Sewing block

Sometimes the work on a quilt seems overwhelming.

Do you know that feeling of slight frustration while working on a quilt? That feeling that there is no end to it and that this quilt will never be finished? Well, that happened to me.

I am in the middle of quilting the quilt for my husband and I'm kind of stuck. I have the very ambitious aim to quilt every block in a different style and different colours. All quilting is done on my home sewing machine although this could have been a better job for a long arm. (Thankfully Dorthe of lalalaPatchwork has one amazing machine now, so next time I'm that ambitious with my quilting I know where to go!!)

It's not that it's not looking the way I'm hoping for, I'm actually quite happy with the way it's turning out.
I just have feeling it takes forever. Maybe it's the colours? Grey, grey, grey, grey, grey black, oh and red!

We also have a lot of rain and thunderstorms here, summer just doesn't want to come.

I'm usually working on a few projects, but not too many. Too many unfinished projects make me feel unease and I loose focus. That also happend to me.

To distract me from my never ending quilt I started other projects. Too many projects for my taste.
I have three pillow cases in the making, I'm still seam ripping my Sea Breeze quilt every now and then, I'm playing with my design wall rearranging my tulip bee blocks and dreaming of at least three more quilts to make.

So I stopped blogging and I also stopped sewing. Sewing and writer's block, so to say. Creative slow down.

I think these 10 Tips to Instant Sewing from Debbie of a Quilter's table brought me back on track.
Time obviously is an issue. But I decided to take it slow and not put too much pressure on myself, sewing is supposed to be fun, isn't it? To be organised with that sometimes very little time is key.

So made a To Do List and will stick to it. Working my way through my projects making sure I have gratification and fun in small steps.
Because not sewing and not blogging is also not a solution!

So please go ahead and encourage me a bit, I think I need that right now  :0)
Thanks!
Linking this to Modern Patch Monday of the Modern Cologne Quilters and to Sew Cute Tuesday at Blossom Heart Quilts. 

Head over heels for Bloggers' Quilt Festival

I haven't blogged that much recently but that didn't mean I wasn't sewing. I was actually working on a new quilt which I proudly present for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

This is also my first custom made quilt for the wife of a dear colleague. She wanted a quilt with turqouise and green and rather dark colours as it might be that their dog is snuggeling up in the quilt as well, so no white. I met the two around Christmas and brought a selection of my fabrics in the desired colours and also colours which accompany the combination.

I also brought all my quilts (..aham, four in total in fairness) to show her what a quilt is actually made of and how it feels. She picked beautiful fabrics and I was really happy that she liked my Gogglebox quilt so much that she wanted the same design for herself.

 
So I combined greens and turquoise with some splashes of red and grey and opted for this beautiful anthracite Oakshott fabrics for the grid and binding.

For the back I opted for a similar design to Gogglebox repeating three blocks and the grid with solid fabrics.

Due to heavy work load and only weekend sewing sessions it took me until now (end of May) to finish the quilt. I also only issue it at the very last minute for the Bloggers' Quilt Festival.

I free motion quilted in two different thread colours, again green and turquoise, and it really stands out on the anthracite fabrics and the light grey at the back.

I'm very happy with this quilt which I named 'Head over heels' due to the elegant Oakshott grid and splashes or red. I'm already having a hard time letting it go, it needs to go in the wash one more time and then it can go to it's new owners.

I'm happy to participate the second time in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival, this is such a great online quilt show!