Show and Tell Friday 4. - Zsóka’s Baby Quilt

This was the first “baby” quilt (larger than the usual ones) that I made from really tiny little pieces back in Naples. The picture was taken there in our terrace as well. That happened quite a few years ago, Zsóka has grown up a beautiful kindergarten girl, you can see her to twirl and whirl in the “Skirts of Little Fairies” post, next to her smaller sister.

When I started making that quilt, my sister was still pregnant, but it could be known, that she will be having a baby girl, that was why I choose these cheerful colors. I finished with it just in time. To tell you the truth, my old machine couldn’t handle the quilting work, so I had to do the quilting with my hands. I was sewing it inside the car on the long way home. It was the first time when I wasn’t annoyed by the famous time assuming traffic jam near Bologna.

We were actually heading for Poland, to Krakow, but we stopped on the road to visit my sister and her family. We spent a peaceful warm september afternoon with them in their garden, under a huge cherry tree. We gave them the baby quilt for the unborn baby, and we left in the evening to Budapest, then Krakow.

By the way Krakow is a wonderful city with full of beautiful details and good restaurants. We had long walks, visited lots of places and had a great time there.

While we were in Krakow Zsóka was born in Hungary, who was a very cute baby back then, and since as you could have seen she grew up to be a beautiful, smart and cutie girl.

Show and Tell Friday 3.

My husband’s old desire was to sail, and when we were living in Naples we fortunately had the chance for that. He and my son entered a sailing course in a small closed down gulf. Even though the Hungarians are not really born on sea people (like the Dutch for example), they tried to learn as much as possible. The instructors even taught them how to deal with capsizing and helping people out of the water.

To tell you the truth, it happened a day before it was planned, since as my gallant Hungarian men were trying to help two ladies swimming beside their already capsized sailboat, they joined them shortly after in the water as they have capsized as well. So the instructors had the chance to teach two teams right away how to set the dinghy back while crawling back in (and all this in a life jacket, it’s not easy at all).

After they had their exams, we spent a lot of time on water, they took me out to sail too, we all liked it a lot. Of course it wasn’t a large sail cruiser, this was a small dinghy, designed for 2–3 person. One day I was going with only my husband, with the aid of the wonderful wind we sailed deep into the gulf, fast as light. But when we turned back to head for the coast, the wind suddenly died out. And there we were the two of us, pretty far from the coast, with two oars. And since we had an engagement for the afternoon we had no choice but row as long as we had breaths. I’ve never rowed so much in my life. And the following muscle strain was, uhh, better not to even mention. But it was still an amazing afternoon, the sunshine, the wind, the speed, the smell of water, our laughs, it’s a really pleasant memory.

With all the equipments this sailboat looks really cute, right? I bought it with my son for my husband. The embroidery that is under that was meant to be a present for my husband as well, but in the daytime I didn’t have chance to embroider since I had to wait for him to sleep before working on it. I often spent hours in the night embroidering, which made me really drowsy at daytime. Finally I decided that it wouldn’t work longer in this way and gave it to him as a Christmas present. Even though it wasn’t finished yet, he liked it a lot. There is only a few contour stitch back, and then it’s ready to be framed. I would like to put it in a blue wooden frame, and finally it will get next to the sailboat on the shelves.

I imagine this is what a teeny-weeny sailor would see, if he would climb up to the top of the mast. ☺

My boys also joined boat races, and those were always very exciting. Of course they didn’t really have a lot of chance against the Dutch, British, American and Italian teams, but on this picture they are just then on the second place! (I know it’s hard to see, so just believe me!) ☺

Blue Roses Quilted Wall Hanging - Show and Tell Friday 2.

Since last week cloudy Show and Tell Friday entry so many of you wished some sunshine for me, that on that weekend the air actually got clearer and the sun came out of hiding. Thanks!

But by now the old and sad weather returned, and the best you can do is get wrapped into a warm blanket by a warm lamplight with a cup of hot chocolate. Or: back to the Naples’ memories!

I started making this wall hanging quilt in Naples, following the instructions in Dina Pappas’ wonderful book. It’s not always easy to find fabrics with large roses that have contrast as well, but I succeeded. In Monterusciello (small neighbour town) there was a market on every Wednesday, where – in the large bustle of goods and people – everything that we could imagine was there for sale.

