Where children sleep

I’ve spent some time in the waiting room of an ear/nose/throat specialist this month, and he’s got some in-your-face pictures on the wall. The pictures are of children and where they sleep; also telling a bit about the child and where he/she lives, and a little about the project. The English photograph James Mollison travelled around the world for 5 years, taking pictures of children and their bedrooms as a project for children’s rights. The pictures are amazing by themselves, but it’s the contrast between them that really hits you.

I have been searching for a website with all the images, but with no such luck. The closest I got was this Google search. If you haven’t seen them I suggest that you take a look. There is a book called “Where children sleep” but of course it’s sold out. Everywhere. Oh well, back ordering works too.

The Sketchbook Challenge, February

February’s theme has been “Opposites” and I have had about a gazillion of ideas popping in my head during the month although no sketching (for the challenge) until today. I really enjoy working with the sketchbook, but I’m a bit afraid that I’ll get way too much into it instead of focusing on other tasks.

These are a two of the sketches I did. Both are done with mechanical pencil which appears to be my favourite drawing tool. Next month I might graduate into some of the other umpteen tools I bought specifically for the challenge.

Light & darkness
Order & chaos
Have a lovely weekend!

You've got to love, Feb 25

a little extra texture.

Purple heart

One of the “few” bloggers I got to meet during OWOH was Janine of Jeany’s Brunnen, and I entered her giveaway of 3 felted hearts. A few days ago she emailed me telling me I was one of the winners and I got to pick a heart. I would be happy to receive any of the lovely hearts, but when I got to pick I chose the purple. What else could I do knowing there was a purple heart out there with my name on it?

Today the package arrived and the heart is simply stunningly beautiful! It has so many details and the colour is this amazing brilliant purple.
And look at this oh so pretty handmade card and the little crocheted heart on the string!
The purple heart is now hanging in my living room for me and the rest of my loved ones to enjoy and the little crocheted one will definitely be adorning a boob in the future.

Thank you so much, Janine; this was a perfect match!

So, did you do the OWOH tour and win something pretty (I’m not rubbing it in; honestly)?

Merger completed

The merger between my scrappy string blocks and the 30ies prints is now completed, and I’ve got to say the blocks do not look bad at all.

It’s time to un-attach the Intuition top from my design wall (sheet) and get these babies up on the wall. Playtime!

You've got to love, Feb 22

checked bindings cut on the bias. I usually cut mine straight of the WOF, but sometimes the fabric makes it worth the extra effort.

Trash to treasure

I need more stuff as much as I need a hole in my head but I keep on adding to my stashes anyway. This entangled pile of stuff was purchased at the local thrift shop and looked like a pile of rubbish,

but look at all the hidden treasures uncovered by careful use of scissors and a little patience; neatly sorted for upcoming Make a Boob workshops
and with a few beads too large and heavy for embellishment. I do love glass beads though, so into the bead stash they go...

Merging

The string blocks are ready to be merged with 1 ½” strips of pink fabric cut for this project about 2 years ago. Most of the pinks were purchased for an Aunt Grace challenge with lots of other 30ies prints. What can I say; intentions and reality - not exactly the same is it; I didn’t make my Aunt Grace quilt. It did look great in my head though and I think I have sketches lying around somewhere just in case. They did design a lot of cool stuff back in the 30ies; furniture, houses, cars, aprons. Anyway, some of the fabrics have been used for baby quilts, but most of them have been pining around in my stash. Well, pine no more, 30ies pinks, your time is now.

The pinks are a bit (to me) unusual tone wise and one of them quite busy, but hopefully they will all read as pink with all the scraps.
And these little cut offs; well, I do have a plan for them...

OWOH Giveaway Winner

One World One Heart has been a fun ride even though I have not had a chance to visit more than a few (with more than 800 on the list, even 200 would be a few) blogs, but the OWOH list is still there for me to enjoy, finding exciting new blogs and meeting new people in the future.

Anyway, this evening OWOH 2011 comes to an end and it’s time to draw the winner of my door prize “Small Talking Heads”. Random.org has done its usual magic and drawn a winner; no hat or scissors needed. I still haven’t figured out how to copy the number generator image and post it to my blog, so, low tech as the tried and true virtual drum roll might be:

(drum roll) the winner is Heidi AKA Digital Misfit from My Hiding Place in CyberSpace and Canada.

Congratulations, Heidi; I’ll be contacting you directly for your mail address. To the rest of you – thanks for playing along!

Big hot turkey

On January 16 I tried curing my knitting obsession by going cold turkey. I’m not sure I did all that well; you’ll be the judge.

