Hello!!

Hello all!!

My name is Johanna Beren. I meant to introduce myself to you earlier but my mummy keeps me so busy all the time. She either feeds me or changes my nappy, or plays with me...But I enjoy it a lot :-)

I turned five weeks yesterday and growing so fast which my mummy is not very happy about. She says "I wish you stayed this little so I enjoy soaking in your newborn smell forever". I told her we would have years together and would have so much fun. She is an emotional mother, you know...

Ok, now it's mummy's turn to talk; it's been a while since she was around. You will see me more often from now on. Take care!

Hi all!

As my girl said, it has been a while since I was here. Let me quickly tell you what I have been doing, besides having fun with this little lady!

I was lucky enough to have an easier and quicker birth this time. I healed very quickly and turned back to my daily routine. Actually, I was up and running as soon as after we came home from the hospital. This meant, I got back to my sewing pretty quickly. I will come to that a little later.

We are still busily preparing for our big move to Argentina. DH is trying to finish the work in our yard, I am going through clothes, kitchenware, etc and deciding what is staying here and what is going with us. We have only three months left in Australia; as the time passes, my excitement is growing more and more. I feel good about it.

I have done something crazy to add on top of what I already have in my plate. I enrolled in an online undergraduate program, Communication Design, at Swinburne University! I will have three years for myself in Argentine and I want to spend it wisely. This will allow me to change my career when we return and hopefully find a job I will enjoy doing every day. The course has already started; currently, I am studying 20th Century Design which is about modernism. This unit has made me understand what modernism is and how it is applied to our everyday life (including quilting, believe it or not!).

I am back to teaching Turkish too. My student wants to fully utilise me before I leave.

I will also be back to the Spanish classes soon and will continue learning with a private tutor when we get there.

When I was expecting my girl I started an improv quilt using my scraps and a jelly roll which was sitting on the shelf for the last four years. I have made some good progress on it; it is now a baby size. I just can't decide whether to keep it at baby size or just continue growing it. I still have so many pieces I can use- I mean sooo many. Each time I look at them I say to myself "What was I thinking!!" But, this project kept me sane during the last weeks of the pregnancy. I think I just cut and cut and cut, sew and sew and sew. I remember it was like therapy.  Here is a photo of one of the panels I put together. 

Now, if you follow me on IG, you heard the BIG news already. 

I am a proud owner of a Juki TL2010Q!!! She was my Christmas wish for last year but Santa didn't accept it. I must have been a very good girl this year so Santa decided to deliver my wish a month early LOL The best thing was that I didn't know about this until it appeared on my door step!

I received her last Saturday and finally today the power converter arrived- 2010Q is not available in Australia so I need a converter. I have a hot date with this baby once the kids go to bed tonight!!

So, these are the latest news. Hope you are all doing well and getting ready for the festive season.

Cheers!

 Sibling love!

So ready!

This, my friends, is how I am feeling currently...

Photo: courtesy of a Facebook share :)

It was my official due date yesterday. As you can tell, I am still waiting; and I knew that my baby would never want to be in the 5% group who came right on their due dates! I feel big-veery BIG- and tired. Having said that, for the last couple of days, I have a boost of energy; I finished my son's quilt and started an improv project with my scraps which I will share once I make a little progress. But I have to warn you: it might be the beginning of a new "almost never-ending" project like my son's quilt. God, I am so glad I finished it!!
Squaring up the quilt was the biggest challenge. I wore knee pads which I used while putting the timber floor when we moved into this house- and yes I did all four rooms by myself. Maybe my knees didn't hurt but I literally rolled on the floor like a whale on the shore trying to go back to the sea!

Here it is.

 I haven't washed it yet; it is 58.5"x77.5". This is the biggest quilt I have ever made.

I first complained about the colour of the thread choice but once I finished it, I really like its subtle look. It doesn't dominate the quilt and lets the colours in the fabrics shine. I am also very happy with the quilt pattern I chose; straight stitching on the stripy area and logs on the negative space worked very well together. The texture is amazing.

I am so in love with this scrappy binding and glad that I finished all the fat quarters I had to make this quilt!

Once I finished it, I called my son and said "look Kuzey! Mummy finished your quilt!" This was his reaction and I am glad I still had my camera to capture that special moment...

