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

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 :-)

An exciting weekend at Quiltegården with Gail Pan and Leanne Beasley

I was going to make a blog post yesterday, but blogger didn't work:o(
I've had the most amazing weekend, with so many lovely ladies, a lot of sewing and laughing.
The weekend at Quiltegården started with a great trunkshow with Gail Pan and Leanne Beasley at Friday. They came all the way from Australia to tell us about their designs, how they work and the patterns for the weekend class, and it was so exciting to get to meet them.
This is Siw, the owner of Quiltegården, introducing our teachers for the weekend :o)


This is some of the projects they've brought for us, a lot of yummy stuff if you ask me :o):



When Saturday came, we all where really excited and eager to get started.

Sølvi, Gro and me waiting for the class to start. Already laughing :o) What a great way to start the day! This is some of the other ladies before the class started on Saturday:



Leanne and Gail did show us and told us about the projects for this day before we started:


Our teachers didn't mind us taking photos all the time, and we sure did take a lot of photos!!! But I think they had some great fun too, they was always smiling and laughing with us. Gail and Leanne in front of some of their projects:


They really have a great sense of humor, and an enthusiasm that was so contagious:o)
We laughed and had fun the whole weekend through, and I was really sad when it was over...
But I have a lot of memories from this weekend, and a lot of photos too :o)

Gail, me and Leanne:



Gro, Gail, Leanne and me:


Some of the blocks that was finished this weekend:

So many different colors, but oh! so beautiful!


Many of us where bloggers, and it was so nice to meet the persons I know from the blogging, and I got to meet new ones too :o)
I don't remember everyones' name, but Sølvi has a list with links on her blog :o)


This is at the end of the day on Sunday. What a great bunch of talented ladies!


I am so happy Siw did make this happening real for us, and I am so glad I got the chance to meet Gail and Leanne. This event was really something special for me. I'm going to miss them and their laughter so much!
Hope they've had a great time in Norway too and I hope they are enjoying teaching their class at Hurtigruta these days, and I wish them a safe trip back home :o)
Thanks also to Heidi and Inger Marie that helped us find all the stuff and notions we asked for, and to Anne Mari and Liv Guri, who took care of our lunch, coffee and tea this weekend. They made us some yummy waffles, and Anne Mari made homemade bread for us too :o)

Still high on vitamin Q, I am trying to finish my "Laila's garden", and I'll post photos of that later ;o)

Happy sewing,
Laila