Fall sounds and spring colours II

Here are the last two new samples for the upcoming Playing with yarn class;

 

 

same yarn with different backgrounds, quilting and top layers.

It was so much fun to revisit this fun and simple technique which gives lots of movement and texture, and I am very much looking forward to the class in April!

Fall sounds and spring colours I

The yarn from this post was transformed into these two little quilts this weekend.

 

 

The original samples for the Playing with yarn class were due for an update, and I am quite pleased with how different the two quilts look with the different backgrounds.

Can’t you just hear the bees buzzing; much better than the sounds of fall (read rain and wind), I’d say.

Student bag

I very much enjoy seeing pictures of projects made in one of my classes or from one of my patterns – and so I told Helene, one of the students in the Egersund yarn class who mentioned she wanted to make her project into a bag. This week she sent me pictures of her beautiful bag, and I got her permission to post the pictures.

Isn’t it just gorgeous - both front and back! Thank you, Helene, for sharing!

Yarn class in Egersund

My schedule (working, blogging, pattern writing, family time, creative play, slouching on the couch, new class concepts, yadda, yadda, yadda...) leaves me with a backlog of pictures and great blog posts in my head. On one hand I wish I could catch up, but on the other hand it’s quite nice to have a backlog of ideas for whenever that dry spell hits me in the back of my head.

Anyway; two weeks ago, on the hottest day of the year, 28 degrees Celsius thank you very much, I packed my car and set off to Egersund where I was invited to teach a Playing with yarn class at H. E. Seglem. It was a hot trip, but comfortable enough as I know the road and was fully stacked up on soda, sandwiches, apples and low sugar snacks. All good. I parked my car, ate one of my sandwiches and then the fan in my car broke. Great. Full speed or nothing, neither of them really comfortable. Oh ...

The class was fun, the students nice, and many lovely works of art created during class. Thank you for having me over, ladies!

The drive home was slightly more uncomfortable. My soda was hot, the sandwich too, the chocolate melted, the fan still broken (I kept trying turning it on – just in case), my CD player gave up and my radio would only play one channel with jazz music which I hated. I was laughing to myself, counting my blessings that I was alone in the car without someone complaining in the back seat. Thank goodness for my phone with podcasts saved for a rainy (or in this case sunny) day – Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski and Julie Fei-Fen Balzer kept me entertained and happy all the way home.

I’ll be teaching another class in Egersund this fall. No problem, my fan has been fixed and there will always be new episodes of fun podcasts saved for a rainy day and come October, it will probably be one of those…

Visiting KYM

I while back I was invited to do a combined Make a Boob workshop and Playing with yarn class at a KYM meeting last Thursday. KYM is a women’s group at the Methodist Church here in Stavanger. This was my first test run for the Make a Boob workshops, and I’m happy to say it all went smoothly. I had been thinking about how to set it all up so the Bling and Boobs and thread (sponsored by Gütermann) were all neatly sorted in containers. The big question was how each participant would pick and stash their embellishments while working and I went with a simple and cheap solution: plastic tea spoons to pick beads and small items from the containers and paper soup bowls to keep everything in place. Worked like a charm, and they can be used over and over again.

This was such a lovely group of women; welcoming, fun and enthusiastic. 9 fuzzy flower quilts were made and a few boobs finished; I got to talk to lots of interesting ladies - and I was invited to stay for supper. A perfect evening!

Thank you so much for inviting me and letting me be a part of your group!

Playtime at the guild

A couple of weeks ago we were playing with yarn at a guild meeting and lots and lots of colourful yarn flowers saw the light of this cold winter day. I have made some wonderful real life quilting friends in this room over the years.

Vestlandstreff, Day 3

While I taught my students to make oval trees, mine are round and thus appropriately named “Pumpkin trees”, created to show different ways to quilt trees.
Sunday was the big yarn day with 4 drop in classes where the students learned how to build a flower quilt like “Luscious pinks” and “Bluebells & Whistles” and yards and yards of glorious yarn were floating around in the room (and floor).

