares, Melissa’s pattern says to cut the center squares down to 3.5″. So it just didn’t fit at first. Thanks to the genious in Melissas’s pattern, and to my luck, there was just one 1.5″ square + sashings to add and everything fit again. It nearly gave me fits, you know…

Besides, I was unalbe to calculate properly that day I planned the quilt. I planned it far too huge for a baby, so I changed the layout from 4×4 to 3×3 and added 4 more blocks to have the same top and backside on the quilt.

I used two layers of batting to make the quilt extra soft and cuddly and FMQed it with loops and hearts.

For the binding I used an extra-girly hot pink fabric with white polka dots.

The baby quilt turned out really fabulous. Melissa’s pattern is absolutely great to work with. Now we’re waiting for the baby girl to arrive… 🙂

I’m linking this up with TGIFF at Amy’s Crafty Shenanigans and Link-A-Finish-Friday at Richard and Tanya Quilts.

Happy quilting

Surprise Mail

Last week I happened to be the lucky one at Maureen Cracknell’s giveaway of a TEN FQ bundle of Indie in the Midnight colorway by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics sponsored by Moona Fabrics.

I did not expect any package until at least 4 weeks later, that’s what snail mail usually takes to crawl from the US to Germany. Moona Fabrics used a faster mail service, thanks a million to Sue Morris from Moona Fabrics! The goodies have arrived today! Here they are:

These are the first Art Gallery fabrics I have had in my hands, the fabric is incredibly soft. I look forward to sewing with these!

Thanks again to Maureen for hosting so many awesome giveaways.

Best wishes

Stash Management

There’s a linky party on fabric hoarding collecting at Sarah Quilts. Since I’m on holidays I did some necessary sorting and cleaning in our flat, aka some fabric sorting and stashing. So it’s a good chance for showing off a bit of would-be OCD. 🙂

We live in a three-bedroom flat, so I don’t have a sewing room. All my fabric, sewing notions, sewing machine and scraps are stored in our living room. I sew on the table and have to move away everything for our meals, so handy storage is a must.

I’ve moved my fabric forth and back, but now I think I’ve come up with a workable solution which can be moved as it is into a possible future sewing romm (wishful thinking!).

I bought a stack of cardbord boxes with lid about half a year ago, and another stack of them a few weeks ago, to store my stash. My stash basically is in that stack of boxes when out of the cupboard:

I sorted my fabric in a color wheel into the boxes, all pieces in FQ size or larger folded into the box, all strips, strings and smaller than FQ pieces sorted into zipper bags and stacked into the boxes according to color. All boxes are labelled with the content. The insides of the boxes look like that:

red

pink

orange

blue

black / grey

aqua

white

purple

green

yellow

brown / neutral

Precuts

While sorting I discovered several larger pieces of yardage in black and white I had completely forgotten about (ahhemm), so the boxes are quite full right now. White yardage goes fast, so the boxes will probably  be empty sooner than I want…

I tend to sew a few extra blocks when making a quilt top, so there is a box with an assortment of orphan blocks and a ton of 4-patches, for a mystery quilt from a German patchwork magazine which I did not like, to be sewn into some projects. I don’t know yet what I’m going to do with these…

There is a box for home decor weight fabric which I ususally buy at sales only for bags. I got some Union Jacks on sale the other time, they are made from quite heavy tapestry fabric and are going to make fabulous flaps for messenger bags.

There are a few more boxes with strings, HST for another Over the Rainbow quilt, quarter square triangles, 2″ and 2.5″ squares and some sewn 2.5″ squares for a postage stamp quilt, a project box for a leader-ender-project with checkerboard 4-patch blocks (finished 2.5″) and a basket with my ongoing quilting. So everything is neatly stored, into cupboards, like this…

sewing closet

sewing and household items in my closet

fabric boxes and sewing machine

Of course I’ve got a few fabric baskets with knitting and crochet work in them, but I won’t be showing them to you now.

A post on my crochet project is upcoming, I’m taking photos for the tutorial right now.

I got a lot of inspiration for my stash storage and scrap management from Bonnie Hunter’s Quiltville, Theresa Rawson’s Stash Manicure and Amanda Jean Nyberg and Cheryl Arkinson’s book Sunday Morning Quilts.

BTW, here’s the link back to Sarah Quilts.

