Table Cloth Challenge, Finished projects

Today it’s show & tell-time for the participants of the Table Cloth Challenge. If you did not sign up in March and have made something from a table cloth, you’re still welcome to add a link to your post here. It’s simple:

1: Post a picture of your finished project on your blog (or use an old post if you have one).

2: Add the link to your specific post (not just your blog address) to Mister Linky.

That's all!

If you have been reading this blog for a while you already know that I have been totally smitten with old table cloths and have made quite a few smaller projects. You might also have seen my Happy House project in progress. Well, now it’s finished and I found a way to display the 9 little quilts together for a picture (without buying anything I might add). Unfortunately it was rather windy outside today, so they were moving all the time. Anyway, here are my Happy Houses
I used string, pearl cotton thread and wooden dowels for getting the three rows.

And here is Brit’s project, a very cool summer bag, perfect for a trip to the beach.Isn’t it amazing what you can do with an old table cloth?

Now I’m looking forward to see your projects!

Finish it! Moving in

The 9 little Happy House quilts are finished with those little orange ribbon hanging loops. Now I just need to find a way to display them all together to get a proper photo – and only using stuff I already have at home. I wish I had some chain and s-hooks, but I’m afraid I don’t. Oh well, I’m sure I’ll figure out something before the Table Cloth Challenge reveal on June 1st.

Finish it! Pinned - again

Thanks to the always enjoyable monthly meeting with my friendly little sewing group yesterday, I got some time consuming work done on my Happy Houses. The little quilts are now turned and pinned again, ready for a seam around the edges and maybe a little quilting to keep the layers together.
I also managed to finish the appliqué on another quilt (one of the looking-for-inspiration-with-floodlight-and-a-microscope-quilts-with-a-deadline) and get the top ready for quilting. I think this will have to be my next Finish It! project.


Thanks for all your advice on embellishing my grid; they were highly appreciated! I’ll be attaching the buttons today. I really liked the idea of adding a little wool or felted flowers, and will try that on my next grid when I have a little more time to play (and make mistakes). I love embellished projects, but I need practice and to stop thinking that everything is too much. I guess the leap from very simple designs to heavily embellished projects is too big, and that it might be easier to do it in baby steps. So far I have only tried basic stuff like buttons, beads, felt flowers and yarn.

What are your favourite embellishments and -techniques?

Task of the day, May 3

I’m still working on the project from this post. The white damask background is quilted and bound and I’m ready to attach the grid.
The damask works fabulous as a background; very subtle pattern and yet a lot of texture. I have used the IKEA fleece as batting on this one too as I was very happy with how Swan Lake and the Name quilt turned out. In a certain lightening it gives a bluish sheen to the damask which is lovely.

I’m working with green again on this one, and loving it. Green is very appropriate for celebrating spring and sunshine and pretty flowers.

Mooing with bags

For this week’s show and tell I have the 4 remaining Moo Point (a cow’s opinion; doesn’t matter; it’s moo) quilts from this post. The fist one was finished last week for my 200th post giveaway (which is open until May 9th).
"Moo Point No2""Moo Point No3""Moo Point No 4""Moo Point No5"They are all made from a fabulous old (vintage??) green table cloth. Green is a colour I don’t use much, so I’m trying working it into my palette.


I also finished 3 more shopping bags and have thus finished my pledged dozen plus two more.

Most of them are gone by now, but I have a few left for myself. I will never, ever prepare that many (28; yep – it’s crazy and boooring) of anything again! It’s quite discouraging to know that you still have just as many left to finish when you have worked your way through the mother load of shopping bags.

I also finished the “Name quilt: Markus” for a baby boy and “Swan Lake” for the Monthly Design Challenge over at Finki’s this week.

Now I will link this up to show & tell at Amylou’s and Blue Cricket Design's, pop over and have a look at all the wonderful finishes of the week.

Finish it! Pinned

Another step, however small it might be, on the way to finishing my Happy Houses is done. I have run out of steam on this one, but in the spirit of Finish It! I managed to squeeze it into the rather packed schedule of this week.
I have attached the loops for hanging, and pinned the backings on. That’s all. The next step will be sewing them together; I should manage to do that during the next week.

