byannelize

For various reasons this has been a very special year for me. Rather than recapping every thing that happened, I will just mention the 2 that was the most exciting for me. I found out in May that my quilt Kutch Diamonds has won several categories in the UK Quilts show at Malvern and was also awarded the Best in Show. This was a lovely and timely special present for my 50th birthday which was a week later.

Now for an update on various projects I have been working on since Houston:

Dutch Treat


All 196 blocks are finished and sewn together, I have stitched the appliqué on the outside borders and just need to join the borders to the quilt top, then this one is ready for quilting. I am particularly pleased with this quilt, as this is my first reverse appliqué project. I started it in December 2012, so it has taken me just over 2 years to complete the top, a huge achievement, as I almost gave up after 6 months. Will I do another reverse appliqué quilt? Probably not. Glad I have mastered the technique and willing to use it in small projects but not ever again in a project this size. Very pleased with the result though


Rohan's quilt
Rohan's quilt was a bit of a challenge. You know how we all sit and sometimes just wish that we can be given a free hand when it comes to designing and quilting a quilt? Well, I was given a free hand with this quilt. The request was to make a quilt for a newborn baby boy with his name and date of birth on, in baby blue colours and was given a total budget. That's it, no other instructions. Trouble was, I did not know the customer all that well, I had no idea whether to do a wholecloth, something very traditional or very modern, off course I tried to explain the different types of quilts to the customer, who by the way, is not a sewer but got the response : "Just do what you think will be nicest".  I played with the idea of doing a traditional pieced, and do another one, a wholecloth, leaving the space for the name, then showing it to the customer and letting her choose which one she wanted. But time constraints meant I just had to make a decision and hope she liked it.  She was delighted so all ended well.









Whistler
This is a Glacier Star pattern by Judy Niemeyer and is foundation pieced. The instructions look complicated but once you have read through them a couple of times and set up your work desk, it is really easy. Foundation piecing is not a quick way of piecing, but it does give the most accurate results for complicated designs. I have probably spent around 3 weeks piecing the quilt op together.







and then spent the best part of a week removing all the papers from the back! I am determined to find a better way of getting rid of the papers and am at the moment trying out some leave in dissolvable papers. Life is just to short to spent 5 evenings with a pair of tweezers!!!!












That is, until got to quilting on the darker fabrics! As lovely as those fabrics are on their own, they are not the type of fabrics you would want to quilt on if you want the quilting to be a feature. The quilting gets completely lost. To solve this I had to play with several different threads, finally decided that a thread which is slightly darker and in the "wrong" shade of that colour, is the only way the quilting will be showing. Off course, every little mistake you make then shows up. There is also the danger that the quilting can be too prominent and dominate the quilt in a way that makes the design of the quilt (the overall look of the quilt) gets lost. Lesson learnt - before piecing think about how the fabric will change once it is quilted!





 I have now taken the quilt off the frame, I still have to do the micro stitching around the feathers in the darkest colours, but will load it back on the frame later on in January to finish it off. This is what it looks like so far:






Gabi's quilt
This is a "graffiti" style quilt for my youngest daughter, she will be taking it back to boarding school with her once the Christmas holidays are over. She does not particularly like girly colours as you can tell, she chose the fabrics below. The fabric is Grunge by Moda, the top is a denim blue colour, the backing is jade and the binding will be in tangerine.  I bought the threads from Linda Taylor and then came up with some suggestions for the words and motifs, which we then both agreed upon. Although she has seen the quilting that I have done so far and loves it, I have a surprise up my sleeve for her. Along the bottom of the quilt, there will be a few blocks in the style of a comic strip, with pictures on that is very relevant to her. I got the idea from a post on Facebook that a friend recently shared. I will post pictures here on my next post, but I am very excited about it.  







New project
I have been looking for a new hand sewing project as I knew that Dutch treat is coming to an end and then spotted this quilt at Houston. Whether I make the same or make up my own design or do another one altogether, I have not decided yet. I have however started cutting out and basting my hexes and have so far prepared 1300. Not bad for starting on 1st December and it is only 29 days in? But given that these are 1/2" hexes, I will probably need around 9000 to make a decent sized quilt.  Not a quick project then, it will keep me busy for most of 2015.





