Wolfie Stiches

Time to move on

2011-10-06T22:31:00.001+02:00

I'm moving my ramblings over to WordPress:

http://wolfiestitchin.wordpress.com

for various reasons.

This blog will stay as it is for now on - no new posts, but the old ones will sit here with pictures and all.

So - Welcome to follow me over!!

:-D Wolfie

Fruits of our labour

2011-10-01T15:23:00.000+02:00

Hahha, that header is a bit of a duality, but I'm only going to tell one side ;-p

And I was going to show the YLI silk threads that arrived yesterday and - my first halting steps into the world of applique. But instead I show this:
At 7am I dragged my butt out of bed, made load if sandwiches while The DH made tea, packed us all (2 grown ups and two dogs) into the big car along with baskets, back-pack and extra plastic bags for a 45 min drive to "our" forrest and The DH's special place. And look, after a looooong walk we found the first spot and after that it only got better and better:

The DH's basket and Arwen on the lookout.

The dogs had soooo much fun; ran like crazy at RR top speed, chasing each other, wrestling and then off again. Impossible to catch on "film" but it make me heart brim with joy to see Fiona who turns 10 in a month, acting like a youngster :-D

My basket filled to the brim with autumn chanterelles and quite a few yellow ones.

After 2 hrs (with a nice tea break) this is the catch of the day - The DH is very proud and we had a lovely time together in the glorious Indian Summer weather. It got so warm that I could strip down to the camisole - heavenly :-)

OK it is fun to pick wild mushrooms, but cleaning them is another matter entirely.

Uncleaned.

Cleaned. At the end The DH gave up and chucked the tiniest one out behind our back fence. Ask me and I call that sacrilege LOL.
On the way home we dropped some of for my darling MIL. And at home we gave some to our neighbors.
Weighted - 7.5kg!!

Right now my back hurts, so I do take a well deserved rest on my bed, but I need to get down in the kitchen to parboil it all and pack it for the freezer. Guess tonights dinner? "Lövbiff" (something in the vicinity of minute steak) creamed yellow chanterelles and garlic potato wedges = yummmm :-)

Tomorrow I might show some applique pictures. If I manage to get out of bed that is .....

In promptu light box and show me the blocks

2011-09-30T08:40:00.001+02:00

I've taken the day of and had plans to apply for a new passport (mine is out of date), do some grocery shopping and then sew some more mini-blocks. Well - I won't go to the passport police cause I look like a fright. The entire left side of my mouth is swollen, mostly on the outside and a bit on the inside - I kind of look like a hamster :-( No matter steroid cream or heavy anti-allergen pill :-( :-( :-(

In between TV shows (British Masterchef and Navy CIS) I sat and transferred embrodiery designs to the blocks I already sewed. After tried to use the coffee table (frosted glass top) with a small but strongly lit lamp from IKEA last year with not satisfactory results, I asked The DH to make me a light box. But then I read somewhere "use glass topped tables or acrylic ones" it struck me that the extension table for the Horizon is clear acrylic and than tiny lamp would fit under it. Said and done and - it worked! Picture will be posted later.
Now I really need that floss and silken threads.

So far I have one large "9 mini-block-sewn-together" block and 9 mini-blocks that are single. All are lacking their embroideries and appliques, they just have the transferred designs and the parts for the apppliques in small zip-lock bags, pinned to each block. Now I wonder - are you interested to see the unfinished blocks or do you want to wait until they are completely finished?

Need to fold some laundry before I start my day in ernest.

Fun-fun

2011-09-29T12:42:00.000+02:00

Yesterday was first a trip to IKEA; bought a new thin protective mattress for our bed, two sets of all white duvet covers for John (his own idea - the all white), a nice large basket for keeping the fabrics for my projects at hand and easily over viewed plus some lovely, fabric covered storage boxes - the same series as I bought earlier for FQs and notions.
So now my scraps are sorted in 8 different ziplock bags that fitted into the largest box:

Then I organized all the fabrics I have selected so far for the Butterfly Garden BOM into that basket:

And then - in the mail, my latest order from Fat Quarter Shop (got here in less than a week) with a collection of FQs that I intend to use in said BOM:

Know what? Gave up a happy whoop, since I think they fit right in :-)

Still waiting for the floss and silk thread though......

