Travels and Updates!

It has been a crazy month in the Through the Needle's Eye world. Thanks to many of you, our Woolen Oak mystery block was a great success! The time leading up to our reveal and the reveal week were incredibly busy, but certainly well worth it. Now that things are slowing down a bit, we thought we would share a little travel inspiration as well as some sneak peeks of what what we have coming up for you on the blog and on our website.

From palaces to nature,
this trip was not lacking in inspiration.

Since Europe has started to open up for travel, my husband and I (Kara) have tried to make the most of it. We have a large European map on our wall with pins for all the places we have visited and we realized that we had not been to many eastern European countries while we have been over here. I planned a rather elaborate road trip that would have us go to three countries for the first time, along with a few stops in Germany and Austria. As always when I travel, I am often looking for inspiration for our stitching designs.  

Our trip began in Germany and then continued in a very large loop through the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, and then ending on a small, glacial lake in Austria. Please enjoy just some of the things I found inspiring on this road trip.

A beautiful, historical timeline made completely of Meissen porcelain tiles.

Stunning appliqué on the inside of a Turkish tent.

Appliqué close-up

These amazing, porcelain flowers decorated a 6 foot vase!

These lilies were on the grounds of Ksiaz Castle in Poland. 
I had never seen this color before.

Can you see a quilting pattern in this ceiling?

The bouquets in this wallpaper would be lovely done in appliqué.

Inspiration can be found in simple things—like a pillow at your hotel!

Ceiling decorations that could be translated into quilt borders.

This makes me want to stitch some bluebells and ferns.

Some mountain heather would be fun to stitch as well.

If I made a landscape quilt of this picture, it would be called "Sunrise on Gosausee" 

Now that I am back from the road and Teri has very ably managed all the details of our Woolen Oak block, it is time to get back to work on some of our upcoming projects that we will be sharing with you in the very near future.  Soon we will be showing you what we will be doing for next year's Academy of Appliqué, and then we will be introducing some brand new patterns!

A little embroidery from just one of the four projects that will be available
at the 2021 Academy of Appliqué, in Williamsburg, Virginia

While we won't be teaching our Baltimore Fraktur at Baltimore on the Prairie this year
because of COVID, we will be introducing the pattern on our website in the coming months.

This, along with four other patterns, will be coming to the website soon!

These little guys will be part of a project that we can't wait to show you!!!

Travel plans this year for many have had to be cancelled or postponed. I feel very fortunate that my husband and I have been able to see some of the beauty that Europe has to offer, and I hope that you have enjoyed some of our travels as well—my designing mind was whirling with ideas and inspirations for future projects. 

We also hope that your interest has been piqued with some sneak peeks of what we have in store for you and that you will check back next week to see our Academy reveal. Again, it's not too late to join the Woolen Oak Mystery Stitch-A-Long. You can head to the Woolen Oak Facebook page to join and you can find our Harvest Basket block, seen below, on our website. There are still 2 more blocks that will be revealed so their is definitely time to join in the fun!

https://www.needleseyestories.com/shop

Stay safe and keep stitching!

Delightful Doilies and Linens from the Mid Atlantic Quilt Show

A couple of weeks ago, Teri and I (Kara) were able to attend the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show. We go there yearly, as it falls right before The Academy of Appliqué. It is a small show, but it usually has a great variety of quilts, and this year was no different. One exhibit in particular became our favorite, as it gave us lots of great ideas for our very large doily collection. This exhibit was created by Nancy S. Breland and was called Exploring Vintage Linens. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Color Progression

Birthday Party

Detail Birthday Party

Blue Bugles

Spider Web

Twinkling Stars

Pennies From Heaven

Detail Pennies From Heaven

Turn to the Sun

Golden Garden Spider

Detail Golden Garden Spider

Red and White Challenge

Knitted Doily

Carved Pearl Buttons

Detail Carved Pearl Buttons

Pearls on Purple

Calla Lily

Detail Calla Lily

Dazzling Doily

Lavish Linens

Detail Lavish Linens

I forgot to take a picture of the title, but what a great way to use a doily!

This was such a great exhibit, and there were many other wonderful quilts at this show. When Teri and I attended this show a little less than a month ago, we had no idea that our world would change so much in just a short amount of time. I moved up my departure date a week so that I could get back to Germany in case they closed the borders and am happy to be safely back with my husband and pups. 

Many of us have been asked to "shelter in place" for a while to help curb the spread of the virus. We like to look at it as mandated stitching time, and many other stitchers are, too! There are quite a few stitch-alongs going on and can be found on the various quilting Facebook groups out there. What are you working on while you are sheltering? Are you stitching along with a group? Please share what you are doing so others might get some ideas. We are stitching on next year's projects already, but we may take a break from that to see what we can do with some doilies. Thank you, Nancy Breland, for the wonderful inspiration!

Stay safe and healthy!

Travels and Tiles

It is hard to believe that it is 2020! I (Kara) am not sure where the last year has gone, let alone the last decade. Our past year has been busy with travel through 9 different, inspiring countries and 3 family weddings—two of which were our own children. Our most recent offspring to tie the knot wanted to have a small, intimate, destination wedding in Spain. Given our location in Germany, we decided to drive down to Barcelona for the wedding, stopping along the way in France to break up the trip. This of course gave me plenty of opportunities to snap pics of all sorts of inspiration. Even with all the variety of things we saw, the tiles were the most inspiring. We saw a few in Spain but our oldest daughter traveled on to Portugal and knowing her mother, took tile pictures there too!

So many of the tiles contain ideas for appliqué and are very reminiscent of the paper cuts in Baltimore Album quilts. Our current project, Woodland Reverie (which we will be teaching this year at the Academy of Appliqué), has at least 3 blocks that were influenced by tiles. Here are some of the Portuguese and Spanish tiles and maybe you will be inspired by them!

Portuguese Tiles from Lisbon

What a gorgeous center medallion this would be!

Lots of bias strips anyone?

This one would make a great paper cut.

Can you see a 9-patch in this one?

Maybe a combination of English paper-piecing, embroidery, and appliqué

Appliquéd wreaths.

This might be fun for piecing!

Possibly some border inspiration here.

Another medallion potential.

Not necessarily inspiring for quilts...but my daughter knows me well!

Spanish Tiles from Barcelona and Valencia

Ribbon flowers would be amazing with this design.

This one is reminiscent of a Pennsylvania Dutch fraktur

Tile seen at the Torres winery, Barcelona

So many ideas and an old favorite—a pinwheel

What a great border design this would be!

Not just one tile, but a beautiful mosaic.

Another great border idea.

Not all the inspiration came from tiles. Just walking the streets of Valencia, Spain and Avignon, France yielded some ideas.

Beautiful tile work on a building in Valencia.

Not tiles, but painted and etched.

Inspiration abounds in this amazing church in Valencia!

That window!

A great medallion.

Embroidery and Ribbon ideas.

Love this doorway in Avignon, France

Hopefully you have been as inspired as I was by the tiles and sights from these European places. I'm looking forward to incorporating some of that inspiration into future designs. I am grateful that our daughter chose such a magical place for her wedding. Not only did it give me inspiration, but I can't wait to go back and see what other influences Spain might have on our designs!

I had to post the reason we were there 😍!
Photo courtesy of Aneta Lehotska photography