Best wishes for 2013!

...and thank you for following me throughout 2012!!

I finished this little wall-hanging last evening and it may be my new year's resolution for 2013 :) Pattern courtesy of Camille Roskelley 

Ahhhh... better!

I have been meaning to post about this little DIY project for some time now, but you know how life gets in the way of blogging. Right?

I am fairly happy with my current ironing board, but the top fabric was showing quite a few stains and wear, so I decided to make a new cover. I took off the fabric and batting and began auditioning fabrics

I took off the old batting and cut a new and larger piece but decided to keep the original batting underneath, as I had been slightly annoyed by the fact that I could always feel the metalframe and edges all the way round.

And after very little sewing - taaadaaa!

I chose to use a light green/yellowish fabric by Khristian Howell and then some linen at the end with a border of radomly mixed squares to add a bit of pop and colour.

To keep it all nice and taught I decided to use one of those thingies (sorry, do not know the name, not even in Danish, hah!) that you can find in many coats and trousers.

 All of a sudden, my little IKEA table ironing board seemed out of fashion, so of course I had to make it a new cover as well!

More taaaadaaa! :)
I switched the linen and patterned fabric around.

And to add just the tiniest bit of pink colour, I sewed in this little string of different fabric. It is less than 1/4 inch, but is just enough.

So aahh! Better now :)

Have a nice day!

First step, done!

This the first step towards completion of a little project I have given myself, related to an exibition/fair I have been invited to participate in from May to August next year! This is vey exiting as I get to make stuff without a recepient in mind, and to be honest, I find it a bit difficult.

This piece is done with a pattern and partly a tutorial from thebluechair and the "porthole" technique taught by Lu Summers at the Fat Quarterly Retreat 2012.

Each fabric only appears once, thanks to a couple of charm swaps I have participated in this and last year :)

More to come!!

Action shot

My little design helper in action!

Part of the blocks from my fellow FQR kinky bee'ers, laid out on living room floor.

Embroidery, moi?

After the Fat Quarterly Retreat, I got a taste for embroidery. Yes, I know: the rest of the world discovered doodle stitching years ago, but hey! Now it is my turn :)


I have only dared venturing into tiny stitcheries, and the first one was the birdie Aneela Hoey taught us at the retreat, which I immediate used to pimp up the canvas goodie bag, along with the brilliant porthole technique by Lucie Summers. So much fun!


And when home again, I added a lining with a zipper pocket and replaced the original handles with new and longer handles.



My mom loved it instantly, so it now lives with her, being used to carry all sorts of crafty thingies (for painting, knitting, weaving, you continue...)


I had the luck to sit next to the incredibly sweet Nicole of Follow the White Bunny who designs very cute embrodery patterns. So I bought some of her patterns and transferred them (slightly enlarged) onto some linen I had on hand.



I really like the calm process and the fact that it can be brought along when travelling, which I do far too much currently (job related). And as I have not yet found the patience to handsew hexagons, this is a perfect solution!


Oh, and yeeeehaw!!

I have just bought the ticket for the Fat Quarterly Retreat 2013 - how could I not!? It was just too fantastic this year!




PS: If this post looks awkward, it is because I am trying out blogger's blogpost-creator-app.. I have NO idea where the photos will end up, for instance :)
PPS: It looked awful!! Returning to my wellknown BlogBooster free app....

FQ Retreat 2012 in London

Wooohoooo!!
I am here! In London with a bunch of lovely ladies. Who all have a mutual understanding for all things quilty and fabric. Who are familiar with Liberty insanity and the need for filling even more fabrics into your already filled-to-the-brim-and-beyond fabric storage. Who become excited over gadgets I did not knew existed and squeels over pictures of Johan ;) Wonderful!!


The FQ retreat starts tomorrow, officially.
The activities this afternoon were volountary to do and they kick started it all with totally good vibes.

I cannot wait to get started tomorrow:
I have a morning workshop with Lucie Summers (yes: the creator of the fabric line 'Summersville', and the 'portholes' tecnique).

In the afternoon the workshop will be with the Aneela Hoeyto learn the basics in free-hand embroidery. Cannot wait!

These two workshops were my choises, others have chosen differently with paper piecing or purse making or desinger challenge!

I will be back with photo evidence, once my phone decides to cooperate...

Ouch!

