Some new stuff

Spring finally came around, and I have been doing some gardening again. Cutting back some of the blackcurrant bushes and getting rid of old leafs and grass. The two furballs, Nano and Suzu, have been following my every move and they are super happy to be playing outside in the warmer weather. Funny how some sun and warmer weather can make both animals and people happier :o) 

Big changes happened lately, and long story short; I had to leave my job because of my health issues, so now I will have to stay on a sick leave until I can join a job training program to see if there is a job out there for me. It's so sad to leave your colleagues through 25 years, but I try to do the best out of the days I'm staying home. I'm so happy I have my hobbies, and that I'm able to keep my focus on something positive. Quilting, knitting and sewing is therapy, right? At least I feel better when I can do something creative.

Earlier this month the Norwegian designer Bente Tufte came to our quilt guild meeting and talked about her quilting life and the patterns she has made. She uses a lot of stitcheries in her projects, and I bought a pattern called "Løper med broderi"/"Table runner with stitcheries". I just fell in love with the lovely table runner she made, so I have started mine. Almost finished the stitcheries, and I am soon ready to quilt some simple quilting on it before I finish the binding. 

If you want to see more of Bente Tufte's work, you can visit my local quilt guild's blog.

It's no secret I love Gail Pan's work. I ordered the book she released a while ago, and started a stitchery for a gorgeous pillow from the book. I'm using a variegated thread, so I don't need to worry about thread changing :o) Love it!

I've been knitting almost every night when watching TV with Hubby. I just finished attaching the threads on three pairs of Blueberry waffle socks. The white pair is already delivered to it's new owner, my dear Mum :-) The others will be kept in a bin, so I have some presents ready for upcoming birthdays/Christmas.

When our local quilt guild are having meetings, my local quilt shop Quiltegården has a nice selection of stuff from the shop for us to buy. I bought this book by Lori Holt after seeing shopowner Siw's gorgeous table runner made from one of the patterns in the book.

One of the blocks I finished looks like this:

I love these fabrics, and I hope to make a table runner for my dining room table using them.

I have also tried out the twister ruler. I haven't tried this before, so I had to make a test block:

My plan is to make several blocks for a table runner using these. Love how it came out!

No UFO's in this post, but I will be making progress on them when I'm finished quilting the quilt on my longarm:

I had to get more thread, since the cone I had was way to small to cover the blue areas.... It's great to have longarm quilting friends to ask when that happens. I'm super happy my friend (you know who you are :o)...) is sending me a cone of the same color, so I can finish it up. Almost half way there.....

Wish you all a great and creative weekend that is just around the corner ;o)

Hugs,

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

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

Been making some progress

I've been neglecting my blog lately, but I've been sewing between being busy :o)

I finished the quilting on this quilt yesterday, and got to attach the binding. Finished sewing it down by hand early this morning, so another finish for me this month :-)

I used the scraps from this and this quilt, so now there is not much left of the two fatquarter bundles of Bliss and Ruby. I've got two more quilts using the Bliss line from Moda in my UFO bins, so I hope I get to finish them soon. Love these fabrics. Makes me think about Spring and Summer :-) The pattern is "Smokey Mountain Star" by Bonnie Hunter/Quiltville. I've used this pattern before, and I just love it! I know I will use it again, it's fast, easy and I love the scrappy stars:-)

Close up's of the quilting and the gorgeous fabrics:

I've been quilting a few quilts for others during the last two months. The first one is the one I finished last weekend. It's a gorgeous quilt made by Kjersti Johanne and Kirsti. You can read more about the quilt on Kirsti's blog :-)

This quilt is a lovely 36 patch quilt made by Elin T. Grov/Lappetausa, and if you pop over to her blog you can see the whole quilt there. I love it!

Last weekend I decided to cut the fabrics for this month's AYOS quilt "Summer Day". I enlarged the blocks, so I can make a lap quilt using the pattern. I love how it looks so far, and hope to finish it before the month is over. Wish I had more time to sew!

I've been making progress on my "Hana's basket", a design by Gail Pan. It is one of the project from the weekend class with Gail and Helen. I hope to hand quilt this lovely quilt, and I'm looking forward to finish the needleturn applique so I can get to the part where the hand quilting begins :-)

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

Laila

AYOS and OPAM for March

March went by so fast, and I didn't finish either one of my AYOS or any projects for OPAM this month. I've been to busy with other things than sewing except from the last weekend of March, when I attended a class with Gail Pan and Helen Stubbings. I'm just happy my sewing mojo is back, and I look forward to keep up with both AYOS and OPAM this month. Already got one project for April's OPAM, so I'm in :o)


Today I finished stitching the pieces for the "Sewing Chatelaine" by Helen Stubbings, and I will try to finish them up during this Easter Holidays. 
Tonight I started prepping the "Hana's basket" by Gail Pan, and will enjoy doing some needleturn applique tonight :o) I did start on one, but not satisfied with my choice of fabrics for the applique pieces. 


