North Sea Quilters in the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk

Of course it can't be a"North Sea Quilters and Friends" exhibition without showing our own works. We selected "Little Amsterdam" and "Kyoto Nights" to exhibit during the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk.

"Little Amsterdam" quilted by Marybeth Tawfik,
designed and pieced by Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor, Marybeth Tawfik

72” x 72”, 2007

This quilt was conceived by the North Sea Quilters as a tribute to the beautiful and distinctive architecture of the Netherlands, our host country. The house facades are all based on real houses found on the canals of Amsterdam. The quilting was done to replicate all the different textures found around these houses: smoke, wind, vines, bricks, cobblestones, and water.

This quilt won 1st prize for Long Arm Quilting at the Open European Championships, Waalre, the Netherlands, 2007.

Kyoto Nights (2008)
by North Sea Quilters: Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor and Marybeth Tawfik
67” x 73”

Kyoto Nights celebrates the large-scale asymmetrical Japanese floral prints that have been so popular in the last few years. Using a hexagon as a base, North Sea Quilters have isolated vignettes of the fabric to give the impression of looking into a Japanese garden at night through a window. The Japanese crests were stitched from patterns on the Statler Stitcher™, the chrysanthemums were first drafted and digitized by Leslie and the “rain” in the bamboo forest was stitched freehand.


This is the end of our report on the exhibition. Thanks for following it during the last couple of weeks.

Quilts of Andreas Wolf at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk between 14-15 February you could also see these two quilts, which were designed, pieced and long-arm quilted by Andreas Wolf.

Andreas Wolf: "Elemantals"
47.5” x 55”

"‘Elemantals’ uses hand-dyed fabrics for the applique and is quilted on a longarm every line. This quilt was displayed at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. The quilt was machine sewn and longarm quilted on a Gammill® Optimum Plus."

Andreas Wolf: "Opal"
59” x 90”

"This batik quilt was made to showcase our acrylic templates and the fabrics. It was machine sewn and longarm quilted on a Gammill® Optimum Plus using an edge-to-edge pattern."
The templates are available from: www.rainbow-house.de

Andreas Wolf was born in Hamburg 1965 and grew up on the Lake of Konstanz. He began making handicrafts at a very early age, knitting and cross-stitching. The first quilt show he attended was an exhibition of Amish quilts in Konstanz in 1995. He was then inspired to begin making traditional quilts. In 1998 he opened his own quilt shop in Hamburg and began as a professional quilter. In the shop he has everything any quilter would need. He holds classes, attends quilt shows all over Europe, and produces templates for cutting fabric. In 2005 he purchased an Optimum Plus® long arm quilting machine from Gammill and began to custom quilt clients’ quilt tops. Andreas loves to meet nice, creative people and brings a unique perspective to quilting. You can contact Andreas on 0049.40.22697070 or e-mail to quilthouse@t-online.de
www.quilthouse.de

Quilts of Tracey Pereira at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen 14-15 February in Rijswijk you had the opportunity to look at the Birmingham winner quilts of Tracey Pereira.

Tracey Pereira:"It Happened Overnight …" (2003)
70” x 90”

"During the past twenty years or so the mysterious and often overnight appearance of crop circles has fascinated the world over. Intrigued by many of these beautiful and intricate designs I used this quilt to focus on this strange phenomena."

The inspiration for the quilting designs comes from the book "Crop Circles" by Werner Anderhub and Hans Peter Roth. Whilst some artistic license has been employed many of the quilting designs are based on actual circle formations. Quilted on a non-stitch regulated Gammill® Classic.

This quilt was the winner of the 2006 Art Prize for Freehand Quilting at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, England.

"Cosmic Cousins" long-arm quilted by Tracey Pereira (2006)

85” x 85”

"This two-colour piece incorporates an "Ohio Star" foundation block designed by Carol Doak and pieced by my cousin Emma Armstrong. The on-point layout was a 'happy accident' after discovering insufficient blocks had been made but left an open door for some bespoke quilting. Tracey developed the quilting design and freehand quilted it on her Gammill® Optimum plus quilting machine."

This quilt won 2nd place in 2006 at the Festival of Quilts, Birmingham, England, for a two-person quilt and for long arm quilting. It was also juried into the 2008 Mancuso World Quilt and Textiles tour.