Acute lower back pain arrived here yesterday afternoon. It was a wellknown but not a welcome guest and I hoped it would leave again during the night.

WRONG! Ouch, ouch....yiakes OUCH!!

So I went to see my chiropractor who told me that "what have you done? Your back is very angry with you!" . LOL!

He did his thing (made my spine and neck click and crack) and told me to stay as comfortable as possible the rest of the day with an ice pack nearby and to return tomorrow morning for a second treatment, as he dared not do it all to me in one trearment...

I wonder if anything quilty will be an option..?
Any position is currently uncomfortable, so I will find out.

Enjoy your day, AND appreciate your back! :)

Quiet morning happiness

Modern hand quilting for a Belgian baby girl:

_More to come on this one!
 /Ann

Oakshott indulgence!

Look what my sweetheart brought home tonight:

It was the absolutely perfect thing to bring home for opening after a seriously CRAPPY evening. I will spare you from the details...

Have you ever heard of these Oakshott fabrics?
Lynne from Lily's Quilts introduced them in some absolutely lovely creations she has made, be sure to check out her amazingly simple but absolutely lovely 12 trees quiltlt!!

Well, Oakshott fabrics are high quality fabrics with a little shine/colour shift in them due to the fact that the warp and weft in the fabrics consist of differently coloured threads.
I adore Kona solids, these are the UK luxury version :)

At the time of ordering in the Easter they offered FREE SHIPPING on orders above 35£ (not sure if it was worldwide) and I do not know if that offer is still on. Dare not go check it out, I may end up ordering more!!!

Anyway, I indulged in this ColourBox with their entire range of "solids", 100 different fat 8ths pieces. It was also on sale, reduced with 50 £ and I think it still is! Wooohoo, long time since I allowed myself to such luxury self-fabric-therapy.

And it arrived at the exact right time (fast shipping!!!), in an exclusively looking black box with red letters. The back of the photo left of the fabric box contains all the names or numbers of the fabric for easy reference and re-order. Uhmm yep!

Sadly, I do not have the time to dive into the pile of beauty right now, but soon... Soooooon, I promise myself :)

Hope you all enjoy the riches of RIGHT NOW. Have a wonderful day!

Happy Easter!

Just wanted to share a precious moment (for us) with you all: Johan finds his first ever Easter (chocolate) egg in Grandma's garden.

Oh, and yes: I will try to translate that sourdough bread receipe soon!

:) Ann

New toy and sourdough

Warning: this post is not quilt-related! ;-)

This is my brand new kitchen machine from Kenwood!! I was fortunate and had a nice amount of my tax money back, so I jumped in and bought this :) So far I am very happy with it: it has a powerful engine (1000 Watts) and a lot of attachments and extras. Of course Kenwood offers a bunch of additional attachments to drool over and put on my wish list *hint*!

So, naturally I needed to give it a try and what better way than baking?!

I have had my eyes and mind on a specific sourdough receipe for about a month now but did not have neither sourdough nor the time to try it out before now, during the Easter holidays.

A good friend provided me with a large storage glass of sour dough. Thanks Lone!

Ready-to-bake dough:

All warm and finished result:

And it came out very moist, crunchy crust and very good taste!! Yippeee!!

Let me know if you want me to write down the receipe! 

Naaahhh... better wait a little on Pinterest :)

Following my last post, I have revisited Kirsten's homepage (primarily to check my link):
It appears that Mr. Pinterest himself called her and talked an entire hour with her, ensuring her that they are working on the issues pointed out.
And she has not deleted her account either, just deleted the boards that contained photoes that could likely cause her legal problems. Brilliant.


I shall await further actions from Pinterest's side and meanwhile, I will be very cautions WHAT I pin :)

Happy pinning ;)

I will be deleting my bords at Pinterest... Sadly!

Please read the following blog post (or just the first part of it if you do not have the time): it is very interesting and enlightning...
why-i-tearfully-deleted-my-pinterest-inspiration-boards

This is the reason for me leaving Pinterest and deleting my boards, one of these coming days.

I just need time to compile this inspiration somehow else, and currently my only alternative will be a truck load of bookmarks or one or more documents placed at Google docs, for easy access.

Yep, copyright is a bitch, but I understand and wish to respect it.

Just thought you might wanted to know too!

/Ann

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!!