A Needle Book in Blue

 

I must announce a new fabric arrival - I ordered fabrics of the collection Hedgerow by Makower. It´s a great collection with a beautiful panel which I plan to use for a baby quilt.

I ordered also two coordinating fabrics, both of them very nice, but this one is just amazing!

 

Such great details! And the blue colour looks very japanese. I had to use it right now.

My dear colleague Jana was the last one in our office who hadn´t any needle book from my hand. As it was her birthday on Saturday, I decided to make one for her.

Jana provides our family with eggs from her mother´s farm, that´s why the hens:

Look closely - a fox is sitting under the tree!

Some small details, machine stitched and hand embroidered: 

Happy stitching!

Michaela
 

 

Quilt 4 – Washing Day

 

The fourth quilt from the series „Fields, Meadows & Gardens",  the "Washing Day", is finished. This time, I´m really satisfied with the result. It is completely sewn by hand and also heavily quilted by hand.

First, the ground was quilted, then the tree crown was made from patches of green cloth and quilted.

I planned to use rusted ribbons for creating the trunk and branches, but I found the colour not the right one. Searching for another material I found an interesting piece of cloth, uneven, frayed, and perfectly shabby. One side created the roots almost automatically, the other side and the branches „needed some help“.

The washing day must be a sunny day of course.

The washing line is couched, the pegs are embroidered needle weave bars (I used rusted thread). 

Eiderdown and pillow were made of Japanese cloth. It´s a great pleasure to work with it.

Folks, I really feel my hands and arms protesting. The hours and hours of hand quilting have to be paid off. No matter how much I love hand quilting, I should perhaps reconsider the sewing technique of the two other quilts which are waiting to be made…

 

Happy stitching

Michaela

 

Quilt 3 – Grandmother´s Farm

 

The third quilt of the series Fields, Meadows, and Gardens is finished! Well, here and there a few stitches should be (and probably will be) added, like always, but I declared it completed for now.

It´s called "Grandmothers Farm" and it´s almost completely sewn by hand, except some raw edge appliquéd trees and shrubs. Let´s look at how it evolved:

Based on sketches in my sketchbook I prepared a sketch about the size of the planned quilt:

The first colour choice:

Beet field:

Tree in the garden:

Meadow with cows:

 

 

Hens and the house:

 The meadows under the stream:

Like always, I´m not completely satisfied yet, there are many things, especially in composition and colour choice, which could be done much better. The quilt will hang in our bedroom now and I know, after some days, I will love it. Like I always do. 

Sorry for not shering the complete picture of the quilt. I will reveal all the quilts during  PPM 2022 exhibition in April. 

Happy stitching

Michaela