Masterclass Amish Quilting

Hi all,

This week I took two days off at work to attend a "Masterclass Amish Quilting" organised by Marcha from "De Quiltster" in Dreischor - Holland. This class was taught by Alexia Rosfelder who learned this technique from Esther Miller (an Amish lady living in Germany for quite some time now).

For me the adventure began when driving through Zeeland and crossing the "Zeeland brug (bridge)" with a span of 5km! The view is incredible!

I stayed at a lovely Bead-and-Breakfast "Lekker bij Maas". The owners are Martin (a chef cook) and Astrid who are very kind. The room was lovely and cosy and the food just delicious (fresh eggs at breakfast because they have some chickens in their backyard :-).

So ... why quilting this way?

Well, because this technique allows you to quilt in different directions and after some practice stitches should be even and small. As I'm making a Dear Jane quilt for the moment I would also like to be able to do a nice handquilting job on it! :-)

So what was it like? ... Let's go in and have a look ;-)

The entrance

Direct view from the doorway and looking further into the shop

Left and right hand side of the door ... lovly quilt and plenty of Bunzlau ceramics

Some shop impressions ... Marcha has loads of things! Not only quilt related (fabrics, books, threads, etc ...) but also a lovely selection of embroidery linnens and cross stitch patterns ... 

As you can understand making a choice was very hard indeed! 

 And then the course itself ...

Our inspiring class room (notice the cupboard with a selection of teas) ... full of lovely quilts.

Here's our nook - on a quilt frame of 4 like a real quilting bee. 

In total there were 10 ladies taking a course).

We had lots of chuckles and loud laughter because our needles didn't behave like we wanted them to act ... especially the first morning (needles jumping around like fleas in clothes and on the - grey! - floor) but afterwards we got the hang of it and things went smoother :-).

Marcha and her mom made us some delicious cupcakes and lunch so we could keep up the good work (after all the energy we spent battling with fabric and needles :-) and coffee and tea were always at hand. 

Tea, refreshments and some ideas for inspired reading.

Marcha in the backbround and Alexia looking at all those goodies! ;-)

I can say that I've learned quite some things but now it's practice - practice - practice! ;-) And just to give you an idea about all the things we were using ... here's a close-up of my hands holding all the goodies ;-). Fortunatelly we didn't need to hold everything in the same time!

Alexia showing "how to"

My result after our two day course 

(taken two hours before the finish = I also quilted a feather)!

And of course I didn't left empty handed ... but that's for later this week when I'll show you some more pictures of Dreischor and my purchases!

See ya!