Steffi´s Candy Quilts

love the new Selvages

2012-01-27T21:15:00.003+01:00

The new selvage designs are so beautiful!
Different fonts on the Free Spirit fabrics, a LOT of japanese fans on the Good Fortune selvages, little hearts at Pam Kitty Morning, small Flowers at Domestic Bliss and scissors at Cape Ann.
The selvages become more and more interesting and worth doing something beautiful with them.
I save and store them all for a special project.

Do you remember these old ones?
Barbara Brackman once wrote "you know that your fabric is old when there´s no www-adress on the selvage". OK, then I have some really old fabrics! :-)

Fugly Fabric Party at Charm About You

2012-01-24T19:51:00.003+01:00

Do you have fabrics that you don´t like any more? Your taste has changed and you don´t know what to do with them? Your fabric closet is full to the brim and you don´t have space for your new purchases?

Then please go and visit Lucy over at Charm About You and read all about her Fugly Fabric Party!

I think this is a great idea.
Stay tuned for a giveaway or two! I´m busy sorting through my stash. ;-)

Sunday

2012-01-22T17:01:00.003+01:00

I cleaned my sewing table and thought that you would like to see this cute little cupboard.
It is more than 40 years old, I guess, and first my sister and later me both used it to play "shop" when we were small.
The stickers are from that time. :-)

Now I keep my sewing notions in it. The oil for my machine, a nice tin with safety pins, my tape measures, bobbins, a pin cushion...and behind the doors are threads and ribbons.
The cupboard sits in one corner of my table and I really love it.

At the moment I am sewing a few of these for a tablerunner. When I put away the christmas stuff I thought that it was time for something new, light and spring-y.

Have a nice sunday!

organizing my stash

2012-01-19T10:45:00.003+01:00

It´s a quiet time here at the moment. I am reorganizing my sewing room, trying to ged rid of things I don´t need any more, and trying to make room for the things I really need.
These fabrics (only part of my stash, I must confess) were on the floor under my cutting table for the last months. Now I found a better place for them.

(note to myself: I still need more green and orange!)

Last Sunday we visited this beautiful old water mill.
The weather was so nice, sunny and cool, but not too cold.
Today it is dark grey and rainy. Perfect for rummaging around in my room a bit more.

Mug Rugs

2012-01-04T23:29:00.003+01:00

I hope you all had a good start into the new year and I wish you a VERY good year 2012.

For christmas I made a few small gifts for my family.
Here are the two mug rugs I did for my parents. My father likes owls, and my mother loves her garden, so it was easy to find the right motivs.
I tried some free motion machine quilting here and it was fun, but the result is far from being perfect. I think I need a LOT of practice to get a good and even stitch length. But the small mug rugs were good practice pieces and I think I´ll try it again in the future.
I tried this tutorial over at Crazy Mom Quilts and attached the binding completely by machine, and it worked very nice.

I also made a case for my sister´s new digital camera, but unfortunately I forgot to take a picture. The camera is red, and so I chose red for the case, too, with small flying geese in lime green.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-23T21:10:00.003+01:00

I wish you all peaceful and nice Christmas days!

(I made a few small fabric items for my family, but I can`t show them to you yet.)

a finished Wallhanging and some Christmas Decoration

2011-11-29T13:37:00.003+01:00

Recently I finished the second of the small wallhangings that my mother and me started some years ago. The first one was a gift for my sister, and this one is for me.

It hangs in a little corner of the living room now, accompanied by the beautiful chair we found in a thrift shop for 5 Euros. I guess it is from the late 50s or 60s and in very good condition.

I quilted this little wallhanging with perle cotton in blue and lavender to match the sashing and the binding.

Unfortunately there is nothing more quilt-related to blog about. The past weeks were quite busy, and I hope to find the time to make some small quilty items as gifts before Christmas is finally here.

I am still not really in a Christmas mood. Outside it is pretty warm and sunny, and I wish I could have another month of autumn.
But at least I did some decoration yesterday and hope that it will help me to get into the right mood.

Some handmade beauties.

These beautiful painted stars are from Kashmere and I like them very much.

Every year I hang this huge glass ball into the window.

A traditional ornament from the "Erzgebirge", a german region known for woodturned and carved christmas decorations.

And these are my favorite christmas tree ornaments - wish I had more than two!

