Peachy Pages

2010-05-09T11:32:00.000+02:00

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-04-19T16:02:00.001+02:00

A Few More Blocks...

Just posting a few more blocks for our Quilts Your Way Squishie Swap 2010:

The top 2 blocks are more 12 1/2" unfinished Mosaic Windmills made for Sheri and Natalie. Sheri's fabric is a lovely Asian print with gold outlining running through it andNatalie's is from one of the yummy BG (Basic Grey) lines. I can't wait to get my hands on more of that one! Here on the right are 2 - 6 1/2" unfinished windmill (pinwheel) blocks made for Lyn. She sent different fruit fabrics to each swapper, so I can't wait to see what kind of market fresh quilt she'll come up with!

2010-04-08T09:43:00.004+02:00

Finally....A Finish!

Sorry to be gone from blogging for so long...I really didin't mean to be! After about 3 weeks of hand quilting, my bright floral quilt is finally bound and finished! Still no tag on the back (as with so many of my other quilts), but finished all the same. Woohoo!

My mother has alread claimed that this will be the quilt she will be sleeping under all summer and warned me that it may end up in her suitcase for her trip home. Well, it's ready for her to sell under, but I'm not giving this one away just yet. Both of the girls like this one as well, so I guess it was worth the wait! YAY!

2010-03-02T12:20:00.000+01:00

Ostrich Round 3

Round three is all about the number three...three dimensional, that is. Yep, this round's theme is 3-D! The challenge is to add some type of three dimensional elements to your quilt. It could be something as simple as embellishments or a bit more challenging like prairie points or yo-yos. You could even try your hand at trapunto! The possibilities are endlesss, but the deadline was April 15th -- needless to say, I am lucky enough to have ahd an idea right away!
First, I tacked down the yarn tails that I added onto the elephants in the very beginning. I then added gold sequin and blue beaded eyes to the elephants, thanks to my mom and sister for sending the sequins to me! And last I made piping and sewed it into the outer border.

Piping is something I've never tried before and I've been wanting to try and make some. Actually it was pretty easy once I figured out how to sew closer to the inner roping! Just measure out the length of fabric you'll need, fold it over wrong sides together to form a tube. Push your "filler" roping in to the fold (I pinned it in to keep it from shifting) and then sew as close to the roping as possible to create the piped effect. I found that leaving plenty of seam allowance (close to 1") worked well for sewing the piping onto my border. Then I went back and trimmed back the seam allowanxe to 1/4" later!

2010-02-27T01:35:00.010+01:00

Snow World

With all the rain in the Netherlands, the snow doesn't stick around for very long. So....we decided to check out the winter weather indoors at Snow World Zoetermeer just about 20 minutes away!

Dan and the girls tried snowboarding for hte first time with a one hour lesson and then 3 additional hours of free time on the slopes. They did pretty well for their first attemps progressing from the bunny slope to the intermediate slopes and the tricky rope pull lifts by the end of the day!

The girls enjoyed themselves so much on Monday that they convinced me to take them back for 2 more hours in the park today!

2010-02-26T02:35:00.006+01:00

Saturday at Madurodaum

The Netherlands in minature. Since the girls are off for February break this week, we started off the weekend with a trip to Madurodaum in Schevenigen (near Den Haag) just 15 minutes or so from our home. For me, it was a good trip to scope out all of the other places in Holland I'd like to visit. There are a couple of museums, castles and royal park areas that looked interesting from the 1:25 scale models.

These day trips are sometimes a little difficult on the girls - not very interesting for them - but this time we were able to keep their attention for about 2 hours, just enough time. Larissa held the guide book and read me the captions of each building and their city locations and Kayla took charge of the camera which worked out well. They both enjoyed putting 10 cents into machines around the park to make things move, listen to music or for small souveniers of chocolate and wooden shoes. Afterwards, Dan rewarded them with a trip into Amsterdam for dinner at Hard Rock Cafe!

2010-02-25T00:27:00.004+01:00

More Squishies & Kayla's Top

I got a couple more squishie blocks finished today for the QYW Squishie Block Swap 2010. These are the Windmill Mosaic blocks for Pat and Karen E. I decided to stick with the same block for everyone since I am loving how they are coming out and half square triangles and I are getting along nicely.

And...here's Kayla's newest quilt top made from all those left over pieces in the scrap box and a little pattern called Bento Box that we both fell in love with! She's doing such a great job! Seams are pretty straight and corners are matching up nicely! She's already pulled the fabric for her binding, but she's yet to make it and then there's always the back to piece for this almost twin size quilt. Her largest yet at 60x75"!

