Quilt for Johan's kindergarten

Some time ago we went to a parents' meeting in Johan's kindergarten.

Kindergartens in Denmark are fairly inexpensive, compared to what I hear from other countries, as approximately half of the costs are paid by the state, over our tax-system.

However, this does NOT mean that there are plenty of ressources to purchase stuff for (neither for the employees, nor for the children). On the contrary. So, unoffically, they have to ask the parents for help and I volounteered to help them with a little hemming of a set of curtains and when I saw the state of a little, very worn out couch, I secretly decided to make a quilt to cover it and for the kiddos to snuggle with.

So this quilt came to be:

A very easy and fast quilt to make, as it made from a layer cake (10 x 10 inches) of  Riley Blake's Line "Alphabet Soup, Boy" and additional 10 x 10  blocks cut from Erin McMorris' line "Lake Summersault", paired with Kona solids.  I love the bright and happy patterns and colours!
The quilt had to be quite big to cover the couch adequately, so it ended up measuring whopping 92.5'' x 55''!

 

The back is made from leftovers from the front (only tiny bits!), leftovers from an IKEA cars bedding sheet I had shortened to make bedding for Johan and more Kona solids.

Yes! It was quite windy when I tried to get some decent photos! :)
Gotta love those cars and trucks and busses!

 

I quilted a dense all-over doodle and the ends with straight line quilting, to ensure that the quilt would be able to withstand the wear and tear and lot of washing such a quilt have to undergo.

 

And who does not love a striped binding in happy, happy colours!?
I surely cannot :)

The quilt was delivered by Santa's little helper (aka Johan) on December 1st. It was very well received, patted, admired and was immediately used to hide all 12 kiddos under, that is Johan's group!

Finally: My birthday quilt to Krista

Way back mid 2011, I found a free pattern using petal shaped, raw-edge appliquéed scraps.

Now, I cannot for the life of me find the orginal pattern, nor the homepage where I saw it first (remember to keep track, guys!) . I though it was from Fat Quarterly, but I simply cannot locate anywhere.

So, if you recognize it, please let me know and I will give credit to whom credit is rightfully due!

I really wanted to try it out, but did not have the scraps, nor the time!'

Then one day, my far-far-away friend Krista posted an absolutely lovely quilt she had made for herself on her blog. And a little time later I had to admit to myself, that one of UFO was never meant to be, which resulted in loads of abandoned fabric, just in the right size for the above mentioned patten.

Then Krista and I started up the Geese in a Ring Swap together (yes, we live in different parts of the world, but who cares? That is what the internet and email is for, right?!) and not long thereafter, she gave birth to the sweetest tiny boy, Jacob.

Krista is the mother of 3 small boys, and I think she is a wonderful person: 

Juggling hospitalization, babies, surgeries, a home, a husband, quilting, running.... I could continue. And all along she is keeps on being as sweet, caring and funny as when I joined my first virtual quilting bee back in 2009 and clicked with her.

SO! When I found out her birthday was coming up, I decided to make her a birthday quilt!

This is the end result (click for a larger picture):

The fabrics used are (among others): Tufted Tweets (Laurie Wisbrun), Modern Meadow (Joel Dewberry), some of Pat Bravo's designs and Parisville (Tula Pink) and a few Kona solids

Sashing: Kona Cotton Berry

The main fabric with the dots have been in my stash for ages.

The backing was made by the last of the dotted fabric, a tiny bit of Kona and then the remaining leaves scattered in a vine-inspired way, on a whim. I am actually not sure which side I like the most!

For the back, I free-motion quilted the laves onto the back, using the quilting to enhance the leaves' shape and connecting them with thread-branches. 

Note to self: next time, use stabilizer, it will be so much more easy! ;o)

 

 I quilted the entire quilt sandwich (I again used bamboo batting for maximum softness) with diagonal lines through the blocks to get discreet stability, and also around each block. Wow, that straight line quilting is fast!!

Finally, I bound it with dotted fabric, packed it together with the first 2 rounds' worth of geese blocks from all over the world and sshipped it off to Krista on 23rd December 2011.

Krista received the pack yesterday, and since it was a surprice I have not been able to blog about it before now !! Hehehe! Got you, sweet chica!!

Finished Freedom Swap quilt

It is finished!

I sent out turquoise and brown fabrics and got a heap of finished blocks back - all I had to do was to sew one single block myself to complete the layout. Thank you to all the ladies at the Freedom Block Swap, round 1.

