Finally

Finally is the only proper title for this quilt:-). Long time ago - early 2010 - I started working on this quilt. Together with a couple of friends we all made 10 different canal houses using our own hand dyed fabrics. When they were completed, we swapped them all out so that each had her own set of houses. I am now talking about early 2011. During that year I started quilting each house independently and then life happened. The canal houses ended up into a big bag in my studio. And here they stayed for another long period. Shame on me. Finally earlier this year I started stitching them together and last week I completed the last embellishments on them. And now at last it is hanging. This was another reason for delay because the whole quilt measures 92"x32" and I had to reorganise some stuff to find a hanging space that big. The size is also the reason that I could not get a proper picture from the front. The only way I could get the whole quilt on a picture was by standing in the door of the guest room and take the picture from that angle.

 

 

Here are some details of the houses:

 

It has taken quite some time but I am glad the the Amsterdam canal houses are finally finished. Besides my own house, there are houses in this street which are made by Kate, Sheila, Dawn, Karen, Kelly, Ellen and Gena.

canal houses

The last couple of days I have been working on the canal houses. Here are two pictures of two sets of houses:

Actually I have done more than the pictures shown. All houses are stitched together and squared. Size of this quilt will be 32"x94" (80x235 cm) when it is completed. Next step will be to add the binding and all the embellishments.No idea where I am going to hang this. It is the biggest quilt I ever made.

canal houses



 The last couple of weeks I have been busy quilting the canal houses. Here are some detail pictures of what I did.

 My choice of quilting design depends on the pattern of the fabric or what the fabric is used for. For example I have stitched bricks or wavy lines representing water.

 Sometimes - as in this sample of water - the pattern of the fabric decided how it had to be quilted:

The canal houses is a big project. At the moment I still have to quilt 3 houses. The next step will be to stitch all the different panels together into one huge quilt.

and more canal houses

Here are the remaining 6 canal houses. Everything is fused to the stabiliser and ready to be stitched. I will do this as little as possible so that the recipient of the houses can quilt them without running into problems. With a previous swap some of the tops were completely quilted which made it very difficult for me to add more stitching lines.

After working on these houses and searching for fabric I wanted to use, you can imagine how my studio now looks like. No, I am not showing you a picture of it :-), but it definately needs cleaning up.

canal houses

Normally I am working at several projects at the same time. Besides my big c&g quilt another project is the canal houses. With a group of friends we all make 10 houses which we will swap so that every participant receives a house from every body. Only the top is made and that one is even not completely quilted and/or embellished. If this would be done the joining together of all the pieces would become very difficult.
This week I worked on 4 houses. Right now they are only fused. Later this week I will stitch the edged of the applique and figure out which embellishments I want to add. Probably I will put these in little ziplock baggies and send them of with the house.
All fabric is handdyed/stamped/discharged, either by me or from a swap. The inserts of the twinhouse - top picture at the right - are cut out of paint/decorating brochures.

Canal houses

Most of the time I am working on more than one project. The last couple of weeks I was - besides working on the c&g quilt - also busy with the canal houses. They are not finished yet, but this is what I did till today:

All fabric is handdyed/handpainted. Some embellishment are added.

Canal houses

With a group of friends we are working on a whole row of canal houses. Each will make 10 houses, which will get swapped so we all end up with 10 houses made by 10 different people. Kate, Kelly and Gena have blogged about this project. This time they are faster than I am :-). The storm at sea blocks took up most of my time. They are almost done so I gave myself some time to play. This picture shows one of the canal houses drawn on a stabilizer called Rasterquick:
I marked the important lines, like where is the position of the door, the houses, top of the roof. You get the idea. The nice thing about this project is that - as long as the fabric is hand dyed or painted - you can use anything technique you want. I looked through my stash for fabric I could use. My stash is so big, that I knew for sure that I could find proper fabric. The fabric for the sky and the water is glued onto the stabiliser. For the house the fabric is fused. To create the effect of glass in the windows I used Angelina film.