What about you? Are you looking forward to Christmas? Or do you think the year has passed way too quick? I cannot believe that it is almost December!

one Flower and one Star II

2011-11-09T16:59:00.005+01:00

Again I managed to sew one flower and one more star for my hexie project. This time the star is a bit stronger in color. I don´t want the quilt to become too sweet and pastel, so I think a few darker fabrics here and there are ok. The original 1930s quilt has darker areas, too:

Go and visit the Nebraska History page, if you like. There are a lot of beautiful antique quilts to see!

new Flowers and new Fabrics

2011-11-02T16:45:00.003+01:00

Three new flowers for my garden this week. Finally I used the solid green fabric that I bought this summer - it goes perfectly with the green print!
Go here and visit the other participants of One Flower Wednesday! There are a lot of beautiful fabric gardens!
Today these fabrics arrived! I am so happy with them!
The first time these prints were available a few years ago I missed them, and I admired them whenever I saw them in the projects of other quilters. Now they are back again in the new line of American Jane, Fairy Tale Friends. I got mine here. The Fat Quarter Shop always ships very fast!

Blogger´s Quilt Festival Fall 2011

2011-10-28T01:17:00.007+02:00

Amy at Amy´s Creative Side is hosting the Blogger´s Quilt Festival again! I was looking forward to this event for quite a while now. It is always so interesting and inspiring!

(Sorry, I don´t know how to get the button right...)

This time my entry is my recently finished
"1930s Postage Stamps" quilt.
It is very scrappy and I used a lot of my favorite 1930s reproduction fabrics here. The squares are 1 1/2" finished size and I sewed the top by machine and did the quilting with blue perle cotton thread and big stitches by hand. That was a lot of fun! The white muslin squares surrounded by blue keep all the other fabrics together and form a nice quilting space.
The binding is a blue print, too. I wanted do make such a quilt for ages, but I feared the cutting of all the small squares. The rotary cutter is not my best friend...

Last year I bought an Accuquilt Go! fabric cutter and that made it much more easy. I could cut 36 squares at once and it worked great.The back is this happy fabric that I found two or three years ago in a danish thrift store during our summer vacation. It is very special to me because it reminds me of beautiful summer days in Denmark. I think it fits the colorful quilt perfectly.

Thank you Amy for giving us all the space to come together from all around the world!
And thank you to my husband Michael for assisting with the photo shoot! :-)

one Flower and one Star

2011-10-26T23:52:00.002+02:00

It´s almost midnight so here is a quick One Flower Wednesday post.
I am really sorry that it´s been such a long time since my last hexie post. I always have the best intentions but so many other things keep me away from hand sewing. So my garden grows pretty slow at the moment.

a WONDERFUL Gift

2011-10-24T14:19:00.003+02:00

Look what my sister made for me!
Isn´t this just beautiful?
I LOVE granny squares, but I cannot crochet.
But I am lucky to have a sister who is the queen of knitting, crocheting and everything else where one or more needles and a ball of wool is involved. Seems that she got all the talent for this and there was nothing left for me. :-)
Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am left handed.?
I´m not sad about it. My medium is fabric, and as long as I receive gifts like this, I have nothing to complain.

Wish you all a nice week!

my Striped Fabric Search

2011-10-22T20:56:00.003+02:00

During the last days I visited five different fabric and patchwork shops because I wanted to buy a few striped fabrics. No big deal, I thought. Stripes and checks are quite basic patterns and I was sure to find a few nice ones.
Well, I found not only one...
Two shops had a few cotton-poly-blends, but not in "my" colors, and some ginghams.

However, I found some pretty fabrics for my stash. It is very nice to see that slowly but surely the european fabric manufacturers start making pretty, reasonably priced cotton patchwork fabrics (8 to 10 Euro for one metre 60" wide fabric).
And now I´ll do a little online shopping for the stripes. ;-)

Fabric Search

2011-10-15T13:31:00.004+02:00

Dear blogging friends!
I am searching for two special fabrics, and I am hoping that you can help me.
Maybe one of you has one of the fabrics in her stash and is willing to sell or trade it.?

The first is this print from Sandra Banava for Robert Kaufman named "Potpourri". I have only a small piece left and would LOVE to have more of it because I have a special project in mind and would need more of it. This was also available in a light blue/aqua version that I would love, too.

The second would be this print in the PINK colourway. It is Urban Garden by Erin McMorris for Free Spirit. I have this aqua one and am searching for the same print in pink.

Any amount would help me, from a fat quarter to yardage, and I would happily pay for it or trade for other fabrics. If you can help me please leave a comment or email me at Kansasdugout (at) gmx (dot) de
Thank you so much!

a new Toy

2011-10-13T17:56:00.003+02:00

Lately I bought this new ruler. It is quite handy. With the one side you can cut a 2 1/2 inch strip of fabric, and then you turn it over and cut the equilateral triangles.

