2013 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge #1 Ribbons and #4 Postcards

To day I finished postcards, some of them with ribbons, for the 2013 SewCalGal free-Motion Quilting challenges 1 and 4.
Challenge #1 is about the ribbons of Libby Lehman and challenge #4 is about postcards for a swab. The theme of the swab in june is 'wedding'. Ribbons and weddings go well together, so I combined both challenges.

Yesterday I took a big square of pink satin and polyester to make a sandwich, big enough for eight postcards, for several postcards. I collected some embroidery thread, even some metallic for ribbons and sat down behind my sewing machine.  I want to send my card for the swap away as soon as possible. I marked my piece of fabric and started. I wanted to free motion some roses, ribbons, feathers and zen-tangle doodles.  Enough for eight  cards!
I did not feel very well when I started, but after ten minutes of sewing I forget everything. I sewed for almost six hours and finished all the cards when I woke up this morning.
I did the satin stitch around the card with the darning foot too. Much easier than using the satin stitch foot!
I do not like my ribbons, I will make a place-mat or mini quilt with a big ribbon with nice colors.

Here are the results:
The cards with the ribbons for challenge #1

First finish with Isacord what a beautifull thread!

This is another ribbon postcard I made two weeks ago.

And another one:

The postcards for challenge nr. 5

Thanks everybody for your kind words!

It is so nice of you for stopping by, I love to hear from everyone of you, so please feel free to leave a comment.

If you have a question I will try and respond via e-mail. Please make sure your blogger profile is linked to your e-mail, otherwise I wont be able to e-mail you back.

If you need to reach me feel free to e-mail me at marelizeries[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks so much for reading

Keep quilting!

Maartje Quilt
Amsterdam

Free motion quilting Friday

I did a lot of quilting this week. I did the binding of a table runner, placemats and coasters I made of samplers. So I have left five unfinished quilts , two play quilts (ladders and snakes) for my granddaughters, a wedding ring picnic quilt for my eldest daughter en two more baby quilts with the balloons. I hope one baby quilt will be for my youngest daughter. She and her husband want a baby so badly. I will give the baby quilt to her when she tells me that she is expecting a child.

I finished this week two quilts and no samplers! Both quilts for the 2013 SewCalGal free motion quilting challenge. The first one is a whole clothe with ten borders. You can see details at this post. The feathers are 'hyper quilted' I love that!
I need some advise with the binding. Black or something else?

The second quilt is for the 2013 SewCalGal free motion quilting challenge #2. is a mini guilt for the Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiatieve. The details and thoughts with this quilt, you can read at this post

I will post a better picture with the real colors, when I have batteries for my camera. It was after the big whole clothe very easy to keep my stitches small and to follow the line of the stitches when I backtrac. All the hours of practice have effect!

Thanks everybody for your kind words!

It is so nice of you for stopping by, I love to hear from everyone of you, so please feel free to leave a comment.

If you have a question I will try and respond via e-mail. Please make sure your blogger profile is linked to your e-mail, otherwise I wont be able to e-mail you back.

If you need to reach me feel free to e-mail me at marelizeries[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks so much for reading
Maartje Quilt
Amsterdam

2013 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge - Challenge #2 - AAQI Piece

Today I finished my Gluilt for Challenge  #2 for the 2013 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge of SewCalGal. It is a miniquilt for The Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative.

It is my experience that free motion quilting feathers is so relaxing and prevents me from thinking about all those thoughts that always spin in my head. I am just sewing, concentrated on my stitches and speed and forgetting the world around me.
I experienced for the first time in my life how difficult it is for someone suffering Alzheimer to not be aware of what you are doing . Like my dear aunt Anna, not a real aunt but a neighbour of my former parents in law. She was very religious and believed that all people are evil and that when you did something wrong you go to hell. She was such a good person, but so afraid to sin. Her son and husband died and she left alone with very few family far away. She get Alzheimer. When she was conscious about what she was doing, she always was afraid if she had done something wrong. Once they found her naked on the street and for days she was afraid of her punishment. It lasted years when she did not know anything about sins and punishment anymore, but by then she did not know anything at all. So she lived for five more years. 
Today when I was busy for the AAQI-quilt I thought a lot about aunt Anna. My youngest daughter, Anneloes, is named after her! Thank to my daughters name and this quilt  to day Aunt Anna will be remembered at least by me!

