Back in the game

I never knew a !§)$"§Q$§-boss could intrude into my safe sewing space ... anyway after 8 months of talking, complaining, mediating, ignoring things were finally starting to become slightly bettern. Then of course happy news this week for the boss (and me) he won't have to deal with me anymore come december.

It feels like suddenly I have time to sew again and do a whole lot of others things that I sort of put on hold. After a thorough cleaning of the sewing area and a little prioritizing of things that need doing I spend my sunday fighting with the instructions for a swap ... sooo much math ...

This is going to be part of the "main attraction" of the bag I'm sewing. The backside is already done - but there need to be surprises in life, so that will have to wait till it arrives at its destination. Then I can show the mosaic and the result in all its glory.

I had to sew in a zipper  - I can't remember ever sewing in a zipper without my very knowledgeable mother in "shouting distance". But I won! Ha!

Yes, I know the corners there could be better, and I shouldn't have chose a light pocket fabric, but apart from that I think it is ok.

Now I'm off to figure out the rest ... 

Confusing Mosaics - or how not to do them

I really think I got the basics of mosaics wrong - I joined a swap (again) just because I needed this feeling of not struggling with the next and the next bee block trying to keep up and catch up. Anyway part of most swpas is doing a mosaic. Noone ever tells you how to do them, I mean there are no rules a mosaic needs to look like: a, b, c and include at least g and f and r, s, t are nice to be included.



For me things were perfectly clear ... I want something with that signage on the left, something with circles and rectangles and lines. I want my name to be on it (or at least space to put it on it) - I want to be able to use it for a certain purpose (so it needs to be sturdy and please not white and no trim) and I want blues and greens to be the colours ...

But apperently I was wrong - that is not on the mosaic ... It is one big confusing mess. So we go with option two:



Again ... right upper corner my starting point - now you can for example do a scrappy circle, or you can do some fun colour hue game with the reactangle (square) and you can use some yellow highlights or just read that lines and circles and squares are geometry and really a windmill is geometry too.

But that was apparently still not really clearenough ...

Now hoping not to step on any toes - I find most other mosaics majorly confusing -they rarely have a common theme. Some I can at least interpret as rainbow in any form or shape, but then there are then ones that make no sense whatsoever for me (blue, but other colours too, squares and pixelation, but also paper piceing, animals feathers, buidlings). Maybe I need to take a course in mosaic reading?

Mum's retirement quilt

Or maybe I chould call it "Second life quilt" - anyway, she got the first Quilt (in a decent size) I ever finished and then kept hinting about wanting another one. And kept putting little "page markers" in my quilt books and she finally wore me down to actually agreeing to make another one and conceded to her chosing the colours.




And that's the result - some sort of taupe, rosewood pink and brown .. I actually can agree that the colours work, though I can't honestly say I Would ever pick them myself. But for her they work.

yellow pink orange - gees everywhere

This is another colour study - pink is a colour I'm extremely uncomfortable with. It fits in the series of Red Herring and Green



Now I'm thinking about adding a thin yellow border folloed by tons of the HSTs - not sure if I'm goign to use them random or in order, followed by another thin yellow border.



I have one fabric I think will work for the back or I could always use pinks and sew them together - see maybe I'm going to do something all pink ... though I would say doing the back all pink is cheating.

Leo

summer sewing

I had time to catch up on some bee sewing after my summer holidays - first off was a bright rainbowy quarter log-cabin combination.



My first try turned out to be way to large - it was supposed to end up at 13" - each quarter here measures 10,5" yeah even I can do the math. So coming up is the second try at 13,5 inch with room to be trimmed down.



And with the last block I'm up to date - ?up to the month? - requested were giant flying geese in gray to black set in off white.



 Now I have a few more things swarming around my bad conscience - I will be working on that in the next few weeks alongside a few projects I want to get to the "batting order" stage.

Leo

Bee blocks galore

I am finally getting around to sewing again - I had quite a busy time moving and participating in several Bees during that time. At one point I simply had enough and went into hiding.

Now I'm paying the price catching up on the blocks - though they are perfect to get into sewing again - free form sort of look see try discard do over rip apart leave a little crooked ...

translation: fluffy

I'm not completely back in the game - I can't find the SD-card for my camera so you will have to make to with the pictures taken in rainy-weather with a mediochre phone camera ...

Leo

Queen on the move / Königin im Umzugsstress

Das wird jetzt mein erster oder vilelicht zweiter Blogpost auf Deutsch ... ich kann halt einfach nicht auf deutsch Quilten ...


Erstein ganz herzliches Dankeschön für die Geduld und alles .... Umziehen ist einfach d***. Aber hier das heißersehnt:

Ich hab mich jetzt doch dagegen entschieden, ein Tutorial zu malen - ich hab nämlich weder Buntstifte noch Papier hier - naja ich könnt wohl im Geschäft Schmierpapier mitgehen lassen. Also werde ich jetzt gaaanz viele Bilder zusammentragen und versuchen so weit möglich mit Tutorials zu verlinken - die dann allerdings nicht immer auf deutsch.