Tracey Pereira is an award-winning quilter based in the South of England. She has been quilting for many years and has taught at both national and international levels. She is also a published author and has made several contributions to UK patchwork and quilting magazines. Most recently, Tracey has produced a number of designs for robotic and computerised quilting and embroidery systems.
Tracey is also an accredited judge with the Quilters Guild of the British Isles.
You can see more about Tracey and her work at www.teepeequilts.co.uk.

Quilts of Mary Palmer at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

Many of you admired the work of Mary Palmer during the Patchwork en Quiltdagen 14-15 February in Rijswijk. You can look at the quilts again and read about them here.

Mary Palmer: "20th Century Stars" (2006)
90” x 90”, 2006

"This quilt was made as part of a challenge themed “Blue and White Stars”. Having recently made a traditional star quilt, I tried to play with the term “stars”, hence the familiar faces. The two girls in the centre are my daughters, both born in the 20th century, and stars to me! In the quilting, I have tried to complement the image in each area."

"Log Cabin Houses" quilted by Mary Palmer
64” x 88”

"Marie O’Brien pieced this quilt, having purchased Heidi Stoll-Weber’s hand-dyed cotton sateen and having seen the pattern in a book by Favin Glover. She then gave it to me to quilt. I felt that as the houses had such tiny pieces of fabric, then tiny quilting would be most appropriate. The quilting in the “sky” represents wind, and the earth and borders are cobbled like a road."

Mary Palmer: "Grandmaster " (2004)
90” x 90”

"This quilt was made for the Amish Long Arm Challenge. It was inspired by Amish strippy quilts, with colours inspired by 20th century Amish quilts. When it was finished it reminded me of a circus tent, hence the name “Grandmaster”.
It was the second or third quilt I quilted on a long arm machine (Gammill Optimum with stitch regulator and Gammil Optimum w/o stitch regulator!), which a friend very kindly let me use."



Mary Palmer has been an avid quilter since 1990. Her work has been shown in many exhibitions both in Europe and the US. She has been juried into the AQS show in Paducah and has won awards through the RDS competition in Dublin. Most recently, she has qualified as a Quilt Judge through the Quilters Guild of the British Isles.
www.marimudesigns.com

Yvonne McKee's Quilt in the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition in Rijswijk

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk you could also see Yvonne McKee's "Blue Rhapsody" in the long-arm quilting gallery.

Yvonne McKee: "Blue Rhapsody" (2006)
90” x 90”

"I fell in love with the blue batiks especially the flowery one, which I used in the centre of each star and then the outer border. I also enjoyed creating freeform feathers in the main body of quilt and continuing the feather theme in the two inner border."

Yvonne McKee, 53 years old, owns a quilt shop in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She has been longarm quilting for five years now and currently has a Gammill Optimum® with a Statler Stitcher™ and an Optimum. Her shop is called Quilters Quest. She teaches classes and workshops, as well as providing a quilting service.
www.quiltersquest.co.uk

Quilts of Liesbeth van der Hilst at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

This time you can read about the quilts of Liesbeth van der Hilst, which were exhibited during the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk between 14-15 February.

Liesbeth van Der Hilst: Festival of Snowflakes
65” x 77”

"All of the snowflakes are pieced with paper piecing techniques. The big stars are from a book by Paula Nadelstern. The other stars I designed. All the stars are appliquéd then quilted in the ditch using transparent thread. Between the stars you can see quilted stars using free-hand quilting and blue and silver threads."

"Alle snowflakes zijn gemaakt met de paper piecing- techniek. De grote sterren komen uit het boek van Paula Nadelstern. De andere sterren zijn zelf ontworpen. Alle sterren zijn geappliqueerd en daarna met transparant garen in de naad gequilt. Tussen de sterren zijn uit de vrije hand sterren gequilt met blauw garen en met zilverdraad."

Liesbeth van Der Hilst:"Hestia 4"
59” x 62”

"Hoffman butterfly fabrics are the basis for this Stack ’n Whack quilt. The hexagons are quilted in Stitch in the Ditch. In the plain areas I experimented with different background fillings and different (variegated) threads."

"Hoffman vlinderstof stond aan de basis voor deze Stack ’n Whack quilt. De hexagons zijn in de naad gequilt. In de effen vlakken is geëxperimenteerd met verschillende vlakvullingen en verschillende (verlopende) garens."

