The Short Course of Little Amsterdam Finished

We had our last lesson of the shortened Little Amsterdam course. During this course the participants pieced only the center part of Little Amsterdam, the bridge houses, they appliquéd the bridge over the water, added the sky border and the dog-tooth border. We had a lot of fun during the class. We would like to thank the ladies for participating in the course.
Here are some photos from the class and the finished works.

Happy quilters with their work



During the class

Leslie's Firework Quilt at the Bernina Booth

During the Patchwork and Quilt Days in Rijswijk Leslie Carol Taylor's Firework quilt decorated the wall of the Bernina Booth. Leslie used different techniques, the "firework blocks" were paper-pieced by hand, the rest of the patchwork top was machine pieced. She quilted it on the Bernina Artista 440 Sewing Machine.

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

How to Service Your Sewing Machines

I often surprised how quilters don't realize the importance of cleaning and taking care of their sewing machine. May be they forget, may be they don't know or they are scared to do it. I don't even dare to mention the issue of changing needles...
I thought it's time to encourage you to tackle this "cleaning-the-sewing machine" issue and as a first step, you can read the advices of a sewing machines' expert, Mr. Ruud Rooijacker, dealer of the Bernina Sewing Machines from Katwijk. He is in this business since 23 years or I should say even longer as he follows a family tradition, his knowledge is in his blood. His father opened his sewing machine shop 57 years ago. Today Mr. Rooijacker owns a beautiful, light show room with all the Bernina models.
He was very happy to give you advices on how to maintain your machine at home and when you should take it to the specialist for a service.

How often do you need to service your machine?
- It depends on the usage of the sewing machine. If you sew every day on your machine, you should service it once a year. If you use once a week, but oil it on a regular base, your machine needs a service in every 2-3 years.
When you should oil your sewing machine?
- If you can listen to your machine, you can tell from the sound, that it's time to oil it, provided that it's a machine made of steel parts, like Bernina.
How to clean and oil your sewing machine?
- You can lay your machine on its back. It is easier to reach the hook.
- Take out the hook and clean the hook with a brush and a piece of cloth;
- Clean the inside part with a vacuum cleaner;
- Lower the feed dog, take out the needle plate;
- Clean with cotton buds;
- Put 1-2 drops oil on the side of the axle of the hook.




Why do you need to change needles very often?
- It is easy mathematics. Just think about the distance of the take up lever from the bottom to the top, with an average stitch length of 3-4 mm-s. How many times goes the lever up and down, lifting the needle and feeding the thread through the needle? So it is very important to always choose a good quality thread with a good quality needle and always the right needle for the right project.

If you would like to learn more about taking care of your sewing machine or considering buying a new one - may be a Bernina - , you can visit the "Rooijackers naaimachines" shop in Katwijk. Mr. Rooijacker and his colleagues are very happy to give you a "tour". You might end up joining the happy group of "Bernina girls", just like us and our students.

Little Amsterdam Sleep-Over

Maria has been very busy keeping you updated, but now it’s my turn to write something (Leslie).

Yesterday I visited the quilt shop in Haarlem: “Irma’s Sampler”. It is a very nice shop with a very nice selection of fabrics and I hadn’t been for some time. Haarlem is easy to get to either by train or car, and if you go by car there are several car parks within easy walking distance of the shop. Irma’s Sampler is right next door to the Frans Hals Museum, so you can easily take your family along and leave them there whilst you spend your time more usefully choosing fabric. There are plenty of very nice coffee/lunch places around, so if you go with friends and have lunch afterwards you will still have the opportunity to go back to the shop afterwards (you know, for that one thing you couldn’t justify at first and think about over lunch and then decide you really must get because it probably won’t be there next time you visit!)

My reason for going (apart from the obvious) was to talk to the owner Gré Koopman (lady on photo) about hanging Little Amsterdam in the shop. There were quite a few ladies in the shop (some of them for the Hundertwasser workshop) and none of them had been to the European Quilt Championships in Waalre, so had not seen the quilt before. And that is exactly the point. By hanging Little Amsterdam at Irma’s Sampler people will see her who otherwise would not have had the opportunity. Funny it was the day of the Hundertwasser workshop, in which you also make houses, but don’t have to be careful about your ¼” seam allowance and can make the houses as crooked as you like!

Anyway, Little Amsterdam will be at Irma’s Sampler until 22nd March, when we will get her back again in time for the Patchwork & Quiltdagen in Rijswijk (scroll down linked site for English text).

Go visit her at Irma’s Sampler, where the pattern book will also be for sale, or if you can wait that long at Rijswijk.

Leslie

Hanneke's Quilt for Her Daughter

This time I would like to introduce you Hanneke, our friend from the IWC quilting group. She just finished her quilt, what she made for her daughter, Katy. I took some pictures of this beautiful, colorful quilt during our quilting session at the IWC office. Hanneke kindly offered to write about her inspiration for the quilt.

Katy's African childhood quilt by Hanneke Wood

"I had been thinking for some time about a quilt for Katy to take to University with her -while we were visiting the School of Stitched textiles last summer (I am doing an online City and Guilds course with them) Katy spotted and fell in love with a border fabric, warm colours and African people and I found an equally enchanting fabric with African mothers and babies (both Timeless Treasures but discontinued I think). To complete the challenge Katy found a very bright and vibrant green batik to include in the quilt.



Where to start - we poured over books, looking for inspiration, and finally used some ideas from Roberta Horton's The fabric makes the quilt (Lafayette, 1995)- her design concepts were particularly helpful, "Repetition makes things go together" , "It's important that the line is'nt straight" , "Don't centre", "Keep the eye moving" and "If it's too big, cut it off. If it's too small, add on to it."
I explored my stash and 'auditioned' lots of fabrics, a continuing process in the making of this quilt as it evolved! I used lots of batiks, some 'klimt' fabrics (Makower ) whose colours were perfect, and some of 'Jabulisa's' African printed fabrics. I then started my making 'wonky blocks' centred around the themed fabrics, and the quilt started to grow. After much rearrangement, the quilt top was complete, bordered with a deep red batik from Evy at Quilterspalet here in The Hague and I chose to back it with a soft checked flannel - I asked North Sea Quilters to machine quilt it for me, which Marybeth has done beautifully, quilting in the ditch and including a border pattern inspired by the recurring zigzagging triangles in the African fabrics.

The warm vivid colours, and the liveliness of this quilt remind me of Africa where
Katy spent the first three years of her life. Absolutely the best quilt to accompany her on the next step in her life!"


Thank you Hanneke for sharing your story behind the quilt. We were lucky in the IWC patchwork group to enjoy looking at and quilting beside this cheerful quilt for a while and we didn't let Hanneke to take it off from the wall until it was time to go home.
I wish Katy that this quilt will bring her the comfort and the warmth of home when she her new life at university.




Maria
www.northseaquilters.com