A little bit of this and a little bit of that

 I hope you all had a lovely time during the Christmas Holidays. I enjoyed time with my family, and I count my blessings. I'm lucky to have my loved ones close, and I am so thankful for being able to celebrate Christmas with all of us together.

This year is about to end, and I welcome a new and exciting one. 2013 has been the most busy year for us ever, and I feel like I've finally been able to let my shoulders down and enjoy some sewing and quilting again. 

I have tried to get my sewing room organized, and I have a lot of UFO's and WISP's and also some finished tops here and there. Some of them still in moving boxes... I plan to finish up some of them before starting any new larger projects. 

I got to load a top on the longarm frame the other day, and finished the quilting yesterday. It's a top I finished piecing this summer, before we started moving to our new place. I planned to do some freemotion quilting on it, but ended up using a pantograph called "Fantasia". 

These are photos from the beginning of the quilting:  

The photos are taken in the evening, so the light is not too good. Will take a photo of the whole thing when I get it off the longarm frame.

Since the backing and wadding for the quilt I finished quilting on the longarm is big enough for a large table runner on the end there, I figured I should hurry make a table runner to quilt at the same time. I have a lot of scraps left from making the "Dilly Dally" quilt. They are perfect for hourglass blocks, and I think they are way too cute to just throw away even if they are so tiny. I've made one star block, and will make a few more to join to make a nice table runner for my dining table.

I've been knitting when I haven't had the sewing mojo with me, and a few pair of mittens and socks have been made, and several are in progress...

I've got way too many projects going on at the same time, and it is a bit overwhelming to be honest. I usually think I will start a "small" project to get the feel of 'finishing something' between the larger ones... But sad to say so many ends up as UFO's... I hope to get better control of this from now on, because it takes my mojo away working this way. Self discipline is not my strongest side... 

When I've cleaned up the rest of my mess in my sewing room, and finished up some more of my unfinished business, I plan to play with these gorgeous fabrics:

This is some of the fabrics from Bonnie & Camille's line called "Scrumptious". Nice "carrot" to have waiting for me when I've finished the projects I have waiting.
Can't wait to get all the moving boxes emptied, and things in place! 

I haven't made any list for what to work on in 2014, I just want to enjoy sewing, quilting and knitting, and I guess my only goal when it comes to my hobbies, is to finish what I started. 

I wish all of you a Happy and Creative New Year!
Thanks for your nice comments on my posts! Your comments makes me happy :-)

Laila

Stashbusting

It's been a while since we moved now, but still there are lots of stuff that needs to be done. 

But I feel HOME, and  I really like living here even if it's an old house with many things that need to be fixed, reorganized, rebuilt and so on. 

Between organizing our home, I've been taking the time to sort fabrics and stuff in my sewing room. I just need the "quiet times" in there just to take a time out now and then. I've also got my longarm machine up and running, and can't wait till I get the time and energy to be quilting again!

I have been knitting a lot these too, and this is one pair of socks from a Norwegian book called "Sokker. Strikking hele året" by Bitta Mikkelborg. The yarn is called Arwetta, and I bought it at Speedyneedle.dk

Months ago I signed up for a class at my local quilt shop Quiltegården. I have to admit after this weekend class I got a lot of inspiration, and the best of all... I got my sewing mojo back. Now the urge for sewing is there again, and I have almost finished the rows in the quilt. 

The quilt is called "Leavez" by Jan Mullen. Helle Løvenskjold was our teacher. I haven't tried this technique before, so I had a lot of fun making this. As you can see it's pretty different colors on the fabrics than I usually play with, but it's my aunt that asked me to make her this one, and she wanted these colors which is pretty much the same as in the original quilt by Jan Mullen.

While sorting my fabrics and scraps, I figured out I should make a quilt instead of letting these gorgeous fabrics stay in a scrap bin. Many of the fabrics where already cut in right sizes, so a couple of blocks didn't take long.

Yummy, right? All of the scraps are left overs from the same designers, Bonnie and Camille. I love how these fabrics looks with white background fabrics. Sad to say there are so little fabrics left from these now. These colors makes me happy, and I hope to finish up a couple more blocks this weekend.

I am pressing my seams like this: 

My little tip is to glue some of the places where the seams meet. Doing that you will have a nice flat seam, and the seams will not be distorted when you join the blocks to a top and start quilting it.

Wish you all a great Sunday, and happy sewing :-)

Laila