Blogs Sorted April 7, 2010

Hello everyone,

sorry for neglecting you for you long but I’ve been busy sorting the blog situation and organising my images.

I now have three blogs:

Quilted Bliss (exclusively for the quilts and things made from fabric)

Creations of a Cluttered Mind (for exactly that, all sorts of crafty arty things and more)

Brighter Smudges (for all the paintings and artwork)

I have also worked on my Flickr account and added some images. The next step is to organize those and give them descriptions, which will probably take me ages.

I hope you like what I’ve done with the blogs.

Lots of Love

Nadine

Salsa Quilt March 10, 2010

… and now on to part 2. Here you see the back of the Candy Quilt from last week. The design is fairly similar bus uses different stronger colors and fabrics.

I used a lot of Kaffe Fassett fabric again and tried to make sure the front and back are not too different.

One reason to follow the design used on the quilt top is to make sure the quilting (handquilting that is) does not ruin the back and is fairly consistent with the lines on the back.

I haven’t decided on the quilting yet, I don’t want to make it too obvious so the fabrics still look vibrant and clear.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

details

Candy Quilt March 5, 2010

…. a tease. …… Today I will only show you one half of a fully reversible quilt.

I’ll show you the top of the quilt and will post about the other side in the next blogpost.

This quilt was a test actually. I wanted to see how quickly I can make a two-sided quilt and it only took me about 6 weeks to make (a few hours every day). By hand of course. Still don’t have a functioning sewing machine. It is not quilted yet though, which will probably take another few weeks of a few hours a day.

I love doing everything by hand and since I do this for fun it shouldn’t matter how long it takes to make a quilt, but I do get impatient with it and at some point I just want to finish them and move on to the next project.

Maybe I should get myself a sewing machine after all? Or fix the old machine I have been given as a present, though that alone will cost me a lot of money and there is no guarantee that it will last much longer. I have a really hard time deciding whether I want to give in to the dark side and start making quilts with the machine, turning them out a lot faster and then not knowing what to do with them. At the same time I am not sure whether I can really handle a machine.

I had a small £20 machine that was given to me once and used it until it broke, but I found myself getting every impatient with it and fiddling around with the threading (a nightmare) all the time or having to fix it because the thread was too tight or not tight enough annoyed me big time. I am not sure I want to actually invest money into a machine when I will probably end up going back to sewing by hand just because the fiddling around takes just as much time as sewing by hand would.

Any quilters out there have some advice? Let me know.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Most of the fabric in this quilt is from Kaffe Fassett, one of my favorite designers. His fabrics are so vibrant and quirky, they brighten up every room.

details

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

close-ups

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

… and watch out for the next post where I will show you the other side of the quilt.

Doodles on Fabric February 24, 2010

Yay. Now I can combine two of my favorite hobbies: Doodling and Quilting. Using www.spoonflower.com I can upload images and design my own fabric and even get it printed and shipped to my home.

But in order to avoid spending lots of money on fabric that doesn’t turn out well one can order a test swatch first. I have designed a number of fabrics so far and received the test swatches in the post. But the images you see in this blogpost I haven’t printed yet as I cannot really decide which ones to use and which ones to discard.

Maybe you can help me decide?

These new designs are all based on doodles I made on paper and then photographed. I then manipulated the images in photoshop, cropping them and playing around with them on Spoonflower to see the effect in the different options they give the designers.

At the moment none of my designs are public and before I make them or some of them public I could use your opinion. Send me an email at nadinesaupe@yahoo.com or comment on the blog and let me know which of the designs you liked and which you didn’t and what you think of the idea in general.

All of these designs are based on one DOODLE. I will share my other designs with you in a later blogpost.

The Spoonflower website allows you to decide how you want to tile your image, whether you prefer a simple repetition or other variations. All of the designs you see here are mirrored images of the uploaded picture. But I could chose a very different design as well.

The size of these on fabric would be 8 by 8 inches (test swatch), so obviously the design would look slightly different if one orders a fat quarter or a yard of fabric.

The images are numbered from 1 to 12, so if you send me your comments please include the design number.

Would love to hear what you think of the idea.

Lots of Love

Nadine

Old and Forgotten January 8, 2010

It’s time for a new blog post.

So here is an old forgotten quilt I made years ago and took to Germany with me where it sleeps in a room all by itself all year eagerly awaiting my return every Christmas.

Poor thing.

… details

… and the back

… details

24 Wobbles More December 2, 2009

As usual, I am one day late, not even sure I still deserve my German passport being so unpunctual. one day *they* will probably try to take it back for being such a discredit to good old stereotypes of Germandom.

…  but here it is. My Advent Calendar. Quilted Advent Calendar, filled with chocolates and sweet surprises adding further to the wobbles on bum, hips and other body parts not to be mentioned on a child friendly blog. Hurrah! Good thing we have Christmas, the perfect excuse for temporary gluttony. Too bad it is so hard to get out of that *Devil’s Circle* in the new year. I usually manage it slowly by the time the Easter bunny arrives, again tempting me with sweet indulgence. Oh well.

_____________________________________________________

Ich wünsche einen frohen Advent.

…. und viel Spaß beim Aussuchen von Geschenken (für mich)

PS: The 20th of December is the day I fly home, so please keep that in mind so you can get my pressies ready in time.

Big in Japan October 29, 2009

Time for another quilt. This one is made up of leftovers. Actually, I am planning to make several smaller quilts from the Asian fabric range because they are so arty and look good on the wall.

 

reversible wall hanging about 40″ x 40″.

 

… and the back.

 

 

A Failed Experiment September 29, 2009

… no, I did not blow up the kitchen or set the neighbor’s dog on fire, I’ll leave that for the next experiment. I just wanted to try something different, not a quilt or painting or drawing for a change, but a small storage box as a present for someone who has just moved house. Well, the experiment failed. I did make something resembling a storage thingy made from fabric, but it certainly isn’t good enough to give it to somebody. Next time it will be better.

Now, where’s that dog?

Hide it on the Wall September 29, 2009

Here is the finished baby-storage-wall-hanging (not to be misunderstood as a storage unit for babies). No, this is a regular wall-hanging with 4 storage pockets for small items or books.

One Christmas present down, about 20 more to go, yay!

Welcome to my Log Cabin! September 28, 2009

Hello everyone,

I think it’s time for another quilting related post and since I already showed you one of the paintings above my bed I might as well invite you to my bedroom to inspect the bed itself (an IKEA bed, Malm to be precise and I love it). This quilt was my first really big quilt and it is not two-sided like the later ones. I only used scraps of fabrics I didn’t like on the back. It’s a fairly simple log cabin design, which I use quite a lot because it is so versatile.

Oh, and I forgot to mention it was handpieced and handquilted, and took forever to make. I do everything by hand and at some point in the process I get really antsy and just want to finish it, which often results in badly sewn binding and wobbly corners. The reason I get impatient is that I really just want to start something else and have fabrics that I can’t wait to cut up.
That is the best part of quilting, browsing through the fabrics and books (Kaffe Fassett books are my favorite) and deciding on a color combination and block design. Oh fun times. We’re so easily pleased aren’t we? Just give us some fabric or paint or art books and we’re happy.
______________________________________________________________________

By the way, this quilt is HUGE, well it’s pretty big and it was a pain in the back, literally, to baste it on the floor of my tiny St Andrews apartment. You can see that it is a simple log cabin design, and if your eyes are really good you can also see that stupid me used black yarn that shows through the white fabric. You live and learn. =)

________________________________________________________________

Now make yourself at home.