Grow your blog 2015

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Hello! I'm Marly. Welcome to my blog which is about my quilting projects. I live in The Netherlands, which is also known, not entirely correctly, as Holland, just across the North Sea from England, where I was born.

From Rijswijk looking north towards Leiden.
Densely populated, but with spectacular skies;
no wonder Rembrandt was the master of light.

Since, officially, I retired nearly three years ago I have taken up quilting and am passionate about it. I say officially retired because I was asked to continue working and so still teach Business English but fewer hours than before. I spend all the time I can at my Bernina 440 QE, experimenting  with colour and shape, trying my hand at FMQ and generally amazing myself!

At the moment I am working on an Optical Illusion Quilt I sort of designed myself.

Optical illusion
Study in green, yellow and purple
completed top

Sort of, because I attended a course at "Quilters Palet" in The Hague in which various grids were handed out and then we drew lines and coloured the spaces with crayons. In the end I rejected all my grids with drawn in lines and chose the simple grid but with ten different colours. I wanted to experiment with various shades of adjacent colours and a complimentary colour. Every one of the participants is creating a totally different and unique quilt. (you can read more about the process here and here)

I have discovered over the last year that I find it hard to resist BOMs (blocks of the month) and QALs (Quilt Alongs). Click on the pictures for more information

Quilt Alongs (or should that be Quilts Along?)

Quiltville Mystery: Celtic Solstice

It started with Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Celtic Solstice which I seriously underestimated. I thought it would take about a year, with a clue each couple of months, but of course, as everyone knows, Bonnie gives a clue each week, and expects it to be made within three days! I very proudly got mine finished in June!

Triangle quilt finished just before sunset, around 9:00 pm

 That was not bad going as in the meantime I had made and finished The Sassy Quilter's triangle quilt within the deadline. The last day, the day of the link up of finished quilts, I was literally sewing down the binding within hours of midnight. I was pleased, and still am, with the result which belongs now to my nine-year-old granddaughter.



From both these projects I learnt an enormous amount about piecing and FMQ (free motion quilting) Both Bonnie and Paula gave lots of hints on cutting fabric and putting blocks together which made for greater accuracy which was invaluable to a novice like me.

The Little Letters Project at the Temecula Quilt Company was my last QAL of 2014, and is now an almost finished top.

Little Letters QAL

This will  be my first quilting project in February. As I will be quilting  myself on my Bernina 440, I like to have a couple of projects lined up so I'm not forever changing needles, feet and machine settings - I invariably forget to change something.

For this year I have just signed up to the Elephant Parade at Sew Fresh Quilts, which starts on Monday 1 February. Can't wait!

Blocks Of the Month

Last year I took part in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I was so obsessed with the idea of a rainbow that I missed the word SCRAP! I didn't have any to speak of, so was rapidly augmenting my stash by buying FQs (fat quarters) and half metres from Quilters Palet my LQS (local quilt shop) and from "Birdblocks" Quilt shop in Amsterdam.

RSC 14 a month or so ago

Last year's RSC Sampler was several, like about eight, blocks each month to be made in one colour. I enjoyed this immensely, and the funny thing is that when I was putting it all together I discovered that several of January's blocks wouldn't fit, in fact one was almost an inch too small, and had to be remade. Trouble with ¼" seams? You bet! For the other blocks from the beginning of the year I was able to compensate with the seam allowance in the sashing! Gradually during the year I got more accurate which just goes to show:

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!

well, not perfect exactly but better! At the moment the four sections of the top are together (this is going to be quilt as you go technique) waiting for borders and will be my second quilting project for February.

This year I have signed up for several BOMs:

• Sew Sweet Simplicity
• Quilt Doodle: I've traced January's figures onto wonder-under, but no sewing yet.
• Galaxy of Stars
• and of course RSC 15: two blocks made

whirling geese

card trick

 Isn't it funny: it always takes more time to make a block than to read the instructions!

