Ross blanket Block 5

Finally all the crocheting is done for my Ross blanket designed by Catherine Bligh. The yarn used is Stylecraft.

I finished the first block (8 little blocks) in August 2017 and last night finished crocheting block 5, existing of four rectangulars.

I had already done block 6, the middle square. On the Facebook group where the CAL was hosted, some first made block 6 and crocheted the four rectangulars directly on the large square. The advantage of being behind (and now very very behind) is the tips from others.

The next step: weave in 678 ends; maybe a little less as I did weave in some as I crocheted. Still many to tackle, 10 ends a day will take me over 60 days, too long as I will get bored (again) and I really want to finish this blanket.

So will time myself as I start weaving in ends to challenge myself and get this part done and over with.

And then on to learning a new skill: crocheting all parts together. So maybe in 2020 I will finish the blanket, ideally before August 2020.

Best of 2019

Several years I have seen the "Best of" invitation passing by organized by Cheryl at Meadow Mist designs and was not ready to participate. This year decided to jump in and challenge myself. My quilting skills have improved and looking back I am happy with the quilts I made.

My best of 2019 ....

Crossroads quilt
The Crossroads quilt was part of a quilt along organized by the Fat quarter shop in 2016, I first made the quilt with African batiks. I loved the pattern and the colours and offered myself the full pack. I started in 2018 and finished early 2019. Love the combination of the different patterns and colours.

Tiramisu quilt
A project I fell in love with and now that I have finished this beauty all the more happy.

Black & White table-runner
A friend of me had given me a quilt book a few years ago. This year I finally made her a quilt in her favourite colours. She has now changed the colours in her apartment, or I should say, she added colours. A new quilt is in order, although she asked me to make her a mosaic for her 30th wedding anniversary in 2020.

Twin quilts: Marzipan quilt in two colours
I made two Marzipan quilts, one for my youngest in marine blue colours and one for my niece in PIP colours. I used some of the left over fabric from the marine blue quilt in the PIP quilt, as well as some fabric from the lamp I redid in S bedroom.

Both turned out completely different even if the same pattern was used.

Christmas napkins

The 24th of December was a hectic day; I worked the 24th and we were given the afternoon as of 2PM. Once home it was a race against the clock to get our food ready. In France the main diner is eaten the 24th in the evening, sometimes followed by a full late lunch on the 25th. For our little family we take it easy, big diner the 24th and left overs (lots of left overs) the 25th.
Our diner the 24th included home made gravlax, oysters, shrimps, escargots, fois-gras, turkey stuffed with dried fruits and celery, as well as green salad with cheese. Our desert was a Genoise (rolled), fruit salad and a real Mary Berry home made Christmas cake (made weeks in advance).

We had a brunch on Christmas morning with Christmas stollen (forgot to take a picture), fruit salad (lots left over from the previous evening), jams and cheese.

The quiet time after the hectic 24th felt weird. What better way then to take some time for myself and do something creative. I had left over backing fabric from my Tiramisu quilt. Last week I had bought some red fabric with tiny white flowers/snowflakes. As I did not have time earlier, now was going to be a perfect moment.

I used the pattern and video made by Donna at Jordan Fabrics. They are easy to make and I can see many more in my future using different fabrics, maybe making an Easter version, or Christmas gifts for next year with matching place-mats.

The end result are these cute napkins. I folded them not as narrow as the pattern asks for. Not yet sure which I prefer.

Merry Christmas with Tiramisu

Christmas is here and so is my Christmas Tiramisu Quilt.

Am really pleased with the result and so is Sindbad my cat, he clearly approved.

It took me a few months to make the quilt; dividing the work in steps allowed me not to panic and move from one step to the next. I had quite a few adventures along the way: I did not have enough red fabric to make enough flying geese. I contacted Shabby Fabrics and they kindly sent me a strip to make the remaining 5 flying geese. Then I mixed up the strips for binding and the first border, found out in time so no problem. Always double-checking before cutting and sewing helps.

Once my top was finalized I was not sure how to tackle the quilting. With my sewing machine I was never going to have a beautiful design, at least not with my current skills. This is one of my aims for next year, on small quilts ......

Through the blogging community I have been following Rachel from Stitched in Color who moved to the Netherlands and continues her quilting business from her new home. She was so kind to reserve a spot and off went my quilt to the Netherlands. As I was celebrating Sinterklaas with my kids in the Netherlands, I had the quilt sent to my family's place and took it back in my hand luggage.