Liesbeth van der Hilst started quilting on a Gammill® longarm machine in January of 2006. Lots of beautiful quilt tops came in to be quilted. It is really a lot of fun to talk to quilters and explain the possibilities of this machine!! There is always a solution to enhance the quilt tops with quilting in accordance with the wishes of the owner.
www.atelierhestia.nl

Marie-Christine Chammas at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk between 14-15 February you could also see these two quilts, which were designed, pieced and long-arm quilted by Marie-Christine Chammas.

Marie-Christine Chammas: "Arabia Felix: Colorful Desert Dreams"
43”x 61”, 2007

"In the south-western region of the Arabian Peninsula, also known as Arabia Felix, women paint the front wall of their houses in bright colors, thus bringing a very high contrast into the barren landscape. A reportage about the wall paintings in this region was the source of inspiration for my quilt."

Marie-Christine Chammas:"Berry Delight: Almost Whole Cloth"

70” x 70”, 2007

"Do you like ice cream? I do! In winter, I prefer the rich, creamy textures of chocolate and mocha, but in summer, I fancy light, fruity sorbets. In 2007, my favourite flavours were red berries, and a special treat in my favourite ice cream parlor on a warm summer evening was the source of inspiration for this quilt."


In the late 1990’s, Marie-Christine Chammas was looking up special sewing techniques for her hand-dyed silks and velvets when she came across patchwork and quilting. Quilting almost instantly ignited a passion, more specifically machine quilting, and the possibilities of structuring surface and space through quilting lines have been her ongoing subject of artistic pursuit since.
After working for many years in the field of translation and language teaching, Marie-Christine started a longarm quilting business in 2005, being one of the pioneers to offer fine custom quilting services in Germany. In early 2008, the acquisition of additional quilting machines provided the possibility of hosting longarm quilting classes for various levels.
Next to offering quilting services, Quiltissimo focuses on designing quilts and quilted accessories for the modern home.

www.quiltissimo.de
info@quiltissimo.de

Martina Curtis's Quilts at the North Sea Quilters and Friends exhibition

Here you can see and read more about the quilts of Martina Curtis, which were exhibited during the Patchwork en Quiltdagen 14-15 February in Rijswijk.

Martina Curtis: "Autumn Ladies"
60" x 80"

"I had collected the fabric some years ago and decided to use the Lady of the Lake design for them. Edge to Edge quilted on a Gammill® Classic Plus quilting machine."

Martina Curtis: "Amish Night"
90" x 90"

"Created for a challenge held at the Festival of Quilts, at the NEC in Birmingham. Freehand quilted on a Gammill® Optimum Plus quilting machine."

Martina Curtis was born in the Netherlands but has been living in Ireland for the past 30 years. She is an award-winning quilter who has been quilting professionally on a Gammill® machine for over 8 years. She continues to advance her skills and is still a keen patchworker and quilter.

Challenge Quilts from the Long-arm Quilting Gallery - Part I.

In the next blogs you can see and read about the challenge quilts, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. The quilts were first shown in Birmingham 2008 and it is organized and presented by Beryl Cadman, (Custom Quilting) the European distributor of Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system and co-sponsored by Twisted Thread. Scroll down to see the first three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Maria Laza-Bihari: Midnight Minuet
96" x 96"

"I love colours therefore I tried to incorporate the two challenge fabrics into a colorful palette of yellows, reds, purples and greens, moving from dark to lights towards the middle of the quilt. I was always fascinated by the dynamism of the Storm at Sea Pattern, the way it moves your eyes and lets you discover new patterns. This variation of Storm at Sea gave me the opportunity to play with the circles that formed as a secondary pattern. In the quilting I tried to emphasize the circles, by quilting in the ditch, then stitching an airy free-hand quilting around them. The stars were stitched in the ditch. The quilting was done on a Gammill® Optimum Plus long-arm quilting machine, which my North Sea Quilters friends kindly let me use. It is my first long-arm quilted project."

