Finishing stitches and sunsets.

I'm sewing the binding on a few projects this afternoon, enjoying this view. The radio channels have dusted off their Christmas shelves again, so Bing Crosby's crooning away of Christmas past and snow, sometimes interrupted by Michael Bublé or Elvis. 

3

En uke igjen!

I kveld skal du ta det litt med ro, tenke på deg selv - og kose deg litt!

:-)

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Noen ganger trenger man en pause - og noen ganger trenger man noen hjelpemidler for å kunne ta disse pausene..

:-)

1

Første søndag i advent er en merkedag. Tid for å merke deg! Og litt overtid på nedtellingen. Lykke til! 

:-)

When a yellow scarf is needed...

P's joined the boyscouts, who meet every other Monday afternoon. This week cooncided with P's turn to bring the class teddy - a fox named Rusk - with him home for the evening. 

Of course Rusk had to come to the scout meeting with P. And all proper scouta need to have a scarf. The pathfindets (stifinnerne) all have yellow scarves, and luckily I found a suitable piece of fabric in my stash. 

Quite the good-looking fox, don't you think? 

Playing with acid dyes

The acid in the title is vinegar, så nothing dangerous - I promise. 

Last weekend, when my mom visited, we played with some dye and yarn - and ended up with this bowl of spaghetti (ready to hang and dry). Grey and black for specific projects (why buy a specific colour of yarn when you can dye it yourself?), and the rest is a great mixture of pumpkin orange, emerald green, burgundry purple/pink and a brilliant blue. 

I thought maybe I ought to knit up a couple of Christmas balls in the handdyed yarn, just to show off the colours.. but I have a couple of swaps I need to sew for first. 

Piranhas?

Should I be worried?

One Fish, Two Fish..

I've gone to the fishes! Or so it seems. There are now 8 of these charmers dancing around my sewing area. Only two left to sew. 

And here I've been thinking for years taht these kinds of patterns are too difficult, too complicated.. 

I guess I was wrong. Or, more likely, I hadn't seen or tried one of Elisabeth Hartman's patterns. Like the Chuckles Quilt. 

Well, there you have it. With the right pattern, anyone can go fishy!

Fall has fallen..

The Festival of Quilts 2017

I thought I would show some of the quilts I saw at the Festival of Quilts last weekend. Mind that this is only a fraction of the 700+ quilts there, but these are some that caught my eye. 

Liverpool Street, Salford
Leah Higgins
Art Quilts

Whole World
Kate Crossley
Art Quilts

Taxus Bank
Paola Zanda
Modern Quilts

Tram Route No 10
Sue De Danny
Pictorial Quilts

Libélula
Montse Forcadell Blasco
Pictorial Quilts

Two Cities/Same World
(blurry picture of the creators..)
Two Person Quilts

Neverland
Edith Leidi and Maria Rosella
Two Person Quilts

Sultans Palace
Hendrik Johannes van Kooten
Traditional Quilts

Natural Selection
Catherine Rye
Miniature Quilts

Merbreeze
Verity Seago
Traditional Quilts

Glittering Jellyfish
Yvonne McKee
Traditional Quilts

Dancing with the Stars
Susan Gray
Traditional Quilts

Diamonds Last Forever
Linda Forey
Traditional Quilts

My Butterfly Garden
Dawn Monk
Traditional Quilts

Astrid Lindgren - free spirit
NMS Kematen
School (Secondary 12-16)
This truly is my favourite quilt. Up close, as you walked past, it was merely squares in gray, black and white.. But if you stepped back and looked - or took a picture - Astrid Lindgren's familiar face appeared. Genius and very well made, the idea was brilliant!

The Freedom of Peter Pan
GillyMAc Designs Friday Club
School (Secondary, 12-16)

The Rainbow
Mugdha Dongare
Traditional Quilts

Like Home / No Place
Jane Turner

No Place Like Home
Jo Gray

Paradox
Claudia Pfeil
Contemporary Quilts

Up-cycled Moths
Kate White
Contemporary Quilts

Bling
Katherine Jones

Die Beem (Trees)
Lindsey Neill

Lincoln
Kim Soper

I hope to go back again - maybe in a couple of years. It was a wonderful weekend, the festival was overwhelming and fun and I feel I've learned lots, about myself and my quilting - and about how others work, think and dream (I guess you could call the process up to the start of a new project dreaming, can't you?). It truly was an experience worth making!