The quilting is a Christmas Holly block motif at the center, surrounded by a swirly holly leaf pattern. The border is the Evergreen tree pattern, adding to the Christmas look. I could have never done this myself, next year will definitely reach out to Rachel again.

Last week I finished the binding and since this weekend my Tiramisu quilt is adorning my sofa.

Happy dance around the Christmas tree.

With the quilt finished I have completed my December OMG organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts. I have been participating since June 2017 and both this year and last year participated each month. I love her blog, the inspiration from other bloggers is great and it keeps me on track. Looking forward to my next creative year!

OMG December Tiramisu for Christmas

My goal is simple. Finish my Christmas Tiramisu quilt. With the right planning, it will be ready.

Linking up with Patty at Elm Street Quilts for the OMG for December

Adventures of my Christmas tiramisu quilt

My quilt top is having adventures.

Earlier this year I offered myself the Christmas Tiramisu quilt from @shabbyfabrics. From the first time I saw the video I knew that one day I would buy it. With Christmas coming up I wanted to get early in a Christmas mood and started the quilt. I made the planning of the steps, I planned how much progress I would need to make each month and off I went.

I followed the instructions of cutting and ohhh not enough of one of the fabrics. I was 5 strips of 2.5 by 5 inches short. Lucky for me they still had a tiny little bit left and sent this to me. I staid on track, making all the flying geese and the corner units. So far so good.

My aim for November was to make all the blocks. I did more and finished the top. However, in my enthusiasm I used the fabric for the binding as one of the borders. There went all my extra progress. Over two evenings, while supervising my kids homework had to undo the two borders. And on the third evening sew all borders back on, in the right order and with the right fabric.

Meanwhile was wondering how to do the actual quilting. What motif would do justice to my beautiful quilt? I had never used the services of a long arm quilter before ... don't know of anyone offering this service here in France, there are no quilt shops in this area and I doubt there is a long arm quilter in a 300 km radius ........

For quite some time now have been following the blog "Stitched in color". I enjoy reading the work with colors on show, the adventures of an American in the Netherlands, seeing my home country through the eyes of a creative mind is fun. And the quilting services are outstanding from what I could see. I jumped in and asked Rachel to take my quilt to the next step. Off it went by mail. And now need to be patient.

Happily linking with Patty's One Monthly goal for November at Elm Street Quilts. Two steps closer to finishing my quilt.

OMG November - step 4 Tiramisu Christmas quilt

Six weeks left till Christmas, so 5 weeks left to finish my Tiramisu Christmas quilt. So far doing good.

For my One Monthly Goal of November organized by Elm Street Quilts the aim is to assemble all blocks (step 4). Ideally I would also sew all blocks together (step 5).

I bought the set as a kit and was short of one of the fabrics. There were two options, either scramble rests together and end up with many seems, or contact Shabby Fabrics and ask for a strip of fabric. I did the latter and was contacted back immediately by the customers service. After explaining that I really did not receive enough, they went looking for a strip of fabric as I did not need much. They did find a strip of fabric which was sent to me so I could finish my blocks. Thank you to @ShabbyFabrics

Tiramisu Christmas quilt - step 3

Working on this project is addictive - don't think I have made so much progress in so little time before. Although I was "warned" when I watched the video made by Jen at Shabby Fabrics on how to make this quilt.

It does help that all blocks are the same and having cut all fabrics as a first step was a good move as well.

It does help that each unit is easy and that there are four same units per block. It does make the sewing very straight forward.

It does help that the fabric is so nice to work with.

It does help that I want to finish this quilt before Christmas.

Tiramisu Christmas quilt step 2

My aim for October was to make 160 flying geese. I thought it was going to take me forever ...... and in the end the process went faster than i could have imagined. But then, this is the first time that I really tried serial quilting. In a few evenings I cut 320 little squares and 160 rectangles.

I love working with the fabric, it is sparkly, it is beautiful .....

From previous quilts where I had to cut of triangles, I ended up with lots of little triangles, so wanted to sew two lines across.

It did make sense and now have lots of little squares that will be easier to handle than the little triangles.

In a few evenings I sewed in series 320 little squares on 160 rectangles.

And as I was on a roll decided to get ahead of myself and sew the 160 flying geese two by two - part of step 4 of assembling the block.

Linking up with Patty of Elm Street Quilts as my October OMG. Feeling good!!

