What I'm working on right now..

I've been busy this week with my compass for the LE, this is how it looks so far:

I'm quite happy with how these colours turned out.. ;-))
The middle circle still needs to be appliqued and then onto the outer ring with the little mini circles all the way around it. I'm waiting to order the "Floriani Stitch N Wash" stabilizer which I'll be using for the applique. (see here for more information on Esther Aliu's blog)

I also think the stabilizer will come in very handy for use with the applique pieces on my Dear Jane blocks.
I'm working on block C-5, here you can see I've ironed the freezer template on the white fabric, I then cut out the inside and basted this on top of the pinwheel block for applique-ing, after that a circle will be cut out of the little pinwheel block and that will be appliqued in the centre..

...and for some reason I find myself working on more than one block at a time so also working on blocks  C-7 and D-4, still need to do the applique pieces on those
And blocks C-13 and D-1 are halfway done as well !

I'll show you the finished blocks next time, for now I'll leave you with some eye candy from Birmingham Festival of Quilts

An overview (don't be fooled, it was busy!)

Small Selection of the Horizons Exhibit by the Quilt Guild

"Jonny asked for lizzards" by Joyce Dorsett, UK

And some very bright colourful quilts:

"The Seasons" by Liz Jones, UK

"Coloured Windows" by Sheilagh, UK

"Blowing Bubbles Undersea" by Huei-Lan Chuang, Taiwan

A close up of some beautiful applique

"Transition Fragonfly" by Sandra Wyman, UK

More to show you next time,
Have a great weekend!
Essie

Fallen..

It has been all over many of the blogs, the absolutely stunning Love Entwined BOM by Esther Aliu.

The entire quilt is done in applique.

In order to be able to download these free patterns, you have to become a member, so a few days ago I enlisted to become a member of the Esther Aliu Yahoo BOM Group.

Just couldn't let this opportunity go, could I? And I love applique..

I wasn't at all planning on making this quilt any time soon, but somehow I found myself looking through my stash and found these possibly suitable fabrics 

...not sure yet about that bright white background fabric, maybe I'd better go for a more creamier background?

And I don't know how it happened (-?-), but all of a sudden I had printed out the first pattern, tried out some colour schemes, and prepared the segments for foundation piecing...

Will probably use a few different greens, only used one shade here for the colouring...might piece the compass together tomorrow and see how these colours turn out!

As you can see from the picture on the top of this post, this compass goes in the very centre of this quilt, it is a very large quilt (96" square or 2,44 m. square) 

I won't make the entire quilt, might only make the centre square plus two borders, maybe leaving the middle border blank and put some quilted feathers in that?

Haven't forgotten about Jane though, she is still with me.. will post some of the new blocks next time!

Have a great weekend!

Essie

This came in the post yesterday...

Some time ago I posted here that my quilt was accepted in the annual quilt exhibition from the Dutch Quilters Guild.
Well, not only did it get accepted they also asked me if they could make cards with a picture of my quilt on the front. I was very honoured to be asked and of course I said yes! ..so I sent the quilt out to them to be photographed and yesterday these cards came in the post.

Tonight I will take the quilt to the drop-off point, a quiltshop in Dordrecht, and from there it will go to the exhibition which starts tomorrow in three weeks. Here it is ready to go.






I will leave you with a few pictures from the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham.

Here is Anco Brouwers being interviewed by Luana Rubin, check out her channel on youtube here, she has lots of videos of several quilt shows.

This I believe was the Best of Show, and well deserved!

those roses are so beautifully made, they look so realistic!

shame I couldn't get the entire quilt in the picture, also forgot to see who the maker was, sorry..

Some more stunning traditional applique quilts:

"Arabesque" by Antonella Cibin, Italy

"Garden of Dream" by Fusako Takido, Japan

 I'll have some more pictures to show you next time..

Essie

Festival of quilts - Day 4/5

Didn't get around to do a post yesterday. Have caught a cold and decided to turn in early.

