sunday morning

designwall in the dining room

wip - slowly but surely

; )

longing for spring

This spring I keep looking through wip boxes, and one of them contained a fair amount of 2.5" strips in pastell colors from maybe 2 years ago. So I decided to move along and empty out the box.

These 16 patch blocks ends up a square 8", and I was aiming for a 64" by 80" layout. Easy piecing, but still a bit of puzzle to find a good balance and nice contrast in the final top. 

A few pastell marzipan eggs was consumed during constructions, as may be expected of a easter time endevour as this... Appropriate, I would say, as they were an important part of the inspiration regarding the color palette. 

Did you ever make a quilt inspired by a favourite snack or sweets?

; )

it's time ...

to swap out the wip on the temporary design wall (in the dining room) with something more in tune with the holidays.

So I thought I would like to share a picture, and at the same time keep a record for the current distribution of house blocks, too...

These lovely, toned down, soft pastel fabric combinations are selected by Trine Bakke, proprietor of Lappemakeriet and author of a few of my favorite quilting books. She has her shop close to Oslo, so it's a bit of a journey to get to visit her there. This spring she brought her shop to the annual meeting of the norwegian quilters association, this year set in Kristiansand, making it a short day trip south of here by train. I spent a lovely day in good company and fell in love with Trines bom called "Husmannsplass". (Hers was in the process of being quilted by hand, I think). Somehow this ended up as my birthday present this year from my sweet husband.

; )

I have been slowly making progress, and enjoying seeing how the palette develops. A few days ago, the last of the houses fabric arrived in the mail, and I started the puzzle of arranging them all, even with 6 blocks not sewn, yet.

Trine provided two ways of making these house blocks, as english paper piecing by hand, or as foundation paper piecing. I tried the tiny paper piecing patches, before switching to sewing by machine. Even if I love doing the hand sewing over paper, this was just too tiny for me! Finished house blocks are 8" and there will be 30 of them. Sashing, cornerstones and border is yet to arrive.

This project has offered a nice change of pace for me this fall. I hope you all have a lovely wip or more in the making. So, from this pretty quiet corner of blogville, I want to wish readers a peaceful and lovely holiday season this year!

; )

counting

These are the 5 quilts currently waiting for a binding.

Today it's been 6 years since I started this blog.

First one to have a completed binding will be my no 100 lap quilt.

Do you keep count?

slowly (wednesday wip)

Slow progress and slow stitching going on here. The brown quilt was basted on the floor, using the clever tool Kwik klip to close the basting pins. Good tool, will become a new favorite, I think. 

Those lovely but loose woven side triangles was very flimsy and resisting to be flat (bias cuts tend to be wavy...). Improvised a solution by sewing a couple of big stitch straight seams and pulled at the threads to shrink to measure. So far, it's working well, but the quilting is not finished, yet...

I have started by quilting in the ditch. And then planning to add some simple hand quilting to the blocks. Slow, but enjoyable work.

Also sewing by hand on a flannel hexagon pillow to be. Big hexagons (3") and pajama parts from Heather Ross mixed with some blenders. Soft winter pastels. Planning on quilting it by machine. Another slow wip...

Quiet and slow, that's me! At least for now. Hope you all have some sewing to enjoy.

; )

scrappy with some shirts

Summer is slowly coming to an end. I have put away the pastel vintage sheets I've been working on this summer and recovered some hourglass blocks I made earlier. The masculine and subdued colors are calming. I have used a lot of Jo Mortons lovely reproductions, and mixed them in with some thrifted mens shirts. It might not show in the pictures, but most broken dishes blocks have a variety of fabrics to give them a scrappy and more random look.

The colors makes me think of dark chocolate! There might be some snacking on chocolate and coffee drinking this weekend, as I would like to put this top together...

; )

scrap busting III

Inspired by Bonnie Hunter's string piecing on paper I set out to make these 12.5" blocks. A newspaper provided big enough pages to cut out the paper base. Using shorter stitches and the bin of wonky strips I have been saving up for some time (a year or so). I have started separating my strings into three groups:

2.5" strips

any other even width strip

wonky (end of fabric with frayed edges or cut at an angle)

It is fun to revisit fabric from the tops I've made over the last year, combining them in a new way, yet still being a bit selective of what colors to put together. Saving most of my warm color strips for another  project. These uneven strips makes for a bit more lively blocks - really love the bit of whimsy...

There's still more strips in the bin. Enough for a few more batches...

Happy sewing!

wordy wednesday wip

I wanted to share a bit of my process quilting this cloud 9 top. A few times I have tried basting a quilt while it's hanging on the wall and not laying on a floor. Sometimes crawling on my knees and basting is not so tempting...

In the first two pictures you can see my glider curtain system. I put my back up first, right side facing the wall. Then I secure it with painters tape, stretching it out as flat as possible. This particulate backing is a 54" wide cotton voile - very slippery!!!

Then I centered and attached my light polyester batting with pins to the backing. Again, stretching it out and taping it to the wall. 

Last layer is the top; centered, pinned and taped to the wall as well.

The basting is done using my favorite bent quilters safety pins. I have to say it was great using them while standing up!!!

; )

This big star variation top is made from left over triangles from my sea glass quilt and egyptian cotton. The star blocks are 23" big, and I wanted to try something new: clam shell utility quilting. Inspired by the lovely book by Carolyn Forster: "Utility quilting -  simple solutions for quick hand quilting."  (This book was introduced to me by Mary of Molly Flanders; thank you!)