I’m trying to move forward with a couple of projects where I’m on a deadline, but for some reason I don’t feel inspired by them right now. I have seen how the ideas turned out, so I have lost the required interest to finish them. It doesn’t really help that I have dozens of new ideas waiting, just crying to be made. How do you stay focused when inspiration cannot be found anywhere even in bright daylight and with all the halogen lights on?


I took an advanced Zumba class today as I missed out on Monday’s beginner’s class. Wow, that was hard, but I made it through, smiling like a big old clown. I spent the morning paying bills, doing boring paperwork and my taxes, so it was good getting the blood pump going. The taxes are not much work anymore, pretty much everything is on the form already, but it feels good to finish them nevertheless.

Hopefully I’ll sleep like an exhausted 3-year-old tonight and be ready for a more productive day tomorrow.

200th post giveaway

I cannot believe it - 200 posts! Who knew I would have so much to say and share and show when I started this blog.-)

To celebrate this tremendous achievement, I’m having a giveaway of these lovely items – one winner gets all:

A “Moo Point” quilt from this post, inspired by a line from the TV show Friends; "It’s a moo point. It’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. It’s moo!", and especially made for this joyous occasion by yours truly

A traditional Norwegian fabric panel (we don’t dress or walk around like that you know)

A piece of traditional woven Norwegian fabric (looks like a quilt pattern, doesn’t it)
1m of each skein from my fluffy and bumpy yarn collection which I used for these quilts
Different fibres and papers and felt used for these and this

To enter the giveaway you’ll do the following:
One entry: leave a comment to this post

Second entry: become (or be) a follower to this blog and leave another comment telling me so.

Third entry: blog about the giveaway and leave another comment telling me so.

If you’re a No-reply blogger, make sure you leave your email address in your comment so I have a way of contacting you!

The giveaway will close on the evening (Norwegian time) of Sunday May 9th and the lucky winner drawn on the 10th.

Good luck to you all!

The Table Cloth Challenge is open for another week, so there’s still time to go digging through those drawers or hit the thrift shops and join in on the fun! You can see some of my projects here.

I will link this up to Amylou’s Sew & tell and The Shabby Nest.

Sorry, the drawing is now closed.

Finish It! Appliqué

Another step on the way to finish the Happy House project from my Treasure Box is checked off the list. I have chosen to finish each block separately with loops for hanging. I’ll do them pillow case style with no binding. Thanks for all your suggestions, they were really helpful!
I have free motion appliquéd the motives with batting on the back, and here they are ready for the next step – cutting backings and sewing them together.
For the loops I have chosen a semi transparent ribbon. With all the ribbons available I still had a difficult time finding one with the right colour, with a suitable width and that would not be chunky. I’ll use the same method and ribbons for the Moo Points too. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish off all those little quilts in no time.


For those of you who are new to Zumba: it is a dance based fitness program. There are steps from salsa, samba, flamenco and lots of other fun moves to great music. Although it’s fast (really fast) it’s very gentle on your joints and gets your heart pumping like there’s no tomorrow. You all know how much I love my water aerobics class. Well, this is even better!


Over to something totally unrelated: Carla from Feathered Fibres has done a profile on me; pop over and have a look.


This is my 199th post; I have been holding back so that I have a chance of getting the giveaway items together for the 200th post on Friday. I’ll see you all back here then.-)

Sew In No 3

Although I did not do much sewing during Friday Night Sew In yesterday, the creative juices got flowing around here, and I got started on a few projects that have been nagging me.

Moo point
Some lines from TV shows and movies and songs get stuck in my mind and I want to make them into quilts. This one is inspired by a line from the TV show Friends and goes something like this: It’s a moo point. It’s like a cow’s opinion. It just doesn’t matter. It’s moo!I have prepared 5 small quilts with this cow and a green table cloth background. I have printed text onto Lutradur, and will attach it when the quilting is done. One of the moo points will be part of my upcoming 200th post giveaway and need to be finished, and soon as this is the 196th post...

