Sometimes simple is best

July 2, 2020 | bunysanders

My friend Vibeke made this adorable little lap, picnic, beach, you name it it has a use, strap it to the back of your bike, tablecloth, cot quilt, the list is endless.

Simply the best, I love it.

Skinning a giant king size quilt and it’s restoration.

June 20, 2020June 20, 2020 | bunysanders

I started this quilt many years ago before I had a Longarm, when I decided to quilt it on my domestic sewing machine I though that if I used two layers of batting, one cotton and an extra fine poly it would give it more volume and the flowers would pop, they did not.

As Toots is pointing out, there were some issues with my first attempt at quilting it.
When I got my Longarm machine I thought that if I added some meandering to it it would hold the quilt together better and the flowers would pop, I was new to Longarm quilting back then and my stitches were too small and there was to much meandering giving the quilt too much volume and weight!

Pretty poor quilting, stitching too small and uneven.
I finished the quilt, put on the binding and put it away, it was simply too heavy to use and even to heavy to hang, it was a disaster, I had put to much time and effort into making the quilt top and the fabric used was giving to me by my good friend Ethel at a time when we lived in Saudi Arabia and fabric was hard to get, she brought me a big stack of fat quarters from Huston Texas.
I was so disappointed in myself for ruining what should have been a lovely quilt.

Fast forward eight years later, lockdown, time on my hands, I thought it’s time to rescue Ethels quilt.
I took it out to the lawn with a scalpel, fingers crossed and after watching a tutorial on YouTube set to work.
I soon changed from using the scalpel to using a new blade rotary cutter, I used five new blades on this project, cutting thread sure dulls the blade quickly.

What a joy when I reached the end of it!
It took me several days.
Sore knees, hands and wrists, I needed a break to recover.

Turns out it was a bamboo batting and a fine weight poly batting.

A big pile of Tula Pink fabric, what to do with it, I washed and pressed all the pieces, ever the frugal quilter!

I gave the quilt a blow in the wind in the hopes of it removing some of the threads left, nope, it just looked happy to be free of all the weight!

Next I had to remove all the thread, seems every stitch is still there waiting to be pulled off, after many different try’s I settled on my clean gardening cloves, I held the quilt taught with one hand and rubbed as much as I could off with my other.

Finished, Toots expected the quilt to make sure I got it all, there was still some thread attached where I had tied it off and some tiny stitching.

Now to steam the stitching holes and remove the rest of the thread.

As you can see every stitch left it’s mark.

It was a little shredded on two of the corners after it’s blow in the wind.

I replaced what was needed but left as much as possible of the original.

This tiny bundle was all I could find in my stash of the original fabric.

First steaming, still some stitching trails.
There was nothing to do but to keep steaming and pressing until it was finished, there is no short cuts .

Now I am ready to quilt again, I will order some super soft wool batting and find some cotton lawn for the back.
I will post photos of the finished quilt later when it’s done.
This has been an incredibly interesting project, not one I would recommend to anyone, I hope never to have to do it again, it was painful on my bones and muscles but super exciting at the same time, the joy of being able to start again with a quilt that means so much to me, brings back wonderful memories of my time spent quilting with Ethel, her friendship and kindness are always in my heart and I think of her often even although we now live 1000s of miles apart.

Michaels back pack

June 13, 2020 | bunysanders

Michael Helbo asked me if I could make a couple of holders for his flask that could be attached to his backpack.

I made it using a waterproof lightweight black fabric for insulation , two layers of black batting and black cotton lining.
I quilted a simple checkered design on it using a fine needle to minimise leaks.
I threaded wide strong elastic through the top and added Velcro to secure the flasks so they will not fall out but are still easily accessible.
I sewed strong canvas straps to them with adjustable Velcro closes and attached them to the backpack.
They are completely removable so he can use them else where.

Annette’s colourful modern quilt

June 13, 2020 | bunysanders

Annette wither her fabulous modern quilt.

Annette chose an amazing modern E2E pantograph for her quilt and it complimented it perfectly.

I used a pale gold thread on the front and a dark gold on the back.

Marbritt’s king size Kaffe Quilt

June 13, 2020 | bunysanders

Marbritt’s huge Kaffe Fasset inspired quilt.

Simply quilted with a meander on the outer blocks, how could I compete with the colours. I used a hot pink thread throughout except for the inner border around the middle panel I used a purple thread.

Yes, I know this is inside down, I didn’t notice when taking the photo, what you can’t see in this photos is that I quilted a floral wreath and floral corners on the inner panel.

It was so huge it was difficult to keep it off the ground!

Lis Faurholt’s quilts and quilting story.

