A New Discovery

I spent Friday evening at IKEA with my sister - having dinner (very good) and looking through some new sortiment (spring's here!) and did some shopping (some things that were needed, and some things.. just because). :)

On the way to IKEA we passed a mall which none of us had ever been to - Alnabru Senteret. They had stores like Barnas Hus, Toys'R'Us and Tropehagen. So we decided that, if they were still open when we left IKEA, we would stop by. And, yes, it was open. :) I think I've found my favorite mall outside the main parts of Oslo now, mainly because of Tropehagen. It was the BIGGEST pet shop I'd seen in Oslo, and it had a HUGE area just for critters like rats, mice, guinea pigs and rabbits - lots of toys and treats, cage accessoires and fun things. Ofcourse I had to leave with quite a large bag of buys. :)

They even had three rats there - two girls and a boy - and they were the biggest, safest and most curious rats I'd seen in a pet store for quite some time. Usually pet stores take in rat babies who aren't much older then 3-4 weeks (which is way too early to be taken from their mother) but these three were from a private breeder, and were about - I'd say - 7-8 weeks old, maybe older. Their cages were big and clean, lots of food and drink, and small houses to hide in. It really warms my heart when I see that some people actually know how to treat their animals good - even if they are pet stores and rats. It doesn't matter, rats are animals too - with feelings and personality.

Speaking of rats, my eldest had to go to the vet last week. She's suddenly got old.. The vet didn't really know what was wrong, ear infection, middle ear infection, stroke, so she gave me a 10 day antibiotic cure and some steroides. I think she looks better now, but she's still old and tired. Her 2-year birthday is coming up soon - two weeks left now - and we know that she won't be with us for that much longer. Hopefully she will get better so that she can enjoy her last weeks or months, but with small animals you just can't know for sure.

The two other little rascals are at full speed as usually. :) Spoiled bRATS..

Now I think I'll finish eating my Skittles (Smoothie Mix) and try to get something done today.. I did say "try".

Airway infection?

The past week has been spent - more or less - on the couch. I've been batteling a rough cough, fever, and headaches every time I've tried to do anyting. So no sewing, no computer, no reading for the last week. And I'm getting bored..

My doctor told me to stay at home until I felt better again (or the cough stopped), but she couldn't give me anything to help stop it..

It's really frustrating to sit and stare at my sewing, knowing that I'll battle a sore head if I pick it up, but hopefully the next couple of days will help.

Otherwise, there was some real action around the neighbourhood this weekend. I'm not looking forward to BF's trip to San Fransisco in two weeks.. There were three attacks om women - one of them right outside our building - during an hour's time the night before Sunday (between 02 and 03 in the morning). We didn't hear anything, but it's scary.. I know I won't be wandering off after dark for quite some time.. I wonder what's happening to the world..

Two new stamps

What can I say.. I fell for these, and they were 50% off.

Latest purchase

My mom called the other evening asking if there was a Kremmertorget store around, and if my sister would be able to find it if I gave her instructions. Now, this store is not very difficult to find, but I decided to meet my sister down town and go there with her - especially after my mom told me why she was sending my sister there. For the vintage (?) needleholder (pillow) that both her and I think she once had - I think it's somewhere in my old toys.. and because of the Japanese style boxes they had at the store.

Now, the boxes were pretty, but they were big. The prettier the bigger it seems. So I didn't buy any. But, ofcourse, I had to have one of the pretty but ugly needleholders. :)


Funny, isn't it?

Help!

Desperately seeking inspiration! *eek*

I've not done much these past few days, in the quilting, stitching or creative way, just reading a bit, and now - when I finally have time to start something new - I'm all out of ideas.. I can't think of anything that I'd really really like to do - or make. Crisis!

I spent most of yesterday watching old Dr. Phil episodes on TV, playing WoW, (World of Warcraft) and thinking while my BF was at work. And when he came home, we ate dinner, played som WoW and saw this Indian/Pakistan movie called Fanaa (Destroyed by love). The movie was good - and long.. (the cover read 120 minutes, but it lasted almost three hours!).

BF is off to work again now, and I need - I CRAVE - something to do, but my mind is all blank.. not even making more snowmen tempts me.

Frustrating.

Shopping!

Yup, had to do a little shopping. :) But it was a good day to do it too - with a clear blue sky, sunshine and not too cold. Actually, it's warmer now - and I like it. :)

Anyway, I only needed some more silk thread from Katrine's, but when I came there, I remembered how much light fabric that had disappeared into this little secret I'm making.. so I started to look, and ended up with 4 new ones.

Three of them have small prints on - I don't mind having small prints as long as I don't feel like they dominate - and the last one, the one on the left, is just plain unbleached.