"Look monkey! Mummy finished our quilt!" he said to his talking monkey. Love him to bits!

Hope to give you my baby news in the following days.

Till next time, keep quilting. 

Cheers,

Nurdan

Trying to stitch a few blocks

Hi all,
It has been a while since I posted a quilting related post except for the regular Monday Makers! posts.  Before I move onto updating you on what I have been trying to accomplish for a while, I want to let you know that Monday Makers! is taking a little break until after my baby is born. My subscription to Inlinkz has expired last week too-good timing. I have to say that I will miss seeing your projects. I thank you for your participation and support to Monday Makers! You guys are awesome!!

I am in my last weeks of pregnancy; only four weeks to go now unless my baby decides to stay in there until 42 weeks like my son. I am praying for this not to happen! Daily chores are getting harder and harder to do, sleep is almost impossible; therefore, I am always cranky, feeling tired constantly...you know how it is; but all for a good reason lol.

You will remember the quilt I have been making for my son.

I made some progress on quilting it last week. I went to my quilty friend Monica's place (she is super talented, go check her IG!) to use her Sweet Sixteen to finish it. Well, I couldn't finish it because we kept on chatting, but I made some really good progress.

I just did freehand straight stitching on the stripy area with the same variegated thread, Superior King Tut, and I really like the texture and effect it has created. 

I had already finished quilting the grey negative space on my machine.

I have only this small area left to be quilted, then I will move to the binding business-God knows how long the binding will take!

I also managed to finish my July and August do.Good Stitches bee blocks-I know I am very late- and even started making the September one!

The theme was a super soft tulip for July and a super bright tulip for August with a low volume background.

 August tulip

July tulip

For September, our host wanted flying geese with a grey and orange combination. For this one, I decided to do something different than a normal, big flying geese block and did curved paper pieced geese for the first time. 

This block is 6.5"x6.5''. I am making another one to make it to 12.5"x6.5". So far, I really like it and enjoy making it.

I need some technical help. My photos look fuzzy once I upload them to the post. This has been the case for a while. If anyone has an idea about the reason and has a solution for it, can you please share it with me? I really appreciate it. Thank you!

So my friends, here is a quick update from me. I am going very slow here, with everything. I hope to be able to post again soon but can't promise anything to myself at the moment!

Stay well,

Nurdan

Monday Makers!#53

Hi all!
I, again, totally forgot about today's Monday Makers!;so, this will be a late and boring post without any photos. You can find the link below for you to share your beautiful finished projects and new starts. Thank you for sharing!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#52 and a forgotten treasure

Hiya all! Hope you had a good weekend.

I am aware that I have become a "Monday Makers! poster only" and this is making me a little upset. On the other hand, I can't do much to change this and post more often. I am not talking about becoming a serial poster like one-post-every-day. I would be pretty happy with myself if I could make a little more and post at least three times a week. Being pregnant also doesn't work for my advantage. These days, I can't get a bar of sleep because I developed RLS (Restless Leg Syndrome); therefore, I wake up so cranky (I would use another word to describe me...starts with b and finishes with h!). I can't attend the Spanish classes; once everybody leaves the house, I go back to bed and try to get some sleep. I still go to work in the afternoons but thank God, this week is my last week. When I come home, I have a light dinner and go to bed without even studying Spanish.

I was being very hopeful upon our return home from Europe. I was full of energy, new ideas, sewing mojo, and everything. I was going to finish my son's quilt and start a baby quilt, finish that one and start another one, make progress with my EPP hexies. Everything looked perfectly pink. Now I realise that I was being quite unrealistic-like I didn't know what it was like to be heavily pregnant. Of course, because I can't reach even a single goal in this list, I feel pretty useless at the moment. I am reminding myself that growing a human being inside you is not a very easy job but...yeah, I still feel useless. Anyway, enough nagging.

Yesterday, I helped hubby with decluttering in the garage. What I mean by helping is basically sit down and watch him open the boxes and order him "keep" or "chuck". Then he opened up a very dusty box and said "my love, I think you will love this, better come here". I walked to him curiously and looked inside the box. It was full of forgotten treasures; old photos, CDs, letters from friends, some jewellery, hair clips...It was amazing how all these items took me back to my university years; some items were even older. And this is one of them...

