Wordless Wednesday

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2015: Thinking of Holland

This is my second entry in the Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2015, hosted by Amy Ellis from Amy's Creative Side, in the Art Quilt category. I made this art quilt, called Thinking of Holland, in November 2013 for an exhibition with the theme 'Living Colour'. It wasn't selected but it became one of my favourite quilts.



'Living Colour' immediately make me think of the flower fields in Holland (The Netherlands), my home country. We use to live close to those fields in the last few years before we moved to Australia and yes, they really are so very colourful. There are also lots of windmills in that part of the country and although a cliché, I had to add one as they have such a beautiful shape!



I also had to include a bicycle... It's what I miss most here in Australia - riding everywhere as a matter of fact (without a helmet!) and feeling safe because it is such a normal part of everyday life. The bicycle shape is the one I used in my Cycle of Life quilt (see blog header), it is based on a photo of my husband and our youngest son.



I densely quilted this piece with Aurifil threads and blogged about it here.



Do check out the other quilts in the Art Quilt category and don't forget to vote for your favourites between 29 October and 5 November!

Bloggers Quilt Festival Fall 2015: Lone Star

The Bloggers Quilt Festival hosted by Amy Ellis from Amy's Creative Side is on again! I am entering my Lone Star quilt in the Large Quilts category.



I started piecing this quilt in June 2013 and finished the top by the end of July. I had a go at quilting it, but didn't like the result and put it away. I finally picked it up again two years (!) later and this time I did finish it. The binding was hand-stitched on during a short holiday in Caloundra, a sea-side town north of Brisbane, so I went for a celebratory photo shoot there:





This quilt has been on our bed ever since it was finished. I love it and am so glad that I did not give up on it after all!



I originally blogged about this quilt here. Stay tuned for my second entry into the Bloggers Quilt Festival!

Wordless Wednesday

Starimekko

You may remember that a while ago I mentioned that I was making a quilt using Marimekko fabrics - more specifically the iconic Unikko (Poppy) design in different colourways. Well, here it is!



As you can see, it's another Lone Star - I loved making the red and white one and I'm not done yet with Lone Stars! For this quilt I used much larger diamonds to showcase the fabrics, and I added 1 inch white sashing strips.



While working on it I jokingly called the quilt Starimekko, and the name stuck...



I quilted it in a similar way to the other Lone Star quilt, using straight lines, although this time not in the ditch but about 1 inch from the seams on each side. Quilting most certainly is not my favourite part of the quiltmaking process...



The binding is made from yet another Unikko fabric (as shown here):



The back of the quilt is a large-scale Marimekko fabric called Hetkiä (Moments), designed by Maija Louekari. I like it almost as much as the front!

Starimekko is 68 inch /172.5 cm square. Here it is on our bed - such a happy and colourful quilt, don't you think?



I am planning to make a small wall hanging with the scraps and the selvedges of the Marimekko fabrics, so stay tuned!

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas tree skirt

Finally I can show you the Christmas project I made back in May! It is a tree skirt - the first one I have ever made. I'm very pleased with how it turned out and looking forward to using it in December. How lucky that we have just moved to a bigger house, and will actually have room for a large tree this year!



The tree skirt is one of the projects in the Christmas issue of Down Under Quilts (#172), which is now available at newsagents and online.



My equilateral triangles quilt is also in this issue - you may remember I made it back in April.



I really like this little quilt! I used six shades of green, plus four brown triangles to make sure you can see the forest through the trees ;-)



Sadly there are no babies expected in my family or among my friends anytime soon, so I have added the quilt to my Etsy shop. You can find it here.



UPDATE 2016: The pattern for this quilt is now available on Etsy.

Colouring in

Have you succumbed to the latest fad yet - colouring-in books for adults? I came across this book the other day and couldn't resist it: Fantastic Cities by Canadian artist Steve McDonald.



It's filled with gorgeous drawings of cities all over the world - Amsterdam, Melbourne, Paris, New York, Tokyo, you name it. There are also some mandalas created from the citiscapes. I can see myself spending quilte a few hours immersed in this book!



I've just finished a large quilt (will show it here soon) and as always after a big project I felt like making some small items. I had just sold a few pencil rolls to my first customer from Russia (!) so decided to make some new ones to add to my Etsy shop. One from this funky transport fabric:



And two from beautiful Aboriginal fabrics:





They would make a great gift for someone who loves colouring in!

Wordless Wednesday

2015 SAQA Benefit Auction

Just a reminder that SAQA's 2015 Benefit Auction starts tomorrow (on my birthday!) - you can see all the quilts that are for sale here and read how the Auction works here.



This is my contribution, Escape - it is part of Section 2.

Back in business

Last Sunday I finally got to unpack all the boxes in my sewing room. It felt so good to start up my sewing machine again! I made this block, which will become part of a new quilt:



Sadly this week my husband is in Canberra, so I am even busier than usual taxiing the boys around town (he usually picks them up from their gymnastics training at night). With a work deadline looming as well I don't get to do much sewing, but I'm hoping to find some time on the weekend...

Moved!

We have moved! The new house is lovely - large, full of light, and in a very quiet street, with our back gate leading to the Kedron Brook. I have done a lot of unpacking in the last week and most of the rooms are now free of boxes. I love our new bedroom!



Sadly my sewing room is not ready yet - it is waiting for a new bookcase (bought at Ikea yesterday) to be assembled. I hope to do that in the next few days...



In the meantime I have started a new crafty project that can be done at the kitchen table - a t-shirt shag rug. I've also dug up the jar quilt that I made back in 2007 - our first year in Australia. The boys still love it!

Another PTT Post Bag

It has arrived in the Netherlands, so I can finally show it here: another PTT post bag, made from a vintage Dutch post bag.



I made this bag for a good friend in Holland, who saw my bag when we visited her in January and exclaimed that she would love to have one like that :-)



Well, I had bought two more vintage post bags when we were in Holland... Today is her birthday and it arrived yesterday, perfect timing! She told me she loved it :-)



I have now made three PTT post  bags:



The first one (left) in November last year, for myself. The second one (middle) earlier this year, for my friend who was living in New Zealand at that time. And now this one, which will be the last one as I have no more vintage post bags (and no desire to buy any new ones!):



I do have some scraps of the fabric left and may use them to make a cushion - once we have moved and settled in the new house. This is what my sewing room looks like now!

Marimekko binding

This is the binding for my Marimekko quilt. Today I finished the top, but now it'll have to wait a while - we are moving to a new house next week, so I will be busy packing and unpacking, not quilting sadly!

However, the new house is larger than the current one so the boys will each have their own room and I will still have my sewing room! It's also on a very quiet street near the Kedron Brook. We're all really happy about that - the street we live on now is very busy with lots of traffic noise.

I hope to be back soon but it may be a bit quiet here for a while...