Late present

At the beginning of the school year my girl decided to take part in the school choir. She loves singing and had great fun over the year. The last weeks they were quite intense practicing as two events the choir is singing in church for the children making the confirmation and the communion. So last Saturday I went to church with her and I stayed in the back watching and listening. It was a lovely ceremony. After we were invited to the celebration of one of the girls but it was yesterday that I finished the present : a cushion!

Her favorite color is pink so I had a look in my stash. Thanks to my girl who loves buying lots of pink fabrics. Many know that I am not a fan of applique. So while choosing the pattern and fabrics was easy the angel was quite challenging.

I have to say it came together nicely yesterday and the only annoying part was changing the thread so many times. I used a lovely lavender thread for almost every part but for the head and hands I used a light brown.

The fabric for the wings was the hardest to chose as I do not have lots of different white/cream fabrics and white on white? Sewing with the lavender thread makes them more visible. It is hard to see but the white fabric for the wings has little white dots as well (I do not complain about making pictures in bright sunshine as 10 minutes later is was raining).

The quilting is kept simple just around the border to keep the layers in place. Three lines right and three lines left from the seam. This time I sew it all together with a normal binding to have the back (simple envelope closure) together and hide the seams.

It was delivered yesterday and I heard they love it. So now only one more task to be done before I am going to Milan again....

Linking up to Finish it Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts.

I am a bee again

It feels so good to be in time sending of bee blocks. Especially if they travel a long way like this ones. Clara from Clover&Violet asked for an other spider web block. This time we had to follow Sarah's tutorial. The first part - drawing the paper piece - was quite tricky as my only inch ruler is a 12.5'' one. I had to improve to get the 13.5'' drawn but it worked out very well. For the center she wanted white and for the web bright colors with some low volumes.

I used freezer paper to stick the white in place for the beginning and the stripes for cutting. It made it so much easier to keep the shape that way. I have to say it was also easy to remove the paper at the end. The seam allowance was a bit tricky as the freezer paper is a little stiffer than normal paper but with the tweezers and a little finger press it was removed nicely.

I love this spider web block and one day I hope to get my own spider web quilt but first I have to finish the templates I have on my FAL list. 

Blogger Quilt Festival

I have to thank all the bloggers out there for the reminder that it is Blogger's Quilt Festival Time. I took part the last year and it was so much fun. There are so many stunning quilts and stories. I really enjoyed looking around.

Hello and welcome! Take a cup of tea (I would rather drink coffee but in Ireland they like me to serve tea) and "listen" to my story. Hope you have fun! My name is Anneliese and I am an Austrian living in Ireland and this is the story to my sons birthday quilt. I really had to think hard in which category I want to put my "Nerdquilt" and finally chose Original Design. This quilt was made and designed with my son for his eleventh birthday this year. It is not easy to make a quilt for a boy and I found this age tricky so we did it together. It is obvious that he loves maths and chess.

So we both sat down on the drawing board and tried to make something for him. I started with the idea of math and math symbols. This is just not enough to fill a quilt so we added the black king. If there is a black king there has to be something in white too so we chose to add the rook in an inverse block.

This was the first plan so I started to make blocks. The background is made out of 2'' squares in low volume mainly. The sewing was straight forward and so the blocks came together nicely whenever there was time to sew. To get him involved again we put batting on his wall and he had to arrange the blocks how he likes them. That was not that easy as first I did not have enough batting and second the space in his room was limited. You can see some blocks are upside down...

It was at last minute when this quilt finally got a finish. The children were off from school for midterm break, chicken pox in the house and all the wonderful time tables could be thrown in the bin. Additionally I messed up the two last blocks several times before I could figure out how they have to be done. Doesn't look that difficult, does it?

So I had to make a night shift to deliver the present when he wakes up in the morning.

To keep the quilting simple I only did diagonal quilting. I really like how it breaks the squares. It takes ages to quilt all 27 lines and 54 rows. For the backing he chose a fluffy blanket in grey and for the binding we bought "Script Noir". It was at about 2 am in the morning when I finally could go to bed and this baby was put in his room waiting him to wake up.