After I graduated from high school, I attended several hobby classes organised by different community organisations in my hometown. Antique painting was one of them. I think I was eighteen when I painted this cute box and I remember I enjoyed it a lot.

I used this chest for a very long time and packed it among many things for our move to Australia. When I opened it, I found another surprise inside...

This is the veil and mittens I used in my henna party. In Turkey, the tradition is that you have a henna night the night before your wedding and you cover your face with a red veil during the ceremony. In this ceremony, all the ladies of your family and friends come together, form a circle which you sit inside of, dance around you while passing the henna tray from one to the other. At the end of the dance, the eldest-normally your grandma, if not, your mum, holds the tray and applies henna in both of your palms. Then she wraps the henna with some fabric to secure it in its place and you wear these mittens in the picture. It is also a part of the tradition that she puts some money in the mitten- I found ten Turkish Lira :)

Finding these put a smile on my face for the rest of the day...

Bonus...

Quite a blurry picture. Me in traditional costumes and my mittens. This is the residence that hubby and I lived before he finished his job in Canakkale. What a lovely night it was...

Now to Monday Makers!
Come and share with us your projects!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#51 and a little brag

G'day all!
Hope you had a great week and I wish you a lovely Monday too- away from the notorious Mondayitis!

As some of you might know, I am a member of the do.Good Stitches Cherish Bee organised by Rachel at Stitched in Color. Our bee members make fantastic quilts; it is amazing to see how everybody comes up with their own combinations and  how they come together so perfectly. From time to time, Rachel visits all the other do.Good Stitches bees and highlights one on her blog. This month, she highlighted my bee and it caught me by surprise.
I regularly visit her blog and it was a nice surprise to see my block highlighted and getting a nice compliment.

"Such beautiful, crisp points!" 

And look at the gorgeous quilt that KathrynJonesQuilts made! 

I am very proud of my bee members!

Now to Monday Makers!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#50 and a personal update (Warning: a loong post)

Hiya all! Hope you had a fantastic week/end and your Monday is chugging along nicely too.

Today I want to use this space to update /remind myself how things are going in my life. Seeing everything written in front of me somehow makes me feel accomplished more. If you are interested, keep reading; you might find something among the lines that you also relate to. If not, that's totally fine, just scroll down the page and find the Monday Makers! link open for you to share your beautiful finishes and fresh starts.

It has been two weeks since we returned from our big trip. What did I do during those weeks, or I should say what have I been doing since I returned? It is almost all the time cleaning/doing laundry stuff -I mean mountains of washing I have done and more to wash-, tidying up, trying to rest, little sewing *sigh*, studying Spanish, preparing for my Turkish language teaching classes- this is something I haven't told you, I will come to it, some sleep at nights- if I can due to my growing belly...Pfff, I felt tired while reading what I have written...

Over the years, we have accumulated so much stuff that we always promised ourselves "we will go through them and part with some that we don't need anymore." Being great procrastinators, we got to a point where in every cupboard or drawer we find something either unwanted or not needed anymore. We finally bit the bullet and started going through the whole house-me- and the garage-hubby. You can't believe, even I can't believe, how much stuff we have already gotten rid of. Decluttering brings cleaning along too. The more you clean the more you want to make room in your house; the more you declutter the more space you have to clean. This is a vicious cycle which I hope will end soon!

Our language training has started. Since we returned, I am attending the classes in the mornings for three hours and going to work in the afternoons. The great thing about this is, when I come home, the dinner is ready! (Hubby is free in the afternoons.) By language training, I mean, I sit down and listen and try to grasp as much as I can. I thought this wouldn't be a very effective way of learning but I now can understand almost everything my husband and the tutor are discussing. After having dinner, I try to spend at least half an hour to do my own Spanish study to support the day class. I once stressed about this but now I am more relaxed because I know I can do it.
I have only 14 afternoons left at work, then I will be on maternity leave. Don't get me wrong, I am not counting the days (minutes?)! Then, I have more time to relax and enjoy the calm before the storm hahahah :D

