Nature challenge

As you know I am participating in Suzanne's nature challenge. And while it is not the proper sequence I had an idea for the 3rd journal quilt which is due by the end of November: Nature close up. I made a close up of a sunflower - as you can clearly see on the picture :-). As usual the fabrics are my own handdyed ones and the technique is raw edge applique. There is no binding, only a straight stitch close to the end of the fabric.
The 2nd journal quilt - which is due by the end of October has to be about my favourite season. I don't have any idea what I will be making for this one, but there is still enough time.

Playing with words

On Wietske's blog I found this link to Wordle, a fun program to play with text. For this image I used the first two paragraphs on my paper on the history of quilting in the Netherlands after 1800.

Vinex

With our new textile group A-texere we had a meeting on Saturday with a professional artist as coach. We wanted to have a coach as we want to deepen our knowledge/expertise of (art)quilting, not the techniques but the whole process of designing and why you choose something. In total we will have 4 meetings this year which should result with a quilt made by every member. The theme we were given is: Vinex location.
Vinex is a Dutch word, wel actually it is an abbreviation, and it stands for all the newbuilding projects which have been developed after 1993. Most of these projects are located at the outskirts of towns. As the oldest houses in my town are build in 1976 you can say that the whole town is a Vinex location :-).
Many people don't like these locations. They say that they are dull, all houses are the same, boring and so on. This is not what I see in my town. Here I see all kind of modern architecture - which I love - space, colorful houses, lots of green in parks and ponds.
Whenever I am given a theme, it start whirling in my mind and all kind of associations pop up. it even keeps me awake at night :-). Somewhere during the day I came up with what I want to use as a starting point for my quilt. I intend to focus on the contradictary between nature and houses. The houses which have taken over the space of the trees. The young small trees which are planted amidst all the new houses. Old struggling to stay put. Young fighting to get a place.
Okay, the starting point is there. Now I can start working on how to execute this idea.

Time Flies

In an earlier message I said that I could not show you the quilt I made for the Swiss show but I have decided not to enter this show. This is the piece I intended to send. It is now hanging in my kitchen and I see certain small flaws which made me decide not to try and enter the show. Maybe other people won't pay attention to it, but for me the quilt is not up to show standards.

This quilt is made up from 3 separate panels each showing a scene of a bird's life, first the eggs in the nest, then the mother (or father) bird feeding the young ones and the last one, the birds leaving the nest. For technique I used raw edge applique and on this detail picture you can see some of the quilting:

Total size of the quilt is 45"x40" (114 cm x 102 cm)

2 quilts finished

I finished working on 2 quilts today. Not a bad score :-). One quilt I cannot show you yet, as I want to enter it in a Swiss show and they have an internet embargo on pictures before the show. What I can show you is this one:
It was made for the theme: what makes you happy. There are many things who do, so I decided to pick on one and that was the butterfly. Background is quilted with butterflies. All the fabric - except for the black Kona is handdyed.
Here is a detail picture of the butterfly:

Now I only have to make a label for it, but I have not yet found a title for this quilt. By the way, size is 19"x19" (48x48 cm). It should have been 20"x20", but my ruler moved a bit when I was squaring the quilt:-(.

butterflies

The present theme for the Dutch Challenge group De Uitdaging is: what makes you happy. I started working on this theme today and if you take a close look at the picture you can see that I have picked butterflies for my theme. The background fabric is a twice ice dyed piece of fabric and the quilting is finished. Now I can start working on the applique. More pictures will follow later.

ATC's

A couple of days ago Kate offered an ATC-trade on her blog. Okay, I must admit that till that day I have never made any atc's, but as I wanted to trade I could no longer avoid these little things. This is the atc Kate send me:

Isn't it lovely!

And here are the pictures of the atc's I made:

Out of these 9 atc's, 7 are still available for trading. The atc's which are taken are on the picture on the right: the one on the top row left and the bottom row. Let me know if you want to trade.

air bubbles

With my Surfacing group we make a theme based journal quilt a couple of times per year. For November the theme is 'Bubbles, baubles and beads'. I had some spare time this week and an idea for bubbles so I made this journal quilt. Don't know whether it fits the theme completely as there are no baubles and there is a sequin instead of beads, but it is a start:-).

Above us only sky

The theme for the present Challenge quilt is Imagine. I decided to use John Lennon's song as inspiration source and specifically the line: Above us only sky. Imagine that you are lying in the grass and look up to the sky.

Although the due date is November, my quilt is already finished. Not really over achieving, but I had some time and an idea:-). Here are the pictures of the quilt:

And a detail:
As usual for this group the size of the quilt is 20"x20"(50x50 cm). I am able to use this quilt for the ALQS 2 swap I am participating in too as it matches the wishes of my partner.