Ahá!

Finally decided it was time to actually SEW instead of reading about  it, meaning that i jumped right in the Quilter's Academy books by the Hargrave ladies.
I have been struggling with machine piecing, making points meet. So pulled out fabric ánd one of the books and followed all the "rules'
Half square triangles revisited!
Check this out: ALL points match! I'm very pleased with myself :)

 What really did the trick was the seam fanning

Unbelievable that no one ever, during all the years I've been piecing/quilting told me about FANNING THE SEAMS! It makes a huge difference in reducing bulk and accurate points.
All I ever learned was pressing half of the seams to the right and the other half to the left, butting them together and stitch. I tried fanning once but didn't know how. Quilter's Academy taught me:) and following line by line in the book, turned on a lightbulb. This is really an "aha-erlebnis"
Ofcourse I decided on red and white, totally inspired by all the red/white solid quilts popping up on several blogs ánd on Pinterest.
I'm adding borders,making them up as I go

Next chapter is quarter square triangles. It IS a painstaking process of constantly measuring, pressing, cutting etc etc, but it's well worth the exercise. I feel I'm finally starting to learn :)
Needless to say that there are red and white threads everywhere in  my house. DH even found one or two in his dinner *lol*

I also finished the hearts top. Not as bright and cheerfull as  imagined it would be, but ah well, love is sometimes hard work and not always bright either.

Off to order some more red fabric!

Spam..

After reading lots of spam reports/blogposts and how to get rid of them, I now changed my settings again so i don't have to use the wordverification. Hope this wil help now no "anonymous" commenters are allowed. Pff. ANNOYING!!

Ice, snow and needlecraft

......how's that for a blogtitle:)
C and I planned a girl's day out yesterday. I got off on a rough start since warm water supply was turned of at my house. Meaning I had a choice between an icy cold shower or put the kettle on so at least I could wash my hair more or less comfortably. The rest of me got, well, a wakeup call.
We packed a survivalkit with extra water, a blanky, crackers, extra mittens and such for weatherforcasts spoke of snow and rain and ice, in that order. Someone on the intenet suggested we should also pack a loaded gun in case one got stuck in a blizzard (seriously?), but we had none available so we declined on that.
We went to a rather large needlecraft market, a 1  1/2 hour's drive. We first headed to the coffee and treats corner there. C decided it was a good idea to toss her cappucino all over the table but from that moment on, all went well.
Lots of yarn, felting supplies, embroiderystalls and ofcourse fabric and quilts..C couldn't control herself when she saw new Kaffe Fasset fabrics.  I was on the hunt for solids, but there were NONE!
What I did see was this, in a corner of a stall

 Both were in great condition. I loved the white one but I didn't..It was either buying it or starve ' till the next paycheck and familymembers already want to sign me in for the "Obsessive Hoarders " tv show.  I did however, have a very nice Featherweight chat with the seller which we both enjoyed:)
With lots of selfcontrol,  only got some ribbons and this

 

which ,hopefully helps increasing accuracy in machine piecing.  

We also saw a hilarious knitting book

Too bad I suck at knitting, otherwise I could have made Baking DD her own Prince ( she loves Britain)
There even was a cardboard, ready to cut, template to make your own Royal Palace balcony...

                                                                                                              

When we went home, it was allready snowing, but we didn't need our survivalbag, nor that loaded gun..

On the way home we stopped for pizza and the pizzaguy gave us both a rose. Ahh...

 After all it was Valentine's day.

 Speaking of which:I  got all inspired by a picture on Pam's blog, showing blocks with hearts.

  I had some difficulty with bulky seams, but after studying Harriet Hargrave's books (Quilter's Academy, the best books ever) I learned how to fan the seams

Yeey Harriet!
It will probably be finished just in time for Valentine 2014, but that doesn't matter as long as I'm enjoying the process!
Hope you all had a nice day too!

 Spammers found my blog. I tried moderating the comments but my emailbox overflows with over 10 spammails per post. Sorry, but I re-installed the dreadfull wordverification again. I don't like it either!

Blogger stats

Did you ever check the Blogger statistics? I didn't even know they were there, but found it today.
The most visitors here come from my own country, followed by the US. Number 3 is Russia! Well: hello Russian readers:)
Most people are referred from fav quiltshop's owner, immediately followed by 2 other Dutch bloggers I never heard of, let alone visited. They, in return never commented here, so how could I know they exsisted??
The strange ways of Blogworld..

What a difference love makes...

Love for what you sell, I mean. In this case, love for the Featherweight. Yes, my irresponsible spending arrived today:)
In comparison of my first FW which was supposedly "serviced" but took a lot of effort from my side to get it really serviced, cleaned and working, this is a dream. You wouldn't believe the excess packing. An email with unpacking instructions, a pdf with the machine's manual, an extra spoolspring..You name it and Judy from www.singersewinginfo.co.uk took the effort.
This FW "purrs". Although I dislike cats and will not have any purring in my vicinity, I like to make an exeption here.
And yes, I am so thrilled with this service that I'm going to show ALL the pictures.
Just saying, so anyone who's already bored can click away and look at blogs that have elaborate quilts to show.
I'll skip the outer ánd inner cardboardbox...

 

 At this point I considered a coffee break...

 She has the scrollplate..

 it's a Centennial

 I really like her!

Judy even replaced the spoolpin with a cardboard one (the original was removed to prevent any damage), wrapped the table extra and sticked a clear rubber dot to the screw that touches the table.
The footpedal came in a velvet pouch which I will keep:)

Luckily I'm having next week off to play. First job is to sew another bag/dustcover.

It happens  i use more and more "difficult" words (for me)  in my blogposts My dictionary seems to be my best friend. I am considering to stop writing in English. Often I'll have to change sentences to simplify and can't exactly say what i want to say. In Dutch it would be só much easier to express myself.

Old stuff

Everytime i come across a pic like this, I start drooling. I like the old sewing stuff.
A while ago I started searching in my own stash to see what i had for myself. I've inhereted my Mom's old sewing box that my dad made for here before they got married.
I even have a pic of my Mum sewing with the box in front of her!
The pic of my Mum is a bit tiny, but all i could do was either this or a blurry replica.

The sewingbox was a good place to start searching for old stuff and I found lots:)
Luckily Ikea provided shadowboxes and now these are in my sewingroom

 O jeah, blogger typical started flipping pictures again Grr.
In the embroidery hoop (that was mine when I was 8 or 10) there's a wooden thingy that looks like a seamripper. It is, in fact, a very tiny chrochet like hook, used for mending those ever so valuable and scarce panty stockings, just after WW2.
The bigger wooden darning thing was from my MIL. She was always keeping up appearances and that thing was for....mending gloves. Very typical for her to have!

Remember my HUGE pinking shears? Fits exactly next to the wooden chrochethook case. I have found more and will need another shadowbox!
Nice thing is that i now can enjoy my old stuff every day instead of them being tucked away in a box. In real life it looks nicer than on a flipped pic; you'll have to take my word on that:)

A trip to the goodwillstore brought me an old iron that's a perfect bookend.

..and I found my own childhood/play beige Singer Sewhandy sewingmachine again. Yeey. She get's along perfect with my Featherweight.

 

Speaking of which..the latter seems to multiply when you are websurfing instead of quilting. After i irresponsably (did i spell that right?) spent money I got a letter from my boss about the financial crisis. In short: the company is not doing well and they are going to cut my already poor wages. Luckily (or unfortunately, that depends...) the letter came áfter my money spending spree.
More later when I recieve my impulsively bought item...