Maria Laza-Bihari was born in Hungary and has always been interested in handicrafts. She bought her first sewing machine with the first bonus from her first job. She caught the “quilting bug” about 10 years ago. She started with traditional hand-pieced patchwork and later moved to piecing and quilting by machine. She was one of the founding members of the International Women’s Contact patchwork group in The Hague. In this group, she met Marybeth Tawfik and Leslie Carol Taylor, who then all travelled together to the International Quilt Expo in Lyon, France, in 2006. By that time Maria was occupied with the idea of how to turn her hobby into her profession. The following year the three women established North Sea Quilters, which gives Maria the wonderful opportunity to combine everything she likes best, patchwork, challenging herself, working in a group and meeting people, making them happy and helping them to learn, grow and find their own ways in quilting.

www.northseaquilters.com

Emma and Pam Ablett: Dragon Flower (detail)
90” x 90”

This quilt was a joint effort. Emma Ablett designed and pieced the top, and advised on quilting patterns to accentuate the piecing. Pam then completed the quilt on the Gammill® longarm quilting machine. The quilting is a mixture of free-hand stitch in the ditch and embellishment, and blocks and borders were fitted using the Statler Stitcher™ computerised quilting system.


As the proud owners of “Quilters Trading Post”, Pam and Emma Abblett are pleased to offer approximately 3000 bolts of fabric. Along with this large collection of fabrics, the shop also offers a quilting service, classes and a fabric printing service for those precious family photos.
The shop has been open now for just over a year and a half and gets busier as each week passes.
www.quilterstradingpost.com

Cheryl Thomas: Cheryl's Star (detail)

90" x 90"

This quilt was created for the Long-arm Gallery at the Festival of Quilts, in Birmingham, 2008. This year the challenge was to create a quilt of 90" x 90" with two Japanese fabrics provided, along with any other fabrics we liked.

Cheryl Thomas lives in Southwest Wales. She is married with 3 sons and a full time job as well.
Cheryl had been a keen quilter for many years and in 2004 her Gammill® Optimum Quilting Machine became a welcome addition to her family. She loves her Gammill and regularly takes classes and attends EMQE each year to further her quilting skills.
Even with her limited time available she contributes to the Longarm Exhibition held at the Festival of Quilts, NEC Birmingham each year.

Patchwork and Quilt Days in Rijswijk

View of the Challenge Quilts at the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham 2008.

We would like to invite you to the Patchwork en Quilt Dagen (Days) Exhibition in Rijswijk on 14-15 February 2009.

We are participating with an Exhibition of North Sea Quilters and Friends, which consists of two parts:

The Long-arm quilting challenge 2008
These quilts were originally hung at The Festival of Quilts in Birmingham in August 2008 and was sponsored by Custom Quilting Ltd. and Gammill.The exhibition consists of 13 large quilts (90 inches square) which each incorporate two challenge fabrics in addition to any other fabrics the maker chose to use in their personal design. North Sea Quilters participated in this challenge with three separate quilts.

A Selection of Long-arm Quilts, Showcasing Different Possibilities
Quilts by Irena Bluhm (USA), Beryl Cadman, Marie-Christine Chammas, Martina Curtis, Robyn Fahy, Liesbeth van der Hilst,Yvonne McKee, Mary Palmer, Tracey Pereira, Andreas Wolf and the North Sea Quilters: Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor and Marybeth Tawfik.

Other Exhibitions During the Show

Feathers

Finalists of the International Quilt Competition “Feathers”, organized by the 14^de Carrefour Européen du Patchwork in Val d’Argent, France, where these quilts were first exhibited from 18th to 21th September 2008.

StiQS

StiQs is a group of enthusiastic quilters, whose approach to quilting has became more and more free with time. They pursue their own way whilst still adhering to some basic techniques. Although textile remains the most important material, it is certainly not the only one they incorparate in their work. StiQS was founded in 2006. All members completed the course “Speciality Quilting”, organized by “Kunstfactor” the Dutch national institute for amateur art. For more information see: www.stiqs.nl

Elly Prins

Elly Prins has been quilting since 1993. She has always quilted by machine and was the first quilter in The Netherlands to introduce long-arm quilting. Having followed courses in the US she has developed into a quilter with great experience in the field of machine quilting. This exhibition gives an overview of the stages of her development.

Vendors

Shops from both The Netherlands and abroad will offer a large selection of fabric, books, patterns and speciality tools during the Patchwork and Quilting Days.

Presentations and Lectures

There will be a lecture or presentation every hour on both days.

You can read more on our website www.northseaquilters.com under the News section.

