Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my readers

and their families and friends!

I wish you joyfull Christmas,

lots of presents and be the star of the New Year!

Best wishes
Javhlan

Christmas projects

This year all my Christmas projects are finished and they are all in place decorating my house for holiday season. This star is made of four different fabrics and my best star so far. I have to finish my seven different fabrics star too but that one is not for Christmas.

A couple of years ago I made this paper pierced Christmas tree and now is out of cupboard. It is enjoying fresh air.

Christmas tree skirt which I started a year or two ago now is placed under the Christmas tree but it is a bit small for my Christmas tree and I have to consider making a bigger one. This year the tree has to have small skirt like a mini-skirt.

Making doll house and bags

This is my second doll house. I made two for my two DDs. My husband's collegue showed to him and he thought that he could occupy me for a while with this cute idea.

It opens and my DD1 puts her little dolls and play, sing and talk. She is really enjoying her new toy.

Below some evening bag photos which I made recently, hoping to sell for Christmas.

Stitching with ABBA

My ladies for two weeks had been stitching while listening to ABBA, Tina Turner and the music from opera Carmen. While listening to music some of them finished their projects, or brought them into next level or got some new ideas.

Cathy and Bette in their last day of the quilting in Portugal. They now left Portugal like birds fly for warmer climate and they will be back next summer. They started their spiral quilt together and were making good progress. Probably, next summer we might see the finished project.

Bette, Therese, Cathy and Regina

Regina was great with her work and now she is still thinking which way to go. She came to quilting for two weeks in a row. Hopefully, she would come more often.

Ann was shopping in Holland for her spiral quilt. Last week she finished all circles and was ready to join them together. She bought this fabric with a map to make back of her spiral quilt. I would say this is false map because there is no Asia, Australia and some parts of Europe is missing. If you look carefully you will find Portugal.

I like Ann's choice of fabrics. Look at these fabrics, so beautiful to have: flowers, cupcakes, teapots and matroushkas. Nowadays, Russian doll - Matrouska is a very popular design for everything.

This is Therese's spiral quilt, which will be kept with her. As we know that she is always giving away her quilts to her numerous relatives, who live all over the world.

She finished her Chritsmas tree paper piercing too. Well done! You will have it this Christmas on you wall.

Ann, Therese and Irene worked hard last Thursday. Irene kept making her houses. If you can notice my Lone Star quilt is hanging from the table. I binded and its ready.

If you are interested in learning how to make this Star, I will give a workshop on 2 December. Contact me at patchworkpt@gmail.com

Busy, busy and busy

Thursday meeting started with discussion on how to continue Maureen's one of her few projects, which she has to finish before this Christmas. Mauren and Ursula were discussing how to quilt borders of this a very colourful quilt.

Susan was inspired by Maureen's attempt to try free motion quilting and she put her BSR foot on her Bernina and was doing great job quilting cars on her quilt. If she did quilt by hand a baby who should be born next week will be five years old, when the quilt is ready. I think by trying to quilt with modern machine, she will be on time when a new baby arrives.

Look who was here last Thursday! Yes, Regina visited the Quilt Bar and kept hand quilting her a very first quilt! At the end of the day she helped me with my Portuguese homework. After her explenation I think my Portuguese jumped from zero to +A.

Cathy and Bette made their first steps to start a spiral quilt. They had six circles and was happy to carry one with it. It will be easy for them to carry on because they will be working together in one quilt.

We had a nice sunny day in mid-October and we lunched together outside instead of eating behind our sewing machines. A table was small but we had nice conversation!

This is Ursula with her double spiral quilt. She is making a very hard one and her creation is create! She entered a quilt competition in Austrian "Patchwork und Quiltjournal" with her loved cat quilt. It has been shortlisted! Well done!

This is Therese with her paper piercing work. It is almost ready to be quilted now.

Photos from last meeting

On that sunny day we carried on working on our own projects for whole day.


Maureen started practicing free motion quilting on her Bernina with Ursula's help. It was natural for her and at the end of the day she already free motion on her quilt.


Maureen's a very caring teacher was standing just behind her to tell what to do and how to do.

I was inspired to start free motion quilting but my perfect Pfaff Creative 2.0 did not allow me to do much. I broke 5 needles and gave up. Unfortunately, I did not find much information on the Pfaff site or on my machine manual. Now, I have to visit shop to help me to resolve my problem.