On to step 3 - making corner blocks

OMG October - Tiramisu step 2

My latest challenge is to make the Tiramisu quilt by Christmas. I chopped the process up in different steps and omitted step 2 in my planning. So adjusting my timing to making step 2 in October. Ideally I make a head start with step 3 ....

Step 2 is making 160 flying geese, i.e. drawing diagonal lines on 360 little squares, sewing 80 little squares per setting - not mixing up the fabric and cutting, cutting 80 triangles per setting and sewing on the next batch .... ironing in between ......

The fabric is lovely, a mix of shiny prints with more sober prints. The combination that made me just want to make this. As I will be cutting a lot triangles was wondering if it would be worth the effort to make two lines of stitching, thus when cutting the waste fabric would already be sewn together and making it in to a pillow much faster and actually getting done.

For now sticking to making the 160 flying geese as part of my OMG for October organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts

Tiramisu quilt part 1

In three months it will be Christmas, or to be precise, it will be boxing day and the hecticness of preparing a Christmas diner will all be over. I love Christmas and enjoy the period of getting ready. Last year I made placemats for our Christmas diner and this year will make a quilt. If I plan well I should be able to get this done in time, so breaking down all the steps is needed:

step 1 - cut the fabric (done in September)

step 2 - sew 160 flying geese
step 3 - many corner squares
step 4 - assembly of the blocks
step 5 - basting (one day)
step 6 - quilting (two days)
step 7 - binding (one evening)

By calculating backwards .... step 5 - 7 could be my December OMG goal, leaving October and November for step 3 and 4.

So 160 flying geese over 20 days - 8 geese a day, that should be feasible.

I better get started drawing diagonal lines on 320 little squares!!!!

The good news is that so far I am on track and step one of my September OMG organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts is done. It turned out that I did not have enough fabric. So either I use another fabric that is close or assemble scraps and have a few flying geese with lots of seams. Food for thought ......

Tiramisu quilt - OMG September

Last year I bought the kit for the Tiramisu Christmas quilt, just loved it when I first saw it. It is designed and assembled by Shabby fabrics. So time to start the quilt - with some determination she should be ready for Christmas and shine on my sofa.

The package contains a colour print pattern and yummy fabrics. Making this quilt will be pure pleasure.

All three of my kids are now in middle school and need a desk of their own. My sewing table is just the perfect size for a desk. I bought it (or rather my mum paid for it) when I was a student. It was brown. After a few years when doing my internship I moved to a different town and my room was pretty dark, so the table changed to pink. Only to change to white many years later, not sure why. At that point the table was with at my mother's house as I was busy traveling and working abroad. Some 17 years ago the table came back to me, I sanded it and in stead of painting I varnished it with a cherry tree colour varnish. For a number of years I was bored with the colour and had bought blue paint ..... that pot of paint was still waiting to be used ..... time and priorities had clearly decided otherwise. Only that now, after some hesitating, I promised my youngest my table as it is the perfect desk. After coming back from holidays, as my sewing room is inaccessible due to storing my daughter's stuff while we have her room completely renovated , I figured now would be the best moment to tackle painting the table.

I found the blue paint, between yesterday and today painted two coats on the legs and side. The top is in off white (three coatings), the same colours as the wood work in Slava's bedroom. Tomorrow he will have a desk.

My sewing machine is temporarily on a book case. So no sewing until Alesya's room is finished.

My OMG for September organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts is to cut all the fabric for my Tiramisu Christmas quilt.

Summer knitted cardigan

My sewing machine is (more or less)out of reach; because we are redoing my daughters bedroom and had to move her stuff to other places in our house. Also as part of redoing the floor in her room ... we thought that we might as well change the parquet in the hallway and Slava's room. We have been staring at the ugly parquet ever since we bought our house 15 years and this is one of the "still not changed things that we absolutely need to change as is it sooo ugly". Also the parquet is not real, it is some cheap synthetic something. So no sewing for a few weeks. I managed to finish the quilt for my niece just before moving (a lot) of furniture, books, games, ... temporarily in to "la chambre peche" or the peach coloured room. When we bought our house I painted each room in a different colour, giving a name to each room at the same time. The curtains have disappeared and the room is waiting to change colour ... one day .....

