Two shirts I no longer fit in, one made of this great bed linen from the ‘70s in green.
2 x 2,5 m
the white and yellow is another bedlinen. I made a bathrobe from it a few years back.
I love these colours. There are some sweet cat fabrics in there too.
For Dutch Modern Quilt Gilde I made a quilted drawstringbag for a swap.
This was the visual inspiration plus the notion the person loves fabric designer Alison Glass and she would like it to be a colourful bag:
So I bought some fabrics at HetNaaldbos.nl and a happy fabric by Alison Glass and made this:
I did some FMQ and it shows the hand of the creator quite a bit…
I prefer quilted bags with french seams so the lining is not loose. Quilting the sandwich becomes the highlight of the making process that way, for me.
This is the card I send with it, illustration Floddertje by Fiep Westendorp. Quite an idiosyncratic and colourful maker too 🙂
Liberated medaillion à la Gwen Marston. Ik ben bij de buitenste rand nu en dit zijn de blokjes die in de hoeken komen. Ertussen drie strips van groen waar kleine rode driehoekjes tussen bewegen.
for my sleeping mask
with quilting on the inside
Sewn on my silent and friendly foot threadle that I squeezed into my sewing room by throwing out the table I used to lay my fabric on. I will lay it on the floor.
it looks bare but it’s a nice spot. On the left is my garden and the lamp and the chair are nice. And the sewing machine with its wood and its mechanical fine engineering.
I had a break down the past year. The pandemic and an autistic burn out. Learned I was autistic yes. Couldn’t handle society and its weird reaction to both corona and trumpism.
but now I am on the mend. New life, new old sewing machine, who dis?
For a charity quilt in my local bee.
Fast technique. You can use all kinds of nice fabric scraps. I only glued the fabric to my ironing board once.
Not a favourite technique for me though, I will only use it once more, to make the second block for the bee.
There’s a challenge from the Dutch Modern Quilt Qilde to redesign a traditional quilt block using modern quilting approaches. The various approaches are listed on the gilde’s site
They are: Negative space
No borders
Minimalist / less is more
Bright and graphic colour palettes
Improvisational piecing
Improvisational quilting
Alternative gridwork
Asymmetry
Modern traditionalism
Exaggerated scale
Pixelation
Texture (quilting)
Low volume
The block I chose is the Churn Dash:
It’s essentials are that the corner triangles are bigger than the bars running between the triangles. And that the centre is squarish, not rectangle. If any of these characteristics are changed you end up with other blocks such as Shoofly or Greek Cross.
“Churn Dash”? Making butter? I couldn’t help but delve into butter churners to try and find the original inspiration for the name.
It’s the stick that’s pumped up and down that’s the churn dash or churn dasher. Its end is shaped to disturb the cream as much as possible and this is where the name of the block comes from.
I did a liberated approach, from Gwen Marston:
Follow the sequence of sewing, don’t worry about precise cutting, keep a look out for essential contrasts. Cut finished blocks to size. I sewed the nine blocks together with great precision because the lining up around the centre block is important with Churn Dash, I feel.
I made a (big) bag out of it, 60 x 60 cm:
The second thing I did was a minimalistic approach:
A large cushion, 55 x 55 cm. The finished project bulges but the top is flat and square, with the light pieces being the essentials of Churn Dash, I hope.
Quilting was purposefully direction to highlight Churn Dash.
With the minimalistic approach I took care in arranging the pieces, looking at composition and how much dark was needed between the light pieces:
Following a tutorial by patchworkandpoodles.
It’s 25 x 25 cm.
Very nice tutorial.
I spend a lot of time creating the improv fabric squares. Used a lot of favourite fabrics. Some is satin cotton and this needed more quilting than the regular cottons, I felt.
This is a nice way of working, as soon as I have a nice piece of fabric I could make it into a bag. I could play with improv, in a little study like this, and then make it into something useful. I do need some other pouches, some small and some big.
It was fun quilting a double sandwich, just the top fabric and the batting. It was nice to find my sewing machine didn’t catch on the batting.
The Dutch Modern Quilt Guild has a challenge for a top from 30 x 30 cm (12×12”) and I want to shake off my pandemic-no-bees-blues.
The idea is to take one of four traditional blocks and alter it using one of the modern design elements. Which are listed below, on the piece of scrap paper that I did some design explorations on:
I like this one:
An off grid improv churn dash block. I’ll do some design exploring in fabric soon 👍
One of the qualities of the challenge is that we’ll be sharing our process and sewing joys online, as an answer to the changed living conditions. On the website of DutchMQG and on Instagram. It will be nice to reconnect to these friendly quilters. Later this month we’ll have a virtual bee.
From a blanket cover because it was cost effective fabric. Cotton satin.
I used my covid time shirt pattern and improvised a bit. It’s not as good as it shows on the picture but it’s functional and I like the fabric.
PS it has pockets. With the wrong side of the fabric showing. But who’ll be peeking into my pockets? Not the sewing police, that’s for sure.
from what’s left of the curtains. Still a bit stiff but will loosen up beautifully after a few washes. 100% linen.
Same pattern as the “lockdown shirt pattern”, with a sleeve at a right angle for maximum arm movement while the width at buste is not too wide.
Gussets only the back so I can make wide strides.
As with the shirts I still need to weave in the ends… might not happen.
All seams with a zig zag finish. Neck line with a biais band. Sleeves and hem folded under twice. Next one I’ll fold to the RS, I like that look, for the sleeves.
Now I will change my closet and take out all the garments that are too tight to wear at the moment. Only fill it with these nice comfortable things. And maybe make another one, there is also some leftover from the lighter curtains. Also linen. But a white dress.… that’s not so sensible.
i’ll give it some pockets though, the next one. Also planning on making a “belt pocket”, a pocket you clip on. Wear independent from your clothes.
BumbleSews 