Salsa Quilt (the back of Candy quilt)

... and now on to part 2. Here you see the back of the Candy Quilt from last week. The design is fairly similar bus uses different stronger colors and fabrics.

I used a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabric again and tried to make sure the front and back are not too different.

One reason to follow the design used on the quilt top is to make sure the quilting (handquilting that is) does not ruin the back and is fairly consistent with the lines on the back.

I haven't decided on the quilting yet, I don't want to make it too obvious so the fabrics still look vibrant and clear.

........................................................................................................................

.................................................................................................................................

details

Candy Quilt

.... a tease. ...... Today I will only show you one half of a fully reversible quilt.

I'll show you the top of the quilt and will post about the other side in the next blogpost.

This quilt was a test actually. I wanted to see how quickly I can make a two-sided quilt and it only took me about 6 weeks to make (a few hours every day). By hand of course. Still don't have a functioning sewing machine. It is not quilted yet though, which will probably take another few weeks of a few hours a day.

I love doing everything by hand and since I do this for fun it shouldn't matter how long it takes to make a quilt, but I do get impatient with it and at some point I just want to finish them and move on to the next project.

Maybe I should get myself a sewing machine after all? Or fix the old machine I have been given as a present, though that alone will cost me a lot of money and there is no guarantee that it will last much longer. I have a really hard time deciding whether I want to give in to the dark side and start making quilts with the machine, turning them out a lot faster and then not knowing what to do with them. At the same time I am not sure whether I can really handle a machine.

I had a small £20 machine that was given to me once and used it until it broke, but I found myself getting every impatient with it and fiddling around with the threading (a nightmare) all the time or having to fix it because the thread was too tight or not tight enough annoyed me big time. I am not sure I want to actually invest money into a machine when I will probably end up going back to sewing by hand just because the fiddling around takes just as much time as sewing by hand would.

Any quilters out there have some advice? Let me know.

.....................................................................................

Most of the fabric in this quilt is from Kaffe Fassett, one of my favorite designers. His fabrics are so vibrant and quirky, they brighten up every room.

details

..................................................................................

close-ups

...................................................................................

... and watch out for the next post where I will show you the other side of the quilt.

Doodles on Fabric

Yay. Now I can combine two of my favorite hobbies: Doodling and Quilting. Using www.spoonflower.com I can upload images and design my own fabric and even get it printed and shipped to my home.

But in order to avoid spending lots of money on fabric that doesn’t turn out well one can order a test swatch first. I have designed a number of fabrics so far and received the test swatches in the post. But the images you see in this blogpost I haven’t printed yet as I cannot really decide which ones to use and which ones to discard.

Maybe you can help me decide?

These new designs are all based on doodles I made on paper and then photographed. I then manipulated the images in photoshop, cropping them and playing around with them on Spoonflower to see the effect in the different options they give the designers.

At the moment none of my designs are public and before I make them or some of them public I could use your opinion. Send me an email at nadinesaupe@yahoo.com or comment on the blog and let me know which of the designs you liked and which you didn’t and what you think of the idea in general.

All of these designs are based on one DOODLE. I will share my other designs with you in a later blogpost.

The Spoonflower website allows you to decide how you want to tile your image, whether you prefer a simple repetition or other variations. All of the designs you see here are mirrored images of the uploaded picture. But I could chose a very different design as well.

The size of these on fabric would be 8 by 8 inches (test swatch), so obviously the design would look slightly different if one orders a fat quarter or a yard of fabric.

The images are numbered from 1 to 12, so if you send me your comments please include the design number.

Would love to hear what you think of the idea.

Lots of Love

Nadine

Tumbling Down

A two-sided wallhanging. (I love working with visual illusions and 3D effects.)

The front:

... and the back is a charm quilt (including a close up)

I haven't finished quilting it yet, and it keeps collecting wrinkles sitting folded up in the quilt storage box, but one day I'll get around to finishing it properly.

It's all in the shape

Before I get to the new quilts I'd like to show you some old ones too. This bed-sized quilt is not reversible for a change and it uses a fairly simple pattern. Nevertheless, I like the shapes it creates and how it uses dark and light fabrics.

details

Old and Forgotten

Here is an old forgotten quilt I made years ago and took to Germany with me where it sleeps in a room all by itself all year eagerly awaiting my return every Christmas.

Poor thing.

... details

... and the back

... details

Hide it on the Wall

Finished baby-storage-wall-hanging (not to be misunderstood as a storage unit for babies). No, this is a regular wall-hanging with 4 storage pockets for small items or books.

Now working on another baby quilt. Good thing baby quilts are smaller. At the rate at which my friends and colleagues are reproducing I would never get to do anything else. :)

Big in Japan

Time for another quilt. This one is made up of leftovers. Actually, I am planning to make several smaller quilts from the Asian fabric range because they are so arty and look good on the wall.

reversible wall hanging about 40" x 40".

... and the back.