I first laid out the blocks with a white/cream sashing - that did absolutely nothing good for the blocks, much to my surprise!
Then I tried to find a maching solid turquoise - no good either.... So I wandered around somewhat frustrated for a minute or two... perhaps even half an hour.... perhaps more ;-)

An then my sweetheart suggested that I try a chocolate brown Kona. What?? I am not too fond of brown and had no intention of it to becoming too overwhelming in this quilt, but I decided to try out his advise, and lookie what a lovely quilt this gave me:

Gotta love a man that saves you like this, huh?!?

More pics, just for show-off:

I machine quilted it in doodles (love doodles, it is almost meditative to quilt them) and bound it in the stripe/dot fabric also used in the blocks. The batting is again 100% bamboo - it is expensive but soooo soft!

The backing was the fabric that made me choose the other fabrics in the first place: Brown turquoise coffe theme, with a tiny Eiffel Tower, and then a broad strip of the fabrics used at the front. My favorite is the one with the butterflies - love it!

This quilt is finished just in time for the autumn season - the temperature has dropped 10 degrees Celsius from one day to the next here, and now it will most certainly be used by my bf, who has until now had to do with Johan's baby-mini-quilt. And he deserves it - being all designer-ish with the brown sashing and all!


And just to finish it off: A photo of Johan who will turn 2 in 15 days!

My swap is now open for applicants!

Geese in a Ring Swap

Please consider joining me!

Edit 26 August: Round 1 is closed for applicationsThat was really fast!
Edit 10 February 2012: We have achieved to fill 7 rounds! WOOOOT! 
No more rounds will be started.
Thank you so much for participating in my first try to host a bee/swap - it will not be the last!

Peek at the Freedom Swap quilt

I have assembled the quilt sandwich of my Freedom Block Swap quilt.

But alas! I did not manage to go to my local quilt shop and buy the intended variegated quilting thread, so I can only show you some sneak peeks of the quilt :)
Hopefully, I can show you the finished quilt soon, as I have made the binding already.

Bee inspired quilt finished

My 'bee inspired' quilt is finally finished!

The 'bee inspired' bee was started by Rachel of p.s. i quilt in 2009.
We were 18 participants from all over the world. This was my first virtual quilting bee ever and I was happily challenged on both methods and colours as the year passed by. I found out that making blocks to other people with their choice of fabric and block pattern could really make me break a sweat, as I was quite nevous to make their blocks as good as I should/could/would. A very healthy exercise!

For my month, I sent out all of my red and white/cream scraps and requested minimum one wonky star from my fellow 17 participants, size max 12 ½''. They could add scraps of their own if they followed my colourway.

So from out of these piles
came THIS:
I am totally in love! I love the scrappy, yet controlled look, the random placement of the stars, the different sizes of all these stars - have you noticed the teeny tiny ones??

A close-up of one of the stars and the quilting in it:
For the quilting, this was an (almost) first dance with my brand new Bernina 820 (Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaww). I will not gloat any more about it in this post, promise! I am just very happy with it, let me put it so.

I have freehand quilted around each star and a spiral in the middle of almoset every one of them. the rest has been filled with doodling, which I found to be fast and quite funny to quilt. Here is a close-up of the back for you to see what I meen:
It was just plain fun to freehand quilt this quilt, as I found that the wonly theme allowed for wonkiness in the quilting itself, which freed me from much of my self-imposed pressure to do thing nice and neat.
I have used 100% bamboo batting, and it is oh so soft and it creates a very nice texture. Not my last time to use this, that is for certain!

Around the borders I chose to freehand quilt information about the bee in handwriting:
(intended for much use and cuddling).
It also contains my name and year of finish, block name, made from scraps and so on. this way I avoided making a label, which I must admit I never get to make :)

Thank you to all you folks out there who made this quilt possible! And I know you had to wait 2 years to see it, but hey - I finally made it. I cannot wait for December when it is envisioned on the couch with me of my bf or our son cuddling underneath it!!!

Be one of my three!

Back in the cold, dreary end of February I was one of three lucky winners of Maria's (allmomasquilt) giveaway-with-a-twist:

"Receive a handmade gift and pass on 3 of your own within a year of receipt"

What a lovely idea. I posted a comment and was lucky enough to WIN. Yeah! I never ever win anything... And lookie what was in my mailbox today already!!!

