2020 - Balance (Tree of life)

I am participating in a coaching course by ICF, and one part is a peer coaching, where we are practicing on each other. For my coach I made a little present, it is called Balance and relates to one of our discussions. I really like the tree of life concept and I was thinking to make one for a time. Once she showed me an image how growth can be perceived through plant images - there are ones nice above the ground, but there are also which are not eye-catching outside, but has deep roots.   It came to me, that it is like a tree of life, but to have balance you need both - up and down, in and out. That is what I tried to capture in this. She really likes colours and I used bold ones to show it is full of life - I hope she will like it!

Balance - Tree of life

2020
39x48cm - 15.5”x19”

Ready to start my first bag

I found a course where I can learn how to make a bag in 2 afternoon. It is a fairly complicated one, with zipped inner pocket, 3 sections, handle , frame and everything. I made the preliminary tasks of putting the parts into order, fix the vliesothingies all together, and I am eagerly waiting to Thursday to start.

Everything together, the dotted one is the lining

Front side and back of the front, this is the real color, not the previous one.

Inner separator and its back 

I was lazy to mark, so it was based on my estimation to be somewhere aligned!

Bottom, sides and its back

Quilt galore

My son is going to school next September, and I made some lapquilts as parting presents for the ladies in the nursery. I wanted to keep simple, so they are only squared ones in different colours. Each lady got her favourite combination - or at least I hope so. The blue was a little too simple, so I added some quilting to make it nicer. Oh, I just realised the center still missing, I need to finish it up! The red and brown are already popping, so I just made a very subtle quilting not to distract from the setup. There is a real good tutorial from quiltkisses how to make such quilts with the tube method - real easy and quick!

The last one is a practice piece, I thought in the beginning the brown will be ugly, so I quickly set up a new one, but when I added a border and binded the original, I realised it is not bad at all, so the additional piece stood as a free-motion sample. Each corner is done differently, I was experiencing with the motifs. And now we have a nice one to cuddle under when we are watching tv, so it is a real win-win situation! For the backing I used some old fabrics and I really like how they turned out. 

These pieces were really a confirmation for me, that we should not be discouraged if something seems to be not perfect during a project, and even the less attractive fabrics will look real good if they are finished. If there is not enough from a fabric, there is only some creativity needed and the result will be even better. If you check the third quilt, the dark green patches in the side are added because I did not have enough of the yellow - and it really adds an extra touch. The same applies for the backing on the last: I used the fabric I had on hand but it was not enough, so the missing part was taken from some neutral remaining from some previous project.

Click on to see the details! (And try not to notice how harsh was winter on our door's painting...)

Quilt finish - Irish Chain reloaded

In the spring I was working on the Irish Chain from Melissa's quilt along, and I opted to simplify the quilt she generously offered to do along. But I prepared all the blocks ready, so I wanted to use them for something. In the meantime my sister-in-law and her family moved to a new home and the opportunity arised - a gift for the new bedroom! So I put the quilt together and quilted it. Since the basic blocks were already done it went superquick - only the quilting took some time. But I learnt my lesson from last time - I did less quilting to have a better overall impression  as you can see on the background. I really like how it turned out, even the background looks impressive. 

Irish Chain with a Twist (simplified version 1 )

Free motion quilting in progress

I was practicing a lot, a lot and a lot, with different results...