which we won’t tell a man, no way ever:

Size DOES matter! Pssst - all Moda designers share this opinion. In fact we are so convinced that we will reveal our insights and give you a look behind the curtain why size matters for us (and I guess for you too).

From 4th to 16th September we all chat for a while on our blogs about that mystery SIZE. And when you know about us, you will also know that everyone will have something handy for you – not only inspiration, but also a little free gift.

There is a list of all participating Moda designers, their blog-addresses and when they will open their giveaway on Moda’s website. For more information hop over there!

So – STAY TUNED! Zen Chic will be at the first round on September 4th!

Farbe ist nicht alles?

ein Gastbeitrag von Michaela Stangl

Ist es nicht toll, eine Designerin zu kennen?
Brigitte kommt im Juli nach Österreich und wird einen Kurs zum Thema “Farben” halten.
Ich wollte immer schon mehr über Farben und ihre Wirkung lernen und ein bisschen mutiger werden.
Wir haben alle unsere Komfortzone, in der wir uns farbtechnisch bewegen. Bei mir sind es Wasserfarben, viel grün und blau und eher nicht pastellig.
Wer weiß was ich versäume, vielleicht wäre manchmal ein Hauch von pink (uaghh!) das Tüpfelchen auf dem i?
Ein bisschen Theorie schadet nie und ich freu mich schon auf neue Erkenntnisse.

Hier sind die Informationen zum Kurs in Baden:

(Auszug aus dem Badner Kunstwochenprogramm, weitere Informationen hier.)
Bei Interesse gibt es hier das Anmeldeformular.

FARBE IST ALLES – FARBLEHRE FÜR QUILTER
Wie funktionieren Farbharmonien und welche gibt es?
Lernen Sie Rezepte kennen und machen Sie sich Farben vertraut, die Ihnen weniger liegen. Sie lernen an einem kleinen Projekt, wie Sie diese Harmonieregeln auf Stoffe und Ihre Quilts übertragen können, um ihnen Tiefe, Dimension und eine beeindruckende
Wirkung zu geben.
Bitte bringen Sie Ihr eigenes Material nach vorherigen Angaben der Kursleiterin mit.
Der Kurs bedarf keiner Vorbereitung zuhause. Sie können einfach so einsteigen.

Foto of unknown

Brigitte HEITLAND
Brigitte Heitland studierte Innenarchitektur und
Textildesign und hat vor einigen Jahren die Tradition
des Patchworks entdeckt. Seither ist sie leidenschaftliche
Quilterin, arbeitet Kundenquilts in ihrem
Longarmquiltingservice und entwirft eigene Stoffkollektionen
für die Firma Moda. Ihre Arbeit zeichnet
sich besonders durch ihre moderne, graphische
Textilgestaltung und ihr Farbgefühl aus

Kursnummer: KUWO 6290
Termin: 13.Juli 2013
Preis: € 90,-
Kursort: Volkshochschule Baden, Johannesgasse 9
Unterrichtszeit: Sa 10:00 – 18:00 Uhr

Brigitte hat den Kurs schon einmal in Bielefeld und einmal in Barcelona gehalten und wir dürfen den Damen dort diesen Vorsprung nicht lassen !

Hier noch eine Collage von den Farbfestspielen von Bielefeld und Barcelona:

Inspiring Projects using Comma from Zen Chic for Moda

A couple of weeks ago my current line Comma was shipped out to stores and get a warm welcome among the quilters. We here at farbstoff in Germany actually sell the fabrics like crazy and run already out of some bolts (Nigella Multi was the hit).

Seeing what other people are inspired to sew with is in fact one of the best parts of my doing and makes my heart sing.

I’d like to showcase some projects to inspire you too!

This is a supercute quilt using the Moda Candy size of 2 1/2” squares, made by sewsisters. I want one!!!

speaking of circles: this one is called “ring around” by Melissa Corry and it’s meant for a little baby.

She even made a cover for a baby car seat from Comma and gives you a tutorial for it.

Another candy charm pack and circle them lead to a table runner on the blog Ifianllyhavetime . Look at these mini hexagons on the borders.

This one from sewpixie at flickr is cool, huh? I like the 74, numbers are always such an eyecather.

My friend Debbie Grifka from Esch House Quilts loves minimalism too and created a new pattern for purchase:

And look at this beauty from Sherry of hiddentreasurecrafts! She just used up some leftoverstrips. I have a thousand of these, why didn’t I came up with that idea???

She made also a black and white variation of “Play a card”, all three quilts from only one Fatquarterbundle (even a fateightbundle would have done)

Do you love bold Hexagonquilts? There is even a detailed pictured sewing instruction for this one from Sara at modabakeshop!

I personally couldn’t resist to this stunning star quilt! That contrast between the white and the prints makes it gorgeous! It’s a challenge entry from Bungalow Bay Quilts. Thumbs up!

And these cute blocks from Kathy are still going to become a fresh modern quilt, I can already imagine the look!

Some projects use only a part of the Comma color spectrum, for example the black-gray-white with a single color. Yellow makes a good partner here in the twister table runner made by Quilt Barn.

  
Or look at that impressive version from emmalinebags. She used only slate and yellow with a hint of chalk in her warm HST quilt. LOVE it!

Are you inspired? I can’t wait to get to my sewing machine for a couple of hours and try out what my eyes caught.

Maybe you have an own project made from Comma? I would love to get a link to your pictures in the comments.

Happy sewing,
Brigitte!