A very lovely pouch with a plastic window!! I have admired several of them on Maria's blog over time, and now I have one of my own. How Maria knew I love red and the Make Life fabric is a mystery to me. Seriously! I encourage you to check out her blog - she creates so much beauty (and yes, most of it is in Danish, but Google translate is a wonderful invention ;D)

I feel very lucky indeed. Thank you Maria!!

So... Now it is my turn to be creative and come up with a little handmade gift for three of you.
All you have to do is leave a comment saying you would like (dare) to be one of my three and within a year a little something will pop into your mailbox too, if mr. Random picks your comment.

I cannot promise to be as fast as Maria. But if you leave a little note about your favourite colour in your comment, I may try to take that into consideration.

And for my Danish readers: I have updated my webshop "Kvinta Quilts" with 6 more Accuquilt dies today. Or perhaps my Kona Cottons may tempt you?? *wink*

Enjoy what is left of the weekend.
Ann

Updated on 31 July 2011:
Oh well... I hereby close the giveaway and comments and declare that Kritta22 is the happy winner of all three things, and that I will think of something horrible to send her ;) lol!

I think it is OK to send her all three things, s she is already paying it forward, and just because I know she is a fantastic person :)
*hugs*

Revelation in colour!

Did you know..?

...what a HUGE difference it can make, if you get your screen calibrated to show the true colours in webpages/pictures etc.?!?

I have often been somewhat annoyed, when a long awaited fabric-yummy-pack arrived at my doorstep and I may or may not tear it open like a little kid at Christmas only to find out, that what I thougt was a specific coulour fabric, bought to match other fabrics in a project, does not match the colour I saw on my laptop when ordering it.... DANG!

Do you know that feeling?? huh?!? I know you do - just admit it!

As a recent example, I want to share with you what I saw on my screen and what I really received:
It is the Anna Maria Horner line called Little Folks, the Pastry line in marine.

So... what I thought I ordered was blue with just a hint of green, and what I in fact received was what I would call 'sea green'. I love the colour in itself, no doubt! Just not for the project waiting to be finished....


Well, I realized, that either
1. the e-shop made a crappy job in displaying the fabrics and their true colours
or
2. the fabrics did not show up right on my screen.

ad 1: why would the e-shop do that, based on the fact that it depends on its sales of fabric, and most often the pictures can/are provided by the manufacturer. It is imperative that the colours show up right on their webshop!

ad 2: I have heard about it before: screens need to be calibrated if you work with photos and graphics. But hey! I am just a happy-go-lucky quilter... Why should it apply to me too??

This is why!












But what to do, you may ask?
Luckily for me, my bf plays around with photos and had just purchased this calibration thingy.
A cheaper version can be found here.

Yiakes, that is expensive, you mumble. That is several months of my fabric budget...

Well yes and no... because if you are a "specific projects" buyer, that you can actually save yourself a lot of time and trouble by calibrating your screen.
Or if you, as I, live in Europe and have to have the new fabrics shipped from the US, then the shipping costs easily adds 30 to 50% onto the fabric prices!

It is just an advise, as I am by no means an expert, I just had an AHA-moment when seing the huge difference it made on my screen! Consider it, folks :)

This and that.

Where does time fly??

I suspect being a mother of a 16-months kiddo, having a full-time job, and the obligatory seasonal illnesses pesting our life answer my own question. I just feel that everybody else manage to fit in social events, culture, sewing, sport, you name it!

I don't and I hate to admit it, but now I have said it. There. That felt nice...
On to another happier subject: I have a new job starting on April 1st, which brings me an aweful lot closer to this beauty! Oh yeah :D You will know when I manage to get my little sweaty hands on it. For sure!

I have also participated in a regular fabric swap, the 'Color Wheel Charm Pack Swap', and now I have received back the 200 charms, all in different fabrics. Wanna see them? OK, I can manage that!


Yummy! This pile will fit nicely into my existing pile of 4x4'' charms, cut from most of the quilting fabric I have ever bought. I foresee several monochrome quilts in my future :))

New projects. Yes, yeeeeees, I know - perhaps I should finish those in the waiting line first.
But... These oh-so-soft voiles from Anna Maria Horner, one of her previous lines called 'Little Folks', will eventually become something nice and useable. But for now you will only get this sneak peak ;)
Thank you for still reading my blog, despite the long intervals of posting!

/Ann