{ Improv quilt }

 Here is my first attempt at improv quilting!
Honestly it felt so good I can't really put words on the experience.
It all started when I got this book from Amazon, after listening to a podcast featuring the author, Sherri Lynn Wood.
 I found her intriguing and really wanted to look into her book to see what she was really on about!
And, oh my reader, honestly! I never would have thought that quilting could be so freeing, so artistic and creative.

What I really love about the book is that she does not provide patterns per se, but "scores": 2 or 3 guidelines to kick start your creativity. And then : off you go!

For me what happenened with this quilt top is that I was trying to put some order in my fabric and made a pile of the three main fabrics totally by chance:  that gorgeous night blue, the beautiful gold-mango yellow and the gorgeous Art Gallery orange. I thought they looked awesome together, and started cutting into them, with no rulers! going with the flow, raw by raw, enjoying the piecing progress without thinking about perfectly matched seams!

During the piecing process, I let go of my fears, of my quest for perfection. It was not easy and often I felt something like :"Who are you to think you can make your own pattern here? Who are you to think you can create something unique, without following the rules?!"
Honestly, there was a lot of that involved. But the author of the book does incourage you to follow your creative instinct and to let go of your fears.

 I also tried to apply her method of "yes... and": which is to say: now that I created this row, or this block, I am going to make it mine and say: what's next? what do I feel like adding to it? what would go well with it now?
Honestly : so good!

I quilted it almost all with my free motion quilt foot. I am a total beginner when it comes to free motion quilting. But I though this crazy improv quilt was the perfect place to start experimenting.

I added some really awesome Essex yarn dyed linen in black for the binding and called it a day!

The quilt is now on my girl's bed. She loves it, she loves sleeping under it and she thinks it is the coolest thing on earth:)

{ Winter Janie Dress }

It feels like ages since I made a garment.
But this pattern by Welcome to the Mouse House had been calling my name for ages, especially after seeing the version sewn by my dear Rachel of Stitched Together.

Et me voilà de retour avec une robe pour Blandine. Cela fait une éternité que je n'avais pas cousu de vêtements et ce patron par Welcome To The Mouse House était exactement ce qu'il me fallait pour ce grand retour! Il s'agit de la Janie Dress, un patron qui permet des variantes intéressantes. Un patron très bien expliqué, comme la plupart des patrons indépendants américains, avec ses illustrations et ses photos. J'adore!
 

 For this dress, I used a very pretty and light knit I found (unexpectedly!) at my local fabric store.
I combined the same knit in two different colors using the darker for the collar.

Pour cette robe j'ai utilisé un tissu de  mon Laurent Tissu local. Une espèce de maille très très douce, en deux couleurs pour mettre en valeur le col.

My 10 years old girl is a tiny girl! She is "petite" and I should have cut a size 7 according to the measurements. But she and I wanted a longer lasting garment, something she could wear next winter if she wanted. So I made a size 8 and added length to the bodice and skirt. Therefore it is a bit wide at the chest and waist, but we don't mind. 

J'ai choisi de couper la robe dans une taille supérieure à celle que j'aurais dû choisir, pour que ma petite minette puisse la porter encore quelques saisons. 

 The dress twirls like a dream, and Blandine, who still dreams of princesses, loves it!
And her brother agrees!

C'est la robe qui tourne par excellence: le rêve de toute petite fille, et surtout de la mienne!!

 This dress was so fast to make and so easy with my beloved serger.
I hemmed the skirt and sleeves on my normal machine with a jersey needle.

  This girl.... I am so proud of her. She is clever and witty, creative and funny! I love her to pieces!

Thank you so much for visiting!

{ A happy crazy quilt }

 This quilt was for my mother. I made it for Christmas and it felt so good to see her so happy to receive something I made especially for her. Her joy made my heart sing, and then I remembered why quilting is so good: it is a way to give people love and care. 

I read somewhere that quilters are some of the most generous people. And even though I would not dare say so about myself, I believe it to be true: generosity and love are a the core of the quilting process. 

 This quilt was inspired by a design by Nancy Purvis, alias Owen's Olivia. I saw it on her instagram account, and then I saw a version of it made by Bijou Lovely. I was instantly hooked.

I thought it would be the perfect way to display gorgeous farbrics.

 And what could be more beautiful than a fat quarter stack of Anna Maria Horner's Dowry fabrics??
I had these in my stash for 2 years, when they were gifted to me by my beloved man.
There were waiting for the perfect design to sing and shout their gorgeousness!

It was my first time making an improv quilt and let me tell you: it is so freeing!

• I cut a 11" strip into 12 fatquarters. 
• then I subcut each strip into 12 smaller strips measuring between 1,5" x 11 to 3"x11. 
• I cut them with my rotary cutter, usually free hand , with no ruler. 
• I did the same with the white fabric. 
• then I pieced together the blocks: 6 strips of white, with 6 strips of prints
• then I trimmed each block down to a 11" x15" rectangle. 

I had 20 blocks in the end.
 

My binding is a green print by Carolyn Friedlander.

For the quilting I used a wavy line made with my walking foot (although my walking foot drives me CRAZY for some reason, and would never give me even stitches!)

There is a fabulous tutorial by bijou lovely that you can view here 

 I luuuurve the backing! it is made of some True Color by Anna maria Horner and some gorgeous organic flannel.

 

 My cute Man was king enough to hold the quilt for you , my dear readers! but he could not help but show a peek of his lovely face!