I cut a lot more since this picture. I´m not yet sure what exactly I´ll do with them, but it´s fun to play with them and I´m sure that inspiration will hit me soon. :-)

a small finish

2011-09-23T22:49:00.003+02:00

I finished the little wallhanging for my sister this week.
Tomorrow she comes for a short visit, and then I´ll give it to her. I hope she will like it!
I sewed this cute little button to one corner and used a yellow fabric for the binding.
The quilt is just a little bit smaller than a fat quarter, so I used one from my stash for the backing.

Now I´m working on the second of the two quilts. This one is for me and I´m looking forward to adding it to my small collection of doll quilts on the living room wall.
I quilted my sister´s quilt traditionally with creme quilting thread, but for mine I choose blue and lavender perle cotton. I plan to use a lavender fabric for the binding.
Today I received the new book by Kaffe Fassett. It is as gorgeous as all his books! I hope to find some time for reading at the weekend!

Yummy Threads

2011-09-14T10:55:00.003+02:00

More perle cotton threads arrived in the mail yesterday.
I am very inspired by all these beautiful colors!
And now I have the right threads to quilt my green-and-purple UFO.
I am really hooked on big stitch quilting at the moment, and at least I get some projects DONE!

9/11

2011-09-11T12:04:00.002+02:00

Unbelieveable that it´s been 10 years since this horrible day. I remember it very well. We were on vacation in Denmark and did a little shopping in the mall of our village of summer cottages.
I was in a nice little clothes shop, the radio was on and the customers and staff were very nervous and talked to each other in danish.
The only words I could understand were "World Trade Center" and "New York". But I had no idea what happened until we came back to our cottage and turned the TV on and saw the awful pictures...it was so unreal, like a movie.
But it was real...

Big Stitch Quilting

2011-09-09T14:07:00.003+02:00

At the moment I am quilting my Postage Stamp quilt. I am using blue Perle No. 8 cotton thread and an embroidery needle, and I am very pleased with the results so far. In only one week I managed to quilt more than half of the top!
My plan is to use this quilt on my bed this coming winter, so I have to hurry now to get it done. It is quickly getting colder and I need a new warm and cozy quilt! :-)

I used a "Kyoto" bamboo batting because I wanted to try it out, and I can say it quilts very nice, it gets softer and softer during the quilting and handling, and it drapes beautifully.
BUT:
Every time I start a new thread, this happens. I hope you can see what I mean: the thread pulls some fibers of the batting out to the front.
I heard this before from another brand of bamboo batting, so I was prepared that it might happen with mine, too.
However, I wanted to give it a try.
With this busy and colorful quilt it is not that tragically. You can pull the fibers away and then it is nearly invisible.
But I think for my next quilt I will use cotton batting again...

I love my Scraps!

2011-09-06T20:35:00.003+02:00

I am cutting up pieces for a new quilt idea.
And you know what? I almost love the scraps more than the pieces for the quilt.
Woo-hoo, new input for the scrap bins! New material for mini quilts!

Am I crazy? :-)

my Birthday Gifts

2011-08-27T21:27:00.002+02:00

Yesterday was my birthday and look what I got:
Michael ordered the new Sarah Fielke book for me, and my mom made the beautiful crazy heart. It smells sooo good because she put some lavender from her garden into it. Isn´t it cute?

I just started reading in the book, but I love Sarah´s style of quilts and the idea of making a small doll quilt first to learn a technique or to see if you like the pattern. Very clever!
Sarah is the co-author of the two "Material Obsession" books which I like very much, too.

I´m a Guest Blogger at Sew We Quilt today!

2011-08-24T15:11:00.003+02:00

Hello to all my new and old readers! :-)
It´s quite a while since I did my last post here. Unfortunately my computer had some severe issues during the last weeks and last Thursday it broke down completely. We had to bring it to a repair service and just got it back. I hope everything will be ok now.
I am very grateful that the specialists were able to save all my data files!

It was bad timing because of my guest blogging today at Sew We Quilt. But dear Madame Samm was so kind and did all the work for me. Thank you, Samm! :-)

I want to welcome all my new readers who came here via Sew We Quilt! It´s nice to have you here!

In the last weeks I didn´t do a lot of quilting, but I was busy building a little sewing studio for my dolls, in 1/10th scale. Here are the beginnings:

The men were decorating the room with a nice blue and white wallpaper. And notice the big design wall!

The most important things like the sewing machine and ironing board are already in place.

There are also some cutting mats and rotary cutters.

I think it will be nice to decorate the room now with all the items needed for quilting - fabrics, scraps, rulers, books, quilts both finished and unfinished...I sure will have some fun with this. Stay tuned! I´ll show you the progress during the next weeks!

my Scraps have a new "Home"

2011-07-16T10:42:00.002+02:00

Yesterday I changed the storage of my small scraps from this...
...to this:
The plastic containers are very much nicer than the cardboard boxes. You can see what´s in them, and they are all the same size.