I also dropped by Panduro - since I'd gotten two discount coupons there in January (buy for over 200,- in February and get 50,- off). Unfortunately, I ended up with two of these coupons, and since I can only use one coupon per buy, I have to go back again and buy more. Oh, how sad.. ;p

I bought stamps. Of course. *duh* The little monsters on the right I've been drooling on for a couple of weeks. And the little frogs on the bottom too. The kit on the left was in sale, so I had to have that. And I saw some more things I'd like to buy, so I don't think I'll have any problems using the last coupon. ;)

On Tuesday my mom and the mom of one of Systeryster's friends from work are coming to Oslo. That'll be fun. :) I can't wait! Mom's taking my "Love is.."-blocks back to cut them to proper size (with her fancy-smanchy ruler and cutter) so that I can finally finish it. Yay! Plus, she's borrowing some of my stamps too - and I've shopped a little for her, Tilda-stuff and stuff.
Will be great!

Ratties

I heard a rumor that May Britt wanted to see pictures of my rats. :) So here they come;


In the blue fleece house (made by a friend of mine named Ingrid, who lives in Trondheim) and from the left, we have the nose of my black berkshire dumbo (for those who're into standards, colors and markings) the eldest rat Pytteliten (also known as Pyttis). The name means something like really tiny (because she was really really tiny when I got her). In the middle (or left side-top) we have Igor - the hyperactive little rattie-baby. She's irish silvered black. And last, but not least, to the right we have Swiffer, who's agouti rex. All of them are girls - although the names might be a bit misleading. :)

A picture of all three of them, doing their usual thing whenever I open one of the cage doors - trying to climb out and come to me for a pat or a treat (I think they prefer the treats..). In this picture you can see more of the blue fleece house Ingrid made, and also parts of a hammock I've made (the black thing with blue insides), and you can even see a small part of a blue tunnell down to the right of Swiffer's foot.

And last, a picture of Swiffer and Pytteliten enjoying one of their comfy hammocks. This is how Swiffer sleeps from time to time - on her back with her feet in the air. Cute!!! I envy them when they're all bundled together in the hammocks and houses like that. It looks so cosy. :)

Spoiled ratten?

I got this idea today, how to make a new kind of hammock for my rats. Well, it wasn't completely my idea, I've seen examples of how others have made them - hammocks with hiding pockets, but today at work I started to think about how I would make one. Boring day at work? Not really.. I jus think alot when I do the same thing for several hours at the time.

I got a piece of fleece and some fabric with funny jungle animals - I especially love the pink crocodiles and little frogs, and I don't even like pink! - and cut a fitting piece of fabric. Sew the fabric together with the fleece, made some hoops for fastening on the cage walls, a seam here and a seam there - and voilá!



Cute, aren't they?

And now my rats are even more spoiled then ever - if that is possible, I mean. ;)

Finished bag.

Well, I finished my bag on Sunday - or almost.. I need to find a clever way of closing it in the top - otherwise I'll be sure to lose my wallet the first day in town.. :/

Sunday was the perfect day for my sewing machine to get all cranky too.. it refuses to make buttonholes - and so I'm waiting until we're friends again to make some kind of closing arrangement on the bag.

But, it's all done, except for that, so here comes a picture. :)


You don't see the insides, but I found only one (or was that two?) fabric that I had enough of to make the insides. It looks kinda cool - there's a jungle and lots of wild animals. :) My Grandmother gave me the fabric to make hammocks for my spoiled little rats, but I never got around to use it.. mostly because my mother gives me hints about fabrics with bright colors and funny animals which they have at the store where she works. ;) Very handy, I must add, very handy indeed.

An angel from the past.

After seeing May Britt's redwork angel, I couldn't quite stop thinking about my angel. So after a bit of tidying and searching, I found a shy but pretty angel in my box of "quilts without a place on the wall" (aka homeless quilts).



Makes me smile just to look at it again. :) It was really fun to make - and I like the result.

A productive Sunday

This Sunday started early.. more or less been up since around 4 am, but I've experienced before that I work well when over-tired.


I began taking the drawer with my Halloween and black based fabrics out from my handy dresser (IKEA, gotta love it). I've collected Halloween fabrics for about.. oh, I don't know.. 10 years? now, but rarely use any of it. How unusual. ;p

I spent a good two hours selecting, cutting and sewing, until I ended up with this;


This is the top - or outside part - of a bag. I found the pattern in a book - and I've been drooling over the idea to make one to use at work, and finally had the time and the inspiration to sit down and start. The wide black part is the bottom of the bag, and the squares are the front and back. I knew I didn't have enough of the eyelash-fabric when I started to cut, so I changed the bottom to a pure black fabric, and exchanged one of the stripes (the middle horizontal one) with a black fabric decorated with a shiney, metallic firework print.

