Feathergirls Happy Scrappy Workshop at Quilt It and Dotty

Our first workshop, last Saturday. Yes, we (fellow Feathergirl Hubertine (click) and I) were a bit nervous, but also excited. Excited to see how we would do, which new people we would meet, would they enjoy what we had come up with for them, what would the atmosphere be like…

As it turned out we had nothing to worry about. With the organization of the day in the capable hands of the ‘hostess with the mostest’ Dorry (click ), her beautiful shop next door on the premises (there were so many ladies who wanted to attend Dorry was kind enough to open up her home for the workshop) and a lovely, fun and energetic group of quilters ready to do some serious scrap busting,  it was a fun filled day.

We were happy to share our idea’s, patterns and stories, the ladies present were happy to share their enthusiasm and their stories.

An impression….

Sweet James welcoming us

Some ladies had very special sewing machines

The labels on this case!

Time for some action!

A yummy lunch a.o. home made quiche, home made soup, and traditional regional sausage buns

As it happens it was the Carnival/Mardi Gras weekend and one of the floats of the local Carnival organisation was kept and later on wheeled out of storage at Dorry’s farm

Alaaf, Dorry!

Time to get back to work, Hubertine showing the big stitch quilting method

Before we leave some shopping at Dorry’s lovely quiltshop next door on the premises

Other blogposts about this day can be found - of course - at fellow Feathergirl Hubertine’s blog (click) and at the blog of one of our ladies at the workshop, Anja (click), it was great meeting you Anja, can’t wait to see what you will make.

Thank you so much to all of you (Feathergirl Hubertine, Dorry and our lovely attendees) for making this such a memorable day!

Phyllis

First finish of 2017 and 3rd Feathergirls finish!

Hello everyone,

We as Feathergirls thought we’d start the year as we mean to go on…. with a finish!

You may have been following our progress on our current Feathergirls projects…. our scrapquilts… well, here they are, all finished… !

To the left is my quilt, to the right the quilt of fellow Feathergirl Hubertine, you can find more on her quilt on her blog (click)

The idea for this 3^rd Feathergirl quilt was to make a scrap quilt, when we revealed our plans to eachother (click) it turned out Hubertine decided to make her quilt of one pattern and while I originally started with the same idea I found I could not chose which block or pattern to use so decided to use various patterns and found the best way to do this was to place them in rows.

To honor Feathergirl Hubertine and our co-operation as Feathergirls I added a row of the rails pattern of her scrapquilt in mine as well:

Although I tried to ‘make ends meet’  that did not always work out in the end and with the great Gwen Marston (click) in mind I either cut something off when it was too long:

or I added something when it was too short: 

Hey, this is the Feathergirls... our aim is not to be perfect, our aim is to have fun with it all!

This reminds me of many of the antique quilts I have seen on my travels J !

So, not perfect, but I love this quilt, it is colorful, I had such fun making it and it is mine all mine, I thought it up, row by row, so it is one of a kind.

Quilt stats:

Size: 133 x 175 cm / 52” x 69”
Machine pieced, hand quilted
Fabrics and batting 100% cotton

So, after these finishes what is next for the Feathergirls? With a truck load of wips and ufo’s each we decided to put starting another Feathergirl project on hold for now and to focus on finishing some of those first. But that does not mean you will not hear from us…. no way…  watch this space….

Phyllis

Presents for (quilt) friends

It has been quiet on my blog.

For two reasons: I was busy on two secret projects I showed you bits of before and I went on a lovely holiday, still getting used to being back home……

 

But at least now I can show you at least one of the secret projects, a goodbye (not farewell, that much is sure!) to my dear friend Emma who moved back to France recently.

Since Emma is a (very accomplished!) quilter herself it was no use making her a quilt of any sort, so I had to come up with something different.

Thinking that as a busy mother of two younger children she is always juggling all sorts of schedules  and reminders in her head I thought a brocante looking memory board would be nice and also I could attach to it small reminders of the fun times we had together as well as some small gifts. As I am only handy with fabrics and not much else I bought the memory board.
But I did want to make her something myself (and not just give presents that I bought) so I made her a keyring for her beautiful renovated home in France.

 

 

As our dogs Whopper and Bailey are also best friends and spent many hours together during their playdates (that recently involved a red stuffed chicken J  ) a picture of Whopper could not be left out.

 

 

 

Living around the corner from me and having so much in common we spent lovely mornings and afternoons together, I will miss being able to just pop over for a cuppa and a chat.

And while we are on the subject of presents for friends, I never showed you the finished present that I made for fellow Feathergirl Hubertine when it was her birthday earlier this year.

I bought a small tray (to take small sewing items with her around the house or her roof terrace) and made a mini quilt for it.