This is the view from my sewing room window at the moment. The steeple of the church is being restored.

Which Quilt Pattern?

2011-07-09T11:15:00.003+02:00

I am still not sure about how to quilt the Grandmother´s Flower Garden.
The classic pattern would be to outline quilt every single hexagon. This would match the reproduction fabrics for a good old fashioned look. It is the pattern you see on most antique flower garden quilts. But with roughly 2,500 hexagons I am afraid it would take ages to finish. Pro: no quilting through the seam allowances.

The second idea is to follow the shapes of the flowers. More continuous quilting lines, but I have to go through the seam allowances. Still a quite classical look, I think.

Third: a sort of free-form flower. Well, not exactly like in the pciture, but you get an idea. It´s not so easy to draw with the Paint program. ;-)
This would be a more modern look, in contrast to the old fashioned fabrics.
I am not sure wether I like this contrast or not.

Question of the week: what would you do???

I tamed the Monster

2011-07-01T14:50:00.005+02:00

After a lot of basting I now have this nice pile ready to quilt. The only question is how long it would take to quilt it all???
Look at the lavender flower garden at the bottom - it is really huge! I´m afraid that it will take years to finish only this one.
Basting this really was like a fight with a monster, but in the end I won! :-)
I also finished the two little quilt tops my mother started years ago, and basted them too.

Sorry for the dark pictures. We had a lot of rain and grey clouds during the last weeks. But I don´t complain - when the weather gets really hot and sunny my attic sewing room gets very hot, too. That´s why I love moderate temperatures a lot more!

a Lot of Basting

2011-06-21T20:14:00.002+02:00

Everytime I want to baste a quilt, I have to pull my table out of it´s corner and place it in the middle of my sewing room. So I usually wait until I have more than one quilt to baste so that it is worth the mess.
This time I have three big quilts and three small wall quilts. A lot of basting work.
Years ago I basted my very first big quilt on the floor - it was the only one. Ever since that time I used a table for basting. I find it very much more comfortable. The only problem is that sometimes the backing and/or the batting slides away before you can put the top onto it, especially when the quilt is much bigger than the table. This is particularly annoying with a pieced back or a striped backing fabric that should align with the top.
A few days ago I saw this post over at Stash Manicure. What a great idea, and so easy!

I immediately bought these clips, and what can I say? I am thrilled with the result. You can keep the layers in place very easy, they stay where they should, nothing shifts away. Total control!
I managed to baste two of the big quilts in two days now, and hopefully will baste the third one tomorrow - the huge Grandmother´s Flower Garden. Wish me luck for this monster! :-)

two long forgotten WIPs

2011-06-19T19:34:00.004+02:00

Look what I found today! :-)
We were at my parents´ house to water the plants today, because they are on a holiday trip.
I went to my mum´s sewing room where still are a lot of fabrics from me, too. Ahem, the truth is that I have sort of two stashs, my beloved 30s and Fassetts and all the newer fabrics are here in my own studio, and the older fabrics that I bought more than 10 years ago are at my mum´s.
Well, today I took some of them home with me, and rolled into some yards of muslin I found these two little doll quilt parts that mum and me started years ago.
Mum did all the appliqué and embroidery, and I did the cutting. The plan was that my Mum wanted to finish them, the green one with the cats for my sister, and the blue one with the Sunbonnet Sues for me.
Well, my mum loves appliqué and embroidery, but she is not the world´s greatest patchwork seamstress, and so this WIP was put away...and that was that.
Look at the cute little details!
The blocks are quite small, only a bit more than 3 inches (8 cm) square.

I think that I will finish the tops now, and then I´ll ask my mother if she wants to quilt them or if she wants me to do it. I´m really looking forward to seeing my little Sunbonnet girls finished and on the wall together with my other doll quilts.

Quilt Show in Rüdesheim

2011-06-17T09:31:00.005+02:00

I promised you some pictures of the quilt show we visited last weekend in Rüdesheim, so here they are.
Nice pictorial quilts!

If you look closely, you can see some seahorses here.

Lotus leafes in all shades of green.

A beautiful Baltimore Album.

I liked the amish colors of this ninepatch.

Beach, water, and striped towels. :-) I liked the idea!

This was stunning, too.

A lot of fish! ( or as my little niece said: fich fich fich)

These irregular hexagons were very interesting.

This was Michael´s favorite.

Very nice three dimensional poppys!

Flowers in rainbow colors.

I love all these aqua shades and the water lilys.

