Impressions of FQSR London 2013

 

Classes

My first one was John’s Embroidery class. Here he is, showing the (rope?) stitch.

Here is a Penguin & Fish Monkey that I started in John’s Class and finished during the weekend.

Next up was Trudi with her Free Motion Quilting Classes

My FMQ Practice Piece:

Sunday Morning went by with Ruth’s Trapunto Class.

Here’s my slightly overstuffed heart:

 

Swaps

Here’s our Secret Sample Swap Group: (from left to right: Kathy, me, Sue, Mandy)

And this is our lot: buntings, mug rugs, embroidered placemats/centrepieces and fabric baskets.

The Scrappy Strip Swap:

 

Miscellaneous

Besides, there was the Quilt Market in the Main Hall…

And last but not least, a generous goodiebag:

with fabrics, thread and a variety of notions. Thanks you very much, dear sponsors!

Lots and lots of chatting, laughing and stitching…

… a quick visit to the V&A Museum with Liz, who was ill last year and whom I finally met in person this year. It is so much fun to get to know online pals after all that blog reading, emailing and commenting. Thanks for taking me to the V&A, Liz!!!

And then there was some sightseeing on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning. Thank you very much, Carol, Lizzy, Sue and especially to you, Ann!

Thank you everyone (FQ Team, Teachers, Sponsors, Fellow Attendants, and BPH staff) for making this weekend memorable!

Christine

A Paper Pieced Baby Quilt

It all begann in June last year:

Above you can see Lynne’s Paper Piecing Class at Fat Quarterly Sewing Retreat in London. I was terrified as I had never tried Paper Piecing before. But Lynne explained everything so thoroughly and perfectly that I left the class with 3 finished blocks.

They were meant to be made into a cussion but somehow that never appealed to me. So they sat in my U.F.O. pile for 9 months. One day I saw this quilt on pinterest and I knew what I wanted to make. A baby quilt.

And I wanted to try some new Free Motion Quilting. I had seen this tutorial and wanted to give it a try ever since. The design is called Dogwood. After basting the quilt sandwich I drew a grid on the quilt top and without any practise I started to quilt.

I will not conceal that there are some petals that are less than imperfect but (to my own surprise) I don’t care a bit.

In the photo above you can see the grid and how I quilted one flower per square. Around the paper pieced blocks I have sewn some free motion straight lines because the grid didn’t fit around the blocks.

And here’s a shot of the finished quilt after washing:

I had some Remix stripes in my stash that match the colours of the blocks very well and I even had a matchy-matchy-dotty-flannel for the backing:

I attached the binding with my sewing machine – this time using a simple straight stitch.

Now let’s face the two things that really annoy me.
First. Bleeding. There’s one green fabric that bleeded into the white fabric.
See below in the block at the right. Any suggestions how to fix that are welcome. That never happened before )o:

Second. Bearding. There are many many fibres that escaped through the top fabrics AND the backing. That never happened either.

What frustrates me most about this circumstance is that the piece of batting I used for this quilt was a leftover. And I’m not sure were it came from, what brand it is nor how I used the main piece of that batting. There’s another quilt top rolled in a piece of batting waiting to be finished – and I fear it might be the same sort of batting. Grrr.

All that being said, I still love that little quilt.

It was intended to be a gift for our friends who are expecting a second baby girl soon – do you think I can still give it away with this heavy bearding? I fear that the baby will constantly be eating cotton fibres. What do you think?!

Happy quilting!
Christine

Preparing for Dogwood

I’m preparing a Baby Quilt Top for Dogwood Quilting.
The top is made using my first ever Paper Pieced Blocks from FQSR London 2012.

Basting and marking is done.

Looking forward to give it a try tomorrow (o:

Happy Quilting
Christine

London’s calling…

… or what I’m going to change next summer when I’m going to the Fat Quarterly Community Retreat in London.

My name is Christine,
I’m 33 years old and from Germany. I am married, have two little sons (3 and 5) and work halftime. So I have to squeeze my sewing into the little spare time that is left when work, housework and family duties are done.

The first retreat this june was soooooo much fun and I absolutely want to go next year! So I bought my ticket as soon as they were available. I went on my own last time. But there’s no need to change that! Everyone was so nice and friendly and I can only advise those of you who ponder to just go and buy your ticket! The flickr group helped a lot as people were already getting to know each other by chatting and planning all kinds of swaps.