And the winners are…

there are some winners to announce here – drum roll….

We had a little goodie for those of you who connected with the new Zen Chic FB page by clicking the like button (well you can of course still click it and I would appreciate it).

And this lucky winner is: Nettie Hendricks (maybe the sister of Jimmy???). Please send me your address.

And we have even more to give away. As promised a scrap bundle of my newest line Barcelona. There are only some precuts of the line available in stores, the yardage is expected to be shipped to stores by September. So you will luckily get a kind of sneak peek of fabric.

Your comments made my heart sing and I was so glad to hear when people said: You really captured the flair of Barcelona with that line. Well, that’s what I intended :-)

I would like to give each and everyone such a scrap bag, but you know – you should live all in one place so I can send one huge parcel :-)

But at least I decided to increase the number of parcels to send from one to three and so we have three lucky winners here

Katherine from Sewmesomethinggood

Susan from Studioadventures

and Mamarazza from Nürtingen

I’m going to send you an email asking for the postal address.

Congratulations to these lucky winners! And a huge thank you to everyone who took the time and left a comment. There was lots of warmth and encouragement in your words, I appreciate all your loving and nice comments!!!

Brigitte

picture courtesy of Fatquartershop

Again something to win…

Would you like to help me building up my new facebook business site for Zen Chic? Go to Zen Chic, klick the "like" button and win something for making "PLAY A CARD": 2 Charm Packs of Comma and a the sewing instructions for the quilt. Expires by end of tomorrow, 28th of May

New Zen Chic Quilt Patterns featuring Barcelona

Hi, this is me again. Christine of www.grapes-heart.blogspot.com. Last week I promised to come back for a reveal of Brigitte’s new patterns for Zen Chic.

During the last four weeks, almost all of our MQG Bielefeld members have been helping Brigitte to prepare for Spring Quilt Market 2013 in Portland. Along with her new fabric line for MODA,“Barcelona”, she designed seven brand new patterns. As these new fabrics arrive only shortly before quilt market, there’s not much time to get those quilts for her booth done. So we volunteered to piece some quilt tops. She still had to piece the backing, baste, quilt and bind all those quilts…

Last Saturday was our monthly MQGB-Sew-In and we had a big Show & Tell with all the quilts WE MADE FOR PORTLAND (o;
(Can you tell we are a tiny little bit proud to be part of this Quilt Market Crazyness…?!)

This is Brigitte with an appliqué quilt named “Clarity”

… details of her beautiful quilting:

…and the final pattern cover (available just in time for Quilt Market):

Evelyne made this cute Baby Quilt Top – the first Baby Quilt Pattern Brigitte designed for a fabric line):

Brigitte chose this boy-ish quilt design that features cars and arrows.

And this is the cover of “Child’s Play”, a beginner friendly quilt pattern.

This is Brigitte explaining “Thirtythree”, a quilt that uses the “Street Map” Prints of her fabric line “Barcelona”. She added the “magical number” 33 to the quilt as another hommage to Antoni Gaudí, who referred to #33 in his buildings repeatedly.

A close-up of her longarm machine quilting:

And the final booklet cover of her pattern:

Ulrike made this gorgeous quilt top titled “Pure”:

Brigitte (and her partner Martin) added this stunning zig zag quilting…

… that shows best on the backing…

… and the cover is to die for, isn’t it?!

There is a second Ulrike in our MQG who made this beautiful quilt (but could not be there on Saturday):

Brigitte added a spiraling quilting design and machine-bound this green beauty using a decorative stitch of her sewing machine.

The Booklet Cover for “Quiet Haven”:

This rather straight line quilt top was made by me. Brigitte designed it as a wall hanging for a clearly structured office space.

To soften those straight lines and bold color contrasts, she chose a curvy-kidney-kind-of-quilting.

And here is how she designed the final pattern cover photo:

Last but not least, this is Brigitte again with another quilt: “Shine Through”, that was designed as an homage to Gaudí’s famous mosaics.

…she quilted it with a straight barcode design…

… and made this stunning cover (my favorite…).

That’s the seven quilts we helped making for Spring Quilt Market. There were two more for US based Quilting Magazines that we can’t show you right now. For those two Christa (who wasn’t at the Saturday’s meeting either, so we have no picture of her) was the helping angel. As soon as these both quilts are published and at newsstands, we can catch up on showing them. That a grand total of nine quilts in 4 weeks. And although we helped piecing and appliqueing, Brigitte still had to make backings, baste them, quilt them on her longarm machine and bind them. I am totally impressed by all the efforts she puts into each new fabric and pattern line and the perseverance to get everything done in time. I love each and every pattern she designed (but then, I am biased, I guess…).

Which one is your favorite?!

Brigitte, have a nice and safe trip to Portland and back!
And don’t forget to bring back many memories and photos to share during our next monthly Quilt Talk!

Christine

P.S. Did you enter Brigitte’s Giveaway? There’s still time (until she gets back from Portland)…

 

Note from Brigitte: Thank you, thank you and did I already say THANK YOU my dear friends!!!! You know – I wouldn’t have managed everything in time without your help, and I’m very grateful I can rely on you all, your support and your skills. XOXOXO

All my bags are packed…

again, I’m waving to you all, standing in front of my door with four suitcases. Martin and I are heading off to our flight to Portland, and we are going to give our best to make a great show! YEAH! Wish me luck and I’m glad you like what I brought you this time ;-)

Talk to you soon when I’m back with a Quilt Market report…