Waiting for Spring....

So this is the warmest temperature we have today.... Woke up to -36 C, a beautiful day though with blue skies and the sun shining :-)

Even if winter is still holding on, I am sewing for Spring :-)  I love fresh yellows, oranges and greens....  This table runner is from the book "Weekend Quilting", and the fabrics are by Zen Chic ( Modern Background Colorbox) and Beach Road by Jen Kingwell Both for Moda Fabrics.  This was a quick and fun runner to sew, and I can see how it would look great in a number of different fabrics and color ways.

On to a new project.... Log Cabin blocks :-)  I haven't sewn log cabin blocks in a while, but they are so fun and easy to sew- perfect for when you just want to sit down by the sewingmachine and keep sewing without too much preparation work.  I used a log cabin ruler from Marti Michell for easy piecing!

I made four blocks for a small table topper, I think it turned out pretty cute, and perfect for Easter!

Hope you are staying warm wherever in the world you are :-)

Quilting Cafè

This week we have the annual town fair here in Tynset, so last night the shop teamed up with the bakery down the street and hosted a quilting Cafè.  37 quilters from far and near showed up, and we had a lovely time sewing, chatting, eating and drinking coffee.

It was a lot of fun :-)

After we were done at the bakery we had a special sale at our shop for the ladies. As you can see it got a bit crowded :-) I really think we need to do this again next year!  Always a lot of fun to bring quilters together!

This was my project for the evening- Sue Daley's Quatro Colour Quilt.  I am just getting started ( this is my first block....) so it will take a while before it is finished....

My thoughts today are with family and friends on Florida's Space Coast and in Orlando.  I really wish I could zap them all over here to safety as Hurricane Matthew is getting closer and closer to them, and will hit the Barrier Island area today.  This picture is from Cocoa Beach a couple of years ago, now I am afraid to see the damage this monster of a hurricane will do there :-(  

Stay safe my friends!!

Hello there

It's been a while- almost 5 months since I last blogged, wow, how did that happen??? 

I have been sewing though, and staying busy at the shop and at home.  This spring I started making blocks for the Smitten quilt (by Lucy Kingwell). I am a slow starter, I know... My plan is just making a couple of blocks now and then- no rush.  I am machine piecing the blocks, and really enjoying it.

At Quilt Market last October I fell in love with the Octagon Shimmer Quilt by Jennifer Sampou, and after the pattern and fabrics have been sitting on my cutting table for a while I decided it was time to get started.  I LOVE making these blocks- they are pretty quick to sew, and it is so much fun seeing the pattern come to life when I puzzle the half blocks together!

My new Ikea roller cart is perfect for keeping the fabric strips close by when I sew.  I might need more of those carts- one for each WIP :-)  Might fill up my sewing room though LOL....

This summer my husband and I went to Italy for our vacation, and for the first time it was only the two of us!  The kids are not kids anymore, and had plans on their own.... We stayed in Cortina d'Ampezzo for a week, and had lovely hikes every day.  The picture is taken by Lago di Sorapis, a lovely lake in the Dolomites.  The color of the water was just incredible! We hope to come back there again one day! 

Well, I don't know if anyone is still reading, but if you are- thank you for stopping by my extremely neglected blog!  I promise it won't be five months until my next blog post!

Yeey for retreats and birthdays!

A few weeks ago our quilt guild had a weekend retreat, and we had such a fun weekend sewing, eating, laughing and spending time together.  I managed to get two mini quilt tops finished, our guild leader showed us how to make cute little baskets, so of course I made one of those ( she had even cut the batting pieces ready for us :-) And I finally started on "Smitten"  ( yeah I know I am like a year behind everyone else....LOL I am machine piecing, and so far this is the only block I have made- no quick progress here I am afraid....

The Norwegian Quilt Guild has it's annual meet in just two weeks, and since december I have been working on new models for our booth there.  I have made two quilts from patterns by Sherri at a Quilting Life and here are some blocks for the Dream Catcher quilt.  The quilt is finished- I just need to take a god picture of it....

A lot of non quilting stuff has been happening as well. My sweet daughter turned 22 two weeks ago, and I went to visit her in Oslo where she studies, and we went to see the Mary Poppins musical.  Mary Poppins was one of the kid's favorite movies when they were younger ( and it might still be), so we were really excited to see it on stage.

We had front row seats, and got a great view!  "Mary Poppins- Practically perfect in every way"

Mary and Bert. The actors were really good!  

On top of the roof with the chimney sweep

This is Sigve's favorite dance scene ever form any movie- the Chimney sweeps dancing on the rooftops.  They did a great job on stage as well!

The bird woman portrayed by Mari Maurstad- a great actor!

Such a great show, and in September we're going to see Singing' in the rain- Can't wait for that!

I really need to catch up on my blog reading, Maybe I need to set a specific time each day to blog and read blogs... I seem to never have time for blogging anymore, any suggestions out there?

Hope you all have a great day!  It looks like I have to do a few laundry loads before heading outside for a walk/run- then I can go to my sewing room and play, yeeey!

Hope Chest blocks

Today I managed to sneak in a few hours in my sewing room, which was great!  I had planned on making a class sample for a bag class ( actually a wallet class) that starts in a week, but I got sidetracked with these fun blocks!  I started on them right after Quilt Market in October, but I still had not finished them.