2010-02-24T00:02:00.004+01:00

Productive Day for Kayla!

Talk about productive! Kayla cut all of this out of scrap fabric in 2 days! Then, this afternoon, worked them into 8" unfinished quarter blocks and put them together into these 15 1/2" unfinished bento blocks! She was a work horse today! I was given the task of ironing and pinning while she sewed, trimmed and matched colors to create the most striking combinations! Woohoo...can't wait to see this one finished!

2010-02-19T02:57:00.003+01:00

Ostrich Round 2

Well, here it is. The next installment of the Thai quilt being made step by step in an ostrich challenge by Kimberly Camou's Divine Inspirations on Facebook. This round was entitle "2's Company" and we were instructed to choose 2 techniques (regular piecing, paper piecing, applique) to create this round.

I used regular piecing to add a thin black border and to add the corner triangles to set the square on-point. I appliqued the "dresden fans" and used a backing method for the centers. I must say, I'm pretty happy with the result and I'm looking forward to the next round!

2010-02-16T23:44:00.004+01:00

Squishie Time Again

The Quilt Your Way Forum's Squishie Swap 2010 has begun again in earnest! We have already started to receive F8s from the other swappers and I got so excited between projects that I jumped right in and completed these blocks for the first 2 participants whose fabric I got in the mail: Peggy and Karen K!

Each year I try to choose a block that has some meaning to me. Last year's "A Dandy Block" was chosen because, well, my year was definately a dandy with DH's redeployment, selling our home, another move for the family, not to mention all the little things! This year I chose the "Mosaic Windmill" block in honor of our move to the Netherlands. Though, honestly, I haven't seen as many windmills here as I expected to!

2010-02-16T00:32:00.000+01:00

Front Or Back?

The feeling of accomplishment! I finally have both the top and backing for the Garden Quilt pieced together. They're in a ziploc again waiting to get sandwiched and pin basted. Soon we'll clear enough floor space for that to get done.

In the meantime, Kayla has already cut up every last piece of scrap from the leftovers and begun the process of making her own blocks for another quilt design. I can't wait to see how her's turns out. I've been volunteered to begin piecing those blocks together as well, so I'm definately up to my ears in bright, bright, bright fabric! Not generally my style, but I have to admit that it's nice to do something different for a change.

2010-02-05T16:26:00.001+01:00

OMGsh, I Forgot to Blog!

So, yes, I forgot to blog anything for almost 2 months now! I can't believe it! I didn't even add a photo of my "Grandma's Garden" quilt that I finished over a month ago! Well, here it is. All finished, handquilted...ahhh...

I've also officially finished scrapbooking our years living in Japan. Another ahh....moment! Now I've only got several thousand photos of 10 days in China, 8 days in Thailand, 7 days in Hawaii, 18 months in Missouri and oh yeah, I've got all of our wedding photos ripped out of the "acidy photo album" wanting to get scrapbooked as well. Wish me luck!

2009-12-12T19:18:00.000+01:00

Flower Wall Hanging Done!

That wall-hanging for mom that I was working on took me about 2 hours to quilt, add a sleeve and bind - not bad! And I think it came out really cute! I'm pretty happy with this one and even if I wasn't, the colors would make me happy anyway!

And now that this is done, I have begun work on quilting my 2007 Flower BOM quilt! This was a block of the month

project at QYW forum designed by Lisa. We pieced one block a month and then she gave us this great little random squares setting to put the whole quilt together! It's coming along beautifully and I can't wait to get it all quilted! It's been sitting around on a shelf in my cabinet, patiently awaiting it's turn in the hoop! And, this is the first time I've used Quilter's Dream cotton batting to hand quilt and I can tell you...so far so good! It's working out wonderfully.

2009-12-10T16:14:00.003+01:00

More of Kayla's Quilting....

Kayla loved that I had posted her most recent quilt on my blog, and requested that I post more! This one is her very first quilt, ---> A Trip Around The World. She machine pieced it on a Sears sewing machine that she purchased with her own savings for around $50. She also stitched it in the ditch to quilt it. Great first project and that machine is still kicking!

<--- Here's Kayla's second finished quilt, A Rail Fence, made about 6 months later! She searched out these black, white and green fat quarters of fabrics in several different stores to get just the right ones for her project. Gotta love some of those choices like a cow hide print, polka dots, checks and stripes!