This is the progress me and some of the other ladies made on "Hana's basket" during the weekend. Mine is the one in the middle on top. I guess I'll be changing the pale pink heart, and finish it up, but now I'm making a new one and will finish up that one first :o)

See you soon,
Laila

More about the weekend class

All of us had such a great time during the weekend. I met a lot of ladies from classes we attended together a while ago, but I also met several of the ladies I know only from Blogland. So nice to meet them in person!

This is some photos of the "busy bees" :o)

Quiltegården had lots of yummy fabrics, notions, patterns and thread we cold buy. I felt like a hoarder after this weekend, but I've got a lot of plans for the yummy stuff that came home with me :o)




Gail wanted to get a photo outside while it was snowing. I think both Gail and Helen liked the snow :o) And I can understand that, it looked pretty nostalgic when the snow was falling outside. Even if us locals wanted less off it ;o)

Unni got to finish her scissor holder, and it looked so pretty! She's such a talented lady, and her hand quilting skills is to die for!

Both me and Unni fell for the project Helen brought, which wasn't on the agenda for this weekend, but she helped us prep the gorgous block with birds and leaves, and did show us how she made it. A couple of the other ladies also wanted to try this, and we loved it! Something different, and most of all so fun!

This is Unni and me, very focused on playing whit the coloring pencils. We laughed a lot about it, since we felt like a couple of kids :o) But we had so much fun! And the result was so pretty!

Somebody joked about making angels in the snow, and when Borghild jumped into the snow and made a snow angel Gail was suddenly jumping in too, and made her snow angel :o)

Of course Helen had to make hers too:-)

Thank you so much Gail and Helen, this was such a nice weekend! Thank you so much for the inspiration you left me! I really hope to see you again :o)

This is how one of my projects look after I finished the stitching around the colored leaves and birds. So pretty!

I'll post more about the progress on the other projects I started this weekend  in my next post :o)

Weekend class with Gail Pan and Helen Stubbings

The weekend class with Gail Pan and Helen Stubbings was such a nice event. I'm so happy that Siw at my local quilt shop, Quiltegården, made this happen! I was so excited to see Gail again, and to meet Helen. They are both lovely ladies, and great teachers.

The weekend started with a trunk show on Friday. Gail and Helen told us about their work and where they find inspiration to make the lovely quilts and project. They brought so many gorgeous projects, and this is some of them:

We also had a "Show and tell" but I didn't take any photos of the lovely projects, but I'll try to come back here and link to the blogs that show some of them :o) I haven't seen any blog with photos of the "Show and tell" yet, but I guess I'm not the only one having a lot of photos to organize after this weekend :o)

We where having two projects from each of our lovely teachers to work on this weekend:

"Sewing Chatelaine" by Helen Stubbings

"Hana's basket" and "Stitch me Happy" by Gail Pan

"My Journal" by Helen Stubbings

I've started on "Sewing Chatelaine", "Hana's basket" and one more project Helen did tell us about. I'll tell more in my next post, I have to edit some more of my photos first :-)

A new project and some yummy stuff

This weekend I got to finish a little wallhanging I've been working on for a while. It's a Christmas pattern from Gail Pan. I made it for my local quilt shop, Quiltegården. Ain't it cute? I love it!

This weekend I have been baking cakes and cinnamon buns, and one of the cakes looks sooo delicious! It's a cheese cake with blueberry jelly. I've always used lemon jelly in my cheese cake, but this will be a new favorite ;o) Just had to show you the gorgeous color on top of it :o)

We are getting ready have a family birthday party for the twins today. They turned 15 this week. Cakes and coffee... it will be a nice Sunday :o)


Happy Sunday to you too,
Laila

Winter Blooms

Finished quilting my "Winter Blooms" quilt yesterday. Only a few stitches that needed to be done, so can't tell you why I waited so long... 

Need to find the fabric for the binding now. Hope I'll be able to find the same one like in the smallest border. 
Here are some detail photos:

So happy I was able to take some photos in daylight today. When I don't use the flash on the camera, the quilting shows off better. I made a few mistakes here and there, but it's after all my second custom quilted quilt. Finished is better than perfect, right? 