Improv quilting

is something I want to do more of, my efforts to date having been just three cushions

Three cushions

first cushion

second cushion

(improv quilting, not patchwork), and and a few practice pieces that never made it to my blog. For this I need to be brave! I need to summon my courage and START! The trouble is I'm a perfectionist and a control freak (hmm, I wonder why I became a teacher!) and want a PLAN. Working without a detailed plan is my goal for 2015. So what are all those BOMs doing on my list? Avoidance? We will have to see if I manage to improvise round the given theme.

I can't resist the idea of sewing along with maybe hundreds, or even thousands of other quilters from around the globe. None of my immediate family or friends or neighbours quilts, so I need the companionship of the internet quilting community to keep me going, especially when facing a dilemma. Being able to consult the collective experience of the community is a lifeline.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my quilting adventures since I started my blog at the end of 2013. While you're here look around at my past posts, and don't forget that clicking on the pictures opens a link to more about that project.

I hope to see you again here soon and to share this wonderful hobby with you. If you are visiting from Grow Your Blog 2015 please leave a message here and I'll be sure to head over to your blog too. Even if you're not "growing your blog" this year, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Happy sewing

Marly

Around the World Blog Hop

I wish we could just hop across the Atlantic as cheaply and easily as this! I was tagged for this hop by Judy at Quilt Paradigm , whom I met during the Triangle Quilt Along, and she's in  the USA, I believe in Arizona, and I'm in The Netherlands, Europe. I've managed to tag two others, for me much closer to home, but more about them later. First I have to answer some questions.

1. What am I working on?

At present I'm working on a few projects. I've finished three bed quilts and one throw this year:

two patterns from books,

Good Night

Jigsaw 

and two from QALs

Triangle Quilt 

Celtic Solstice

(Click on the captions for a link to the relevant posts.)

They were all destined as presents and I needed to concentrate on getting those done, before working on skill-improvement projects. So now I'm making cushion covers to try my own layout ideas and to practise FMQ on something small; I've had my fill of trying to manage 2kg of quilt going through the throat of my Bernina 440QE. (Bernina call it Quilters' Edition, but in my opinion that's something of a misnomer, the space is far too small.)

First cushion cover: finished 

The next two cushions in the making.

I'm also trying different piecing techniques. So far I've made this sample following a "workshop" in Jean Wells' book "Intuitive Colour .." but it needs to have a border and quilting before I start on the following "workshop".

Experiment in Intuitive Piecing

I already have Ricky Tims' "Convergence Quilts" lined up for a future challenge.

My next start, however, will probably be something for Christmas. I have a charm pack of  "Midwinter Red" bought in a sale in January, and hope to start using it at the beginning of October.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

To start with, my patchwork and quilting doesn't fit into a genre yet because I only started two years ago this week! (I'm not counting my false start at patchwork when I was nine years old and vowed never again! or the quilt for my granddaughter's crib, that was started nine years ago and took 5 years to make!). I consider myself to be searching, finding my way, discovering new forms, and accepting new challenges. Just like I have rarely read the same novel more than once (exception: Pride and Prejudice: six times!) I doubt I will ever repeat a quilt. Life is too short.

8 August 2012 was a turning point in my sewing experience when I followed a workshop in my LQS, Quilters Palet, in The Hague, where I made this:

ragtime

(or at least started it. I was painfully slow at cutting and had never heard of chain piecing.)
and another workshop, where I made this:

purple stars

and that winter followed the beginner's patchwork course (nine lessons) and made this:

Green Sampler

Also two quilting courses one for machine and one for hand quilting that same winter, which enabled me to quilt the green sampler in both techniques.

hand appliquéd EPP and, hand quilted

machine pieced,
machine quilted in the ditch
and hand quilted in the centre unit.

So far these seem to fall into a traditional style. Is this a 19th century genre? Please don't label me!
Perhaps it's because I'm a teacher that I'm nervous of autodidactic. I had to be taught the basic skills. I don't want to invent the wheel, but I do aim at modifying it!

A quilt to cover the long thin window in our front door was next on the list. I thought it should be double sided:

from the outside

so people waiting outside had something to look at. Unfortunately, although the rows on both sides are the same height (the geese are 3" high) they don't match perfectly so from the inside we have an unusual stained-glass effect!