On the above picture it is only a small part of the market, as it went on long into the streets to infinity. New clothes, bed clothes, pictures, candles, curtains, tablewares, so many things I can’t even write it all down! I found lots of treasures (there were a few thrift store alike tents as well). On the other huge area they were selling delicious fruits, vegetables, cheeses (amazing fresh buffalo mozzarella and parmesan etc.) different kinds of olives (that we had to taste all the time) and sea fruits.

Well on this market around the new bed clothes once I discovered two lonely pillowcases, that somehow lost their duvet covers, so I got them at a very low price. They had wonderful small and large blue roses. I knew it instantly, that I would learn Dina Pappas’ methods on this fabric.

I finally did it, and the making was a lot of fun too. It was put aside for some time though, because I knew that I wanted a blue and green frame on this wall hanging quilt. I already had the blue fabric for that, but couldn’t find a matching green. You wouldn’t guess where I found it in the end. At our move I had to go through all of my fabrics to empty our wardrobe and in the bottom of my owns I found this green one, which fits the picture very well in my opinion.

I learned the free motion machine quilting on this picture, so it became a very personal and valued piece: it has the hot Italian summer’s feeling, a walk on the market, the many things that I have learned in the making, and – on behalf of the green fabric – our move as well.

Show and Tell Friday

The weather is terrible in Hungary for days now, dark and clouded, it’s a bit depressing. I am desiring some sunlight. So Show and Tell Friday was a good occasion for me to look for our old pictures made in Naples, Italy, and show you some of them. What do you think this is?

And this one?

Before I tell you (more time for you to think about it), I will share how we got to Naples. My husband’s job needed him there for 1 year, so it was natural that the whole family moved with him. We rented a house in a village near Naples, which had a huge terrace with a view of the sea. This was very important for us, since Hungary has no sea, so we wanted to have a sight on it as much as possible.

We regularly watched the sunset from the upper balcony, with a glass of port-wine in our hand, to watch the red sun disappear slowly in the sea. Shortly after our bats showed up (we had two ones) flashing around with lightning speed, and then the show ended (until the next evening). This was the view from the balcony:

And this was how it looked like when the night was falling:

And here is a picture that might help with the clue:

Maybe you may see that the first two pictures show the same thing: a stopper for the shutters, to stop the strong wind constantly blowing from the sea from slamming our shutters in (that is when the hard-face gentleman is on top). To set the shutters loose, before closing them you have to turn the gentleman down revealing the nice-looking lady. Then you may close the shutter. This is shown on the picture above, though from a bit far I know. I really liked how the Italians solve even this everyday task in such an esthetic and witty way. It was quite common that if we payed attention we could discover really small but beautiful details wherever we went.

We loved living in Naples, and on such cloudy gray days we miss it maybe even more. Someday I will tell about it more.

My “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” Quilt

My first quilting work has not been finished yet. I always liked challenges, so what else could I have started after reading my first quilt book, than a huge “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” king-size quilt?

We were on a vacation at the beautiful Lake Tisza in 1998 with some friends and a bunch of kids. We all had a great time. I started to make and sew together the first hexagons in those delightful summer evenings. The kids liked them so much, that they joined me in the work (the boys too, including my son). I have kept these patches, and – even though I am quite the perfectionist, and kids’ stitches were far from uniform, rather the opposite – but I am sure that those patches will be part of the final quilt. I hope it will be finished some day so I can show it to everyone.

My “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” king-size quilt’s design was constantly changing, as time went by. The biggest disaster for my family was in the first week of our one year spent in Naples (Italy), when our house got robbed. Which had quite the effect on my quilt, since a huge (HUGE) suitcase full of beautiful American quilt fabrics, which I collected in the USA (and made a great effort to bring them home with us, casting out everything else to fit in our suitcases) taken by bad guys.

To tell you the truth for some time I thought I would never be able to look at fabrics again, since they stole not only my fabrics, but the joy of working with them as well. And then my sweet husband told me that I shouldn’t grieve about it, he would buy me new fabrics, even better looking ones, than before.

And soon after in Naples I have started a new project as a therapy: I created 4 wall hangings (Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter) from the small pieces of sample fabrics remained after the robbery (I have kept the samples in a different box) and from some blocks of the “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” quilt.

I am still looking for the matching fabric to create the border for Spring, but the rest of them are complete.