tricky 9 patch Youtube tutorial

right now I enjoyed the blog from Barb. She is showing wonderful pics of her quiltgroup, their work and homes. During one of their Retreats they taped a Youtube: it explains a very clever timeconsuming way to sew 2 Nine Patchs at once - so easy!
hope you like it too

Mill Girls Quilt-Along

Anne Ida posted on her blog about the Mill Girls Quilt-Along
Jennifer Chiaverini is the famous autor of the Elm Creek books and a great quilter. I was lucky to meet her in Shipshewana in November 2oo5, she had a trunkshow at the Dear Jane Retreat. FANTASTIC quilts and very nice woman. Just in time begore Christmas her new book The Wedding Quilt will come out.

Several members of the SBS-and-other-Elm-Creek-Quilts yahoo group are sewing Mill Girls blocks. I tried it and of course my first block turned out to be too small. Didn't think of the scant seam allowance - but the block will find a nice place someday I'm shure (maybe a cushion). Pressing is tricky too .... just my experience
Thanks Anne Ida for helping!


and for your amusement:

can you believe, I noticed it when I looked through the camera! not before ....
But it pointed me to a border idea - time to stop sewing?

ein wunderbares neues Büchlein in meinem Studio

danke Martina's super Rezension auf ihrem blog habe ich sogleich den shop der Lieselei besucht und siehe da, schon gestern hatte ich dieses Kleinod in den Händen!



Ich fürchte die Libellchen können süchtig machen
Übrigens, Hilde's blog ist auch stets einen Besuch wert

lazy here, taking care of my cold

planned to be busy in my studio, but it turned out, I'm on slowmotion mode, due to a cold. But the weekend isn't over now ....

Red and White quilts, influenced by the extraordinary exhibition in New York

In southern California is a fantastic quiltshop_ Temecula Quilt Company
They have been influenced by the extraordinary exhibition early this year in New York and asked for red and white quilts. This month they are showing the results in their shop - FANTASTiC quilts!!!!! hope over to their blog and look at this beauties!
Perhaps I'm able to see this shop in January, just hoping

Hexagon Swap - part IV

Today I'll show you the other 3 hexagons I sewed for my swap partners:




Tomorrow I'll show you the finished freemotionquilting excersice result.
YEAH, it's ready to get on the wall

Hexagon Swap - part III

Yesterday I was lucky to have a very good free motion quilting class at my LQS. More of that later.
When I came home -late- I found the envelope with the 4 swapped Hexagons I got from Barbara, Birgit, Claudia and Jutta.
I love the blocks!!!! each is different - all together they are spectacular IMHO





What do you think?

THANK you so much ladies! I am very lucky with your designs!!!

beading - is finished !!!

Emma is ready get out!

Hexagon Swap - part II

Angelika asked about details of the swap:
1. Finished size 8 cm one side
2. devided by makers choice
3. Every participant asked for her own color choice
4. 5 women of the group swapped
5. I asked for black and white with red accents

this is the 2nd block I designed and made for me


more ideas are floating around in my head - even for the arrangement

Hexagon Swap

a small, private Yahoogroup asked to swap Hexagons, 8 cm ( ~ 3,1" )
devided on our own choice
Today I'll show you the block I made - for me

Everybody asked for their own colors/fabrics, I choose black/white/red
The swapmom asked for blue / she showed her blocks already:


pictures of the other blocks / in different colors not before the participants got there blocks, sorry

beading

work in progress, not ready yet

the pattern is from Hedi
DANKESCHöN, Ammersee war Klasse!

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?