For Dutch translation, please visit our website: www.northseaquilters.com under the News section.

More information www.exporijswijk.nl.

Information about advance purchase of entrance tickets: www.jobinadeboer.nl

We hope to see you at Rijswijk,

Maria, Leslie and Marybeth

Winner of the Long-arm Quilting Voucher

North Sea Quilters organized a lottery among those quilters who visited our booth and signed up to our newsletter at the General Exhibition (Algemene tentoonstelling) of the Dutch Quilter's Guild (Quiltersgilde) in Arnhem. The prize of the lottery was a 95 Euro long-arm quilting voucher, which is an equivalent of quilting a 165 x 180 cm sized patchwork top with an intensive phantograph .

The president of the Dutch Quilter's Guild, Jeanne Hamers-van der Werff drew the winning lottery at the end of the exhibition on the 10th September.

The winner of the 95 Euro long-arm quilting voucher is Mevr. A. Sauer.

We would like to congratulate to the winner!

Jeanne Hamers-van der Werff and Leslie Carol Taylor during the drawing of the winner lottery ticket.

Maria's Quilt: the Dance of a Quilter - Midnight Minuet

It is my turn to introduce my quilt I made for the long-arm quilting gallery at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. How many times I learned that I should trust my first instinct, but I always think, rationalize. This was a fine example of it.

Maria Laza-Bihari: Midnight Minuet

When I started to work with the challenge fabrics, thinking through colour combinations my first reaction was to dig out an old project, as it had all the colours I had in mind: red, purple and green. It was a variation of the Storm at Sea Pattern which I fell in love with a long time ago. But this project had been prepared for hand-piecing and all the pieces were cut in centimetres! I had a look at it and discarded the idea, as it would have been a very time consuming project and this time I wanted to concentrate on the quilting and not the piecing. I took another direction and I played with several ideas, based on sashiko patterns. Days of drawing, designing and finally one morning I woke up with the IDEA. Let's not go into details otherwise I will never finish this blog. One thing is sure Equilter and My Blue Bamboo benefitted from my search for the perfect fabrics. Unfortunately none of them worked well in this design with the challenge fabrics. The outcome was a few interesting projects for the future and of course plenty of beautiful fabrics in my drawers, but concerning the challenge I was back to square one or should I say back to my first instinct, the old Storm at Sea variation. I always wanted to finish it and now everything pointed in this direction. Once I was sure, it went "fairly quickly". All I needed was to sew day and night (as the deadline and my holiday were coming closer) and to take over the living-room floor as a design board. Of course I wouldn't have been able to do this without my family's patience and understanding. I have to acknowledge they were very supportive or maybe just worried that we'd miss our holiday ?! The quilting still was ahead of me. I wanted to stitch in the ditch to emphasize the circles and turn these secondary patterns into the main focus and then fill up with free-hand quilting. I was very excited as this was my first SID on the long-arm quilting machine. It was nice to see how the circles came alive under my fingers. I couldn't finish the quilting completely before it went to Birmingham, I still need to do the free-hand quilting. It was a compromise, as I don't think my family would have accepted if I had cancelled our holiday. I promise I will post a photo of my quilt in our blog, once it is finished. Until then you can look at the photo, taken in Birmingham.

One more thing; I have to thank Marybeth for the name of my quilt, "Midnight Minuet" . It represents the whole story of my quilt.

Summer in The Netherlands

We have been very busy over the summer, not updating the blog obviously, but then it is no secret that we really prefer sewing and quilting to doing anything else.
Now what have we been busy doing??? Well for some reason we thought we would have a quiet time over the summer regarding our machinequilting for customers. Well we are pleased to inform you that there are enough really addicted quilters in NL who keep up their patchwork and quilting all summer and don’t want to go and sit in the garden or go to the beach. Maybe it was because we had rather a lot of rain.... Now we really enjoy quilting other people’s quilts, and we will show you some of the pictures over the coming weeks, but we also like quilting our own projects!!!

So our plan was to work on our own quilts. Our friend Beryl Cadman (Gammill long-arm representative for Europe) organises the long-arm gallery each year at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. She usually selects a theme beforehand such as Blue and White Stars (2006) or Black and White and One other Colour (2007). This year the challenge was to completely incorporate two half yards of fabric which we received beforehand: a mauve Japanese floral with chrysanthemums and a small green floral to make a 90” by 90” quilt (about 230cm square - yes that is quite big).

