Weekend sewing

Friday night I found a link to a gorgeous pattern on Quilteville's facebook profile. It was the perfect quilt to spend the weekend working on. It's called "Belle Wave" quilt and is designed by Fresh Lemon Quilts.

 I used some fatquarters from the gorgeous "Saltwater" line by Tula Pink. I must admit I love Tula Pink's fabrics. I bought these some months ago, and happy to find a project to use them in :-)

I finished piecing the quilt early this morning, and got to load it on to the longarm frame. I've never finished a quilt this fast, and it feels so good! Now I will enjoy some binding the next days :-)

 Some close up's to show the fabrics better. It's late over here, so no daylight to show the true colors, but this is pretty close.

I just had to have some "me-time" this weekend, and I have totally neglected everything else than sewing. No laundry or housework for me this weekend :-)
Guess I have to catch up on the dust bunnies tomorrow  ;-)

Wish you all a great new week,
Laila

Long time no see... but I'm still here

It's been so long since I wrote my last blog post. I've been sewing a little bit, and also got to do some longarm quilting. I've quilted three different client quilts in March, and here is a close up on each of them:

 The first one is a quilt made by Rønnaug, a lady in my local quilt guild. She made a smaller version of the last mystery quilt by Bonnie Hunter. Love her fabrics. Quilted using a pantograph pattern.

 The second is a quilt made by Sofie, she had used a lot of yummy fabrics in her quilt. This one is also quilted using a pantograph pattern.

The third one is made by Kirsti, and it's made with gorgeous fabrics. Also quilted using a pantograph pattern.

Lot of my Blogland friends are also friends of mine on facebook. One of them is Nicola, and she had a PIF over at facebook a while ago, which I signed up to. She sent me a lovely book, and a handmade toiletry purse. I just love the gorgeous fabrics she used! I didn't have anyone signing up on my PIF at facebook, so I guess the right thing to do is to make a nice parcel to ship over to Nicola :-)

I have an Instagram profile, and lots of yummy stuff to look at over there, and lots of ideas and inspiration. I found the profile of a talented lady, Steffani, and just fell in love with her version of the Tula Pink quilt called "Dreamweaver". I bought the book by Tula pink and some of the fabrics a while ago, but since Steffani is a quilt shop owner of  Country fabrics and quilting, and made kits for this special quilt with fabrics from several of the Tula Pink lines, I just had to ask her to ship a couple of them over to Norway.
She also sent me a photo of her version of the quilt. Yummy or what???

Since I have made some of the pieces for the quilt with the fabrics I bought a while ago, it will not take long before I've got enough blocks to finish this quilt. 
Steffani has a blog too and you should check it out :-) She is a talented longarm quilter too :-)

I haven't been sewing as much as I used to for a while. I've had a few things to deal with that kept me busy. Sometimes life happens, and sewing is not on top of the priority list. 
I have been making a few blocks for the "Winter Bloom" quilts I'm going to make. I'm working on two of each block, so the plan is to make two quilts. We'll see if I'll be able finish them both at the same time, or one now and one later :-)

Happy sewing,
Laila

Client quilt and a finish

Finished a beautiful client quilt today. Been working on it for a long time, but had a lot of fun quilting this!

The owner liked it, and I'm allowed to share some photos on my blog. 

It's a beautiful dresden plate quilt, with lots of beautiful fabrics. 

The pattern on the border has become my favorite, and you can find a tutorial over at Kathy's blog. She did teach me how to do this.

I hope to make a quilt like this one day. Love these dresden plate blocks. Perfect for those favorite fabrics :o)

I finished the binding on my "Pie in the sky" quilt a while ago and here's a photo of the finished quilt: 

The fabrics and colors are not easy to show on this photo, since it's a large quilt and I had to stand back to manage to take a photo of the whole thing. But you can see some close up's on my previous post :-)

I've started a new project, and will show you when I make some progress on it. It's a lot of cutting and piecing on it, but I think it will be one of the most beautiful quilts I've made. It's a quilt I look forward to quilt on my longarm. Lots of ideas, and hope my skills will not let me down. I need a lot of practice before I will dare to quilt it. Will have to make a practice piece to try out my ideas, I think. 

Hope you all are having a nice and creative weekend,
Laila

Finished my "Pie in the sky" quilt

Yay! I just finished quilting my "Pie in the sky" quilt. I used a pantograph pattern called Effervescence. 

It's a large quilt, but with help from my son I managed to take a photo of the whole quilt. I'm really pleased with how the quilting looks, and even if I should have used a bit darker thread, I think it looks good. I used a Superior thread called King Tut, a cotton thread I like to use when quilting pantograph patterns. 

