A quilty sunday

I woke up early this morning and after eating breakfast I went into my sewingroom. I was in mood for a lot of sewing today. My quilting spirit is back. I started to wash some of my newest fabrics. A question for you all. Do you wash your fabric before using them? And how do you do it? I soak my fabric in hot wather with some washingpowder in. Then in cold water. If the fabric bleed I repet it again and again until it stops. Today I was in a hurry and wanted some of the fabrics to dry quick, and I put them into my tumble dryer. And this is what came out.
A complete mess!!!!!

I just had to find my ironing table and start ironing them all. Luckily none of the fabrics were destroyed. I placed my ironing table in the livingroom, in front of the tv. A good combination. Ironing and watching tv. This sunday was a bit special in Norway. The was a big charity collection for "Doctors without borders"going on, and on tv there was a lot of programs showing what they are doing. Of course I gave some money when the collectors rang my doorbell. Back to my ironing. It was a huge pile of fabric that came twisted out of the tumble dryer. But after ironing a while I came up with this....

One of the light fabrics I wanted to use for the background of my new project. I know.......I already have soooooooo many ufo's in my sewingroom......but I wanted so badly to start this daisy quilt. I received the pattern from Cynthia and today I prepared two blocks ready for applique. Another question for you: Shall I use the same fabric for the background in all my blocks or shall I use different light ones????

Do you remember the block I was doing on friday. Now I have finished it and another one also. I love doing needleturn applique and combining it with stitchery. The blocks are 6 1/2 inches big. So far I have made 11 blocks. How many I intend to do I do not know yet.

On my last poste before this one I got a comment I have reflected a bit on. Llillibeth said... using anonymous so I could not reply her :"Why use English when you neither can spell nor the language!!!" Is my english really so bad? I think she refers to my translation of the poem a few days ago. I know it was not the best translation, but I felt that the meaning of the poem was more important than getting the proper english. Perhaps she should reflect about what was written in the poem........

I have had a good day today. Done a lot of quilting, visited a good friend (which got very expensive to me. We went on the net and ordered 22 pieces of bali fabric LOL), even had time to blog.

Almost midnight now. Time to go to bed. Good night. Sleep well.

I'm sewing again :)

I wanted to blog this yesterday, but blogger did not cooperate........again:( Read in several blogs that I am not the only one struggeling with blogger)

I'm back sewing again :)

I just needed some days relaxing.

Yesterday after work I cleaned the house, slept an hour on the sofa and when I was ready to watch Prisonbrake at tv, I felt like sewing again. I quiltet a bit on my "say it with flowers". I have quilted 6 of 9 flowerblocks in it now. And I know I will finish it in time limit for our ufo challenge in november.

I was tagged by Pat to show my favorite spot. And this is MY spot. When I am not in my sewingroom there is only one spot I manage to sew. If we got visitors and someone sits in my chair, I feel lost. I walk around in the house and feel bad. I do not manage to sew another place. Stupid or not????? On the little table besides the chair I have all my tools when sewing and under the table is a basket with some of my ongoing project, ready to sew on when I sit down in the chair. I have just tidy up my spot. It is not soooooo tidy all the time LOL When I am in sewing modus I have a lot of different projekts laying around my spot.
Do you remember the blocks I have made already from the book My mother taught me to sew And yesterday I prepared a new block and startet to applique it. I will continue sewing on this one this evening. I am so glad it is friday again. I will buy a bottle of redwine, make a good beef dinner for me and my DD. Sew a bit in front of the tv and then.......... as usual LOL.....I probably fall asleep in the chair.......I'm getting old you know LOL I am a bit curious.....and want to tag Amy at The calico cat, Tazzie and Cynthia to show their favorite spots.

My goal this friday evening: QUILTING

A poem

On my office wall I have a poem which I love. I do not know who wrote it, but I want to share it with you. It's in norwegian and I will try to translate it into english. Of course some of the rimes will not match, but it is the meaning that is important.