Well I guess, it is time to close this year of blogging with some warm wishes:

I wish you all a creative and happy new year 2017!

Thank you for reading!
Sophie

{ A black and white log cabin quilt}

When I first saw the new fabric line by Gingiber for Moda , I fell in love! those animal prints are just so whimsical and cute if you ask me!:)
I actually wanted to make a new quilt for my son to snuggle in this winter, and this line was perfect for him. I then ordered the october  Quilterscandy box which featured a Junior jelly roll of the line, and many other cute and useful items (the most useful of them was surely the giant black and white cookie!! yumm!)

I added some black and white prints from my own stash, like the floral and some gorgeous Caroline Friedlander crosshatch in white which actually looks weird on my photos but looks really cool in person!

 After some doing some thinking over this quilt and farbics, I decided to go for a wild and free logcabin design.

My boy wanted his quilt to be backed with warm faux fur. 

I thought I could quilt the top on cotton batting first with straight lines around the blocks and then I thought that I would be able to add some hand quitling on the 3 layers. But the slippery, stretchy faux fur made it impossible for me to handquilt without having lots and lots of puckers everywhere. 

So I opted for some knots tied to every block angles with DMC cotton perlé black thread and I like it like that, even though I am usually more of a dense quilting kind of quilter!

 Turns out this black and white is not so easy to photograph, especially in the winter light!

My girl helped me to take some shots and happily wrapped herself into this heavy and warm quilt !
These shots are my favorite , of course! because a quilt is always made to be held, snuggled in and used ! 

This one is staying home with us!
Much love from our home to yours!

A Propeller Quilt in Nightfall

Honestly, circles and curves have always scared me to death!:) ( I am talking about sewing here!:)

I would immediatly skip the page of the magazine, or the pattern on Pinterest if it had curved seams. But, as soon as I saw Suzy quilts' pattern the Propeller quilt, I fell in love with its modern look. I thought it would be just perfect to show off some of my favorite prints from the Nightfall collection by Maureen Cracknell. 

I highly recommend this pattern, as it is very easy to follow and Suzy has a youtube video that walks you through some of the steps of the pattern. And actually, it is thanks to the video that I found the courage to tackle those curved seams. 

 J'ai toujours été effrayée par les coutures arrondies! trop peur! je passe! 

Mais lorsque j'ai vu le patron de la délicieuse Suzy Quilts je n'ai pas pu résister! 

Ce patron se nomme le Propeller Quilt et je suis ravie d'avoir tenté l'aventure! Honnêtement, je suis en amour avec ce nouveau petit quilt! Il serait parfait pour un petit enfant ou un bébé, mais je ne suis pas sûre de réussir à m'en séparer!:) quelle égoïste n'est-ce pas?!

 It all started like this.. curves,  my first ones. I was instantly hooked by the modern look! 

Even though I didn't find sewing these blocks easy, I still enjoyed the result! Yes sometimes you do have to step out of your comfort zone!

Actually in the video, Suzy recommends using a walking foot to sew these curves. And so I did, until I really got annoyed with my walking foot and decided to go back to my usual foot with the 1/4" seam allowance and it worked so much better. But it might just be my walking foot that plays silly!

So I am glad I took the risk with this pattern!  That's also what I did with the quilting on this baby quilt: it is a mixture of straight lines and free motion quilting. Now, I only had attempted free motion quilting once and I found my result less than perfect. But I decided taht, this time, I would be gentle with myself and give myself permission for imperfections. 

And yes, it is not perfect, but I love it like that. 

All these quilting lines provide a very soft touch to the quilt. Approved by mister Big Fat Cat!

 Je crois que la beauté de ces tissus contribue beaucoup à ma joie ! non, mais, vraiment! oh! ces lapins , ces chouettes adorables! et cette touche de moutarde associée au rose et au bleu foncé me ravie!

Oui ! vraiment, je crois que si je couds, c'est surtout pour pouvoir collecter, avoir sous les yeux, toucher de telles merveilles! j'ai et j'aurais toujours 5 ans en ce qui concerne les motifs de mes tissus!

  Pour le matelassage aussi j'ai pris des risques! j'ai utilisé un mélange de lignes droites et de "free motion quilting", une technique qui consiste à "dessiner" les lignes de coutures sur le tissu, sans pied d'entraînement. C'est assez difficile, et ce n'est que ma deuxième tentative. Mais j'avais décidé, dès le départ, d'être indulgente avec moi-même et de me pardonner les petites (grosses!) erreurs. 
le résultat n'est pas parfait mais il est satisfaisant pour moi et j'adore la texture que toutes ces lignes donnent  cette pièce.

 The fabric is Nightfall and I am so smitten with the owls, moons and cute rabbits! honestly I am 5 years old again when I get to play with fabric that pretty!

 

 For the binding I used some Carolyn Friedlander fabric: it is actually one of her first collections: called Botanics. 

I bought all the fabric form my beloved Hawthorne Threads online shop. 

 For the backing I used that dragon fly fabric that I had bought ages ago: it is called Helen's Garden by Tamara Kate, for Mickael Miller and I believe the print is called "Garden dancers".

 I know.... it's a lot of photos for such a small quilt ! but hey! the amount of photos depends on the love the quilt gets! and this one is loved a LOT in our home!
So much so that I find it hard to give it away as I intended to in the first place!:) Shame on me!
Do you have a hard time giving  the fruit of your loving labor away??

Thanks for visiting!

hugs

Sophie