Project 29 Quilting the baby quilt OMG June

And I did it .... I participated in Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal (OMG) for June. I had decided that my goal for this month was to do all the quilting for the baby quilt that is to be a present. Project 21 describes how I decided to participate. Looking at what other quilters make is so inspiring, especially to a newbie as me.

Goal was to quilt the blanket: use my new walking foot and try the embroidery foot for free style quilting.

Conclusion: I love my new walking foot, it really makes quilting easier. Also I did block by block to see if this would give a nicer result. It did. As for the FQS it is still rather difficult to do on a whole quilt, I tried and did not succeed very well for two reasons: I still have a hard time juggling all that material in my sewing machine (I so need a bigger arm machine - out of reach) and I need a quilting support for my machine (not available as my machine is very old). So I did reach my goals albeit with a different result as I originally visualized. Some of the sewing is a bit wobbly. As I was juggling and turning and sighing I thought: it does not matter that some of the lines are wobbly, after all I am poring a lot of love in this baby blanket

Lessons learned: quilt by blog, turn the fabric sometimes in a different direction than what I automatically do as sometimes turning clock-wise or against the clock can make a big difference in handling all that fabric.

Follow up: try to make a quilt table myself - well design and draw and then ask my DHB to make it for me.

Next steps: do the binding - but that is for next month.

June 30

Project 28 Socks pair number 3

Socks are the best on the go project and I finally finished by pair mnumber 3 that I had been carrying around for a few months. In between they were put aside as I had some other gifts to finalize. Lovely mosaic colour.

24 June

Project 27 Block 5 Bella Skill Builder

June and time to make block 5 of BSB. Half square triangles.

24 June

Project 26 Confiture rouge

My family loves home made jams and marmelades. One of our favourites is the "confiture rouge" or Hungarian jam as my special jam book calls it. Years ago I bought the "Larousse des Confitures", an excellent collection of tested and yummy recipes. Actually I bought the book in June 2004 as I had written this inside the book.

The Hungarian jam is a combination of red fruits and I use whatever my garden grows. As not all fruits are from the same season I freeze what becomes available and when I have a moment make this jam. This year includes cherries, red currents, black berries, red berries, white currents. I made a total of 5 pots which should last a few months. Fresh fruits are being frozen for next's times batch.

I use one kg of fruit, 800 gr of sugar, juice of 1 lemon and 100 ml water. Cook it all until right consistency.

12 June

Project 25 Pink short for the miss

After finishing the green short in no time, realizing she could not wear it to school as some colour had faded, decided to make another. One she could wear to school. She choose pink African fabric and one hour later .... voila a pink short. She has plenty of t-shirts to with this.

11 June

Project 24 A green short for my daughter

Alesya wants to wear shorts, because "all" the girls wear shorts to school. True with the heatwave some of the girls were wearing shorts soooo short ..... and of she wanted to wear her red short. No was the answer, the red short is for going to the beach or during the holidays .... and not for school.

Drama ......

So I said I would make her a short, a bright green one with some left over fabric. Easy model and she is soo happy with it. Unfortunately this one was a non-school short either as the fabric discoloured a little.

Maybe I am too strict? I don't know .... I do think it is important my kids go well dressed to school. And yes I do repair the knees in jeans with patches and send them to school in the jeans. Some mums don't .... do their kids never ruin their jeans, or do they simply buy new ones each two months?

11 June

Project 23 Vegetable and herb garden

OK, this is not the most creative project, however one that takes up time. And therefor decided that all the work on the garden counts as one project. After three years of starting preparing the vegetable garden and never getting very far, this year was going to be different. The kids helped me, which did make a big change. I turned the soil, cut the weeds and the kids collected all the weeds and threw them on the pile of compost. We have two compost heaps. One big green plastic composter in which we throw all kitchen green garbage and the cut grass. The second is merely throwing all green from the garden, including weeds, down on the slope towards the river. Here it naturally processes and one day the slope will be higher and less a slope (or not).

We bought our first plants: 4 different types of tomatoes, cellery, eggplant, two types of bell peppers and several salads. Now each week we clean and remove the weeds, water each day when the sun has gone down and wait patiently. I also bought some herbs and planted these in pots close to our house. In the front garden I planted two types of squash and a melon. These plants grow everywhere so not very handy when the grass needs to be mowed.

Need to go the garden center again and get some more plants including courgettes as these were not yet available.

11 June

Project 22 Backside baby quilt

Making the back side of the baby quilt did not take much thinking, I was going to use the same motif of the front side, make one big one for the center. I doubled all measurements, used the same blue for the center square as the outer rim of the blanket and the jungle green/blue African fabric for the triangles. The end result is quite nice.

11 June

Project 21 A baby quilt and "One Monthly Goal" Challenge

Time to make a baby quilt. In July we will be in the Netherlands and one of my nieces will have her first baby. The family has a lot of knitters so no point in knitting something. A quilt it was going to be.

One of my favourite quilting blogs is the FQS blog. Not sure how they do it, each time there are so many ideas and so many lovely fabrics to choose from. And many free patterns. So while eating my lunch behind my computer I was reading and looking for ideas. I chose to make the Layer Cake Pop a great way to use my stash of fabrics and make a colourful baby blanket. The pattern is for 20 blocks for a large quilt measuring 48 by 60inches. My baby quilt consists of 12 blocks.

