Marybeth Tawfik's Quilt at North Sea Quilters and Friends exhibition in Rijswijk

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk in our exhibition you could also see a quilt of our friend, Annelies, which were beautifully quilted by Marybeth.

"Simply Delicious" quilted by Marybeth Tawfik,

46” x 46”, 2008

This Piece O’ Cake design, hand appliquéd by Annelies Nijland, reminded me very much of my grandmother’s garden. My grandmother spent many, many hours growing the fruits and vegetables that her family would eat throughout the year. She always put up her vine supports by hand using small branches and twine and I have tried to replicate that look by quilting freehand, not using any rulers or markers, to give it that old-fashioned, homemade look that was so very beautiful to me growing up.

details of the quilt

Marybeth Tawfik received her first electric sewing machine at the age of 10 so that her mother would be able to use her own Pfaff. Originally sewing garments, she became interested in patchwork in 1996 while living in Japan, but was too intimidated by the process to begin patchwork until 2001. She purchased her Gammill Optimum Plus® in 2004 at the International Quilt Festival in the Hague. She “practiced” on the machine for 3 years before attempting to quilt other people’s quilt tops. She tries very hard to sew every day, believing that therein lies the path to sanity and serenity.

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

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

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.

Beryl Cadman's Quilts at the North Sea Quilters and Friends exhibition

This time you can read about Beryl Cadman's quilts, which were exhibited during the Patchwork en Quiltdagen 14-15 February in Rijswijk. We were very happy that she could stay with us during the show and some of you even had a chance to talk to her and listen to her explanations about the different long-arm quilting techniques.

Beryl Cadman: Fantasy Flowers (detail)
60” x 60”

"I love butterflies and feathers so incorporated them both in my Fantasy Flowers piece.
This quilt was made using cotton sateen fabric. Quilting techniques are trapunto, hand-guided longarm machine quilting with crystals applied."

Beryl Cadman:"Lady Chameleon"
80” x 80”

"I have always loved silk fabric and have made several quilts with this material over the years.
This wholecloth quilt is made using 100% shot silk fabric. The design is a feathered wedding ring and it was quilted using a Statler Stitcher™ fully computerised quilting machine."

Bed Quilt Sampler

70” x 70”

This quilt was made by a group of friends as a birthday gift for me. It was a surprise gift, they got together for a secret weekend to make and quilt this for me.

Cotton Fabrics, machine pieced and hand guided longarm machine quilting.


Beryl Cadman has lived in Castletownbere since moving to Ireland from Australia in 1997. A keen patchworker, she imported a Gammill® Quilting Machine shortly after her arrival and subsequently became a distributor in 2000. She has been actively involved in longarm education since this time. Beryl is the only accredited longarm teacher in Europe, having received recognised training from America’s Linda Taylor. She has taught all over Europe and at the Quilt Festival in Houston. She and her students have won numerous awards in the UK and Europe and her quilts have been exhibited all over the world including Yokohama, Japan. An active committee member of the Quilters Guild of Ireland, she is also a member of the Irish Patchwork Society, the Quilters Guild of Germany and an accredited quilt judge. She is also the co-founder of the European Machine Quilters Expo, which provides ongoing education to the longarm quilting community - web site: www.emqe.eu “Custom Quilting Limited has been in business for over eleven years. Many years of experience have taught us the skills and knowledge needed to provide our customers with the support they need to start a quilting business or invest in a hobby. We are the longest-standing dealer of Gammill® Quilting Machines and the Statler Stitcher™ fully computerised quilting system in Europe. We offer a fully integrated service including set-up and training, advanced tuition, maintenance instruction, and follow-up support provided locally.” You can contact Beryl on www.customquilt.com or phone: +353 27 70414

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

This is the last "chapter" of our reports on the challenge quilts show, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. These quilts were first shown in Birmingham 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 following three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

"“Bouquet of Stars” quilted by Beryl Cadman
Designed and pieced by Krys Evans
90" x 90"

This quilt was designed and pieced by Krys Evans and quilted by Beryl Cadman for the Long-arm Gallery at the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham 2008.