Using a full 8" diameter circle paper template. Big open quilting. Aiming for a light, summery and soft quilt. The pins ended up in the center of each clam shell by sheer luck. I love how the clam shells makes me think of clouds...

; )

Having fun with my favorite perle 16 and embroidery needles. Marking with a grey chalk pencil, three rows at a time. 

Wish you all a lovely wednesday!

wednesday wip

In the end there was no choice, I had to have a go at Katy Jones popular pattern "scrap vomit". I think scrap archives would also be a fitting name. Seeing so many and so diverse fabric come together in the same quilt. I have included some of my oldest purchases, some of my newest, some gifted to me by friends and some swapped. 

My quilt will have 1225 simple 2.5" squares. The nifty sizzix machine with the right die comes in handy, here. But my own scrap system also heavily leans towards these cute squares. A quarter of a charm square. The end of a jelly roll. Extras from a bargello block, a 16 patch and so on. Over time they do collect. For this quilt I also had a proper look and slim down of my scraps. The ones I keep in smaller boxes, sorted by color. My scrap organizing system builds on inspiration from Bonnie K Hunter, Amanda Jean and Cheryl. So far I have been making popular patterns from several designers out of the 2.5" squares and the small scrap boxes:

Bonnie K Hunters / Gwen Marston Maverick stars ( two finished lap quilts)

Emily Ciers Scrap Hoover (top)

Jolene's Granny Square (finished quilt)

Elizabet's Tokyo Subway Map (wip / top)

Amanda Jean and Cheryl's Scrappers delight (wip) and The Missing U (wip)

and now:

Katy Jones Scrap Vomit (wip becoming a top)

A few of these wips are in a state of arrested development due to a shortage in scraps! I will consider this a success. A few years of quilting does produce quite a bit of scraps. As some of you may have noticed I happen to love the scrappy kind of quilts. And now there's room for more. I think it's time to turn to the stash and cut into some yardage and FQ, soon...

This latest adventure, my scrap vomit wip has been named emerald city. I do enjoy making it. The most difficult thing, so far, has been to choose the central cross colors. In the end I went with emerald, by pantone named color of the year 2013. 

"Symbolically, Emerald brings a sense of clarity, renewal and rejuvenation, which is important in today's complex world." quote from Pantone

A bit uncharacteristic for my taste in colors, I really love how well the emerald contrasts with the colors of all the other pieces in there. 

A scrappy greeting from me. Somewhat quiet these days on the blog. But still piecing my life together, bit by bit... Happy stitching!

ensemble

Thank you so much for all the quilt love!

Just wanted to share a snapshot of these 4 quilts in different stages of completion:

• top in off white and blue
• top in blue, purple and green
• back of a quilt in the progress of being quilted
• back of a quilt in need of a binding

the small quilt in front sums it all up, I think I am spotting a blue and green trend...

; )

do you have any favorite colors lately?

* ensemble: a group of separate things that contribute to a whole

wednesday wip

So happy to have a quilt sandwich prepared for lots of hand quilting! My pezzy spiderweb top is put together and I couldn't help myself - had to do a little bit of quilting right away...

The blocks are quite large, about 15" square and with a more narrow and pointed star than in my tutorial (on the sidebar). Lately the concept of SCALE keeps coming to mind. So I find myself fascinated  with larger blocks. So far the 15" square ruler is my biggest ruler, and that stops me from going any bigger...

Sandy Klop's pezzy print and some of her dots makes the stars of the spiderweb. They are all different. This choice is very inspired by Katy Jones lovely spiderweb quilt...

Quite colorful, I dare say... And hopefully it will take me A LONG TIME to finish hand quilting this one. Trying to tell myself to pace the hand quilting. I love that part too much, it makes it hard to stop in time and keep my shoulder pain free. This one has the thin cotton batting (quilters dream request). Aiming for a lovely wrinkly texture after washing it up.

Wish you a colorful wednesday!

be my valentine

Thank you for your vote of confidence, yesterday. I got a bit carried away and had to pursue the inspiration...

starting point: layer cake "dream on" by Urban Chicks

blocks: about 9" hst

quilt size: about 63" * 72"

level of fun: high

Wish you all Happy Valentine' day!

wordless wednesday web

strings on a saturday

For me, the start of a new year is always a good time to get more organized. Looking through my stash, scraps and wips... I am making slow progress on my spiderweb blocks that was started last year ...

Over time I have collected strings with this wip in mind. The strings vary in width but fit into the colors I choose for the quilt. 

I am aiming for 15" finished blocks in a layout of 60" * 75". This will be a busy and colorful one!

After putting the few finished blocks on the design wall, I decided to cut out the base square for the rest of the 20 blocks. I am using my own tutorial for these with a few adaptions:

• larger squares to start with
• a more narrow star forming in the center

I was not happy to dig through a lot of strings , so I decided to sort and divided them by color to make it easier to grab a few of each... The challenge of making these blocks for me is to have good contrast and distribution of color throughout the quilt. I also think a good mix of light and dark values make the blocks more vibrant. 

Enjoying the slow progress as these spiderweb blocks are fun, but not so quick to make. This quilt will be a labor of (scrappy string) love as the spiderweb is one of my most favorite traditional patterns.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!