Little Letters finished

My Little Letters quilt, is finished. This was a QAL on the blog of  the Temecula Quilt Company last autumn, and while the letters were finished in December (see here) I have now got it finally quilted and bound.

I quilted the border with a mixture of flowers and leaves, without a real plan, but making sure there was  flower in each corner. There is also a Charlie's pencil (see here and here)in the border, next to the U.

Thank you to those of you who gave advice on the binding last week. I chose scrappy! I didn't have enough of any of the fabrics to use just one fabric, except the white background fabric. I generally cut my binding fabric 2" wide which gives a very narrow border to the quilt which doesn't finish as such an important design element.

Scrappy binding: the smallest piece is barely 3" long, the rest between 10" and 16".

I left the letters unquilted, only quilting in the white space between them. There wasn't a quilting plan as such, I just went with the space available, and really enjoyed the letters, like D, O and U with a single large piece of white.

        I really do have to practise STRAIGHT FMQ more!

and now it's been washed; I love the crinkles! 

Quilt statistics

Pattern:	Little Letters by Temecula Quilt Company
Size:	34½” x 39½”
Fabric:	letters: scraps; background: Bella solid; backing: "Simple Pleasures" by Fresh Designs for Henry Glass & Co.
Wadding:	Cotton from LQS.

I'm linking up this week to:

         

and at the beginning of April to:

For my list of would-be first quarter finishes click here.

So go and see what else is doing in the Quilting Community. And now I'm going to do some more sewing towards a finish.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Little Letters Quilted

Last Wednesday I reported that I'd started quilting my Little letters quilt, a quilt along from The Temecula Quilt Company. I finished quilting this afternoon.

I used a double row of serpentine stitches in the sashing, and FMQ on the white space inside the 4" blocks. I intended doing a different design in each block, but ran out of ideas, so several of them have the same quilting pattern. Not exactly the same, obviously, because the white space around each letter is a different shape.

The photos were taken this evening using flash, which tends to equalise the result by removing shadows, so rendering the quilting almost invisible. I counteracted this somewhat by crouching low and using maximum zoom. Perhaps there's now too much shadow!

Charlie's pencil

The border is of leaves and flowers and one pencil (read more about the pencil here and here). For the pencil I tried to get the lines straight by drawing it in first - the only pencilled motif in the whole quilt - but I couldn't keep on the lines. I hope when the blue ink is washed out it still looks like a pencil. If not I'll have to add some hand stitching.

Now I have a question: what would you bind this with? I have two options:

• off white - the same as the background for the blocks, the sashings and the borders, or
• scrappy coloured - using some of the fabrics I used for the letters

I'm linking up to Pink Doxies for Pet project show.
And with Cynthia at Quilting is more Fun than Housework (here, here!) for Oh Scrap!

Happy sewing

Marly.

Work in Progress: Little Letters

I started quilting my Little Letters quilt (for more information see here) this morning. I love this quilt, it's so sweet, and small! I started with a double row of Serpentine stitch along the sashings, and then quilted the white space in the blocks, leaving the letters free of quilting. 

I tried to do FMQ in straight lines, but I'm really terrible at that, squiggles and circles go much better.

This week Amy  at Amy's Free Motion Quilting posted about a foot that fits a Bernina and is suitable for use with a ruler so I shall be keeping an eye on developments there. I guess I'd get better straight lines with a ruler!

"O"

I'm hoping to finish this soon, as I've got two more tops waiting to be quilted on the machine, and a mini to do by hand.

I'm linking to

   

so go and visit over there and see what else is being produced in the quilting world this week, while I go and put some stitches in my mini quilt.

Happy sewing

Marly.

Grow your blog 2015

Every night's a party night!

Join the party at:

Click on the picture for an direct link to the party.

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

The last of the "Little Letters"

Having made all the letters as far as "R" several weeks ago, I worked through the rest of the alphabet on Saturday morning.

The X is a disappointment. I shall be redoing it before long.

The quilt pattern from The Temecula Quilt Company QAL has four more blocks to make up the 26 letters to a 5 x 6 block layout. I still have to make those and add the sashings, so there's some way to go still.

The complete alphabet with spaces for the four remaining blocks.
(My apologies for the thready wall; I believe a loo brush works wonders. A clean one, that is!)

The letters are really very easy to make, and the great thing is the patterns are staying up on the site, so if you're interested in using them too go and take a look.

Linking up this week to:

  

    

Happy sewing


Marly.

Four more Little Letters

Instructions for two patchwork letters are being posted each week (one on Sunday and one on Wednesday) on the blog of the Temecula Quilt Company. They finish at 4" square, are really easy to make, and come together quickly. The project incorporates them in a quilt, but I see a potential for using them to personalise gifts.

On Sunday morning I made four more letters:

which brought me up to date. However, seeing as the tutorials are posted on Sunday and Wednesday, I'm already behind again!

On Thursday I started quilting my Christmas table runner.

I thought I would do a FMQ all over ramble with variegated thread.

Quilting? Now you see it; now you don't!

What a mistake! Variegated thread  doesn't suit me:

• firstly: all the mistakes show up (and I am no expert)
• secondly: it gives too fragmented an effect on already fragmented patchwork. 

Logical really,  but I had to experience it.

Just look at all those horrible wobbly lines, and
what is being achieved by using variegated thread?

After 20 minutes quilting this was clearly a mess so I broke my rule, (never unpick quilting!)

this was the only thing for it - for the next FIVE HOURS!

I haven't looked at it since, but this afternoon plan to choose one uni-coloured thread and start again. Which colour would you use?

I'm linking up to:

 

so pop over there and see what else is going on this week.

Happy Sewing

Marly.