pictures of work in progress

In February I was lucky to have 3 ( YES: three! ) workshops with the amazing Bonnie Hunter from North Carolina. She wrote 3 books, run a fantastic blog AND last but not least offeres dozens of FREE patterns on her site. If you don't know Quiltville klick on the LINK and enjoy
I learned some really good tricks and had a lot of fun. Birgit Klein from PatchCom, The Blackforest Quilter and Mrs. Schultz-Schwanitz from Nadel und Faden have been wonderful hosts.
I started 3 quilts: Cathedral Stars - here is a first impression

I changed the direction of every other block with red in it - to get a woven effect.
and
Virginia Bound - pic soon, it's nearly done
and
Star Struck


Next January I'll have another workshop with her in -
TADA - drummroll
C A L i F O R N i E N !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(My blue heaven, just in case you want to lurk)

If you are wondering, I just cleaned my SD cards of the camera and realzed I never posted pics here.

Today I had a lot of fun at a beaders meeting in Munich
AND
went to the vernissage of a Quilt exhibition of a friend of mine.
Pics tomorrow

13 pieces

are sewn by Linda Franz' handpiecing method.
Love her DVD, which comes with her 2nd Quilted Diamond book

new outfit

LOVE it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DJ - E 2 Merry May

counting

I’m running a Dear Jane group at the LQS for one year now, explained all the different techniques.
I teached about measurement of sashing and border tris, Linda-Franz-method, how to add the scalloped edge,how to cut real bias binding two different ways and so on – all the basics.

This week I asked the girls to count their blocks and pieces to get an idea
how much we got done in 12 months.

It’s a little bit hard to push the ladies, some have to take care of their (old)parents or are still dealing with children. Two of them are big gardeners and in harvest they are really busy – you get the picture.

I have the counting of 8 of us – the summary so far is:

388 blocks, 6 triangles, 4609 pieces

The funny thing is, most blocks (109 !!) have been made from a woman who wasn’t shure
about handpiecing and how much DJ blocks she’ld like to sew ;-)

Hope to get the missing numbers of the other participants next month.
Even the pieces of the 109 blocks hadn't been counted - so the final # will be much bigger.

I made 26 blocks for my taupe Baby and 1 tri AND 10 blocks for the European Birthday swap. And some example blocks in white/winterblue which I didn’t counted.

I have to give the Baby more attention and make more progress, otherwise it’ll not get to Belgium in 2o13.

Amish Quilts und die Kunst der 60er Jahre in Kaufbeuren

Yesterday I made it to an exhibition called „ Amish Quilts und die Kunst der 60er Jahre “ ( Amish Quilts and die art of the 60s / Minimal Art ) in Kaufbeuren.
An example:
an Amish Center Square from the Lancaster area and Josef Albers.
What’s common and where does the ideas come from?
Imi Knoebel’s “Revolver III” also worked with the square.

Tumbling blocks from Ohio and Victor Vaserely.
The lady who explained the background had really interesting informations.

I took some pics to think about later, especially Imi Knoebel’s work touched me.
But I don’t allow myself to start something new right now. Have to finish my WiPs first and some projects, which have to be ready to travel with me to California in January. Ah, and there is Xmas this year as well, doesn’t it?

BTW: there was a movie about the Amish (50 minutes). Lots of lovely sceneries, especially the barn building of the whole community was quiet impressive. I knew about, but have never seen it in action before.
Well worth the trip IMHO
The exhibition is open until November 6th

ok, I'm off the puter now to start working on my houseduties and WiPs ;-)

Theme of the week: hoarding

Cate Prato, Online Editor of the Magazine "Cloth Paper Scissors Today"
just wrote interesting thoughts to the theme of hoarding too.

I started quilting in 1982 and still have some fabrics, or may I say swatches of fabrics ( with memories of course ) from my very early years. Why do I still have them? They are mostly not my taste anymore, maybe I may cut them down to 1,5" strips and follow Tonya Ricucci's idea called Lego tutorial?
I think it's really amazing what she is doing!!
Of course Bonnie Hunter is working with stripes again - who wonders?
Doesn't her title "Red Strings In the Sunset" sounds wonderful?

Stash or hoarding

Due to the fact, that we are moving in a 3 year interval the amount of stuff in our household is an issue more than once. enough said ;-)

Tricia Waddell, the Editor in Chief Stitch Magazine posted an interesting thought lately:
Hoarding is a primitive instinct. But it is not necessary for your survival as a fabric artist. In fact, having a limited selection of fabrics forces you to be more creative and make better design decisions. You learn to alter the fabric that’s available or even to create your own by dyeing or painting or surface design.

That's something I have to think about seriously! Any thoughts?

Nelli - once again

Cyn asked to see our American Cockerlady "Nelli" - so here are some pics





this picture was taken the day she won our hearts in November 2oo3, she was 15 weeks:




do I have to say, we are in love with this cutie?

Featherweight

Due to the discussion about a FW 221 offered on ebay in the States I'll show my baby here (again). The seller is asking
- attention! - $1,200.00 !!!!!
Isn't that crazy?
My baby is called Angel Edna,
due to her # AE o7777o, built in the US in March 1936
YES, it runs still with the 110 V machine and I bought a converter to run it with the European 220 V
BTW: I paid ~ 308 $ in 2oo5 .....

our DJ group got some input

The Janiacs, meeting and learning together in Höchstädt once per month (1 year now) met last Saturday to welcome my friend Sabine Lohse. She finished her version of the Dear Jane patterns ~ 2ooo, it was for shure the -before-EQ-aera. So she draw all the blocks on her own with EQ 5(?)

