I went to the craft show and came home with this:
a small piece of fabric with an angel, and a bigger piece, one meter, of dark brown decorator fabric, some olé olé ladies, kitschy, but how nice for a medallion quilt, and a dark brown back ground is very hard to find!

There was not much available for me:
to much of glittery christmas stuff,
jewellery, more kitsch, scrapbooking, even chocolates, and, oh yes, i baught some paint to pimp up old chairs.
You ask me about prices?
12euros only to get into the show, around 16 euros for a meter of quiltfabric, and you buy in a hectic atmosphere.
So i'm longing for the next craftshow in Paris , in February. It'll be all about sewing, knitting, embroidery and so on.

Some of the things i saw:

delicious BOUTIS from a Japanese lady living in France.

A pic from the SAJOU booth

Another SAJOU item

And the last one.

QUILTMANIA's booth.

QUILTMANIA

The last two ones are from MARIE CLAIRE IDEES.

Yeah!!!

How hard she worked this summer!

My friend Nicole T made this top after having seen JOES MEESTER's antique quilt in Quiltmania.

The background is a soft vanilla shade.

She works so quick and accurately; hard to believe...........;

Have a lovely weekend, all of you, Will V in Paris

Friday night sur la Butte

I needed a quilting template 10 days ago, so i went to 2 Paris' quiltshops, and just didn't find one i really liked.
Came home frustrated if not to say angry, and all of a sudden remembered i baught this book not so long ago:
the choise was easy peasy, i've cut a sheat of paper the right size, folded,designed and in less than 5 minutes i had my template.
I will think twice from now on before running to a shop!
After all, that's what quilters did a hundred years ago, right?
Btw, Paris is becoming a DESERT for quilting, the interresting shops are or in suburbs or in the country side.
So back to oldfashioned quiltmaking, the way i learned in the early seventies.

These blocks deserve better than staying in a plastic bag. I made them with my old quilting friends, all i have to do is choose the background fabric.
Any suggestions?
How about poison green?

This is the one and only antique quilttop i own: a turn-of-the-century logcabin, a barn raising.

There is just one row missing, so the balance is not nice.

As seam allowances are comfortable, i will change the setting in a straight furrow.

That will not take me ages to do.

Handsewn all over, i think that quilting is a better option than tying,any experiences with that?

All the fabrics seem in very goos condition, no browns.

I'm grateful for your kind comments on the hexies, and yes, i will change the center and save the second for a medallion quilt!

Have you been on Betsey Telford's website lately?

She sells antique quilts, and going through her collection is like turning the pages of a beautiful quiltbook.

Go and see and enjoy!

you all have a nice weekend, a mountain of ironing is waiting for me!

Wiil V in Paris

Should i laugh or should i cry?

Guess who came to see me?
I spend a wonderful afternoon with Bonnie Hunter and her friend Randy, and my new quilting friend Valérie.
We had a lovely meal in a restaurant in the area,delicious food for a very reasonable price.
So if you come to Montmartre, ask me for the adress, it's hard to find this kind of resto's in a touristic quarter, with such a lot of tourist traps!

Afterwards we went to my home for a show and tell, and Valerie and i went shopping with them around the Marché St. Pierre, and they went home with loads and loads of Toile de Jouy.
Hope you had both a pleasant flight home and Randy, your sweater is on the way!


Slow progress on the hexies, only one row, but i magaged to make a few hundred red ones, the most boring job of this quilt.
You may remember that i told about the loss of the center of this quilt and that it took me a long time to decide to start it over.
And then, one day, under a bunch of scraps in the iron basket, what did i see???????????????



THIS!
The first one!
And when i compare, i prefere the first far more!
Repositioning the first will be a heck of a job, but i think it's worth doing it.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

No doubt, with this kind of organisation it's logic that i can search for this or for that during hours.............

While looking at the quilts and tops with the girls, i digged out this lone star from around 1995.

I love lone stars, but they are hard to display in very small rooms,so it stays always stacked in a pile.

A top made in very little time, with a part of the samples send by Vintage and Vogue years ago.