First the original poem in norwegian:

Du har fått en vakker gave

en ny dag som kun er din

Det er opp til deg å velge

hva du bruker dagen til.

Dagen står der i din dørsprekk

venter på å komme inn

full av blanke rene sider

med all verdens farger til.

Hvordan kan du utnytte

denne gaven du har fått

Du må velge varme farger

ikke farge arket grått.

Du må bruke dagens timer

til å være positiv

Gled mennesker du møter

gi oppmuntring og smil.

Uansett så må du huske

at når dagen er forbi

har de ting du sa og gjorde

tråkket opp en liten sti.

And then my attempt to translate it into english:

You have been given a beautiful day

on day that is only yours

it is up to you to choose

how to use this day.

This day is waiting by your door

waiting to come in

full of blank clean pages

with the colours of the world.

How can you use

this gift you now received

You have to choose warm colours

not use the colour grey.

You have to use the hours of the day

to be positiv

make people you meet happy

give encouragement and a smile.

Regardless just remember

when the day is gone

the words you said and things you did

have made a little path.

This was very difficult. Translating poems are not easy. If anyone knows a better translation pleas let me know. And if the one who wrote this poem reads this, please forgive me for my "bad" translation. But this poem is so dear to me and I wanted to share it.

I did go in to my sewingroom yesterday. No sewing, but I started to clean up an organize. I looked through some boxes, throwed away some ufo's that I know I never will finish, throwed away old pattern printouts from the computer that I never will make. A big sack of trash. And I felt good. Really good. Perhaps if I continue this evening I may be able to find my pleasure of sewing again. I know it is hidden somewhere in my sewingroom.

One of those days :(

Yesterday I had big plans going in to my sewingroom and SEW. After eating dinner I went in to my sewingroom. I had received the pattern for the daisy quilt Cynthia have made and I inteded to prepare for application of some blocks. Entering the sewingroom full of optimism and eager to start. What happens? I drew up the application on vlisofix and started to find some fabric. I looked through all my drawers full of fabric. Picked some colours to match for one daisy flower. No....they did not match. Found some other fabrics......no....they did not match either. I looked through all my fabric, and felt worse and worse. I felt that all my fabric was sooooo ugly. But I realise that is not true. I bought the fabric because they was pretty. But this evening I could not find any joy working in my sewingroom. I was not in the mood for doing anything. Does anyone else have this feeling sometimes????
I love quilting, I love playing with colours and fabric. I love creating things. But yesterday all that feeling was gone. Everything felt wrong. Perhaps it is because my sewingroom is such a mess now, or perhaps it is because I am so tired in the evening after working all day.

I want to share some pictures of my DD. She made some sewing yesterday. And I love it when she is working in my sewingroom. She went into my scraps and found some blue and white fabric which she sewed together. And started to embellish it with white pearls. Her first CQ. I will show it to you later when she has finished it.

And I hope I get my sewingfeeling back today. Because I want to sew. I need to sew!!!!!!

My autumn handbag

My new handbag is finished. This is the one I showed you all some weeks ago. I was joining a class to make this. And this evening i did the last stitches on it. I am very pleased with it. A perefect size for me, with a lot of pockets both inside and outside. Bjørg have designed some really neat details on it. I am going to use this one at work tomorrow.

I have not done much quilty this weekend. Preparing for the party and having visitors have been the main goals this weekend. But this evening I took time to finish this bag. And I did some more handquilting on my "Say it with flowers" in front of the tv.

Half of october is already gone. Where is it???? I feel I have done so little. The days just rush away. I am longing for more relaxing days. I need som relaxing days. Time to quilt. I have so many ideas, but do not find time to start on them. What about my plans to make christmasgifts? I have applyed for more hours a day, but I not got an answer on that yet.

Going to bed now. Sweet dreams to you all.

Maybe tomorrow will be a bit more relaxing.

LOL My DD took a photo of me in front of my laptop writing this post. I enjoy sitting by the kitchentable writing.

