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.

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

Irena Bluhm's Quilt at the North Sea Quilters and Friends Exhibition

During the Patchwork en Quiltdagen 14-15 February in Rijswijk we had the privilege to exhibit Irena Bluhm's Hawaaian Punch Quilt.

Irena Bluhm: "Hawaiian Punch"
54” x 54”
Cotton, cotton and polyester batting,
Cotton and polyester thread

Hawaiian Punch was started as a practice piece before stitching on my Paducah 2007 entry, but life did get in the way. My real Paducah entry has not been completed. I submitted Hawaiian Punch to the AQS Paducah instead and was not sure whether it would be accepted. It turned out, it was accepted and subsequently has won five awards at other shows. I used 100% cotton sateen for the top and backing and double batting
[polyester for the top and 80/20 for the bottom] to create the raised design effect. YLI variegated thread was used on the top and Maxilock in the bobbin. Maxilock was used for the background filler as well. After the quilting was complete, the color was applied using colored pencils and textile medium to make the color permanent. All flower centers are turned edge appliqué stitched using the needle position button on my Gammill® Optimum Plus.

This quilt won an Honorable Mention at Machine Quilters Showcase 2007, 2nd place Machine Quilting Excellence at Quilter’s Gathering 2007, 2nd Place, Innovative, Wall, Mixed at the Road 2 California 2008, Honorable Mention at Dallas Quilt Celebration 2008, Honorable Mention at Quilt Expo 2008 in Madison WI, USA.


Irena Bluhm is an award winning quilter, instructor, pattern designer and the author of 6 books. Irena is also a National Sales Representative for Gammill® Quilting Systems.

Irena Bluhm was born and raised in Poland. She moved to Germany in 1981 and then to the California, the United States, in 1991. After her husband retired in 2001, they purchased a 71-acre property in rural Antlers, Oklahoma where her large studio is located. With 18 years of garment making/design and 12 years of doing art for hobby, she has transitioned the experience in creating fine art and other skills into making quilts for shows and exhibits exclusively. Irena is very passionate about creating many different quilting design patterns, innovative ways of making show quality quilts, writing books and teaching.

Her enthusiasm is very contagious as she loves to share, encourage and inspire other quilters to try something new that they never thought they would be able to do. After long arm quilting for just a little over 1 year, Irena started teaching long arm quilting nationwide in March 2006 at many major venues MQX 2006, 2007, HMQS 2007, MQS 2007, AQS 2007 in Paducah, Innovations 2006 and 2007, MQS 2008, AQS Quilt Expo 2008 in Des Moines, Iowa, USA and Germany.

Irena is hoping that her encouraging nature, very contagious enthusiasm for creating art and what she loves to do is going to inspire many others to try her techniques. Some students, who participated in her workshops, are producing award winning quilts.

Since she started entering her work into major national and international quilt contests in 2005, she developed a strong and lasting passion for this art form. Her work has won 54 awards in national and international quilt contests. Among all awards, some of them are won at: IQF in Houston, AQS in Paducah and Nashville, Road 2 Ca, PIQF, NQA, MQS, MQX and Innovations to name just a few. She has designed hundreds of quilting patterns and only a very small portion has been published and is available on the market. She also has authored six books so far and more books are in progress.
www.irenabluhmscreations.com

North Sea Quilters and Friends Long-Arm Quilting Exhibition in Rijswijk

Visitors in front of Irena Bluhm's "Hawaiian Punch" quilt

For the Patchwork and Quiltdagen festival in Rijswijk, The Netherlands, over the Valentine's weekend, we were privileged to bring together some of our favorite quilts from some of our favorite quilters to expose the Dutch quilting public to the possibilities of long-arm quilting. Many thanks to Jobina de Boer for making this exhibition possible. And many, many thanks to all our friends for loaning us their wonderful works of art to hang!

One of the purposes of the exhibition was to expose quilters here who haven't had the opportunity to travel to Birmingham or France or the United States to see the work of longarm quilters from other places. We found that people were extremely interested and asked lots of questions on techniques. They were also interested and sometimes amused by the motivations behind some of the works. Our friends have been extremely generous both with their quilts but also with the information behind them that makes the works more accessible to people on a personal level. Hopefully, quilters here in Holland now feel as though our friends are their friends as well!

To have a feeling of the exhibition look at the photos, taken during the exhibition in the Patchwork en Quiltdagen in Rijswijk!

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