When we came back to our car, we met this curious cat. As soon as the door was open, she was inside the car. :-)

I also found the green solid I wanted in the booth section. The first shop was very expensive - €18 for a meter of Kona Cotton solid, that is more than $20, wow! I then bought it at another booth for €10 per meter. That still is more than I would pay at an US online store, even with the shipping costs and customs duty included. But I wanted it right away, and I only bought half a meter for my hexagon flowers. There are so many different shades of green solids that I wanted to see it in person and to match it to my printed fabrics.

The fabrics were generally quite expensive - between €16 and 18 a meter. So I bought only a few small pieces as souvenirs. You know how this is, even after years you look at a fabric and know where you bought it.
I am really very grateful for the online shops! Otherwise I could not afford to buy the fabrics I want. So please, american quilters, don´t be upset about the current fabric prices, I know they rose a bit, but they still are sooo much cheaper than here in Europe. ;-) Please keep us poor european quilters in mind!

One Star Wednesday

2011-06-15T12:30:00.003+02:00

One more star for my hexie project is done this week. Now I have 4 stars and 10 flowers, that is approx. 1/5th of the whole quilt. I did a little more fussy cutting on the outer hexies here. The fabric was perfect for it. I could do it almost without waste.
And just because they are so pretty: a picture of a bowl full of roses from my mom´s garden. Some of them are offsprings of very old roses my grandfather had in his garden decades ago. They smell absolutely beautiful!

All my bags are packed...

2011-06-10T13:20:00.003+02:00

...I´m ready to go...
Well, I am not leaving on a jet plane, we only visit my sister and little niece for a long weekend.

I cutted out some hexagons to take along. Don´t know if I will have time to sew, but if so, I´m prepared. All the sewing supplies fit very good into this little plastic container from the big swedish furniture shop. I have more of these, in different colors, they are just perfect for threads, spools, ribbons, buttons...
They are sold in packs of three, for a very reasonable price, in the children´s department, if you are interested. ;-)

In the little plastic bag are a few green scraps...I need a matching solid green.
We will visit the "Patchworktage" in Rüdesheim, an annual event in Germany with quilt shows, booths from patchwork shops, etc. I hope to find the right green there. And I´m looking forward to seeing a lot of beautiful quilts!
Of course I´ll take the camera with me to show you some pics next week! ;-)

Finally: new Flowers

2011-06-08T09:12:00.002+02:00

After a long time without any hexagons, I´m back in the "garden" at last.
Today is a three Flower Wednesday and I hope to sew some more flowers and stars in the next weeks. At the moment I´m cutting out more hexies to take them with me when we´ll visit my sister and go on our holiday trip.
Once again I fussy cutted a bit, and it seems that a lot of the 30s prints are perfect for this size of hexies. I had very little waste.

a hot Day at a Dutch Quilt Show

2011-06-05T18:44:00.005+02:00

We went to Vaassen (Netherlands) to visit the Quilt Show held in the beautiful Castle Cannenburch this weekend.
It was a VERY hot day and we almost melted away, but it was also very interesting.
One big quilt greeted us at the outside of the castle (made from several small units), and there was a little boat decorated with Flying Geese strips on the moat.

Very nice idea!
Unfortunately it was not allowed to take photos inside the castle, but I can show you the outside, the beautiful park and the quilt shop booths.

And I also can show you what I bought:
A new ruler, some Kaffe Fassett / Philip Jacobs goodies, the only reproduction fabrics available, and a few very light pastels for a special project I have in mind.

a little Thought about Scraps

2011-06-03T10:48:00.004+02:00

Once upon a time there was a cake on a table. Under the table, on the floor, was a little grain of sugar.
After an hour or two the little grain of sugar was taken away by a vacuum cleaner, because it was dirt.
When in the vacuum cleaner´s bag, among much other dust and dirt, the little grain of sugar was a little sad.
"Nobody would call me dirt", it thought, "if I had been in the cake."

I read this first when I was a teenager, and kept it in mind ever since.
Maybe this is the reason why I can´t throw away only the smallest of scraps?

Progress!

2011-05-30T11:42:00.003+02:00

The "Rules" Top is done! On Saturday I reached a point where I just couldn´t stop until it was ready. :-)
Lynne, I hope it´s ok for you that I used your idea with the light "Fun" words in the background - I loved them so much!
I managed to sew almost the whole top from leftover scraps. Some were given to me from other quilters, and some are from my own sewing. So there are a lot of memories in this little top. A scrap from a bag I made, a piece of one of the very first fabrics in my once very small stash, some precious Kaffe Fassett scraps.
Can you see the "2000" fabric in the second "L"? Do you remember when these Millennium fabrics came out in 1999? :-)
I want to quilt this by machine using my new walking foot. I am not very experienced in machine quilting and I hope that this small top is a good practice piece.
I also made good progress on the Postage Stamp quilt top. All blocks are sewn now and are hanging on my design wall. Please ignore the top - the design wall was just not high enough. I started on the bottom and ran out of space in the upper row. :-)
So far I like this a lot. Very colorful and scrappy, with a lot of favorites and some blue - I always love blue! I plan to hand quilt this with perle thread and big stitch quilting, and I hope to have it finished by next winter.