Back to the 50's

Yesterday was the party "Back to the 50's" It was great. After some problems finding what to wear we all had a great time. It was the birthday to my SIL and she had invited 80-90 people. We all were challenged to come in an outfit from the 50's. I ended looking like "Minni Mouse" with black poodleskirt and red/white spotted top. You can see me and my DD on the picture below. It was fun that most of the ladies had taken the challenge and came dressed up in funny outfits.

My boyfriend Idar and me. You cannot see my earrings, but they are red and white spotted (like domino bricks LOL)

From left my DD, my niece Linda and Hilde (my nephews wife).
Some of the nieces/nephews of the birthdaychild made a song during the evening.
My brother and my DS in an discussion.
It was a great party with good food, dancing and laughter. My feets are hurting today after all the dancing. My DS came home with his new girlfriend, a very sweet girl from Ukraina. All my family is home today and that feels great.

What season am I ??

You Belong in Fall

Intelligent, introspective, and quite expressive at times... You appreciate the changes in color, climate, and mood that fall brings Whether you're carving wacky pumpkins or taking long drives, autumn is a favorite time of year for you

What Season Are You?

I knew it. I have always enjoyed fall best. The colours are just ME. Red, yellow, green, brown, orange.......I love them. When I lived in the North of Norway we had spectacular falls. The colours were so bright in the mountains. Do not have the same where I live now. But still autumn is my favorite time of the year.

Next after christmas. I am a christmas person. When christmas is coming I get a bit "crazy", so tells my children and friends. Notice it is soon christmas, only 10 1/2 week to christmas. Have to think about making presents.

My visit yesterday

When the girls from "The spools" LOL had left yesterday I was to load some photos of them. But blogger did not cooperate. I read on several blogs that they had the same problem. But now, early in the morning before going to work, it worked. Here are the pictures of my quiltingfriends that visited me.

Me in the green sweather quilting on my "Say it with flowers" ufo. Irene is doing some CQ and I showed her several stitches. Turn up page 32 and do the stitches on that page I ordered her. And she did.

Mette, Aud, Anne Britt and Kjerstin

All the girls har brought their quilting and we had a great evening together. We started this group in 1988 when some of us took a class in handstitching. Some new girls have joines us and some have left the group. My mother was one of the girls in this group and I felt a bit sad yesterday she not being able to join us. Love you mom!
We are a small quilting group that calls us "The spools" (in Norwegian; Trådsnellene) and we have made a little pin as sign of the group. It is very small 1,5 x 1,5 inches. As you can se the little hexagons is very very tiny. And under we had to have a spool hanging.

I made some other pins some years ago. Want to show you two of them. If you want to make similar pins you can find the pattern here. It is very easy doing and you can give your pin a personal attitude making funny faces. A lot of my friends have received one of these as a little gift from me.

And I received my books from amazon yesterday. Jippiiiiii. Love the Simple traditions book. It was soooooo many beautiful quilts in it. And the Treasure of crazy quilt stitches....... so many ideas. Do not have the tools that follows the book, but I figured out I could use the plastic I make templates of when I am handstitching. Think that could work helping to get the same shape of bowes aso.

My sewing this weekend.

While my boyfriend was out carpeting saturday I manage to finish my swingskirt and the underskirt. So no I am ready to party LOL

And I have done my 15 min a day with CQ. I have a bit troubel going outside the lines. Have to loose up a bit. Perhaps that's why I work so slow with the embellishment. Besides that, pink is not really my colour. Yesterday I embroidered "angel" in one of the pieces. And I found two beautiful "antique" buttons which I had to have. The white lace in the bottom was stitched on, but I did not find any way to embellish it. Wish my book "treasure of crazyquilt stitches" was here. I know Lorenza in Italy ordered this bok at the same time as I, and she already have received it......... i am envious LOL I have decided to finish the empty space at the top left corner now before starting another place at the block. Do anyone have any ideas for me??????
I got a lot of beautiful silk ribbon so I ought to make some SRE, or should I make som more embroidery, or perhaps a cluster of buttons, or......... I DO NOT KNOW......LOL Think I have to visit "In a minute ago" and look for ideas.

