QUILTING INSPIRATIONS

Hello my friends  !! I wish all is well with you , I am posting a photo of my good friend Zaharoula with a pillow I made for her since she is a great admirer of my work .  It happened to be her name day a couple of weeks ago ,it was saint Zaharias day and here in Greece name days are celebrated even more than Birthdays .  Many families prepare big dinners for friends and family members all come over and offer gifts and well wishes .   Since life has become a bit more Westernized it has become less and less frequent .

And here is the pillow I made for her ,isn't it just sweet she was so thrilled with it she said she has a special place for it in her home.

Do you see this print ? well I must tell you it is from a little girls skirt that someone had thrown out that  I happen to find ,I took it apart.     I happened to be talking  on the phone with my friend Kristine and I mentioned to her that I ripped apart a garment for the fabric ,she laughed and said that is pathetic and she is right I was in love with that fabric I just had to make something with it ,and the right word is pathetic LOL !!.

This is the close up of the flower I made ,the white is circles diff. sizes and clipped and the top I didn't make ,it is a flea market find I got a whole strand of about 30 of them for .50 cents is that a bargain or not?

I had been playing around with the idea of making applique tea cups ,so I drew some and made a template .

Then I got out my vintage stitchery finds and sort of placed one by one to see which one is most pleasing to the eye,and  I think this one above is my favorite ,but I took photos of all my various choices .

I have a blog friend by the name of Sunny and she has mentioned on her blog  a while back that she would like to make a wall hanging of pitchers ,so I thought I would make a couple for her,  Sunny had also sent a real cute baby quilt for my friends charity project  quilts for orphans ,Quilting for a purpose and I again would like to thank her so much for her kind generosity .  So I made some real rough sketches and I thought maybe make different shapes of pitchers ,so this is what I got for now now remember these are just a rough draft I will clean them up and bit when I get back to the drawing board , make  the final templates and pick out the fabric which is the most fun and cut them out and probably do a zig zag stitch, Sunny what do you think ??

I got in the mood a couple of weeks ago to make some boats ,I had cut out the template patterns with regular paper .

Then after playing around with the size of the pieces ,I took the final one to my shop and cut out the template patterns with  thick matting board which I have loads of , I got some clear envelopes and put the completed block with the template pieces inside so that way I can see the pattern and have the pieces to make it again in the future, So that is what I have been up to these last couple of weeks.

http://blog.ajpadilla.com/2011/02/09/meet-theodora-badra-an-international-quilter/#comments

By the way a couple of weeks ago a got an e-mail from Angie which happens to live in  Ecuador ,she is doing a series of interviews of International quilters and the challenges that they face ,and she is right it is a challenge , and can you believe she wanted to interview me of all people I guess now I am famous LOL ,since I am not patient or maybe just to lazy to make a link I just copied and pasted the link ,I am sure I can do a link ,,but I am sure one of these days I will get the hack of making links, I have said that before ,and another thing every time I do a spell check I get the Greek alphabet so I haven't been able to do any spell check ,I am sure somewhere there are some  I have to look into that it is frustrating, and loading  photos I can only do one at a time then save and click back it has taken me all morning to make this  post,.   .I have some finds I got to post and they are woozies is that a word?? anyway I am going for a walk now, wish all of you a wonderful Sunday and hope the weather is nice enough to get out I know some of you have plenty of snow by for now,xoxo theodora

First post in 2011

Hello and welcome to my first post for 2011 and I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday , I have been a little under the whether first I got a terrible cold and I was in bed Christmas day  and then the following week I got an awful flu and was sick for 5 days or so ,that and running the shop and trying to  hand quilt this baby quilt for my best friend Zacharoula really didn't leave me with very much energy left to blog or to post .  So this is the quilt I made and hand quilted for my friends grandson doesn't she look cozy in it ??

This is the whole quilt and below I took some individual photos of the blocks.

This is just a close up of my hand quilting , how does it look??

This is what I worked on at night I got this little piece of flannel with little birds and I decided to cut in to it ,and matched it with some pinks and blues and cream that I think it looks nice together ,I got two baby size quilt tops out of it,not bad huh!!

 I have this calender with quilt patterns in it , a gift from a dear friend for Christmas last year and I found in my stash like colors and made it , this is the first time I actually made a quilt by looking at one and trying to make it look similar ,I think I did well with it, I made two throw size quilt tops out of the blocks I made.

 The day before Christmas I dashed downtown Athens for a print for a customer and I decided I had enough time to make it to a fabric store I found on the Internet by googling cheap fabric in Greek this is the firs time I tried to find fabrics and I found a shop in the center of town so ,I ran as fast as I could it there were 3 floors of fabrics ,but they didn't have very much in cotton quilt friendly fabrics the good thing was what they had was only 1.23 euros per meter and it was extra wide .  I bought 5 meters of each of the above and took a taxi home with my haul , I think that's how I got my cold for Christmas ,but it was worth it, don't you think so ?.

 I made a top with just blocks the pink flowery print and pink checked ,the blocks do look a little crooked ,but it will iron out OK. I think .

 I started cutting circles out and then decided to make little triangles on the edged ,but that is still in progress ,it is a little hard working with such small pieces.

 This is my completed quilt top , or one of them I made two like it and added a lighter blue boarder on it.

 This is another inspiration I made, I had a remnant of plaid that I was given and I worked by cutting strips and coordinating the colors to each other and I got this nice size quilt top.

 

I found a bunch of hangers from the clothing stores that they throw out ,so I had this piece of pretty tissue paper from a lady that brought something in to be framed ,so I used it to decoupage the hanger ,I think it is the first time I tried it but,I was in the store and bored ,since I was done hand quilting the baby quilt.