2013 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge #4 Postcards

In the Netherlands there are not that many quilters, that's why I like the SewCalGal FMQ-challenge so much. I am not a person to go to a quilt bee, but I like to learn and inspired by other quilters.  I like all those blogs on the Internet. I learned a lot form Leah's Day blog, but I like to learn from other gifted quilters too, so I joined the 2013 SewCalGal FMQ-challenge. I finished the Feather challenge (but I am not finished with feathers) and I just made postcards for the challenge. I will certainly make more postcards, because it is fun to do!
I never ever would have treid this without the challenge! To day I will finish a chicken postcard too!

Six cards so far....

And 8 more! (2 below)

Postcard for the Postcard Swap

NR 6, Zentangle quilting on pink satin

NR. 5. Zentangle quilting on pink satin

NR 4 Second attempt Birds nest. Now a trapunto egg and a nest in a tree. The quilting: simple beams of moonlight and green grass or something like that. I like the birds nests, want to do more with this idea.

NR. 3. I like my idea for this postcard, but the quilting is a bad choice, black on black micro stippling is too difficult for me and it does not show. I will try a blue background with a thread with a different color blue for the quilting. By the way, the design is not my idea. I saw a quilt like this on the Internet.

NR 2 I want to try small feathers and I will do some more of these. It is fun!
This card I sent to Libby Lehman Please send her a card too, she is seriously ill.

NR. 1 First try a ribbon, I should have quilted the background, so I have to do some more. It don't look like a ribbon of Libby Lehman, so I have to do more I have to paint more like Libby said. I will send her a card soon. Hope she will get better soon!

2013 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge #3 - Feathers

For the 2013 FMQ Challenge #3 - Feathers, by Joanne of Thread Head  I am practising feathers on samplers. So far I finished three samplers: two black and two white. I like to quilt place mats as samplers.

I look for examples of feathers and fillers on the internet and pin it on Pinterest. I like the work of Cindy Needham, Angela Waters and Diane Gaudinsky. I like to study the effects of the different fillers of the experts. I read a lot of books and  I draw a lot of fillers and feathers whenever is possible. I like the books of Karen McTavish.
I buy my cottons at the famous Albert Cuyp street market in the centre of  Amsterdam, but could not find the right yarn.
I live in the North of Amsterdam. This quarter is seperated from Amsterdam Centre by the water of the river the IJ. It is a big quarter, but there are very few quality shops and there is only one shop were I can buy yarn, needles and others stuff I need for my sewing. The shop is called 'Zipper' ('Rits' in Dutch). There is a Quilt Shop in this part of Amsterdam, but is only open on Fridays and Saturdays and it is miles away. Zipper is 300 yards away from my home! In the Zipper I find multicolor thread that looks thin enough to try for my samplers. There are very few quilters in The Netherlands and I have to find my yarn at the Internet.

The tutorials of Joanne, part of the challenge, are very clear and informative. It helped a lot.

I still looking for the fillers a like the best and I had to practice echoing a lot. So I have to quilt a lot more samplers.

It is so nice of you for stopping by, I love to hear from everyone of you, so please feel free to leave a comment. Unfortunately I decided to exclude 'anonymous' comments, my blog gets attacked by so many spam and bots that I've decided to change that setting.

Thanks everybody for your kind words!

It is so nice of you for stopping by, I love to hear from everyone of you, so please feel free to leave a comment.

If you have a question I will try and respond via e-mail. Please make sure your blogger profile is linked to your e-mail, otherwise I wont be able to e-mail you back.

