Baby Party Traditions

My entry for Blogger’s Quilt Festival Spring 2013 is this Paper Pieced Baby Quilt:

 

I made it for a friend who was expecting her second baby – another girl.

I used these orphan Paper Pieced Blocks (my first ever!) that I made at Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London last year…

… and turned them into a simple baby quilt top by sashing the blocks in white.

I basted the quilt sandwich and drew a 2” grid with a watersoluble pen.

Afterwards I used a free motion foot and some white thread to quilt dogwood petals all over the negative space.

In between and around the blocks I quilted some organic (aka: free motion) straight lines and bound it in matching stripes.

If it hadn’t been intended for my friend’s newborn girl, I would have kept if for myself. I love this little quilt best of all quilts that I made – even if it is not flawless.

The baby arrived around mid-April, I gave her the quilt two weeks ago and I am happy to report that she loves it. Why so late? you may ask, my anglophone friends. Well, in Germany we don’t celebrate a “Baby Shower”. Celebrating a Baby before its birth is superstitiously believed to bring bad luck.

Traditionally a german baby-birth-party (aka “Pinkelparty”) was thrown by the Baby’s father (while mother and baby are still at the hospital) for Dad’s (male) friends and (male) neighbours.

Nowadays, these parties are often attended by men and women alike and they are usually postponed until 10-20 days after baby’s birth so that the baby and its mother can attend, too. Nevertheless, these parties are still quite informal and casual. Beyond comparision to all those beautiful “baby showers” that pop up in blogland.

Is there a “baby-party-tradition” in your country/region/family? Please do share, it will be fun to compare superstitions and/or (silly) traditions!

Thank you very much for visiting and reading.
Have a nice festival week!
Christine

New Zen Chic Quilt Patterns

I have been guest blogging again over at Brigitte’s Blog. I wrote a blog post introducing her seven brand new Zen Chic Patterns that she designed for her fabric collection “Barcelona” for MODA (due in stores Fall 2013).

Hop over to see the beautiful quilts she made for Portland and photos of her little elves who helped piecing the quilt tops.

Here’s a sneak peek of “my” quilt top(in wip state):

Happy Quilting!
Christine

A Jersey Obsession

It all began with this magazine:

I fell in love with the included pattern for a pair of one-sized baby pants (size 1-4 yrs). I made these baby pants for a baby shower:

Aren’t these the cutest little pants ever?! They were so much fun to make!

And then I went a little overboard. I digged through my stash of knits/ jerseys and found some pieces that were big enough to make some more… seven more…

I love those little cuties!

Now I just have to find some babies for them. Dear friends, go make some babies, I am looking forward to give these pants away!

Yesterday I received this beautiful stack of Architextures Fat Quarters that I had won in a giveaway. Thank you so much, Jess of The Elven Garden and Peg of Sew Fresh Fabrics!

I can’t decide which one is my favourite… I guess the green fabric on top. With the black texty one as a close second…

I forgot to show you the Sew-Euro-bee-an blocks I made in April for Celine: I love these blocks and even made some more for myself. I want to get that DNA Quilt done (see my blog header…)! Unfortunately I ran out of Kona white and had to order some more.

I made a giant beanbag for my youngest but seem to be unable to take a decent photo of it. Will have to bribe the kids to assist me…

We’re heading out for a little vacation that we are all in need of (did I mention the kids brought home streps last week? They are on antibiotics for ten days…).

My first blogiversary is fast approaching, we are going to have a little giveaway once we are back, shall we?!

Thanks for stopping by,
have a great week!
Christine

New Zen Chic fabric line

In the last few weeks there has been some secret sewing going on over here. Spring Quilt Market is fast approaching and I have been helping Brigitte of Zen Chic to prepare for Portland. Her new fabric collection for Moda is “Barcelona” and I wrote a guest post on her blog today. Hop over to see the beauties she designed this time.

Here’s a sneak peek:

Happy Quilting!
Christine

P.S. there might be a little giveaway at the end of my guest blog post ;o)

Squares and Half Square Triangles - A Quilt Block Tutorial

Do you remember this jacket that I bought for my eldest last autumn?! I wanted to copy that design into a quilt ever since. May is my month in our bee and here is the oppertunity to finally use the design.

I made up this block using only Half Square Triangles (HST) and squares. The plain squares are a 3” size. For the HST I cut 3,5” squares.

I am sure my fellow Sew-Euro-bee-ans know perfectly well how to sew HSTs but I thought I could as well shoot some step-by-step photos.

For those HSTs take two 3,5” squares, place them right sides together and draw a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite one.

Sew next to the marked line, using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Turn and sew along the other side.

