The Quilt Bar Wishes You Very Happy New Year!

Post Card Swap

After her return to Lisbon, Irene sent a photo of the postcard that Ronny made for her.

Irene and her elks

Irene is spending the Christmas time with her family in the Netherlands. I received beautiful photos of her new quilt!


This is so beautiful. Irene took the quilt to a High Tea, where a group of very talented quilters met and made a "show and tell" with their works. I received a lot of lovely photos of very amazing quilts that I would like to show in the more silent days after the holidays.
(My children from Germany came to visit for the holidays and keep me busy and happy.)

Irene also made a bag for her sister's birthday. Irene is a very busy lady. She is always silently working and working. It is amazing.
For the bag Irene used fabrics of Kaffe Fassett and put some embroideries.



I am quite sure that Irene also made this small bag, that she is showing here.


Text: Ursula
photos: Marry Top-van Es

Post Card Swap

Garen sent a photo of the post card that Javhlan sent to her.

Christmas In A Small Town

If in these days you have 5 min of time for a magic ride to childhood memories wrapped in beautiful music, click on this link:

Christmas in a Small Town by Ricky Tims

It is music of the wonderful quilter, Ricky Tims. I adore his works and just only love the music.
Enjoy!


Ursula

More post cards!

I took these photos from Angie's blog.


This is the card that Garen sent to Helen.

Here is the card that Angela received from Irene.

This is very obvious that the card was made by Irene!


photos: Angiequilts.blogspot.com/

Post Card Swap

Angela organised a post card swap in October. We did this among our former quilter-circle. Some of the ladies have returned again to their home-countries and it was a good idea to keep in close touch by making a patchwork/quilty/postcard.

It is exciting and lovely to receive a post card like this, it is a nice gesture and a wonderful greeting. I was very much excited when my post card arrived, that Birte had made for me. It has a special place now in my living room in the Christmas mail.

One by one, when they arrive, I will now show all the post cards that were made:
First mine of course! This Birte made for me. I love the colors and the fancy stitches that Birte used!

Ronny from Netherlands sent a photo to me. Helen made this card for Ronny.


Birte sent to me a photo of the post card that Jutta had made for her.


Today finally my post card arrived at Jutta's home. I had sent it on the long way from Portugal to North of Germany exactly two weeks ago. I sent it as card without any envelope. Maybe it was lucky that it arrived at all?


I am waiting now for more photos of cards to publish.


Text: Ursula
photos: Ursula, Ronny, Birte, Jutta

Jutta's Christmas projects

Jutta sent photos of her new projects. She made the Lone Star for her sister's birthday.

Very pretty! I am very sure, that the sister is going to love it.

And here are two photos of Jutta's new Christmas decorations:



It is good to see, that Jutta is finding time for some quilting again. After her move back to Germany, she had been very busy to set her new home. I wish to her, that all is now ready to have a relaxed good old German Christmas season, with Glühwein and many cookies.


Text: Ursula
Photos: Jutta

Christmas Lunch

It was a sunny day in Caxias when we met for our Christmas lunch. We had tasted American, Arabic, Dutch, Italian, British, Indonesian, German, and Romanian ladies food. We had a good fiest!

Ann and Cinzia are preparing Christmas lunch table.

Arabella, Therese and Ursula

We had a small Christmas present exchange and everybody was happy with their presents. We did not buy anything but brought something that we found in the deepness of our cupboards.
Ann, Susan and Javhlan's daughter Tara. Susan was the first to choose her present.

Arabella with her little candle holder

I had a candle in the shape of a flower.

Irene is unwrapping her present.

Cinzia with her picture

Sally had a plate in light pink

Therese has also a candle holder.

Javhlan's daughters watched closely what Mummy was going to have. There were Champagne glasses with a Christmas decor, very nice!

Ann had a small wallet for jewelry or make up utensils or......

At the end there was one parcel left. (Javhlan with Maya, Garen, Ann and Susan.) It was the present for Arabella. We had all made one block for her.

It was also Arabella's last time that she could be with us. She is moving in two weeks to Spain. We wish to her all the BEST. It is sad to loose her in our group.

This is the first photo in public of Javhlan's Secret. Arabella, Irene and I stayed after the Christmas Party to help her a little bit to sew the binding. The project is awesome. She worked on this for about two years and kept it secret in all this time.

We are waiting to see it hanging on the wall in Javhlan's living room!

Text by Ursula
photos by Irene

Secret will be revealed soon!

Yes, my two years of secret will be revealed soon. Couple of quilters have photos of my project but I always told them "No photos in the blog".

Today Quilt group ladies had Christmas lunch. We had great time exchanging presents and eating different types of food. Thank you ladies for cooking and baking for today.

After lunch Arabella, Irene and Ursula stayed and helped me to finish my a quite complicated project. Because of you ladies in couple of days I will be able to show photos of this highly secret project.