Last night while looking at other BSB quilters I came across the blog Elm Street Quilts by Patty. I immediately just loved her posts and oh so dangerous as I see all these lovely quilts.

It turns out that a group of bloggers decide on one quilting goal each month

I need to join them, this is exactly what I need to finish my baby quilt. The idea is that we choose a goal, blog in the beginning of the month and a second time at the end of the month when we are done and show pictures.

My goal for June is to finish the baby quilt, i.e. to choose the backing and quilt all together before the end of June. Ideally the binding will be done as well.

For me the big challenge will be of course finishing the quilting, more so using my new walking foot and try free motion quilting using my embroidery foot.

4 June

Project 20 Infinity scarf

This project took soooo long, I started this in winter. A friend of mine was coming back to Geneva, after a few years in Africa. And the winters here can be cold. So I decided to quickly make an infinity scarf for her. I had made one years ago and it was done in no time. Only that one was done with hook 6mm and thick yarn. This green scarf was crocheted using a hook 4 mmm and Stylecraft yarn. It used up quite some yarn, which is OK as it is now one fluffy infinity scarf that should keep my friend warm next winter (28 May)

Project 19 Block 3 Bella Skill Builder

Block three, the pineapple block, of the BSB QAL is a challenge, there are no other words for this. Many rulers are designed for quilting, and there is one specifically for making pineapple blocks. Unfortunately they do not come cheap, the rulers are not that expensive, but the costs double for shipping. So this is not feasible as I don't even know if I will like these blocks. Comes in "youtube" with loads of tutorials - thank you crafters who give their time to make and share these.


These blocks are a lot of work and I learned a lot. Will I make them again? Maybe ... after all I love challenges (21 May)

Project 18 Block 4 Bella Skill Builder

April was a busy month with all the holidays. We went down South for the Easter weekend, back a few days, and off to Disney and Paris with my daughter. All our kids can choose a trip for their 9th birthday with me. It all started with Alexei who wanted to visit New York. I took him to NY and Washington DC for a one week trip. So now it was Alesya's turn. Initially she also wanted to go to NY. And then changed her mind - Disney it was going to be and Paris. So clearly no time for crafting.

Block three was a bit too challenging so decided to first make block 4 the flying geese


The technique shown in the video was an eye opener, what a great way to make these (7 May)

Project 17 Block 2 Bella Skill Builder

Beginning of the month and a new block is out on the FQS website - time to tackle block 2 Orange Peel


The printed pattern came with a real-size template. I had never made these before and followed the instructions in the video. The end result is good looking, however the feel I don't like that much, as the video suggested to use interface the orange peels are thicker and stiff. As there is enough fabric, I can always decide at the end if I want to remake them using a different technique. (2 April)

Project 16 Carnaval outfit Alexei

Alexei is now 11 years old and it is about time that he invests a bit in his own carnival costume. So he choose to be a joker dragon. Last year's outfit fitted still, all I had to do was to make a dragon's hat .... I used the same pattern of Slava's dragon hat and tail in all the different colours of his joker's outfit. (25 March)

Project 15 Carnaval outfilt Slava

March is school carnaval time, this years' theme was "les animaux fantastiques". Slava wanted to be a dragon - so a dragon was made from different colours green shiny fabric. He was soo happy and proud. (25 March)

Block 14 Block one "Bella Skill Builder"

It is official, I like quilting. A new monthly quilt was about to start to learn different skills through the Fat Quarter shop. I dream away with the different quilts presented. So this QAL was going to be perfect for a beginner as myself. I treated myself to the full packet and backing. Oh the delight of splurging and waiting for the mail to bring me my package. I was not disappointed. Each block came in its own sachet and the printed pattern included. There was enough fabric included to make a few extra blocks or to redo some in case cutting mistakes were made.

Each month a block pattern is released on-line with a video. Of course having bought the kit I already have them all. Decided to do one each month as the videos would be helpful.
Block one ((15 March)

Project 13 Finalizing my African batik crossroads quilt

Now that the backing is done it was time to combine all pieces together and finalize the quilt. I had bought some basting, unfortunately it was that horrible synthetic stuff, as I could not find the nice thick cotton quality I had used for Alexei's quilt (bought in the US). I tried different techniques for the quilting. I glued (or so I tried) the different layers together. Only the synthetic basting did not really take to the glue I found out the hard was as I was quilting. I tried using my embroidery foot (or free style foot) to have the fabric slide easily through the sewing machine ......... and then ended up using the normal foot and of course the lower layer started going in different directions. I am happy with the result, even if there are quite some irregularities. A learning curve going upwards and that is what matters. (13 March)

Project 12 Curtains in the living room

I have cats, and each time we have a new kitten, the most popular thing to do is to ruin my silk curtains. Unfortunately Che died last year and the ruined curtains were still a sign that we had a kitten. After 6 months it was time to do something about this. I still had silk left over (a good thing I had bought 20 m in Cambodia) and made a new set of curtains. The window looks presentable again (10 March).

Project 11 Backing quilt Cross roads

Now that the front side of the quilt was finished, time to concentrate on the backside. I used different batiks to create one big block, finished it with the blue backing I had decided on. Happy with the result (21 February)