Another finish :o)

Just before bedtime last night I managed to finish one more Strippy Charm pouch. A little bit smaller than the other one, and perfect for keeping my pens and pencils!

These fabrics are just so beautiful, and I look forward to play more with them.

Have been working on my blocks for the Bloom quilt this evening, and will try to finish one row before I hit the bed tonight. Only two blocks left before I can piece the blocks together. 

Today it wasn't snowing, and I just had to try capturing some photos outdoors. The light was spectacular, and I wish I had better skills in photography than I have but still learning ;o)

When you live in an older house, icicles from the roof is pretty normal. These are hanging outside my living room window:

The sun is still low for me to see it, but the landscape is so lovely against the light from it behind the hill. 

Happy sewing,
Laila

My finish #1 for 2016

Woke up early to go to the doctor's office today to take some new blood tests. It had been snowing so much during the night and it still was, so  I figured I should delay it till tomorrow. I wouldn't been able to drive more than a couple of yards and get stuck in the snow... 

 I'm so glad my parents live nearby and that my father has a tractor and can help me to get rid of the snow in our parking space, which is way too much work for me. We have a snowblower, but I am not getting near that thing.... Hubby, who is out of town working, can play with that one :-) Too heavy for me.

But bad weather means great sewing weather, so I spent some time in my sewing room after shoveling a lot of snow first.

I cut a few gorgeous fabrics for a new Strippy Charm pouch. I wanted to make a project I could finish, and this is my first finish this year. Yay! 

It turned out so great, and I love the fabrics by Nadra Ridgeway called Bloom and Bliss. Now I am waiting for her new line, and look forward till it hits the quilt shops later this year :-)

You can find the pattern for the Strippy Charm pouch at Moda Bake shop. It's one of my favorite patterns for small purses, and I have made many of them in different sizes. 

Happy sewing,
Laila

Bloom quilt and Plus quilt

I have been sick with a nasty cold bug for more than a week, so there's been slow progress on my quilty projects. 

Tonight I finished piecing the sashing around the Block #1 for the Bloom quilt designed by Lori Holt. 

The Sew Along for the bloom quilt started yesterday, and you can read about it over at Lori's blog Bee In My Bonnet. 

This weekend I made a small table runner. Still not sure if I will enlarge it with a few more blocks. These blocks are the Mama blocks from one of the patterns in Lori Holt's book "Great Granny Squared" and I got to use up a lots of precut squares. I really LOVE the scrappy look :o) Been wanting to make these blocks for a while, and they were so fast and fun to make :-)

 I have also finished the layout for my Low volume Plus Quilt.  

The Low volume Plus Quilt Sew Along have been so inspiring and fun, and below is a list of links to the other lovely quilts the other ladies are making. Some of them are also finished!!!

LekaQuilt

Lappetausa

Tamarack Shack

Hanne's Quilt Corner

Englating

Sølvi sin bloggverden

Jacobs Quilt

Abyquilt

Winter came back to Trondheim, and it has been snowing really bad since last night. I don't mind the snow, I actually like it since it looks more clean and lighter. I don't like to drive my car when it's this much snow though... But the roads are shoveled now, and I hope it will stop snowing now.

Happy Sewing,

Laila

Sorting scraps

I have been searching on Etsy to find older fabric lines by Lori Holt, and a lovely bundle of fabrics came in the mail yesterday, just a week after I ordered it!

 These are fabrics I bought from Donna's Lavender Nest. These are treasures I look forward to use in my next projects. Donna  have a blog too which is also called Donna's Lavender Nest, where she shares photos of her quilts and longarm quilting. Love her vintage style :o)

Today has been "one of those days" with not much sleep during the night, and the cold bug is still stuck, so not much is happening. 
But I got to do some fabric sorting and a little bit of cutting. 
I am using plastic trays to spread my pieces as I cut them, and today I did some reorganizing and cut some colors that were missing. Earlier I just left them all in one big pile, but that didn't work since I couldn't see all the variations of the fabrics. 

This is my 2" squares. I can easily see I must cut more green, orange and yellow fabrics ;o)
Having them piled up like this makes it easy to see the different fabrics and colors.

My 2,5" squares. Looks like candy to me :-)

I also have a tray with my 1,5" squares, but they will be laying in one big pile for now ;o)

 It hasn't been much snow this Winter, and the last week has been cold and windy. It looks more like Spring outside than Winter, except from the cold. I hope it will soon be less wind so I can go for a walk more often again. I'm already longing for Spring and look forward to see the sun again soon. It's not long before the sun rays will shine through the windows again... Soon :o)

Wish you all a great Wednesday and Happy Sewing!
Hugs,
Laila

Low volume Plus Quilt and Bloom quilt

On Friday I enjoyed sewing and having a glass of wine and making some plus blocks for the Low volume Plus quilt we planned to make during the Sew Along that started Friday. Since I made this an Event on facebook I could also follow the other ladies' progress and chat a little bit :o)

I am making blocks for a table runner and a quilt, but will focus on finishing the table runner first. This is the layout so far:

The other ladies have also made a lot of progress on their quilts, so be sure to visit their blogs to see their progress on the Plus quilts as well as the other lovely stuff they make. This is the links to their blogs:

Lena Karen Bertheussen - LekaQuilt

Elin Torvik Grov - Lappetausa

Kathy Dahlin Schwartz - Tamarack Shack

Hanne Schneider - Hanne's Quilt Corner

Marica Westberg - Englating

Sølvi Alfnes - Sølvi sin bloggverden

Laila Karlsmoen - Jacobs Quilt

Mona Ragnhildrød - Monas Hobbyblogg

May Britt Dammen - Abyquilt

I have also been doing a lot of needleturn appliquè on the blocks I am making for the Bloom quilt designed by Lori Holt - Bee In My Bonnet. I have 10 blocks finished so far, only 10 to go!
Love working on these blocks, and look forward to start piecing them together when they are all finished. 
Lori's Sew Along is starting on Monday, so there is still lots of time to get the fabrics, plastic templates (Sew Simple Shapes) and the pattern to join the fun! 

