Inventory Day #1

I’ll be working (work work, non-blog-able-work) on a project this year starting like right now (instead of sitting here writing a blog post), which means a few changes in my day-to-day life. For one, I’ll have less time and energy for quilting (yeah, I know, poor me) which means I’ll have to stay focused instead of scatter-brainish quilting wise. It also means that I’ll be posting less frequently in the foreseeable future; I’m sure I’ll find a new rhythm as things starts falling in place.

The string blocks will be put away for a while and the scraps lovingly put together for another Intuition quilt will go back in the scrap box (all that fondling and drooling over scraps in vain);

I cannot have them tempting me while I’m working on the projects I already have signed up for and/or need to finish:
Intuition Quilt
Make a Boob
Quilt for nephew’s confirmation
Design a block Challenge
B for Brenda
Little school house
A new class sample
A new pattern

An 8 project pipeline should be fine; not too overwhelming but enough variation to keep me from getting bored. Some of them are small, and others would make great Finish It! projects. As soon as I cross these off the list, I can add new ones. I’m counting on the accountability factor now that the list is out there in cyberspace. Please stop me if you see me trailing off the straight and narrow and start wandering in the wrong direction (like digging through my boxes looking for the scraps for another exciting Intuition Quilt).

Tiny little scrappy projects for fun do not count though; a middle aged woman needs her fabric fixes you know.-)

Missing fall

Well, almost.

Searching through some old pictures I rediscovered one of my favourites. It was taken in October 2008 outside our cabin and in the most amazing light. The sun does not quite hit our little neck of the woods during the dark months of the year, but yeah, fall is beautiful up there.

Oh, how I wish I was a painter...

Little school house

I participated in a house block lottery hosted by Beth of LoveLaughQuilt a while ago, and as a thank you for participating she sent us all a little school house block, challenging us to use it in a project.

Yesterday I went through my inherited 80ies stash for suitable fabrics and found these three. I have no idea what to make, but at least I know what to make it with.

The 80ies fabrics are growing on me, but I still have a hard time mixing the muted brownish tones with my usual bright palette. It might be a good exercise in streeeeetching my comfort zone.

Public art, Oslo 2011

I was in Oslo last week. Oslo is the capital of Norway and has been hosting the Nordic World Ski Championship the last week and a half. It was pretty cold and deserted when I got there, but on the way back the main street, Karl Johans gate, was sunlit and crowded with people watching one of the races on a big screen in front of the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament).
Not far from the Storting several of Edvard Munch’s famous paintings have been recreated in snow and ice by different artists. Really cool (no pun intended)!

The Royal Palace is right at the end of the street.

You’ve got to love creativity and hot cocoa on a cold winter day...

Task of the day, March 8

Cleaning up some edges.

A couple of weeks in Boob-land

brought boobs; a rainbow of brilliant colourful boobs from around the world (clicking the pictures takes you to the different posts on the Make a Boob blog).

The first batch:
Marit
Odveig
Synnøve
Nicolette
Carol H
Tone
and, a whole batch by themselves
Solfrid
Thank you so much, ladies!

I’ve got to say I love looking at all the boobs; they are everything I envisioned and more with the beautiful colours, the fragile edges, the softness, and all the creativity and generosity that is stitched into them. Just keep them coming.-)

Borneo fabric

I was tidying up my workspace the other day and discovered my Christmas present fabrics on the bottom of a pile. All this time I thought the fabric was in the laundry room (now you understand why I had to tidy).
These fabrics are bought on Borneo (Malaysia) where my sister spent a couple of weeks before Christmas. She had one day off work there and went to a local market to buy fabric for me. Apparently lots of people got involved discussing patterns and colours. The fabrics are meant for sarong-type clothing, and are of a wonderful quality.
Aren’t they just gorgeous!

"The Nameless"

I have made a little quilt for a challenge, and as the deadline was a couple of days ago, I can finally show you the quilt I was showing pieces of here and here.

You may also recognize the background which was the background I made Victoria style (all that cutting and angles and head scratching hardly show at all!) and the heads from “Small talking heads” (which happens to be a test run for this project).

The quilt is made in honor of my friendly little quilting group; 8 ladies with different personalities and with the love of quilting and appreciation of each other in common. It has a diameter of 12” and got its semi-perfect circular shape by the use of a glass plate with an added ¼” all the way around.

The heart is made of yarn, stitched together between two layers of water soluble stabilizer. Super simple with lots of visual impact and texture.

I love how quilting and embellishments can transform this to this.

Intuition Quilt, Day Nine

One of the fabrics in the block from this post started bugging me as soon as I got the top back on the wall after attaching the last borders. The brownish-green plaid flannel did not go with any other fabric in the quilt at all. With this large number of different fabric scraps in one place that’s quite an accomplishment I’d say.

It just had to come out but I had used up all the suitable greens in my box. Then I remembered I had pulled out some strips for the string quilt from the same box just a few weeks before this scrap extravaganza started, so I decided I was allowed to put them back in. Lo and behold; right there were two green strips which would fit perfectly.

I’m still not that fond of seam ripping, but it was worth it after all.
Oh ..., I see another little piece of fabric that will probably bug me. Yeah, I’ll have to wait for a few days to see just how much. What also bugs me is that I actually have to quilt this top to make it into a quilt. I really like it as it is right now and don’t want to mess it up with quilting stitches. Does that ever happen to you too??

A flower that never withers

(or whatever flowers do in English; mine die, there’s no other word for it)

The latest issue of Quiltemagasinet is out with my “Flower that never withers” pattern.
I made this wall hanging for an aunt of mine several years ago when she lost her husband, my much beloved uncle. The quilt was made in just a few days using scraps from “Mrs Bouquet” (the quilt, not the TV character) and has been travelling by plane, train and automobile for me to recreate the design and to get properly photographed.
It’s interesting and somewhat strange to revisit projects you haven’t seen for a while. I (almost) (almost?) (almost!) always take pictures of the finished projects, but those old paper copies do not really do the trick visually, do they. With a digital camera and the blog in the back of my mind, I’m getting much better at documenting the process – which often is as interesting as the finished thing.

The editor kindly included a presentation of the Make a Boob project as well; thank you so much, Bente!