One World One Heart 2011

Welcome to my blog, Mrs Moen, and thank you for stopping by. It’s very nice to meet you! Feel free to stay for a while and have a look around, or pop by again later if you’d like.
I am a Norwegian quilter, teacher and pattern designer, and this is where I record most of my creative life including my latest brush with the knitting bug (and the odd less-than-inspired moments). This is my second year of participating in One World One Heart; last year was so much fun and I enjoyed meeting lots of new interesting bloggers around the globe.

I have created a little quilt for my giveaway, “Small Talking Heads” (approx 14 ½” * 11 ¼”). It’s made from scraps as working with scraps is one of my absolute favourite things about quilting; just playing around and see where it takes you. These scraps were perfect for some talking heads and if you look closely you can see the small talk above them. The quilt is machine quilted and embellished with buttons.
For a chance to win the quilt you have to leave a comment to this post. Only bloggers please, as this is a blogging event. If you are a no reply blogger, make sure you include your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you should win. The Small Talking Heads will be happy to travel anywhere in the world.
The winner will be randomly drawn, announced here at Mrs Moen and emailed on February 17th at 8 pm Norwegian time.

You’ll find all the other participants here; or click the logo to read more about One World One Heart.

See you later; I’ve got blogs to visit and people to meet.-)

Sorry, the giveaway is now closed.

The Sketchbook Challenge, January

I signed up for The Sketchbook Challenge a while ago and the topic for January was “Highly prized”.
These are my first wobbly steps into working with a sketchbook. I think I might have been in a somewhat darkish mood….

This was fun!

OWOH

I was a bit (like 24 hours) early posting my One World One Heart post, so I had to save it as a draft and will repost it tomorrow morning. All comments were automatically deleted in this process, but I have saved them in my email system. Sorry about that!

Task of the day, January 29

Thank you all so much for your well wishes! I’m out of bed but not quite running around just yet. Grandson has been staying with us for a week and a half while daughter is recovering from having two wisdom teeth surgically removed and now a post-surgery infection. Puuuuh. I’m sure we’ll all laugh about this week at some point.

I got an hour to myself today to work on this top which I put together at last week’s Friday Night Sew In, before I crawled into bed. Now I just need to add some finishing touches and I’ll be ready for One World One Heart tomorrow. Se you all then!

Out

Sick. Again. Bronchitis AND influenza and back on the same antibiotics I went off a couple of weeks ago. Isn’t life just grand.

My favorite wall

These poorly lit pictures (taken in the middle of the day without a flash to avoid reflexes) is of the kitchen wall in our house. It has been left untouched (well, it has been dusted obviously) for almost 17 years, a proof that my taste don’t change that often.
Our kitchen is very clean; birch wood, steel and aluminum and dark grey walls, so it’s the perfect place to display this and that:
A collage of favorite comic strips made 20+ years ago when we moved into an apartment with a looong paneled hallway
including this strip about Queen Nina which used to hang in my office. For you non-Norwegians I can tell you the guy is not too happy with Queen Nina.
This cool fisherman from my grandparents’ cabin
A few prints by an artist from Bornholm and lots and lots of daughter’s childhood artwork.
Lots of hearts, lots of smiling faces, lots of love.

It makes me smile every time I go into the kitchen, even when cooking boring everyday dinners.

Make A Butterfly

Yesterday I transformed this little pile of fabric and yarn scraps into a bright butterfly for The Butterfly Effect. The butterfly measures approx 8”*10”. You’ll find a tutorial on how I made it here.

I used scraps from my intuition quilt so it’s really bright and happy.
My butterfly is ready to fly off together with grandson’s butterfly, all the way to Canada.
Safe travel!

Make A Butterfly

Create a butterfly or any other shape from scraps and a piece of felt. This is a fun and quick project.



What you’ll need
Fabric and/or yarn scraps

Piece of felt



And what you’ll do
Start with a piece of felt cut to the size you want your finished project to be. Fold the felt in half and pin the layers together. Free form cut the outline of a butterfly using scissors,

like this simple butterfly shape.