Over the past year, Kayla has also been working on charity quilts. This idea was originally begun so that she could earn her GS Gold Award, which she did in Spring 2009. She collected a number of "orphan blocks", UFOs and a bunch of "stash-trash" fabrics from quilters all over the US. She then begun turning them into finished quilts! She's on a roll now with 6 charity quilts finished and several more in the works!

2009-12-04T01:00:00.000+01:00

And...a Flower Wall-hanging for Mom

At my mother's request, I used some of the leftover fabrics from the flower quilt top to make her a bright and cheerful wall-hanging (Is there a synonym for "wall-hanging"? I'm tired of the word already!) to hang on her door in the spring. Just to be extra sure, I used some of Kayla's fabrics to brighten it up since I know my mom loves her fabric choices and says mine are too dull, old-fashioned and boring.

So, the top is made, the binding is made and the quilt is layered and pin basted. I just have to spend an evening or two quilting it, making a slip-pocket and binding it and it will be off in the mail - just in time for Santa and with plenty of time to spare before spring!

2009-12-03T00:09:00.000+01:00

Top Done!

The top is finally done on the flower quilt. It still needs a name - Flower Power comes to mind with all the bright colors that are thrown about on it, but that seems just too easy!

To finish off the border, I decided to do a little brick work. I used 7x13" bricks of many of the fabrics previously sewn into the top and latticed them together with the same purple fabric used in that first thin inner border. I am really happy with the results and that means I won't have to order and wait for a new fabric to arrive since I didn't really have enough of anything else to work with! The top measures a mere 74"x97" finished.

I also got the binding made today out of the little remaining border purple there was left. It was really a stretch to be able to get the 350+" needed to finish this quilt! Also in the basket is that last of the quilt fabrics. For the most part, these will make up that backing. I still have a good bit of the green flowers, orange-yellow-pink stripe and yellow floral that are very dominant in the top. Intermixed with those, I'll probably make several large half-square triangle blocks (10" or so) and sew them in strewn across the backing just to use up some more of the fabrics since these aren't my usual color choices!

2009-12-01T00:24:00.000+01:00

Kayla's Quilt

It's finally finished. Kayla's quilt (I don't know what she's named it yet) that she's been working on since hmm....let's see...we shopped for the fabric over a year ago. I'm thinking we bought this fabric at the Lake of the Ozarks in the summer of 2008. Well, anyways, here it is and it looks fabulous! This quilt was designed and pieced by Kayla. She got the inspiration for it from a quilt she saw in a shop and came home, sketched something similar and worked it through in easily do-able 6 1/2" blocks. It's a throw size quilt, wide enough for a twin, but just short in length.

Quilting this beautiful work was another story. Kay started it about 5 times and finally asked if I would do it because she was just not happy with the results she was getting. So, I made her a deal. I would quilt this one for her if she would practice her quilt stitches on one of the charity quilt tops she has already put together. So, that's what we did. Although I did the stitching, she directed the pattern. I was asked to quilt around (inside and out) of all pieces in the blocks and to duplicate the bamboo design from the sashings in the border quilting. After I finished that, Kayla was so anxious to get her hands on it, she asked me to just finish it up with the binding that she had previously made. And of course I protested, but in the end, I couldn't bear to see the quilt put aside again, so this afternoon I sewed the binding on for her. We are both really happy with the result!

2009-11-23T16:43:00.001+01:00

Onto the Borders

So, the top is finally done. All pieced together. Seams matched up well. All in all, not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be to get the whole thing squared up! Now it's onto the borders. I went with a dark mottled purple for the thin inner border. Why? Just to hold all the bright colors in the center and to keep the eye focused there. Make sense? That's the idea any way.

Oh, and this was the first time I ever tried to add on mitered borders. I ended up ripping out seams from 2 of the corners, but for the most part I got pretty close I think. I was originally thinking that I wanted to use the yellow-orange-pink stripe fabric from the flower panels as my primary outer border, but I'm rethinking that idea. It might just be a bit too much. Hmm....I think I'll let it sit a while and audition a few different candidates in the mean time.

2009-11-20T01:02:00.001+01:00

Panels Ready

This afternoon was spent on steps 6-11. The most time was spent just cutting the fabrics and making sure the measurements were working out. And gues what...so far so good! My sketch is not exactly like the original quilt that I took the photo of so while referring to the photo, I was having a tough time trying to figure out where things went, but once I realized that the sketch was a bit different, I had no problems getting this far.

First the 2 1/2" strips went on. I did go for tone on tone fabrics here because there is a lot going on in the panels themselves and it really helped to keep some order to this otherwise very funky design.

