The castle, the knight and the quilts...part 1

Prepare yourself for an overload of pictures of our day out to the castle of Cannenburgh yesterday!
We had such a great day; excactly as I predicted....lovely weather, good company, beautiful surroundings and fabrics+quilts within reach.
Pity that it wasn't allowed to take pictures IN the castle, not even from the displayed quilts. But...I found some from a few years ago ánd bought postcards.
Last quilt'event' there was 4 or 5 years ago. Since then the castle has been closed for restauration, refurnishing and they restored the parc on the castle grounds. they did a great job for sure!
Okay, here we go!

There was a quilt on the castle wall, a boat with quilted flags in the moat and the robber knight himself invited us to sit down and have a chat. Quiltshops in knightlike tents in the quiltshoplane:)

Lunch and the lunchspot! DD (in her red dress close to the moat with C beside her)

Lots and lots of treats to choose from accompanied the free coffee!!

The views from our lunch spot...and around the castle.

That's it for today...Enough pictures for one post and I don't want to overload Blogger:) More pics of the interior, with and without quilts and... the knight and I..!

Ascension day

To enjoy the beautiful sunny weather, I suggested to DH to go for a ride on our day off. He promised me lunch at the end of the ride..:)
We drove along small and winding roads to Belgium, to an old monestary just across the border.

The monestrary dates back to the Middle ages and even older. It has always been nearby important crossroads and on of its tasks was to take care of travelers.
The monks also have a huge herbal garden with every herb you can think of..

This is one patch of many more.

Lunch and cappucino were delicious!

Lots of people had the same idea as we had, but there's álways a parkingspot for a bike or 2, (3,4.....)
Tomorrow another trip is scheduled: the three quilters (C, DD and I) are going to a quiltshow+market in the former home of a real robber knight. It's a castle with a genuine moat around it and a drawbridge.
The weather is looking good for tomorrow, so I'm looking forward to :coffee in the park in the pleasant company of friend and daughter with quiltsshops and quilts within reach.. That sounds excellent, now doesn't it??

I promised!

Quilting Dd, who kept quiet on her blog for over a year, keeps nagging asking me to post. She even talked about it with the girls of the fav local quiltshop (what? new project? she didn't post a thing about that! Tsk!!) So when she finally bribed me with 3 fq's, I gave in and promised to post today. So much for "blogging without obligation"!

What's been going on here? Well, a few weeks ago (!) C, Quilting Dd and a very (véry) pleasant day at the European Quilt Contest. Lovely weather, great quilts and lots of shops :)

This is how the busy it was at the coffeecorner!

Pictures can be found at http://www.oeqc.eu/ for those who are interested.

Fav quiltshop had a booth there too and they had their own little quiltshow off mysteryquilts. An original pattern designed by the owner and now available as a none-mystery pattern.All quilts had the same pattern but since everyone used their own fabrics, they were very different from one another. 

 That's when it happened. Quilting DD "fell" for one of the quilts, made in red and green. We all thought "fairytales" and "little red riding hood". DD decided she HAD to have this pattern and we áll got excited.

Unfortunately I do not know WHO was the maker of this quilt so I cannot give her the credit :( but this is the one!

So now I'm collecting lime-green and red.

I got these from DD yesterday and together with my own this is what I have so far

Now for more exiting news......(drumroll.......)

Quilting DD and I are going to Birmingham to the "FESTIVAL OF QUILTS".
It's said to be the biggest quilt event in Europe and I am SO looking forward to that trip.

The plans for the Ascension Day weekend will have to wait for another post. (if I wait long enough, perhaps I´ll get another pack of fq´s !?)

Note: fav quiltshop owner commented that the red and green quilt is made by Suzanne van der Schoot!

The girl's back!

No, not me, but Quilting DD revived her blog. I tried to encourage her over and over again, but it took a lot more for her to finally bring her blog back to life :) Hopefully she'll keep it up.
Baking DD made a blog as well: a blog about her baking things. She didn't post yet, but choose a layout etc. Babysteps!

I'll revive mine later this week, much to share, little time !

Poem

Dianne sent me this and since she didn't put it on her own blog, I think it's okay if i post it in mine.

Happy Mother's day!

Before I was a Mom, 
I never tripped over toys
or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry wheter or not
my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations

Before I was a Mom
I had never been puked on,
Pooped on,
Chewed on,
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind
and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child
so doctor's could do tests
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat uplate hours at night
watching a baby sleep.

Before i was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces,
when I couldn't stop the hurt.

before I was a Mom
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much.
I never knew that i could love someone so much, I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of
having a heart outside my body..
I didn't know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond
between a mother and her child.
I didn't know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy,

Before i was a Mom,
i had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom.

The early years, a minute after Baking DD was born..

Decades later, DS making faces, but the ONLY picture i have with all three ánd me:)

Practice makes (almost) perfect!

My progress so far:

I must say that I'm enjoying the machine piecing more and more...and I'm getting better at it during the process:)
My first windmills

...and my later ones!

The Hargrave ladies explained how to make perfect points and I've been a fairly good student so far, at their Quilter's Academy.
I even discovered that, when I start sewing the hst, I can tell after 3 stitches if the outcome will be perfect or not.
Best part is that I slowly get the feeling that I am in charge of my machine and not the other way around.
Could it be that this handpiecer for over 20 years is crossing over to the machinepiecing camp??

To de-stash or not to de-stash...

I've added some great books lately to my ever growing collection.( I not only have a fabric stash but also a book stash.)