Add pieces of fabric and/or pieces of yarn on top. Make it as symmetric as you like.

Layer a piece of tulle on top (I have used a silvery grey tulle here) and pin it down through all layers.

Stitch around the edges and the body of the butterfly and free motion quilt the wings. I have used a black thread to add texture.

Cut away excess tulle and embellish it with beads or buttons if you like.



Add a paper clip, yarn or ribbon for hanging and your butterfly is ready to test its wings.

OWOH preparations

The huge blogging event One World One Heart is coming up again on January 30 and I have started working on my giveaway item. I posted my 400th post the other day without much ado (or even noticing) so this little quilt will have to do as a 400th post celebration quilt as well.
Having spent the last week with my nose in a scrap box, I wanted to use scraps for this little piece as well. Starting with this fun little chick print I chose a few scraps for the background. I’m thinking a bright pieced background with chicks on the top and bottom borders.
Yup, I think this will work just fine.

Anyone tried these?

I got these packages of fusible strips at IKEA. Has anyone tried them for appliqué? It looks like they don’t need stitching to withstand washing so I’m thinking the glue is rather heavyweight. I should probably just try it on a scrap of fabric; if it’s ok it could save me a lot of fusible strip cutting.

Intuition Quilt, Day Three

I never think I have interesting scraps; they are colourful enough but not many interesting patterns. However, I lucked out choosing this specific scrap box for the intuition challenge ‘cause I’m feeling like a little girl in a candy store picking and choosing whatever makes my mouth watering and the best thing is that all the treats are sugar free.
These strips from the “View from the park” quilt were perfect for framing my centre block from this post. The teal batik is one of my absolute favorite fabrics; you wouldn’t believe how hard it was to cut into it the first time. It sure looks good with the hot pinks though.

For the next border I’m thinking green side borders and a big chunky hot border on the bottom with a little strip of dotted red on the top for balance. Yeah, I think I’m on the right track. The colours seem even brighter in flash light, but there you go, the days are still on the short side up here.

For more pictures, see my post at 15 Minutes Play.

Two days

and 5 hats...

I have been enjoying a few days with plenty of solitude as husband has been away, watching girlie movies in the evenings while my fingers have been busy working the needles. Although I have been knitting forever, I don’t think I have ever enjoyed the process as much as I have done this winter. Maybe it’s because I look at yarn differently from working with the yarn quilts. Maybe I needed something useful to do during all my down time the last couple of months. Maybe it’s just how I’m wired together right now. All I know is that I have been totally obsessed, finishing one hat and casting on another the very next minute. After a number of 37 finished hats I have now gone cold turkey; no more knitting until the obsession has passed. I still want to knit a few more hats though, teeny tiny premature hats. I’ve got the yarn so whenever I think I can handle it without going crazy. Right now I’ll be moving on to my quilting obsession...

On my needles, Jan 15th

Intuition Quilt, Day Two

I did my first Intuition Quilt post at 15 Minutes Play yesterday and documenting choices requires a lot of pictures for sure. You’ll find my post with all the pictures here.

I had a great time making my centre block. The pieces were small and everything went together pretty much effortlessly.

I first sorted the scraps from this post into piles by colour, leaving the crumbs for the centre block.

Then I started puzzling them together on the table. Daughter loves pinks and warm colours for decorating, but she actually asked for any bright colours this time so I added some turquoise and blues to set the pinks and reds and oranges off.
As I played with the pieces, some were replaced and new ones were added to the mix to get balance and interest. Using scissors I cut off all weird edges to make the pieces easily sew able, arranged them into sections on a piece of felt

and started sewing them together, adding pieces, ironing and cleaning up edges as I moved on.
It was not quite big or square enough so I added strips of fabric to three of the sides and the centre block was done.
I have worked a lot with appliqué lately, so it was fun just piecing stuff together!