The prussian blue matches lovely and the overall look likes more English than American.

The border design is an English fabric from 1824, sort of chinoiserie.

Thank you for following my blog and your kind comments.

Even if i do not always answer them i really appreciate your interest.

Will V in Paris, rainy and much colder today.

Françoise, crafter and knitter

Let me introduce you to FRANCOISE VAUZEILLES, a very talented young craftswomen, who recently founded her own company, LA REINE DES POMMES

She designs and knits delicious little pastries, but has also a lot more to offer.

If you want to get in touch with her, take a look at her website :

www.reinedespommes.com/

Enjoy!

A very nice weekend to all,

Will V in Paris

Last posting SMM

Isabeau between Guy and Carol from Quiltmania, Isabeau's home is featured in the latest issue, take a look and enjoy, it's a feast for the eye,colorful and inspirational!

Petra Prins and Renée, her helper.

Showed us beautiful quilts, you can buy the kits, and beautiful reproductionfabrics.

And here is the crew of "LA FEE PIROUETTE", Nathalie, second from the right, creates quilts with embroidery, simply delicious.

Take a look at this quilt: one hourglass is 4 cm, the zest of orange made is so special.

The quilt came to Europe with my favorite antique quilt specialist ever:

MARY KOVAL.

She is real trooper and came all on her own this time, selling her quilts, tops ,orphan blocks and old fabrics, and always with a big smile.

I hope she had some time to see the Elsass wit a good guide!

And Mary gave me fabric, from her next collection she created for BLANK, not yet available in quiltshops, asking me to make a little quilt using the collection.

Thank you Mary, i love such a challenge!

Second version of Mary's collection.

This is something totally different:

last year a dear friend gave me a little exercise book from a young schoolgirl, it was made during wartime, in 1943 and it shows clearly how sewing skills were taught then.

I wish i had such knowledge too!

Two recent flea market finds,a little needlebook and the cover of a little oval box, both for next to nothing.

And oh, should i feel ashamed?

I bought fabric in SMM.

But when i counted at home, i realised it was 12 meters!

NO, i'm NOT ashamed, i need this....

Enjoy your weekend, greetings from Paris, so nice under a bright autumn sun,

Will V

Miscellenious from Ste Marie

Som redwork from the Elsass in a small show about antique haberdashery and embroidery

The next pics were taken through glass, so the quality of the pics is not what i wanted, bit frustrating.

A beaded purse

This was gorgeous, how many ohours did she spend on making this?!?!?

Yoko's little helper, Yoko Saito and Isabelle from Quiltmania in Yoko's stand.

A part of a Dutch quilt, entirely made from Den Haan en Wagenmakers' fabric.

This is Willyne Hammerstein's quilt, all her quilts are very colorful, and the dark border very intriguing.

Elbeth and Nel in the Den Haan en Wagenmaker's stand.

DHEW is now a department of Petra Prins.

A costume from Hungary, heavy embroidery, a feast for the eye.

Some dresses from Southeast Asia, i forgot to mention where it came from.

Still more to show you, so let's say see you tomorrow.

Will V. in Paris

Ste Marie again and progress on the hexies

Elisabeth Madzar is born french, but followed the love of her life to Istanbul where she started a quiltgroup with Turkish ladies, who uses only antique fabrics like silks, brocades velvet, etc.
She came with her group to Ste Marie to show a part of their quilts and some costumes.
the central panel you see her was made from velvet and silver thread embroidery.
Notice the sculpted border:
under the, let me call it clover leafs, are paperpieces.
Elisabeth told me that this piece needs constant repair and care.
The quilts are huge, very ornamental and oriental of course.
Stunning, but not the kind of quilt you could sleep under!

Here are the hexies and you can clearly see the center part surrounded.

I still have a big bunch of red hexagons, but i will quickly run out of flowers so it will take some time before you will see an update.

It's fun to do, but i want to work in the same time on quicker projects.
I forgot to tell you that the coin you see next to a beige flower in one of my former posts is a one euro coin.

There is more left of the trip to SteM so see you tomorrow!

Will in Paris, finally autumn in the air..........