50-60 minutes sound like plenty of time, but it’s really not when you’re having fun. The classes were over and done almost before they started and newborn yarn-obsessed quilters were sent out into the world, probably heading for the remnant bins of their local yarn shop first thing Monday morning. They all enjoyed just playing with colour and texture without any kind of pattern or rules, just simple techniques. I also got my first experience teaching with an interpreter doing sign language which made me want to learn more than the basic stuff we all use like thumbs up, showing and pointing at things. It’s amazing how much you can communicate through simple gestures and facial expressions though; it takes more that not knowing the language to stop me from talking, you know.

We had to rush a bit through the last class to make it to the closing ceremony, but everyone left with their projects properly pinned and ready for quilting at home. A part of the closing ceremony is Show & Tell from all the classes, but most of the participants leave before this. Fortunately a few of my students were there and a friend took pictures.
Then there was not much left to do that getting back to the classroom, clean up the mess (read stuffing everything into the suitcase) and get back into the car for the drive home. I caught up with some of my friends at the ferry and the ride was perfect, no unruly water in sight.
Another great day!!

Vestlandstreff, Day 2

Another flower arrangement for the Playing with yarn class, “Bluebells & Whistles” from this post.
I got up early on Saturday morning, ate a bigger-than-usual breakfast (hey, how often do I stay at hotels) and was ready for my Mix & Match for Christmas class. A few spare minutes in the morning are precious so I was happy the classroom was set up already.

The class was full, 12 lovely ladies lugging most of their sewing rooms with a little kitchen ware added to the mix. The room was filled with colours, fabric and chatting; and I had a wonderful time guiding everyone through their projects.Although my feet get tired, teaching quilting classes is so much fun and inspiring and I learn a lot every time. My students seemed happy and everyone finished their tops. Hopefully they (i.e. the tops) will become full grown quilts that will adorn someone’s home this Christmas and not languish in the corner of dark closets with ugly fabrics won at guild raffles, batting scraps once intended for Easter ornaments and other forgotten UFOs. Thanks, ladies, for making my day so enjoyable!

I had an hour between class and dinner so I slipped into my PJs and crawled into bed with a little light reading and my cell phone alarm set, you know just in case. I made it to the dining room in time but without my ticket, had to go back and get it and thus arrived too late together with another teacher who also forgot his ticket. Oh well, live and learn – always bring the appropriate tickets!

The food was tasteful and there was plenty of it. I got my mushroom free main course (allergies) and sugar free dessert (fruit salad), and the entertainment was entertaining until one of the members of a gentlemen’s choir fell off the stage during exit because there was nothing (like a wall or a hand rail which you would have expected) behind the backdrop by the stairs.

Except for that; great day, great day!!

Vestlandstreff, Day 1

The pictures from the weekend retreat are safely downloaded to my computer together with the pictures of my yarn samples. Being Blogtoberfest and all and having looo-hots of pictures, I have decided to break them up into several posts. I’m afraid the indoors pictures from the weekend are a bit blurry, dark and unfocused like they were taken in the dark in a hurry in an afterthought - which they are.-)
This is “Luscious pinks” (luscious is not the right word but now it’s written in permanent ink on the back of the quilt so there you go, these pinks are luscious), the Playing with yarn class sample from this post. The quilting does make all the difference between little yarn nests and colourful flowers.The light is changing quickly these days as you can see from the before and after hand stitching binding shots.
Moving on... My suitcases, bags, yarns, Christmas samples, quilted flowers, favourite outfits, sugar free snacks and I had a totally wind, wave and problem free trip to Haugesund on Friday. I left home early to beat the fall break traffic, the weather magically changed from rain and wind to nothing but blue skies; the trip was just perfect.
Haugesund is north of Stavanger and you have to cross one of our famous fjords to get there. The road goes through tunnels under water and bridges over water and with a ferry ride in the middle, all connecting lots of islands to the main land. It so beautiful; the North Sea is right out there.

Even the view from my hotel window was beautiful overlooking Karmsundet and a very cool bridge.

I spent Friday night shopping (surprise, surprise), setting up my class room with the help of my friend Marit (thanks, Marit!), catching up, dining, and attending a lecture, all together with good friends from my guild and friendly little quilting group and a huge group of great quilters.