8 blocks

8 blocks, originally uploaded by crafting with loove.

My blocks for the blocks Summer Sampler Series Quilt Along are growing quick.
 

I made 3 extra blocks yesterday.
I think working on these blocks really improve my patchwork skills & it's super fun too.

I will work on the next block for the summer sampler quilt along and take a little break to work on other patchwork projects.

I looooooove flickr peeps

I started my flickr acount in april 2006.

Back then I was 24 years old.

I just started my first real job after getting my degree as social education worker and I bought my first sewing machine.

I started taking photos with a sony cyber shot. It was a really big diggy cam which took horrible pics.

One of my first pictures on flickr was our office canary.

In the past years I changed my cam as well as my interests.

I started taking pictures of handmade human clothes I did by myself,  made toys and patchwork bags, changed to dolly world and made tons clothes for them and since a year I'm back to roots.

My love for everything patchwork is back and I'm spending lots of time reading patchwork blogs, looking for instructions or practise on my sewing machine.

In all these years Flickr was always a great place to meet awesome people who share my interessts since I life in a country where crafty people are still rare.

Due to that reason it's always hard to find high quality fabrics and other sewing stuff for a good price.

I'm always buying online and sometimes it's really frustrating especially when you have to wait 1 1/2 month for fabric orders (thanks postal service).

The people at Flickr were always helpfull when I was looking for stuff that is hard to get in germany.

They offered help & helped me to get all the stuff I need.

Especially in the past few weeks (when I discovered my love for patchwork again) people spoilt me with awesome patchwork stuff.

Johanna is one of these lovely flickr friends. Johanna does makes the cuttest dolls ever. They are so cool and unique and I'm hoping to own one of them in the future.

In one of my old posts I was talking about quilt rulers and the fact that I only own one ruler in cm and really needed one with inch scale.

Johanna told me that she has two spare inch quilt rulers which she would like to sent me. FOR FREE.

Doe is another lovely flickr friend. She makes awesome quilts and her work always blows me away. She is the queen of fabrics and always find the coolest stuff.

Doe offered me a spare Kona colour card when I asked for help to find out about the colour of my Kona fat quarter set.

She sent me her spare Kona colour card FOR FREE.

Rebecca and Jo are two other very helpful & lovely flickr friends. When I was searching for the Denyse Schmidt collection that was only sold in the USA and Singapore they went to the fabric shops in their town to pick up tons of fabrics for me.

And there is Amy. I met her at flickr too.

Amy is so creative. Her work is always inspiring and her fabric taste is terrific.

Amy was hosting a give away and I couldn't resist to enter this time.

Normally I'm not on the lucky side when I enter give aways but this time I WON.

Amy made a super adorable house shaped placemat which is to pretty to put a plate on it so I'm putting it on my wall.

But the placemat was not the only thing in the package. Amy filled a cute pink suitcase with lots of love and handmade things.

She made a super adorable strawberry pincushion. How did you know Amy that my pin cushion is old and not in best shape ?! The strawbery pincushion comes with cutest pins I've ever saw.

And there are three wooden spools with thread and cute ribbon & wooden alphabet tags

The package contains a big bundle of fabrics which make me swoon.

Amy totally knows my taste for fabrics and sends a super big bundle of the moooooost adorable fabrics ever.

I will have a really hard times to cut in them. I think I will spent a few weeks just admiring them for a while.

I'm very lucky that I "met" (sadly most of them not in real life yet) all these lovely ladies on flickr.

There pics always inspire me and brighten up my day.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart !

Plus Quilt - the start

I started sewing when I was very little.  It were mostly little things sewing by hand.

One day (I was around 9 or 10) I saw a super cute dog in a kids TV show made from fabric scraps.

I begged my mum to help me making such a dog. We searched in her fabric stash and I started sewing.

My part was sewing all the parts together and pick the the buttons for the face.

The rest of the work belonged to my mum.

She had to fill him and put all the parts together to one dog.

I remember that we sat together making this dog since very late that evening because I wanted to take the dog with me to school next day.

When I went to bed he wasn't finished so my mum had to do this without me.

When I woke up the next morning and I was really upset because he wasn't looking like the dog from the TV show .

(doggy with doll)

But I was so proud and took him with me to school. I wear dungarees that day and carried him in my front pocket the whole day. My friends really loved him and I started to love him as well.

He is now 20 years old and I still adore him <3.

I made a lot of soft toys on my own after this. I made minature teddy bears when I was 17. I made lots for my friends and my family.

I made bags from my old jeans. 

I crochet hats.

I did embroidery.

I made necklaces.

I made friendship bracelets.

I was always crafty and I tryed lots of different things untill I got my first sewing machine in march 2006.

Since that day I never stopped crafting.

I had phases were I didn't do any crafty stuff when I had some downs or when I was ill.

Since a few months I'm spending a lot of time reading patchwork and quilt blogs .

