Quilting Day out at the farm

My friend Renske invited Margaret and I to come out to her farm to sew for a day. She had been given a stash of novelty prints, and had the idea of hosting a small quilting bee, to make I-Spy quilts for charity.
If you don't know what an I-Spy quilt is, quite simply it's a quilt made with many different squares of fabric depicting animals, toys, foods, vehicles, etc., which can be used to play "I-Spy" with a young child. You can say "I spy something orange!" or "I spy a fish!" and the child has to find the fabric containing the goldfish, for example. They are fun and cheerful quilts to make.
Margaret, as you can see by her big smile, was quite happy to miss a day of school to go quilting. She did pretty well for her age, getting three rows pieced and sewn together over the course of the day.

She might have done more, but she was distracted by Renske's cute grandchildren -- baby Evelyn (Margaret is cuddling her in this picture) and baby Jonas. Being the youngest in our family, Margaret hasn't had much opportunity to play with babies, and she was quite enthralled with Evelyn in particular, who was old enough to interact with her.
For me, Renske had set up an interesting quilt. She had all the novelty square cut already, and laid out on a design board. I was to cut long vertical sashing strips, then working in columns, sew the squares of each column down the length of the first strip, about an eighth of an inch apart. For the next column, sew each square on the opposite side of the strip, lining up each square with the one already sewn. Then sewing a second sashing strip to the opposite side of the second column of squares, then attach the next column of squares to the opposite side of the second sashing strip.
Maybe that sounds confusing. I was certainly confused when Renske first tried to explain it to me. So I just plunged in and started sewing, trusting it would all make sense as I worked -- and it did. Here I am holding up my work for the day: all vertical sashing strips sewed to all the blocks.
I took the quilt home at the end of the day to work on the next step -- separating the rows by cutting the vertical strips between the squares. I will then offset the alternate rows, and attach them with horizontal sashing strips.
 The last photo shows all the quilts that came out of that sewing day -- me with my quilt at left, then Renske's daughter Jeanette, Margaret with her partially pieced top, and Renske's daughter-in-law, Emily.
It was a lot of fun! But next time I will have to remember to get up and stretch more often -- my shoulders were pretty tired afterward from so many hours at my machine!

Noflike Krystdagen!

Over the years, I have received several beautiful handmade Christmas cards from my good friend Renske. They usually take the form of a quilted postcard, and each one is so unique and lovely that I've kept them all, displaying them every year at Christmastime as part of our holiday decorations.

I enjoy every card and letter I receive during the holidays, but it's extra special to receive such a personal token of friendship. And this year, I decided it was about time that I made one to give to her in return!

Renske was born in Friesland, and she has had a lifelong love of Frisian horses. I chose to make her a card that depicted a Frisian horse, its mane and tail represented by black beads, with some green and red beads added in for a Christmassy touch.

The body of the card is Pellon, which is stiff and fusible on both sides. I fused the light coloured fabric to one side, then cut out the horse shape and zig-zagged it on to the centre of the field. My nine-year-old daughter has a vast collection of beads, and I borrowed a few to create the mane and tail. (The red and green beads don't show up as well in the photo as they do in real life!) Then I fused on the backing fabric, covering all the stitches. I created a contrasting edge by zig-zagging around the whole card with black thread. Really, it was a pretty simple project: handsewing the beads was the most time consuming part of it all.

Then I decided to Google the Frisian words for 'Merry Christmas', and thanks to a translation site, I found the phrase: "Noflike Krystdagen en in protte Lok en Seine yn it Nije Jier." I understood it to mean, "Merry Christmas, and good luck and health for the New Year." I wrote it on the back of the card and added my name, hoping that it was right, or close enough that she would understand the sentiment.

Although it's theoretically possible to send a quilted postcard through the mail by simply putting a stamp on the back, I was afraid of the beads getting stuck in a letter-sorting machine, so I wrapped the card in tissue paper and put it in an envelope before mailing it.

Today, Renske emailed to say that she'd received it, and was delighted to have gotten Christmas wishes in her native tongue. It was very fulfilling to send her a personal card! I loved the warm and fuzzy feeling I got as I read her 'thank you' message -- I will definitely be making more homemade cards in the future!

Wrath of the Creeper

I don't even want to tell you the story of this quilt: it's so convoluted. And such a terrible comment on my self-discipline up until the present moment (I've recently discovered that self-discipline is simply a matter of setting a time to do something, then doing it. Works amazingly well.).

The fact is, I bought this fabric to make a quilt for my oldest son when he was about 5. This year he turned 16. Yeah. Pathetic, I know. It was just about my first quilt, and although my cuts were pretty accurate, my early blocks were sewn with inexact seam allowances, and sometimes I pressed the seams open instead of to the side. And my blocks were joined a bit haphazardly, too. I had no concept of following a pressing direction for blocks and rows, so the seams went all over the place at the back. But over the years, as my quilting knowledge improved, so did my technique. I also changed machines twice, and used a total of four different presser feet as I sewed.

Consequently, as I happily sewed on my last row and pronounced the quilt finish for the first time (a couple years ago), I little suspected that I would later measure it to discover that the quilt was several inches narrower at the top than at the bottom. Grrr.

In frustration, I hid the completed quilt top in my sewing cupboard. I was unhappy with it, but wasn't sure what to do to fix its problems. In the end, I plucked up the courage to start picking it apart... I had the idea that I would resew the squares together in 6x6 blocks (about 24" across), and the use a quilt-as-you-go method to join the sections.

In the meantime, with Connor growing older, I began itching to make him a video game-related quilt -- something that reflected his current interests. Then I saw this picture on his computer screen one day:

Hmm. The monster whose face is depicted above is called a "creeper" and it appears in the game Minecraft. You can see how easily he would translate into quilt squares. And since I already had numerous squares in shades of green (okay, and blue and orange and purple), I could easily imagine myself adding in some black squares to make creeper faces, and voila! The quilt was reinvented as a teenage boy's video game quilt. The photo below shows the completed quilt top on my queen-size bed.

It has since gone off to be machine quilted -- I let Connor pick the backing, thread and quilting pattern, and he has chosen to call the quilt "Wrath of the Creeper". He is eager to get it back and put it on his bed. I am happy to finally have this project off my sewing table!