I’m falling even more in love with the old table cloths; they do, amongst other things, make great backgrounds for appliqué. You can see more of my experiments with cloths here. If you haven’t already signed up for the Table Cloth Challenge, you can read more about it here. MrLinky will be open until the end of the month, so there is still plenty of time to join in on the fun.


Letters
I also prepared letters for 3 little gifts. I’ve got 2 little boy’s names (one being Markus from this post) and a Prince (just missing an E) for a little boy yet to be born and named. I’ll attach them to small quilted backgrounds and add a crown or a car on top. You’ll find my tutorial for making these letters here.

So, did you have a creative week?

Finish it! Happy House Blocks

This is the result of playing with some fabric scraps and a table cloth. I'm thinking 9 small art quilts instead of one big; or maybe not, they do look great together.. What do you think?

Dancing with bags

I have been making more “Dance in the rain” quilts. I made the first ones a couple of years ago and gave them to some special people in my life. The new ones have the text printed onto Lutradur – much easier on the old hands. The background fabric is a well washed and worn linen table cloth. No surprise there, huh? I just love the different textures together; the old linen, the traditional quilter’s cottons and the modern Lutradur.

The dark orange
The turquoise
The brown
I’ll probably use them as gifts; it’s nice to have some small quilts ready for a visit or party. I have also been thinking about selling some of my small pieces on Etsy. I have had some requests, but I have been very hesitant so far. I want to keep the joy of quilting, the fun, the playing and experimenting, but sooner or later I have to face the fact that I cannot keep all my little experiments; probably sooner than later. What is your experience with selling your work on Etsy; will it be a suitable place for my type of work?

I am also one step closer to the goal of finishing a dozen shopping bags as I finished these 4 on my friendly little sewing group on Wednesday; 3 blues and a colourful soccer bag for grandson for toting clothes and stuff to kindergarten.

He loves it, so I might have to make a smaller one for him to play with as well. With the first batch of 7, I have only 1 more to finish for now. I have another batch of 12 that I’ll finish later, some of them are already in progress. Although I’m a more than a bit bored with them, they are great projects during my sewing group time – not much thinking and more time for talking.-)

Now I’ll link this to Amylou’s Sew & Tell; pop over and have a look at all the fabulous projects.

Glass houses

I have been playing with the green linen table cloth, Lutradur and some of the new fibres.It did not turn out quite as I wanted, but I still like the idea and will try again.


The hair curly thingy- and shoe bags for mom’s birthday are finished, and way ahead of time. Yeeey. I have used the squares from the Treasure Box. They were left over from a pair of travel bags which I made for my parents in 2008, so she’ll have a colour coordinated travel set.

I’ll link this up to Amylou’s Sew & Tell if she’s up early; make sure you check out the other finishes of the week anyway.

With my favourite little chick, a little cut and bruised like her owner, I’m wishing you all a wonderful Easter. I will take some time off from the blog to spend (what looks to be grey and rainy) time with my family. See you all over the weekend!

Table Cloth Challenge; Before-pictures

OK, so now I have shown you some of mine (yes, I do believe I have a few more somewhere…), and it’s time for you to show off your table cloth(s) that you will transform into something beautiful or useful or both.

1: Post a picture of your cloth(s) on your blog mentioning the Table Cloth Challenge and with a link to this post.

2: Add the link to your specific post (not just your blog address) to Mister Linky (you’ll find an excellent explanation on how to link to a specific post here).

3: On June 1st we'll do the same with our finished projects.

4: Blog about your process or not, that's up to you!

5: Have a look around the other participants blogs for inspiration and tips.

If you don’t have a blog, email me your pictures and I’ll add them to the bottom of this post.

Mister Linky will be open for new links until the end of April, so there is plenty of time to join in. You can see more posts about the challenge here.

Feel free to copy the challenge image to your sidebar and link it to this post.

I'll start with this cloth as a background for applique

Have fun!


This is Brit's cloth

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!