"The blue hour"

Every year, the European Quilt Association, the association of European national quilt guilds, issues a challenge. A number of quilts from each country will be on show at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham and then tour different countries for 3 years.

The theme this year was “Greetings from...”, a quilt looking like a postcard, measuring 25*35cm (10”*14”), including a post stamp and no visible binding. For a while I wasn’t sure I could finish a quilt in time, but I had to try.

“The blue hour” is inspired by the fjords up north at winter time when the light is blue. I love this part of Norway. The title is a nod to a painting we have at home.

I started with a pieced background 

which I covered with layers of sheers to suggest water and sky. 

The mountains were sketched roughly and transferred to a translucent paper. 

I did not take any pictures during the next steps, but the mountains and their shadow were made from layers of sheer fabrics and appliquéd onto the background.

The snow/ice gave me some problems. It was too white, so I tried a few overlays of blue.

The orange represents the light and warmth from the houses, and is made from gorgeous sari silk scraps. I arranged and rearranged those little pieces more times than I care to remember, but I love the texture of the fraying silk.

My post stamp is the silvery moon. The text is written with a permanent marker and says “Up north, Norway, January 2016”.

I was planning to free motion quilt the piece, 

but in the end I had to add lots of horizontal lines. It did not look right without.

I love how all those quilting lines look and how they blend the different colours and textures together.

Usually I would do the invisible binding from my tutorial here, but with time being an issue, I tried something new. It worked well enough, but I learned a few lessons for next time.

I cut a piece of fabric with the same measurements as the quilt, marked lines on all 4 sides, 

and cut out the centre.

Pinning it to the quilt, right sides together,and stitching all the way around.

Clipping the corners, and folding it over to the back. Folding in the raw edges and stay stitching around the edges with machine.

The edges were then stitched down by hand as for a regular binding.

The quilts were shown at the annual meeting of the Norwegian quilt guild last weekend, and the 16 quilts with the most votes will go to Birmingham.

I’m looking forward for my little tribute to a part of Norway which I love to return home – whenever that might be.

You can see some of my previous EQA challenge quilts here, here and here.

Different and yet the same

A Modern quilt Facebook group I belong to issued a small quilt challenge a while back, and I have finished two quilts measuring 12”*12”. While I cannot say that I define myself as a specific type of quilter, I can enjoy making any and all kind of quilts.

“Different and yet the same” are made from the very same scraps and quilted just a little differently.

Solid scraps with a couple of prints tossed into the mix.

Stitching together and cutting apart and stitching together.

I have no plan for them, but they look rather good together as a table runner I’d say.

I love the purple zigzag binding!

Last week was a bit of a challenge around here time wise. Our daughter was ill and the boys were staying with us for a full week, keeping us awake and occupied. My blogging time was spent doing something totally different although I have started catching up with a couple of my favourite blogs.

I spent a lot of time in the studio after dropping them off in the morning, and it was productive. With just a few hours available each day, I had to make them count. I brought both the boys up there on a Sunday armed with iPads and snacks and we all managed to stay occupied for a whopping 4 hours which included sorting buttons in paper cups. It was so nice; they could even run in the hallways as there wasn’t anyone else at work.

This week I am working hard at finishing projects, and I say hard as I feel the urge to start new projects pretty much every day. Sir John is wonderful, humming happily as he works whether it is quilting big quilts or piecing with a perfect ¼” seam allowance. A friend was visiting the studio the other day and I managed to quilt a whole quilt while we were chatting away the afternoon.

My latest obsession is curves. The theme for our guild this year is cutting equipment and I have set a goal to use the (very few) rulers I have purchased for “someday”. Well, someday is now so we’ll see where they lead me.

Thanks for stopping by!

A house for every season

Last year, for our 25th anniversary, our guild issued a challenge. During the year each member would receive 4 pieces of fabric of which we were to make “something blue, something green, something yellow and something orange”. The quilts were to measure 50*50 cm (20” square) or several being stitched into that format.

As I was quite a bit obsessed with houses last year, it would hardly surprise anyone that I made houses. Although the challenge had no seasonal theme, the colours still worked – one colour for each season.

(Almost done)

The simple layout was born early in the year with the challenge fabrics to be on the right side, but I did not start making them before months later when three fabrics had been handed out.

The design was meant to be very simple, but at the end of the day I started adding stuff. I used puff paint and silver fabric paint to make the windows pop.

I added seasonal themed quilting designs, changing thread colours for the sky and houses: snowflake

crocus

sun

leaf.

(quilting stencils..)

I added white vertical quilting lines, and finally words on top of those:
sparkling winter

budding spring

amd the last two says sunny summer, and colourful fall.