The pattern and fabrics are by Sherri over at a Quilting Life and I have now finished all the half square triangles, and need to make the blocks with sashing and cornerstones before sewing the quilt together.  Since I have a fat quarter bundle of the fabrics, there isn't enough for the border, so I need to figure out what to do with that.  Maybe I'll just skip the border all together?? First I need to finish my blocks though :-) 

Planting seeds tablerunner

Thank you for your sweet comments on my last post :-)  I was Thrilled to find out there are still some people who stop by my blog.  Much appreciated!

 

 I had the day off on Wednesday, and finished all the blocks for my Planting seeds tablerunner.  This is the one I started in Brenda Riddle's class at Quiltegaarden a couple of weeks ago.

I decided to do free motion quilting in a meandering pattern across the whole table topper.  This is the quickest way for me to quilt, and I LOVE free motion quilting! I alway bring my machine to the kitchentable for this, since it is a much sturdier table than my sewingtable.  My sewingmachine has a tendency to start "jumping around" when I do my free motion quilting in my sewingroom.  I should get a better table, but I just love the size of the one I have.

A shot of the runner with the quilting.  I have added the binding, and just need to stitch it down.  Now I hope we get summer soon since this is my happy summer tablerunner for our outside table :-)  No warm temperatures yet, but I keep my fingers crossed!

Thank you for stopping by, and have a great weekend!  

A new ruler to play with.

I have a new ruler, the Rapid Fire Hunter's Star ruler, and it is so much fun to use!!!  I was demonstrating it at the quilt guild the other night, so I thought I'd tell you all about it as well.

The pictures just show a little of how you use the ruler when you make the star points for the Hunter's Star.  Now in my last post I said I would use my NEW fabrics first, and not my older ones, but I failed already.... All the red and cream fabrics I am using in these blocks are from my old stash.... ( Now I can actually close the drawer with red fabrics again :-) )

The ruler makes it really easy to sew the star points to the trapezoid, and you use your regular ruler to trim pthe bits when they are sewn together.

Here is a block almost finished- I just need to trim it down using the Hunter's star ruler!

This is the layout I am using, these haven't been sewn together or trimmed yet, ( well, now they are, but not when I photographed them...)

I've knittesd this weekend as well, winter is here (or it should be), and more mittens need to be made.  Look how huge these are before I threw them in the washinmachine to get felted.

I just hope they are a lot smaller when the wash is done!  I will show you the result :-)

Well folks, that's what I've been up to- oh, and I've mailed off my SSCS package to someone far far away!  I hope it gets there in time for Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by!

New projects :-)

I have unpacked my suitcases after my Houston trip, and this shelf now holds fabrics for new shop samples, fabrics that I bought "Just for fun" and a couple of kits ( also just for fun...) Now my intention is to use this fabric FIRST.... Before any of my older fabrics.....We'll see how that goes ;-)

For my first project in November I wanted to try new rulers we bought at Market.  We've had the X-block ruler at the shop for about 5 years I think, and now they have a new X- block ruler called "Basix" to use with jelly rolls (or 2,5" strips)

For this sample I had to use fabrics already at the shop, so I decided on Lynette Anderson's Christmas line ( along with a red from my stash....)

Look how easy this is... Sew the strips together, then align the marks on the ruler with your sewing lines and cut....

Voila! In no time you have a table topper!  This still needs borders though.....

At the quilt guild meeting last night I played with the mini basix ruler, which works with 1,5" strips... small and fun!

This little piece will turn into a mug rug I think, I just need to decide which motif to use on the side...

That's all I can show you for now... I have a bit of secret sewing going on as well for the SSCS.... Just a couple of weeks before we have to mail our gifts out now,   I am so excited!!!!I really hope my swap partner will like what I am making for her :-)

Well, I am off to the sewing room!

Progress on my sewing folder

This past week I have been trying to do a little stitching every evening on my project from last weekend.  I have managed to finish two of the pocketfronts- yeey!  The top one with the bird has "Needle parking" on the bottom where the wool squares are.  Ann had made the text for us on transfer paper, so I could just iron it to my ribbon.  Pretty cute I think :-)

This will be the front of the folder.  Looking at the picture the stitched needles are a liitle light, but they show up a lot better in real life.  I have to start working on the 1/2" hexagons for the next pocket now, but I really have to do a bit of quick sewing first.... I miss my sewingmachine doing all the handwork- but then I really enjoy the handsewing as well.... Guess I want the best of both worlds.  I'll be back to show you the weekend sewing tomorrow!  Dear husband and mr.17 has been in the Alps for a week for pre season training, so Mr. 15 and I have had a blast "Home alone"  LOL.  What can I say- the TV has been on twice I think, and lots of sewing/ cleaning and listening to music. 

Working on my BOM

Next Tuesday is our last night in the BOM club at the shop, and I really need to get this top finished before then, so I am taking a break from my Secret Santa Clause Swap sewing to finish it.  At least it gives me something I can blog about....

 All the blocks were sewn together a couple of months ago or so- but the borders need to be added... I did get two borders on last night- only one to go now, so I think I'll be done by Tuesday :-)

This little apron project is just begging to be sewn soon.... I bought the pattern on Etsy, and it is called  "Sweetheart Apron"  It looks so cute!  Hope mine will turn out cute as well... 

Thank you for stopping by!