I love the series from the Hargrave ladies!  I have been quilting for ages, but i'm a newbie at machine piecing and these books offer lessons, tips and tricks to master that. To be honest, i don't do all the lessons, simply because the projects are not to my taste ánd because I do know how to strip piece. Nevertheless, I learn a lot by studying the books and doing lots of excersizes.
The 3rd volume is all about triangles and I already managed to sew hst's with all the points matching perfectly! (well 90%....*lol*)
Time to tackle another project in another book

The plan was to sew this quilt from all of my fabrics that lived for faaaaaar to long in my drawers. I don't like them that much anymore, colours are not as bright as I'd want them today and some are just boring. This project would be perfect to get rid of all those..
But...what do you get when you cut up all your boring oldies for a quilt? Yep, a boring quilt! So more and more newer bought brights are added and now I'm thinking about BUYING new ones for this. So much for a de-stashing plan!

This is part of what's already on my wall. I feel it's missing something. I definately need a bright purple e.g. and more really bright red...What do you think? What should I add? (and no Corrine: absolutely not anything PINK, not even if you call it "lighter red"..) 

The "Happy joy" how to :)

I got some emails asking me how I drew the "happy happy joy joy" blocks.
First credit where credit's due: I got the idea and inspiration from Freddy Moran. I got the book "collaborative quilting" and just couldn't stop looking at her extremely happy quilts.
I made the pattern myself and thise is how I did that:
Note: I'm working with CENTIMETRES  instead of INCHES. You should find your own equivalent in inches!

First draw a square the size of your finished block. Make it easy on yourself and pick a size you can divide by 3.
Mine is 21x21 cm.
Mark the middle and where you divided it in 3. I made a mark every 7 cm, 'cause 21:3=7 :)

Connect the dots and there's your propeller....

Now it's time to look for a pair of compasses and draw your first circle.

Diametre of my first is 14 cm

Then the second circle. Diametre is 16 cm.

The small circles in the centre are appliqued on later. I used a threadspool as a template.

And that's all there is to it!
I cut the paper parts, added seamallowances to the straight lines,glued them on sandpaper and drew every piece on the fabric. Old-school piecing that is :)
Do not forget to add seamallowance to the curved lines. I eyeballed that while tracing the templates onto the fabric. I already had my sewinglines and since I sewed by hand, I had no problems.

A word about colour: I went from the idea that anything goes. If the outer circle had a purple dot, I sometimes chose a purple background for the inner circle. Other propellers are randomly put together just because the colourcombo seemed nice to me (and bright!)
Happy sewing!

Math..:(

A while back I came across a nifty tutorial on how to sew half square triangles. I believe it was on Nancy's blog. Anyway..I wanted to try it and this is how it's done:

First cut 2 squares, e.g. one light and one dark and put them right sides together. Sew all around with a 1/4 " seam allowance

Then cut twice on the diagonal

Press,fold open and tadááá...4 hst's and a quick and easy pinwheel.

Problem could be that all the edges are on the bias. If an alternating block is not, you should be okay. If your doing a quilt with only pinwheels...I don't know if it'll work. Solution? Cut your squares on the bias and your hst's are straight!

Next problem I came across was the math. I wanted a pinwheel with finished size 6". How big should my square be???? I googled a bit, drew a pic, did some trial and error, got a headache and then i found the formula:

In short:

When you cut in 2........add 7/8
When you cut in 4........add 2.5

So....where does that lead me with my squares? Finished size should be 6". I will cut it in 4 pieces so a square that's 6+2.5???
NO! That's where I kept going wrong.
I have TWO layers of fabric that I fold open...this meant that I had to divide the 6"by 2. So...6 : 2 = 3. And 3 should be the starter point. Adding 2.5 gave me a square that was 5.5..

In short:
When you cut in 2........add 7/8
When you cut in 4........add 2.5
When you have 2 layers: divide finished size by 2 and add 2.5 (if you cut it in 4 ofcourse!)

If you want 4" pinwheels, divide by 2 =  2 and add 2,5. You should start with a 4.5 square.

Pffffff, now you get the headache!
My sewingroom got awefully messy in the process..

and I also made a lot of these

Don't know what it'll look like in the end, fact is that I was very busy and i'm now completely covered with tiny threads. (and so is every room I've been in)
Another tip: do not wear a black dress while franticly cutting and sewing!

Dutch design

A friend was on the hunt for bicycle fabric, so i searched the net a bit to see what I could find for her. I came across www.spoonflower.com and to my surprise I found fabric featuring  ME on my way to work :)

The hair colour, red clothes, jeans, and MY bicycle, it really IS me!

I found this fabric is from a Dutch designer. The spoonflower site allows you to make your own fabric: you can upload your own designs and spoonflower prints it onto real fabric. How cool is that!! You should check the link and read how it works... This very talented lady uploaded 44 designs and they all look absolutely great. I found several very Dutch,like these Dutch cookies :)

Dutch trains...

She also has lots of more international designs..love the feathers!

For dot lovers..

But my absolute fav must be ofcourse the ones the spoonflower site will not let me save properly :(

The bikerlady is in pink and as you know I do not do pink. But....the designer can upload it in red if I want to (and I do!)
The link to see all her designs is http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/verycherry?designs_page=1 If the link doesn't work, look for "verycherry" on the spoonflower site. You should.
I personaly think that some manufacturer like Marcus Brothers or Michael Miller, Robert Kaufman SHOULD  contact her. The designs are fresh, colourfull and modern. I know I would buy them for sure!!