Beryl Cadman has lived in Castletownbere since moving to Ireland from Australia in 1997. A keen patchworker, she imported a Gammill® Quilting Machine shortly after her arrival and subsequently became a distributor in 2000. She has been actively involved in longarm education since this time. Beryl is the only accredited longarm teacher in Europe, having received recognised training from America’s Linda Taylor. She has taught all over Europe and at the Quilt Festival in Houston. She and her students have won numerous awards in the UK and Europe and her quilts have been exhibited all over the world including Yokohama, Japan. An active committee member of the Quilters Guild of Ireland, she is also a member of the Irish Patchwork Society, the Quilters Guild of Germany and an accredited quilt judge. She is also the co-founder of the European Machine Quilters Expo, which provides ongoing education to the longarm quilting community - web site: www.emqe.eu “Custom Quilting Limited has been in business for over eleven years. Many years of experience have taught us the skills and knowledge needed to provide our customers with the support they need to start a quilting business or invest in a hobby. We are the longest-standing dealer of Gammill® Quilting Machines and the Statler Stitcher™ fully computerised quilting system in Europe. We offer a fully integrated service including set-up and training, advanced tuition, maintenance instruction, and follow-up support provided locally.” You can contact Beryl on www.customquilt.com or phone: +353 27 70414

Robyn Fahy: "Epoch"
90” x 90”

This quilt was created for the Long-arm Gallery at Festival of Quilts Birmingham 2008. This year our challenge was to create a quilt measuring 90” x 90” and using two Japanese fabrics provided, along with any other fabrics we chose. I then quilted the quilt with cotton thread on my hand-guided Gammill® Quilting Machine. I spent 54 hours quilting this quilt.

Robyn Fahy moved to the small village of Drumquin, Co. Tyrone, Ireland from Margaret River in Western Australia 22 years ago. Her interest in patchwork began in 1992. Initially self-taught, she studied every book she could get her hands on. She has since been fortunate enough to travel widely, and take classes with many wonderful teachers in both patchwork and longarm quilting. About 8 years ago she began her career as a teacher when a local women’s group asked her to teach them patchwork. Since then she has owned her own quilt shop and now holds classes in her custom built studios at home. From there, she felt it was a natural progression to owning her own longarm quilting machine. She now has a hand-guided Gammill® Classic on which she does her own custom work and a Gammill Optimum Plus® Statler Stitcher™ for customer quilts.

Myriam Debuscherre: "Fanny’s Fans" (detail)
90” x 90”

Fanny is my needlework friend. As she loves fans, I made the quilt for her: Fanny's fans.

Myriam Debuscherre lives in Belgium and received her Gammill® Classic on 11 September 2001. She had her basic lessons during 2001 and 2002 and after practising a few years went to Dallas, Texas, to Linda Taylor’s studio. This was an absolutely perfect week, during which she learned more than she thought was possible.
In October 2006 she won the third prize in the Open European Quiltchampionships in Waalre, the Netherlands.
She is anxiously awaiting delivery of her new Gammill Optimum Plus® with the Statler Stitcher™. To contact Myriam go to her website www.quiltstudio.tk

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

We continue with the presentation of the challenge quilts, which North Sea Quilters exhibited in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen", Rijswijk with the cooperation of Jobina de Boer. These quilts were first shown in Birmingham 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 next three quilts and click on the photos to enlarge them.

Marybeth Tawfik: "Hortensia Hideaway" (detail)
90" x 90"

"When I received the purple and green for the challenge I immediately thought of the giant hortensia, or hydrandgea, bushes that are against the sheltering wall of my garden. In the summer they grow taller than I amand are very happy presences in my days, especially from my kitchen window. But each petal is different and many things live inside the blossoms. I have attempted to show the spectrum of colors the petals take on and tucked the details away in the quilting."

Marybeth Tawfik received her first electric sewing machine at the age of 10 so that her mother would be able to use her own Pfaff. Originally sewing garments, she became interested in patchwork in 1996 while living in Japan, but was too intimidated by the process to begin patchwork until 2001. She purchased her Gammill Optimum Plus® in 2004 at the International Quilt Festival in the Hague. She “practiced” on the machine for 3 years before attempting to quilt other people’s quilt tops. She tries very hard to sew every day, believing that therein lies the path to sanity and serenity.

