Wild Quilting class [no.1]

I made myself a present and inscribed to Christina Cameli's online class of "wild quilting" at Craftsy! Since a while I am following Christinas blog "afewscraps" and I love her organic quilting. The little videos of her quilting that she is posting from time to time are just so relaxing to watch! If you are looking at my last quiltings (not as much as I would like to), you will find some of her patterns in it.

I struggled with the inscription, because I feared not having the time to really do the practicing and only watching the videos. But without pressure I am not working, so I took the class, prepared the material (test sandwiches for quilting homework) and started the first lesson. Christina is explaining great and showing examples for all her advices. I learned already lots about echoing and leaving open space to stand out. (I wanted immediately watch the other lessons too, but I forced myself to do the excercise first)

The first exercise was about filling space between two lines and I had really trouble staying between the lines. I am not at all happy about how often I passed over the lines. 

See my first test-square:

I should have left the open space (without quilting) wider. It is not popping in the eyes as much as I would like it. 

Christina showed in the lesson how to stich feather lines and I wanted to try that. She proposed to do exercises on paper before and I did. There it was, when I recognised that it wasn't clever to make my zones expending. If I would have filled them with only feathers the last petals would be too large and would distract the eyes from the free zones. I tested some filling elements beside the tendril. Some of them where distracting a lot from the tendril. Then I remembered the echoing and tried that. One of the most discrete filling where just narrow lines, but I had a hard time stitching them on the narrow sections.

I see that I have still a lot to practice and to learn. I also have to find a way to slow down my machine or train my foot to be more sensible :-). 
I am not satisfied by this one, but the next one hopefully will be better, and I am eager to start with it right after the spring-vacation that will be next week.

There is one person who really liked my quilting:

A bientôt,

Jane

rug and sac for l-e-g-o

Kind of spontaneously I made yesterday a lego-rug-bag. I have seen several examples of those on pinterest and thought that might be interesting for my kids. They don't like to tip over their lego-box as it takes them too much time to tidy up later. But it is much easier to find specific pieces, when the lego is spread out a bit.

As I didn't planned to do it yesterday, our rug turned out quite simple. It is cut out of a strong white fabric (I know that is not a very practical color). The diameter is about 1,40m. It is edged by a bias tape that holds about 20 loops where we put a strong cord through to pull it together.

First tests are showing it is working. Once you have all lego in the sac, you can easily fill the content back in the box. 

I hope the kids will use it lots from now on...

A bientôt,

Jane

Calendar page in April

This is the page I like the least of my whole calendar. 

A bientôt,

Jane

Balloon cover

When I prepared the sewing kits for my sister in law, I bought that great e-book for a balloon cover. I had those balloon balls when my kids where younger and found them very practical to have in my handbag. Whenever there where waiting time and a little space I just put a balloon inside blew it up and the kids where occupied. 

So I also bought this pattern for myself too and made a bunch of balloons. Two had been directly grabbed by my kids even when I gave them their old ones, and one had been bought fresh from the sewing machine by a friend who was in need of a present. Those left over I brought to the shop for sale.

I had a lot of fun sewing and looking for matching fabrics. Will make some more, as I think every child I know will need one :-)

A bientôt,

Jane