Finished Hearts

I have finished two of the hearts I started for the Make A Heart tutorial a couple of weeks ago.

“Fragile Heart”This is the sample with the silver grey tulle which makes the colours a little toned down. The heart is made with 3 rounds of yarn, which I decided was enough.


“Heart as White as Snow”This is the sample with the red tulle. The colour was so vibrant that I used 5 rounds of yarn. If you have read the tutorial, you will remember that I had to remove lots stretched yarn from the not-so-flat-anymore background. Well, I ripped it off, and added new yarn.

I have added simple regular bindings to both these little quilts.

Dawn at Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles will be doing a heart post for Valentines, and has posted a link to my heart tutorial. Pop over and meet some of her amazing Subversive Stitchers.

Comfort

Here is my Dream Panel for The Dream Rocket which I posted about here.

We were to submit the story behind the panel, and here is mine:
“I have always had a soft spot for children, especially children who have lost their parents and are left to fight for themselves, and children growing up in an abusive environment where home is anything but safe.

I am so lucky to be a grandmother of a wonderful little boy and get to spend a lot of time with him. One day, when he was snuggling into my arms watching children’s TV, I looked at him and thought:
“All children should have this, someone they are so totally comfortable and safe with; someone who will comfort them when they are sad or scared or just needs a soft place to land.”
My next thought was: “I have found my dream theme!”

I had an idea of how I would translate my dream into fabric, but one day the image of these two birds popped into my head. I drew a little sketch, and later a full size illustration which I used as an appliqué pattern."

I shipped the panel off the day before the catastrophe in Haiti. It means even more to me now.

I have started a second similar quilt, but it won’t be finished any day soon. I have some ideas that needs slow cooking; you cannot rush the process.

You can see more panels at Facebook and Flickr.

All kinds of Wonderful

1 Friday mornings
Thursday is grandma time at our house, and I get to wake up with grandson on Friday mornings. Yesterday brought us this amazing sunrise as we were leaving for kindergarten and their annual costume party. Grandson was dressed as a little pirate.

2 Old friends
I visited with my best friend from college this week. We had not talked in years (like 10-15 of them), and have a little more wisdom, wrinkles, pounds, nicks and scars between us, but other than that it was just like old times. So much fun!

3 Will power
Thanks to my genetic steel like stubbornness, I have managed to get my blood sugar level down from 60% above the accaptable level to 14 % above. My doctor is very pleased, and so am I.

4 Quilting buddies
I spent two nights sewing with quilting buddies this week. It’s a bit of a drag lugging the sewing machine and the rest of the stuff around, but so much fun.
Our guild is making charity quilts for the children’s ward at the local hospital. We have collected circle blocks from the members,

(my little stack)

and on Tuesday we arranged them and pieced them together assembly line style (sorry about the flash-less photos). We got 15 tops done, not bad!

On Wednesday, at my friendly (although still nameless) group, I finally got started on the stack of shopping bags I have promised family members months and months ago. I made a lot of progress although I did not finish any.

5 Sugar
A week ago I had my first fix of sugar since August. Husband and I stayed at a spa hotel for the night (he worked, I had my first spa treatment ever), and we had dinner with the rest of the group – including dessert. I don’t usually even like dessert, and it may be because it’s been so long, but it’s the best dessert I have ever had. I wish I had taken a picture. I did take one of the view from our room though; one of the famous Norwegian fjords.

Can you believe they have built a new hotel where you have to actually go outside to get to your room? After you have been to the pool or treatments and are walking around in your bathrobe and terry cloth slippers in minus 8C and freezing (the white stuff is snow)?

Dorrit, Queen of All

is another one of the flock of Funky Fowl. Isn’t she majestic?
She lives on my living room sofa where I serve as her guard against sticky fingers and coffee stains. Perhaps I should wrap her in protective plastic; that sounds comfy…

You can see the other gals here.

Now I’ll add this to Amylouwho’s Sew & Tell, pop over and be inspired by all the fabulous finishes.

Gyda, The Sunbather

is the second of the samples for the Funky Fowl class and pattern. It’s a little wall hanging which warms my soul in the midst of winter.


I would not mind a few hours of sunbathing myself right now.

Clara & Fredrikke, The Taupe Twins

The first sample for my Funky Fowl class and pattern from this post is finished. I have had a big grin on my face while working on it. I’m in love.

Clara

Fredrikke
I have given myself permission to cut into my precious stash, including my taupe fabrics. I have never used taupe before, and love how soft they look.

The Orange Purse

I’m the proud owner of a brand new orange purse, ”The Orange Purse” (please notice the capital T), stitched with lots of love, my seam ripper glued to my right hand, lots of frustration, a broken needle and a happy dance.

The purse is made from the orange linen piece from this post. It has been hand quilted with pearl cotton embroidery floss.

It has a quilted lining, a binding on top, and even a zipper for closing. That zipper took forever to sew in, but it’s there, see?
Instead of buying handles, I have made the strap from a belt. A tutorial on how to do this is coming up.

I was probably the last quilter on earth making a purse, but now I have two on my bragging list (first one here). If I was wise enough to use a pattern or tutorial on how to do these things, it would probably have been a piece of cake. Unfortunately I’m the I’ll-figure-it-out type of person. As soon as a question mark enters my brain, it keeps on churning until I have a solution. With quilts this approach works just fine, but add another dimension and I’m practically buzzing. It sometimes keeps me awake at night. I have found that the 3rd dimension is great until you are sewing your lining into it, and I have. Several times.

The good thing is that I now know how to make the silk purse for MIL; I will not reinvent the wheel this time…

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

Preparing for the ride

On Monday the One World One Heart blogging event “Riding the magic carpet” will start, so I am prepared and ready to go with 3 small pieces:

“One World One Heart”made from scraps and tulle and yarn and embellishments. It was so much fun to work with, but the embellishing part was so much harder than I expected. A tutorial on how to build a scrap quilt like this will follow later.

“Pink Princess”made with a crown I made some years ago for some clown quilts. The crown is also made from scraps. The quilt is embellished with at few fabric covered buttons; I wanted to add some more lettering, so I ended up with these. They were easy to make and very decorative. A tutorial on how to build shapes from scraps and making fabric covered buttons will follow later.

and finally
“Penguins in Snowstorm”No introduction needed I guess, pretty much the same as this one. Inger Marie – this is in your honour!

Are any of you going to ride the Magic Carpet?

Now I’ll add this to Amylouwho’s Sew & tell Fridays.

Stor & Sterk III

I have finally made a third small Big & Strong quilt (or as my friend Inger Marie named it, Penguins in snowstorm).
I gave the other two from this post to two of the trainers at the Big & Strong Christmas party in December. The third trainer was not there, so she will get her now. Like the other two, it’s made from scraps and quilted with straight(ish) lines. This time I had time to finish the binding by hand though.

Now I'll add this to Amylouwho's Sew & tell Fridays and Rosebud's Fabric Friday; pop over and have a look at all the wonderful projects that have been finished this week.

Sunshiny Pillow

Look what my Let it go - let it grow project from this post has grown into – a finished pillow.
Hand quilting the rectangular piece of linen took about one week of evenings listening to the TV. I did not have the heart to cut any of it off, so the upper and bottom parts of the quilted rectangle is on the back of the pillow.
A detail; the colour did not photograph well, maybe it’s too bright
Brightening up our sofa
I loved hand quilting this fabric so much, that I have prepared two more pieces. Just letting go was not that hard after all, so one of them is already growing.

Now I’ll add this to Amyulouwho’s Sew & Tell Fridays and Rosebud’s Fabric Friday. Pop over and get inspired!