Saturday, May 27, 2023
Monday, May 22, 2023
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
May arrived..
And so did my sewing mojo!
It seems I cannot not think about sewing and quilting these days - longing for a few hours or a day to just sew.
I have a (mental) list of projects that make my fingers itch - and I hope I'll be able to get startet on or finish a couple of them shortly.
Spring has sprung, and the world around us is turning more and more green. Met A on her way home from school the other day, and took a picture of these hvitveis (anemone nemorosa). They're a lovely sign of spring around here - A loves to pick them on her way home, unfortunetly they don't last very long after being picked..
For quite some time now I've been a subscriber to a quilty box of goodies from the USA. So far I've more or less stashed away both patterns and fabrics (and used the notions), and not made many of the projects. Some because I didn't immediately love the pattern (or the fabric), others because I loved the fabric too much (to consider cutting it up into tiny pieces). But these things are not meant to be hoarded and saved forever. So! I decided to make a smaller version of a scrappy tablerunner made with foundation paper piecing (which is quite an unknown territory for me, sewing wise).
These vintage kites came together pretty fast - and then waited patiently for the borders.
And continuing in the fpp-line, here's my first snail trail-block. (I wanted to save this fabric for epp and focuscutting, but honestly, I should really just use the fabric and enjoy the process - it's more rewarding than putting it away in a drawer.) There are pieces with adorable mermaids in this line, but I've cut and prepped the pieces to make the rest of these blocks.
For some reason I tidied up in my sewing area and managed to put a pattern + template for a pouch in a very clever place, I have no idea where it can be.. which is no fun. I've been testing my skills on new techniques lately, and I really wanted to make one of these pouches - but the pattern scared me a bit, and for a very long time. But now I feel like I might actually manage it. Funny how one's self confidence suddenly rises when a seemingly difficult task is completed.
Monday, May 08, 2023
Saturday, April 22, 2023
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Tuesday, April 11, 2023
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Monday, March 20, 2023
More finished projects - spring and Easter
Some time before Christmas las year, my mom and I were discussing a holiday project for the Christmas days. One of our go-to types of projects are hexagons. They are very versatile, easy to prepare, very easy to bring along - and easy to adapt with regards to colours, fabric lines, backgrounds, et cetera.
I had previously used 4 or 5 mini charm packs for one of my quilts - which ended up being ripped and redone numerous times, and I had saved all the squares from that thinking it was too bad to throw them out, and saved them for another project. The size of the squares fit perfectly the 3/8 inch hexagon papers - and the finished flowers fit perfectly on a bunch of 5 1/2 inch squeares I had cut from some leftovers a while ago.
Well, 4-5 mini charm packs mean quite a lot of pieces of fabric - and I decided early on to try and use every single piece. In the end I managed to make 21 whole flowers (consisting of 7 hexagons) and had three hexagons left. These three went to the eternal fabric world (aka the trash).
And here they are, freshly finished as two pillows. (The final stitches on the bindings were done last night.)
These are pillow number 2 and 3 so far this year. Will 2023 be the year of the pillows?
In the after school program (SFO, as we call it here) A has learned how to make chickens using parts of a toilet roll (the cardboard-thingy in the middle) and yarn. She spent some time last week making another one at home, and I have to say that it turned out to be an adorable little thing.
In the after school program (SFO, as we call it here) A has learned how to make chickens using parts of a toilet roll (the cardboard-thingy in the middle) and yarn. She spent some time last week making another one at home, and I have to say that it turned out to be an adorable little thing.
This weekend she taught hubby to make these too - and there are now two more chickens waiting for Easter to come. Which reminds me that I promised A we'd decorate for Easter next weekend. seeing as we'll be away for most of Easter week - again.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Thursday, March 09, 2023
Spring came for a visit - and turned around in the door.
Haha, well, not exactly.. The two previous weeks have been rather nice and warm, and when this week begun with a lower temperature, and it kept on falling, it really seemed like Spring decided to wait a little bit more..
Yesterday morning started with a chilly -11C (12,2F) and the temperatures didn't really rise very much during the day. Last night, the house was freezing.. Wooly socks, blankets and feet off the floor didn't help either.
This morning started a little warmer (haha) with "only" -8C (17,6F) and with a thin sprinkle of cruncy, clean snow. (Only about 1-2 centimeters.) That made the whole "get your butt to the bus"-journey any easier (or faster) with the partially icy road now covered in snow..
But it's a pretty sight with the clean, sparkling snow, before the rest of the world wakes up and turns it into a mucky brown goo.
The picture is taken with an Iphone, in black and white. I really like the effect of the streetlights on the snow - it sparkels quite nicely!
Wednesday, March 08, 2023
Thursday, March 02, 2023
Two no-longer-UFO's - and a crown.
The March quilt guild meeting was this Tuesday, and for once I brought with me some finished projects!
First off was my "The Story of My Day" by Anni Downs of Hatched & Patched.