Workshops 
I just had to share this. I have never done any thread painting before and on a whim decided to take a break from the long arm classes on offer at Houston and sign up for one of Pam Holland's thread painting classes. Boy, am I now hooked! I can't wait to learn some more and am signing up for loads more classes to learn as much as possible about this. Didn't Abbey turn out really well? She is not finished yet, this is as far as I got in the class.





Finally…
Youngest daughter gave this to me for Christmas. Brilliant present and it was done on boxing day.  So glad I know my teal from my turquoise otherwise this could have been a very difficult jigsaw :-)



I know I missed posting a post before Christmas, but I do wish every one a very happy New Year

I saw a Dutch Treat quilt a few years ago, that was made by Clare Kingslake. At my then local quilt shop, a few ladies came together once a week to sew a block together with Clare helping out and giving advise. I envied the ladies their skill and determination, not thinking that I could ever do that, but I bought the book by Judy Garden anyway, just for in case, and started collecting lots of red and white prints for one day.
Then in December 2012, I decided that it would be my evening sewing and that I would just do a few blocks and see how it goes. Rather than doing it in all the red prints, I decided to use a collection of fabrics that I had bought on a trip to Colorado, which would look better in our house.
The fabric collection is called "Suede" and is by P&B Textiles. I had bought 14 different colours and the Dutch Treat quilt is made up of 14 rows of 14 blocks, so that seemed to be it's destiny. I had a lovely mottled caramel/gold/cream fabric, that looked really good with the other fabrics, and had enough of it too, so no need to get any extra.
My first block was stitched using a blending cotton thread, but I was not happy with the result, so started experimenting with different threads. I definitely got the best result using YLI 100wt silk thread, although a friend of mine has used Superior Bottomline for hers and she recommends that. Another friend suggested that I try out the Superior Monopoly thread, which she uses for appliqué, but I am very happy with my silk threads.
I used the same colour thread throughout, as it blended really well with the top fabric.

When I first started making the blocks, I did 3 or 4 a month, just whenever the mood took me. A year later, I realised that this could take many years to complete and not being blessed with a lot of patience decided to set myself a target of doing at least 10 every month. For a while this worked really well, but then things got in the way again and the project got put aside. I then discovered a group on Facebook for people doing "Dutch Treat" quilts, so I joined the group. This was just what I needed to restore my enthusiasm, so with renewed energy, the last few blocks were tackled.

Blocks done in 2013

If I ever do another block quilt like this, that is what I will be doing, join a group, because if nothing else, you get so many ideas on the group, you see so many different ways that people are doing the same design, there is always someone that can advise if you get stuck or don't know if the colour is working and it also keeps the momentum going. Some ladies in this group has made 4 Dutch Treat Quilts and although I got to the point where I hated this quilt and would never ever do another one like this, I am actually now considering doing another one, but in different fabrics, maybe rather than using all the designs in the book, to draw up some of my own and make it "my own treat".
This is the first attempt at doing reverse appliqué for me and some of the blocks were really hard to do, like the "Field of dreams" block, which I redid 3 times. Others that I thought would be really hard, turned out really well and was much easier than I thought. Some will always remind me of where I was when I did them, like the Napa Valley block, which I stitched on a quilting trip in France travelling through lots of vineyards. Rather than call my quilt "Dutch Treat", I have decided to name it "The happy Quilt" as the colours are so cheerful and I am so happy to be where I am right now, at the moment, today, this month, this year!

First time I laid out the completed blocks

Field of dreams block

"Napa valley" , the grapes that I stitched in France

I still have 8 blocks to do, but have started putting all the sashing strips in, hopefully I will have them all done before the weekend, when I go to Houston, so that I can measure out the border and mark the design out to start the appliqué on this while I am away from home. I don't have the backing fabric yet, but I have located a few shops that stock extra wide fabric in this range, so will be buying my backing while I am on the Quilter's Quest shop hop in Virginia and Maryland, after Houston. I might even be looking at fabric to do my next "treat" with!

Starting to play around with ;about

Deciding which colour to use for backing

While I am Houston, (I am not going to market, just to festival), I have enrolled in a few classes and hope to meet up with some friends from around the world, like Alex, who live in Australia, and Anne, who lives in the UK, but far enough that I only see her at quilt shows! And of course I will be meeting and making new friends, some that I have been corresponding with through good old Facebook, very excited about this.
I will not have a lot of free time to shop or look at all the amazing quilts, but will make use of every spare minute to go and enjoy the exhibitions and will post photos once I am back home. Now off to go and pack my class requirements, yippee!!!!