Celtic Solstice part 5

It was great to see Bonnie Hunter's Quilt-Cam live for the first time on Saturday evening. The last couple of early sessions I missed because of being out for the evening, or having visitors, so watched them later on U-Tube. It isn't feasible to watch a 9pm start live; it's 3am in mainland North-West Europe. 

This was my set-up for watching: iPad and sewing machine set up and a row of triangles to be pieced for step 5 of Celtic Solstice.

This was great though because it was a very productive time: rather than nodding off through two episodes of Rizzoli and Isles, I completed 26 split triangle units while watching ... hmm ... listening to Bonnie, and had 21 more pieced half units pinned to the blue and ready to go this morning. 




Deel 5 van Celtic Solstice ging snel verder tijdens Quilt-Cam zaterdagavond. 26 blokken klaar en nog 21 die nog maar een naad nodig hadden, en die kwamen vanmorgen af. Altijd meer productief dan dutten voor Rizzoli and Isles.




I will have to watch the video again, and pay more attention to the star blocks, as I want to make a star quilt soon, using scraps for the stars but on a uniform background.

You can see what other participants in the Celtic Solstice mystery quilt-along are doing in the Monday link up here.

Happy Christmas

The storm has passed and the sun is shining. It is such a beautiful calm day you can really feel "Peace on Earth". I think a long walk through some old parks nearby is on the agenda. This was a popular location for the elite to build their country houses in the seventeenth century. Most of the houses have disappeared, but their parks and gardens remain, making this town rich in "managed nature".

De storm is voorbij, de zon schijnt. Op zo'n mooie rustige dag is "Vrede op Aarde" tastbaar. Ik denk een lange wandeling door een paar dichtbijgelegen parken aan de orde is. In de Gouden Eeuw was dit een gewilde locatie voor het bouwen van buitenverblijven door de Haagse elite. De meeste huizen zijn verdwenen, maar de landgoederen zijn gebleven; een dorp rijk in "beheerde natuur"  (voor mij een contradictie want natuur is woest!)

Under the Christmas tree was a very small package for me; you know: all the best things come in small parcels. This is what it was wrapped in:

Voor mij lag er vanmorgen hierin onder de boom een klein cadeautje.

Patchwork inspired wrapping paper. I think I might well return it to patchwork and it will turn up again next year in place mats! What do you think?

Wat vind je ervan? Placemats van het patroon volgend jaar kerst?


Happy sewing

Marly.

Celtic solstice part 4

I'm working on Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt "Celtic Solstice" and I really enjoy seeing on Mondays what a lot of other people are doing. The amount some people get done in one day really blows me away! Click here to see how others are doing.

Last Friday we got part 4  of the "Celtic Solstice" mystery: four-patches. I set about cutting on Saturday and made these:

21 4-patches

In the meantime the number has grown slightly.

I've so far done a bit of every step, but finished none of them. One of the advantages of being behind, however is that you get to do 2 steps simultaneously. I used the half square triangles (HSTs) from step 3 as Leaders and Enders in step 2. Of course this isn't going to get all 200 done, but it's something.

Step 3 HST as Leader & Ender for
 (beginning of) chain of step 2 half-chevron-blocks

90 HSTs; all leaders and enders!

Most of the rectangles from step 2 are, to my amazement, still not rectangles when they are finished. Wishful thinking; I just spent the morning checking and cutting bits off! The problem seems to be that the flipped triangle didn't flip straight along the top (at least some of the time).
So while yesterday I thought I had finished the rectangles and laid them out ready to be joined into chevrons, an easy task, it's not and so far only 32 chevron blocks are complete, but I feel the end is in sight.  It seems like they're going on forever.

trimming!

I experienced some delay with step 1 because I didn't have the right tool, but got help from some of you after the step one link up and was able to order the Tri Recs tool, rather belatedly. So although I've finally cut all the triangles for step one, I haven't done anything more about putting them together.


Happy sewing,

Marly.

Celtic Solstice part 3

Ik bied mijn excuses aan aan Nederlandse lezers; dit vertaal ik niet. Ik ga ervan uit dat als je hierin geïnteresseerd bent je ook Engels leest. Omdat het Nederlands mijn eerste taal niet is is het vertalen me een hele klus! Ik heb besloten dat alleen als mijn posts betrekking hebben op Nederland dan schrijf ik in beide talen. Ik hoop dat je dit begrijpt.


I had a slow start to Bonnie Hunter's Celtic Solstice mystery, but the Tri Rec tool arrived from Amazon this week, so I was able to catch up cutting the pieces for part 1.

This went a lot faster than with the "templates-stuck-to-ruler" method I was using a couple of weeks ago.

templates on ruler = s l o w

Part 2 has been progressing nicely on and off all week, 

So far these are the only two blocks

although I made life more difficult than necessary by simultaneously making half square triangles out of the bonus triangles. I keep reminding myself of the long term benefits! 

On Sunday I made a start on part 3: half square triangles, but in my case they are orange with purple / dark pink, instead of yellow.

About 80 pairs of part 3 triangles

The past two weeks have seen a lot of cutting, and relatively little sewing. So it's time to sew!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Workshop week

There are some skills I wish I had, and which however much I try to master I just don't seem to get (like speaking Portuguese). Free motion quilting was also a case in point. I could bear the free motion frustration no longer and decided it was time to get expert advice.

