Bloggers' Quilt Festival: Almondesque

Following a cheeky comment how she unfortunately had all her children before I started making (baby) quilts, I decided to make this quilt for two of our closest friends as a homewarming gift. They had just moved into a Bauhaus inspired new home and because of their love of New England and Edward Hopper, blue stuck itself to my mind in terms of over-riding colour.

I had spent some time "researching" Bauhaus patterns, aka browsing Flickr and finally settled on this design. With pencil and paper, I calculated the size, different amounts of fabric etc. and then set about trying to find coordinating blues ... that resulted in quite the stash (and another project: "Helena the Great")



Despite my usual tendencies to not waste too much time ironing and cutting properly, I took great care with this project, probably also because I had the time, kicking it off during last year's retreat. And I am pleased to say that this care really paid off. The corners align well, making straight line quilting so much easier.


This is the result: I am really pleased. It was inspired by this photo on the left:

The quilt was very well received and a total surprise for my friends, taking pride of place on the lounge sofa and getting a lot of use.

Vital Stats:
105 * 185 cm, roughly
Kona Solids
Gütermann and Aurifil threads
Freudenberg 100% cotton wadding
lotsa fun to make! .... more

Bloggers' Quilt Festival Fall 2011

The time has come for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival Fall 2011 ... and this is my contribution:


Night on the Tiles was inspired by the floor tiling of my favourite pub in Manchester, just down the street from where I took my first lessons in patchwork and quilting. I've been working on it for 3+ years now, in fact, every time I go on my annual quilt retreat, this one comes along. It's not finished but it will be and soon - or so I hope. As you can see, I have gone about it a bit backward by adding the binding before I finished the hand-quilting. But it already looks so much better that I am really motivated to finish this one before the next retreat in September 2012.



top in progress - endless imperfections
top finished - hand quilting
"Vital Statistics":
Finished size approx 220 * 220 cm
all cotton fabric
all cotton thread
all cotton wadding
machine pieced
hand quilted
machine / hand bound.

"Takings" at Festival of Quilts

There were a few things that I couldn't walk away from:

Lurvely fabric:


A membership to the Quilters' Guild, patterns, bobbins, needles ...


But before those get put to good use, there must be an end to this:

Best laid plans ....

had me doing a large recap of the Festival of Quilts ... but I cannot seem to find the energy or time for it. So I'll just show my high-lights:

- loved the multi media quilts such as this one:

- became ever more determined to do one of those:

- was (and still am) intrigued by this one:

- changed my mind about appliqué:

- adored everything about the Twelve by 12 show:

- grew ever more eager for the "Army Wife" series by Kristin la Flamme:


Now I am drowning in ideas .... and will definitely go again! For more, go here: Festival of Quilts 2011 Flickr Set

Blogger Quilt Festival 2011: my entry

I just recently finished this quilt for my father. It is made of 100% stash fabrics, a lot of them scraps from previous projects and material from two of his dress shirts. The binding once was a blouse. The pattern follows the fantastic

no-triangle zig zag tutorial by AmandaJean of CrazyMomQuilts.

I loved making this quilt for its simplicity and muted palette. Whenever I make a quilt for someone, I spend a lot of time thinking about them and our relationship and it helps me feel connected.

Needless to say, my dad was thrilled to receive this quilt and I get frequent reports from my mum about him using it.

Bloggers Quilt Festival upcoming

I have no idea which quilt I will share but there is still time, right?

Festival of Quilts 2011

It's always good to have something to look forward to and this year, quilt-wise, I have not one but two "somethings". Not only am I going on retreat at the end of September but I'm also going to the Festival of Quilts in Brum in August.

I am already very excited because not only do I love quilts, I also love having something to look forward to, it anchors my year and helps me stay motivated through the hard slog of weekly routine as a working mum of two and "career widow".

Already, I am plotting accomodation, transportation, education (lots of classes available) and also shopping! Birmingham has excellent shopping and I intend to make use of the weak pound. Which all settles the question of when to leave (Thursday! not Friday).

Now I can't help wondering how many Euro bloggers I will run into!

Bloggers' Quilt Festival

Ooops, I almost missed this! When cleaning up my RSS, apparently I was too thorough. But here you go: Elisa's Emergency Quilt

Last year, I received a very disconcerting call that my friend's pregnancy was threatening to go awfully wrong. She's the mother of my older daughter's bestest friend in the whole wide world and I really like her too.

Because quilting is cathartic for me - a substitute for therapy really - and I had seen AmandaJean's Ragged Squares tutorial, I thought this would be a good project to complete in not-a-lot-of-hours.

The quilt was very well received and has even found its way into my dreams, inspiring a new version of it:

In the Pink - it's almost finished too.

Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival: My entry

I have contemplated which of my quilts to enter this time around and had a hard time deciding. At the end, I settled on my sampler(s):


I chose these samplers because they were my first project. Initially, they were meant to be one quilt but after years of neglect, halving them made more sense.

I begun working on them in September of 2002. They are paper-pieced and machine-quilted. I love the colours, fresh, clean and vibrant. Both girls have their version on their beds to cuddle with.

They also mark the beginning of my quilting journey, a passion that has saved my sanity since becoming a (working) mum and has allowed me to connect with people while I am working on a project for them.

First Annual Bloggers Quilt Festival - my entry

More photos on Flickr.

This is my submission to the First Annual Bloggers Quilt Festival. It's called "Friendly Dragon Quilt" and designed for my godson Harrison. Harrison is an "Englishman" and being English, Saint George - of dragon-slaying fame - is his patron saint. I realised this when flipping through a colouring book I had purchased for my daughters during a summer holiday on Crete and coming across this lovely smiley dragon. Harrison is a positively smiley kid too, always on the go and full of energy! He's also my first godchild, son to my very very good friend Caroline.

I had no idea what I got myself into when I embarked on this project. I had gone back and forth on strange ideas of what Harrison's quilt was supposed to be until I found that dragon. Unfortunately, George the Dragon was missing his butt in the book so I had to add that to the design, copy and blow it up, order "Fossil Fern" fabric and went to work.

It was daunting and kept me second-guessing my plans. But at the end, I was super-pleased with the result. As we all know, 4-year-olds are a hard crowd to please but Harrison was smitten by his quilt, making me love him even more ;-)

I even got a request for a commission but until now, my quilts are one-of-a-kind. What I like about quilting in general and making this one in particular is that while working on them, I contemplate the person I will give the quilt to. I think of them, what they mean to me and this makes me feel closer to them. So as much as any one of my quilts is a present to someone, it's also a present to me.

The above photo was taken in Michigan, outside of Elk Rapids, hours before I presented the quilt. If you click on it, you can see all my posts obsessing about said project.

Now, go on, join the fun of the:

Join the Bloggers Quilt Festival - I know I will!