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!

Berries

Sunday was such a beautiful day, we decided to go to the cabin to pick blueberries and cloudberries.  Svein and Ola stayed further down by the cabin to pick blueberries while Kristine and I went a little higher up to see if there was any cloudberries left....

Lots of people had been there before us it seemed, since there was very little left for us to pick...

But we did find a little bit.  Enough for a cloudberry mousse, and a jar of cloudberry jam :-)

But the guys did find a lot of blueberries!  Ola starts 9th grade in a couple of weeks, and Food & Health is a mandatory class for all 9th graders in Norway.  They learn to plan meals, nutrition, and how to cook and bake.  One of the first things they do is to make jam and jellies, and they all have to bring 1.5 kg ( about 3lbs) of berries for class.  Now Ola's berries are in the freezer, ready to go when school starts :-)  ( nothing like doing your homework before school starts up again  LOL)  We did have blueberries left over, so I made blueberry jam as well, and we had lovely crepes with blueberry jam for dinner last night :-)

Kristine taking a break.... She's off to the University of Oslo now, where she'll be majoring in Geology. She and I are going down there tomorrow with the last load of her things for her student apartment.  We were there last week for two days as well, along with Svein (DH) and Ola, doing the IKEA errands getting all the BIG stuff, like a bed and a desk. Now there are only a few little things we need to get.  Then we'll be doing some sight seeing and probably some more shopping....

Summer vacation

Just a short post to let you know I am still around.... I am enjoying my summer vacation with the whole family visiting my brother and his bride, helping them get ready for their big wedding on Saturday.


We are really enjoying the mountains in their part of Norway, Isfjorden.


Such a beautiful view!


Sigve never has a day off, so he brought his roller skis as well....


Life is wonderful! Hope your summer is great!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Back to "normal"

Yesterday was "back to normal" after Sigve's Confirmation celebration on Saturday and Sunday. 

I found my running shoes and made this year's first trip up to "Havern" , a peak right by our house.  It takes me a little over an hour to walk briskly up and run back home.  The path going up is quite steep so there is NO WAY I could run it...... The reason I decided it was time to start running again was this:

The dessert and cake table at the party on Saturday..... And there certainly are LOTS of leftovers......

After my run I headed for my sewing room and got it cleaned up a bit before I got this new pattern out. We got it at the shop last week and I wanted to try to make a monkey coin purse- aren't they cute?  They sure look cute on the pattern- not sure I can make one this cute though....

I decided on an orange monkey.... The fabric with the spots is a Batik. 

Here is half the monkey face almost finished- I think this might have been the easy part- I'll let you know how the rest goes- hope to do some sewing today as well- I am lucky and have the day off :-)

Thanks for stopping by- have a great day!