A little bit behind, but back on track again :o)

I haven't been sewing or quilting much the last week. Spent most of the days on the couch because the darn migraine came to stay for a while.
I have a couple of quilts to quilt on my longarm, but need to be a bit better before I start working on them.
I discovered some fun stuff happening on Facebook, and I decided to join the The 2014 'It's a New Year Sewalong hosted by The SewCanShe Sewcalites. 
The fun is happening on The SewCanShe Sewcalites' facebookpage.

I haven't made many log cabin blocks before, so I don't know the "right" way to do this other than cutting and piecing with accuracy. I figured I should try a few blocks to see what they look like with the fabrics I chose.  

Cut some of the fabrics, and all of them are scraps from different lines by Bonnie & Camille.

The blocks are only 4" finished, so pretty tiny. Not sure I like them, since the light fabrics are a bit too busy. I might give it another try using white solid instead. I guess I'll make a table runner of these blocks, since I need a new one anyway.

A while before we moved, our furball did dissapear. We have been looking for him for months, and our old neighbors have been looking for him too. But he is not been seen. We miss him a lot, and I still have a little hope he'll be back. The whole family missed a cat so much, we decided to get a kitten. But since our twins insisted we should have twins, we ended up getting two. My brother saw them on a local facebook page and gave me a hint about kittens that needed a new home. They came to live with us on Tuesday, but looks like they are pretty comfy in their new home now:-) 

Say 'Hello' to our two furball babies, Suzu and Nano:

 Suzu and Nano are both girls, and they are super cute, but a couple of rugrats :o)
They are running and playing like crazy, then they come to cuddle and sleep to charge up to play again :o) Not easy to capture a photo of them while they are awake, but DS1 captured these two photos of them.

It's not hard to capture a photo of them sleeping, though :-) Looks like they have adopted my quilt, because they come to use it as a bed when they're sleepy, which is fine by me :o)

I hope to do some more sewing and quilting during the weekend. I have finished the binding on my last quilt, and will share some photos tomorrow if the light is good and I get to take a few photos of it.

Wish you all a great weekend,
Laila

New year ~ new opportunities :o)

Happy new year to you all! 

I am so excited to start on a new year. Feels good to know a new year with blank pages is ahead of me, with lots of opportunities :o) I really hope this will be a good year, and a creative year :o) 

I have been able to enjoy some fun in my sewing room this week. I prepped a beautiful quilt for some faux applique and colourque. This is a design by Helen Stubbings, and I'm using her technique and design from her book "Faux applique". It's a miniature quilt I will play with while working on other projects. 

I didn't have the patience to finish the table runner I was thinking I would quilt on the batting and backing that was at the end of the quilt I finished longarm quilting. Instead I put on a practice piece and tried the panto called "Continous Baptist fans" by Lorien Quilting. It's not at all the easiest pattern to follow, but it looks so great and it was really fun to play with. Will definitely use this on a quilt soon. 

 I have a few client quilts that I have had waiting for quilting for a long time. I finally felt ready to start on one of them the other day. This is a beautiful wallhanging, and I did some custom quilting on it using both rulers and freemotion quilting. I have to admit that I am satisfied with my work on it, which is not often I am :o) 

 This is the rulers i used for the curves.

 and this is some of the other rulers I use for straight lines and around appliqued pieces.

This is a photo from my working progress.

Detail photos of the quilting:

I love the back of a quilt when it's finished. The texture is just so cool!

I used wool batting for this quilt, and it makes the quilting to show nicely :o)

I really hope the owner will like what I did on her quilt :o) 

Wish you all a great weekend :o)

Laila

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

Long time, no see!

Been such a long time since my previous blog post! Been super busy with moving and redecorating our new home. 

A couple of days before we got the keys to our new home, I had the pleasure of meeting Helen Stubbings. It was so nice to meet her again! She had her lovely daughter Molly to keep her company during her stay in Norway. I was so happy to have them both over, but there was no time for sewing this time since she was only able to spend one day in Trondheim. She was here to do a trunk show for my local quilt guild about her designs and quilts. So many gorgeous projects!!!

