Den Haan & Wagenmakers

We took a bit of a holiday from our extended holiday in the UK and flew to Europe.  First we had a weekend in Amsterdam.  I was thrilled to discover the second best quilt shop I've ever encountered..... right there across the road from our hotel!

The lady in the shop was lovely and we had a good chat.  I told her I loved the shop almost as much as my "local" back home in Australia.  Imagine my amazement when she said "Is it Threadbear?!".  Well... yes... it is!  She said she wasn't the owner of the shop.  The owner was currently in Australia.  Small world.

Here's some photos of the shop and the fabrics I chose for my quilt.

 

The original hexagon star quilt

I just noticed that I didn't post at all after my trip to America in 2011 to visit the original quilt.

Blocks to remember our overseas Christmases

Last year when I was in Germany for the Christmas markets and to visit my friend Claudia, we stumbled upon a lady selling quilt fabric.  It was all Christmas fabric so I chose one to include in my quilt to remember what I thought was going to be our only overseas Christmas.  It's a blue fabric with white snowflakes.

Now, here we were again.... about to celebrate our second Christmas in the UK.  When we were in Birmingham I caught a bus to a quilt store not all that far out of the city to buy some background fabrics.  I saw this red fabric and thought it would be a good one to include as a memento of our second Christmas here.

So here are my two Christmas blocks.

Finding background fabrics

The other day we went for a drive so I could check out a couple of patchwork and quilting shops.  I was hoping to find some background fabrics for my quilt.  Our first stop was Cheadle which is just under half an hour away from Stone in Staffordshire.

The lady in Angie's Patchwork and Quilting was very chatty and helpful. I managed to find a couple of new background fabrics to add to the mix for my quilt. She was very interested in the pattern for the quilt and took some photos of the blocks I had taken along with me as a guide for choosing fabric.

We bought an egg and lettuce roll and a pasty in the bakery for lunch and got back in the car to head to Eccleshall. We particularly liked Eccleshall. It was a pretty little town.  The Corner Patch was a teeny little store and Jane was helpful too. I picked one more fabric to add to my collection and that was it for the day.

A stack of backgrounds

I brought quite a mountain of background fabric cut into hexagons with me when we flew to England.  My stepmum and sister in law were roped into cutting them out when they came up to visit us just before we left.  It wasn't all that long into last Winter that I realized they weren't going to be enough to keep me going.

When Mick went home to Australia in February he brought me back a stack of fabrics carefully selected by Corliss at Threadbear.  I'm ploughing my way through them already!

4-10 fabrics

Here are the fabrics from the 4-10 girls.  The green one at right I brought back from New Zealand when we visited Mick's mum before we left.  It's from Kati Patch.  Mick's mum passed away a few weeks ago so it was the last time I saw her.  This fabric will always remind me of her.  The brown stripy fabric was from Alison... my partner in crime on this project... with instructions for it to be fussy cut.

The finished blocks will be ready to photograph any day!

Progress during our adventure

It's been a long time since I posted on this blog but I figured it was time to start updating it more regularly.  I've been busy keeping up to date on my other blog.  We've been in England since September 2012, living our dream aboard a narrowboat on the English canals.  If you're interested, you can read about our adventures on the link at the top of this blog.

At the last 4-10 group I attended before we left, the girls had each chosen a fabric to contribute to my quilt.  I had so many pre-cut blocks in my suitcase when we came that they've kept me busy for a long time.  Now I'm needing to cut fabric again so I've made it my mission to use each of these fabrics over Winter.  Watch this space.

Below is the first block I made in England.  Mick took this photo for me to email to the 4-10 group last year November.  The second photo is my progress to date.

4 til 10 - Sept 2011

It's nearly time for my American holiday.  I'm very much looking forward to seeing the original hexagon star quilt and taking lots of photos to bring back to show Alison, my companion on this project.

Last week at our 4 til 10 evening we both brought all the blocks we'd completed so far and pinned them up on the wall to see the overall effect.  Wow they looked great!  Alison has more completed than me - maybe 2/3 of the blocks in the photos below.

We've set ourselves a goal to fill this board by the first 4 til 10 evening for 2012.

Alison with our hexagon star blocks.

Close up of the blocks pinned to the wall.

Back to 4 til 10

It's been quite a while since I updated this blog - mainly because it's been quite a while since I've sewn a stitch!  We've been so busy I haven't been to a monthly 4 til 10 evening for a few months.  I missed one when we were away, another when I was sick and last month there wasn't one due to there being a quilt and craft show in Melbourne (I didn't even have time to go!).