 Tutorial 1


das richtig gute Zeug

from http://www.blocklotto.com/

 Jetzt habt ihr sicher raus was ich von wuch will - Rosen, ich will einen wunderschönen vollen Garten  in rot auch gerne mit orange oder lila Stich - alles in Richtung herbstlich gesättigt.

 Entweder  1 große [16,5 x 16,5] und 4 Mittlere [8,5 x 8,5] oder 1 große 2 mittlere  4 kleine [4,5 x 4,5].

Also einfach gesagt 1 große und bei der zweiten könnt  ihr frei mischen was die Größen angeht von 4,5 bis 16,5 nehm ich alles ...

Nach Möglichkeit einen "scrappy" grünen Rahmen/Rand / zum Quadratauffüllmasse dann kann ich das scrappy zusammenfügen und anstückeln wo Bedarf ist.

Leo

potholders - new town - new job

I am enjoying discovering the town I'm going to live and (come Monday) work in. I did already discover 3 fabric stores and the internet tells me there are even more.

Yesterday I didn't feel like doing much - is awfully hot - so I went to get some fresh fruits, never can have enough of them in the heat. Well I stumbled upon this fabric store - absolutely useless for "real" quilting but hey they did have a bit of thermolam and the odd bist of 100% cotton fabrics. And a few hours later:

hmm yeah I already used them today cooking lunch

The red one took me all afternoon --- the blue one was easy peasy done after dinner ...

Löni

(almost) found my block

With basic geometric designs it's unlikely that you could actually come up with a new block .... but then when is it a new block, some take changing dark/light fabric placement in a  block as new - I so would love to introduce the the concept of the work, expression, manifestation and item .... so here goes MY "item":

One day while sitting in the corridor waiting for my profs consultation hour I whiled away my time drawing grids and filling them with colour. And came up with a pattern I thought perfect for a Bee with flying geese blocks. So at home I sat down and drew the pattern. And  wrote a tutorial (that seems to case a headache for a lot of people, though they can't tell me where the problem is)

And then Jen from Quilter in the Closet made my block and linked to this picture: which is pretty much my block in old and white and red instead of yellow and blue and new

picture courtesy of: liveauctoneers.com

So today while I was leafing through books (real paper ones and electonic versions) looking for a pattern I would like to use to decimate my green and ble stash (ok I was avoiding to clean the bathroom). I came across some fairly similar patterns.

There are actually quite a few similar blocks:
Nancy Cabot has one with only 4 flying gees and also they point inwards
Home Art Studios has one named Tangled Cobwebs with same as Nancy's but with tiny squares in the corners
The others all have a lot more flying geese, but still all pointing inward - Spider Web/Wild Goose Chase (Mrs. Danner's Quilts) and Rising Sun (Miall) do have an 8 point star in the centre the geese pointing inwards and a border of HSTs to be connected to form more 8 pointed stars in the corners and flying geese wehn joined together.

Do you ever try to find out where a pattern comes from?

Now out of curiosity I might attempt to make one of those blocks too ... see where I could have made something different / better ....

And I will have to think about adding a sashing similar to the Spider Web/ Wild Goose Chase and Rising Sun blocks - though I will try a mock up fist ...

Leo

The big bad world

I had some rather good news from an HR department so now I'm walking with a little more swing today. But it also means I need to get a head start on the Bee and Swap stuff and generally get read for the "real" life


I already have a perfect new bag for everyday use - for me - the little sister of the big upcycling bag that I started.

I have my basket swap baskets done ... the big nes is a bit "fluffy" but I guess it wold be perfect for general scraps or a kitting project, I made an extra small one, becase that can "stand" on its own - I chose the red as lining because it's a rather screaming fabric, but then yo can just turn the basket inside out if that's your thing.

And last but not least - I made and sent off a late June bee block ....

Leo

starting a new page

I just saw my last paper was finally handed over to the "study office" with a "passed" stamp. So maybe nother week to pick up the diploma. So as of July 1st I will be done studying and out of work ....

And not be able to go on holidays because the applications are already "in progress" ...

But with a lot of free time to get my dwellings (<-- beautiful word) in order and gt some self centred sewing done and thanks to my knowledge of the English language play examiner for a group of international students ...

But it also means I have time to catch up on old projects - my mother has this basic cooking book "Bayrisches Kochbuch" that she got way back when. According to her I loved the little bands to mark recipes so much that I took the shears to them ... It was still in heavy use, esp. around Christmas but over the years it fell apart ... So this spring she asked me if I could fix it ... and of course I seaid yes (couldn't really say no, could I!?).

First I had to "sew on" the last page glueing it to a narrow foleded paper strip sewing in the fold and making loops around the original sewing of the book block. And then re-attching the back cover with the fly leaf.