Just before I left for our holiday, out of the blue, a language school from Melbourne contacted me saying there was a lady in Canberra who wanted to learn Turkish and whether I would be interested in teaching her. I was going to say no because who wants one more responsibility in the list of priorities-that is quite long, trust me..But then I said, this is an opportunity that found me, I haven't done anything for this, so I will accept it and did. Teaching English is my profession in the end and I can very well teach Turkish too. The first class last week was a big success and  I have enjoyed it a lot. My student was very happy and satisfied too and hopefully it will continue this way. (I must admit that I was a little nervous before the class as I haven't taught for six years but once I started I didn't want to stop hahaha :)

Let's talk about quilting...
Just before I left, I left my machine for servicing. While I am not able sew, I might as well get her serviced, yes? It was her first time in five years! It didn't have any real issues causing me trouble but the needle and bobbin timing was a little off and also my stitches were coming like wide-angled zigzags. I touched her for the first time the other night and I can't tell how excited I was! (This sounds a little naughty!) She was running perfectly and all her problems were fixed. She is  much smoother now and I noticed while FMQing my son's quilt that she is handling corners and circles better. I have made some good progress on his quilt last Sunday. I am hoping to finish it soon and start a baby quilt for my little bundle.
Having mentioned about my son's quilt, my son is back to child care full time now but he is struggling a little bit to adjust. His best mate moved to France and my son is now finding excuses every morning for not going to school. The best one he came up with so far is that "childcare is dangerous for little boys." Once we drop him off, he is totally fine, but he is waiting for the day that his mate will return from "holidays"...This breaks my heart...Besides dealing with the absence of his mate, he is doing great and waiting for his little baby sister/brother to arrive. He says he has plans for the baby. Ummmm???

I am 31 weeks today and feeling like a whale. Daily chores are getting harder and harder and I am still hopeful that I will finish all the cleaning/decluttering and finish my current quilting projects and make more. Needless to say I am struggling to reach the sewing machine, my arms have to grow a little more!

Woohh!! I have written a novel!! But feels great! I can probably write more but this should suffice for the moment.
If you have read all the way until here, I thank you very much for your kindness! LOL Seriously, I appreciate you chose to spend your valuable time to read about my past two weeks and current schedule.
If you haven't, cool, just link up now below- and I agree, having no photos in a blog post is pretty boring!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

(Belated) Monday Makers!#49 reporting from Canberra

Oh boy, I am so tired! We returned from our one month overseas holiday yesterday; me and my son arrived around lunch time and hubby arrived a few hours later. We had such great time; traveled to three countries and several other places within those countries. It was so nice to see my family and friends and many different places I haven't seen before. The return trip was such a long and hard one for me this time as I couldn't sleep in the plane at all-not more than two hours in an 18 hour flight from Istanbul to Melbourne. Again, almost no sleep in Melbourne either as the airline company stuffed up the transfer of my luggage and I kept on thinking about how to solve it. In the end, we arrived home safe and sound despite all the other hick-ups along the way such as a last minute cancellation of a flight and being put back on the same flight hours later, a husband who got stuck in Dubai because of the same reason but he wasn't as lucky as me, his arrival in Canberra was delayed for almost a day...I seriously thought that this return trip was not going to end at all. When I arrived home, I had to pinch myself to make myself believe that it wasn't a dream LOL
I was so tired that I collapsed on the sofa and couldn't do anything else. That's why I am posting MM today.
With our return home, a new marathon started for us, especially for me, today. I kicked off the day with the Spanish language course which will last until we move to Buenos Aires. I am now working everyday half day after the language training until 4 September and then I will be on maternity leave-not that I am counting days LOL. And of course, our baby's arrival is around the corner; only 10 weeks to go and I can't believe how fast the time is flying in this pregnancy. Until the baby arrives, I have to study a lot, finish whatever is needed to be done around the house-this is basically cleaning and getting rid of the clutter, make as many quilts as I can while on maternity leave especially-and my machine is back from service, I will get to test it today, yayy!, spend time with my husband and son and prepare myself for the new addition to our family. I have to say I am very excited about this period in my life. I feel very positive and energised; however, I don't know how long I will feel energised with a growing belly, but I am determined to enjoy every single moment of this rush.

Beautiful flowers in Turingen, Germany

Now to Monday Makers!
Come and link up your beauties with me!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#48 reporting from London!