Glorious Indian Summer Day here in Sweden.

More on threads

2011-09-26T12:26:00.001+02:00

The sewing machine dealer was closed and in their store
window was no longer YLI threads, but something else I don't know anything about.
But Gung Ho - there is eBay and some sellers had these nifty tubes each holding 7 colors of YLI's silk thread. Some at better price than others (Aussis are almost as expensive as Swedes :-O), so I went for two tubes with different colors, thinking these threads must last long enough to see me through a lot of applique work in the future LOL.

So while I wait for books, fabrics, floss and thread to arrive......maybe stitch the 9 mini-blocks together and do the applique and embroidery later?. S-t, I really am going to need an embroidery hoop and that soon.

Lovely sunny fall day here in Sweden. I'm going to take oldest son for PRAO (practical work place training) hunt after he finishes school. This term it's only 4 days and if you ask me, that a bit on the downside - how much can he accomplish and learn in such a measly time ????? Sometimes I found school things hard to understand.

Threads

2011-09-25T20:47:00.001+02:00

OK, I fess up - I have never been that much into embroidery or applique ;-o, therefor I lack of tools to make them little mini blocks in the Butterfly Garden BOM. Like embroidery floss and a great one for sewing appliques. The few times I have worked with DMC floss, I never really cared for them - snagging, knotting sad excuses they are IMHO. But I've only read great things of Cosmos floss from Lecien, so after much searching I found an online store with a great range at great prices. And ordered some.

I know that the sewing machine dealership down at our very small mall (they sell mostly machines for industries etc.) are selling YLI threads, so I hope they have the silk ones - hopefully I need only one beige spool.

Needles I have and a small bottle of basting glue, but I don't have a really good hoop. I have one inherited from my Grandma, which puts it round 50 years or more and it don't hold the fabric firmly, so you have to re-adjust if ever so often. Then I have a small Clover all plastic one and that don't cinch the fabric tightly either, just make it slither around :-( In the latest issue of Vignette Magazine I read about a new hoop form Lecien, so I set my hope that I will be able to find one. Well I think I have, but there will be one to get closer to home, which will make it arrive here a bit faster.

Time to re-read "Applique, The basics and beyond" by Janet Pittman in bed, hopefully to enhance my knowledge of this art form :-)

Night from Sweden.

First selection

2011-09-24T11:14:00.000+02:00

Here is the first selection of fabrics for the Butterfly Garden BOM:

and from that I made the very first mini block, very, very simple to make

Typical me, I forgot just to press, so it looks a bit wobbly. Hopefully I can press it into submission later ;-o

The first mini block will have an appliqued heart, I did cut it out only to realize that 1) I only own a very narrow selection (color wise) of ordinary sewing threads and 2) they are all Gütermann polyester ones.

So I need to order a nice little selection of all cotton sewing threads too :-D I think I'm going to make all the 9 mini blocks and sew them together before I do the appliques and embroideries. This is fun!

It's a glorious fall day here in our parts of Sweden

Doggie world

2011-09-23T16:35:00.000+02:00

I was going to show a pic of the bits and pieces I have put together for the BOM, but the quality was no good. Confession time though - I did place a "small" order with Fat Quarter Shop last nigh with bits I think will fit in :-9

So instead this:

Quilty as charged :-o OK Mom, I know that I'm old enough (10 yrs coming October) to know better, but making your bed is sooooo much fun. Or rather - unmaking it.......sorry, couldn't help myself there.