Each quilt measures 25cm*50cm and is finished with invisible binding and a sleeve. They were stitched together two and two for the exhibition at the anniversary meeting and dinner. Getting them to hang perfectly flat post stitching was quite a challenge, but at least they did meet the 50cm*50cm requirement.

One of our board members at the time photographed all the contributions and made them into a photo book. I got my copy yesterday and am looking forward to have a closer look at all the beautiful quilts.

I’ll be adding this post to the Blogger’s Quilt Festival.

Thanks for stopping by!

"iMusic"

The annual challenge from EQA (European quilters association) this year was “music with a touch of red”. Each country was given a specific red shape, and the Norwegian shape was to be a 15mm circle (hence the bobbin template in this post).

My initial idea was interpreting Moldau by Smetana. I spent a year worth of music classes working with this particular piece back in middle school, and have loved it ever since. My sketch was done and I was ready to go and then I had another idea – iPods in different sizes and shapes.

"iMusic" measures 12"*12" and the dark grey in the pictures is my couch, not a part of the quilt.

Using solid fabrics, it certainly has a more modern look to it. I kept the colours on the dark and cold side to make the red pop.

The machine embroidery is done with the batting as a stabilizer, and the hand work is done through all three layers. 

Artist statement: “The way I listen to music may have changed, but the beat is pretty much the same.”

I had lots of fun adding details. So much fun that I did a lot of restitching of areas that didn’t work so well. What can I say, I needed some hand work and besides that, a house is not a home until you’ve decorated at least half the rooms with little pieces of thread I'd say.

All the entries were on display at the annual meeting of the NQF (our national quilters association) this weekend, and usually the 16 quilts that get most votes will be on show at the Festival of quilts in Birmingham and then included in a three year suitcase exhibition. This year there were only 15 contributions, so they will all be included.

It will be interesting to see all the quilts on display as I am sure there are many ways to quilt music with a touch of red. Maybe someone else quilted Moldau...

Seven steps back

Looking for a way to get an overview, I have been taking many, many steps back in more ways than one. The house is slowly progressing, and I mean sloowlyy compared to the frantic work going on everywhere in the pre-moving-in chaos. I haven’t got my in-house creative space sorted out yet and am missing the calmness that comes from taking half an hour off and just do something fun. I have realized that I don’t just quilt because it makes me happy, I actually become unhappy when I don't.

Quite a few of you have asked about my new sewing room, and the answer is – I will not have one here at home. The original plan was to have a downstairs studio, but we made an apartment for our young ones instead. I will however have a desk in one (or maybe two?) of the bedrooms, and husband has (almost) built shelves for me to keep some stash at home. I will still have my fabulous studio where I am happily making a mess without bothering anyone – and I get to have our daughter and grandboys close so it’s a win-win I’d say. Living close but not together is brilliant. We have a door between our hallways so we don't have to put on coats and shoes, but other than that we have our own homes.

One of the worst things about not creating for a while was, as always, the fear of not finding the mojo again. Nothing new there. So, I did what I usually do, grabbed a few scraps and started sewing, and soon thereafter I had two small projects ready for some relaxing hand stitching. 

You don’t need a sewing space for that, do you. Needle, thread, thimble, light, and off you go.

This little quilt was a present for a friend who needs to practise saying no. It says “No thanks, that’s ok” which is my go to phrase.

The other quilt, “New beginnings” was a present for a friend who just changed career. It’s made from 1" leftover strips from daughter’s Christmas present and a piece of a thrifted ikat-woven shirt.

Aaaah, the bliss of stitching one scrap to another.

The theme for 2015 for our guild is scraps and we have put lots of different scrap related fun on the programme so there will be plenty of opportunities for colourful play this year. We have shown & told about our scrap quilts. We have demonstrated paper piecing. We are doing a string block swap beginning this month. We have played with our scraps for a whole Saturday at our scrap quilting workshop. And the first scrap challenge is making mugrugs/place mats for the April meeting. Both these little quilts would be the right size.

I have enjoyed having company in the studio a couple of days. I understand oranges, like this couch, and hot chocolate are good for nasty colds. Company does indeed make tedious work like sorting through and ironing boxes and boxes of scraps more fun.

Right now I have some scrappy tops waiting to be turned into cushions for the old couch upstairs. I pieced them at the workshop and cannot wait to start quilting.

(Yours truly at the workshop, picture by my friend Sissel)

Orange is a perfect neutral, wouldn't you say. The funny thing is that I could have sworn that I had never seen that fabric before I emptied one of the bags in the studio last week.

Just a few boxes to be emptied tomorrow morning and off I go with a somewhat clean conscious. Does one box, one hour in the studio sound fair?? With the overwhelming number of boxes and bags that still needs a place to live, that would be a great incentive indeed.

Thanks for stopping by!