Mr Lovebird, I presume?

Back in September I hosted a giveaway celebrating 4 years 29 days and 907 posts on this blog with a couple of small mixed media pieces as the prize (post here). Later that month I did an update (post here), sharing that Mr Lovebird had made it as a finalist in a Cloth Paper Scissors magazine’s reader challenge.

Not getting where this is heading quite yet?

Well

here you go

Mr Lovebird did indeed make the cut and here he is in all his colourful and mixed media glory on a glossy, shiny page in Cloth Paper Scissors.

Now moving on with the rest of my Sunday with my favourite dude who’s playing on his DS while grandma is out bragging on her blog. Thanks for stopping by!

"Further than far" Pattern Giveaway

Hello there. Some of you may remember that I did some posts about a challenge I had set for myself back in April when I set out to make a quilt using only a pile of scraps that was sitting on the table right in front of me. And then, a month later, I explained my pattern process here and why I seem to start lots of projects with nothing to show later.

Well, now the latest issue of Quiltemagasinet is out and so is grandbaby’s quilt, “Further than far”.

Thank goodness I took pictures before I shipped it off to my editor, because it was handed over the very minute it got back and is now in the process of being loved and cherished by the little one. You all know how that works - cuddle factor: high, presentable: not so much.

As I am translating my way through my published pattern these days and have posted quite a few on the pattern blogs already, it’s about time to start celebrating that huge accomplishment. I’m telling you, making the quilt is easy breezy, so is writing up the instructions, but for some reason translating them into English feels like work-work. Writing English is so much easier than translating. Do you too feel the same about your second languages? Just me?

Anyway, it’s giveaway time. The giveaway will be open for 3 days only as there are quite a few patterns to be launched in the nearest future.

If you would like to win a copy of the “Further than far” pattern, pop over to one of the posts and leave a comment there. There is one post for the Norwegian pattern, and one for the English:

Lengere enn langt Mønster
Further than far Pattern

I’ll draw the winners on Thursday evening. The patterns are sent through email, so I have to be able to get in touch with you.

Good luck to all of you and thanks for stopping by

Sorry, the giveaway is now closed!

The Pattern Process

You may or may not have noticed that I seem to start quite a few projects that you never see again here on the blog. While it is so that I sometimes enjoy the starting more than the finishing, ever so often my WIP goes into the pattern to be published file. I am sure that the publishing process is different for each designer, but I thought I would share how it works for me.

I was so lucky to be offered a position on the design staff of the Scandinavian quilting magazine, Quiltemagasinet, a few years back.

Whenever I have an idea, I will pitch it to the editor. The pitch is just a short description and pictures of whatever I have so far – blocks on the design wall, a top or even a finished quilt. As from the “Yes, please” moment, I cannot share any pictures or the quilt itself anywhere public.

When the quilt is finished, I’ll write the pattern. If you have ever thought about writing patterns, I can assure you that the writing process does get easier. I use Word and Excel/Paint for illustrations or even hand draw and scan them, nothing fancy. When done, I’ll ship the quilt for photographing and email the pattern. The editor takes pictures of the quilt, creates the layout, and emails a pdf-file to me for proof reading.

She usually keeps the quilt until the proof reading is done, unless it is a gift and I am really short on time. That has happened on a couple of occasions, like with grandbaby’s quilt. I had it back here only a couple of days before he was born.

There is a list of the deadlines for each issue, but still, sometimes finishing a pattern is a rush job as it would fit perfectly into the next issue which goes off to printing in a few days.

Designing anything means that you are always working a few months ahead of each season which means I should be thinking of Christmas projects right now – which I am.

It may take a while for the pattern to actually get published as it shall fit into an issue both size wise, technique wise and colour wise. Last summer I finished 7 patterns, and most of them have been published by now.

After publishing, the patterns are mine with which to do whatever I want. My plan is to make them into pdf-patterns in both Norwegian and English, but it just hasn’t been in the cards this past crazy year.

Quite a few of these quilts come with stories which, together with translating the patterns, are on my catching-up-on-the-blog-to-do-list, so I’ll be revisiting them later.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gas money and a book review

The latest issue of Quiltemagasinet is out and so is my "Gas money" pattern and the first ever review of my book Gledesspredere.

I’m not even going to try to be blasé – I could not turn the pages fast enough to get to the review and was grinning the rest of the day and then some.)