I have to wait a few days until I can continue. I couldn't find a thread I liked in town yesterday, so my mom sent me a couple in the mail today. Plus I need to plan the inside. I like to have many pockets - for my wallet, keys, cellphone, a pen or two, and other things - and I still haven't decided what color to use.

My back is not happy after spending almost 4 hours in the kitchen (better light and space to sew)..

My quilting and patchwork books.

I decided to make a list of all the books I have, covering the theme of quilting and patchwork, so that I can easily see which books I have and which I can buy (there's a sale in one of the book clubs now). I'm not listing the books I've borrowed. I'm not _that_ sneaky. ;p

Lise Bergene; Lappegaver - raskt, morsomt og enkelt (Cappelen, 2003)

Lise Bergene; Lapper - stort og smått (Cappelen, 2002)

Joyce Mori; Native American Designs 2 (2005)

Sylvia Trygg Voudrie; Tiny Amish Traditions (Chitra Publications, 1994)

Tove Fevang; Min jul (Cappelen, 2002)

Tove Fevang; Applikasjon (Cappelen, 2001)

Tove Fevang; Søm med overlock (Cappelen, 2003)

Celia Eddy; Quilt - abc for quilteentusiaster (N.W. Damm & Søn, 2004)

Kristin Pollen; Fargerike lapper (Kom forlag, 2002)

Kristin Pollen; Dekorative lapper til hjemmet (Kom forlag, 2003)

Linda Sandstrøm; Engler (Cappelen, 2003)

Marie-France House; Gøy med lapper - for nybegynnere (Cappelen)

Jentenes egen hobbykveld (Cappelen, 2005)

Grete Gulliksen Moe; Lapper til hygge og nytte (Cappelen, 2004)


I'll edit this list when I get new/more books. For now, these are the ones I have.

(Added new books 01/24/2007)

Shopping!

Ah.. Saturday - and finally an opertunity to sleep until I wake up by myself - something that happened aroud 08:30.. typical.. Managed to doze off for a couple of hours, but eventually my back started to hurt (dunno why) so I got up.

Decided to go to town today, shop a little. Had some stuff I'd been thinking about for a while that I wanted to buy, plus the "Love is.." annoyed me a bit.. Just the looking for the correct fabric-part that sometimes bugs me.. Why can't the quilt shops have the fabrics and colours I've pictured in my head?

Anyway, I started off by taking the train (trikk) down a couple of stops to this big Narvesen kiosk. I've had some problems with my Lotto-card (I haven't recieved my winnings from last year yet, and needed to check which account it was registered to - it had to be the one I closed in September, of course..). Well, got that fixed, jumped on the fist bus that came and drowe it down town. Went to the farmacy (Vitus Apotek) and bought this step counter I've been drooling on for some time - a real fancy smancy little thing. :) My mom has the same type and she says it's working well.

I went to Panduro too - a kinda large store focusing on different hobbies, and came back with a coupon for 50,- (if I buy for 200,- in February they will give me 50,- in discount - now I have two of those ones!) and these little things;

The embrodery treads are from Tilda. My mom has them too. The colours were not something I'd normally buy, but I guess I feel like trying something new. :) The stamps on the left are small garden faeries - I thought they were so cute! The mice (or rats, since I have pet rats) are actually Christmas stamps from Tilda, but Panduro had a 50% sale on almost all Christmas items. Me like!

Then I took the train (trikk) again up behind the castle to Katrine's Quiltestue. I was looking for fabric to finish my "Love is.." and after talking to the girls who worked there, they finally understood the direction I wanted to go, and finding the fabrics ended up taking about 10 mins. :)
Both of these fabrics are from the Moda series "Chocolat". I think they are different from what I'd normally use, but very pretty.

I also managed to find the last Bareroots borders book they had! Had to look through most of the bookcase, but I found it! :D


I also bought two buttons (in wood) to use for the bag I'm planning to make (actually I want to sew it RIGHT NOW! but I'm tired from spending all day walking in the crowded streets..) and four miniature patters (all pre-printed on fabric)! They were so adorable! They had many many many more, but I fell in love with these four - and didn't look too well at the ones with Christmas themes, because Christmas is.. over? for now - I want spring and flowers (and allergies?) again. But Easter first - my birthday is just past Easter and Pytteliten's birthday too.

My UFO's

These past few days have gone by in a flash. Seems like all I've had time to do, is to plan and dream about the things I'm going to sew..

But! Atleast I have managed to find the time to take some pictures of my UFO's. :)



This is a picture (but unfortunetly not a very good one) of my whole quilt in progress. You can barely see the parts I've quilted - alot more work is waiting.



This is my Valentine's quilt. All quilted and ready for the last bits of the closer. Strange.. I've forgotten about this one ever so often, and suddenly stumbled upon it while cleaning. It's.. prettier now then when I made it. I guess it grew on me. :)



My ABC-sampler from Bareroots. :) The mixture of stitching and patchwork is what made me fall in love with the Bareroots designs.