Candy Sticks Quilt

2011-05-26T13:36:00.003+02:00

When Michael and me went outside to take some pictures of my double wedding ring quilt for the blogger´s quilt festival, I also took my candy sticks quilt with me to photograph it, too.
I tried it a few times in the past, but the yellow came out wrong each time. It´s difficult to get it right, and I don´t know why.
In reality it is such a nice color, a soft buttery yellow. The last picture shows it best, I think.
The quilt is almost 10 years old now and I use it a lot on my bed. It features my all time favorite 30s reproductions, a lot of older Aunt Grace fabrics here.

( Wow...the first Aunt Grace fabric line by Judie Rothermel came out in 1991! Can you believe it? That means this year we can celebrate the 20th anniversary!!! Let´s hope for a nice new line.)
This was the second time I used a fan quilt pattern, and I remember that the hand quilting went quite quick. The top is machine pieced, and I did it in one weekend during a quilt retreat.
Once again dear Michael helped me by holding the quilts until his arms hurted. Thank you darling for being such a good friend. I love you!
♥ ♥ ♥
(This is another typical picture...he carries not only his bag, but mine too, when I get tired...I have a wonderful husband!)

more Words

2011-05-23T17:17:00.003+02:00

I sewed a few more words during the last days. Lynne warned me that it is very addictive, and she was right. :-)
Sorry for the dark picture. In reality the colors are a bit lighter.
Until now I managed to sew all the letters from my stash of small scraps (except parts of the white background). It is a kind of a challenge to make do with what is in the boxes of scraps. We´ll see how far I will come with these small pieces.

If...

2011-05-19T17:40:00.003+02:00

For quite some time now I admire the word quilts by Lynne over at the Patchery Menagerie.
Especially this quilt with the saying of Katharine Hepburn, "If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun", I like very much.
So I asked Lynne if I could make my own version, and she was very nice and gave me some helpful hints for sewing letters. Thank you, Lynne! :-)

Here are my first three words. I made them totally out of my small scraps, and it was a lot of fun. The letters are about 2 1/2 or 3 inches high. I plan to make a small wallhanging for my sewing room out of them.
Stay tuned for more words! :-)

Bloggers Quilt Festival - Double Wedding Ring

2011-05-13T23:13:00.005+02:00

It´s time for Amy´s Bloggers Quilt Festival again.

And I think it´s time to show you my very first „big“ quilt. I made pillows, wallhangings and other small items before, but this is my first bed sized quilt: a Double Wedding Ring in blue fabrics...not the best pattern for a first try, you say? :-)

Well, today I would have chosen another pattern, but back then I was young and didn´t think about it too much – I liked the pattern and I wanted to have such a quilt, so I started.

The blue fabrics came from my (small) stash, and the white background was a linen sheet from my mom´s closet. No good idea, because it was hard to hand quilt and make the quilt a real heavyweight. Because I wanted a warm and thick quilt I put two layers of polyester batting in it – polyester was the only available batting in our small fabric shop. Today I know it all better. Today I like thin quilts with an antique look. The times are changing. :-)

The entire quilt is made by hand, there is not only one machine stitch in it. You should see the quilting stitches – they are ¼ inch long. :-)

Well, it was in the days before everybody had a computer and internet (1998/1999). I had a few quilting books, and that was all. So I just had to try, and it worked out not too bad for a first attempt in curved piecing and such a big project.

We still use this quilt on our bed as the „winter quilt“, because it´s so heavy and warm – perfect for really cold nights. So despite all it´s imperfections it is still loved and used.

I cherish it because it started my love for sewing quilts and because I learned a lot from making it.