We all carefully watched her how she would manage and she did perfect job but from time to time she had to stop and breath and carry on. She enjoyed tremendously! On the second half of the day she was quilting her work using free motion.

This is my spiral quilt joined together. Now I have to hunt for suitable fabric to continue. Previously, I did not know what I will do with this quilt now it is going to be DD1 bed cover and I need bright Moda fabric, particularly, Sss-Silly Africa bright orange colours.

I wasn't there on Thursday

My ladies were alone last Thursday at the bar. The quilt bar lady was absent with her sick child at home and busy preparing her DHs birthday dinner. From time to time I checked them that they worked hard and enjoyed themselves. Sometimes I heard lots of laughter and sometimes the bar was quiet.

Susan came to work on her baby quilt. She was quilting and a gave her a little tip to make big stitches. I think my tip worked and she was unpicking her previous stitches. I am sorry!

Maureen wanted to probe to Angela that she almost finished her Bento box which started a year ago. She was complaining about two different colours of biege but for me they added some character to the quilt.

Therese was very busy at the corner with her papaer piercing project in order to finish for this Christmas. Now just couple of more to make.

This is Irene's little houses. She complained in the afternoon that she made only one and half houses. She'd better to finish the project soon because it is raining a lot in Portugal and we need a roof! Saturday night Quilt bar was flooded! How much rain water can hold this earth!

Irene used old X-rays to make patterns. She puts them with whitening in a bath and after a little while you will have great plactic to make your patterns. Fantastic tip! Thanks you Irene.

Ann worked on her spiral and now she has to do three row. She was delighted that now it is much faster to sew because it is bigger.

Bette started working on her spiral quilt to but during her sewing she has to call and check how was Cathy doing because she was sick and next day they have to fly to catch their cruise liner. Have fun!

Photos Irene and Javhlan, text Javhlan

Working on UFO

Last day of September had 6 ladiesturned up to work on their UFO and they had a cheesecake made by my family members. DH was holding a bowl while my DD1 was crushing biscuits for the base of the cheesecake. My DH baked it because I had to run away to my Portuguese class on Wednesday evening.


On Thursday morning Therese was smiling a lot and she looked glamorous! Look at her hair! Don't you think she is a glamorous woman! I had to take her photo because every time I looked at her she was the happiest women in this world! However, she worked had on her paper piercing work too. I forgotten to take her work because of her look. Sorry ladies.


One more project had been finished with Cathy. She was proudly showing her patchwork bag. Bette kept working on her bag all day that day.


Maureen after have been for a long time upsent joined us on Thursday. It was a very nice to see her and rejoining the group. She had been busy all this time, here her work - Ocean Waves!


This is Ann's work - Spiral quilt. She had to unpick them all and restart again. She is doing great job!


This is my long lasting project and I finally managed to put hooks and it is sort of ready to be hanged on a wall but still needs a label.

Photos by Irene and Javhlan, text Javhlan

We made purses

When we met on Thursday 23 September, three ladies learnt how to make a little purse with a metal frame. This is a quite successful class that I have been teaching at Ines' shop in Oeiras, which gives me another opportunity to practice my Portuguese.

Anyway, in our last meeting I did not speak Portuguese but English. Although there were an Italian, a German and only one native English speaker. Cinzia, Ursula and Ann in a process of making their beautiful purses.



And here is the result. My three happy ladies.


After our meeting I went to my sewing room to make another bag for my little princess.

We are back!

Our summer guests are back and now we can resume our normal weekly meetings. We met on Thursday first time after long break. Everybody has been busy except me during this period. Despite having guests, picking them up and taking them back to the airport, cooking, entertaining and washing, my ladies managed to have time for themselves and made baby, monthly and spiral quilts.

I have to give first words to Irene. She has been working tremendously on her quilt and made fantastic one.



We all women loved Irene's these tiny stitches and they are so true for us!

This is her key holder. It is again her own work.

Susan is a proud grandma! She is now making quilt for her second grandchild. You have guessed who is on the way from this quilt.

Ann worked for a year and half on her Irish chain king size quilt. On Thursday she brought to show us her biggest work. It was huge!

My last words to Ursula and Therese. They made their spiral quilts. Ursula's was double and it looks fabulous! Thanks Ursula helping me to finish mine.

Special words to Therese. She is next to her spiral quilt.

At the end of the meeting we sandwiched her spiral quilt. Her black background with lots of different coloured dots makes colours pop up.