Stack of yummy

Hybris: Finally home at a time of day with decent light, kiddo sound asleep, and a stack of pure yumminess to play around with, look at, strike.

*click, click* (sound of iPhone camera happily at work)

Nemesis: the stack tips over, hits my cup of freshly made latte, latte hits floor and splashes into areas of my livingroom I have not visited on hands and knees recently.... *sigh* (me)

Well, nobody was hurt and the latte did not stain the fabrics, at least :)

Enjoy your day! I know I do.

Geese in Ring Swap Quilt – part 1

As I have previously blogged about, I am the swap host of the Geese in a Ring Swap, which ended up with 6 Rounds (of 8 participants). I am so very happy and proud that so many liked my idea and this block!! I had only anticipated 1, perhaps 2 rounds. Several of these talented ladies joined 1 or 2 addtional rounds, would you believe it?

And I am very happy, that Krista decided to become my partner-in-swap-crime. She is an immense help, sorting and sending blocks to the US and Canada folks. Thanks chica, you are fantastic!!

Up till now Rounds 1 to 4 have passed the deadline, and I think it was right about time for me to finish my top for Round 1 (the good example and so...). All the blocks I received are just soooo beautiful, I wish you could see them in person! And some of the participants even sent me bonus blocks, so I did not have to add any further blocks!

I had a fairly clear idea that I wanted the top to enhance the geese blocks, but I also wanted the blocks to be separated a little to show off each and every one of them and to create some areas for the eyes to rest after taking a swirl around the geese blocks.

I had quite an amount of the right coloured fabrics from an abandoned project, so I put them to good use and lo and behold: they had the exact right size!! Yippee!!

Here is the finished top, spread out on our couch. Trying to photograph in the afternoon at this time of year is just not the best combination. Oh well!

I love seeing these pictures of quilt tops hung in front of a window, giving the impression of stained glass. Here is my version, and I quite like it!

 

Detail

 

For the back I chose some oh-so-soft voile from Anna Maria Horner’s line Little Folks and in order to get it the right size, I simply added another road of squares and made a mini block of Geese in a ring. Such a cutie block (size 6 inches).

But how on earth am I going to quilt it?!?
I follow the very talented long arm quilter Angela Walters’ blog, and she has started a Monday series on how to find inspiration for quilting and asked of her readers to send in examples. Too good to be true!!! So I hurried, took a very crappy dark evening picture of the top with my iPhone and immediately sent it to her. Perhaps she would choose it?! 

And Angela sure did! And would you believe it: she had Lynne from Lily’s Quilts add her 10 cents on the toptoo – I almost fainted when I found out!!! Squeeeeeel!! Here is the direct link to the article. 

Angela is going to start a series on how to quilt on an ordinary household machine too, so consider putting her blog in your reader. 

If you have any suggestions how to quilt this top, please inspire me – I think I am beginning to form an idea, but inputs are most welcome!

New York Beauty Quilt-Along!

I must have been bitten by some strange paper piecing bug!
There was nothing else to do for me but to join the New York Beauty Quilt-Along

And I clearly remember myself sweating and swearing that I would NEVER learn to love that troublesome, slow paper piecing, when I did my first 'Geese in a Ring' block way back in. errr... 2009 I think! Fast forward to 2012 and now I feel very confident with that block and I am ready to move on!!

So I have jumped in with both feet and joined



Come join me and currently 55 others (I am sure more will follow!).
I am not sure whether I will be able to make all blocks, as I sincerely hope I can make most block by paper piecing it all directly onto the paper (or almost) like the Geese in a Ring block.

It starts in March, and I am happy about that, as I cannot seem to find much time for quilting at the moment...

I have been awarded!

See this ?!?

Sweet Bea, who is a Dane like me but living with her husband and 2 soon to be 3 kiddos in the US, totally surprised me with this lovely award!

Please go check out her block too:  Beaquilter

Bea is also a professional, ribbon winning quilter, I do so wish I could quilt like that!!

If you want to read more about this award, go to the VBA blog.

The rules for nomination and nominated blogs are:

• Thank the person who gave you this award
•  Include a link to their blog.
•  Next, select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
•  Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award
  - you might include a link to the VBA site.
•  Finally, tell 7 things about yourself.

You should think that it is easy-peasy, but I have discovered that I really consider the vast majority of the ~60 blogs in my reader to be excellent, the rest are just brilliant :)
Most of them are quilting related, no surprise! But also because I truly enjoy reading about they day-to-day life with ups and downs, to get a glimpse of their real life and the interesting persons behind this and that blog. 