I did say I would go back to knitting making premature hats when the crazy had passed. Well I did. 13 premie hats. And 12 premie blankets. Maybe the crazy did not pass after all.

Our family has had 3 little girls staying at the local premature ward and all of them wearing tiny hand knitted woolly hats. Knitting all the hats this winter made me think of those tiny hats, so I thought I might as well do something useful as I was knitting anyway. A quick phone call to the premature ward confirmed that they always need hats for little heads between 26cm and 36cm (approx 10 ¼”-14 ¼”) in circumference. And off I went.
Teeny tiny hats are actually harder to knit than bigger ones; the yarn is thinner and the needles thinner and shorter so knitting puts more strain to arms and shoulders. So, why not knit a few incubator blankets as well? Sure, a little search on the web confirmed they need those as well. And off I went; finishing one and casting on another and another. Well, you get the picture.
I’m all done now and hoping to drop them off at the hospital soon. I’m afraid I’ll be tempted to start another blanket as long as the bag is standing right here next to me. Maybe I should put them in the car…

Winning Award-winning calendar

I participated for the second time in SewCalGal’s Christmas Quilt Show back in November and was so lucky to win an 2011 calendar, Award-winning quilts from the International Quilt Association (of which I happen to be a member; IQA not the calendar) from That Patchwork Place.
(photo borrowed from eQuilter.com)

Thank you so much, Darlene, I cannot wait to study all the quilts!

The last few days brought us freezing temperatures and a storm, so I did, once again, take a position as a crazy old lady sitting on the couch wrapped up in all kinds of warm things. It was so cold that I couldn’t even knit let alone sew big parts of the day; my fingers were too stiff…

Intuition Quilt, Day Eight

The leftover flowery strip from “View from the park” for the left border of my Intuition Quilt was about 9” short, so I needed a 9 ½”*9 ½” square to complete the border. I collected every little piece of fabric (still from the one and only box of scraps I'm using for this project) which could sort of work with the greens and started puzzling them together. The pieces in the mid section were leftover from a fusible appliqué project, “Gridded circle” and had to be pressed with caution. You’ll find more pictures of the process on my post at 15 Minutes Play.

When the left border was complete, I started auditioning fabric to add the bottom border which I had turned the wrong way. That’s batik fabrics for you.
And at last, adding a little heart from my self made fabric; little scraps of fabric sandwiched between two layers of grey organza, then two layers of wash away stabilizer and free motion stitched together with silver metallic thread. I made the fabric for a quilt back in 2006 and have quite a bit left over.
Also; you may have noticed that I’ve got the top-in-progress up on my design wall - a flannel sheet hung on two nails on top of our dining room artwork. It works just fine; in fact I wouldn’t mind just leaving it up there.

Boob Love

For Valentine’s Day I’d like to share a little Boob Love with you; around 40 boobs and a little bling to go with them; beats flowers any day of the week - except for yesterday which was Mother’s Day here and I actually got flowers from daughter. Love them too!

So, how does a stack of 40+ boobs look like; quite impressive I’d say!
Here’s boobs and bling from (click the link for the post on the Make a Boob Blog)
Inger Marie

Sissel

Krista

Benta

Ulla

Darlene

Anne of Hundvåg Hobby
And; I got sugar free chocolates from Krista; they are definitely not going to last as long as the boobs.

Another great week in Boob-land!

And, on a totally different topic, Julie asked me how my name is pronounced. Although I tried to answer her question, I kept thinking of it while being sick (too much time on my hands...) so here it goes:
Ni-na (i as in pink, a as in car)
Li-se (i as in pink, e as in get)
Mo-en (o as in woman, e as in get)

I think that’s as close as I get; the o was the trickiest sound to match and the i’s are more like English ee’s, but there you go. I have vague memories of a sound system (phonetics??) from English classes, but yeah, that was a while ago.

Now say it out loud.-)

Background, Victoria style

I needed a black background for a little quilt and being smack down in the middle of a scrappy love fest I wanted to piece one. I had a few black scraps in the box in which I never seem to make a dent even with the Intuition Quilt in progress. I wish my bank account worked the same way.
Instead of just piecing the scraps together I thought of Victoria’s inspirational post and decided to take a little road trip piecing wise. You’ll find pictures on how I got from this to this and with this in between on my post at 15 Minutes Play.

I’ve got to admit it took me a while to get there. I lost track at some point(s) and had no idea where I came from or where I was headed, but in the end all the pieces were attached to each other in a semi orderly way and the made fabric was big enough. It was a fun exercise and the background is much more interesting than just a few rectangles or strips pieced together.

Thank you for the inspiration, Victoria!