Happy New Year!

Yes I know - it's the first of September. But for me that's New Year. It's the beginning of a new school year and as a student and then a mother and the wife of a University professor the beginning of September always marked and still marks a new year for me. The heat of the summer is over and warm and colorful fall days are around the corner so it's time to take a gulp of fresh air and get going. 

 

This year for me the new year means that I will reactivate my blog. I refuse to let the pandemic drag me down as it did the last few months. As always quilting will be my therapy. 

So - how to celebrate this new start? The best way I can. With a free quilt pattern for you all - the pattern for my quilt "Jewels" which you can also see at the top of my website. 

 

The name comes from the fabrics in jewel tones which are really glowing because of the black sashing and border fabric.This pattern is for a twin size quilt 140 x 200 cm (74“ x 107“) but of course with a few blocks more or less you can easily make it any other size

 

For the top you will need

54 squares of fabric 20 x 20 cm (10“ x 10“) in jewel tones

250 cm (3 1/3 yards) for the sashing and border strips

 

Cut a length of 210 cm (7 feet) from the black fabric

Cut this fabric lengthwise into

8 long sashing strips each 4,5 cm (2“) wide

4 border strips each 12 cm (5“) wide and

4 binding strips each 6 cm (2 ½“) wide.

 

Please note: seam allowance is already included in the measurements.

 

Btw - if you do the maths you will realize that the measurements in centimetres and in inches do not exactly correspond. That's because I adjusted them for easier cutting.  

 

Cut all 54 squares in jewel tones on one diagonal – you will get 108 triangles.

 

Join 2 triangles in different colors on the long side and press the seam allowance to one side. Sew 54 blocks.

 

From the remaining black fabric cut 40 short sashing strips 4,5 cm (2“) wide and the length of your block.

 

Lay out the blocks in 9 rows, 6 blocks in each row. When you like the color combination sew the blocks into rows, adding the short sashing strips between the blocks.

 

Sew the rows together adding the long sashing strips.

 

Add the border strips.

 

Assemble the quilt sandwich and quilt.

 

Bind the quilt with the 4 binding strips.

 

Have fun and enjoy your beautiful quilt! See you next time!

 

I'm linking to Nina Marie's "Off the Wall Friday"

Art Quilt Challenge #1

Do you know the Art Quilt Challenge Group on Facebook? No? You should! It's a rather new group founded by Carol McDowell of quiltedfabricart.blogspot.com and is ment to challenge quilters to make a quilt to a given theme.

The deadline for a challenge is every other month. End of December (yes I know, but better late than never) called for a quilt with the theme "Banned Books".

I live in Austria and we don't have a lot of banned books nowadays but in our not too far away history books weren't only banned but burnt.

So for my quilt I decided to combine banned and burnt books. The stack starts at the top with some books banned in the US and goes down to books burnt by the Nazis. All the books are stacked on a bonfire which is alreday burning. The title of my quilt is

IT'S A SMALL STEP FROM BANNED TO BURNT

The quilt is really small (approx. 8 x 12 inches / 20 x 30 cm) and still it was a real challenge for me with lots of first times.

I started with perusing my bookshelves and decided to use the following books (from the bottom up):
a book by Erich Kästner, a German author, nowadays mostly loved for his children books
a book by Bertolt Brecht - all the books from this German author were burnt
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury - burnt and today still banned in some places
a book by Kurt Tucholsky - all of his books were burnt
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain - a banned book I love
"To kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee - banned
"1984" by George Orwell - banned

The first thing to do was to take a photo.

I loaded the photo onto my computer and by using Photoshop I created a new background for the books - a dark blue with some texture to resemble fabric. Then I "painted" some logs under the books which looked rather abstract at that time.

I printed the final picture onto fabric. A first one for me. It took some fabric sheets before I realized that I have to print it upside down so that I don't loose the logs at the bottom of the picture to the margins of my printer.

With basting spray I glued top, batting and backing together. This was also a first one as I usually don't use this spray. But I was afraid of getting holes in the print when basting or pin-basting.

I quilted around each book with invisible thred. Another first one. I never used this thread before. So I read about it on the Internet - everyone telling me that this might produce some problems with tension and with needles and with broken thread and so on. So I quit reading and just started to quilt - usual needle, usual tension - no problems at all.

Then I quilted the logs and quilted some bark texture into them.

Afterwards I quilted the flames with a variegated yellow-orange thread, a little bit thicker than my usual thread.

This is the first time that I quilted a whole quilt (although really small) by machine. I did discover that I have a wonderful sewing foot for quilting. It is meant for satin stichting my manual tells me but it's see-through plastic and has a wide opening at the front - just perfect.

It took me some time to figure out in which way to bind the quilt. I did not want to make a border as I was afraid of using my iron on the printed surface. I pondered a satin stitched finish for some time but I don't like them. In the end I sewed a small strip (about 1 inch) to the quilt and brought it completely to the background where I sewed it down by hand.

To be honest I am proud of my quilt because I gave it such a lot of thoughts and really went out of my comfort zone when constructing it.

Now off to the new challenge. Think about joining us - it really is a lot of fun!

I'm linking this to Off the Wall Friday.