Travels & Monsters

This month's theme for the Monthly Design Challenge over at Finki’s is European Travels. My little “European Travels” quilt is made with one of the bags from my Treasure Box, decorated with images of my two favourite places. With shopping being part of big city trips (travelling alone you’ll be shopping for your kids; travelling with daughters, you’re pretty much the bag-and-credit-card-carrier) a bag was the obvious choice.

The pictures and words are printed on Lutradur in soft greys.
Greenwich Observatory, London, England
I used to work for a company with a London based International headquarter, and spent a lot of time there. My first, of many, visit to Greenwich was almost 20 years ago. The area around the Observatory (where the GMT time line is) is so idyllic with a huge park and amazing buildings, the perfect place for a bit of piece and quiet from the crowds and noise of the city.

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
I dreamed of going to Barcelona for 15 years before my first visit. I read a lot about Antonio Gaudi’s works, and wanted to see them, so 14 years ago daughter and I spent a week there. My first visit to his unfinished cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, blew me away, and I fell in love with the city. I have been back and the love affair is still going on.


Another finish from this week is “Monster Monday”.This is the first of a Monster Week series; small quilts made from scraps and recycled material and with this monster shape (from my Make a Shape tutorial). I will use different techniques for the monsters, just experimenting and enjoying the process.

Now I’ll pop over and add this to Amylou’s Sew & Tell.

Seven Something-s and Two Winners

I have been nominated for two more awards; thank you Corrine and Vivika, I’m honoured! You’ll find these and previous awards properly linked below.

Although keeping track of rules and nominees and picking who to pass these on to is too hard on my overworked & sleep deprived brain; I will share another 7 fascinating facts about myself."Man", experimenting making shapes look fragile.

1 While I would love to make only prize winning quilts, I have way too many ideas and not enough time and energy to spend gazillion of hours on each project.

2 There is always a bit of seriousness in my work; even the ones I make for fun.

3 I played classical piano from the age of 6 to the age of 18.

4 The library has been my home away from home wherever I have lived.

5 I hate coconut; if I get it in my moth, I will spit it out (discretely of course; I’m not a 2 year old, although when it comes to coconut, I wish I was).

6 I love simple design.

7 Steep, long escalators (like some of the ones on the London Underground) terrify me; especially when I’m lugging umpteen shopping bags (which I seem to do more often than not while visiting London).

Thank you to the lovely bloggers who find my English readable and artistic style enjoyable enough to nominate me for awards:

Corrine at Dosfishes
Vivika at Vivika DeNegre Art Quilts
Rene’ at Rene’ Creates
Tone at 2nes Hobbykrok
Astrid at Gradma’s Red Needle

And moving on to the Nothing To Wear pattern Winners part; today is kind of packed, so I have to do this early.
Random.org has again done its magic and

Sølvi is the winner of the Norwegian pattern and
Rene' is the winner of the English pattern.

Congratulations to you both; and to the rest of you – thanks for playing along - again!

Sew In No 2

I never thought this day was coming, but the dreaded silk purse is finished. It did not even take that long – a few hours in the afternoon and a trip to the local quilt shop (which included a nice dinner with husband; love Fridays!) – and the purse is ready for MIL’s 70th birthday on Monday.
I took some pictures during the process for a how-to, but unless I start a new blog called Mrs Moen How-not-tos, I’d better leave it up to those experiences purse makers.

The first thing I tried was fusible interfacing highly recommended by many friends. That did not stick, the silk was too slippery. I fixed that one by sewing wonky horizontal lines through silk and interfacing.
The next thing I tried was fusing the batting to the interfacing. The interfacing bubbled and stretched, but the batting stuck - kind of. I fixed that one by quilting vertical lines through all 3 layers.
The next steps were easy and included a zillion little bits of silk threads everywhere, but at last I had a quilted silk rectangle and a black cotton lining rectangle unintentionally decorated with colourful clingy silk. Somehow those two pieces magically turned into a finished bag without too much trouble.

The plan was to make the bag with 3 pieces so that nothing would be upside down. This plan was abandoned rather quickly, I believe somewhere between trying the fuse the interfacing and stitching it. This means that the back side is upside down. Oh well!
The silk being so delicate, I did not really want a handle, so the lovely staff member at the shop suggested a round polyester ribbon. It fits the purse perfectly, goes all around the flap (lid??) and is stitched in the sides so that she can adjust the length or remove it if she wants. The magnetic button thingie was the perfect way to close the bag, not visible on the front.
I do hope she will like it !

Experiments with Cloth

3 more table cloth experiments are finished.

The two Lutradur pictures from this post turned into these two small wall hangings, one for the proud mother, and one for the proud grandparents.

“Red noses”
“Grey noses”
I used linen cloths for both and absolutely love how the structure and lines show through the pictures.
I had planned to quilt them but just quilted around the noses on the black & white piece and left the rest unquilted.

The Lutradur was fun and easy to work with. It’s quite stiff, and I did not iron it enough to set the colours (guess I was afraid to melt it), but I will use it again. I think it would be perfect for adding words and details instead of free motion stitching them. Have any of you used it for bags and know how well it stands up to wear and moisture?


