Sewing again

I've been playing with my Japanese fabric scraps again and completely enjoying it.

Another Colorplay scrap quilt is almost finished. It's the chartreuse one. I'm almost finished sewing the binding on.

I'll take a picture of the whole quilt when it's done.
There are two more Colorplay scrap quilts waiting to be quilted. And also two completed quilts waiting to be put away somewhere, or maybe displayed on a wall, I haven't decided yet.

Next are two pictures taken a few days ago during a walk along the river Lesse. There is a kayak on the first one.

I did this river descent when I was 30 years younger... It looks very peaceful here, but a few miles further, it gets a bit wilder. I remember we had lots of fun.

The next photo is Dinant. Can you see the big colorful saxophones on the bridge? Did you know that Adolphe Sax was born in Dinant exactly 200 years ago? Many concerts and exhibitions in his honour are currently organized in Belgium.

The Tree of Life

I made this quilt last year for the Quilt Whisperers challenge which was initiated by Georgina Chapman and is based on this children's game. Several European groups took part in the challenge and all the quilts were shown at the 2014 Loch Lomond show in Scotland.
The basic idea is that the first quilter in the group receives a photograph and has to make a quilt inspired by that picture. She then sends her quilt, without the photo, to the second quilter who makes a quilt inspired by the first one. When she's done, the second quilter sends her quilt to the next one, and so on, until the last quilter. Of course, each quilter only sees one quilt. She doesn't know what the others have done. The results are often very different and surprising.
In Belgium, two groups of 10 quilters took part in the challenge. The quilts were shown at the National Show in Enghien 3 weeks ago.
Here's a detail of my quilt...

And here's the statement I wrote at the time I made the quilt: "I decided to keep the bridge and the tree, and to go for a colourful abstract landscape inspired by some of the quilts I made with the Twelve by Twelve international group. All my fabrics are home-dyed. I designed the tree and the bridge from pictures I took during my travels in Japan. While I was working on this quilt, sadly my mother passed away. The tree and the bridge then took an even stronger symbolic meaning for me, as the tree of life and a bridge of transition. The Japanese sign き, which reads as "ki", means tree and also spirit. "

It's over

The 2014 edition of the Belgian Patchwork Association exhibition is over. It took me a full day to recover from it, but I absolutely had a great time at the show.
There was a large variety of quilt styles both in the competition and in the different exhibits. I think all the visitors really enjoyed it.

In the room next to the Colorplay Twelve by Twelve display, there was a very moving exhibit dedicated to the quilts of Lutgard Gerber who was the guild's president from 1996 to 2005 and who passed away last year.

The weather was summery for the first three days. It turned a bit cooler on Sunday but it stayed dry, which is nice.
As you can see in the mosaic, there was even a little train going around the park and linking both sites of the show.  So much fun!

Colorplay in Belgium

I'm glad to report that the Twelve by Twelve Colorplay quilts are ready for they final show!

It's in Enghien, at the Belgian Patchwork Association exhibition.