I'm looking for the best materials, patchwork patterns and some instructions (I love youtube).

I have a super long list of quilts I really want to try and I ordered lots of solid fabrics to get started . Can you believe that I hardly own any solid fabrics yet ?!

So I'm waiting since april for my fabric order to arrive. I always order from the US because german fabric shops are too expensive.

Everything costs in germany nearly double price than in the US !!!

The best example is the Yli quilt thread. I spend hours looking for a good price in a german online shop.

Finally I ordered from the US which saved me around 4 USD. Can you believe that shipping the yarn from the US to germany is cheaper than shipping the yarn in germany .

Unbelievable !!

But back to my topic. Since I'm waiting for nearly 1 1/2 month for my solids to arrive (which is sadly normal recently for bigger orders from US) I gave up.

I made the decission so start with a very easy quilt. I always loved Jeni's plus quilt  so I had to give it a try.

Jeni was so kind to write a tutorial which makes it pretty easy for me.

(solids and vintage sheets)

I used all my vintage sheets and some solid which I bought from a local fabric shop or got from my dad's school friend. The solids are not quilting quality but they look really nice.



(fabric choice so far)



Choosing the Plus Quilt was the best idea ever. The quilt is made from squares only so I can practise cutting with my rotary cutter. I'm still not a pro but I'm getting better and better.

 

 



(step 1)



 

(step 2)

 

(step 3)

I still can't believe that I made my first baby blanket with using my scissors only last year.

I really start to love my cutter and I bought a book how to use my ruler and cutter.

 

I cutted the first 211 fabric yesterday. I have no idea how long I spend cutting the squares but believe me I had lots of fun.

 

 

(Hoppel the fabric guard)

 

I had to change the square size a bit because I'm not having a a ruler with inch. I own only a cm ruler but I want to buy one after getting my next salary at the end of this month.

My squares are around 10 cm but they will be smaller after I put them all together because I forgot to add the seam allowence (stupid me).

 

 

(211 freshly cut fabrics)

Now I'm waiting for my next order of vintage sheets to cut more squares. YEAH!

cutting fabrics

129/ 365 cutting fabrics, originally uploaded by crafting with loove.

I'm cutting fabrics since 7 hours now (with small breaks for snacks).

Since my solid colours didn't arrive yesterday I started a quilt out of the vintage sheets from Jeni and some solids I still have around.
I'm getting better and better with the cutter.

I decided to try the plus quilt first.
It's a very easy quilt with cutting squares only (which is a great training for a beginner like me).

private fabric swap with Ayumi

private fabric swap with Ayumi - recieved, originally uploaded by crafting with loove.

Since I fall in love with Ayumi's brown fabric with letters (background) she offered me a piece for swap.

Quickly we made this into a little fabric swap.
We aggred to send smaller pieces ( 20 x 20 cm) to be able to send some of our fave fabrics.

I got all those lovely fabrics today. Ayumi picked some awesome fabrics for me.
I really love the heart printed fabric, the ice cream one, the pink one with the girl and of course all the other fabrics too <3. 

There are only 2 doubles (the bremen town musicans and the deer ones & the smal red/ yelloe piece) but these are definetly some of my faves in my stash so it's perfect !! 

Thanks Ayumi for making my day <3 

I will show show what I sent out after it arrived at Ayumi's home .

busy like a bee

Recently I'm busy like a bee when it comes to crafty things. Since I designed the Hoppel's I fall in love with the little critters. They always make me smile and I love to play with them. They inspire me to take out my re-ment and force me to use my camera more.

Last year around christmas I discovered the Hoppel's are really cute as a appliqué. While I was at mr. artistics parents home and everybody was sick I worked on some Hoppel appliqué's. Last week I started to search for some fabric collections in my stash. I noticed that I rarely bought the whole collection Sadly most of my stash are single pieces of collection.

I found a few matching fabrics from my fave lecien collection.

(flower fabrics from lecien)

Sadly it's a very old collection and I'm not able to find more of flower and duckling fabrics .

I had a lot of fun arranging the fabrics and decide for bag type.

I wanted some really colourful bags this time and I have to say that I'm very proud how they turned out.

The bags are now available in my shop .

(Hoppel collection)

I decided to make a small collection out of my Hoppel appliques and of course I will name the collection "Hoppel". I'm so happy that I was finally able to use my vintage zippers which I bought a few years ago. The bright colours match the design of the Hoppel bag perfectly.

(Duckling Hoppel bag)

(Ballon Hoppel bag)

(Umbrella Hoppel bag)

fabric lover

When I can't find Mie in the apartment I know where I can find her finally.
she is a really crazy cat because she opens the doors of cabinet herself. I have no idea how she is able to open the doors because they are always closed with a rubber band ?!

She is definetly my baby...both of us are fabric lovers .

(Mie sleeping)