Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas   -    Frohe Weihnachten   -    Buon Natale

or Happy Holidays and

Thank you   -   Danke  -   Grazie

for reading my Blog.

Diamond // 8

This is how far I came with my Diamond quilt seven weeks ago before leaving for Panama.

I knew right away that I didn't completely like the placement of the blues and greens. Finally last week I spent four hours shifting blocks around and back and forth. I like it better this way.

I plan of filling the half diamonds on all four sides by using the fabrics pinned on the side. My hope is that this will frame it and pull it all together. Not sure it will work and maybe I'm in big troubles here!

Cathe // 3 and last!

See previous two posts.

And here comes the finished quilt. I let it speak for itself.

193 x 146 cm

The joy of giving.

Cathe // 2

See previous post.

Once I had settled on the final layout I had to come up with a numbering system in order to safely bring everything back to my sewing machine. Plus I needed to be very careful not to mix up the orientation of the single blocks within the rows.

Sewing the rows wasn't too big a challenge. I only had to unpick once due to lack of concentration.

I briefly thought about some straight line quilting but soon decided I wanted to go romantic and flowery. I did various sketches on paper until I liked something and felt confident I could do it.

My first free motion quilting of some kind of flowers! No pre-marking, just improvising!

Decisions, decisions! Luckily no second thoughts about my choices for the binding. And also happy I still had the time for sewing it to the back by hand. Hand sewing the binding is soooooo meditative.

Maybe I should start thinking about new labels? Maybe also a new name for the blog?

Come back tomorrow to see pictures of the finished quilt!

Cathe // 1

It's great to be back at work in my studio.
Before I show you what I'm working on right now I want to share pictures of the making of a quilt I finished just before leaving. I couldn't post about this earlier as it was a surprise birthday gift. It's the first quilt I gave away and this was special for me. From the start while selecting the fabrics, colors, and patterns I tried to put myself in the place of the receiving person imagining what she would like. Because of my last minute travel plans I also had to hurry with finishing it and ship it before I left home. So I had only little time with the finished quilt and maybe that was for the best. While I was super satisfied with the result and quite sure she would like it and it would make her happy, I also felt a tiny bit sad to let go of it. Being in a rush prevented me of getting too attached to it.
Thanks to Skype I was lucky to witness the moment she received the parcel and opened it. Her genuine surprise, the fact that she liked it, and her appreciation for my work made me happy.
The joy of giving!

Cathe is the name of the quilt. While it has something to do with the woman who received it, it is not her name.

As usual I'll show some process shots before getting to the finished quilt in a later post. I decided to do a disappearing nine patch layout.

This was my fabric selection to start with. I did add some other prints along the way once I realized I didn't have enough of these.

To give it a fresh and contemporary feel I added a lot of white.

I decided to lay the blocks so that no seams match.

Sewing and cutting the nine patch blocks was a lot of fun!

I totally underestimated the time it would take me to decide on the final layout. But that is me. I'm always looking for good balance and tend to over think matters.

Over thinking or not, I liked what I was seeing!

Check back tomorrow for more.

Back - Zurück - Ritornata

I'm finally back from a long trip but before I can start some serious sewing in my studio I want to catch up on some baking for the man in my life.

Ich bin endlich zurück von einer langen Reise. Bevor ich mich aber wieder ernsthaftem Nähen widmen kann, will ich etwas Backen nachholen für meinen Liebsten.

Sono finalmente tornata da un lungo viaggio. Prima di tornare a dedicarmi al cucito voglio ricuperare un poco con il viziare l'uomo della mia vita.