I managed also to do a lot of handquilting on my "Dites-le avec des fleurs" UFO this weekend. I have to find another name for it. Any ideas?????? It is a french pattern I bought visiting France last year and therefore the french name. Perhaps I will call it "Say it with flowers" Is that the coorect english translation for the french name?

I am in an "finish my ufo's" period now and that's feeling good................ very good :)

This evening I am going to have visitors. My friends from "Trådsnella" (in english "The Spools") are coming on an inspection. We are a small group of quilters who meets regulary. The same girls I was togheter with on my quilt weekend at the cabin in august. I baked two cakes yesterday and I am looking forward to some nice hours sewing together with them. I will take some photos and show them later. I am sure they are working on something nice.

New books and fabric

Today I visit the quiltshop. Kristin Pollen is the author of a new book which was released last week. Now she was in our quiltshop signing her new book. She is very talented and always uses norwegian nature for inspiration. This book is called Natures quiltroom (hard to translate it propper) The book contains only table runners and there are a lot of beautiful patterns in the book. Look at the one I just had to buy fabric for. Apple green, moss green, yellow, brown and black.

Yesterday two books that I have ordered arrived. Bareroots "Down to Earth" and "Tildas hus" ("Tildas cabin"). Tilda is another talented norwegian designer. Look at the cute bathroom angel in the book!!!!!! There was plenty of small ideas in this book. And I love Bareroots patterns. They always have such beautiful stitchery. In this book there was a round table cloth I fell for.

And still I am waiting for two other books ordered from amazon. Do you think I will be lacking ideas during this winter.

Now I will enter my sewingroom. My boyfriend is out doing som carpenting and my DD is sleeping after her trip to Praha. Do my 15 min of CQ, preparing my swingskirt for the party next weekend. I remember having a black swingskirt and manage to find it. Luckily I have saved it, but it is several kilos since I used it. So now I am fixing it. And then I have to make the underskirt. My DD has now a red swingskirt and she looked so adorable in it. I will show you pictures of us all next weekend when we are going to the party. My DS and his girlfriend is also comming and they love dressing up like this. I know my DS is going to have the James Dean look.

Member of a new webring

I have a new link in my sidebar...I was invited by Susan to join her new webring called 'Around the Block'....Please check it out.If you would love to join, it's free...all you need is to love Cq and needlework.It's a great way to spread the word...that we, Crazy Quilters are out there! ...

And I have decided like Sandie at Abeutifulcraft to do my 15 min work of CQ a day. Days just goes away without me having done any sewing at all om my CQ. And now that I have joined this new webring I really want to get something done. All the beautiful laces, beads and other embellishement I have now.......have to make something of it. So today I will work at least 15 min on my angel block.

I got quilts above my sofa :)

I moved into this house in the middle of april, and I feel that I am not quite ready decorating my house. I have been missing quilts above my sofa. Although I have a lot of quilts to choose from, no one really was the one I wantet in this corner of my livingroom. Either one was to big, or one did not have the right colours. The one in the right corner is one early wanted to have there, but on the other side......... that's is where I did not find any. Until today. I was visiting my quiltshop and there it was. My quilt has been hanging in the shop for over a year now, and I had forgotten it. I picked it down and brought it home. There it was. Just what I wanted meanwhile I am making the one that shall be hanging there. That one is still in progress.

A close up of my "orange peel" quilt. Me and my mother competed making this. While I was making one, she tricked me and made two. I love this pattern and I am thinking about making another one with a little twist. I saw this quilt (the fift one on this page) on Dawns blog and think I am going to draw a pattern like it.

This one is paperpiecing. I promised one girl earlier that I would show her my quilt. She had made one similar. Do not remember who it was. But here it is, my "Savanna Star". Love doing paperpiecing.