Some close up's of the quilt:

Now I will make some yards of binding and add to the quilt, and I will enjoy some hours with sewing down the binding by hand in the days ahead :o) I love hand sewing the binding, it's sort of relaxing work to do.

I hope everyone is having a nice Sunday. It's Mother's Day here in Norway, so there will be coffee and cake over here ;o) Happy Mother's Day to my Norwegian friends :o)

Laila

A finish and some quilting

Haven't joined Blog land for a while (again...) but been doing some progress in my sewing room the last days. I finally finished my "Pie in the sky" quilt last night, and I am pleased with how it turned out.

Not easy to get a good photo of this huge quilt, but with hubby on a chair holding it, this is how it looks like. I'm looking forward to get to quilt this one. I will finish the quilt by the end of February. I bought the backing for it a while ago.

A while ago I quilted a few tops for some other ladies. 

A red with "Popcorn" pantograph and a blue one with "Ebb & Flow" pantograph. They both turned out great!

I also basted a quilt, and this one will be hand quilted by it't owner.

A blue and green quilt, used "Popcorn" pantograph on this one too, and it turned out great with the green thread.

All three ladies where pleased with the quilting, and I leave it up to them to show the whole quilts when they are finished adding the binding. I'll ask for photos when they are done :-)

It's so cold here today, -21 degrees, so I think I'll be spending some time cleaning up my sewing room today. After finishing a huge project like the "Pie in the sky", it really needs some serious cleaning up! But then it's so nice to sit down working on the next project. I have a few smaller things i have been planning to finish, and hope to do so during the weekend. 

Wish you all a great weekend, 
Laila

Kitchen sink is finished!

The WISP/UFO I decided to finish first this year was the "Pie in the sky" quilt, but I decided to finish my "Kitchen Sink" quilt instead. The only thing that was missing on this one, was the two borders. I've been working on them the last days, and tonight the quilt was finished. I was so unsure if the border fabric would turn out ok, but I like it. I made my version a bit larger than the one in the pattern. The pattern is from the book "Scrap-basket Surprises" by Kim Brackett. 

I used different background fabrics and tried to make each block with different fabrics. I love how this quilt turned out. This is one of my favorite quilts so far.

I have one problem, I can't decide if I should quilt it using a pantograph/overall pattern, or if I should do some custom quilting on it. I know I would use the great border Kathy did teach me, which I used on the "Berries and bluebirds" quilt. But not sure how to quilt the rest of the quilt. Would appreciate suggestions! 

The border is 5,5 inches wide when the binding is added, so the pattern I've got on my mind it's perfect for the border. Kathy made a great tutorial for this on her blog, so go visit her blog to see how :-)

I'm looking forward to enjoy some more sewing and maybe some quilting this weekend, but I also hope to get my butt outdoors to have a nice walk and take some photos. It's been so cold over here for a while, but hope the temperatures tomorrow will be a bit closer to zero than it has been lately :-) The nice thing about the cold weather is that the sun is shining, and some awesome sunrises and sunsets appear. I could not resist trying to capture the sunset this evening. So beautiful!

Wish you all a great weekend!
Happy sewing,
Laila

Astrid's quilt and new fabrics

I had the pleasure of quilting a beautiful quilt during the last week, and finished it last night. 

Astrid made her quilt in lovely fabrics, and asked me to quilt swirls with hearts on the quilt, and some stippling around the stitcheries. She made the stitcheries beautifully by hand, and she will add some decorating on the outer borders on each side. Looking forward to see it when she is finished with it, I will ask her for a photo when she's done :-)

Yesterday I went downtown to Quiltegården to get some batting and backing fabrics. I forgot to take a photo of the backing, but here is the other treasures that came home with me:

I've got plans for them, so I was not only shopping with my eyes this time :-)

I'm planning to make a table runner of the pinks, grey and white fabrics, and will decorate it with the laces. The ones with the cute owls will be used for some easy small projects. 

When I was sewing tonight, I dug out some chocolate from my drawer. I have a soft spot for mini Smarties. Shhh!!! Don't tell my kids I have a drawer with chocolate, I might have to share.... :-)

Funny how they match perfect with the fabric I was piecing! No wonder I fell in love with this fabric:-)

I hope you all had a great weekend, and wish you all a great new week!

Happy sewing,
Laila

"Pie in the sky" progress and a new BOM

I'm still working on my "Pie in the sky" quilt, and only six blocks left to make! There will be a lot of work piecing all the 2,5" squares into sashing, but I'm close to a finish now!