It was a great AH and OH in the room
Some got overwhelmed, like "I'll never reach that goal" or "I'm not that perfect" and so on - but at the end I hope it got more motivation to work on their own Baby.

Sabine also brought her wonderful Piecemaker applique quilt

AND last but not least
her Quilted Diamonds blocks,

all done by hand and partly assembled to hexagons.
Again she designed her own layout - this is going to be a gorgeous quilt too.
Due to the fact that I influenced her with the beading-bug she don't quilt anymore -
until now I hope ;-) She promised to work on her Diamonds again

Überraschungen sind etwas Wunderbares

Vor wenigen Minuten klingelte es und ich bekam ein kleines Pakerl von meiner Freundin Monika - einfach so
Eine sehr schöne Karte, sehr gut duftende Seife, ein kleines Herz, eine Webkante und 2 spannende Bücher
U N D
ein superschönes Nadelkissen - in meiner aktuellen Lieblingsfarbe
Vielen DANK Moni!!!! bist ein Schatz


Surprise! My best friend Monika sent me a little parcel, just for fun
a wonderful card, nice smelling soap, a little heart, selvage, 2 books
A N D
an embroidered pincushion in my favorite coloration
THANK you so much, Moni

do you remember Sesamstrasse?

Today Karin, the shopowner of my beloved LQS is celebrating her birthday. The next 4 weeks I have to survive, because the shop is closed: vacation! buhuhuhuhu
Tonya Ricucci and Elizabeth Hartman are doing GREAT letters and words, both on their own way. I did letters in the past and was shure I'll come back to them again and again. In fact I do have at least two projects concret in the planing status :)

Karin and I are nearly the same age and I remembered the scene from Sesamstrasse, when Ernie (or Bert?) opened his trenchcoat and asked very mysterious " do you want to buy an A?" - or B, C, D .....
loved this - hope she has the same memories ....


So I made Karin a " K "

Principessa

Yesterday my husband came home with this cute little so called "principessa"

Isn't she funny?
She is standing on my old Singer threadle under the Dear Jane embroidery
greeting me with her smile when I'm climbing up the stair

my POTC filler squares

are identic in construction to Carols from Postcards from Panama - but the effect is quiet different
because I made a kind of checkerboard
I do LOVE Carols version also, it separates the blocks much more than mine do.

The 2 first sections are filled in -

I'm very pleased with the result!
BUT
what do you think, would'nt it be clearer to change the green fabric in the filler squares to the pale yellow one? your options are more than welcome
This is going to be my summer 2o11 project

the pictures don't justice the fabrics - but we do have grey, rainy weather - sorry

Bavarian Castle tour

Early this month my DH and I spent 3 days in the southern part of Bavaria, called Ostallgäu to celebrate his birthday and to visit the 2 famous castles.
First night we stayed in Füssen:

like always: click on the picture to see it big


On Friday we visited
Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein
This places are a MUST for every Germany tourist ;-) worth the visit!




We made a little tour to Maderhalm,
a little village between Sonthofen and Oberstdorf.
Lovely landscape!!!
here are some impressions of our tour with the Nebelhornbahn

typical cows - love them and the sound of their bells

We made it up to the little Alm you see in the distance. The flowers in the meadow smelled - couldn't remember this special memory



We liked the place so much, that we rented a little flat for our sommer vacation!

Wouldn't you like to travel there too?

Accuquilt - giveaway

after a blog-break I'm here again ;-)
thank you for your patience

Here you (and me) do have the chance to win 3 Go! Cutter Dies.
Due to the fact that I don't own a Accuquilt cutter - but a Cuttlebug (from my scrapbooking department ) I'm dreaming to use the dies with my green bug.

more about our little trip early this month later

New project: Lucy Boston, patchwork of the crosses (POTC)

Early in April I made a trip to a nice little exhibition near Munich and got infected with a new/OLD bug: english paperpiecing! Elongated hexagons ( 1 inch ) are my new obsession. Lucy Boston made this special quilt many moons ago. Linda Franz wrote a lot of interesting details about the maker on her site. Linda offers a new printing technique to print the pattern onto the fabric, very clever - maybe you'll give it a try
I like the old fashioned way, "lieseln" over the paper, nice and quiet
I'm using Civil War fabrics and a creamy/yellow background fabric.
Carol from Panama is working on her version of POTC in powerful colors, absolutly beautiful! She found a very clever idea to assemble her blocks. Due to the facts that I think it's boring to sew 24 identical hexis around the blocks AND I'm short with just 2 yards of background fabric I asked her for her permission to use the same design - AND she agreed!
Thank you so much Carol

here are my first 3 blocks (have to get the seamripper out to remove some of the outer yellow pieces)



for some unknown reason the colors are not nearly the reality, maybe I'll take new pics after my bead-workend-retreat !!! YEAH, I'm lucky to stay 2 days with beading freaks from all over Germany at the lovely Ammersee
hugs

charity babygirl quilt for "Lünetraum" / Lebenshilfe Lüneburg

Last weekend I finished a babygirl quilttop for my friend Monika's charity project. She is sewing and collecting quilts for childs with special needs in Lüneburg, her hometown. Unfortunately the colors aren't real in this picture, but you get the idea



Thank you Rosa for the reminder, YES the blue scraps have been sent from Canada ;-) THANKs my friend