does it happen to you?

Sometimes you see something and have this sudden urge to create a quilt (an illustration, a photo...) based on what you see. And you can't stop thinking - maybe not continuously, maybe it just pops up from time to time, but you keep returning to the idea until you finally make it.

One autumn morning, when I was passing our local pub, I looked at the wooden deck, where they put tables in summer. The tables were already removed and as the morning was quite cold, the boards where covered in frost. I also noticed a few withered leaves on the deck, white with frost too.
That image kept coming back to me until I finally put it into a mini quilt. I think I'm calling it First Frost, even if it doesn't look that frosty.

And a bit of detail:

The shape and colour of the leaf was to be different, but in the end I just couldn't resist the temptation of trying to act on another inspiration - Shaun Tan's The Red Tree picture book.

On a more technical note - the mini is 11,5" x 16" and as you can probably guess apart from cotton I used bits of linen, too.

P.S. Two-colour binding as suggested by my sister :) 

I'm linking this to:

Hope to see your entries there, too.

Friday sewing

First of all, let me show you something I promised to sew for my friend:

It seems that phone cozies are a constant part of my sewing and I'm very happy about it, as each time I can try a slightly different variation. Here is an earlier dotted one I haven't shown you yet:

Secondly, the fabric for the borders, backing and binding for the wavy quilt finally arrived a few days ago, so yesterday was a perfect  day to learn how to sew borders with mitered corners. In my sister's quilt I cheated a bit, using scrappy HST instead. However, then the whole border was pieced from small rectangles.

(I'm still trying to capture the colours as they are but I'm afraid I've failed miserably again.)

And finally, I worked on my mini quilt for the Modern Mini Challenge (just a sneak peek for now:)

It was a very good day. How was yours?

in the meantime

Not all of the tulips decided to bloom in the end, but here are two more beauties:

I need to finish something non-quilting related this weekend, so probably no sewing until next weekend, unless I'm super quick with this other thing.
Would you mind keeping your fingers crossed for me?

time for a check in

Last time I was just a few hours late, but I hope I'll manage to squeeze in this time and link up to the mid-winter check in for:

Let me show you how it has gone so far:

1. Finish the Australian quilt. - done 

2. Sew my first ever skirt. - done

3. Make lots of 241 totes as gifts my friends. - Not done, I made some phone cozies instead, although I hope to be able to sew the bags at some point, possibly in summer.

4. Make mugrug for Quokka Quilts Mug Rugs of the world - if I manage to think up something with a Polish theme. - Complete fail here, no specific idea comes to my mind, so I'm afraid I'll just have to give up.

5. Prepare more blocks for the wonky kites quilt (just waiting for more grey fabric to arrive) and of course make the quilt. - The top is finished (although I still might change my mind and add some borders) but I just can't decide what to use for the back.

6. Make the red/pink/brown diamonds picnic blanket/smaller quilt with the ex-hexies from Lynz. - This has gained an official UFO status, I'm afraid, and needs to be postponed again, at least until summer, but I still like it very much and I'm going to finish it eventually.

7. Make a baby quilt for our friends' little boy. - done

8. Make a new quilt for my sister - this time with the fabrics she's chosen and the design we've chosen together. - done

9. Make a quilt for my little sister's wedding (she's my cousin really, but I hope she won't mind me calling her little sister ;) - I started yesterday and I will have to wait for some more fabric to arrive, but I hope the basic blocks for the top will be finished tomorrow. In the meantime - a rather chaotic sneak peek:

Of course some new projects appeared in the meantime, so I have to add at least:

10. Finish the wavy quilt for my friend (update: this is what the ironing from my previous post was all about).

11. Make a mini quilt for:

12. Make one more quilt about which I'm not going to reveal much until it's finished - in spring most probably.

So much about sewing plans. And speaking about spring - the bulbs (now -  officially -  tulips) decided to start blooming.