Christmas Preparations 2023

 

I love Advent time. I love lighting up candles, meeting friends, filling advent calendars with sweets, preparing small gifts for friends and colleagues, and making greeting cards. (Yes, we are old-fashioned and still send handmade cards by post…). I love the house smelling like gingerbread. 

I happened to get some beautiful Christmas and winter panels by Anni Downs, Cori Dantini, and Anita Jeram. All of them are absolutely cute and inviting for adding patchwork, embroidery, quilting an embellishing. There is not surprising that I planned sewing wall hanging advent calendars with them. Nevertheless my planes were revealed far too optimistic and clashing with my work duties, therefore I decided to lay them aside for next year (I should definitely start much earlier than in October) and sew some advent bags only. I used motifs by Anni Downs and Dear Stella, appliquéd on linen. They turned out quite nicely. 

In November I took part in a nice project of Bohemia Patchwork Club. All members were asked to sew five Christmas ornaments in classical Christmas colours. Almost 300 ornaments were then sent to the exhibition ground Brno, where they decorated a Christmas tree with them. It is a kind of invitation to the international quilt exhibition PPM Quilt Show Brno. 

Here is my contribution:

I used the EPP Pattern "Kamener Geflecht" by Regina Grewe.

For our colleagues and friends, I made small cushions filled with wool fleece and spice – cinnamon and cloves. They are great to use as key fobs but they look nice on Christmas trees. They are great to use them as key fobs but they look nicely also on Christmas tree.

Happy advent time!

Michaela 

Rainbow Star Pillow

When leaving for holiday, I like to take hand-sewing projects with me, like every quilter. This time I chose for a nice rainbow star pattern I bought some time ago, the  „Staggered Star“ by Kirsty Lea  (Quiet Play), which originally is a foundation paper pattern. 

In no time it was turned into EPP pattern and the templates were cut. Choosing the right fabric scraps took actually longer than I expected, it´s not that easy! I followed the colour scheme by Kirsty and it turned out very nice. The rainbow pieces went everywhere with me, I stitched even in the car (well, yes, only on highways). At the end of the holiday, the star was finished and ready for appliqué on a background. I planned a beige or black background but it somehow didn´t look well. Then my eye fell on a fabric with a newspaper pattern and I knew, it was the right one. I appliquéd the star by hand and quilted it on BabyLock Sashiko machine. The outcome is amazing, I love the star and the pillow. Next week, it will be handed over to my friends who are freshly married!

The pattern is really amazing, I´m planning to re-sew it again, maybe even more times. 

Happy stitching!

Michaela 

English Paper Piecing with William Morris

 

I love sewing small zippered pockets for putting necessities into them. Just as bags they are meant for daily use, a small piece of every day pleasure – they are so fluffy and squashy! As much as I enjoy sewing and quilting on the fabric panels, I dislike the final assembling of the purses and bags, which I call the „technical sewing“. That´s why I don´t use any complicated patterns and forms, just basic ones.

When preparing the panels, I mostly start with a picture, followed by choosing fitting scraps and arranging them around the picture.   Even when I originally planned something without a picture, I mostly cannot resist and add some appliqued picture anyway:)

A few weeks ago, a friend asked me to make a bigger zippered purse for her. She liked the William Morris fabrics very much but she didn´t want any picture on it. As my Janome machine has to be brought „to the doctor“ (the sewing machine works still very well but makes horrible sounds in the last few days), there is an ideal period for hand sewing and making the desired purse.  

Janome packed and prepared for transport.

The small Pfaff is ready to help out.

Not all of William Morris designs are my favourites ones but especially the small patterns are just amazing. From the palette I have got I chose this combination, English paper piecing is going to be the sewing technique. 

 

The paper templates are covered with fabric by now, I´m going to play with the combinations later. 

 

The fabric edges were so lovely that I couldn´t resist sewing them together. A next purse comes to the world:)

Happy stitching! 

Michaela

Kamener Geflecht

It´s been a while since I couldn´t sit behind my sewing machine. In the last four weeks our old double windows were being renovated and that included also the window in the bedroom, next which my sewing corner is placed. Everything had to be removed because of dust and pieces of old painting. The fabrics, threads, sewing machines landed in banana boxes in the back of the house. The furniture was wrapped in plastic sheets, which was not very encouraging for sitting and doing any hand work. But we survived, the house is tidied by now, everything is back on its place and the windows are just beautiful. We were rewarded with a great week of holiday in Ore Mountains in the west of the Czech Republic. Before leaving for holiday I use to prepare some hand work to take with me. Usually I prepare some machine sewn panels and in the evenings I do hand quilting, embroidery or some other embellishments. This time, there was no time for preparing those so I had to go through my stash. And voila, the stars of Kamener Geflecht came on the daylight once again!

I cannot remember when I bought this beautiful pattern by Regina Grewe, but it´s years ago. One of my oldest UFO´s. A classical EPP project, I still like it very much. The plan was (and still is) to make a quilt for myself. About half of the stars are sewn, the templates and fabric pieces are ready to sew. Could I have a better choice for this holiday?

 The basic fabric is the aged muslin, the pointed pieces of the stars are fabrics by Jinny Beyer.

 

During the week I added about 20 stars.The colours are so bright and fresh, I just love every piece of fabric by Jinny Beyer.

This project isn´t going to be finished this year and very probably not the next year. But it is stil here, ready to be worked on! I love it.

Have a great summer time!

Michaela