Hiya all!
After spending a week in Berlin and four days in Thuringen, we are now in London, the last step of our holiday, visiting my husband's niece who is going to give birth very soon. We are here for five days and then it is home time. I miss my home.
Unfortunately, I missed last week's Monday Makers. It was our last day in Berlin and we were so busy with finishing sightseeing and preparing for the next day's trip to Thuringen. I missed the MM but I managed to catch up with Aylin of aylin-nilya who used to hold a linky party called Monday Makers too. She is a lovely lovely person (and a very talented quilter and pattern maker/writer) and we had a very nice lunch together. If you are following me on IG, hugabitquilts, you might have already seen our selfie there :)

Today, we left home early to do some fabric shopping and sightseeing as well-just got home. After visiting a few places for fabric-can't remember the name of the street and suburb; none of the shops were selling quilting fabric anyway- we ended up going to Liberty of London. I admired the fabric there; only admired tho, it was jaw droppingly expensive. However, I couldn't resist a fat quarter bundle which was 20 Pounds and a book on bag making whose details I will provide later (it is close to midnight now and I have to go to bed to wake up veeery early tomorrow morning).

Liberty of London

Now to Monday Makers!

You might remember that I took some fabric and one inch hexagons with me to do some EPP in the plane. Well, that worked out very well and I made seven EPP flowers.

This one was stitched together too.

I really like how they are coming together. Once I go home, I will share some helpful details/tips about how to stitch the hexies together.

Do you have any projects to share with me? The link is below. The link will be open until Thursday night since the Monday is almost over.

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#47

Hiya all!
We are leaving for Germany tomorrow. But let me tell you: procrastination is not good.at.all. I have left all the things I needed to do to today; gift shopping, Turkish delight shopping, shoe repairs, etc,  so I have been running around like headless chucks.
We had absolutely an amazing time here. The weather, the food, my family, friends, shopping...I spoilt myself so much! You can follow me on IG for some delicious food and beautiful nature photos.
I have a couple of small projects to show you but I haven't taken their photos; hopefully the next time. I am sure you guys have something to share with me. Come link up your projects!

Do you have anything to share with me? Come link up your projects!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Monday Makers!#46

Hi peeps!
Hope you had a great week/end.

After changing four planes and spending almost 20 hours in the air, seven hours wait at several airports and one and a half hours car ride, I arrived in my home town in Turkey last Saturday evening!!Thank God, it all went very smoothly but we are still suffering from jet lag.

It is absolutely fantastic to be home with my parents; waking up in the morning to a beautiful breakfast, mum is running after me to check if I need anything-it is great to feel like a little child again, my sis and bro and my nephews are here too and my son enjoys spending time with all them. Tonight, I will be catching up with my friends from high school; I am super excited. I am not even mentioning about the great food, OMG!!

Now to Monday Makers!
Below is 56 hexagons I have glue basted in the plane while my son was sleeping! It was so much fun and I am super excited about this little experiment project. I am planning to make a quilt for my baby on the way!

Do you have anything to share with me? Come link up your projects!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up

Off to Europe we go! (and some progress updates)

My friends, the time has come; me and my son are off to Turkey this evening!!! I am super excited and a little nervous too. You know that feeling; you think you forget something and keep searching for it in your mind even though you made checklists and ticked everything off the list! Yes, I have that feeling and cannot stop searching for that missing item. And probably won't stop until I arrive at my destination!

Before I leave, I want to show you some progress photos of the quilt I made for my son and a few bits and pieces I made to take with me as gifts. 

Let's start with the quilt. Here is where I am at at the moment.

My initial plan was to buy some nice flannel fabric from Turkey and start quilting it once I returned...uhmm..nope, I couldn't wait. I couldn't resist the itch. I bought some very cute flannel from Lincraft-normally I never buy fabric from Lincraft or Spotlight but this fabric was good quality-and just got on with it. I think I made a very good progress; given that I quilted that area only in two days. Then I had stop to prepare for our departure.

I chose to quilt it with this linear pattern as I thought it would compliment the stripes on the quilt (I have other plans for the stripy bits). It is so fun; goes very quickly and you can fill a large area in no time. I must admit that I am not very happy with my thread colour choice. It doesn't show clearly in the photo but it is variegated with some soft yellows, blues, greens and pinks. I thought they would pop on the grey background but instead , they blend in so well that they become almost invisible. The thread quality, however, is superb! It is Superior King Tut; nice and shiny, the weight is beautiful- I think it is NE 40 in Aurifil, and the most importantly it doesn't create lint balls in the bobbin case area, which is the only thing I don't like with Aurifil. 