And last but not least I put the triangles that I fussy cut onto the machine with a white piece of triangle fabric and I was surprised to see how many I had ,I counted bout 40 of them ,now I am thinking what to do with the lattice blocks maybe I can cut them into a diff. shape and do stars I really don't know, but I will surely let you know . I think that is about it I am going back to my studio now to think of what else to do , some of you might have read in a previous post that I am saving up to by a quilt machine with a table and all so that is in the works ,and I am planning on putting it in the shop window so I can quilt  while in my store so people that pass by can watch ,that will be fun just to see there reaction quilting is unknown to most here, I can't wait for that to happen,  so keep in touch more to come ,may your scissors and cutters always be sharp and may you always be full of  inspiration and energy by for now, Theodora

BUSY AS A BEE

Hello my friends I have been busy as a bee trying to do everything I can get my hands on .   First of all I had been working on this painting for over 2 weeks and finally I completed it and I am super pleased, a customer brought it in for restoration , it had been damaged from her movers ,she picked it up yesterday and she was delighted that just made me so HAPPY!!!!

And on Sunday as I was on a walk I found huge pieces of wax on the sidewalk ,so I found a plastic bag nearby and proceeded to pick them up ,as I was picking them up a man walked by and he said that it was a huge candle and that some youngsters broke it in pieces.   I found enough bags to Carry all the pieces home ,so now I guess one of these days I will be making candles LOL !!!

I have been hand quilting the wonky log cabin quilts that I started about 6 months ago. now I can't possibly do 12 stitches and inch  I even got the tape measure out to see how many I am able to do 5-6 is the best I can do since I am using a thicker batting that I am able to buy here so I think I am OK plus I like the way it looks with the more spaced out stitches ,I am using two strands of embroidery thread .

Now I haven't done a trip around the world pattern for as long as I can remember so I decided to work on that a couple of days ,just for a break. I haven't taken a photo of it completed yet because it isn't HAHAHA !!! ,but I will finish it one day when I get bored with something else.

The day I was working on the painting I got a little bored and needed a break while up on the loft I decided to cut out some plexi glass templates which will help me in cutting out shapes and  fussy cutting my fabric so I did that!!!.

Since I had done a lattice fence quilt for Kristinas project quilting with a purpose http://www.toquiltorknot.weebly.com/

I decided to make some for myself ,so I went all out and decided to make them scrappy and the strips to be various widths ,I am up to 80 of these this morning when I last counted ,but they will come in handy ,maybe sell one or two to save money for that machine like Kristine has   OOOOOhhhh !! yeh !!! that machine  ,and I can always send one  or two to Kristine for her orphanage project .

While at the farmers market last Sat. someone was selling baskets like the one in the above photo so you can see that I got one and it is sooo handy to place my blocks inside, I will be getting more of these they are mighty handy.

As you can see I am using my plexi glass templates that I cut out ,HA HA HA !!! I am so clever, I am patting myself on my back .

And last but not least I finally started ripping into this little foot stool that I found ,boy am I glad I took a photo of it so that way I can see how to put it back together LOL .

Now that's about what I've been up to these days ,I look forward to visiting all of my friends to see likewise , I wish you all many pleasant hours of creativity and inspiration with whatever you are busy as a bee with lots of hugs ,theodora the busy bee

QUILTING WITH A PURPOSE PROGRESS

Hello to all ,I have been wanting to make this post for quit a while now ,things are just not moving as fast as I want, but there are some real good news from the Quilting with a purpose project which my friend Kristina is working real hard to complete.  As you can see from the photos things are rolling along ,she has been quilting all day these days getting all the quilt tops quilted. She had many fine Lady's offering  quilt tops,   I thank all of them and especially my two blog friends Vreni from Singapore and Valentina from Cyprus I just realized there names both start with a V   Ha Ha Ha !   .   I am so happy  she has a mighty fine group of Lady's helping her out in order to reach her goal , to have 50 baby quilts done by Christmas for the baby's at the local orphanage ,I pray for her and her group to have the streghth to finish this important task. 

http://www.toquiltorknot.weebly.com/ 

Above is Kristina's site I invite all of you to visit and see the many beautiful quilts,and there is a super video of her studio and her using the quilt machine that she has I just love it I must have one, but that is another story .

There she is  rolling out the quilts to be quilted the pastelish one is mine, but I like the one on the left more than mine,as they say the grass is greener on the other side LOL.                                                                 

                                                   Here is Kristina getting ready to quilt ,she has a nice machine and table which makes it easier to complete all those quilts.   About 3 weeks ago Kristine and her DH took an excursion to Cyprus to meet Valentina and visit the quilt shop there and on there way back they stopped by and visited me and my DH, we had a nice short visit ,took a stroll and ate at a souvlaki place and then walked to my friend Vaso's craft shop which is down the street from mine ,there I managed to remember to take a photo,I'm on the left and Kristina in the center and Vaso right.     

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The top two are mine, and the hello kitty down at the bottom ,I guess I was in a pastelish mood.

This is Valentina's ,isn't it bright and cheery .

This is Vrenis awesome quilt, I just love it.

kristina and one of her girls  proudly holding up one of the quilts.

Valentina sent me this beautiful tin sewing box with some luscious fat quarters ,I just love it all and I will treasure the tin forever, the fabrics I will use in a quilt.

Kristina brought me this real cute card trick pin ,and she has it pinned on a yo yo that she made,I just love it and I will treasure it forever also.

I just love the ladder that Kristine has in her studio ,I love all of her studio especially her machine oohhh... there I go again I must control myself, ever since I saw the video ofher using that machine on her site ,I can't think of anything else seriously  I would love to have one ,so I am saving my money  to get one, well I don't want to bore you with the machine , anyhow I wish all of you a happy wonderful time quilting may you always have enough binding. love ya all ,theodora