Coasters for Valentine's Day

This four is actually on route to their new home, but I really liked them so I thought I could show them here.


I appliqued the hearts with the technique that I practiced on the wall hangings onto the linen base. This is still the same linen that I have written about before. (Last year I’ve got a whole roll of home-made linen from my grandmother – her mother and grandmother wove it at home by their hands, which is a big treasure. It’s rough weaving, natural-colored or self-colored.) I was sure that these red hearts would look very good on this natural base and I believe I was right.


I made the binding with my current favorite, the red polka dots fabric that turned out to be buttons in great hurry.


I hope everyone has a happy Valentine's day, with roses and many chocolate, red hearts and everything else that comes with it! :)

Four Seasons Trees – Finished!

I’ve finished this huge wall hanging, Four Seasons Trees! I am so happy now!
There is a picture of it in our terrace:


And there is another photo taken after the Four Seasons Trees was hung on the wall made by the owner who is also very happy. ☺


Older posts about the process of creation:

http://patchworkmill.blogspot.com/search/label/wall hanging

Now I’m working on quite small projects which I’m able to quilt without the need of my lovely husband holding them next to the sewing machine (the book expansion was not enough when I had to do the final large quilting). ☺

Four Seasons Trees – Work in Progress 3.

The following picture shows a great comeback to all who told me that I collected too many home decorating and gardening books in the past years. It really shows now that they can be quite useful in numerous situation! I expanded the sewing surface with them (and the ironing board), making it easier to move the larger sized “trees” during quilting.

This wall hanging was pinned with straight quilting pins, as even though my curved safety pins are less dangerous they leave too big holes afterwards. I was afraid that they would leave their marks on the light area around the trees. As a result I stung myself quite a few times during work. Nothing is perfect.

I was planning flowers and fruits under the trees but as I’ve done very little free motion quilting so far, I was afraid to just “draw” with my hands all loose. Instead I used a very thin paper to draw the pattern for myself that I could use later for the free motion quilting. Of course it was not easy to rip off all the small pieces of paper afterwards (I had to use a brow clip also ☺), but looking at the result I believe it was worth the trouble.

Four Seasons Trees

Oh my! Winter almost got left out!


The whole wall hanging will be done in the following days, and I’ll show it to you guys!

But I’m doing some other things in the meantime as well: a very kind Etsy costumer liked my Vintage Rose camera case, but she has a camera that is a bit larger, so I’m sewing one for her with the right measures.


I had this fabric with the roses and stripes for a very long time. I bought them together with the fabric of my “Florence” camera case, in the textile factory of Kispest. In those times the Hungarian textile industry was still up and running. Pure nostalgia.

Work In Progress 2.

Well… I’ve taken a bit longer break then I originally thought so, but since then our son graduated (with excellent grades), we had Christmas of course, I sewed some presents and – as probably every other family in the world – we had guests or went to someone else’s place to be guests – during the whole holiday.

But now I’m back again and I’d like to start with the answer to the question I asked before (so none of you will start to worry that I forget it). Snowflake wrote me the solution (four seasons) in email during the holidays, as she couldn’t log in to leave a comment. I’d like to congratulate her hereby! And thank you.

Well, lets start:

I’ve been thinking about how beautiful a large wall hanging (with four trees representing the four seasons) would look in our finished bedroom for a long time. The four seasons theme has been always close to me: I already have (an unembroided) pattern with the four seasons and an almost finished wall hanging collection as well (it’s a shame but Spring is still not ready as I’m still looking for the right frame). I already wrote about them twice (My “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” Quilt, and Winter Officially Started).

Even though the house-building project has been going really well, our bedroom is still not ready. But. My relative – I wrote about before – has dreamed that they have a huge wall hanging above their bed: four trees and four seasons. Strange things happen in life, right?

So right now I am sewing trees, cutting and ironing leaves and berries. I am sewing them on a paper template in English paper piecework style (folding their edges), then I attach them on the base with the help of some glue. (The folded edged application is no mistake: I work a bit more now for the far future, but I’ll be writing a separate post about that later.)

I sew the fixed pieces on the base with my sewing machine. I was really nervous as this is a brand new technique for me: I programmed a series of stitches into my machine, resulting in the feel and look of sewing all that trees, leaves and berries with my hand.

The berries have to be rotated all the while, which is quite hard, but I am really good with the leaves now. There was a moment when I even felt like someone was leading the fabric in the machine, the leaves were almost sliding under the sewing needle on their own.

I’m already finished with Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, so I’m currently working on the four pictures into one large one, while framing it as well.

When I told my husband how strange it was that I was asked to make a huge wall hanging that I’ve been wanting to make above our own bed, I found out two things: 1. I’ve been fantasizing about this plan so deep inside, that I didn’t even tell him about it. 2. He is not sure that he wants to see the four seasons flow through our home. He liked the four seasons wall hanging collection (almost done) that I designed to the living room before, but he thinks that I should work another one of my many future plans for the other parts of our house. Well… this is where I am right now.

Work In Progress 1.

I am working on a really big wall hanging, it is for one of my distant relative. To be exact: I make it for the cousin of the husband of the sister of my dad.
Here are the fabrics that I’m using. They are sorted into four groups for a reason. ☺




I wonder if you guys can figure out what the wall hanging is about, just by looking at these... ☺

Winter Officially Started

Today is the first day of December and from now in the northern parts of the world winter has officially started according to the meteorologists. Here in Hungary (at least at Budapest and the area) we celebrated the start of wintertime with a huge amount of warm rain, that made the only remaining snow disappear as well.

Till snow and ice return and we can build the first snowmen, here is my Seasons Wall Hanging Set’s “Winter” piece for you.

I still haven’t found the right frame for “Spring”. So I better hurry up if I want to show it to you guys on the first day of Spring (it is officially on first of March isn’t), since I have got only three months left.

I was thinking about making the blog get some winter style look as well, but I have realized it’s enough that it’s cold outside, better keep the inside warm. Remain the glowing leaves like the flames inside the fireplace.