In battle mode..

Chose your battles, they say.. Well, this is mine for today. I wonder what I might find. 🤔

Home..

In the movie "Dead Poets' Society" Robin Williams' character states that the word "very" is a lazy word. 

Right now, I think I'm entitled to use this word. Not because I'm lazy, but because I'm tired. 

I'm very tired.. And although the word "exhausted" would have been a more appropriate word to use, my brain is running a little low on creative writing energy, thus making the word "very" quite good enough. 

I'm off to bed now. It's now almost 12 1/2 hours since the bus left Birmingham airport, over 14 hours since the taxi left the hotel. My alarm will ring at 06:30, so that I can take A to kindergarten. It's now 01:36, and my head is buzzing.. making it feel like a swarm of bees moved in some time during the day. 

Pictures from Birmingham and The Festival of Quilts will come - but not riiiiiiight now. 

(B)Zzzzzzzzz...

Flying like a bird

In a matter of hours I have gone from this :

To this :

And an now enjoying this :

Next stop : Birmingham!

Romantic?

Tonight's discussion with tegards to entertainment :

Hubby : So, what do you wanna do?

Me : Well, we could watch an episode or two before bedtime. 

H : Ok, but is there something you'd really like to do?

M : Hm, I'd really like to go upstairs and play with my sewing machine...

H : You could do that - I could play PS4.. atleast we'd be in the same part of the house!

And so we did. 

The completed "tailfeathers" shawl

I posted a picture of a knitted project a few posts back, made in multicoloured and black (dark grey) yarn. Well, it was finished not long after that post was published. It's a bit long (which is how I like my shawls, and the colours work well with most of my warderobe (which is *surprice* quite stuck in the shades of black). I've used it almost daily, when the temperatures suggest a shawl or a scarf might be fitting, and have received quite a few compliments about it (even from my male colleagues).

The pattern is called Leftie and is designed by the German designer Martina Behm (or Strichmich!, which is her Ravelry username). The name tailfeathers got stuck after Hubby compared the contrast parts to be similar to a peacock's tailfeathers. Fitting, really, when the yarn is called electric peacock, don't you think?

Due to it's size, it's a little bit difficult to get a good picture of the whole shawl (I'll try again soon), but the picture above shows quite well how the colours are. The multicoloured yarn is called Electric Unicorn and comes from the dyer Truly Hooked, while the black yarn comes from another dyer from Great Britain, which I can't remember right now. Both colours were bought at The Knitting and Stitching Show in London last October. (I believe mom and I have plans to return to London next fall..)

The shawl in action! 

***

Next week it is time for The Festival of Quilts.  I've never attended before - nor been to Birmingham before - so there's a few firsts for me there. I've entered a quilt in the category Contemporary, and - although I have no hopes or dreams of winning anything - I'm eager to see my quilt in place, with the others. I think there are about 700 who have entered a quilt (or more) and the little glimses I've seen online, from last year, there is quite a variety of quilts shown. 

I'm counting down - one week to go until I'm off. My passport and tickets are ready and printed - but my suitcase will have to wait for another couple of days. 

I know Lynette Anderson is going to be there, but that's about all I know. Perhaps someone out there, in the world wide web, knows of anyone else, have any tips - or might be going there themselves? I like coffee (though, more milk with a hint of coffee) and tea, perhaps you'd like to join me for a cup?

Playing

And learning!

My mom and I have been playing with food colouring, KoolAid and yarn for a couple of days (and a new batch of yarn is soaking in vinegar water as we speak). 

For mom, it was doing more fun stuff - for me it was learning, it being my first time dying yarn. 

 

The KoolAid is prepared and ready. 

Fixating the colours from food colouring. 

The finished yarn hung on our old play house. 

On the lawn.  

Looking good!

These three are mine. I have a couple of ideas for two of these. 

My second batch is for a jacket/sweater for A. I'm thinking red on white, perhaps with a little blue - we'll see tomorrow when the yarn is done soaking.