So if you do not find YOUR blog on the beneath list, please rest assured that I had a hard time selecting!
Here are my award winning nominees (in no particular order), please go and pay them a visit, I think they are well worth it:

1. Don't Call  Me Betsy
2. In Color Order
3. Sew Sweetness
4. Pie Birds, Buttons and Muddy Puddles
5. Quiltingismytherapy's Blog
6. artsy-crafty babe
7. Hyacinth Quilt Designs
8. from the blue chair
9. a quilt is nice
10. Trillium
11. Pleasant Home
12. Piece and Press
13. Stitched in Color
14. Lily's Quilts
    
15. Red Pepper Quilts

 7 thing about myself... Oh, what to write that could be of any interest??
OK, here goes:

1. I was an au pair in France for 1 year when I was 18
   It was the year after highschool. That year was sometimes difficult but I learned a lot about myself, how to navigate in and adapt to a very different culture and what to put up with. This shaped me quite a bit and made me choose an education I would not have chosen otherwise: I have a Bachelor's degree in Business Languages of French and English.
   Besides my mother language Danish, I also speak German and understand the other 2 Nordic languages Swedish and Norwegian.
2. The above 2 all melts together beautifully, as I work in a German medical company, in the Nordic Offices together with Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and German colleagues. The company language is English. I am a Clinical Trial Assistant and I adminstrate pharmaceutical clinical trials conducted in humans. So I can really see a meaning in what I do: some day this or that medicine will help someone to a better life!
3. I have taught myself all about quilting through books, wonderfully inspiring blogs, tutorials, virtual quilting bees/swaps (THANK YOU) and trial-and-error. I have only ever attended one quilting class and that was 1 year ago, learning about Y-seams.
4. I hate dishonesty more that anything else!
5. I would love to have a cat (I have had 3 Maine Coon Cats before), but my sweetheart is heavily allergic, so that is now a no-go... I enjoy the peeks of other bloggers' cats even more and love that you include them!
6. It took us 4 years get our beatiful boy, Johan.
   During the last year we got all the help modern fertility has to offer (ICSI for those of you who know), so he truely is our little treasure!! I hope for a future sister or brother, but we can only hope!
   
7. I am the avatar (=identity) Kvinta Lingiuan in the virtual world Second Life.
   I have been 'inworld" since 2006 and have had many joyous moments, getting som very good virtual friends, and have had a virtual garden centre in there, for real selling virtual plants I had created.
   Second Life can be a very creative place, but sadly some greedy and selfish people have spoiled the visual experience for many many persons. Nowadays (after the birth of Johan 2 years ago) I rarely get to visit. Send me an IM, if you know what I am babbling about ;0).
   

I hope you have enjoyed reading a little about me and have gotten to visit som new-to-you blogs!
thank again to Bea for the VBA!

Quilt for Johan's kindergarten

Some time ago we went to a parents' meeting in Johan's kindergarten.

Kindergartens in Denmark are fairly inexpensive, compared to what I hear from other countries, as approximately half of the costs are paid by the state, over our tax-system.

However, this does NOT mean that there are plenty of ressources to purchase stuff for (neither for the employees, nor for the children). On the contrary. So, unoffically, they have to ask the parents for help and I volounteered to help them with a little hemming of a set of curtains and when I saw the state of a little, very worn out couch, I secretly decided to make a quilt to cover it and for the kiddos to snuggle with.

So this quilt came to be:

A very easy and fast quilt to make, as it made from a layer cake (10 x 10 inches) of  Riley Blake's Line "Alphabet Soup, Boy" and additional 10 x 10  blocks cut from Erin McMorris' line "Lake Summersault", paired with Kona solids.  I love the bright and happy patterns and colours!
The quilt had to be quite big to cover the couch adequately, so it ended up measuring whopping 92.5'' x 55''!

 

The back is made from leftovers from the front (only tiny bits!), leftovers from an IKEA cars bedding sheet I had shortened to make bedding for Johan and more Kona solids.

Yes! It was quite windy when I tried to get some decent photos! :)
Gotta love those cars and trucks and busses!

 

I quilted a dense all-over doodle and the ends with straight line quilting, to ensure that the quilt would be able to withstand the wear and tear and lot of washing such a quilt have to undergo.

 

And who does not love a striped binding in happy, happy colours!?
I surely cannot :)

The quilt was delivered by Santa's little helper (aka Johan) on December 1st. It was very well received, patted, admired and was immediately used to hide all 12 kiddos under, that is Johan's group!

Finally: My birthday quilt to Krista

Way back mid 2011, I found a free pattern using petal shaped, raw-edge appliquéed scraps.

Now, I cannot for the life of me find the orginal pattern, nor the homepage where I saw it first (remember to keep track, guys!) . I though it was from Fat Quarterly, but I simply cannot locate anywhere.

So, if you recognize it, please let me know and I will give credit to whom credit is rightfully due!

I really wanted to try it out, but did not have the scraps, nor the time!'