Double Vision!
Friendship Stars on the inside and Flying Geese on the outside shining through

This was my first attempt at making something on my own: no teacher, no pattern other than the traditional blocks.

Since last August I have been on a two day fabric-dying retreat, but haven't used any of the fabric yet. I have done workshops in thumb-quilting and FMQ and I have challenged myself severely by taking part in Bonnie Hunter's Celtic solstice mystery quilt along (photo above). Fools rush in where Angels fear to tread! I underestimated the speed at which she expected people to work. I just about managed to keep up, but almost missed Christmas in my single-minded patchworking! (Good job I didn't need to work for nearly two weeks). It may seem odd, but in the last six months I've made so many HSTs that I'm almost perfect! A hurdle overcome: now just join them all up perfectly! Compare the points in the Green Sampler with those in the Jigsaw, or Triangle Quilt and I think there's hope for me yet!

I'm also participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge hosted by Angela at SoScrappy. I was so hooked by the word "rainbow", that I overlooked the "scrappy", so jumped in with only a 2 litre box of scraps to my name. Ha ha; I've been buying "scraps" (alias fat quarters) all year! At one stage I thought of using my self-dyed fabric for this, but decided I wanted to save it for something over which I had more control.

RSC January to June line up

OK, maybe now I've moved forward into modern traditional? Traditional blocks, modern fabrics. But genre isn't important at the moment: for me it's all about challenging myself to try new things and to perfect my existing skills. Who knows what I'll be doing a year from now?

Back to the original question: how does my work differ from others in its genre? It doesn't, except it was made by me, and I'm not others!

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

I write about my quilting experience to have a record of what I'm doing, but I've only been blogging since December last year. I started so I could join the link ups around the Celtic Solstice project and ask questions to other quilters. I unashamedly pick the brains of other blogging quilters, and will give my opinion, for what it's worth, when asked. Never (I hope) when not asked; I'm a teacher, remember, and we are a group prone to holding opinions!

Quilting is for me the last in a long line of handicrafts: knitting, embroidery, crochet, dressmaking, spinning, weaving, lace making (yes, really) in that order. Even though they're all different they're all textiles, and I've always wanted to create an eclectic project, combining several of the skills.

I learnt many years ago that all artists and crafts(wo)men have to learn their skills before they can branch out on their own and, in the case of artists, develop a genre. Pablo Picasso and Piet Mondriaan spring to mind. Until now I've been developing skills and pushing myself further: finding challenges, and I expect that to continue till I drop. I have been collecting patterns online from everywhere, but have the most quilting satisfaction in creating my own layout, like the window hanging or the cushions.

I don't consider myself an artist, but aim on being a good craftswoman in whatever field.

4. How does my writing/creating process work?

Both my writing and my patchwork and quilting processes are planned, with pauses for deliberation between times. Professionally I write concisely, and think sometimes my blog comes across as rather terse. I like to plan and to finish a project before starting the next, but sometimes fate conspires otherwise: someone really needs a quilt, or a workshop comes up which I really want to follow, both of which have resulted in current projects being put on the back burner.

Toadstool mini quilt,
workshop project.
Planned, but not by me.
After nearly a year: not a priority.
Is it a WIP or  is it a UFO?

However, looking back over the past few months I see a development away from the planned and into the experimental influenced by what I see online, especially Victoria Finlay-Wolfe's "playing", and LeeAnna's use of colour.

I'm moving away too from civil war reproduction fabrics and traditional layouts, and towards modern fabrics, again influenced by all the fabulously creative people out there  in the wide world of blogland.

I would like to introduce you

to two quilting bloggers who will be continuing the hop next week.
Firstly to Ruth of  Charly's and Ben's Crafty Corner who is an active member of the Irish Modern Quilt Guild, but not only creative with needle and thread, but also with lenses and shutter speeds, and probably much more besides.
Secondly to Gina, The Occasional Quilter, who lives in Wales and whom I met through the RSC. She is a real planner: she decided in January exactly how she would tackle the rainbow quilt and so far has stuck to her plan. I expect she will reach her goal by 1 January 2015, but I'll let her tell you about that and much more, next week.