By Javhlan

Kimono girl

This summer I bought a book 100 Applique Motifs by Deborah "Ismoyo" Green. The book has really cute appliques, specifically, some Japanese kimono dolls. The author explains what kind of tools, materials to use to make different types of applique.

Although the book title says 100 appliques but it has 103 appliques. These appliques divided into shapes and sizes; natural collection; boys and girls come out to play, cute, cuddly and curious creatures; and all things good to eat and drink.

At the end of the book there is a chapter of ideas where to use an applique from the book.

My favourite selection is Japanese Kokeshi dolls. According to the author "Kokeshi dolls are also lucky charms" in Japan.

After long summer and autumn days I tried to decide which Kokeshi dolls applique to use for my daughters garment. Finally I decided to make Kimono girl applique for my daughter's skirt.
By Javhlan

Tiramisu and Christmas bauble

It was a tasty day on Thursday! Cinzia, who is Italian, brought homemade tiramisu. Unfortunately - or fortunately - at the Quilt Bar there were only Ursula and I to eat this mouth-watering Italian dessert. It was so delicious!

Another Christmas project was finished on Thursday at the Quilt Bar before we close for holiday season. Cinzia bought a different egg-shaped ball and managed to make a bauble at the end of the day. I taught her the basics but she figured out how to work with different-shaped ball. Here she is with the finished bauble.

Cinzia also made a smaller version of the Charm bag. This bag will be given to her niece. If you look carefully, you can see a little pink pompom to close the bag, which was her daughter's suggestion.

By Javhlan

More bags!

Cinzia, our new member, finished her bag. When she came for the Quilt Camp on Friday she was making her third bag. She already made bags for herself, for her mother and the third one was for her mother-in-law.

Make Christmas Baubles

Come to the Quilt Bar on 26 November to make your very own Christmas Baubels. There is not much sewing involved but lots of cutting and pinning. I made these ones with cross stitched centres but you can make with pictures or patterns. This is our last class for this year.











By Javhlan

Bags! Bags! Bags! We love them!

Bags and shoes are girls' best friends! This Thursday the Quilt Bar was full of bags after Helen's lesson last week - and what a teacher, the results were stunning!

Susan, Ursula, Irene, Therese and Cinzia posed for the group photo, below. I did not ask them to line up from taller to shorter! I personally like Susan's bag because she used Japanese fabrics, my favourite. Therese and Cinzia hadn't finished their bags, so they went straight back to work after this photo.

The day was a book exchange day, so some ladies brought their books and magazines in different languages. When you are passionate about patchwork you do not have to be able to read the words. My knitting magazines were quite popular, as well. I found that Susan and Ursula both knit. I used to knit many things but now I find it difficult to share my knitting among my other new hobbies.

Irene, Susan and Ursula looked through books to find more ideas for their future works.

Ursula was inspired by Jenny Bowker's workshop of making kaleidoscope quilt and she is making a quilt with tiger.

Cathy and Bette showed us the beautiful Christmas tree centrepiece that they are making.

Cinzia was working so hard that she forgot her coffee and cake.

Cathy, Bette and Regina did not attend last week's bag-making class because they went to Spain for a holiday. On Thursday they were catching up with the rest of the ladies to make their very special own bags; here is the fabric.

Cathy's bag

Bette's Floridian colours.

Regina decided to bring a small sewing machine so that she can work much faster. Usually, she would be hand stitching her quilts quietly in the corner. Her bag is going to be in blue colours.

And I finish this blog on a particularly happy note - Ines Touzet, the owner of the "Patch-Mania" fabric shop in Oeiras, is now offering 10% discount for the Quilt Bar regulars!

Patch-Mania
Galerias Alto da Barra, loja 119
Av. das Descobertas
2780-053 OEIRAS

Telefone: +351 210 967 359



Photos by Irene van Es and Javhlan Byamba

Posted by Javhlan

Birte's Christmas cushions

Birte was busy again!! She had the plan to make a table runner for the Christmas season. But somehow she was not happy with it and made these three cushions for her sofa. This looks very cosy and inviting to sit down there for a tea and a chat!!!!!


Ursula

Hand Dye Workshop

We dyed fabric in Garen's garden.



Lucky that in Porutgal the weather is still good enough in November, to dye fabric in the garden. Even I tried to be careful and not splash around, there were some color spots on the tiles. Thank God this did not happen in the house on carpets or floor.
Sorry Garen.

The colors look very nice already. I wanted to obtain muted colors. So Garen added black to the yellow and we used dark blue. The effect is stunning. I love my colors!

See the colors now washed and ironed. I adore them!


These are Garen's dyed fabrics in clear and bright colors. They are beautiful!

What beautiful quilts they will make! What a fun to work with these bright fabrics!

For more information you are welcome to contact Garen. We are happy to forward your requests!

text by Ursula
photos by Garen and Ursula