 

And now back to sorting out all those pictures from our holiday…. Hope you had a lovely summer too, either at home or elsewhere.

 

Phyllis

 

Finished Feathergirl tops! And a few words on seams....

Recently the Feathergirls got together because….

we finished our second Feathergirls (Feathergirls 2.0 we called them) quilt tops!

And like with our first Feathergirls quilts (click and click) it was so much fun to see the finished tops together! And again like last time it was the first time we saw eachother’s finished tops, a special moment!

My top was made of Ohio Star blocks, placed on point with alternating single fabric blocks. I decided the whole thing needed a bit more color with all that brown and had a beautiful red in my stash, but unfortunately not enough…. I found it online (isn’t the www just wonderful?) at a shop I had never bought from before, they did a great job, the needed fabric was here in no time. In the meantime I found this wonderful blue fabric with just that bit of red in it, so the whole top came together.

 

 

Hubertine (click) made her quilt from lots of churndash blocks, one of my favorite block patterns, with lots of different blue fabrics, so fabulous! You can see it here (click). As well as information on how she sandwiched her quilt.

 

When I posted a picture of the back of my quilttop in an earlier post (click) I received questions about my seams….. aren’t they supposed to be ironed to one (dark) side?
To be honest I left that idea completely when machine patching small seams. The whole idea of ironing your seams to one side for strength of the seam  I think comes from the world of hand stitching. And there it makes perfect sense and I strictly adhere to this rule.

However machine patching is a completely different technique. Your stitch is made of 2 interlocking threads with very even stitches, therefore your seam is much stronger. Also the quilting you add later on will make the seam more durable because it will reduce pressure on the seam during use or washing.

Also I remember years ago, when I still made some of my own clothes, some of which were pencil skirts and with an office job, sitting down practically the whole day, there was pressure on the seams of my clothes and we still pressed them open and they never came undone (luckily ;-) !

When you are able to press (yes, I press my seams) open they lie much flatter and your points are much sharper.

 

 



However, on the long seams - as in this top with the blue and red borders - I do still press my seams to one side, toward the outer edges of the quilt top. There is no need there to press them open.

So there you have it. This is the way I do my seams when I machine patch, but there is not one perfect way of doing things. Use the technique that you are most comfortable with, that one will be best for you.

Enjoy the spring sunshine this week!

 

Phyllis

 

First Feathergirls Finish!

Finally, Hubertine and I can reveal the quilts we made for our first Feathergirls project!

And that it took a while was ‘my bad’ as they say, since I really wanted to handquilt my quilt, Hubertine finished her quilt a while ago.
Click here to look at Hubertine’s finished quilt.

And here is mine, tadaaah!

 

Quilt stats:

Size: 79.5” (202 cm) x 62”  (157 cm)

Block: Jacob’s Ladder, 9”

Quilting: by hand with YLI quilting thread in Ecru

Fabric: 100% cotton

Batting: 100% cotton

 

Of course my quilt has a name and a label:

 

I named my quilt after Lucy (click), for the reasons explained on the label. Ever since I found out about quilting blogs and found Lucy’s first blog (click) I loved what I saw there (same as on her second blog (click) ). Her work is beautiful, she takes her inspiration from old quilts, the kind of quilts that would actually be used and I love her fabric choices. What I also admire is that she works so independent of trends and fashions in the quilt world. Her quilt blogs and also her 365 days blogs here (click) and here (click) are a great source of inspiration for me.

So when I saw she gave a workshop at the Sampler in Haarlem a few years ago I jumped at the chance. It was a workshop for beginners on the sewing machine and – having made everything by hand up until then – I really wanted to learn making quilts on the sewing machine, that would be so much faster. I had done a workshop like that before but I after that first one I still did not like working on a machine. So I decided to give it another try.

During Lucy’s workshop we made a Jacob’s Ladder block and even though I made a number of mistakes that day, somehow her workshop gave me the confidence to do patchwork on a sewing machine. After her workshop I made Eline’s Stars (machine patched and partly machine quilted) and found I really enjoyed working on a machine.

So when Hubertine and I decided to make our first quilts on our newly acquired Featherweight machines as the Feathergirls (click) it was only fitting I should use the Jacob’s Ladder block.  I did make it a different size than the block we made during Lucy’s workshop, hers was in cm’s , mine is 9”.

 



Since this is a combined project, Hubertine and I wanted to photograph our quilts together and last week it was perfect weather to do so:

 



Fun to see the quilts like this!

 

We really enjoyed doing this together and as you may know we have each already started our second Feathergirls quilt, here (click)  and here (click).

So onwards and forwards with our second Feathergirls quilts!

Phyllis