Well, tonight I'll get to catch up with the girls again.  I'm so much looking forward to it and I know it will provide renewed enthusiasm to work on my quilt rather than just work or renovation.

With only 6 weeks until my trip to the US - where I'll get to see the hexagon star quilt - I have good reason to stay focused on this project.

Four til ten - April

Last week we had our monthly 4-10 pm get together.  I've done very little work on my quilt projects since the month before.  We've been so busy!

I had some very welcome help cutting out dozens of the little half inch hexagons for my quilt.  I'll take a photo of the progress so far.

Four til ten - March

Thursday evening was our 4pm til 10pm sewing group.  I really look forward to it.  It's nice to enjoy the company of a group of women with a shared interest and to have a good period of un-interrupted sewing time.

Plus, I get to compare blocks with my "10 year project" companion, Alison. She was making a miniature of our hexagon star block - in 1/4" hexagons.  They were insanely tiny.

I so much enjoy choosing colours from my fabric stash that I've tended to make the coloured centres of the blocks and not made many of the neutral background hexagons.  I decided I'd spend the evening building up my stock of background hexagons.  It doesn't seem such a boring task when there's friendly banter going on.

American Pie - completed

I have finally completed the "American Pie" quilt for my young niece.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

I took this photo on my phone so it isn't the best.

A previous 10 year project

I've started a 10 year project once before!  It was one of the first things I started sewing.  I saw a hexagon quilt on a bed at Port Arthur, Tasmania, about 15 years ago and it stuck in my mind.  I had no idea how to go about it but found a hexagon shape on the internet and printed it and photocopied it .. again.. and again... and again.  I cut out hexagons and stitched them to my cut out papers.  Eventually I had a box full of them but no idea where to go with it next.

I stitched some into a couple of rings and joined the rings by an extra row of hexagons.  So now I had a few joined together rings with holes in the middle.  I asked advice from Corliss at Threadbear in Castlemaine and decided on the suggestion of a plain centre appliqued in.

It is almost complete - just a corner section to go plus a few centres to stitch.

Other works in progress

I much prefer hand stitching to sewing on a sewing machine.  Here are another couple of works in progress - all done by hand. 

First, a quilt for my 8 year old niece.  I had it machine quilted by Margaret at the Quilt Station in Elphinstone.  Now there is only the binding to stitch on.:

The pattern is called American Pie

While the quilt above was being machine quilted I started a quilt for niece #2 :

Don't know what this is called!

The ten year patchwork project

This is a project I started a year ago at my once a month quilt group.  I call it the Hexagon Star Quilt.

Alison, one of my fellow group members, and I saw this quilt in the book "Quilts of Virginia, 1607-1899" and fell in love with it.  It comprises approximately 25,000 hexagons and the original quilt is displayed on a bed at "Scotchtown" in Virginia, USA.

Quilt on the bed at Scotchtown

Close up of quilt

Alison and I excitedly began what we knew would be a very long term project.  These hexagons are small - the blurb beside the photo in the book says they are 1/2 inch hexagons.  When I first looked at the size of a half inch hexagon I faltered - it seemed insane to make a large quilt out of pieces so small.  But... carried along by the quilt group's enthusiasm I made a start.  Now I'm addicted!

Before Christmas I received a panicked email from Alison saying the hexagons we were using were too big!!  How could that be?!  Well, sometimes hexagons used in quilting are measured by the size of one of the six sides and sometimes they are measured across the entire hexagon.  There is a BIG difference.  The ones we are making are 1/2 inch along one of the six sides. We can't see the quilt in person and the pieces looked so ridiculously small it never occurred to us that they could be too big.

Alison and I held an emergency coffee meeting at my place and looked at her calculations.  If we made the exact same quilt it would be 5 metres long!  Hmmm... rather too large for our bed.  We are adapting the size to suit our respective beds (Alison is buying a bigger bed so she can make a bigger quilt!).  We decided to make one of the star blocks in the correct size hexagons and use it for a label on the back of our quilts. I'm going to write a message on the label explaining that this is the size pieces used in the original quilt.

The upside of our error is that I now only need to make 18,000 hexagons. What a bonus!

My first few blocks

The single hexagon has a paper of the correct size on top - much smaller!

The correct size hexagon isn't even the size of my thumb nail