Then the large printed sections got sewn on. At this point, the quilt top itself is in 7 sections, so 7 more seams and I've got a top center! Woohoo. Then I"ll have to figure out what small thin border will hold all of this brightness in! I'm thinking of using the striped orange-yellow-pink from the flower panels as my outer border, though it won't be too wide (maybe 3 1/2" if I'm lucky) because I don't have much of it leftover. Hmmm...

Well, that's it until tomorrow when I'll at least have the panels sewn together. If I've got time I'll get the borders going, but I definately need to make some time tomorrow for house cleaning. I've been neglecting it terribly this week! Wonder why??!?!?!

2009-11-19T01:19:00.001+01:00

Tedious Work Done

Since I wasn't able to post photos last night (I don't know why...the blog wouldn't let me!?!?), I've got lots of progress to show today! Steps 1-2 included cutting and pieceing 54 - 3 1/2" half-square triangle units then assembling them together into 3 rows of 18 blocks each. Since I went really scrappy with this (I only cut 2 squares from each fabric), this took a while. Cutting took some time, but the majority of my time was spent making sure the blocks played well together in their rows!

Next up, steps 3 -4 were to make 4 - 6 1/2" four patch units and assemble them into 2 rows with 6 more 6 1/2" blocks. For this, I only used 4 different fabrics for the 4 patches (2 fabrics in each block) and 3 different fabrics for the 6 1/2" blocks. Thess units have alot of similar color values, but I wanted it that way since they will be butted up against a single panel of fabric. Easy peasy!

Last, but not least, step 5, had me making the flower panels. Since I had no good measurements to go by, I really winged this one. I cut the flower blocks to 8" unfinished squares to begin with and then began piecing around them. No, the fabric stripes don't match up, but I didn't want them to...it adds to the scrappy feeling (see, I'm not a perfectionist about everything quilty!!!). Eventually I had pieced in so much fabric that I just had to trim around it to make it the prescribed dimensions! The photo is quite a bit off in color. I think the orange-yellow-metallic gold color combination played havoc with my camera and photo shop couldn't cure it. Oh well, you get the idea.

Well, that's it for today (and yesterday - it did take me 2 days of work to get this far). I hope to post a couple of more completed steps tomorrow!

2009-11-17T03:23:00.001+01:00

Gathering Materials for a Flower Quilt

While on a fabulous shopping trip to Korea with 3 friends, we visited a quilty friend who had this quilt hanging in her front hallway just as you come in the door to her apartment. The original pattern design is called "Springtime in Oklahoma" by Verlinda Magby printed in Quilt Sampler Magazine, 2006. All four of us were in love with this project immediately!

Later that afternoon, we went shopping in a local fabric shop. What an amazing shop it was! There were aisles and aisles of bins with pre-cut meters of fabric from every line imaginable. Every wall was lined with wide backing materials and quilter's fleece all at very reasonable prices - in fact it was a steal!

After choosing several (20-30) meters of fabrics for our own projects, we got together and searched out fabrics that we could reproduce this flower quilt with. We really went above and beyond on this mission as we came home with MUCH more than we needed for the 4 of us to each make a flower quilt top of our own!

So, now, after exactly 2 years, it's time to get on the ball and start making something from all these beautifully bright fabrics. I've got my materials for this project all pulled out of my stash. They're washed, ironed and ready to go. Now I just have to get my friends on board and we'll begin cutting and piecing this beauty together. Once the top is done, well, it may be another 2 years before if gets quilted, but at least I'll have gotten it started!

2009-11-17T00:44:00.005+01:00

Ostrich Challenge - Round 1

Quilt pattern designer, Kimberly Camou is hostessing an ostrich challenge on her Facebook page. For those who don't know, an ostrich challenge is a self made round robin medallion style quilt. For each round, a set of instructions are posted and the challenge is to interpret those instructions and use them for inspiration in adding a new "border" round to your quilt. If at any time you think a set of instructions does not fit well into your quilt design, you may choose to "hide your head in the ground" (as an ostrich might do - thus, the name).

I decided for this challenge, I wanted to use some of the wonderful fabrics I purchased while in Thailand. To begin with, we were to chose a block for the center. I chose to make a set of 4 elephants following each other. Round one's these was "Less is More." We were to use more of the fabric that we used less of in the center block and to create a simple design with it. My center block is pretty much made equally with gold and black, so I used a fabric with an equal amount of each and added square in a square blocks (introducing red and blue) for the border centers and corners. So far, so good, but I can't wait to see what Kimberly will suggest for round 3!

2008-12-25T00:19:00.000+01:00

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