Today has not been a very productive day, since Hubby's "manflu" got to me yesterday, and I don't feel so good. I didn't think that sort of cold bug was contagious, but it was... LOL! Hihi :o)
I finished one more block for my Farm Girl Vintage quilt, and I love how it turned out. Can't get enough of these happy colors, and hope to make progress on this quilt between the other projects too. 

Wish you all a great and creative week, and hope it will be filled with time to do things that makes you happy :o)
Hugs,
Laila

Low volume Plus quilt sew along

It's Friday, and the Low volume Plus quilt sew along is going to start today!
I'm so excited to sew these gorgeous blocks, and I hope we'll have lots of fun.
As I told you in my earlier post this is a sew along with no rules, just for fun!

I have decided to start with the table runner and use my 2" strips and use up a few scrap pieces for the plus'es, but don't have any pattern to follow, just figured out the measurements myself. These are the pieces you will have to cut:

Plus fabric: 
2- 2" x 2" 
1- 2" x 5"

Background fabric:
2- 2" x 2" 
4- 2" x 3,5"
1- 2" x 8" (You will need a few extra to set on both sides of the plus block on some)


I have asked Stina about permission to use her drawings for the tutorials she has posted on her blog, and this is two of the blocks she has a tutorial for:

The first one is for 1,5" strips:

You can find Stina's turorial here

The next one is for 2,5" strips: 

You can find Stina's tutorial here

Hope you will use the #plusquiltsewalong if you post on Instagram. I will later tonight share the links to the other ladies' blogs so you can follow their progress.

Happy sewing and See you later :-)

Laila

Low Volume Plus Quilt Sew Along

Anyone up for a little Low volume Plus Quilt Sew Along? 

I am going to have a Sew Along with Elin and Kathy, and we plan to start on Friday January 8th. We are just doing this for fun, so we will share our progress on our blogs, Instagram (Using #plusquiltsewalong2016) and Facebook. We are not organizing any group or events, just sewing together while we are making our Low volume Plus quilt. And if you want to join us, let me know and I can make a blog list on my blog where we can follow each other's progress.

There is a lot of gorgeous Plus quilts around here in Blogland, and on Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook, just search on GoogleInstagram and have a look. 

On a quilt meeting in November (click on the link and scroll down a bit) last year I fell in love with a gorgeous low volume table runner and quilt, made by Unni,a lady in my local quilt guild. And since then I have looked for low volume fabrics and patterns. On Christmas Eve I got a bundle of yummy fabrics from Northern Quilts to start with and added some from my stash. 

I made a few test blocks in different sizes. 

The first ones are made from 2" strips and the block will be perfect for the table runner I am planning to make:

The next blocks are made from 2,5" strips and will be perfect size for a larger quilt:

I don't use only what is catergorized as LOW VOLUME fabric, but throw in a few more modern ones and some dots as well. I like how they look so far, and now I will patiently wait for the other ladies to start. Hope some of you will join us, just to have a little fun together, and share some inspiration :o)

You can see a lot of gorgeous low volume quilts over here at Red Pepper Quilts and Kviltstina has a tutorial on a Mini Plus quilt.

Yesterday I got some more background fabric for my Bloom Quilt, and today I prepped 4 more blocks and will enjoy some needleturn appliqè tonight. This is a quilt made by Lori Holt/Bee In My Bonnet and she will be hosting a Sew Along with this gorgeous quilt using her new fabric line Calico Days. If  you want to join Lori Holt's Sew Along and learn different techniques to make this quilt, hop over to her blog and read her blog post about it. 

 (The photos are a bit dark, since I didn't use proper lights when I captured them...)

I guess you know by now I have a crush on Lori Holt's fabrics and patterns, but there's just something about these happy colors! Makes me happy to work with them, and it was so great to finally get back to sewing after a long period with no stitching. 

Happy sewing!
Laila

New Year ~ New possibilities :O)

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope the new year will bring lots of creativity and joy!

I slept in today, and I am so glad it's Friday and still Holidays over here in Norway. That means we have the whole weekend to get back to a normal routine before Hubby and the kids are back to getting up early. 

I got a few stitches done today, and I am adding some blocks to my pile of mini Leaves blocks. I plan to make a small table runner of them.  

Also added a few more blocks to one of my Leader & Ender projects, and soon I will make a few blocks to see how they turn out. 

I'm still struggling with fatigue and have trouble sleeping normal, so I need a power nap or two during the day. I guess patience is still needed to get back to normal and get well. I am still doing the blood tests, and will go back to Hospital to adjust the medicine I am on as soon as the Holidays are over. Fingers crossed I will be back to normal, so I have the energy to do what I want to. I miss visiting friends and hiking with Hubby and my family. Look forward to take my camera for a walk outdoors and take some photos again too.

Wish you a Happy Weekend!
Hugs,
Laila