Talking about paperpieceing. Want to show you one quilt I have been working on several years no. This is the one I blamr why I had to start using glasses. I have tryed not to use the same fabric twice, except the black. Some time ago quiltshops used to send fabricsamples and this is the one I have been using. Tiny pieces needed a tiny paper shape. This one is just 3/4 " 6-point diamond. No wonder why my eyes got so bad after a while. I want to complete this quilt. As I see now I am just lacking one star in the right bottom corner and half stars on the top and bottom. Shall or shall not complete........ that's the question. Perhaps applique it on black borders with an appliqued flowerborder on the sides????? Or any other ideas??? Not really in the mood for this one yet. Back to the ufo box I think.

Now I have to clean up a bit in the house. My boyfriend is arriving soon. And my DD is back home at midnight from schooltrip to Praha.

The quilt in the hallway of my officebuilding

I promised you all a photo of the quilt which is decorating the hall of the officebuilding I am working in. It was very difficult getting good photos because it light in the hall is sooo bad shooting photos. The quilt is made of a group of quilt ladies. And they have made pictures that describes the area. Rena Leir mens Camp Rena, and it is a military camp. Thats why they have made the entrence of this camp on the top left side and the military tanks down at the bottom. Fishing and hunting is also common in this area and they have also appliqued the beautiful old church. Beautiful work done by these ladies.

Birthday present from Pat

Look what I got in the mail today!!!!!!!
I am sooooo happy.

Look at all the goodies I got from Pat, my dear friend from Chesterton, USA. She and I are born the same day in the same year and we met on yahoo group Chains of Hearts. I love the colours she has dyed the SR in. It is MY colours indeed. And all those beautiful prints she have made. Guess who is going to play with this goodies the next days LOL. I am home from work today. My shoulder is hurting so much after cleaning up in the attic yesterday. Obviously my shoulder did not cope with me moving heavy boxes around. So this gift today really cheered up my day.

Thank you so much Pat, you are a dear friend to me.

october 2nd....where is september?????

It is already october 2nd. Can anybody tell me where september is gone. I know that for me september.......and october is the most busyest months in the year, it has always been that way. Not very much time for sewing so now I have abstinece.........I gotta sew!!!!!!!!

I have gone through my september goals and did I reach them?????

*Finish at least one of my ufo's
YES, I did finish two tablerunners and my redwork table cloth. And the best part is I did not start another new project. (ehhh....I did start sewing my new bag, but this was a class I registrated for in august, and I did buy the fabric in august). Below a picture of my completed redwork ufo. I started this two years ago, and I have given classes in redwork using this as a model.


* Experiment with my CQ
YES, I have experimentet. Made the little sewing kit for Pat's birthday. Did som more embellishment on my angel block and have made more hearts to swap. Ordered one new book which I hope arrive very soon.

* Start making christmasgifts
NO, I did not start on any gifts. But I did find fabric and patterns for what I am going to do. And that is a good start. I cannot show any pictures of the gifts on my blog because I know some of the receivers are reading my blog.

* Get time to read more
YES, I have read several books. I love to sit in my chair with a quilt wrapped around me, a good cup of tea and read. When it is really bad weather, storming outside, raining or snowing it is good to sit and relax with a book.

*Celebrate my birthday LOL
YESSSSS, and I had a great time. I was visiting my boyfriend in Oslo. And I got a lot of nice precents in the mail from friends. I wonder how they knew that on my wishinglist was laces, beads, fabric aso. I got it all. Thank you good friends for all the wonderful mailbox surprises I got. My DD bought me that big box of beads.

It is time to set my goals for october. Looking in my almanac, my days seems to calm down a bit. And I hope that is true, because now I want to sew!!!!!

* I want to recuce my UFO's. Still have two left of the three UFO's registrated on my quiltgroups UFO challenge to complete. One is basted and is going to be handquilted. I will try to baste the last one this week and perhaps I will machinquilt it.