One day I would love to sew another Double Wedding Ring – in 30s reproduction fabrics and with smaller pieces – but this is another story... ;-)

A big thank you for my husband Michael for his help with taking the pictures! You were a great quilt holder again. :-) And thank you Amy for giving us all the opportunity to come together in this event.

a little Souvenir

2011-05-11T12:42:00.003+02:00

When we were in Denmark last August, I visited a few patchwork shops. In one of them I bought a japanese quilting book. I love the japanese books, they are full of cute little details and beautiful projects. And the instructions with all the little drawings are so good that you can follow them without understanding only one word.
I liked this little case for sewing notions so much that I wanted to start it immediately. So I took the fabrics I just bought and made the templates from the box of our breakfast cereals (chocolate) :-).
I came this far, and then the holiday trip was over and the unfinished pieces stayed in my sewing box until now.
I really think I have to finish this! When I look at the fabrics, I can see all the beautiful towns we visited and remember the good days we had.
The light background fabric is a very nice cotton sateen that I found in the scrap basket of a fabric shop in Aabenraa. The purples come from a cute little shop in Skaerbaek with the most friendly and nice owner, Lis, who invited me to quilt with her group one evening.
It was such a nice holiday trip, and I think that I will remember it every time I´ll use this case in the future.

No Reply Bloggers

2011-05-04T09:31:00.004+02:00

Dear Friends and Followers of my little blog!
Like every blogger, I love to get comments and feedback. I always try to answer. It can take a few days, but I promise to write back to you, if I am able. But here is the problem: there are still bloggers out there who are "noreply-comment"-bloggers.
Amy from Amy´s Creative Side wrote a post about this here.
Please check your profile and edit it, if necessary, so that we can get in touch!

Sandi, you asked about the pattern for this toy, but I cannot answer because you left no email adress. ;-)

Finally: a Design Wall!

2011-04-28T10:22:00.003+02:00

Hello! Wow, a very long time without a post. Hard to believe that it is almost May!
We had some computer issues during the last months. It was very frustrating. I tried to post a few times, but every time the computer broke down before I was done with my text, so I finally gave it up.
We also had some chaos here because we needed a few new heaters, and that grew much bigger than we thought. The walls had to be repaired and repainted, and then some pipes in the heater room bursted...so we had a lot of dirt, water and different craftsmen in the house...not the right atmosphere for doing a lot of sewing. Thank god we do not have to pay for it, because it´s a rented apartment, but it was annoying nevertheless.

But at least I have to tell one very good thing: after five years without a design wall I finally have one again! Oh, I missed it! My sewing room is under the eaves, so I have no big wall, but then I read a post over at Madame Samm´s blog Sew I Quilt. She used a fabric blind as a design wall that you can hang from the ceiling and roll it up and down. Perfect for my room! So we bought a fabric blind at the big swedish furniture store, I lined it with flannel, and ready is the new design wall! Thank you Madame Samm for this great idea!
Here you can see my current UFOs. I still have to sew a lot of blocks for the Postage Stamp Quilt, but most of the cutting is done. It worked so well with the Accuquilt Go! cutter!
And my neglected hexie project...I hope to find the time to sew a few more flowers soon! It´s been a lot of Wednesdays since I took part in the One Flower Wednesday.

I´m a Guest Blogger at Stash Manicure today!

2011-01-10T11:31:00.002+01:00

Wow, I´m really happy that Madame Samm invited me to write about my miniature quilts! Makes me so proud! :-)

If you are already a follower of my blog, you know my little mini quilts, but here is the post anyway:

Hello quilting friends, this is Steffi from Steffi´s Candy Quilts in Germany, and today I want to show you what to do with your small scraps.

Let me first tell you a bit about me: I love quilting, and I also love my doll´s house, and so one day I thought that it would be nice to combine the two hobbies and started to sew miniature quilts. It was also a challenge, I wanted to see if it´s possible to sew very small patchwork blocks and quilts. And it works!

My quilts are approx. 1/10th scale and most of them are made using the foundation paper piecing method. I´m sure most of you know this technique. Sewing precise little patchwork blocks without paper piecing is almost impossible, so we have to start with drafting the blocks onto paper, or print them out using Electric Quilt or another patchwork design program. The calculation is quite easy, it´s just 1/10th of the scale you are used to.

Then we need our small scraps. Depending on the pattern you choose, you can use scraps as small as ¾ inch square and bigger. I store mine in boxes, sorted by color, and when it´s time to do a new mini quilt, I just pull them out and play!

Here are a few pieces in progress. The Chinese Coins pattern is very easy and a good beginner´s choice. I normally use checked graph paper for this and simply use the lines as a guide for the piecing. Log Cabin, Flying Geese and Square in a Square are also good choices for mini quilts.

Use a small stitch length when sewing onto a paper foundation, so it´s easier to tear the paper away.

You can also sew in small scale by hand! This little Flower Garden was made using a good oldfashioned cardboard template and tiny hand stitches.