June 4, 2020 | bunysanders

I love to hear about my customers quilting story, I was thrilled when Lis agreed to write hers, I hope in the future to have many more quilting stories to bring to you.

http://faurholt.blogspot.com/index/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizart

I made my first patchwork in 1975. A pram/crib blanket and a matching border for the curtains in the nursery. I also had a pair of patchwork pants and a ditto vest in the 70s (pants from a shop, vest homemade). One thing all these objects had in common was that the patches were all squares and there were no quilting!

I also remember seeing a quilt in the making in a friend of a friend’s house back in 1980, when I lived in New Delhi. The lady I visited was an American whos husband worked for Radio America in New Delhi. When walking through the house we passed a room where an Indian lady sat on the floor working on a huge, square quilting frame. I didn’t even walk into the room to take a closer look, just kept walking. What an ignoramus, I was! It took 6 years before I realized what I had missed! Tsk tsk…

At that time – in 1986 – I took a week long course at Kerteminde Husflidshøjskole, where Lis Ahrenkiel was teaching. I admired Lis Ahrenkiel for her skills and deep knowledge of Danish arts and crafts and the course lived up to my expectations and more. Not only did I learn several different patchwork techniques, I also met experienced quilters who introduced me to the patchwork/quilting community that had already existed in Denmark for years. It’s not an exaggeration to say that that course changed my life.

In 1987 I started teaching patchwork and quilting myself. In September 1987 I offered a course on “Quilting, a Mental Health Craft” at AOF Als. For the next 5 years 13 women came to my studio every Thursday evening during the winter. And when I stopped offering the course, they kept showing up every Thursday until I moved to another city.

This group of wonderful women became the founders of the Nordborg Quiltegruppe which still exists. Over the coming years we organized a great number of events and projects: the very successful Nordborg Træf 1991, Danmarkstæpperne, that was shown at the Nordisk Quilte Træf, Oslo 1994, we presented a group quilt to Nordborg Rådhus, traveled to the Quilt Con in Salzburg in 1988, spent a weekend in a summer cottage every year etc, etc. and 3 of us (Grete Lindgaard, Bitten Carl and me) edited Kludemagasinet for years.

The Americans saw Europe as a market for teaching in those years and I was an eager student at courses in Denmark and abroad. I have taken classes from famous quilters like Michael James, Jinny Beier, Mary Coyne Penders, Dorle Stern-Straeter et. al. and of course Danish quilters like Charlotte Yde, Lisbet Borggren and others.

When Brenda asked me to write about my quilt life, I dug into my UFO chest to take look at projects that have been tucked away for years and when I look at those and think back on all the things I participated in, I realize that my main focus has been on the community aspects and on acquiring personal skills more than producing quilts. It seems I have more UFOs than finished quilts, unless I have forgotten some of the quilts that I have brought to thrift shops over the years. I seem to loose interest when my quilts are 2/3 done and prefer to start a new one instead of hanging in there and finishing the project. There are all sorts of quilt genres/techniques – often begun after the courses I took – but not a single one is a copy. They are all my own designs.

In 2001 I moved from my farmhouse on Als and started a new job that made a time consuming hobby impossible. I took a hard decision and stored all my fabrics and tools in moving boxes. Now – 20 years later and retired – I unpacked my treasures and started quilting again. And my (second) quilt life has taken a new turn, thanks to Brenda asking me to take a stroll down memory lane. It got me started working on my UFOs! (Thanks, Brenda!). I finished an Amish quilt a couple of days ago and I’m close to finishing quilting my very first quilt, an ugly sampler quilt. It has been tucked away in the UFO chest for more than 20 years and is definitely not a beauty.

Both quilts present an important learning process. The Amish quilt is a bit too dark for my taste, but the hand quilting I’ve done on it is quite interesting and I’m rather pleased with that. The best I can say about the sampler quilt is that it’s an example of how to rescue a quilt top from total disaster.

There are still some UFOs that deserves to be finished, however I do not plan to stop creating new quilts. At the moment I’m working on reconstructing traditional BowTie Quilts and Nine Patch quilts. I start out with a traditional block quilt and then try to reconstruct it in the next quilt. If you’re interested, you’re very welcome to see more pictures of my quilts on Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizart) and an Instagram (#lisfaurholt) or follow my blog (http://faurholt.blogspot.com/index/), where I talk about what I’m doing and remembering.

Finally a bit about the quilt that Brenda has quilted for me: it’s a throw quilt for my daughter. Her taste is very classic and the quilt design reflects that. I have written about the process, the reflections and choices we made at my blog from February 23rd 2020 when it got started until now, when it’s finished with Brenda’s awesome quilting.