Frohe Weihnachten - Merry Christmas

We celebrate a very harmonic, quiet Christmas,
just my DH, DD Ines, Nelli - the American Cocker and I
a real tree with real candles and electric once
the nativity scene was bought from my parents about 30 years ago,
I still love it

A lot of time was needed to open all the nice wrapped parcels, one after the other - this way each of us was able to see what we got and participate in the joy

DH with his present ( the frame to a picture he own for years without)

A simple meal ( potatosalad with sausages ) in the evening - no stress - that's great

at the end two of us crashed on the sofa: Ines and Nelli

I hope you had a pieceful Christmas also

Xmas is coming

This is the decoration at the window I'm looking at while I sit at the screen .......... one handmade bear "peppermint lady" (with the hat) and an old Hermann bear, a present from a very special lady - she is gone for some years in the age of 79

Just in time today the first "snow" arrived, it is just like powder to give an idea of snow ..... this is the view from my studio. I have windows in three directions:

NORTH: garden vis a vis

SOUTH: our garden with neighborhood

EAST: our little street

Just in time - because of Christmas AND the arrival of my daughter. Ines just sit in the train and I'll pick her up in 1,5 hours !!!

I wish everybody a pieceful Christmas

Babyquilt presented

The babyquilt I promised to show was presented on Tuesday to the young mother of Laura.

Glad it was finished just in time



The quilting is done with a little help of my BERNiNA BSR - great tool

Off to prepare the house for FiL, SiL and her husband's visit tomorrow.

busy, busy here

Unfortunatly I can't show, what I'm working on these days.
It's a baby-girl-quilt I have to present tomorrow evening.

YES, I am a just-in-time-worker ;-)

Had time enough, but after some major mistakes I worked hard this weekend and right now I have about 20 inches of binding to handsew (on the back)

I promise a picture after Wednesday. In the morning we start to enjoy the Christmas market in Berlin with the International Ladies Club members. I'm going to meet my "oldest" friend, we know each other for about 35 years now ! wow - I'm that old .....

Some Xmas-shopping, some Glühwein - some atmosphere

But I would like to show my latest DJ block: D 4 Crystal Star

it's done with 3 different fabrics, sewn by hand

that's hard work with the handdyed fabrics WiTH Batics

But this too will pass

have a nice evening!

last additions

Yesterday evening I enjoyed "Die Schatzinsel" on the TV and appliqued F-13

Tuesday I'm busy inside with housecleaning, washing and so on. AND:
I'm busy sewing little Xmas decorations, the International Ladies Club and the Rotary Club is going to seel on Saturday. The money we get is earmarked for a child project.

jippi - now the pictures

I just found out, WHY my last tries didn't worked. It was the 12" problem (so called in Germany) - that means the problem was sitting in front of the screan: ME ;-)

When I made the DJ block B-11 last week I had problems also. The first went fantastic (I made it in fall-fabrics) the second one turned out to small. The outer circle didn't fit - so I added stripes and triangles and created my own B-11 - smile

third try

after two tries without luck - I hope this one will go through:

have been so lazy with blogging, ladies

I traveled via Lüneburg to visit my daughter in Düsseldorf, spent a relaxing weekend at our Retreat in the hilly region Bergisches Land, met close friends and had a good time. Gabi cooked a Bengali meal especially for me (I love it!) and showed her fabrics she bought in California, Sabine invited the beading girls, Anglika served my favorite soup (Graupensuppe). Brigitte was also there, that was very special to me to show them the Dear Jane x-stitchery framed - just fantastic days!
On the way home I picked up my friend Monica and we enjoyed our company some days in my fantastic studio before her husband arrived to celebrate my Birthday here with us. I got fantastic gifts and realized to be one year older now :-(
Next day 13 German women visited to have a "Kuchenschlacht" - hard to translate for me. I offered a lot of different cakes and we had a nice afernoon. Luckily my dog was very friendly with so many people and two kidds, trying to kiss her ;-)
On the quilting front nothing really extraordinary happend, but I made some progress on my Baby. Together with Monika we found out how to sew some different blocks, so I finished Hunter's Moon and Parchesi -
next post will be pictures just to show two of them.

Folded Spools, part II

Folded Spools, part II

That’s how it looks like after the first seam is done. The turquoise “rectangle looking piece” is going to be the folded center square. Don’t press at this time!

Flip the two triangles as shown face to face to the center (sorry, my English isn’t good enough to explain each step correctly). I do hope the pictures will bring some light ....

That is what it looks like from the back
after you sewed the first two, opposite seams – you see, there was no pressing done.
Open the “box” and concentrate to the left side. Bring the upper and the superior edge in the center together nicely, pin it across, follow the line and secure with another pin.
Sew from the edge to the center, stop ¼ “ from the corner!
Continue on the 4th side.

Sewing is done,

please iron it carefully now:
clockwise or in the opposite direction WiTHOUT pressing the folded center square!
We don’t want to have it flat at the end

Now it is pressed, from the back the center is folding like a little 4 patch

Cut the “ears” – READY

Please let me know, if there is something wrong or uncomprehensible
and PLEASE
show me your results, if you made also folded spool blocks.