I'm linking up to

       

So head over there now to see what else is happening among quilters and other needle and thread addicts.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Celtic Solstice finished

I joined the Finish Along at The Littlest Thistle for the second quarter in 2014 and my list of projected finishes is here. This is my third finish for the Finish Along. I have no hope of finishing the other two projects. I will carry them over into the next quarter.

My version of Celtic solstice

Celtic Solstice was Bonnie Hunter's mystery pattern last November - December. There were five posts with instructions for five different 3" squares and a final reveal on New Year's Day. In the final reveal Bonnie gave instructions for putting all the 3" pieces into 2 different 9" square blocks, the layout and the borders. I finished on June 30 so it's taken me exactly six months to put it together! How some people manage a quilt a week I really don't know!

Pattern: Celtic Solstice by Bonnie Hunter
Size: 75" square / 191cm
Fabric: assorted scraps and Fat Quarters
Wadding: cotton (no details known)
Backing: "In the Bog" by Anne Ormsby for Clothworks (great fabric name if you're in the UK, but it doesn't smell!)

quilting on the centre

I quilted on my Bernina 440 QE using the BSR foot, using a freehand swirly pattern, making it up as I went along. On the whole I'm satisfied, but there are still strange hooky breaks in the pattern where I had to move my hands. I know I have to stop the machine, and then move my hands but still when I restart the fabric often pulls off in the wrong direction. 

detail of swirls quilting in the border

The swirls in the border were smaller, and better; I could manage one unit of the pattern without moving my hands.

detail of borders 
and pieced binding

In the border triangles I tried the technique I learnt from Angela Walters' Craftsy class, "Dot to Dot Quilting". Not exactly with success! Again the weight of the fabric tends to pull the needle off course. I guess I just have to keep practising!


I made the binding from left over pieces of the fabric used in the centre: width of fabric where I still had some, and otherwise half-widths from the few FQs still big enough.

Having taken lots of photos on the balcony in an effort to get the lighting right - spoilsports were the bright sun, a wall of white glass and an awful lot of sky - I took the quilt indoors and took one last shot which is really better than the rest as far as lighting goes. No artificial lighting; hand-held camera.





Even though I'm reading Ruth's Photo Friday Posts I don't seem able to cope with sun, sky and a white glass wall!

I'm linking to 
Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing for 

and Quokka Quilts for

This is my third finish in Q2 of Finish Along.

 I'm linking my finishes to Katy at the Littlest Thistle. Click on the logo above to view other participants' finishes.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Week 25: one yellow, one green, and some Celtic sunshine.

No, I haven't been to the lands of the Celts this week. Not in person anyway, just in my memory. More later.

In June the colour for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is yellow, and this week I've made one yellow block:

Bright Hopes

Aren't those dancing elephants sweet? It was a block in a charm pack and I think the chance of my making a baby quilt any time soon is extremely remote, so no problem cutting it in half. So as the elephants were dancing I gave them some music to dance to! It's a catchy tune, too, although I don't think I'd heard it before. It's definitely not "Nellie the elephant"!

And one green block:

Carrie Nation

which I had somehow missed when Angela posted the pattern. Actually I found a lot more patterns for green blocks I'd missed. My reading is slipping!

Not much rainbow sewing this week because having corrected and added the borders at the beginning of this week, I've been quilting this:

Celtic Solstice - nearly finished piecing

On the subject of Celtic Solstice: this was the reason for my starting to blog last December. I'd forgotten; so much happens in six months in Blogland. But yesterday I saw Val's anniversary post where she asks people to link their first blog posts. You can see mine here, although in December there was just the message and the photos. I still had a lot to discover (and still have). Go to Val's Quilting Studio, have a look there and join in the linky party. It's interesting to see how people's styles have changed since they first blogged. Anyway I started blogging so I could join the link up for Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt, about six months after discovering that there were quilters with blogs! And since then I've spent too much time reading blogs, so that quilt still isn't finished!

I'm linking up to:

so head over there too, and see what's going on!

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Yellow in June - week 24; Celtic Solstice (no yellow)

The RSC colour for June is yellow. I managed to make 4 blocks this week.