If you need to reach me feel free to e-mail me at marelizeries[at]gmail[dot]com

Thanks so much for reading

Keep quilting!

Maartje Quilt
Amsterdam

A baby quilt with pattern

I visited this year with my grandchildren the Dick Bruna House in Utrecht,The Netherlands, several times. Dick Bruna is the author of the Miffy books

Miffy drawn bij Dick Bruna

In the Dick Bruna House is a game. Children need to give the little girls the balloon that matches the dress.

I decided to make a babyquilt of the game and this weekend I finished two babyquilts. One for my husbands son and his wife (they get a baby in November, and one for a dear friend who has a little baby girl.

The white balloons are made of flannel, so the coloured balloons stick to the white balloons. (The principle of a design wall.) The dresses are applique.

It is easy to change a girl in a boy: cut out a corner from the dress to cange it in trousers and a t-shirt.

The quilting is stippling. 

It was not difficult to keep the quilting pattern consistent in the little squares of the big '365 days in 6 weeks quilt', but I did not succeed to keep my stipling consistent in this baby quilt. In the second baby quilt with a different quilting pattern, the quilting is more consistent. Below some pics. I did not quilt the dresses and the balloons.

Here is a link to the pattern of the quilt with the templates of the girls and balloons in real size.  The pattern is in Dutch. Therefore below a description on how I sewed my quilt.

You need 1/4 yard white flannel, 1 yard white cotton and 1 yard colored cotton (red, green, orange, yellow of blue). 1/4 yard or scraps of the other four colors. 1 yard basting.

1. Cut white cotton top, coloured back and basting (Finished seize quilt is: 40 inch x 32 inch.
   Cut 6 white flannel balloons
   Cut 12 colored balloons and 6 dresses of colored cotton
   For the binding: cut 10 strokes (44 inch x 1,5 inch) two of each color cotton
2. Paint the drawing on the top.
3. Pin or spray the top on the basting.
4. Stitch the white flannel balloons and dresses on the quilt with a black satin stitch.
5. Complete all the lines on the drawing with a satin stich. (Bruna pictures have always black lines.)
6. Spray baste the back on the basting and machine quilt the sandwich. Do not quilt the balloons and dresses.
7. Sew the long sides of the colored strokes together (see picture pattern). Cut the piece in two pieces of 22 inch and sew the long sides of the pieces together. Press the seams and cut the piece in strokes of 2 inch for the binding.
8. Finish the quilt with the binding

When you made this quit, please share a picture with me. I love to see the variations.

It is so nice of you for stopping by, I love to hear from everyone of you, so please feel free to leave a comment.

If you have a question I will try and respond via e-mail. Please make sure your blogger profile is linked to your e-mail, otherwise I wont be able to e-mail you back.

If you need to reach me feel free to e-mail me at maartjequilt@gmail.com

Thanks so much for reading

Keep quilting!

Maartje Quilt
Amsterdam

Placemats out of samplers

I bought a new sewing machine in December 2012 and started to free motion quilting in march. The first attempt was with a small house for little Sascha. I had to guilt the walls, floor and the roof. I( did it without a hopping foot and with embroidery stitches, leaves and flowers, on the wall.
I was not content about the quilting and searched the Internet for information.
Soon I found Leah's blog, watched tutorials on You Tube and started to free motion small 6x6 inch squares. But inspired by Leah's tutorial how to connect quilted pieces and her quilt of the '365 Days' samplers, I decided to make a quilt and first piece my squares to vife strokes for a quilt. I learned a lot following, (with a year delay) Leah's Quilt along project. To get a little but better I free motion quilted samplers. I used black cotton with some Indonesian batik. I made samplers as big as table runners and place mats. I struggled with my binding, but did not mind about it. I will give de place mats to friend and family, so I need to improve my binding by now.

Better, but I need more practice

Still need more practice

A little more practice

My firstsamplers