Tracey Pereira: "A Year’s Worth of Bento Boxes" (detail)
90” x 90”

"‘A Year’s Worth of Bento Boxes’ was inspired by a recent passion for ‘Jelly Rolls' and an urgent need to meet a challenge deadline! The quick and simple box block was all that was needed to showcase these beautiful Japanese fabrics and the colourwash layout is designed to suggest the passage of the year’s seasons. I digitised a traditional Japanese Sashiko pattern called 'Nowaki' (or grasses) to produce my own bespoke quilting design. Quilted on a computerised Gammill® Optimum."

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.

Andreas Wolf:“Symphony in Purple” (detail)

90” x 90”

"This quilt was made for the long-arm challenge for the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham 2008. We were given two fabrics to use along with a spool of thread. I wanted a big block size in order to have big fields to quilt so that I could use different techniques to fill each block."


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 him on phone: 0049 40 226 97 070 or e-mail to quilthouse@t-online.de www.quilthouse.de The templates are available from: www.rainbow-house.de

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.

Long-arm Quilted Challenge Quilts in the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen" in Rijswijk

Leslie Carol Taylor is answering questions about her challenge quilt

If you have read our earlier blogs, you know that we've brought over the travelling exhibition of the long-arm quilted challenge quilts, which were first shown at the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham. We exhibited the quilts as part of the "Patchwork en Quiltdagen" in Rijswijk over the weekend of 14 and 15 February 2009. This challenge is organized and presented every year since 2003 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.
In 2008 each participant was given two Kona Bay fabrics, a green and a purple, and a variegated thread. The finished size of the quilt had to be 90"x90". These were the only parameters and everyone finished their quilt as they liked. In the following blogs you can see the results and read about the quilters and their statement about the quilts.

Visitors at the exhibition of Long-arm quilting challenge quilts in the Patchwork en Quiltdagen, Rijswijk

Behind the Scenes of the Long-arm Quilting Exhibition at "Patchwork en Quilt Dagen" in Rijswijk

We have a very busy weekend or I should say busy weeks behind us. We spent the winter months organizing the Long-arm Quilting Exhibition "North Sea Quilters and Friends", which took place on 14-15th February in Rijswijk during the "Patchwork and Quilt Days" show. But it began a long time before, when we had an idea that we would like to show the Dutch quilters the possibilities and the beautiful work that can be done on the long-arm quilting machines. But which quilts shall we show and where to find a venue? That was the time when we worked on our challenge quilt for Birmingham, so it seemed an obvious choice to ask Beryl Cadman (Custom Quilting Limited), the European distributor of the Gammill® Quilting Machines and Statler Stitcher™ fully computerized quilting system,

who organizes and presents the Long-arm Quilting Gallery in Birmingham, if we can show these challenge quilts in The Netherlands as well. She was very supportive of the idea. We had the quilts, but no venue yet. Marybeth approached Jobina de Boer, the organizer of the "Patchwork en Quilt Dagen" in Rijswijk, who kindly offered the place for the Long-arm Quilting Challenge show and more, the opportunity to showcase 24 more quilts. Thanks to our long-arm quilter friends, who were very happy to share their best quilts with the Dutch public, we could easily put together the extended show. I can say this was a one-of-a-kind event. It was never before in The Netherlands that the patchworkers could see as big a collection of long-arm quilted patchwork than during this weekend. You can imagine how excited we were before the BIG DAY. It was nice to see that so many of you came to the show and were interested to see the quilts of Emma and Pam Ablett, Beryl Cadman, Myriam Debuscherre, Robyn Fahy, Maria Laza, Yvonne McKee, Tracey Pereira, Sue Philips, Leslie Carol Taylor, Marybeth Tawfik, Cheryl Thomas and Andreas Wolf in the Long-arm Quilting Challenge Gallery.
In the extended part of the exhibition the visitors could have a close look at the quilts of Irena Bluhm, Beryl Cadman, Marie-Christine Chammas, Martina Curtis, Robyn Fahy, Liesbeth van der Hilst, Yvonne McKee, Mary Palmer, Tracey Pereira, Andreas Wolf and ours, the North Sea Quilters (Maria Laza, Leslie Carol Taylor and Marybeth Tawfik).
Look at the photos here and the following blogs, may be you can spot yourself ☺ And as you noticed there are some real behind the scenes photos as well!