I have been busy making zipper pouches!

Not that you think I was lazy... I have been making some open wide zipper pouches following this tutorial by Noodlehead.

These are the smaller sizes but slightly altered.

The first one I made was from fabric left overs from my current quilt in progress with crazy piecing and beautiful multicoloured Aurifil thread, I loved the effect it had and will use it on my quilt as well.

The second one I made was a gift for one of my best friends and rowing partner, her favourite colour is green so I added pink and a linen fabric with grey, green and pink.

And the third one was my very first custom made item for my colleague, he wanted this as a present for his girlfriend, he picked the colours and thankfully they both liked it, phew!

I am in the final touches of quilting my fifth quilt and will post about it soon!

Introducing: 'Gogglebox' log cabin quilt

2014 will be a year of a lot of firsts, this is my first log cabin quilt and also the first 'real' quilt made from a sandwich of back, batting and front.

I pieced this quilt already in September/ October 2013 but then needed to practice free motion quilting and that took me a while...

I made the blocks from the fabric line 'Piccadilly' designed by Sparky & Marie for Quilting Treasure and combined it with Kona solids.
The free motion quilting was a real challenge for me, I found this tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman very helpful!

 I choose to do meandering all over quilting...

... there are a lot of little mistakes but I think for my very first time doing free motion quilting I'm quite happy how it turned out.

The quilt got this really nice crinkly look now and it suits our brown couch.
I made the binding in the same colour than the beige block dividing fabric to keep the attention on the blocks.

On the back, however, the beige binding really stands out and I like that a lot.

My husband came up with the name for the quilt which in Ireland is a TV... I loved it and the quilt got it's name 'Gogglebox'!

 

I'm featured on Lotta Jansdotter!

I have to say I am super excited about being featured on Lotta Jansdotter's Facebook page!
Have a look yourself!

QuiP #1 - Quilt in Progress: 'shattered'

I thought I share a 'Quilt in Progress - QuiP' with you today.

This is some improvisational piecing based on the method by Jaquie Gering and Katie Pedersen and their book Quilting Modern.
I used grey, black and yellow; my favourite colour combination at the moment:

I cut strips, paired them into contrasting combinations...  ... and sewed them together and cut again. All without measuring, how freeing!

And here's the first block:
Voilà!

I will go for a different layout of the blocks than shown in the book though, I'll go a bit crazy on that one!
The quilt will be called 'shattered' and I have a great location already in mind to take photos of it!

I bought all the fabric in my favourite quilt shop Quilt Cabin in Dortmund, Germany. They have a fantastic fabric selection and very friendly, helpful staff! They have an online shop too! 

Stay tuned, finished quilt top is coming up soon!

Wintry quilt #2 - 'lotta'

My Mum has admired my first quilt 'my furry friend' so much that I thought the second quilt I finish should be for her. And as I mentioned before I bought loads of fabric by Lotta Jansdotter so I decided to make my Mum a similar quilt to my own.

I went with the orange fabric line and combined it with brown, grey and lots of white. It has the same light grey fleece back and the same straight line quilting. I called it 'lotta'.

I gave it to my Mum on the day we took these photos, I will never forget her face when she said: "For me?"
Every evening she wraps up in it sitting on the couch and that picture makes me smile all the time!
What is there better than giving someone a hand crafted present which provides warmth, comfort and something beautiful to touch and look at!

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I finished my first quilt!!!

This is actually my third quilt top, which I finally finished into a quilt.
I am a bit proud!

The first quilt top I made was from lots of pre-cut jelly rolls. I thought I could learn the proper 1/4" seam best that way, and it worked. But then the quilt top got so big that I had too much respect and put it a side thinking I need to start with something smaller first. I will post about it later.

I then started a log cabin quilt top, which went really well. The entire quilt sandwich is all ready to be quilted! I haven't finished the quilting yet as I want to do meandering free motion quilting. It took some time to figure that out and I'm still practising. Again, I'll blog about it later.

So now to 'My furry friend':

I finally got to work with these beautiful fabrics by Lotta Jansdotter.I bought most of the fabric in Sew Modern in Los Angeles, as my husband and I were on our honeymoon in May 2013.

I wanted to create a wintry feel to the quilt and decided to have the back done from fleece. I combined lots of white with the grey, brown and turquoise colours. It's simple staggered strips but I really like the combination of different fabrics in different widths.

The quilt top and fleece were straight line quilted to represent icicles/ snow flakes which I think goes well with the wintry design.

I actually wanted to take photos of the quilt in the snow, but it hasn't snowed where I live. Not at all!
And since spring is already around the corner I  took the quilt out in the leafless woods.

Please feel free to comment, I will be posting regularly about my quilting journey.