Then I did add new ribbons as bookmarks and generally took care of the back as the paper ha gotten loose at the edges - you really sholdn't use a broken book.

The last and hardest part was attachign the new spine to the book - but I'm really glad I found the happy blue kitchen approbriate print to use to cover the back - now I just need to let it dry pressed between other cook books and I will beable to take it home and amend the sins of my 3 or 4 year old ego.

What do you do with your old books, those much loved, well thumbed volumes, when they start showign their wear and tear

And dream plan my new apartment ...

Leo

Sunny weekend and a new keep cool thingy

My team had a big tournament going this weekend - sadly we weren't given a spot in the Ladies' competition so we had to play with/against the seniors - which means mostly all male teams with the odd women thrown in.

We had great fun - winning most of the games in our group and entering the round of 16 - we never thought we would get this far (we made up our 2 teams by training attendance not by abilities). We met the team of the University of Lyon, France winnign against them with one PAT and getting into the quarter finals ...  and from there on everything wen tdown the drain 

The next team expertly took care of getting rid of me ...emergency care on Sundays is no fun ...especially if you have to leave in the middle of the game - but yeah ... you are not allowed on the field bleeding ...

Ohh well expecting to get kicked out at the group level we actually made it to place 8 of 46 so I would say we were quite successful ... we even avoided any major suburns - my best friend was my sunscreen SPF 50, yucky sticky and smelly but effective ..

Too late to be useful for the weekend some fun gardening stuff arrived today in my mailbox and I instantly put it to use making my very own "cooling scarf" - so far it's been very effective, though being a trial object I didn't care much about thread colour etc., I'm also thinking about making the next one with a larger "compartment".

It's basically a thin tube filled with chemistry - well superabsorbent stuff - like in diapers that will release water very slowly over a long time and evaporation cools the neck a bit ... it's quite comfortable ... though I think I used a rather larg teaspoon of the stuff ...

Löni

Loopy - Tutorial for Stash Bee Hive 1

I think I threw my planned block out the window four of five times and finally settled on this one - Loopy. I don't claim it as an original idea - as I have doubts there are any out there in the quilting land anymore, in the end it's geometry and there are limits to its variations - but I still sat down and did the drafting and maths and stuff - so for me it's new and exciting and MINE. (If you happen to stumble across a pattern for it on the web let me know and I will add a link.)

This is what the block should look like once you are done and it should measure 16,5" x 16,5"

Fabric choice: no novelty prints please, no big flowers either and no solids - think geometry and swirley

What to cut:

ORANGE
(1) - 4,5" x 4,5" --- centre

YELLOW

(8) - 2,5" x 2,5" --- loops
(8) - 2,5" x 4,5" --- loops
(4) - 3" x 3" ------- HSTs for loops
(4) - 2,5" x 4,5" --- connectors

GREY

(8) - 2,5" x 2,5" --- loops

(4) - 3" x 3" ------- HSTs for loops
(4) - 4,5" x 4,5" --- connectors

Let's talk about ironing:

I'm a "sideway" ironer - so there is always the struggle to have the least bulk possible - this is what I came up with for this block. You don't need to follow this to the dot, but I would ask that you try to come out with the centre cross once beeing pressed inside and once outisde so I can comfortably nest the blocks.


Now for the sewing:

1. The centre - it's a simple square in a square block

If you are uncomfortable with that method or just a paper piecing junky - here is the link to the Quilter's Cache instructions and template

2. The loops
They are a basic 6,5" nine-patch blocks made up of 6 colour squares 1 background square and 2 HSTs

HSTs: take the 4 background and 4 colour squares (3"x3") and sew HSTs the traditional way - two in one method - (if you need a detailed instruction sew many ways will help you).

 Assembling a loop:

 3. The connectors

Join the four 2,5"x4,5" yellow pieces to the four 4,5"x4,5" grey pieces - to form those odd units you see below connectign the loops

Assembling the block:

 

Leo

Scrap busting for scrap storage

I don't have much time to do sewing at the moment - but then when did I ever?
I was a but unhappy with all the different boxes and fabric all over the place and I am goign to have to sew a basket for a swap in June following the Hour Basket pattern so I thought conscentious sewer that I am I would do a trial run.
Miraculously the basket fit perfectly in the middle shelf of my sewing shelves ... so I just couldn't stop until I had a row of scrappy scrap baskets for my most common scrap colours.

Löni

more green and a winner

 

I couldn't resist to post a few more pictures of the garden greens - false forget-me-nots doing lovely in their shady corner

But yes of course - the winner needs to be determined - I wish the number would have been lower it, so Iwouldn't have to count all the way to 96.

And No. 96 is:

AlidaP

Love them and need them! thanks for the chance!!

And for a green finale - a very special litle green splot - that is a very hardy very sweet grape from granny's garden, we "borrowed a few cut offs in autumn and waited for months to finally see this.

Leo