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!

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...

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! 

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!