A quilt for Blogger Quilt Festival

Amy, – Park City Girl, – is once again organizing the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. Thank you Amy for creating such a fun time!

I've decided to share this quilt with you (some of you already know its story) because this is one of my favorite quilts.

While I quilt I usually listen music and Mylene Farmer is my favorite singer. Mylene is one of the most successful artists of all time in France.

I saw her in Paris performing in three concerts. Those days were the most beautiful days of my life.
I wanted to thank her for the wonderful music I listen every day so I made this quilt for her. I hope she received it and she likes it.

I worked on it for three days, the quilt is made using shadow trapunto technique, the white motifs and lettering are made out of batting.

I love Mylene's music as much as I love quilting. I am so happy that I could combine the two passions of my life to make this special project.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, enjoy looking at all the Quilt Festival quilts!

The winners...

of the May giveaway:

Gayle (http://mangofeet.blogspot.com/) won "Pockets with Love" patterns,

Miss Nancy( http://teaandquilts.blogspot.com/) won "Retro Fun" bag patterns.

I will send you the patterns soon.

Thank you all for participating.

Batting

I just bought a new bolt of batting for my future projects.It measures 84"x 55 yds.

I did not sell my house to buy it ! Because I did not buy it from abroad ( if you don't know that shipping is so expensive for batting, lucky you!).

I am still lucky because for most of my quilts I can buy batting here in Romania.

It's a thick fluffy polyester batting but it works wonderfully for many of my quilts.

A few days ago I quilted a small quilt with cotton batting. Which reminded me the difference between quilting with thick and fluffy batting and quilting with flat batting.

It is so easy to quilt with flat batting- much less chances to develop creases during the quilting.

So, I don't pay more money for flat batting, but I pay with much care and much work ! And many pins used for basting the layers (I don't use safety pins) and sometimes with a few re-pinnings ! I know what I mean ! Because I made this quilt !

This is the third bolt of batting I bought in the last two years! I don't know what I made with so much batting ! Oh, I remember...many quilted bags, and many shadow trapunto quilts...

May Giveaway

This giveaway is closed now. Thank you all for participating. I will choose the winners soon.

Today is the Giveaway Day on blogland.
Visit Sew Mama Sew to see the big list of participants.

Here are my gifts for you:
"Pockets with Love" patterns for one lucky winner,

and "Retro Fun" bag patterns for another one.

If you want to be one of the winners please leave a comment at the end of this post.
The giveaway is open until May 20 (midnight, local hour).
I will choose the winners using a random number generator on May 21.

Please assure there is a way I can contact you. And I would like to know where you are from !
Good luck !

I taught for the first time !

* when I scheduled the class I was excited;

* in the middle of the night before the class I was sewing blocks;

* I went to bed at 1.30 AM and I was nervous;

* I wake up at 5.30 AM and I was even nervous !

* on the road ( two hours drive) my only though was: “did I forget something essential, like rotary cutter ?”; I did not forget anything;

* when we arrived there I forgot all the concerns;

* I took with me some of my quilts and for more than an hour we looked at them;

* the students (the staff of a company in Sibiu that sells Brother and Elna sewing machines) were happy to see my quilts;

* they did not know how a quilt is made;

* I showed them how to make this quilt;

* they were amazed by the accuracy required by patchwork !

* they were even more amazed by free motion quilting;

* I stitched on a Elna 7300 sewing machine; it sews beautifully;

* I used a few decorative stitches;

* I stitched the free motion part with a very thin rayon thread (Madeira) and a regular needle and the thread did not break ! I can’t do that with my old Pfaff even if I stitch with topstitch needle! Still I bought for me a set of spools because I couldn’t resist to their shine!

Finally, they all agree - quilting could easily become an addiction !
We hope we will find new students !

I have the best husband in the world! He was my chauffeur and my assistant and helped me a lot !

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Voi scrie curand un articol si in limba romana despre aceasta experienta.

Details of my latest quilt

Last week was crazy. A few bad events happened but the worst of all, our Pepe was sick. He did not eat for days, he did not play. But now he is better.

Thank you all for the messages you left on my last post. It was nice to learn more about some of you and your quilting beginnings. It's incredible how a chance influences our lives...

Only today I managed to take more pictures to my latest quilt made using a kit from Jinny Beyer. My camera doesn't like at all these colors or the combination of them, I had to modify the pictures a lot to make the colors look real.

This quilt was a challenge, it tested my patience ! I am glad I passed the test !
I made a lot of things I hate: sewing many-many Y seams and piecing diamonds.

For years I did not order this kit from Jinny because I told myself :"I don't have enough patience to cut and sew the inner border".

