Guest Blogger: Hand Quilter Fleur

Please join me in welcoming today’s guest blogger Fleur from The Netherlands, as she shares with us a few of her recent gorgeous quilts, all done by hand too! Fleur also designs and creates really cute Bears.

Hello quilters all around the world,

I love quilts with a HEART.

For me this means that I make them with a special reason, with special fabrics, with special thoughts. From the very beginning of my quilting I made notes, wrote stories, in special books that belong with that quilt. And all my quilts are signed, have hidden pockets and contain one or more letters.
I am very creative, but that is so easy for me having parents that taught me so and gave me this talent by birth.

Mom learned me sewing and quilting and we shared many many days quilting together, visiting special shops and looking for lovely fabrics. My parents passed away and I still miss them very much, but I know so well this comes of all the good memories I have in my heart. But it still feels lonely when having a nice idea or when a quilt has been made and I cannot share this with my Mom.

A long time ago Mom asked me to write a book about my creativity, she was my biggest fan, and she thought I had to share some of my ideas with the rest of the world. I started the book, but had to stop soon, while it gave me too much tears. And now … maybe I will try again … but it is summer and there is a lot to do in our huge garden. But I can dream about it already … and while opening a box with special fabrics in it … tears of remembrance fill my eyes and warm my heart and I go ways back to my youth and all the time after that. Happily I do not need my scissors now to cut the fabrics, not yet, I will glance at it all, feel it all, let the warmth come to me and hopefully come winter I can start to make one of the quilts.

I also kept boxes full with clothes from both parents, it will be hard to cut them in pieces, but it will make a special quilt. Wools and tweed from the beautiful suits of my Dad and lovely tweeds from Mom’s suits. I even still have dresses from my youth and clothes from both brothers and even dresses from my grandmother. And a box full of the cotton shirts from my Dad. Mom and me talked about this, after Dad’s passing, and she loved the idea if I could do this one day. Mom knew me so well, she knew it would be too difficult for me the first time. But I kept thinking about it.

One of the quilts I want to make is a hexagon quilt. Years ago Mom made a lovely hexagon quilt. And she kept all the materials used for the English sewing method, I found them all later. So I will use them again. And while opening a box I also find tiny scraps of fabric … and they all give me memories … and Mom had a reason to keep them …. to use them one day, so how could I not use them … and in the box with the material for the hexagons I also found a smaller version of the hexagon, exactly the right size for the scraps. Great.

Last year I started a tumbler quilt, just small tumblers from 1 1/2" x 3/4". I started this quilt on a special day in the very beginning of May and I hope to sew the last tumbler this year on another special day. This pattern is a nice pattern, but it also says to me: there are so many "tumblers" in life.

It will be good to sew all my sorrow, memories, warmth and love, the missing of all the sweet family and friends, to sew it all in this quilt. I uses all kinds of red fabrics – red for love and warmth. And white/creme fabrics – eternity and see the "light". There are some blue fabrics in this quilt, while Mom loved looking at the clouds and their wonderful views and blue is also my favourite colour. The size of the tumbler is a special size and the total of the tumblers will be a special number with a meaning. Right now I sewed more than 1000 tumblers together. I sew it all by hand, as always.

I am also busy making a spool quilt with all kind of scraps. It is almost finished. The center blocks are dancing spools with hearts and I embroidered some sunshine around it.

And then my lovely basket quilt. The top is also almost ready, I am busy with the last border to fill in the space between the baskets in the border. In the middle of this quilt I made a house and around the house a heart with the baskets. This is a very dear quilt to me.

I hope you liked reading a little about my quilting life.

best wishes,

Fleur
Bears and Quilts with a HEART
Int.Bear Artist and Bear Doctor