Detail of Robyn Fahy's black and white and yellow quilt

Now we each had our own ideas of what we wanted to do. Marybeth was inspired by the hydrangeas in her garden. Her idea was brilliant: to use a snowball block in different sizes, and vary the colour from top left to bottom right; the centre of the blocks the flowers ranging from hydrangea blue to mauve to pink and the corners the leaves in a variety of greens. Now we don’t know exactly how many different fabrics she used in her quilt, but we think equilter did quite well out of it...

Marybeth Tawfik's "Hortensia Hideaway"

Next time more about Maria’s and Leslie’s quilts!!

North Sea Quilters Congratulates to Yuko Kaldenberg

The Patchwork and Quilts Days Show in Rijswijk (28-30 March 2008) hosted several exhibition as Q-Art Belgium, works of Agnes ten Hoeve, "A garden, passionately", organized by the 13^th Carrefour Européen du Patchwork in Val d’Argent, France and also the Bernina Quilt Competition with the theme "Celebration", which featured traditional and art quilts in different categories.
North Sea Quilters also supported the competition with a voucher for long-arm quilting services of the value of 100 Euro. Our prize was presented to Yuko Kaldenberg, who won the 1st prize with her "Feathered star" quilt in the " Traditional Advanced " category. We would like to congratulate her and the other winners of the competition. Please find below some photos of Yuko's quilt. You can also admire the beautifully hand-pieced and hand-quilted work.

Feathered Star by Yuko Kaldenberg

Details of the quilt

Bernina presents the prizes

The winner with North Sea Quilters in front of Little Amsterdam

Patchwork and Quilt Days in Rijswijk

The last weekend of March we participated in the Patchwork and Quilt Days Show in Rijswijk, The Netherlands. We were very excited, as this was our first occasion to be behind the table, as a vendor and to serve our customers instead of being served. It was a good opportunity to show our designs, patterns, kits, the unique hand-made Hungarian indigo fabrics (Kékfestő) and bring closer the long-arm quilting services to the quilters in the Netherlands. We enjoyed very much meeting our visitors and talking to them. We would like to express our thanks to those who visited our booth. We hope you liked the exhibition and had a very nice weekend. We also would like to thank our family, being patient and surviving the weekend without us and also a big thanks to our friends, who popped in and supported us.

Here are some pictures about the preparation and the North Sea Quilters booth.


Getting ready for the show and waiting for the opening


Having a break and helping our customers

1st Prize at European Quilt Championship

We were surprised and honored as the competition was so stiff, that our "Little Amsterdam" quilt won the 1st prize in the long-arm quilting category at the European Quilt Championship in Waalre, The Netherlands in October 2007.
For four days visitors could enjoy the exhibition of patchworks from European quilters, stroll around the patchwork shops and look at the exhibition of the special guests, the Hungarian quilter, Eszter Bornemissza and the Dutch Henk van Kooten.
You can see the photos of prize winning quilts at the following website:
http://www.eqc.nl/nl/eqc2007/index.htm

Here we are in front of our quilt in Waalre.

I think quilt exhibitions/competitions, like the European Quilt Championship play an important role in the European patchworker's community, especially now that the European Quilt Expo ceased to exist. In a way they can take over the role of the Quilt Expo. It gives opportunity to see other quilters' work from all over Europe and gives a boost and inspiration to quilters. I would encourage every quilter to dare to submit their work to competitions, to share their patchwork with the quilters' community. The deadline for the next EQC is the 15th January 2008.

Maria
http://www.northseaquilters.com

Little Amsterdam - Our First Work+

Here is our first work, as North Sea Quilters: Little Amsterdam, which was designed in mind of creating a keepsake about The Netherlands, that we would all like to take home, once we move to another country. We incorporated the images of the canal houses of Amsterdam with the colors of the Delft Blue china. The houses are made after existing houses along the canals of Amsterdam.

We are very proud of it and we received a lot of positive comments, but the real test will be next week, as Little Amsterdam is entered into the European Quilt Championship in Waalre in The Netherlands.

If you would like to see this quilt, you can visit the European Quilt Championship in Waalre, from 25-28th October.

Maria

http://www.northseaquilters.com