Wondering what will be next project... Think I'll try to quilt the "Full House" pillow I finished the other day, then work on some of my UFO's. 
Need to chase the stomach bugs away first, so I'll get some energy to make some progress in my sewing room. 


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

Out of practice...

Yesterday I finished the little secret I've been working on this month. I'm pretty satisfied with the result. 
It's my second "Winter Blooms", designed by Gail Pan. This is my favorite pattern made by her.


I made this quilt for Quiltegården a while back, and that one is still hanging in the shop so people who wants to buy the pattern can see what it looks like.


This is how "Winter Blooms" #2 turned out:

This one will be hanging on my wall, in our living room, and I can't wait to finish quilting it and do the binding!
I used some of the same fabrics like in the first one, and added some others with them.


Now...I do have a little problem... I've used all the dark brown fabric I had, in the quilt, and I also wanted to make the binding with the same one ( the one in the small border), so if anyone knows where to get it PLEASE let me know!!!
I bought the last piece Quiltegården had of it... so they're out too...


Late last night I loaded the quilt on to the longarm machine, and tried a few seams...but gave up. Too tired, so I thought I should give it a try tonight. But nah... didn't work, and I ended up unripping the seams over and over... I REALLY need to practice a lot more to get it like I want it to be. I'm a very impatient person, and hate to practice too much, and it's a downside about that, I KNOW!


These seams are not ripped out yet, but I will do that tomorrow, but it will give you an idea of how I am planning to do this.  It will look good when I just get some more practice :o) Not giving up yet!

I signed up for the "Another year of Schnibble", and I hope to finish the "Full House" quilt before the end of the month. Lots of cutting and sewing left, but hopefully I'll make it before the end of the month!!! It's a cute quilt that will look great as a wallhanging. That one will also get to decorate my living room, since there are no quilts to be seen in that area of my house :o)


I'm attending OPAM this year, too. I like the little "kick in da' butt" it gives me, to at least try to finish one project a month. 
Thanks so much to Peg and Kris for hosting it this year too!!!
And BTW!!! I won OPAM 2011's December drawing! Yay!
Got some lovely fabrics and a cute embroidery in a parcel from Kris. Thank you Kris!


Happy sewing,
Laila

A visit and some quilting

On Monday this week, I had a great visit of Merete and Matt. Merete is the dealer of Innova longarm quilting machines here in Norway, and Matt is working as a technician at ABM International, the company that is the supplier of Innova longarm quilting machines.
Matt was checking that the machine was working well, and set up right. Thanks to Hubby who helped me set it up, it was not much Matt had to adjust :o)


I'm so happy about the great service from Merete too, and I'm so thankful for having the opportunity to ask her about how to do things on the machine. 

Last week I decided to be tough enough to load up the "Laila's garden" on "Miss Monster", and since Merete gave me some advice the last time she was here about what to quilt on a quilt like this, I just figured I should give it a try. I've been playing around on test-pieces of fabric and thought it was about time I tried to quilt on a 'real quilt'.
I had to rip out many seams in the beginning, but I learned how to use the machine for this custom quilting, every step on the way down the quilt. This is how it looked like when I was finished:

I think I will do some more quilting on the purple inner border, but have to figure out what I want in there first.  It's the very first quilt I've quilted like this, so it's not perfect! But  it's a start, and I think it was so fun to do! I know what I have to do different next time, and will definitely make another top with applique for custom quilting. It's so fun!

I've been practicing the pantograph patterns on several quilts now, and feel a bit comfortable with these. That means I don't use that much time to finish a quilt like I did in the beginning. I'm hoping to finish some more care quilts with these patterns,too, when I'm done with the things I need to do before Christmas. 


I'm trying not to be stressed about all the things that needs to be done or should have been done, I already know I'm not able to bake a lot, clean every spot in my house and so on either way. I plan to do what I can, and I plan to enjoy the days before AND during the Holidays. I think my kids and my Hubby is more happy about having me around smiling than sad and exhausted because I stress about every thing I should have done. It's not worth it, at all...


I was supposed to go on our local quilt guild's meeting tonight, but had to stay home and rest instead. Hope the rest of the ladies have a nice time with gingerbread and gløgg (mulled wine), and I also hope to see some photos from the projects in "show and tell" later :o)


Wish you all a great week, and hope you take time to enjoy some moments during the days before Christmas