Then one day, my far-far-away friend Krista posted an absolutely lovely quilt she had made for herself on her blog. And a little time later I had to admit to myself, that one of UFO was never meant to be, which resulted in loads of abandoned fabric, just in the right size for the above mentioned patten.

Then Krista and I started up the Geese in a Ring Swap together (yes, we live in different parts of the world, but who cares? That is what the internet and email is for, right?!) and not long thereafter, she gave birth to the sweetest tiny boy, Jacob.

Krista is the mother of 3 small boys, and I think she is a wonderful person: 

Juggling hospitalization, babies, surgeries, a home, a husband, quilting, running.... I could continue. And all along she is keeps on being as sweet, caring and funny as when I joined my first virtual quilting bee back in 2009 and clicked with her.

SO! When I found out her birthday was coming up, I decided to make her a birthday quilt!

This is the end result (click for a larger picture):

The fabrics used are (among others): Tufted Tweets (Laurie Wisbrun), Modern Meadow (Joel Dewberry), some of Pat Bravo's designs and Parisville (Tula Pink) and a few Kona solids

Sashing: Kona Cotton Berry

The main fabric with the dots have been in my stash for ages.

The backing was made by the last of the dotted fabric, a tiny bit of Kona and then the remaining leaves scattered in a vine-inspired way, on a whim. I am actually not sure which side I like the most!

For the back, I free-motion quilted the laves onto the back, using the quilting to enhance the leaves' shape and connecting them with thread-branches. 

Note to self: next time, use stabilizer, it will be so much more easy! ;o)

 

 I quilted the entire quilt sandwich (I again used bamboo batting for maximum softness) with diagonal lines through the blocks to get discreet stability, and also around each block. Wow, that straight line quilting is fast!!

Finally, I bound it with dotted fabric, packed it together with the first 2 rounds' worth of geese blocks from all over the world and sshipped it off to Krista on 23rd December 2011.

Krista received the pack yesterday, and since it was a surprice I have not been able to blog about it before now !! Hehehe! Got you, sweet chica!!

Happy New Year to all!!

I just HAD to share this one with you all:

So not me :))

Herewith my best wishes to you all for 2012!! 

Thank you for following along.

I am going - are you?

I am very exited to go to here next year!!

I have bought the 2-day ticket, the flight tickets are in my inbox and the hotel reservation is right next to it.

There is a 1-day ticket as well:

What an amount of self spoiling. Yeah! And it comes along with the blessing of my boyfriend. Double Yeah!!

Am I exited? Oh yes - this is the first time I have joined a quilting retreat, but I admit I was envious of those going to the Sewing Summit earlier this year in Salt Lake City. But that was wayyyy out of my wallet ...errrrr... league :)

Are you coming too?

Shared: Is this why we sew?

Hi all.

I found this blog post through another blogpost, and I just wanted to share it with you.

This is indeed why I sew!

But also because the process of finding the 'right' fabric and to be (hopefully) even more positively surprised when all blocks are sewn together and sum up to even more.
I also create just for my sake: To find a place to be quiet, medidative even, to see that I can do and be more than my day job (which I really like btw!).

Why do you sew?

Please let me know if you share that blogpost too.

Finished Freedom Swap quilt

It is finished!

I sent out turquoise and brown fabrics and got a heap of finished blocks back - all I had to do was to sew one single block myself to complete the layout. Thank you to all the ladies at the Freedom Block Swap, round 1.

I first laid out the blocks with a white/cream sashing - that did absolutely nothing good for the blocks, much to my surprise!
Then I tried to find a maching solid turquoise - no good either.... So I wandered around somewhat frustrated for a minute or two... perhaps even half an hour.... perhaps more ;-)

An then my sweetheart suggested that I try a chocolate brown Kona. What?? I am not too fond of brown and had no intention of it to becoming too overwhelming in this quilt, but I decided to try out his advise, and lookie what a lovely quilt this gave me:

Gotta love a man that saves you like this, huh?!?

More pics, just for show-off:

I machine quilted it in doodles (love doodles, it is almost meditative to quilt them) and bound it in the stripe/dot fabric also used in the blocks. The batting is again 100% bamboo - it is expensive but soooo soft!

The backing was the fabric that made me choose the other fabrics in the first place: Brown turquoise coffe theme, with a tiny Eiffel Tower, and then a broad strip of the fabrics used at the front. My favorite is the one with the butterflies - love it!

This quilt is finished just in time for the autumn season - the temperature has dropped 10 degrees Celsius from one day to the next here, and now it will most certainly be used by my bf, who has until now had to do with Johan's baby-mini-quilt. And he deserves it - being all designer-ish with the brown sashing and all!


And just to finish it off: A photo of Johan who will turn 2 in 15 days!

How to grab my button...