But I did it ! These are borders made in Jinny's style. I used one of her border prints, the design of it has bilateral symmetry.

Every piece of the border is the mirror image of the next piece. Very easy to make using transparent templates and Jinny's explanation.
For the black pieces again I had to make templates and sew other Y seams.

It was not hard at all to make it, but you definitely have to be in a good mood to make things you don't like.

It is quilted very simple, with wavy lines, I think quilting took me 5-6 hours.

Have a wonderful week !

Born to Quilt

Ten years ago, I was sitting home learning programming with the intention of getting a job in a software company. I even had an interview and got the job. Finally I refused the offer. Still, I continued learning web programming, waiting for something and not knowing what....

All her life, my mother has been knitting the most beautiful things for her four daughters. And we all learned to knit and enjoyed it.
Suddenly, at that time, I gave up to the idea of taking a new job and wanted to make a living from knitting. I did not like the yarns from our shop and I asked to my sister Oana to look for yarns on Internet.

One day Oana told me :”Go to an Internet café (I did not have Internet access from home) and search on Google the word quilt”. She explained me that quilt is something decorative made out of small pieces of fabric.
It was a cold winter, I remember that Oana was so excited about it so that I took the bus to the nearest Internet café - one hour drive. If I had been lazy, I would have lost the chance of my life.

I googled the word “quilt” and the magic started to happen…
I remember like it was yesterday that the first website I opened was the one of the famous American artist Jinny Beyer.

Her logo quilt amazed me (if you don't know it, go to Jinny's website to see it). It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in my entire life! The colors and shapes revealed a world that I have never imagined it could exist. In that moment I fell in love with quilting.

I desperately searched for tools and fabrics for quilting in our shops, but I could not find any. Very disappointed, I told to myself “So much about quilting !”. Still, I kept looking on the Internet. And so I became addicted to quilting.

For the next few months, I often visited that Internet café, and I could barely leave the computer ... then I got Internet access from home and nothing stopped me from quilting.
At that time I did not know anyone in Romania who made quilts so I had to learn all by myself.

Many things that for most of you mean nothing, for me were big victories:
- the first quilting book I bought;
- the day I understood what is the difference between “batting-backing-binding-basting”(I am not an English native speaker);
- the day I finally figured out what “stitch in the ditch” means;
- the day I brought the sewing machine with free motion quilting foot;
- the day I managed to sew with free motion !
- the first fabric order in a quilt shop in USA;
At that time there were no blogs with tons of tutorials, and I did a hard work to learn everything. But finally I managed to make quilts !

After three years of learning and making quilts I created my website RomanianQuiltStudio (you see, I did not learn web programming for nothing). And for the next few years I shared what I learned with a few Romanian people. I made even a few Romanian quilting friends.

But my quilting life changed when I discovered and fell in love with shadow trapunto. I started to write my blog in English, I made new friends…

Ten years after the beginning of this story, I enjoy every minute of my life, because all I do is connected with quilting. I work all day long, but it is like a play for me, not work. I quilt even in my dreams-really !

I had a dream and the dream came true; I had two quilts in the 2008 Houston judged show; you don’t know what this meant to me. Try to imagine this: a shop beautifully decorated for Christmas and filled with the most amazing toys (that is Houston quilt festival). And a poor child (that is me, very poor because of the lack of quilting tradition in my country) who has been looking through the windows to all the wonders in the shop. But in 2008 the child managed to enter the shop and enjoyed all the wonders…

I was so lucky and I found not only the biggest love of my life-quilting, but I found my biggest love in quilting: shadow trapunto; of course I like many quilting techniques, but no one is like shadow trapunto.

I started making patterns and I am so glad that there are quilters who trust me and buy them - thank you for your support!
Of course, my angel is my husband.. He never told me: “Stop playing and get a real job!”. I make sacrifices in order to quilt, and he makes sacrifices for me.

My only concern is that I do not speak English so well. I spend a lot of time writing in English on this blog. Many times I would like to share with you more things but unfortunately there is not enough time.

Well, I don’t know where I will be in 10 years. I just want to be healthy and make quilts…
And now, here it is:

"Stained Glass Star", 48"x48"

This is not the Jinny Beyer logo-quilt, it is my quilt ! I made it using a kit from Jinny (not only fabrics and patterns, but all those diamonds and squares were already cut) ! I will tell you more about this quilt in a future post.

I always wanted to have it in order to remind me of that first day of my quilting life.
I am so touched when I look at this quilt. But I don’t see only that first day, it seams like it keeps my first ten years of quilting in it!

Thank you Jinny!
Thank you all who read my blog ! You all help me progress!