Your square should now look like this:

Cut along the marked line:

Press the seams to one side (you could also press the seams open if you like it better that way. It certainly decreases the amount of bulk in the following steps – but I’m a lazy girl so I pressed the seams to one side (o:). Afterwards square up to 3” size, lining up your 45° mark of your ruler with the centre seam.

Repeat.

Then lay out the HST blocks and the plain squares in a nice mix of values. Afterwards assemble the rows using a 1/4 inch seam allowance

When assembling the rows I never cut the thread so the rows are kept in place by the connecting threads.

Afterwards press the seams to one side – alternating the direction every other row.

Sew the rows together and you are done:

In case you might be wondering about my choice of colours: I always wanted to make a solids-only quilt and I always wanted a quilt that matches our orange couch and the light yellow walls (BTW, I’d never buy an orange couch again…). But I never found something pleasing that matches the exact colours of our room – so being princess bee in May is a wonderful occasion to ask for blocks I can unite in a lovely memory quilt that will be used every day.

Dear Sew-Euro-bee-ans, thank you very much for sewing these blocks for me. They finish at 13” so they are 0,5” bigger than what we stated in our guidelines. But making my master block I realized that it was so much easier to cut 3” squares than 2 7/8”" inch squares… I hope that’s o.k. for you, Ladies!

Have fun and happy sewing!
Christine

A gift-y kind of week

This was a great week full of surprises (o:

On Monday I received a small parcel with stickers and postcards that I won at Zeug & Gold. My friend Eva is a graphic designer who creates beautiful wall-stickers, stickers, t-shirts, pillow cussions, etc. On her Facebook Page she offered a giveaway with some fun stickers:

I can’t decide which ones I like best. Those moustaches? Or the chalkboard stickers? And wouldn’t the postcard design with that tiny orange fox make a super cute boy-ish fabric?! Maybe I should point her to spoonflower one day?!

On Wednesday, I received an email from Jess who blogges at The Elven Garden, based in Tasmania, Australia. Rafflecopter had chosen my name! I follow her blog for quite some months now and when I she offered a giveaway from her sponsor “sew fresh fabrics” of 8 FQ of Architextures, I couldn’t resist to put my name in the hat. Now I wait impatiently for the mailman to bring me some yummy fabric! Thanks again, Jess!

On Thursday, I received a small parcel at work. I had answered a marketing-survey and they had randomly send out some thank-you-gifts to some participants. Now I have a great wireless mouse for my notebook at home (o: Shaped like an exterior rear mirror of a MINI Cooper.

 

And to top it all off, Brigitte sent me some yard cuts of her now-in-stores fabric line COMMA. Thank you so much, Brigitte!!!

Best week in a long while! My colleagues suggested that I should buy a lottery ticket immeadiately. Seems like a lucky streak (o:

Now I guess it’s time to pay it forward. In 4 weeks time I’ll celebrate my first year’s blogging anniversary. Time to start thinking about a little giveaway over here (o:

And to finish off this gift-y week, I made a small gift for my former flatmate during university. She gave birth to her third child recently. A gorgeous little girl that they named Lotta. I made her a swaddling blanket – yay for another opportunity to use some pink (there are so many boys over here!).

I used Thomas Knaur’s “Pear Tree, Birds and Eggs” and backed it with a brown gingham. It is rather large: 90cm square.

And I finally used the alphabet stiches on my new sewing machine.

Hope she will like it! I finished it yesterday night and will have to wrap it and post it tonight/ tomorrow morning.

See you for more finishes next week (o:

Happy weekend everyone!
Christine

Another first…

I finally gave Flying Geese a try! And… well… I am hooked! It was so much fun to play with! My first try at Flying Geese is not done yet (I ran out of fabric for the binding and am still waiting for more). Yet I immediately started a second project.

I’m working as an controller/ accountant IRL and always have a hard time keeping my papers in order and my desk clean-ish. So I got myself a new organizer. One with a 31-days-index. A dull grey one. So I took it home to make a nice cover. A great excuse to use my Charm Pack of bright solids and some dark blue yardage.

I admit that I pretty much enjoyed making those flying geese – even if they are far from perfect. Maybe I should have followed a tutorial instead of making things up on my own?! If someone is able to direct me to a flying geese tutorial please speak up and leave me a comment, I’d appreciate it very much!!!

As I still consider myself a beginner (though slightly advanced and very confident), there are constantly new things that I try – and I was recently directed to Celtic Thistle Stitches’ Linky-Party. On 25th of each month everyone who tried a new technique or craft is invited to share their projects. So if you have tried something new this month, I guess I’ll see you there?!

Happy Sewing!
Christine