A gift from Leila's sponsors

I haven't entered as much giveaways as when I first started blogging; I must be getting picky ...
On reading Leila's blog on the final stop on the Zakka Sew Along I thought I'd give it a go.
And I won the biggest prize of them all!!

Beautiful fabric (I love green) and super crazy stickers!!! All from Form & Fabric.
And Aurifil thread: all the different kinds they've got in beautiful colors.

I've already got a great weekend; hope you'll have that too!

Open European Quilt Championships 2013

Last weekend I went to Veldhoven to see many many beautiful quilts at the Open European Quilting Championships 2013. Lots of inspiration to be had and lots of stuff you can buy. 

There was even a Norwegian lady selling a (stunning!!) long arm quilting machine: ahhhhhh.

I shot some pictures, but not nearly as many as last year ...

There were a lot with a Berlin theme.

The funny thing was about the quilt at bottom right: I could only see the letters standing from a distance (or when I saw the quilt in the catalogue)

This was my favourite, front and back:

(a bear is in the coat of arms of the city)

Here is a quilt with a few detail pictures; it's made of old damask table cloths and crocheted/knitted pieces that look like a lace doily (yes, I looked that one up).

I'm sure you all know this man, but have you ever seen the back of him?

Ineke Poort made this art quilt which is called "Transparant" and is made of polyester tea bags.

I love it!

It looks like a big origami wrap.

I'm not the only one blogging about this (duh) : Esther at ipatchandquilt posted about it twice: 

part one and part two with beautiful photographs.

And you can see all quilts here on Flickr: 

make yourself a cup of coffee or tea first if you want to see all 522 pictures.

have fun!

More temptation!

With Ingrid I went to a lecture on colour by a (in some parts) well known Dutch quilter: Lies Bos.

She designs and makes her own quilts of which some are really stunning (have a look at her site here and click on the Union Jack).

87 ladies had gathered to hear her speak, all enthusiastic.

One of the first things she said was: 

"Light is electromagnetic radiation"

And all energy seemed to drain away from the group ...

True, but we didn't come to hear her speak about technicalities.

Maybe it was because the sound system with microphone was not what it should have been.

Or maybe it was just me ...

stuck on a card, this is my result

After 20 minutes of technicalities about sunlight, colour blindness and brains that make their own interpretation, we moved on to more interesting things. 

We learned (more) about hues when we all could do something. 

We'd all done our homework: bring 10 bits of 2 x 2 cm 

(= 0.75 ") in different hues (10 light, 10 medium light, 10 medium, 10 medium dark, 10 dark). These were collected when we entered the building. Each table got a handful and we had to put 49 pieces in 7 rows: no system, just put them down orderly.

Then you'd have to pick the lightest and put it above them all.

Then pick the next lightest, and so on.

Until you'd done them all and put them in an orderly fashion again. 

Lies told us she'd made a quilt like this from 11,000 pieces of fabric!

I really like this proces and you can use anything you want for it: ugly and unwanted pieces too.

At home I made more with 2.5"pieces.

Left: starting with ordered chaos.

Centre: top left is the lightest, then I made rows and all rows begin on the left.

Right: picture in black and white so you can see all hues. I was pleased

For a moment I was afraie I couldn't stop ...

What can you do with these blocks?

Make a quilt of course; that might look something like this

I might try this!

Tempting

Perhaps this could even be a HAND made quilt: 49 bits to tag along. 

(it might be wise to number each square then)

What do you think?

October block ESTB

In our Euro Siblings Together Bee Pippa asked for a simple block, wonky if that's your cup of tea.
As that's not mine, this block is straight and very pink.
Pippa wants a quilt for a girl 7-10 years old, with a novelty fabric in the centre.
I hope this is novel enough.

It's so relaxing to be sewing.
Now I'm off on my bicycle while the sun's still shining!

Autumn

This year a lot of us are enjoying a beautiful autumn.
I love these kind of landscapes where you (normally) can see very far.

Autumn to me is the start of something new.
In nature this is also synonymous with death and decay.

Last week a former pupil of mine died of cancer.

Enjoy the beautiful moments!

Treasure Trove

My mum and her husband, which is technically my stepfather, have sold their house. They will move out in a couple of months
This means of course that the house needs to be empty by then. So they're sorting out their stuff: clearing up and out.
My mum asked whether I would like to have all of her quilting stuff and I said YES! Who wouldn't?

This is all of her fabric: some ghastly, some beautiful.

I've been going through it: so many memories: old blouses, my dad's shirt, bits of an old skirt of mine.

She also has maps filled with tutorials she learned at guild meetings, like this one, which might look familiar ...

I also found a (8-year old) tutorial on how to make half square triangles easier (like this method 2) and one (dating 1998) on making a twister quilt like this (the tool was included).It seems to me the wheel is invented all over again sometimes, but it may just be that rulers or templates are made now to make the easier method even easier.

Don't you love these flowery fabrics? I do, but not all of them.

They were very popular 25 years ago ...

And there are a lot of orphan blocks: could I make a quilt from them?
Hmm, I need to mull that over ....
If you have a suggestion: don't hold back and tell me.

I'm linking up with Lynne's Fresh Sewing Day and Blogtoberfest.

Thank you for stopping by!