So, to add some colour for the sake of visibility-if it is so!-, I also quilted with a lovely green Aurifil I found in my stash. I will at least quilt a few rows in this colour and then go back to the variegated one.

Well, even though the thread colour didn't go as planned, I am so proud of myself. I never thought I would be able to manage such a large quilt on my domestic machine but proved that it was possible. I made a very good progress; I will be very happy to find it almost half quilted when I return. Also, I love the texture that the quilting creates!

I did some gift shopping for my family and friends as well. Over the six years, I had three trips to Turkey and took lots of gifts that reflected Australia. This being the case, I struggled to find different and unique things for a few family members; so I decided to make pouches for them at the very last moment!!

I used a thick interfacing for the green bottomed one and regretted it so much. It was almost impossible to turn the pouch inside out. Because of the struggle, the fabric wrinkled and ironing it didn't help much. So, for the red bottomed one, I just used cotton batting without interfacing and it was just perfect too. (I now notice that I forgot to topstitch around the zipper. I might still have time for it LOL.) The tutorial for these pouches and two other sizes can be found at Noodle-head. 

And the last thing to show you is one of my bee blocks which I totally forgot about until the other night! 

It was around 11pm when I started cutting the fabrics for this. Luckily, I had every colour I needed. I finished making the second one early this morning as soon as I woke up and they have been sent to its recipient. Phew!

Oh, one more thing. I was given a lovely charm pack by a quilty friend a while ago. I didn't have any plans for it until I decided to entertain myself in the plane with EPP hexagons!! I quickly ordered the templates, which arrived yesterday. I brought everything I needed to cut the fabrics into four to the office this morning. In under ten minutes...voila! A nice pile of 2.5"x2.5" squares to be basted in the plane! (I must be kidding myself by the way. Someone remind me that I am travelling with a three year old!)

Well, I feel like I have achieved a lot in such a short time. This shows one more time that I work more efficiently under some stress and approaching deadlines!

I am super excited about seeing my family and friends again after two years. They last saw my son-except the regular Skype calls-when he was just one year old. I am so looking forward to their reaction!

I am also looking forward to the delicious Turkish food which I don't cook very often, street bazaars, fabrics shops, streets at nights full of people, and basically everything! We will be catching up with my hubby in Germany and spending a couple of weeks there as well. I have never been to Germany; so, this will be interesting too. As the last stop, we will hop to England to spend a few days with my husband's niece who is about to give birth. In early August, we will be heading home. 

I feel like this will be a fantastic trip which we will always remember. And some other adventures are waiting for me upon my return!

Well friends; thanks for your patience and reading this long post. I will try to keep blogging while overseas. You can always follow my fabric and food (and everything else) adventures on Instagram.

Stay safe, stay well, keep stitching!

Love,

Nurdan 

Monday Makers!#45 and my humble review of some quilting machines

Hiya!
Last week, I wrote briefly about my visit to the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair. Today I want to share a little more about the quilting machines I tried. This will be a lengthy post; so, if you want to link up your projects, just scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Whenever I go to a quilt and craft fair, sewing and quilting machine booths are the ones I run to first. Before I get too confused among all the other booths selling all sorts of colourful fabrics, threads, craft supplies and etc, I go to every single sewing/quilting machine booth and try them if I can. I also try to go in early to make sure I have enough time for everything. This time, however, I only got to spend two hours;so, rather than checking out every machine brand, I went to the ones I had a particular interest in.

The first booth was Handi Quilter's and the machine was the beautiful Sweet Sixteen. My quilty friend Mon owns one and she introduced me to hers a few weeks ago. She taught me all the how-tos and let me play with it as long as I wanted. Because I wasn't new to it, I knew what to expect and it certainly didn't fail to deliver.
This machine is so easy and nice to quilt with. It does 1500 stitches per minute and the speed is fully adjustable. It has a beautiful, large space which makes small projects a breeze to quilt and larger projects very easy and manageable. It runs so smoothly with very little noise and you feel like your quilt underneath is just floating in the air!