“Four”
The third piece is made from a linen cloth which has a burlap feel to it. The fibres are very stiff and short, and it stretches out of shape very easily. I tried to stabilize it with a fusible batting, but it did not stick.

Super simple; adding a piece of lime organza to the sandwich and quilting through all the layers. The textures look so great together.

This little guy is one of my favourite shapes. Am I the only one who falls in love with a shape and use it in different ways and fabrics and sizes?

Now I’ll pop over and add this to Amylou’s Sew & Tell, pick some table cloths for tomorrows Table Cloth Challenge post, and start working on the topic of today’s Friday Night Sew-in – the dreaded silk from this post. Wish me luck!

Spring Chicken

I have finished my first experiment with table cloth for the Table Cloth Challenge; and “Spring Chicken” is the result of a fun Sunday afternoon playing with beautiful fabric, a Japanese Bird and some scraps.
When ironing the fabulous orange table cloth, I discovered that it was not cotton, but hand woven linen; it says so on the label. Sometimes it’s hard to tell until it’s ironed, you know.-)

It was not suitable for rotary cutting, so I used scissors; picked a thread to follow, and tried to cut along it. I absolutely love how the different textures go together.


I a am bit ahead regarding the challenge, wanting to show some examples of what you can do and how you can use the cloths. I have posted the step by step process for this pillow here to show one way to work with loosely woven fabric.


So, if you have some old table cloths lying around (coffee stained or not) sign up for the challenge and put them to use! Narrow table cloths that does not fit anything? Make them into pillows or table runners. Coffee stains? Cover them with appliqué. Gory or boring colours? Dye it or add fabric paint! Rough fabric makes wonderful backgrounds, embroidered motifs can be pieced into or appliquéd onto anything – the cloths don’t do much good just lying there anyway, right?

Click on the image to get to the invitation.
I’ll be posting more of my experiments in the upcoming weeks.

"Ball of fire"

I have finally got the Make a shape tutorial I promised you in the OWOH post done, and I have even finished a quilt with the sample, “Ball of fire”.
The quilting did not exactly turn out the way I wanted. It was supposed to look like fire, but the red centre is so visually strong that the quilting fades into the background. I also learned a lesson about off centre designs. Make sure it really is off centre even after cleaning up your edges, or it just looks like you have done a mistake. As usually, I have bound the quilt, and will keep it with my other little lessons learned; I like to look at them.

I have also finished 7 of the shopping bags on my to-do-list. I know we are supposed to aim high, but I think I aimed a little too high with these.

Long story short: I bought 3 different fabrics last spring and promised my family I would make them shopping bags. I cut the yardage into rectangles, 28 of them, made some handles from leftover fabric, bought webbing for the rest of them; and was all ready to go. I made one bag and got bored. The last couple of months I have been working on them in between other projects. Sewing a few of them in steps make them tolerable.

They are very simple, but they all have French seams in the sides

and those little ear flaps at the inside

that make square corners on the bottom. Some have fabric handles,

some have webbing handles,

all off them secured with an extra x-seam.
They turned out fine. I gave the grey/pink ones to daughter and will send the blue ones to my parents as soon as I finish some more.

Now I'll pop over and add this to Amylouwho's Sew & Tell.

Things that go bump in the night

Do you ever get an idea stuck in your head and cannot get it off your mind until you have tried it out? I got the phrase “things that go bump in the night” stuck in mine, and thus “Things that go bump in the night” was born – a piece of black fabric and my favourite red-orange thread.It turned out just the way I wanted, and I will use this way of quilting on a couple of other projects that are waiting to be transformed from WIPS to works of art. Now, getting a good picture of a black piece seems impossible. I have tried different light and angles, and it looks grey – unless it’s hanging behind the colourful birds
that I received from the very talented Claudia from Clau’s Corner yesterday; my last gift from the OWOH drawings. It’s a gorgeous piece of paper art; birds with a bell. The birds are fabulous colourful and gorgeous. They now hang on my living room wall so I can enjoy them every day.Thanks, Claudia!


I have also discovered that I have been nominated for Best Designer at the Golden Quilter Awards over at SewCalGal. I would like to thank whoever it was who nominated me; thank you so much! The voting is open here.

Sitting there and nothing to wear

I have finished a couple of quilts this week:

“Sitting there”; my little Japanese birdies, is quilted and bound and the birds have even got little beaded eyes.

At first I planned to quilt little wings, but decided to keep them very simple. I think the birds would look very cute in yellows and spring colours too. A pattern will follow during the next few weeks.

The other finish is “Dress Heaven”, the nothing-to-wear quilt I made for a dress loving friend.

The text says “But I have nothing to wear”. I will get around to translating this pattern too.

I’ll be teaching Funky Fowl classes on Saturday and Sunday and am really looking forward to work with all the lovely ladies and happy, colourful funky birds. Any time spent with a group of wonderful quilters is good! Maybe I’ll even remember to get photos so I can show you:-)

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

Have a wonderful weekend!