Folded Spools

My newest project was born yesterday with the little help of EQ.
I’m a fan of folded fabrics, so I designed a little wallhanging showing 6 different spool-blocks. Each block is 4” finished, that’s a total of 28” at the end.
Monika, my best friend living in the lovely village Lüneburg and I planed to start this project during the last week of August, when I’m her guest for one week.
But I couldn’t wait and started today.

To sew half-square triangles I love to work with The Angler 2. Please visit http://www.pambonodesigns.com, they offer several Videos, which shows perfect how to use it. Did I mentioned before that I love good notions?

My first spool is done like a BOW TiE block with two half-square trianlges on two opposite places with a folded center.

I’ll show the details of making on the second block. The only difference is that this block is made with 4 quarter-square triangles and the center square. You may variate the measurement of the center to get different spools ;-)
To insert the folded square there are two methods to do this block. If you prefer to sew by hand, you may give it a try to sew clockwise or counterclockwise. By sewing with machine it is easier to do the two opposite sites first. Sounds complicate, but I hope the pictures will show, what I’m unable to explain clearly.

Start with this 5 pieces, in my example the finished block is 4”. So cut two 5 ¼ squares twice diagonaly: one of the background and of the spool fabric (brown). This way you get the fabrics for two blocks. The center fabric (thread color) is 4”, but it is variable. I choose plain fabrics or Marbles, handdyed – to show the thread.

This is the first step: fold the center square from bottom to top (left side to left side), place it on top of the right side of the upper left trianlge as shown.
Flip the upper right triangle (brown) on top of it to the left side.

ATTENTION: don’t sew into the seamallowence in the center of the block, otherwise you wan’t be able to iron the block clockwise (or counterclockwise). But that’s nessecary to lay the center flat.

fabricstorage ...

today I'll show you my fabricstorage.
The 5 drawers are from IKEA, named "Malm", made with birch-tree-veneer.

And I'll get the 6th one this month! I have to confess ;-)
my fabrics had never been so well organized before I got them -
it is such a fun to open the drawers

this are my blue and turquoise pieces

Again my quiltrack found a nice place to show you my latest quilttop,
I finished it yesterday

13 ladies from the Dear Jane Group namend "Ruhris" presented me each a black/red block when we met in June in Essen in Sigrid's garden. Firstable I was confused how to set 13 blocks, but thanks EQ I got it and this is my first sewing I did in Szczecin.

Many Thanks to:
Anna, Daggi, Gaby, Hildegard, Ingrid, Martina, Martina, Nadja, Sigrid M, Susanne und Ulla

now I can start to quilt during cool evenings :-)

I am back on earth

after a long time of silence - here I am again.
In the meantime we moved, tue to the NATO duty of my DH, to Szczecin/Poland, where we rented a house for the following ~ 2 years (+?)

It took 2 weeks, 2 big trucks with trailers, ~ 400 boxes and a lot of menpower to bring our household to the new place.
A big THANK YOU to the men of the Jöns company!

The house is half of a formerly bigger house and the best of it is: drumroll please MY STUDiO. You see the two windows side by side? Thats the place where I am now sitting (looking to the northern side).

The room is shaped like the letter U, so it feels like 3 rooms ;-)

When I'm sitting at the PC table I'm looking to the threadle with the doll from my childhood and the big drawer from an old storage. On my left side I see the lovely Ackermann's thread cabinet.

Here you see my sewingplace and the window showing to the East, which means sun in the morning. Right of my machine is a (usual used as) kitchen cupboard, just the right height for cutting to me! IKEA just offered this nice little ironingboard.

The other part of the room you will see tomorrow, today I had too much trouble to bring the pictures to that place I wanted. Seems I have to do it daily to get better on it :-)

What do you think about my new studio so far?

SURPRISE - never ending

today we moved DD (Ines) furniture and washingmaschine into her first own flat with the help of Angelika's husband and son - like I said before: FRiENDSHiP !!

AND she surprised me again with a cute selfmade strawberrybaer. The German translation is: "Erdbär" (strawberry=Erdbeere)

Two years ago we both made a bear together, mine traveled with DH to Afghanistan. Now she did a red bear with tiny embroidered knots and a green hat for me - it is a darling !!!!!!!

speachless

I am totally speachless!

Yesterday my little quiltgroup (of 4) celebrated my last participation of the monthly meeting.

We met at Gaby's home, she opend in a Bengali dress (she is married to Salek -35 years now-, he is from Bangladesh) and she offered first a delicious raspberry/eggnogg cake - hmmmmmmmm and in the evening a very special FANTASTIC Bengali dinner - GREAT

between both meals Gaby presented a departure present to me:

a quilttop!!!! cream-on-cream with plaids from Lunghis's (cotton dresses men wears in Bangladesh) - I LOVE IT !!!!!!!!!

Afterworth the 3 other ladies presented me a very flat ~ 20" package ........... wrapped in violet paper and it is

drummroll please

an embroidered Quilt "Jane's Quilt Garden" from http://www.lindamyers.com/

I was totally overwhelmed and speachless, it is a BEAUTY!!!!!!!!!

Angelika, Brigitte, Inge and Ute worked each a quarter, they talked about how long it took: each women worked about 40 - 45 hours to stitch it for me

Isn't that real friendship ?????????????????

BTW: I moved to this city nearly 4 years ago, so we know each other not the whole life ....

I am still in tears