Do you see the intricate design that I quilted???? Naaah, joking, I didn't do that. LOL

If you later want to move to a long arm machine, Sweet Sixteen can be converted into a long arm very easily. Since my first encounter with my friend's machine, I just can't get it out of my mind. If I had some disposable money, I wouldn't even think twice and would just buy it.

Then I moved to the Juki booth. 

Juki had its TL-2200QVP (Quilt Virtuoso Pro) on display (as well as TL 98). I had a little session with this machine too. I am not going into the technical features of it since you can find them on the internet. Here is my experience with it. 

I found the stitching quite noisy and also it didn't feel as smooth as the S16 either. It felt like the machine was somehow resisting me. There is a clear, hard plastic plate/shield just in front of the needle which I found quite distracting. It rather blurred my vision and hurt my eyes a little, which might be due to me being slightly longsighted. Having said that, this shield can be removed by unscrewing the screws. The booth also didn't provide me with a clean, unused piece of quilt sandwich even though they had many pieces (not because they were being nasty, they were very friendly indeed). It was stitched to death all over and I struggled to see what I was doing, where I was going... The machine was certainly strongly built and a very high quality but I didn't enjoy quilting with it.

I had to concentrate hard while quilting.

Then I tried the TL 98P. I won't say much much about it; it was a dream to sew with. I read probably every customer review available on the internet. I haven't come up with one single negative comment. After trying and seeing it myself, I can say with no doubt that this machine is a work horse. Being able to sew 8-9 layers of denim was quite impressive and the machine didn't even blink once.

I also wanted to try a couple of long arm quilting machines too. The first one I played was HQ Avante 18". 

I didn't ask much about its technical features; what you can't get is the experience and this was what I went for. 

I only tried quilting circles/pebbles because I was wondering how making circular movements were going to feel; smooth and easy or not quite circle but squarish and not very smooth. When I started quilting, it was difficult to have a perfectly round shape; the machine was kind of resisting. When the representative lady asked how I was doing, I told her exactly the same thing. She said that the machine was on stitch regulator and it might have been the issue. Surprisingly, it was the issue; as soon as she switched it off, that resistance disappeared and making circles was so fun and much easier! I loved it! The only thing that interfered with my performance was my belly LOL. I shared a short video on my instagram if you want to see me in action.

Quilting with a long arm is very different when compared to moving the fabric underneath the machine. It gives you a different kind of freedom. You certainly have a wider vision of the area you are quilting without the interruption of your project bunched up underneath the machine's throat or at the back or on your lap. But I can't say that I prefer a long arm to a sit-down or domestic machine or vice versa ; as I said, they are all different and the experience you gain is different too.

The last machine I tried was a Nolting. Unfortunately, I can't say much about this machine as I didn't spend enough time quilting with it. I also can't remember the model and don't have a photo of it. The only thing I can say is that neither was the poor machine nor the poor representative was a having a good day. The machine got stuck several times- that turned out that there was so much tangled bobbin thread underneath the fabric. The salesman tried to clean them crazily by pulling/tearing them. Then the bobbin thread ran out, and a few other things happened. I didn't want to push the poor guy too much as he already looked super tired; I thanked him and left. I hope he got a good rest on that night.

There you go! Here is my experience with the above mentioned machines. 

I also want to say that I am by no means a quilting or quilting/sewing machine expert. These are my personal views and your experience might be totally different. And it is totally fine.

Now to Monday Makers!

What do you have to share with us this week? Come and link up!

1.Your project can be anything you start on that Monday as long as it makes you move and be active and creative: a new quilt, a knitting project, scrap booking, cross-stitching, baking-we don't mind yummy recipes!, a gardening project, painting your house!, tidying up the pantry!...This is your Monday and you are the maker of the day!

2. Grab the button from the side bar or put a link back to me in your Monday post.

3. Click on "add your link" and just fill in the required areas. 
4. Please link to your specific post, not to your homepage: We would like to find your post easily.

5. To link an Instagram photo, click the Instagram icon at the bottom of the link-up screen and use the URL of your IG feed as the link (for example, my URL is http://instagram.com/hugabitquilts) Please hashtag #MondayMakers!
6. Please take time to visit other links and leave a sweet comment: We love comments!

7. Share the photos of your finished Monday projects in your next link up- I am hoping you will come back again!: Who doesn't love a sweet, finished project or a "before-after" photo?

An InLinkz Link-up