True to our origin, we do love to bask in the sun. Somehow we know that these warm, sunny days are soon over, so we take every chance we get to bask. And if there isn't enough sun on both beds, we love to snuggle up on one ;-)

Auditioning

2011-09-22T17:03:00.000+02:00

This afternoon I finally mustered up the courage to open the first bag containing the instructions for the first Butterfly Garden BOM. What was I afraid of? I understood it all :-) After reading it through I just had to start auditioning fabrics and I started with the big floral that is going to be the focal point and color setter for the entire quilt.

Even before I go the BOM pattern I had a vision of what colors I wanted to use - ruby red, mossy green and some yellow thrown in. Going through my piles of fabrics I realized that I own very, very few big floral prints. Started with the reds-burgundy-pinks:

Coming this far it struck me - Wolfie these are your so you colors and honestly - a bit of a bore!
Working my way down the stacks without anything screaming "pick me", I decided to have a look at the lighter greens and found this:

and this one practically yelled at me ;-) The colors in the pic doesn't do justice to the actual fabric. I felt this little twirp of happiness, talk about going outside the box/comfort zone. Next to that fabric was these:

Once again - the colors in the pics are a bit of...sigh. But they match the chrysanthemums perfectly!

Delving into the FQ box rendered this collection:

Went through the box of charm packs and found a few bits. I started to go through the scrap bags, but when I finished the yellow and was into the red, I heard some ominous sounds from above and right - these danged dogs of mine had played in our bed and thin mattresses and covers has all on the floor - grrrrrr! The beasts has sought sanctuary in Sam's room, otherwise I think I would have shut them in the boiler room :-O Nahh, would never do that, but put them outside maybe?

Anyhow, I now have a little collection to start of with, but if I know me - I will probably make some online purchases for more supporting actresses LOL. I absolutely need some more fabrics (FQs will do) for the hearts, strange that I don't own just the color that sing with the chrysanthemum fabric ;-) But I absolutely need a hoop and embroidery floss if I will be able to make the first block. Gawd, this is soooo exiting!!

Yet one more

2011-09-21T13:55:00.000+02:00

All done free hand (without any wine), which shows LOL. Decided to do some butterflies but only one look so-and-so, the rest looks like ???? Well, next time I draw these little buggers first;-)

Happy yayy

2011-09-20T15:03:00.003+02:00

At the same minute I parked my car outside our gate, a postal van drove up alongside and a guy asked if I was living "there" and yeah, I am. So I got me a package and not any old package, but the one from Aztek Rose in Holland containing these goodies:

Issue No 3 and 4 of Vignette Magazine, the full set of Butterfly Garden by Leanne Beasley, one piece of Kona solid fabric and one piece of ironing on muslin (there must be a reason why I did order that.....), two package of embroidery needles (my mistake - I wanted one package of each embroidery and applique needles and one bottle of Roxanne's baste glue.

I have browsed through the magazines and looked at the needles, remembering that I have a package of small appliqués needles in my toolbox. But I have not yet opened up the BOM package.....I want to be of somewhat crisp mind when I do so - bear in mind that I have never done anything like this, so I want to be able to understand the instructions for the first BOM ;-) Right now I'm not there at all.

I got an email from the sweet Karen at Aztek Rose this morning, telling about an exiting new project that is a joint venture between Australian and European designers called Quilt Aid - check it out, it looks great! Don't you just love the colors of these Moda fabrics? :-)

Persistently I continue with my FMQ samplers and yesterday I used an old leftover block:

It looks a bit better than the others and I find it somewhat interesting that the white parts that on the un quilted block lays flat along with the other bits, but when quilted this way, the look like they have risen above the rest ???

Once upon a time

2011-09-19T16:38:00.000+02:00

I have my own website and a blog in Wordpress. I created all the graphics myself in PSE (PhotoShop Elements) and some was quite good -
like this:

Or this:

Kind of dark and sinister both of them - huh?

And then my logo:

The logo isn't the sharpest you have seen, but heck if I can find the good version on our LAN disc where all my stuff is backed up :-(

So why are I showing you this? Well.... the above graphics are made in PSE for Windows (I thought myself everything) and now I'm using PSE 8 for Apple and to cut it short - we are not on friendly terms. Far from it.