This is my snowman quilt. It's not very big - perhaps 20x20 centimeters - and I have planned how to finish it. I found the pattern for this one in the Christmas magazine from NQF about a year ago, I think. I still have the magazine. I made it like a mirror image from the original pattern - and stitched it in blue instead of red. But he's still cute. ;)


And finally, my "Love is..". I've stitched the blocks on a kind of brushed cotton-like fabric, without adding bedding - I tried, but it got too hard and stiff to stitch.. Also I decided to applique the hearts insted of filling them with flat stitches (is that what it's called in English?). Now, I have thought about how to finish it, and decided what kind of fabrics I want, but I guess that depends on wether I can find the ones I've pictured in my head or not. I'm thinking about an old-fashion dark or burgundry red fabric - red on red - and a light fabric with dark or burgundry red patter, alternating around the blocks, with a small rim of the light one around the whole quilt - finishing it with the closer in the dark red. I think it might work out..

Now.. it's weekend again - hopefully I will be able to do some sewing and quilting these days (I'm dying to do a bag to use for work), but must also find time to see a friend of mine and relax. I need to relax.. or was that sleep? No.. no time for that. Can't sleep - sewing.

A change of direction..

I decided, after not really using this blog for some time, that I needed a fresh use for it. So, I decided to make it my creative-blog. And so I will start using it to show what I do, and not only things I've written.

So what am I working on right now? Well, Christmas is over - and the presents I made have been handed out. A pillow to my grandparents, pulse-mittens to some of my girlfriends, and that was about it for hand-made presents last Christmas. I'll try to do better next year. :)

Right now I am looking over my UFO's. Or, I don't think the more experienced quilters would call them UFO's. My mother doesn't. I have 3 UFO's - or unfinished buissness, one might call them. The first one is a wholequilt I started on after Christmas a couple of years ago. I'm about 1/4th done with the quilting. The second is a snowman I stitched from a magazine I get from NQF (Norsk Quilteforbund). It was originally in red, but I decided to make it in blue. I have to quilt it - and sew on some shiny beads - plus the edge, and then it's done. The third and last "ub" is a Valentine-quilt. My mother was going to teach me a new patchwork-technique about a year or so ago, and the hearts I made, I dew together to this little wallquilt using pieces of valentine-fabrics. Now, I've done the quilting, and all that's missing, is the edge, but it won't finish itself. Could you believe it?

The last thing in my little heap of quilts and the like, is the quilt from the Bareroots-pattern "What Color is Spring?". I've done two of the pillows - one I gave away for Christmas - and I've been working on the quilt for about.. almost 3 months now. It's coming along really well. :) Pretty colours, nice little details.. I have no idea what to do when I'm done with it.. make another one? Don't think so.. I generally prefer to make just one of the things I do. Rarely I will make more then one, but then they're presents. This quilt is a keeper. ;)

I'll try to get a nice picture of it, and post here. Actually I have a picture of it, from before I did too much stitching. It's the one posted in the beginning of the post. Pretty, isn't it? I sure think so. :)

21.08.2006

Sandaler sklir
mot broket bakgrunn
Snø i ørken
som regn i havet
Tint og smeltet sammen

12/5

A single tear would tell of her sorrow.
A witness to the days gone by,
a life of emptiness.
The pain was hers to bear.

Blindly they surround her.
Strangers unable to see,
unwilling to notice.
Closing their eyes, their image lived on.

The Dancer

Graciously moving,
hands, arms, legs, neck.
Images of life flashes from within.
As a voice, her body tells the stories,
wordless, silent, still.
Seemingly effordless in the move,
yet trembling and warm,
her feet move to make yet another
whisper to those watching.

The Moleskine Journal

He opened the cover, turned few of the pages and bit thoughtfully on the end of his pen.

As the ones gone before him, down the road of greatness, he would join in their ranks and make it.

He would be the one. The greatest of his time. Remembered - and loved - by thousands!

His mind wandered. Thin, silvery threads of his imagination spun pictures in his mind. He lifted his pen...

The inkspot grew - first slow, then faster - as the tip of his pen dug into the pages of the book.

Filled with frustration, he burned the book. Broke the pen. Turned his back to the world he once loved.

Once longed for - one time loved - always looked upon with regret. A life of lost dreams is not a life at all.

Never more!

She dreamed, but not of this.

Powerless, she stood watching
how someone else took hold of her life
and coloured the roads for her.

Silent, she accepted someone else
standing there instead of her. Leading
her into a life she didn't want.

Finally, she stopped. Took a deep breath
and looked at what her life had
become - and she moaned of disbelief.

With two small words, as if taken
from a Poe poem, she regained control.
Unsecure and doubtful, she turned
her back to it all and walked away.