June recap

I’m not sure what happened to June but tomorrow is July already. I have had some computer issues this month which has left it turned off for the better part of the month, and I have made my first attempts at blogging from my phone.

Phone blogging is no less than an adventure I’d say. As I live in Norway and am a Norwegian, my phone is set up for the Norwegian language. This has been quite an interesting feature as it keeps translating English into Norwegian words totally unrelated to what I’m writing, and sometimes into English words which it thinks it recognizes from previous entries. The translations are sometimes funny and other times rather nasty. Sometimes I’ll catch them, sometimes I think I fixed it, and sometimes I’m just too fast – for which I apologize. I’ll be handing in my computer soon so consider yourselves warned; I’ll be keeping the posts short and sweet to stay clear of unintentional spelling errors.

Anyways, computer or no computer, life has been moving on and these are few of the June highlights:

Beautiful sunsets should never go by unappreciated

Painting paper towels with grandson

Urban sketching trying to capture the fascinating lines on some new houses down the road

Cuddle time

Watching the soccer stadium fill for a Mods concert

and listening to 25000 people singing Tore Tang which is kind of our city’s anthem

Realizing woolen yarn should not be couched onto cushions

Vacuuming the local thrift stores for new supplies for an upcoming class

Enjoying one of the statues from the exhibition Broken Column which I pass every Tuesday night

Spending a Wednesday evening with my sewing group cutting scraps into strings

Enjoying lots of time with this guy

The baby quilt made for grandbaby being published in Quiltemagasinet

Adding gesso to this mixed media quilt as an attempt to tone it down

which did not work. Really.

Cutting pieces from the thrift store scarves and leaving thread trails all over the house

Seeing my book in a book store

Toning down black in a mixed media piece a notch by adding paint

Continuing my mixed media quilting adventure with a size 100 jeans needle which leaves almost decent stitches

and some clearly visible holes when unpicked. Never mind, now it’s finished.

Thank you for all your well wishes regarding my toe woe, it is healing very well, thank you very much, and I’m back in shoes. That is the one pair of shoes which will accommodate my brand new silicone toe guard. Yes indeed, I am a silicone babe now and quite happy not to be walking around in one shoe and one sandal any more. I have 4 pair of new-ish shoes being stretched at the shoe repair place right now and one pair being ice stretched in the freezer. Not to worry, they are safely and hygienically packed in plastic bags. Will it work? Well, I don’t know but it’s worth a try as the shoes are unwearable anyway.

Ok, July, I’m ready. Hope you’re enjoying your weekend wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, I am spending mine with my guys.)

Hearts

The latest issue of Quiltemagasinet is out and so are my "Hearts" pillows and table runner. They even made it to the cover.
Usually I’ll wash anything that goes into my quilts (except of the batting; and thread obviously), but there are a few unwashed reds here which accompanied me home from Vestlandstreffet last October and they did not even hit the laundry room floor before they were chopped up for this design. Maybe it’s time to buy some of those colour catchers; these babies will have to get washed sooner or later because I plan to use them.
I loved working on these and had to exercise some serious self control not to blog about it; just showing sneak peeks here and there. I enjoy those little peeks on other people’s blogs; I like to see what they are working on. Presents or patterns or exhibition pieces; little snippets of information and pictures of details are all good in my book. I actually managed to find one quilt on the Festival of Quilts from the little sneak peeks I had seen on the artist’s blog, but that’s a story for another post.

Spanish Trees

The latest issue of Quiltemagasinet is out and so are my "Spanish Trees" table runner and pillows.

They were finished several months ago but it takes a while to finish the pattern, then it gets photographed (by the very skilled editor) and then it awaits a suitable issue to be published - which was now.

The table runner is made with different dark blue fabrics and the pillows with hand woven linen (thanks to my extensive table cloth collection). The linen stretches no matter how much basting spray I use, so I have decided I find the little wonkyness charming. If you can’t beat them, love them I’d say.

One day, when my work-work is finished, I’ll get around to write/translate more patterns, it has been too long since I added any to my pattern pages. My friend Sissel just finished the "Circle of flowers" table cloth in soft pinks and greys, and it was just lovely. I do love seeing other people’s versions of my patterns you know (I’m only missing the Monty Python crew nudging each other and saying wink wink here).