Sewing again

Finally I managed to do some sewing again! I made 4 postcards for a swap at the Arts'ntheMail group that I recently joined. Can't show them here yet, but the theme is silver and gold.

I also started a new quilt and will show some of it here later. It deserves a whole posting to itself and today there's more to show.

This, for example: I now have received all the ATCs in the 'Cities' swap:


Clockwise, starting at the top left, they are Sydney: Circular Quay from Dianne, Sydney from Roselie, my Brisbane, Paris from Sheila, New York Snapshots from Sharon and My London from Sylvia.
Aren't they beautiful! (click on the photo to see a larger picture)

Yesterday this arrived:



A present from my Angel! Isn't she an Angel!
A beautiful, handmade sewing case (is that what it's called in English?) with scissors and purple thread (my favourite colour!), bubbles for the boys and for Dad ;-) and a 2007 Quilting Arts magazine!!! I have the last few numbers, but none from 2007, so am very happy to receive this. Thanks, Angel!
(just heard from my Mortal that she received my parcel as well!)

The online art quilt group is almost set up; I will probably be able to tell you its name and show you its blog next time! It takes a lot of my time setting it up, but I'm sure it's worth it and I'm looking forward to starting on the first theme - next week!

This weekend I'll be going to the quilt retreat in Toowoomba - don't know yet what I will work on, will just bring all my current projects! (which are quite a few...)

And the winner is...

The random number generator picked a number between 1 and 8 and it was ...1!
So Julie wins a fiber postcard! Congratulations Julie, please send me you address and I'll send the card to you! (as soon as it is finished...)

I can't show anything here today, as I haven't done any sewing in the last week... just a lot of emailing to the members of the new online art quilt group! There's 13 of us already; we have to decide how many members we want to have, as there are quite a few more who would like to join. It's wonderful to have so many reactions!

I miss the sewing, though... Oh well, in 8 days I will be going to the retreat in Toowoomba, organized by Liisa of the Quilters Corner in Keperra (my local quiltshop) and will be able to sew to my heart's content!

Because a blog without a photo isn't a blog (in my opinion, that is), here's a pic of my very first quilt - made in July 2006 for my oldest son Hugo (then 3 years old):



He loved it! :-) (you can click on it to see a larger picture; I finally figured out how to do that!)

Online art quilt group

As I said in the last posting, I find myself drifting towards art quilts. I have been following the blogs of Twelve by twelve and Art for 12 for quite a while now, and wishing I belonged to a group like that to develop myself (2QAQ is lots of fun, but too big to really work on projects together).

So... why not start one myself? I asked Corryna, Caitlin and Sue, who all said they would love to join such a group, and mentioned it on a Dutch and an Australian quilters mailinglist - and now there's 10 of us already! We would like to get started with 12 persons, so if you read this and would like to be a part of it too, please send me an email.

As every participant in the ATC 'Cities' swap has received mine, I can show it here now:



(it's a map of Brisbane...) I rather like it myself :-) and am now thinking of making something like this in a larger size.

Thanks for your birthday wishes on my last posting! I will keep the contest open for 1 week, so if you would like a fiber postcard send to your home (wherever that is), comment on Q's
birthday and who knows, maybe you'll be the lucky one...

Happy birthday to Q!

It's Q's birthday! One year ago I started this blog, the English sequel to my Dutch blog, De lopende band ('The conveyor belt', have a look at this interesting blog - that I found when I was searching for my old blog on Google! - for the translation of this Dutch term).

What a lot has happened in this past year. I went to hear Kaffe Fassett, did a beginners course at a quiltshop, went on my first retreat (next one is in 2 weeks!!!), made my first pictorial quilt, discovered ATCs and fabric postcards... And now I find myself slowly drifting towards art quilts, or fiber art...

As it is a birthday today, there should be a present... So I will let the random number generator pick one of the comments on this posting and that person will get a fabric postcard sent to her home (doesn't matter where that is!). I can't show you the postcard yet, as I have to make it first!

I can show you this one, though, that I sent to a very good friend in The Netherlands:



And these ATCs, that have all reached their destination - they were for mini swaps (6 participants in each swap) with Chocolate and Different Fabrics (everything but cotton) as their themes:



My ATC container is almost full:



And the postcards I have received so far look very good in my sewing room:



I will show more soon!

Lots of ATCs!

Yesterday I received my Cheer Me Up ATCs (made by and for Scquilters not going to the retreat in Perth, to cheer them up):



Aren't they gorgeous and cheerful?

Here are 2 of the 3 sets I made for this swap (I think I forgot to make a picture of the third...):



I am now finishing another 3 sets of ATCs for various swaps and have decided to give them a rest after that. I want to get on with my log cabin quilt, the medieval lady and maybe start on another quilt. I have an idea, but have to mull it over (over it?) a bit more..

Koala Bow Bag

Thanks for all the comments and emails about my medieval lady! (I have started to think of her like that now) After writing that posting I got cold feet and almost took it away again, thinking it wasn't very interesting after all... I'm very happy that some of you thought it was!

Today I went to the Stitches and Craft Show with Rens. We had a lovely time, saw some beautiful quilts and I bought beads to embellish the medieval lady. Maybe I can make a start on that tonight.

Here's a pic of the small bow bag that I made for Amy, my son Ernst's best friend. She turned 3 last Friday. She lives close to us, her parents are Dutch as well and at the end of this month they are going back to The Netherlands, so I made the bag in koala and kangaroo fabric, as a memory of Australia. She loved it - and so do I!

Who are you?

Something happened last night... I was going to make some ATCs for the 'Different fabrics' ATC swap that I signed up for. I played with my Angelina fibres (I love Angelina!), made a nice piece with all the coulours in my starters kit ;-) and found a beautiful non-cotton fabric to sew it on. First fused this to a piece of Fast-2-Fuse, that I always use for ATCs and postcards. Glued the Angelina sheet on it and at that point decided it looked much too good to cut up in 6 different pieces... Started to wonder then if I was creating my very first art quilt?! (although Margeeth said the bird quilts are art quilts as well!)

Started to stitch the Angelina on with invisible thread - that didn't turn out as I had thought it would, but as I stitched it became something that reminded me of a face...
Asked DH what he thought of it, but he didn't know - as I should have known! :-))

So - I decided to turn it into a face! I pinned a nappy liner on top (still have lots from when my boys wore cloth diapers!) and drew a face on it. Stitched the face on with the invisible thread, peeled the nappy liner off... and then it was time to go to bed :-(.

It still looked good in the morning! I asked Hugo (5 years old and the most creative person in this house) what he thought of it and he said 'Beautiful!' :-)
(Ernst (3) said 'It's a knight!' I had thought it was a woman)

I haven't sewn the beads on the eyes yet, but have decided that I will do that. Am still thinking if I will sew on beads or couch a glittery thread on the sides of the head to make hair. And can't wait to get on with it tonight!

Wow, this is cool, getting caught in a creative flow! Please let me know what you think of it, if you read this. I long for some feedback once in a while - which is why I started this blog, but there haven't been much comments lately. Maybe I should comment more on other people's blogs! (I will, I promise!)