This is some of the latest blocks:

Thought I would finish the last blocks by the end of the day, but got a bit sidetracked when some yummy stuff came in the mail today...
I signed up for a new BOM by Sue Daley a while ago, and the first parcel came today :-)
The BOM is the beautiful "Baskets for you" quilt. 

I've been thinking of making a red and "white" quilt for a while, and when I saw this quilt over at May Britt's blog, I jumped in with both feet and ordered the BOM.
You should visit May Britt and check out her progress. She is almost finished with her basket blocks, and they are so gorgeous!

With the first parcel came the things I need to get started. Pattern, glue, template, needles, sewline trio pencil, red Superior thread, sandpaper board and fabric. I did wash the fabrics and they are hung up to dry, so to be able to get started right away I just picked some red fabrics and shirting fabric to play with. 

The sandpaper board is pretty cool, it's personalized with my name! Cool!!!

I've finished one basket, and prepped one more. Perfect to sit in front of the TV and do some needleturn appliquè :o)

Lena Karen at LeKaQuilt challenged her readers, and especially me and Helga, to finish one UFO before the end of February. 
I'm in! I will finish the "Pie in the sky" quilt, and even if I'm very tempted to start a new quilt, I will finish that one first! I look forward to load it on the longarm frame and quilt it. I know I will use an allover pattern (pantograph), since I think custom quilting a quilt with lots of reproduction fabrics will be a bit too much. The fabrics sort of camouflages any fancy detailed quilting, and I know it will look great with the allover pattern. 

Happy sewing,
Laila

My finished projects for 2012

I managed to finish 26 projects in 2012. Some of them small, some larger ones. I'm satisfied with all these finishes even if I wish I could finish all the projects I've started. 

My goal for 2013 is to finish more of the projects from my UFO/WISP bins. Most of my finishes for 2012 is new projects started and finished the same year, so I've at least getting better to finish what I started :-)

I plan to finish one UFO/WISP between every new project in 2013, and I really hope I'll be able to finish some of the beautiful things I've started. I don't think I know how many unfinished projects I've got... sort of lost counting... But I don't think I'm alone feeling that way :-)
Since I managed to make only two Christmas presents this year (the two advent table runners) I will try to make some presents during the year. Yep... I've already have a couple of goals to reach in 2013.

Looking back, 2012 has been a busy year with too much non-quilty-related stuff, and my health issues have been messing up a "little" too. I hope that 2013 will be a good one, with a lot more fun happening. 

I wish you all 

A Happy New Year!!!

Hugs,
Laila

A little progress the last days

Finally got to take a photo of the "Comfort quilt" #3 that I finished a little while ago. I love this panto pattern and the owner of the quilt chose it himself, and love it too :-)

I've had a nice time during the Christmas Holidays, and I've spent time with the family and just enjoyed having the days off during the Holidays. We've been watching movies, had too much to eat and lots of candy. 

We did celebrate Christmas eve over at our place this year, and it was so nice! 
13 people around the table, I'm so happy we all where together.
We had the traditional dinner with pork ribs, sausages, potatoes, sauce and lots of vegetables. 
For dessert I made rice pudding with red sauce. Yummy! 

I managed to take a few photos before I was finished putting the food on the table too :-)

These last days I've been spending some time in my sewing room. I did dig out an old WISP, the "Pie in the sky" quilt. It's a pattern by Kim Diehl, and I just fell in love with this quilt when I got to see it on the cover of the book it's in. I've been collecting reproduction fabrics for a long time now, and finally I have enough different ones to make a gorgeous quilt like this. 
A nasty cold came to "visit" me, but I just hate to sit still and do nothing, so even if the progress in the sewing room is slow, there is progress! Yay!
Love how these blocks are turning out, and when I added some of the sashing on some, they really look great!

Lots of fabric are left to be pieced together, but I've cut more than half of it for the quilt, so I look forward to be finishing some more blocks later tonight.

I will make a blog post tomorrow and make a collage with my finishes for 2012. I hope you do so too! It's always so fun to see what everybody else managed to finish, and nice to read one blog post showing them all . 

I'm excited for tomorrow, since we're having family dinner over at our place celebrating the New Year. I'll be making turkey, my favorite dinner of them all. And rice pudding for dessert. Yummy!

Happy sewing,
Laila

A little sewing and some quilting

I've really been neglecting my blog for a while... Again... Time goes by so fast, and I haven't found the time or energy to join Blogland much lately. I've been visiting some of you, and left comments when I stopped by. 

It's been a little sewing between the everyday's have-to's. I managed to finish two Advent table runners. I love Advent, so I keep making these purple and black table runners. I have to admit this pattern is one of my favorites.  