I have several of Helen's project in the making, and I can't wait to finish one special quilt. It's the quilt in the previous photo, with white background and japanese scrap fabrics. It's made with a special paper Helen made, and it makes the needleturn applique so easy and fun! It was supposed to be finished and quilted before she came over, but since my youngest have had their turns in hospital this spring and summer and I on top of that bought a house, I just couldn't... A border with more applique is to be made, then I will quilt it and send it back to Helen in Australia. This pattern is a design by Helen, and you can soon order the pattern and the paper templates from her :-)

The morning Helen and Molly where leaving Trondheim we had a nice visit at Quiltegården (my local quilt shop). Time flies when you're having a good time, and I really wish they both could stay longer! Maybe next time ;o)

I haven't been able to do any sewing or quilting for weeks, but lots of painting is done! The living room, kitchen and the kid's rooms are finished. Thanks to lots of help from my dear family! Yesterday I finished my sewing room!!! So excited to get my stuff in, and to put up my longarm machine!!! I've really missed sewing, and I'm ready to have some quality time with needle and thread very soon! Maybe this weekend? Who knows ;o)

I love my new home, and I think I will like it here :o) 

It's Autumn over here, and that means lots of sewing time when the weather is nasty ;o)

Hope to share some sewing stuff with you soon, and I look forward to get time to comment on your blog posts as well!
Happy sewing,
Laila

Moving!

I've been busy lately, so no sewing or quilting at all for such a long time. We've been house hunting for a while, and a while ago we finally found one. We get the keys to our new home today, and I am so excited! 

It's an old house, so there will be lots of stuff to do. My Hubby is also looking forward to have his own garage, and the kids will have lots of space for creative stuff too :-) Now I'm not the only one anymore, having a place 'to play' and be creative :-) 

I look forward to unpacking my longarm machine, all my fabrics and get to sew again. But first we'll do some painting and getting settled. I will share some photos along the way, so see you soon :-) 

Wish you all a great day :-) 
Laila 

Forgotten blog post

I started this blog post a long time ago, and totally forgot about it. I finished quilting several quilts a while ago, so here are some photos :

Love the look of the pattern "Baptist fans". It's a favorite of mine. This quilt is made by Trude.

I also quilted another house quilt made by Astrid. The second one was just as fun to quilt as the first one. I love custom quilting:-)  

This is a quilt made by Hanne, and was quilted using a pantograph. The stars look great on this quilt. 

I haven't been able to sew or quilt much lately, but have been knitting some kitchen cloths. I'll post some pics later, when I get time to. 

It's the Summer Holidays over here, but since one of my hearties is in the hospital, we're not doing much, even if the weather is beautiful. He will hopefully get out of the hospital next week, so that is all that matters now. 

See you soon :-) 

Laila 

Another house quilt on the longarm frame

A nasty cold has kept me company the last week, and not much quilty stuff going on. I have several projects I want to finish and work with, and can't wait to get rid of these bugs. 

Got to load up Astrid's house quilt #2 yesterday, and I have finished quilting some of the blocks. I took the photo with my phone, so it might not be the best one. Had to try writing a blog post using my phone and figured if it works good, I might be writing blog posts a bit more often ;-) 

I really love doing this custom quilting, even if it is time consuming working with rulers. 
I'm using a wool batting that will make the quilting pop up. Using the So Fine thread. 
I haven't quilted the borders yet, but will do so before I move down to row #2.

Wish you all a great new week! 
Happy quilting, 
Laila 

I've missed Blogland!

I've really missed Blogland! Haven't written a blog post for such a long time!

I'm so happy Spring finally came, and with the nice weather the last days it looks like  Summer is coming now :-)

Captured this photo in my brother's back yard a week ago. Looks like there will be lots of  blueberries this year :-)

I've been doing some sewing and quilting since my last blog post. This is a new Belle Wave quilt using Moda fabrics. Scraps from my scrap bin. Quilted a freemotion pattern on it, and since I used wool batting it really shows up. My friend Kathy did show me how to do this gorgeous pattern :-)

I have been quilting some client quilts too. This one is Astrid's beautiful batic quilt with gorgeous colors. She chose the panto pattern that looks like fire flowers. Perfect for this quilt.

The next quilt is a top I quilted for our charity group. I didn't know Astrid made this, so when I did ask her to add the binding, she told me she had made this and would love to finish it :-) Freemotion pattern on this one.

This is a Buggy Barn quilt also made by Astrid. She wanted me to quilt what I felt was right for this quilt, and I figured this would look great custom quilted. I'm so glad she liked it!

 This is the back of the quilt. Love to see the texture on the back of quilts!

This is a lovely quilt made by Sølvi, and I quilted this using freemotion quilting. I know this quilt has a special story, and I'm so glad she liked it.

I got to finish another quilt today, but have to wait till tomorrow to take some photos. It's a large quilt, so I need help from Hubby to hold it up for a photo shoot :-)

Happy sewing,
Laila

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