* Start making christmas gifts.

* Organize all my patterns. I have to because I have been looking for a certain pattern and I can't find it. And I have a lot of patterns.

* Experiment more with my CQ. Looking forward to receive the book I have ordered.

* Handquilt on my Spinning wheels

* Handquilt on my Sunflower dresden

* Have to continue on the quilt I am going to have above my sofa. The wall is still empty. Have made 3 blocks. One more to make and then put the border on. Priority one.

*****

I want to thank all of you who have commented on my blog. I so appriciate your comments. I have learned to know several bloggers and I enjoy reading your blogs. I got a looooooong list of blogs on bloglines now. My DD and boyfriend teases me when I sit in front of my computer. They claims that I have become a computernerd LOL

My present to Pat

I recently started with crazy quilting and joined a yahoo group called Chains of Hearts. At this list I swapped heart with Pat. And we discovered we were both born at the same day the same year. No wonder why I felt so connected to her while we were mailing. The other half of me lives in USA LOL. I made her this little sewingkit embellished with laces, beads and silk ribbon embroidery and sent it to her. Pat is doing the most wonderful crazy quilting. Take also a look in to her website Gatherings.

I have been to a quilt class

Yesterday I visit the quiltshop to join a class. Do you remember long time ago that I bought some fabric . I intended to make a bag of this. And yesterday was the first meeting starting to do this bag. My friend Bjørg has designed this bag, and she does a wonderfull job designing patterns. This is what I managed to do in three hours yesterday. The bag has a lot of very fun details, pockets aso. And we got a lot of homework untill next time.
I also want to show you the quilt I have on the wall in my office. Being a quilter demands that I decorate even my officewall. And I think this witch explains who I am LOL This is made after a pattern from Lise Bergene.

Back to work. My days are toooooo busy at the time. But I had to blog a little bit although I am at work LOL

Oh....just realised that down in the hall at my officebuilding there is a very beautiful big quilt. I will take a photo tomorrow and show you. The details of it is very special.

How do I prepare a top for quilting

Cynthia was wondering in her blog what others prefered to use when they was preparing a top ready to quilt????

I normally baste my quilts with thread. This is what i learned when I took my first class in handstitching and handquilting. And this is what i teach my students in the same class now. I think thread basting is good for handquilting since it will secure the layers for a long long time, and not have pins getting in the way. I have tried basting spray on small projects and that works for me. But not on big quilts. Not so very fond of bastingspray because I feel it gets so sticky. Maybe I spray on too much when I do it.

After ironing the back very good I tape it on the floor. I do not have a big enough table at home so I use to crawl around on the floor. Looks stupid and my back hurts LOL. I do this on small quilts only, when I got bigger ones I do it other places where they have big enough tables. At the quiltshop they have a big table.

Then I put the batting loos on top of the back. Do not tape it.

And then comes the top upon the batting. The top has to be ironed very well because this is the final time you can press the seam allowance the right way and make it looks good at the wrong side. Tape the top as you did with the back.

Then I start to baste the layers together. Not a very comfortable way to do it, but sewing a small part, doing something else to stretch my back, sew again and suddenly all the quilt is basted. I start sewing from one edge to the other like an X. Then I sew in the middle from one side to the other one like this + Like this I now get four parts to sew. I sew horisontal stitches in one part and vertical in the other part, and oposit. (Do you understand?????????????LOL)

And then, ready to start my handquilting. I love to handquilt my quilts. But I also do machinquilting and think I am starting to get a grip on that too. But when machinquilting you cannot use this method. Then I use safetypins or just spraybaste the layers together.

I have enjoyed my sewing sunday and I have done some other sewing today as well. But I cannot show you because it is a birthdaypresent, and I know the one who is getting it visit my blog sometimes. But when she have got it I will show you. Now I am going to start quilting on christmasquilt I have basted today too. This one with spraybasting. Would show you the photo of it but blogger does not allow me loading more pictures. Maybe I have written too much today LOL.