I have been requested how to grab my swap-button and put it on your own blog.

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/geeseswap" title="Geese in a Ring Swap" target="_blank"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6151/6173381182_c30d222a9e_m.jpg" alt="Geese in a Ring Swap" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Easy: to grab the button, copy the code in the textbox below the button, go to your blog, go into "Design" , click on "Add a Gadget", select the gadget entitled "HTML/Javascript", paste the text you've copied into the content box of the gadget, click "save" and hey presto, the button will appear on your sidebar.

If you just want to put it in a blog post, you then paste that entire code either into your blog post (with the edit HTML tab selected.

Hope this helps you out?

My first bag ever!

I have finished my first bag ever!

Yeah, yeah.. I know - I must be the last person in the universe to jump on that wagon, it just took me some (ok, a considereable amount of) time before I dared dive into it. And yes, I have made one tote before.

What made me take the jump was a pattern from Jenna Lou Designs, that I by chance came by when reading sewsweetness' blog. One of her patterns - the Ella Handbag - reminds me so much about a tote that I actually dared trying it out.
THANK YOU, JENNA LOU!

 So....
Taaaaaddaaaaaahh!
Here is the finished bag - sorry about the quality of these photos, but it was evening by the time I had finished it ;)

I know - you can see it is home made, but I really do not care! Because I (me, me, little me!) made a handbag!
This is to be considered a test bag, but it is going with me to work tomorrow to be shown off :))

I could not help myself, I had to alter the pattern from the very first try:
The added linen to the bottom is my idea, an extra interior pocket (fits an iPhone perfectly) and an added key strap, as well as much longer handles were added as Il ike to carry my handbag fairly low.

All in all a very easy pattern to follow, and so many options for variations!
Go check her stuff out! (and no, I have not been  asked to tell the world about her, I am just all giddy).


By the way: the 'Geese in a Ring Swap' is moving along brilliantly: the first two Rounds have had kick-off and in 2 days I have to decide whether to stat the third round or postpone it to 1st January 2012.
Take a look at the flickt group page and if you are interested, consider filling in the application form!

Take care!
Ann

My swap is now open for applicants!

Geese in a Ring Swap

Please consider joining me!

Edit 26 August: Round 1 is closed for applicationsThat was really fast!
Edit 10 February 2012: We have achieved to fill 7 rounds! WOOOOT! 
No more rounds will be started.
Thank you so much for participating in my first try to host a bee/swap - it will not be the last!

Peek at the Freedom Swap quilt

I have assembled the quilt sandwich of my Freedom Block Swap quilt.

But alas! I did not manage to go to my local quilt shop and buy the intended variegated quilting thread, so I can only show you some sneak peeks of the quilt :)
Hopefully, I can show you the finished quilt soon, as I have made the binding already.

Bee inspired quilt finished

My 'bee inspired' quilt is finally finished!

The 'bee inspired' bee was started by Rachel of p.s. i quilt in 2009.
We were 18 participants from all over the world. This was my first virtual quilting bee ever and I was happily challenged on both methods and colours as the year passed by. I found out that making blocks to other people with their choice of fabric and block pattern could really make me break a sweat, as I was quite nevous to make their blocks as good as I should/could/would. A very healthy exercise!

For my month, I sent out all of my red and white/cream scraps and requested minimum one wonky star from my fellow 17 participants, size max 12 ½''. They could add scraps of their own if they followed my colourway.

So from out of these piles
came THIS:
I am totally in love! I love the scrappy, yet controlled look, the random placement of the stars, the different sizes of all these stars - have you noticed the teeny tiny ones??

A close-up of one of the stars and the quilting in it:
For the quilting, this was an (almost) first dance with my brand new Bernina 820 (Yeeeeeeehaaaaaaww). I will not gloat any more about it in this post, promise! I am just very happy with it, let me put it so.

I have freehand quilted around each star and a spiral in the middle of almoset every one of them. the rest has been filled with doodling, which I found to be fast and quite funny to quilt. Here is a close-up of the back for you to see what I meen:
It was just plain fun to freehand quilt this quilt, as I found that the wonly theme allowed for wonkiness in the quilting itself, which freed me from much of my self-imposed pressure to do thing nice and neat.
I have used 100% bamboo batting, and it is oh so soft and it creates a very nice texture. Not my last time to use this, that is for certain!

Around the borders I chose to freehand quilt information about the bee in handwriting:
(intended for much use and cuddling).
It also contains my name and year of finish, block name, made from scraps and so on. this way I avoided making a label, which I must admit I never get to make :)

Thank you to all you folks out there who made this quilt possible! And I know you had to wait 2 years to see it, but hey - I finally made it. I cannot wait for December when it is envisioned on the couch with me of my bf or our son cuddling underneath it!!!