Both are made of the same fabrics, the only difference is the silver lace. On one it's clear silver and on one it's a silver lace that looks "old" and it's a bit wider.

I also finished binding the last "Comfort quilt", so now each one of my three hearties have a quilt of their own. I haven't taken a photo of it with my camera, since my DS started use it right away. I guess he liked it :o) 
I have three finished project this month, and that makes me happy :-)

Three gorgeous tops came home with me from the last quilt guild meeting. They where made from blocks made by several of the ladies in my local quilt guild. I've finished quilting two of them, and tried to quilt them with a pattern that looks good, but still not too much so they would end up a bit soft and fluffy. They will be donated to our local hospital and given to children with long term diseases. I'm so glad the ladies in my local quilt guild joined the charity project, and they all did a great job making these blocks. I really love how the quilts turned out with so many different blocks!

It's freemotion quilting, and not easy to get perfect, but I did manage better and better  as I went down the quilts :-)

This is a close up of two of the blocks:

I hope to finish the third quilt after the Christmas Holidays.

I guess most of you are finished or almost finished with Christmas preps. I have to admit I haven't baked or made many handmade presents this year. But it doesn't bother me a bit. Instead of getting sick and grumpy of stress and complaining, I just relax and try to remember what is most important for me. For me the most important thing is to be together with my loved ones during the Christmas Holidays, and be thankful for that. I'll just buy cakes and candy, and I'll be able to send all my friends a cyber hug or Holiday greetings on the internet, since I haven't written any cards this year either. 

I hope you all will have a great Christmas, and that you'll have a peaceful one.

Have a very Merry Christmas
Hugs,
Laila

My two blocks for the Curve it up QAL and some quilting

I finally got to finish my two blocks for the Curve it up QAL, and I have to admit I love these Tula Pink fabrics! 

The first block is the Curn Dash block. 

The second block is the Sawtooth Star block.

Now I really look forward to see the next block Jenny and Helen will come up with! I really love the curved ruler, and think it's so much fun to make these blocks.

I am finally able to show you a quilt I've had in the making for a looong time! The main part of the quilt was finished almost a year ago, but finally got to add the borders and load it up on the longarm frame last weekend. 
This is a BOM designed by Gail Pan and it's called "Berries and Bluebirds". I've made this quilt for my local quilt shop, and when I'm done quilting it will be staying at Quiltegården for a while :o) You can order the pattern over there too :o)

This is a close up of one of the blocks I've been playing with.

I hope I will be able to finish up the quilt very soon, and will post some more photos when I'm done. 
Only the white backgrounds left to finish :o)

Happy sewing,
Laila

Giveaway winner!

Congratulations to Gelicaso for being the lucky winner of my giveaway. The winner was nr. 48 among the 58 comments on my blog:

Please send me your mail adress so I can get it in the mail for you :-)

Pop over to Gelicaso's blog and check it out, she makes lots of gorgeous projects :-)
A big thanks to all of you who left a comment on my blog! 

I haven't been sewing for a few days, but got to finish the sashing on my curve quilt this weekend. I did get to put on the green borders on both ends, but forgot to take a photo of the finished top while it was enough light to do so with my camera. Haven't decided how to quilt it yet. But look forward to do so. Got to finish another project first, and will post a photo of that one soon.

Happy sewing,
Laila

Winter Blooms - Blogger's Quilt Festival

For the Blogger's Quilt Festival I want to share a gorgeous quilt called "Winter Blooms". The pattern for this quilt is made by Gail Pan. I finished the quilt in February 2012, and is my favorite among all the quilts I've made ever.

This is the second "Winter Blooms" I've made. The first quilt where made in almost similar fabrics and where made for my local quilt shop Quiltegården. You can read about that one here and here.

There is no secret I just love Gail Pan's designs, and I am so glad I've got to meet up with her twice. Both time was when she where over here in Norway, and I attended her classes. 
I was thrilled when Gail decided to join facebook, and it was a lot easier to stay in touch and chat. My friendship with Gail is a friendship I really appreciate. She is a warm and gorgeous person. 
This quilt went home with her when she was here in April 2012. I was so happy to give it to her, since I know she really loved it. This is also a miltestone for me when it comes to quilting. It's the first custom quilted quilt I've made and finished, and really like how it turned out:-)

Blogger's Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures: 42" x 46"

Special techniques used: needleturn applique,bias

Quilted by me on my Innova longarm machine

Category: Favorite Applique Quilt, Favorite Scrap Quilt, Favorite Wall hanging

A couple of collages that shows some close up's:

I'm looking forward to read about the others who joined Blogger's Quilt Festival, and thanks to Amy for hosting this :-)

Wish everyone a great new and creative week,
Laila