Miniature quilts have some advantages:
They are so small that you can sew all the quilts you ever dreamt of without getting storage problems! And because you can use the smallest of scraps, you don´t have to buy any materials. It doesn´t matter if the fabrics are ugly. The pieces are so small that you cannot see the patterns.
Most of my minis don´t have a batting - all the sewing allowances do the job.
On the other hand, the many seams make quilting a little difficult. I prefer to do only a bit of quilting in the free background areas or in the sashing.

Here are a few impressions from my doll´s house to show you what I´m doing with my mini quilts. But you can also frame them, use them as little wallhangings or display them with your favorite doll or teddy bear...

I hope you´ll have a lot of fun sewing your own small quilts! And I would love to see them and to hear from you, so please visit me at my blog!

Thank you, Madame Samm, for inviting me, I feel very honored to write here!

Chaos?

2011-01-07T16:57:00.003+01:00

Chaos?
No, only a very colorful new quilt!

Thanks to the Accuquilt Go Cutter it was just fun to cut out all the little squares.
But I have to sew a lot more blocks...

Dear blogging friends, I hope you all will have a wonderful and healthy new year! May all your wishes come true!

Merry Christmas to you all!

2010-12-23T15:43:00.003+01:00

Dear little blog, and dear blog readers,

I neglected you. Shame on me!
There was simply no time and nothing to blog about. I am sorry!
Back in November I started something new, and then I had to put it aside in the middle of the progress to do a lot of other things. I hope that I can show you pictures of it soon.

I am also waiting for new fabrics from America. All parcels take a lot more time than normal in the last weeks. It´s hard if you are waiting impatiently because you want to make christmas gifts out of the fabrics, and they simply don´t arrive. One parcel is on it´s way since the end of September. :-(

With this picture I want to wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas, enjoy a few quiet and relaxed days with your family and friends, and take care!
Hope to see you soon in blogland!

Barbie Dresses

2010-11-17T15:57:00.003+01:00

In the last days I saw pictures of Barbie Dolls with beautiful dresses, and read about other people who sew for their dolls. So I got a nostalgic feeling and unpacked my own Barbie dolls and the dresses I made for them when I was a teenager, before I discovered quilting.
Here are a few of my creations. As you can see, I loved (and still love) the fashion of the fifties.
This is the reproduction of the first Barbie, made for the 35th anniversary of the doll in 1994. It was my last year in school, and I HAD to have this doll! I was a huge fan back then.

The left one is a Living Skipper doll from the 70s that I got from one of my older cousins. I always liked this doll a lot! She has the most outfits, not only dresses, but also a coat, sweaters, shirts, jeans and a riding dress with black boots, hand sewn from fake leather.

I would like to sew a few new dresses for them in the future. What about a little collection of 30s style dresses from my reproduction fabrics? Or some modern jeans-and-boots outfits? So many ideas, so little time. First I have to do a lot of other work, and a few christmas presents, and then maybe back to the dolls...not to forget my hexagon project...sorry that I don´t have to show you something new!

Delden Quilt Exhibition

2010-11-05T18:59:00.006+01:00

We were in Delden/Holland today and visited the Quilt Exhibition that is organized by the team of ITY, the Delden Patchwork shop.
A lot of beautiful quilts, like this giant Double Wedding Ring.

A very nice idea to arrange the hexagons into a wreath.

Beautiful threedimensional appliqé on this quilt in fall colors.

Stunning scrap quilts.

Two wallhangings that are inspired by the work of the dutch artist Ton Schulten.

Isn´t this one beautiful?

This was one of my favorites - very detailed paper pieced birds.
Some day I´ll make a quilt with fall colors and leafes, too!
This was great, too! Reminds me of Hundertwasser.
And look! A little quilt shop! Too cute! :-)
And here is a picture of the Selvage Stars quilt. It hangs on our living room wall now, and it fits perfectly, I think. I couldn´t have planned the size of the quilt better, but it was totally unplanned. :-)

only one little Flower...

2010-11-04T18:41:00.004+01:00

...is blooming this week.
It was a slow and lazy week. My cold is still there, but it´s better now. I kept everything as cool and slow as I could because I wanted to get rid of this damn cold.
Michael is still at home, too, because of his hurt hand. Although I love to spend so much time with him, on the other hand I never get a lot of things done when he´s here all day. You know how this is, don´t you? ;-)

This Saturday our niece celebrates her first birthday. I made this funny toy for her. I bought the pattern and the foam cubes in Danmark this summer. There it is called "Umulius", that means "Impossibility" in english. You can turn it over and over, and each side shows a different fabric. I chose six different animal motivs.
A lot to look at for a little one, I hope.
Aren´t these sheep adorable?
It took some time to sew it and you have to watch out to put all the pieces in the right order, but the result is worth it.
Go over and visit Martha! She was VERY productive this week with her version of the hexagon star quilt.