Yesterday was our last day at the Festival of quilts. We took a tour round the quilts, lots of "ooooohs" and "aaaahs" as I'm sure you can imagine ;-))

Took lots of pictures but need to sort them out before I post them.

Here is an overview, sorry about the poor quality, it is taken with my little ipod

We are at the airport right now waiting for our flight back home, we'll be taking to the air in about an hour.

We had a great time here in Birmingham!

Going back home full of new ideas fresh inspiration and of course lots of goodies.

See you next time!

Essie

Festival of quilts - Day 3

Another day in quilters heaven..

Today we had a lovely workshop with Wendy Cotterill. 

She showed us a technique using transfer paints onto already printed images and/or text. These will need to be laser printed, and the image or text will thus act as a resist to the transfer paint.

She also showed us how to print images onto fabric with a household (inkjet) printer.

The images/text with transfer paint were then transferred onto a polyester type fabric (we used lutrador I believe) and when you place that on top of the other printed images you get a kinda see-through layered effect.

Will definitely try this one time on a future project!

Tomorrow will be our last day, we will go check out all the lovely quilts that are on display and take lots of pictures!

For now, goodnight from Birmingham!

Essie

Festival of quilts - Day 2

After breakfast we set of for our first day at the Festival of quilts. First we took a tour round the many many MANY (!) shops.. Didn't get around to seeing all the quilts yet (that's how many shops there were!), but we'll do that on Sunday.

Bought some fabric for my Dear Jane quilt and a couple of books..not too bad considering all the temptation! But we still have 2 days to go.. ;-))

Seen a couple of familiar faces from back home, some visiting the show and some were exhibiting. Anco Brouwers was being interviewed (took a picture but with my other camera)

In the afternoon we attended a lecture by Kaffe Fasset, he showed us with slides how he gets his inspiration for the colours he uses in his artistic work, which consists of painting, knitting and designing fabric. He also admitted that he is not very good at hand sewing/quilting and he never uses a machine.

Before we knew it it was half past five and the show was closing, time really flies when you are having fun and we did! 

Had some nice fish and chips for dinner and probably won't make it late tonight.

Tomorrow we have a workshop.

So goodnight from Birmingham and see you tomorrow!

Essie 

Festival of quilts - Day 1

Today was just a traveling day, at 16:15 we flew from Amsterdam to Birmingham.

We checked in the hotel which is within walking distance of the NEC. We'll probably take the free rail link tomorrow, just cause it's more fun!

Tomorrow the fun will start.. :-))

See you tomorrow!

Essie

What happened here?

Yep..that's what is left of my DJ book, I've finally done it!
It was getting harder to copy the patterns from the book, so I had no choice but to cut it apart.

Just quickly want to show you two more Jane blocks I've done.

Block C-7

and block C-11

Tomorrow we're off to Birmingham for the Festival of Quilts...:-))
Will keep you posted..
See you next time!
Essie

Hottest day of the year..

Its the hottest day of the year so far, 36 degrees Celsius in the shade!!  Hopefully we will have some thunder storms later..
So keeping calm next to the fan with a nice cold drink and working on some Dear Jane blocks.
Wonder how Jane coped with such hot weather in her time? No air conditioning, and with wearing all those skirts and hoops in those days, it must have been very hot!

Done this one today, Block C-10 "Patriot's Lantern"

These blocks were also done the past couple of weeks
Block C-9 "Jane's Tears"

and C-2 "Streak of Lightning"

With a little help of my little furry friend (poor thing, she must also be very hot!) I have prepared some pieces for block C-11 and they are ready to be appliqued.

This time next week my friend Jo and I will be visiting the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, UK..
sooooooooooo excited!!
With over 700 quilts on display there is so much to see and lots to shop too;))
One day is simply not enough to see it all, so we will be visiting the show 3 days, Friday thru Sunday. On the Friday we will also attend a lecture with no other than Kaffe Fasset himself and on Saturday we will be attending a workshop. I will bring my i-pod and try to do a daily update of the show on my blog with some pictures too.
Hopefully the temperature is going to be a wee bit cooler when we go!

See you next time!
Essie