What I will change next year is: I’m not going to drag my sewing machine to the airport, through to gates, to the airplane, through another airport, halfway through London, upstairs and downstairs, through sunshine (was there any?!) and rain (there was enough of it) and all the way back again. The incredible team of FQ had enough sewing machines (Pfaffs!) from the local UK general reseller so if they do provide this generous offer again, I will happily leave my sewing machine at home. 

Other than that, I’m going to stick to this year’s plan and go a day early and perhaps stay a day longer (when the kids are already away at my parent’s, I’m determined to relish every minute…).

What I’m most looking forward to is meeting those that I got to know this year – including the lovely ladies from our FQSR London 2012 based bee: Sew-Euro-bee-an. AND meeting new faces, like-minded souls, chatting about sewing, quilting, bees, swaps, fabrics and notions all day long.

 

The ginormous raffle was great, too! And the giveaway bag was truely amazing and super generous!

This year’s makings are quite incomplete and some are still in ufo state. I don’t know yet how to proceed with my paper pieced blocks from Lynne’s class. Perhaps I should add a yellow one and turn it into a runner for the kids’ big dresser?!

I worked on the EPP Hexies I made in Tacha’s class and they will be part of a christmas present so no further details on this one (o:

 

I made a huge process on my Jelly Roll Race Quilt, that was still in strippy stage when I left London. But it still needs a backing, basting, quilting and binding. My friend Brigitte kindly offered to show me how to use her longarm machine and as this quilt is really big, I want to quilt it on her longarm machine.

  

I finished my block from Lucie Summers’ Portholes Class and made a pillow with it. It has since gone to a sweet little girl as a pressie when her little brother was born.

I love all of my projects from London as I learned new techniques in every class. And that’s another thing I’m looking forward to: more classes, teachers and more techniques – there’s still so much I want to try!

Last but not least, I’m looking forward to the “off-conference” parts: chatty breaks, drinks (late night) at the bar, breakfast in super nice company (thank you, Tracey!), the swaps (pretty please can we have another sample swap?!), and so much more.

  

Writing this blogpost made me very impatient, I don’t want to wait 9 more months!!!

Looking forward to meeting you in London next year!
Happy Anticipation until then (o:
Christine

FQSR London 2012 in retrospect (2)

After a short night, Sunday began with Tacha's English Paper Piecing. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! When I was terrified facing Paper Piecing, I was nearly shaking with fear at the prospect of Handstitching. I had deliberately signed up for it because I would have never given it a try on my own. 



And although I really dislike handstitching I do appreciate the advantages of it now. It looks nice and neat and with summer approaching I might be tempted to take some hexies out on the porch when the kids are playing outside. BUT if there's a sewing machine close by I shall always prefer using one :o) I'm happy that I gave it a try and Tacha did a great  teaching job.


After lunch Katy taught us how to make framed purses. 
What a unique girl she is :o) Tons of fun! 
I doubt that I'll do a framed purse again though. 
Too much glue. Too sticky. Too fiddly ;o)))
But see what we came up with 
(mine is the one in the lower left corner).




It was an incredible weekend, I met great people, acquired new skills and had lots of fun. And to top it off, there was an impressive Goodie Bag!!! Just take a look at these generous goodies that the numerous sponsores gave to each and every one of us: 



Several Robert Kaufmann fabrics, Oakshot fabric, Moda 2,5" squares,

 
Aurifil thread, Coats thread, needles, zipper, Prym trickmarker, stickers, elastic, a pincussion, etc.We were incredibly spoiled!!!

There was just one downer this weekend: I was awefully sorry to hear that Liz was too ill to come to the Retreat. She was one of the girls I "met" on flickr and we were corresponding every other day. I was looking forward to finally meeting her in person and so disappointed (for her but also for me!) that she wouldn't be there. Hope you are better now, Liz! If you send me a pm with your adress, I'd love to send you the goodies I made for our private swap :o) Hope to see your next year, girl!

Thank you so much everyone who gave me a warm welcome and made me feel part of the gang throughout the weekend. And thank you FQ Team (and additional teachers) for this opportunity and great experience. Pretty please, let's do it again next year!!!

Happy Sewing!
Christine

P.S. Some off-topic pics of what I did on Friday and Monday...