Had some computer problems these last few days but here I go again.

After seeing a finished quilt on Conny's blog I orderd the pattern from Bareroots and yesterday it arrived. I am absolutely thrilled with the stitchery patterns on it.
I spent quite a bit of time quilting on Ben's quilt. Really want to finish it by Easter, and played with the challenge blocks to find a way to put them together. I do not want to add sashing, just join the different blocks. I saw a quilt like it once and loved it - very scrappy and still lovely. I am still wondering as wether to add a border (plain) to it or just bind it. Your ideas are always welcome.

This afternoon was spent washing, drying and ironing fabric. I hadn't bought fabric for quite a while but in January and February I made up for it :-)) - just could not resist all these lovely bargains calling out to me. I always wash my fabrics before use especially to make sure that there are no "bleeders" in between. I would hate spending all that time making blocks and quilts only to have them ruined one day by a fabric that bleeds.

November last year 4 ladies in our little group decided to make the same quilt - a small wallhanging only 40cm x 50cm (approx. 15" x 19")- it is the first time we have done this as we never work from a pattern and mostly make up our own design. Well there has to be a first time for everything and although the basic pattern is the same the results are so different. I made mine as a present for a person very dear to me in "her colours". I was very lucky to be able to use all fabric from my stash - some of the pieces in my stash only being 8" x 8". Goes to show how a little can go a long way.
When the wallhanging was finished I found it a bit "dull" (see photo above) so after taking the workshop on fabric painting with paintsticks etc. I decided to be brave and used some gold in the centre of the large flower - yuk it looked as if I had messed something on my poor flower. What now - I searched webshots for some photo's of Lilies - this flower is meant to be just that - and found some beautiful shots. One of them had the gold centre and then spots of "gold" running from the centre of the flower and splashed all over the leaves. I then remembered having been given a box full of beads from someone who used to make decorations out with them. So out came the box and there I found these tiny golden green beads. OK - in for a penny in for a pound. Got some fabric glue, a pin and a toothpick and glued each little pearl on to the fabric one by one. This is the result and I would love to hear your reactions. I haven't the faintest idea whether this person will like this or not and am nervous about giving it to her so I am anxiously awaiting your verdict!

The pattern comes from the May/June'98 issue of the Quiltmaker - an American magazine

Hier ben ik dan met het laatste blok voor mijn challenge quilt - nu rest het me nog ze op een gepaste wijze samen te voegen.
I finally made it - finished my last block for the challenge quilt all that rests me now is to join them in a fun way - keep you posted. Our instructions were to make a 8" and a 4" basket block and two appliqué blocks of 4"x8" each. This is the result.

I also managed to cut the pieces for my next border for the RR and have joined some of the one border so you can see where the idea is going. Don't get a fright by the colours - I have used quite of few of my "icky greens" as they are called among the reproduction quilters. The rest of the quilt is far more subdued and looking gorgeous. I am just hoping that I will not spoil it by joining this border - but then - if I don't like it I make another one and keep this one for a future quilt.
My poor fingers (nails) on my left hand healed a bit so I got some more quilting done on Ben's quilt as well. All in all not bad going for two days word.
good night and thank you for visiting my blog.

Jenny

I had a rather hectic weekend mainly due to serious plumbing problems - we suspect burst pipes outside through the freezing weather we have had this year. I tried to contact a plumber but in vain so hopefully tomorrow morning I will have more luck.

For the rest I have managed to finish the last block of my challenge quilt but will only be able to take a photo tomorrow in the daylight in order to get the colours correct.

So I decided to finish a few more blocks for my "blue and white" quilt that I am making. This started off with a swap of red-white and blue blocks with our repro-group. I decided to make two quilts out of them. The all blue blocks I kept aside and used them as the centre blocks for the blue-and white quilt. On and off I have been making 6" blue and white (cream etc) blocks - all different patterns mainly from the book "Around the block" by Judy Hopkins. You can find all the blocks on my webshots - see links - but I am posting the last 5 now.

I have been spending so much time "blogging" that I don't get much quilting done at the moment :-)) - happens at times. I have today come across some great blogs of people working with repro-fabrics and stitcheries - another of my hobbies. The result of this is that I ordered some patterns from:https://bareroots.com/store/agora.cgi. I saw the finished quilt on Conny's blog: see my blog. I am still trying to figure out how to get the link by clicking on the blogger's name.

I have been doing some quilting on Ben's quilt though but my poor fingers need a rest so since this is a clear day - blue sky - we had some snow this morning so I decided to make the most of the light and cut the fabric for my next border on my RR2006. Will show some photo's next time.
cheers
Jenny

Didn't get much quilting done yesterday. Today I managed to carry on quilting on Ben's quilt.

So here are two more blocks from my challenge quilt:

July: contained two parts - one a 4-patch variation block

and part two we had to make 5 "orange peel" blocks which look as follows:

For August we had to make 4 - 6"x6" star blocks - these could be all the same could be different
so I decided to make two of each:


That's is for today - good night
Jenny

The last couple of days I have been spending approx. 2-3hrs an evening quilting on Ben's African Village Quilt - I am so thrilled that I finally started working on this again.

As for my challenge blocks - this weekend I want to finish the appliqué bits to my last block so that I can start playing around with the setting of the blocks. In the meantime here are two more blocks for my challenge quilt:

May: we were told to make one triangle block 9"x9" and 7 - 3"x3" hourglass blocks. I have not joined the hourglass blocks to the larger block as I still want to play with the setting of the blocks

June :our challenge was to make a appliqué block - own choice - of 12"x12" -

I found this pattern in the book "Wisconsin Quilts - History in the Stitches" a fantastic book for lovers of reproduction quilts and stories - it includes 8 pattern blocks both piecing and appliqué.

Happy quilting

Jenny

Do you ever wake up feeling in a particular mood in the morning? By this I am not talking about good or bad but more like "today I am going to clean cupboards - bake bread" type of mood.

Well this morning I woke up in a "quilting" mood - no big surprise there LOL. Yet I do not mean piecing or appliqué but actual quilting.So as it promised to be a nice quite Sunday - very little cooking - no visitors that I expected and the fact that it was a freezing but beautiful sunny day today I did just that.

For Christmas 2007 I made my grandson a play-quilt. Should have been a crib-quilt but my quilts have a habit of growing and growing. My DIL had asked for bright colours - no problem - Since both I and my sons are born in Africa and grandson Ben learned to recognize a lion and zebra before a cow or kitten I wanted to make him an African themed quilt. (still thinking crib quilt at this stage).

Hunting around for some fun fabric I came across the fabric line called "My African Village" and loved it. Once it arrived I found out the prints were rather larger than I thought - and so my quilt grew. A couple of weeks before this I took a lesson in "seminole technique", that looked good with the colours I had in mind. In 2005 during a visit to South Africa - visiting family and friends I met up with a lady from Westville that sold hand-dyed fabric from her home:http://www.amafu.co.zaif/. Not only was her home situated in the village next to the one we lived in for 23 years, the cotton sheets she used were spun and woven at the factory were half the family was employed in one position or another at the time. I needed no further encouragement or motivation to start his quilt.

By Christmas-eve I could present him with his quilt - but I had to take it back as it still needed a lot of hand-quilting done to it. I had done a lot of the straight lines by machine (not really a succes) and sat for 17hrs tying the ends.

Ben loved his quilt and whenever he visited us it was used. The hand-quilting was put in the back of my mind. Now however the quilt could use a wash and before doing so I must get this quilting done. So that is my main project for this month.

In the meantime I'd like to share some of the WIP and photo's of Ben using his quilt, which I named "Ben's African Village".

Enjoy