Now you’ve seen my undies drawer, what about yours? 😉

Happy sewing, stashing and sorting!

12 Skirts Later

I’ve spent the day sewing the costumes for our school musical. In total I need 12 petticoat skirts for the dancers, one dress, one skirt, one blouse and one shirt prepared with velcro tape, and change the size of an “authentic” dress, so far. Let’s see what the rehearsals tomorrow bring, probably lots of fun and more sewing to be done. But there are still three weeks left to the premiere, so it’s ok.
Exams are almost over anyway, I’ve got only four more exams to conduct, but I don’t know how many more skirts and dresses to sew… 🙂

Drumroll for the fashion show:
       

Keep being productive! I look forward to quilting after so much dressmaking… Here’s a glimpse on my current WIP:

 

Happy sewing!
Barbara

Sewing, but no quilts…

I’ve got lots of sewing work right now. At school, we’re rehearsing a musical about the Students’ Revolutions in Munich in 1962. You could imagine situations like in Istanbul today. 
All are in Sixties clothes, so I’m sewing petticoat skirt after petticoat skirt. They turn out really fabulous, but it’s a lot of work to make this type of underskirt. I promise photos by this week. 

It’s sewing anyway! What are you sewing these days? 

Have a good week! 

Contructing a site… another time

I’m tearing my hairs as far as it’s possible with my extra short spiky hair… it’s really difficult to construct a page. I work at a computer every day and I’d say I’m fairly good at it, but I don’t have the slightest idea of website building, page design or the likes…

I’ve finally decided to move over my blog Nähtante Quilts from Google Blogger. So, this is the new site. An announcement on Blogger will follow.

Spreading the word…

of another really awesome giveaway at Maureen Cracknell’s.
http://maureencracknellhandmade.blogspot.de/2013/05/a-pattern-fabric-aurifil-giveaway.html

That’s what you can win this week:

(all pictures taken form Maureen Cracknell’s blog http://maureencracknellhandmade.blogspot.de/2013/05/a-pattern-fabric-aurifil-giveaway.html)

Well, basically, it’s best to just subscribe to Maureen’s blog and see her fantastic giveaways right there every Friday.

Good luck!

Fabulous giveaway at Maureen Cracknell’s

Maureen has some fabulous fabric to give away. Check it out!
http://maureencracknellhandmade.blogspot.de/2013/05/a-fabric-giveaway_24.html

Here’s the bundle, isn’t it gorgeous?!

Good Luck!

Twisted Bargello Quilt in green and blue

I haven’t posted most part of my work because my posting schedule is lagging seriously behind my working, sewing and quilting schedule… But now, there’s a reason to post:

Anyway, this is the blue and green twisted bargello quilt I made for my brother.
He moved out to university and got his first flat of his own, and of course he needed a quilt. He also inspired the name for the quilt when we were practicing English for his studies: “Synthetic Raisins”!
Basically, this name was coined on a pronunciation error, he wanted to have the German translation of “synthetic resins” (Kunstharze) as he’s studying engineering, but he pronounced it like raisins… 🙂 I was dumbstruck and just asked “What raisins? Why do you want to make synthetic raisins if it’s so easy to make natural ones…???!!!” – I virtually expected the unexpceted impossible  from a student of chemical engineering… LOL

There are twenty different fabrics in different shades of blue and green involved, the pattern is taken from the book Twist-and-Turn Bargello Quilts by Eileen Wright. I sorted and re-sorted the order of the fabric about twenty times and took a photo of every order, but the final decision was an accidental one… sometimes random turns out better… 🙂 

The pattern in the book is easy to understand and to follow, and ironing the fabric precisely does the trick. I adapted the pattern and made two twists instead of one, that was easy, too, because Eileen’s patterns are absolute in precision and instruction.

This is the quilt on my bed, spread in all its beauty:

Here you can see the full double twist: 

And that’s the back, made of scraps from the bargello strip sets and baby blue solid fabric: 

I quilted the bargello twists with straight lines following the different colours and sewing through the squares diagonally. It turned out great and emphasizes the twisted structure even more. 

Sorry for the quality of the photos, I don’t have a clothesline, so taking photos that show the entire quilt is a bit tricky… 😦

I’m linking this post up to the Blogger’s Quilt Festival at Amy’s Creative Side, here’s the link back to her blog. 

Happy sewing,