Sew In #7

I spent most of Friday playing hooky with grandson wrapping up presents (child proof scissors and a loohoot of tape), dropping them off at the post office in the nick of time and shopping for a few more presents. It was very cold and both back doors of my car were frozen. Grandson happily climbed in between the front seats and found my attempts at getting his seat belt on (you know those 5 point ones where everything has to click at the same time or they won’t work) hilarious, squiggling like a worm from laughing while I was wrapped around the passenger seat with both arms and half a leg thinking we had to do it all over again on each stop on our way to the city. Oh yes, that was fun.

Anyway, after dropping him off it was time to spend a relaxing Friday Night Sew In on the couch tying ends, cutting threads and doing a little comfort knitting.

I finished 17 more Christmas cards which leaves only 10 to go
and knitted 2 more hats for my upcoming A Hat A Day Giveaway which leaves only one more hat to knit.

Not bad for the Procrastinator of all holiday procrastinators I’ll say.

200th post giveaway

I cannot believe it - 200 posts! Who knew I would have so much to say and share and show when I started this blog.-)

To celebrate this tremendous achievement, I’m having a giveaway of these lovely items – one winner gets all:

A “Moo Point” quilt from this post, inspired by a line from the TV show Friends; "It’s a moo point. It’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. It’s moo!", and especially made for this joyous occasion by yours truly

A traditional Norwegian fabric panel (we don’t dress or walk around like that you know)

A piece of traditional woven Norwegian fabric (looks like a quilt pattern, doesn’t it)
1m of each skein from my fluffy and bumpy yarn collection which I used for these quilts
Different fibres and papers and felt used for these and this

To enter the giveaway you’ll do the following:
One entry: leave a comment to this post

Second entry: become (or be) a follower to this blog and leave another comment telling me so.

Third entry: blog about the giveaway and leave another comment telling me so.

If you’re a No-reply blogger, make sure you leave your email address in your comment so I have a way of contacting you!

The giveaway will close on the evening (Norwegian time) of Sunday May 9th and the lucky winner drawn on the 10th.

Good luck to you all!

The Table Cloth Challenge is open for another week, so there’s still time to go digging through those drawers or hit the thrift shops and join in on the fun! You can see some of my projects here.

I will link this up to Amylou’s Sew & tell and The Shabby Nest.

Sorry, the drawing is now closed.

Dancing with bags

I have been making more “Dance in the rain” quilts. I made the first ones a couple of years ago and gave them to some special people in my life. The new ones have the text printed onto Lutradur – much easier on the old hands. The background fabric is a well washed and worn linen table cloth. No surprise there, huh? I just love the different textures together; the old linen, the traditional quilter’s cottons and the modern Lutradur.

The dark orange
The turquoise
The brown
I’ll probably use them as gifts; it’s nice to have some small quilts ready for a visit or party. I have also been thinking about selling some of my small pieces on Etsy. I have had some requests, but I have been very hesitant so far. I want to keep the joy of quilting, the fun, the playing and experimenting, but sooner or later I have to face the fact that I cannot keep all my little experiments; probably sooner than later. What is your experience with selling your work on Etsy; will it be a suitable place for my type of work?

I am also one step closer to the goal of finishing a dozen shopping bags as I finished these 4 on my friendly little sewing group on Wednesday; 3 blues and a colourful soccer bag for grandson for toting clothes and stuff to kindergarten.

He loves it, so I might have to make a smaller one for him to play with as well. With the first batch of 7, I have only 1 more to finish for now. I have another batch of 12 that I’ll finish later, some of them are already in progress. Although I’m a more than a bit bored with them, they are great projects during my sewing group time – not much thinking and more time for talking.-)

Now I’ll link this to Amylou’s Sew & Tell; pop over and have a look at all the fabulous projects.

Letters and a Sam

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter break; I sure did, spending two days with my family at our cabin. It’s such a peaceful place to be; especially when I don’t drag out my sewing machine. Husband built the cabin with his own two hands during weekends over a 3 year period of time, so it’s a special place to us.

I also managed to squeeze in two days of alone time during the holidays, and even got some sewing done between all the relaxing, TV, reading and eating that made up my busy schedule. Isn’t it weird; you often have so little time for creative stuff during the week, but still manage to do a lot, but when you have a whole day off, you seem to get sidetracked all the time?

Grandson will be 3 in a month or so, and in the spirit of being way ahead, I got started on his birthday present. His mom wanted some letters for his door, so I decided to make them. This was my first go at it, and they were really easy and fun to make. A little tutorial on how to make them is coming up.

As Fireman Sam is his big hero, I had to make him one of those as well.
So, how did you spend Easter?

I’m linking this post to

Glass houses

I have been playing with the green linen table cloth, Lutradur and some of the new fibres.It did not turn out quite as I wanted, but I still like the idea and will try again.


The hair curly thingy- and shoe bags for mom’s birthday are finished, and way ahead of time. Yeeey. I have used the squares from the Treasure Box. They were left over from a pair of travel bags which I made for my parents in 2008, so she’ll have a colour coordinated travel set.

I’ll link this up to Amylou’s Sew & Tell if she’s up early; make sure you check out the other finishes of the week anyway.

With my favourite little chick, a little cut and bruised like her owner, I’m wishing you all a wonderful Easter. I will take some time off from the blog to spend (what looks to be grey and rainy) time with my family. See you all over the weekend!

I know, I know

Some times I wish life was more like school; you know, back when you knew all the answers. Instead of having to make up the all the answers to life’s many big questions as I move along the path that has never been travelled, I would love to be able to raise my hand again and say ”I know, I know”.

Seeing Circles

I signed up for the Monthly Design Challenge over at Finki’s a few weeks ago, and this month’s theme is Seeing circles.

As my soft and thrifty Seeing circles project made from grandma squares still needs more work, I have made another piece: “Ode to a turkey neck”
Loosing weight is all good, but my former taut and wrinkle free spare chin is slowly growing into something soft and with a touch of flabby. The chances of me running into one of the characters from Ally McBeal are rather small, so I decided to pay tribute to my chin myself. Hey – if you cannot beat it, join it, right?

I even cut a big chunk out of my favourite circle fabric which I had saved for something special. I guess this was special enough. Are you seeing circles yet?


I also finished the two Big & Strong quilts from last week’s Friday Night Sew In: Big & Strong, Swimsuit Edition I and II.

Now I’ll add this to Amylouwho’s Sew & tell, pop over and get inspired.

Same World, Same Heart

Of all the comments on my OWOH giveaway post, one stood out. I decided that if she did not win the penguin quilt, I would make another one for her.

“Penguins in Snowstorm II”
This quilt goes to Elsie who wrote this amazing poem in her comment:

"We are standing in the cold and blowing snow,

And we three are the Penguins in Snowstorm, now I know!

We're frozen in place,

How fun and quite cute,

What a cool day,

In snowdrifts we play!

Hope I win, this treasured moment in time!"


Now I’ll send her the link to this post:-)

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Sunny Side Up

The last inch of my inherited piece of bright orange linen is used up and daughter has got a new pillow. If she get sick of it (she probably will as she does not really like orange, just this pillow), I want it back!

It too was a Let it go – let it grow project that I posted about here. It’s made the same way as Sunshiny Pillow, but the quilted lines form a rectangle. I’m putting some of the pearl cotton embroidery floss from this post to good use.

I have been looking for more gorgeous linen like this, but have not had any luck yet.
Happy Valentines Day, Shrovetide (AKA Bun Sunday), and Mother's Day to all!