It was lots of fun to make this quilt with him and he loves it. Hopefully the summer will arrive so I can give it a good wash. The quilt measures 54'' x 74'' and is big enough for both of us.

Hope you enjoyed the little story about this quilt and have seen something you like.

'Modern Irish Bee April

Yes, I am still catching up. There is one more block to be done but I did the cutting today so it should come together soon. Anyway today I made the blocks for Ana. She was bee queen in the Modern Irish Bee in April and asked us to sew around a fussy cut. She also asked the fussy cut to be off centered in the finished block. Perfect to use stripes from the stash. My first block is not as off centered  as I wanted it to be but she said it is fine.

I love the mummy fabric I got for Halloween. I did not have the right idea to use it but I took the witch yesterday for my sample block so today I wanted to sew around the mummy. For the second block I took out my dog fabric. These are just cute.

This time the center is more off but it could have been better. They will be in the post tomorrow. I can not wait to see the finished quilt.

Sample Bee Block

When did I put my name down to be bee queen in June? Isn't it fun that I already know what to ask from the Irish ladies in December but struggle with the one now? So it is time to start thinking about the block. I sat down and had a look around the world wide web. I only knew I wanted to have HST. Finally I got to draw what I want and started sewing ...

Still not sure about the layout and if I like it the way I wanted to do it but the girls asked for play do yesterday. We started "cooking" in the morning when the boys left and made three colors of dough: yellow, red and green. The food colors are not really deep but they had fun.

They had a lot of fun making and destroying when they finally gave the table to me for sewing. Just not for long enough to finish my sample block. It took a short while until they came back working the dough again. They did not hand over the table until it was night time. Why are their fingers not sore today? Look what the made.

For all the European out there you know what happened yesterday night: congratulations to Austria Conchita Wurst who won the Eurovision Songcontest 2014 in Copenhagen! Thanks to all the Irish for the 12 points!

Youtube

Have a great weekend! I am off for a Gaelic match of the U11/U12 .. just because it is a cold and wet weekend .... Go St Michaels!

London in fabrics

Did you think I forgot about the fabrics? No way! I am not sure if my friend was impressed with all the shops but she die never moan. So first we went to Liberty. Yes Nicky, I found it and I had a long walk around. The building is impressive and even if I am not into architecture it is absolutely beautiful. Not only the outside, the inside with the dark wood is stunning. I only shopped a little as I am not a flowery girl....

I also found Hamleys and had to play a lot. I made lots of pictures for my son to see all the things on the floors but to be honest it is to expensive and isn`t it cheeky to sell the same stuff in Hamleys on the airport for half the prize? I was really disappointed about that experience.
On Saturday we decided to get out to Broadway market and have a stop before at Beyond Fabrics. I just got this little FQs.

 It was a lovely sunny day and the shops in the street are just gorgeous. We walked up to the market and enjoyed some food before we went on "The Shard". You really have an amzing view over London. I just missed a sofa to have a cup and wait for the sun set.
So there was only Sunday left and I made my way to the airport. It was not really on the way and especially with all the tubes not working tricky but I wanted to have a final stop at Tikki. Lucky me there was a market in this area so the shop was open. So many gorgeous fabrics and I am in the middle! Yeah! I tried not to buy to much as I did already but some of those FG had to jump into the bag. Just a tiny selection. Not much ....

.. and I am still (or better again) collecting Low Volumes. I used a lot of them for my Nerdquilt so I just got a replacement. I love the notes and the pins are just cute.

With all that in my bag I needed something to read on the plane. Lucky me there was just the release of the new issue. I am hiding it from my girl so I do not need to do the softy again.

London offers much more than Galway but we also have nice shops around. Some I did not visit till now but hopefully the summer is arriving so we can go out much more and have a look around.

The last days ...

.. I have been high up in the sky 

... met some celebrities ...

..  listen to great music ...

... went up high again ...

... just to get a perfect view down

... I have seen much much more and were walking thanks to the tube strike a lot. Lucky us the sun was our best friend those days. I also did some of fabric shopping at Liberty, Beyond Fabrics and Tikki. It was wonderful to touch the fabrics and see them in real.
I had a great time and am now ready to catch up with bee blocks and other stuff.