I still had access to my bond knitting machine. Have not used my bond a lot the lately, yarn in abundance of course. Before going on holidays I knitted a cardigan for Alesya. The yarn (Markoma 4 points mysterieux) I had bought last year in a little shop on sale, the owner was retiring and having a huge sale. So I ended up buying yarn and fabric, thinking that whatever she would sell to me, she would make more money than selling all to a someone who would buy the whole lot for one price. So now the challenge is to use all that I bought. I have no idea where this yarn is produced, a search on google did not produce any results, other than shops selling this same yarn or Nordic sock wool.

The yarn is not intended to be used on a knitting machine, however with some coaching and sweet talking I managed to knit the 5 parts (back two fronts and two sleeves) prior to going on holidays. The assembly I could do while away. The edges were finished with a matching spring green cotton yarn crochet border from my stash, as were the the buttons. My daughter loves the cardigan and will wear it happily this autumn all through spring.

A finish - Pip Marzipan quilt

Happy dance, I finished the marzipan quilt in Pip colours for my niece. It feels good to actually finish such a big quilt. Without talking about the progress I make. The more I quilt, the more I get addicted and the better the end result is.

Last month was a crazy month with travel to Rwanda for work, picking up the kids in the Netherlands on my way back and work. So it was the first time since I OMG-ed that I missed the deadline.

Kigali, Rwanda's capital was a surprise to me, a pretty big city with quite some high-rise buildings. When I landed, the surroundings were as I expected, Savannah with huts and houses. However as we approached the city ... lots of traffic and houses and small shops.

The first day of our meeting we finished in time to visit a market close by the hotel. I bought some nice souvenirs including two hand woven baskets and two necklaces made of coconut shell.

I almost bought another Djembe, almost, as it would not fit in my suitcase. The sound was really good .... however I already have two and my eldest also has two ..... next time I bring a bigger suitcase .....

And of course I managed to bring some fabric home .... I could almost start a fabric shop with all my African and Asian batiks.

Back to my marzipan quilt: My niece wanted a quilt with blue, not too much pink as she was done with the pink princess phase. I had a 5" stacker Hello designed by Amanda Herring for Riley Blake Designs. For the back ground I used fabric bought on-line . I did not have enough 5" squares in the pack to make 12 squares, so I used some fabric from Slava's marzipan quilt. Plus fabric from his lamp that I had covered.

I quilted in the round and the end result is this beautiful quilt in soft blue and pink with patches of brighter colours. Am really pleased with the result. I had shown pictures to my niece of the top and she was happy with the colours. Am looking forward seeing the quilt on her bed.

Linking up with Patty's One Monthly Goal for August over at Elm Street Quilts.

Now on to some knitting for the rest of the month before I start my next quilting project.

To challenge or not to challenge

My craft room is taken over by my daughters stuff as we are redoing her room. I managed to keep a path from the door to my sewing machine as have not yet finished by Marzipan quilt in Pip colours. It was the first time since I started participating in OMG that I did not make it. Dramatic??? No, not really. Was my aim realistic last month ..... yes in a way as "all" I had to do was the quilting and the binding. True, the last few week were too hectic, so should I stop challenging myself in my creative space? No, I would miss it too much. The challenge keeps me going. For a few quarters I had signed up with Finish-a-Long (FAL), for the second quarter of 2019 completely missed the deadline. Over the last 6 months I did quite some smaller and bigger projects out of the way. That felt good. So come September will prepare my list, still soooo many projects to finish.

My goal for August's One Monthly Goal organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilting is to finish the sweet blue quilt for my niece. Am off to the Netherlands in September so it would make a perfect gift.

OMG July Basted Pip Marzipan

The Pip marzipan quilt is slowly slowly slowly progressing. And time moves faster. In two weeks my brother is coming for a two day visit. Well, he is actually coming to pick my kids and bring them to the Netherlands. He offered and I gladly accepted. Lately, I travel quite a bit for work, and I completely enjoy it. The down side is that I have less time for crafting as am less at home. I do get some knitting done as I can knit on the plane. I finished the secret garden shawl and currently am knitting a summer dress. Most likely the dress will be ready when autumn is here, or maybe when winter arrives. Especially as I keep frogging cause I had made a few mistakes.

Back to my marzipan quilt, this one in Pip colours is for my niece. Two weeks before the quilt is to travel to the Netherlands ... making completely finishing this my July One Monthly Goal for Patty's Elm Street Quilts challenge.

This weekend I managed to iron the top and back, as well as basting the beauty. She is now pinned and waiting to be quilted.