Happy Midsummer ?

Tomorrow it's Midsummer Eve (Midsommarafton) here in Sweden and it's not something we celebrate in any overwhelming way at our house. I use to say that along with Valborgsmässoafton (Valpurgis night) it's one of these "forced" holidays where you just are supposed to party along with friends and family. Nooooo, I'm not grumpy, I just don't see the point ;-) We do eat a more or less traditional Midsummer lunch and we do put a nice piece of meet on the grill for dinner, but that's about it ;-9. Tomorrow morning I'm going to go out in my greenhouse and check on the potato plants that is planted in a plastic bucked that we was gifted by friends with, to see if there might be any small fresh potatoes in there

And guess what's going on outside? The traditional Swedish Midsummer weather!! A forceful wind and heavy rain that comes in horizontally, some thunder and lightning and round +12C!! Thank heaven we sold the yacht and even more thanks that no one of us is keen on a country cottage or - visit friends who has summer cottages and have to huddle inside.... We have friends who bought a cottage out in the woods in the middle of nowhere with no running water nor electricity.......gahhhh, sitting there in this weather is in my world not picturesque but nightmarish. It's a good thing we are not all alike LOL.

I am (after cutting maniacally for some days) now a proud owner of 798 1in paper hexagons :-) I think 1in is pretty small, but do you know that there are ladies out there who makes EPP with hexagons that are 1/4 in???? How on earth do they do that??

If this weather continues over the weekend, I will spend my time going through my stash of scraps and jelly rolls and cut them up into fitting pieces, bag them according to colors and then I will have a nice handiwork to bring along on the upcoming road trip - hurray. Together with 15 new books that is:-) But if this weather continues, I'm not going anywhere that's for sure.

Happy Midsummer or have a lovely weekend.

Work cut out for me

You know English Paper Piecing has never really talked to me, I considered it as quiltings twin of crocheted granny squares LOL. But since I felt a need for some hand sewn project to take along on a vacation, I've started to rethin. Now the quilting world is very generous with advice and suggestions and many suggested just EPP. And know what? Many patterns and their finished quilts aren't very "grannyish" at all!

Found a place online with hexagons on a printable PFD file and while no-one watched, I printed all 30 pages of them. 30 hexagons X 30 pages = 900 smallish hexagons to cut out. Why 900 you might ask? Well I've read that either you could use a few templates or - you need gazillions of the desired shape. And since i have no idea so far of either pattern nor color placement, I thought better safe than sorry, waking up in the middle of nowhere with not enough hexagons. And since I have yet decided on fabrics or color placements, I believe that I need to keep the paper shapes inside until I have sewn some blocks together. Of course, if I had been sane, I would have checked out the prices for laser cut shapes at paperpieces.com (a site I had visited but not through rough checked out), they are affordable even for a Swedish gal LOL.

So I started comfortably set up in the porch swing and after 2 pages son No1 came out "Oh, du pysslar" which in English comes in the vicinity of "oh you are pottering", but I swear that even though an online translator came up with pottering, it can't be the right word. After one hour or so he came out again "have you at least reached 100???" Well, when I was finished with that page I had reached 180 and have only 720 to go :-O
Here is some proof:

I have absolutely no clue whatsoever on what to make, but 900 hexagons small enough (I think I need to measure them) to use jelly roll strips out to lead me somewhere :-)

More pillows

Once I got started on that Cathedral Window pillow I was done for LOL. Some nights when I  couldn't sleep I lay there figuring out what could go with this or that. Since the first pillow was a bit mixed color wise, I came up with the idea that I would do different color schemes. Said and done, first I did a mix of gene and blue

Then a red/orange

And at last a blue one:

Of course it's not the last, but the last one to get put on the couch. Now just for fun I do one on light pink background in pink/purple with a tiny bit burgundy and yellow :-D

All I have to do now is to find some interesting hand sewing project to work on.....

Sometimes I wish

I was a wee bit more unlawful :-o because look what I found in the coffee room at work

It's an acrylic holder for tea bag boxes and as soon as I laid my eyes on it I knew that it would be an even better holder for .......spools of threads! Sadly it would be very very conspicious if I tried to carry it out of the building ;-P

This afternoon will be spent cooking (in this heat) but maybe I will manage to snap some pics of the latest creations Or - it will have to wait till Sunday, tomorrow more cooking and double birthday dinner - Sam turns 15 tomorrow and The DH xxx today

Have a lovely weekend all.