This has been a project that has been in and out of time-out for the past year. I made all the stitcheries pretty fast - and spent a lot of time figuring out how to put it all together. I started with a scrappy border using a bunch of mini charm packs I had, but didn't think that worked. Ripped back to start.. So I added a border around each stitchery alternating in blue and grey, and decided to add a square of light and brown fabric here and there (in a pattern) to make the mini charm squares fit better with these new borders. Well, that obviously didn't work... Ripping again.. Tried again.. Left it for a while to see if I felt happy with my choice.. Considered adding the title as a side border, but before I came as far as to try that I ripped it all back to the beginning. Found some yellow bubbly fabric that I felt went well with both the borders in grey and blue and with the colours of the stitcheries (and the background fabrics, of course). Ok, that worked. Now what?
My mom gave me a pretty large piece of blue fabric with small white swirls. I auditioned this together with a couple more alternatives here on the blog, and the swirly blue won! I think it looks pretty good!
Unfortunetly there wasn't enough of the blue fabric for the binding, so after I quilted it (I've just recently started to manage the whole stippling quilting/wandering/wiggly path thingy) I set it aside again for a couple of days while I thought about the binding. I pulled out 2-3 alternatives (yellow, grey, blue) and decided to use the same blue fabric as the inner borders around the stitcheries. It looks pretty good - and another of my started projects have been crossed off the list. *yay*
The second quilt I brought with me for show and tell, was "Cat'o'lantern" from one of Fat Quarter Shop's seasonal specialities boxes - the "spooky box".
Cutting and sewing the cat was like a dream. The pattern was well-written and the instructions clear. The result? Wonderful!
I debated wether to quilt it using the glow-in-the-dark thread that came with the box, but felt a bit unsure of how the thread would appear in the darker parts of the quilt.. so! As with "The Story of My Day" it was finished by stippling quilting (what is the correct word for this?) using a grey multicoloured thread. The binding is a black IKEA cotton fabric. I do like a dark binding on my quilts.
So that's another started project crossed off the list! *yay again*
We've had a birthday in the family! A is now 8 years old and I don't understand where the time went..
I had to go to the office on the morning of her birthday, so I decided to leave a little surprice for her at home. In kindergarden they make cardboard crowns for the kids for their birthdays. Last year hubby and A made a cardboard crown together, but for some reason a crown was never brought up this year. So I decided to try and see if I could make her one without her noticing.. TwoTinyMakes have a trio of patterns for epp crowns which are just genious. I used the pattern for the big crown, choosing colours and prints I thought A would like (which I also liked, haha) and finished it the night before. I added a glass bead on top of each point - otherwise the pattern is as the pattern is written.
She loved it! It even went with her to school! (It's a bit big, but there's an elastic in the back which can be modified slightly so that it fits better now - but still able to adapt to size as she grows older.)
Maybe I'll add some more glass beads for next year..
Wednesday, March 01, 2023
Monday, February 27, 2023
A summary of the last two weeks
Last September the quilt guild planned a weekend of sewing together (sy-sammen) and decided to bring my sewing machine with me, to get some things started and finished. Well... I couldn't for the life of me find my sewing machine bag! So annoying.. So, I ended up bringing with me a bunch of prepping, drawing and cutting for the first day - and the second day I brought my sewing machine in a bag from the Festival of Quilts (merchendise from my first visit back in 2017, a jute bag). Well, it worked, the sewing machine fitted almost like a glove (but carrying the thing was a pain in the...).
So! Come February 2023 and the next weekend is getting near - and I still have not found the bag. I have turned the attic upside down, looked in every box and closet. Considered if I had lent it to someone... or if it had been thrown out during one of our cleaning sprees..
I brought with me epp and prepping, again, but still a little pissed about the missing bag..
And then, hubby goes to Spain and I'm spending an evening scrolling, looking for alternatives and possibilites of buying a new one (yikes, those things are expensive!), when I just get the whole "this is insane" and "I know I have one" - leading me to return to the attic for another round of searching.
And what would you know, in the back - the completely opposite end of the attic from where all the other bags and suitcases are stored - wedged between the wall and a cardboard box (not mine), partly underneat the boxes from some kind of Nintendo system - and no less than 4 (yes..) chess boards, a tiny part of my sewing machine bag is desperately trying to get my attention!
*yay!* It literally took me 6 months to find it, but now I'm ready for my guilds next sewing arrangement!
For Christmas my mom made A a wallhanging of a unicorn from Elizabeth Hartman (Lisa the unicorn) and I've been thinking about how to hang the quilt in A's room. Normally I'd use a board or a piece of wood and two hooks, but seeing as she often changes her mind about where and what to hang, I didn't want to put too many holes in the walls. Cue our latest visit to the used stuff store (OMA).
They had two (I regret not buying the second one too) cast iron things for hanging traditionally woven wall pieces, and the size was just PERFECT for A's unicorn!
I've also bought new socks.. because I thought they were funny - and because they matched a sticker I got from Fox and Cactus.
Just waiting for Winter to end so that I can stop wearing wooly socks again..
Monday, February 20, 2023
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