(clockwise from top left:)
Lovers Knot; Mock LeMoyne Star; Wacky Pinwheel; Alamo Star

For the Alamo Star I got to use the Tri Recs rulers I had bought to make the other project I was working on this week: Celtic Solstice, which was Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilt last December. This quilt has three borders, the middle of which is pieced with the same triangle in square units as in the Alamo Star.

Wednesday I went shopping for wadding and fabric for the plain borders in the morning and got the inner border cut and attached and the middle border pieces assembled in the afternoon and evening.  Funny (ha ha!! NOT) thing: why are all the middle border pieces 3" shorter than the inner border? As I've only made one quilt with three borders, and for that didn't have a pattern, I thought there was maybe some quilting secret plan (like nesting seams) that called for a shorter border. Mind you 3" is rather a lot to ease in to fit. I needed the whole of Thursday to get them all on: all 3" short and NO pleats in the inner border (a few gathers but once quilted they will hopefully disappear, I thought.)





Friday morning I got the two side pieces of the outer border on: doesn't look too bad, does it?
(that's because I smoothed it for the photo)







But all is not well. Never mind a Celtic Solstice, this looks like an Atlantic Gale.

It will seriously NOT LIE FLAT, and not just the inner border: the whole thing.

Of course not, I can hear you saying across the miles, stupid. Only at this point did it cross my mind that there might, just might, be a mistake in the pattern? Wading through all Bonnie Hunter's posts for January, and she does write a lot, I finally found a post where she gave the correct number of pieces for the second border: 22 units for the sides and 24 for the top and bottom. I was away from my computer in the first two weeks of January so missed it. Of course, everyone else deduced for themselves that there was a mistake, especially when there were 4 units left over! Just me, 6 months later, following a print out of the original 1 January post, tried to fit 62" onto 65"! Only one thing for it:

 seam ripper! 

To date I've undone about one quarter, better get back to the frog song!

I'm linking up to 

so hop over there to see what other quilters have made this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.

Finish along Q2

In an effort to prioritise my projects I'm participating in the finish along hosted by Katy at The Littlest Thistle.

I think finishing the following 5 projects should be feasible

1. Triangle quilt:

I'm participating in the quilt along hosted by the Sassy Quilter, but making a single-bed sized quilt. I have just under 500 triangles cut. I was late starting sewing because I wasn't able to buy more fabric until Saturday but I'm hoping to catch up this week and, if I keep on schedule, should be finished by the end of April .

2. Jigsaw quilt: 

Jigsaw quilt pattern by Pam & Nicky Lintott
from Two From One Jelly Roll Quilts
in Mmeropolitan Fair by Barbara Beckman for Moda

The top is finished, I have the wadding, but I still need to get backing fabric. I forgot to buy some when I was at the quilt show last weekend. This should be finished in May.

3. Celtic Solstice (Bonnie Hunter Mystery December 2013): 

The top is in four pieces (hence the labels), joined in rows, and has been since the second week in January! To make it ready for quilt-as-you go I just have to join the rows (at present they're webbed). I have both wadding and backing fabric. The problem is I now wonder if I could maybe quilt the whole single bed sized quilt in one go on my Bernina 440QE. Quilting the entire quilt in one go would enable me to try some more interesting quilting, maybe emphasizing the circles. This has to be decided and done, I hope before the end of June.

4. Cardigan

Back and both fronts and hopefully enough wool for both sleeves.
otherwise they'll have to be 3/4 sleeves.

which I started a couple of years ago, before Carpal Tunnel Syndrome forced me to stop knitting. When you can't knit one needle in one go, you know it's time to stop. After operations on both wrists last year I'm going to pick it up again. Now, where was I ...?



5. Toadstool House mini quilt:

I started this in a workshop on using the Apliquick: it was the piece for the workshop, but to be honest, it's not my thing. This is the first time I've started something and really lost interest very quickly. It's such a small thing, and most of it is cut and ready to appliqué, but until a few moments ago I was seriously considering scrapping it al together. But I don't like giving up, so here it is. This is going to be a real challenge to finish. Meanwhile I can be thinking what I'm going to do with it. Any ideas?

Happy sewing and fortuitous finishes

Marly.