Er zijn vaardigheden die ik zou willen hebben, maar wat ik ook doe, het lukt me niet om ze eigen te maken (zoals Portugees spreken). Zo ook machine quilten uit de vrije hand. De frustratie werd me te veel; het werd tijd om een expert te raadplegen.
De expert machine quilting trainer in dit deel van Nederland is Karen Lipton, dus heb ik van de week een workshop bij haar gevolgd bij QuiltersPalet in Den Haag. Wij hebben zo ontzettend veel in 5,5 uur geleerd: cirkels, blaadjes, bloemen, harten en sterren. Het gekke is dat het zo ontspannend was, terwijl in het verleden ik altijd zo gespannen van werd. Waarschijnlijk daarom bakte ik er niets van!

2 van mijn proeflapjes 

Around here the free motion expert is Karen Lipton, so I attended her workshop  "Free Motion Fun" at QuiltersPalet in The Hague this week. Wow, did we cover a lot of ground in five and a half hours! Karen took the group from simple straight lines, up and down and left to right, while she checked the machine adjustments, to garlands with flowers, leaves, hearts and stars. 
The strangest thing: it was all so relaxed and relaxing, while in the past free motion quilting left me tense, both mentally and physically, which is probably why I never got anywhere with it.

I was so busy I only took one photo during the workshop, and that isn't really accurate, because shortly afterwards I changed the stitch length to 2.5mm.

Mijn enige foto van tijdens de workshop; ik had het te druk!

So I don't forget the settings.

As if one workshop wasn't enough, the following day I took a second, also at QuiltersPalet :"My own Quilt File" with Hilde. Now, I can't honestly say that I'd been desperately frustrated while making boxes or files in the past. I don't remember ever trying my hand at this particular craft. I did, however, need a neat and portable cutting mat, and a mini ironing board would come in handy (if I had a mini iron - Santa!). While such files are commercially available, an entirely personalized one is preferable, don't you think?

I'm pleased with the result.

outside - de buitenkant

inside - de binnenkant

Alsof een workshop niet genoeg was, ging ik de volgende dag nog een volgen bij QuiltersPalet, en deze keer bij Hilde, om kartonnage te leren door dit handig map te maken. Je kunt soortgelijke mappen kopen, maar zelf gemaakt is toch leuker? Ik vond dat ik er een nodig had; nu nog de mini strijkijzer voor bij de mini strijkplank (Kerstman)! Met het resultaat ben ik best tevreden.

Welcome; Celtic Solstice Part 2

Welcome to my blog, where I'm going to write about my quilting challenges. I'm fairly new to patchwork and quilting, but am already addicted. 
I have just spent most of today cutting pieces for step 2 of my version of Bonnie Hunter's Mystery quilt ( http://quiltville.blogspot.nl/p/celtic-solstice-mystery.html ).

Welkom op mijn blog, waar ik over mijn quilting uitdagingen ga schrijven. Ik ben er niet zo lang mee bezig, alles is uitdaging, maar ik ben eraan verslaafd. Vandaag heb ik vierkantjes en rechthoeken geknipt voor Bonnie Hunter's Mystery quilt part 2. 
( http://quiltville.blogspot.nl/p/celtic-solstice-mystery.html )

drawing diagonal lines on the squares

The squares have to be cut in half diagonally once they have been attached to the rectangles, so I've also drawn the stitching lines on all 200 squares. (the other 200 will come later)
I find it's easier to draw straight lines on fabric if there is a piece of sandpaper underneath. To give the paper more stability it's mounted on a piece of cardboard box:

Omdat als de vierkantjes op de rechthoeken vastzitten ze diagonaal doorgeknipt moeten worden heb ik alvast de naadlijn erop getekend.

Ik vind het tekenen van rechte lijnen op stof makkelijker als er een stukje schuurpapier eronder ligt (tip van Jobina de Boer). Het papier ligt steviger als het op een stuk kartonendoos gemonteerd is.

Here's my production for today.

I stopped cutting green because I've used something of everything I've got and hope to pick up some more bright green this week.

200 neutral squares, 178 green rectangles - all in bundles of 10

Productie van vandaag. Ik hield op met groene stof knippen om dat ik van alles een beetje had gebruikt, maar hoop van de week meer te kopen.

Nu komt de uitdaging: gebruik ik geel voor de andere vierkantjes ( als Bonnie gedaan heeft), of ga ik voor paars/ fel roos? Mijn eerste insteek was paars /roos - de hei, distels, wilde rhododendrons - want voor mijn is "Celtic" niet zo zeer Iers als Scots. Deze beslissing stel ik uit tot ik weet wat er verder komt. Ik probeer in ieder geval voor vrijdag 200 neutrale vierkantjes op 200 groene rechthoeken te naaien.

My challenge now is which colour am I going to use for the other squares, the ones Bonnie has made yellow? My original plan was to make them purple /mauve/ bright pink - heather, thistles, wild rhododendrons - as for me, "Celtic" is not Irish but Scottish. I'm postponing that decision until I see what comes next. I'll try to get 200 neutral squares sewn and flipped onto 200 rectangles before Friday.

 I was too late for last week's linky party, although I had a look round, but I hope I can link up today.

Mijn dank aan Ingrid en Annemieke (kippetje) die mij vorige week hielpen; de tri-recs zouden morgen bezorgd moeten worden.

Now be sure to go to http://quiltville.blogspot.nl/2013/12/celtic-solstice-mystery-monday-link-up.html to view the other participants.

Marly.