I have a wast collection of brushes, fonts and layer styles from the Window time and they do work in this fruity version too. But it's been some time since I played around and now when I was struck by the urge of creating my very own header for this blog, I just can't find these danged layer styles. They don't show up on the screen at all. There is probably some button to push, but heck if I can find it.....Honestly, I'm on the verge of highjacking The DHs gaming 'puter and install my good ol' Win PSE for and copy all them xtra goodies that are stored on the LAN disc. Ohm, of course I have them copied to the fruity version of PSE :-) I just can't access the layer styles....brushes and custom shapes shows up though.

Well I have no clue on what to cook for dinner, so I have some more time to "play" around. If this PSE was a living creature I would for sure strangle it's scrawny neck ROFLMA.

Scrappy clean up

2011-09-18T15:15:00.001+02:00

Back when I had a website for my Botanical Perfumery, I taught myself not only to design and create a website, but how to change things within a WordPress blogg theme. I have tried in wain to do the same with a Blogger template - anyone who knows how to work the HTML editor to import your own header and sidebars and change the colors, please give me a holler. I am utterly frustrated :-(

So - while looking for some left over jelly roll strips to make some FMQ sandwiches of, I realized that my (rather small) collection of scraps was in an unholy mess and decided to do something about it. I mean - I'm not a Virgo for nothing am I? Said and done; sorting everything by color, throwing away bits way too small to use for anything, putting them all into ziplock bags (which is not as easy as you would imagine to get hold of larger over here), pressing out the surplus air before putting them in a spar box.

In that large paper shopping bag I also found a whole bunch of left over blocks from my niece's America quilt, some spare melon wedges from my MILs Double Wedding Ring quilt and some blocks that I only had one of. So why not use these single ones as FMQ test pads?? They are now spray basted and just wait for me to decide on how to do it. I probably need to do as yesterday, have a nice glass of wine while I do it.

Oven rosted chicken (stuffed with ginger, lemon and hot chili) and gratin aux potatoes for dinner. Standard for every second Sunday dinner around here :-)

Feathers and mushrooms

2011-09-18T09:44:00.001+02:00

Yesterday The DH came home from another mushroom hunt with 5kg :-o (round 10lbs I think) Autumn chanterelles:

Uncleaned

Cleaned

We sat down on the patio and spent round 2 hrs cleaning it all and got a nice dose of fall sunshine too :-)

After spending round 1hr to parboiling and packaging, I sat down at my Horizon with a glass of wine within easy reach (suggested by quilting people who really know their stuff ;-) and played some more with FMQ and this time I am kind of pleased with the outcome:

because I am in fact, a total noob at this .

Well first put a load in the washer machine, then sewing some unwanted jelly strips (that is strips I will never use cause I simply don't fancy the) together for more FMQ test sandwiches.

Oh - almost forget to tell the best news of all (well from a quilting perspective that is) - my package with Butterfly Garden and basic stuff for embroidery and the two latest issues of Vignette magazine is on it's way from the shop with the best customer care I have ever encountered - Aztek-Rose in Holland. How exiting is that? :-D Wonder how fast/slow it will take for it to make the journey from Holland to Sweden??

Have a lovely Sunday.

Practice, practice and practice again

2011-09-14T15:39:00.000+02:00

I said it before - FMQ is not my strongest forte. But after doing my quilting the easy way out (in the ditch and shapes cut out of freezer paper, iron them to the top and sew along the edges) I have come to a point where I would like to better my skills. And - you can't do that without practice....even though it's not one of my favorite pastimes.....

I do consider myself really good home cook, most of the food I put on the table is made from scratch and from the way food disappears form my table, family and friends thinks I'm good too. But you know, I can cook coeur de filet provencale without batting an eyelid, but when it came to fry and ordinary egg or - make pancakes (the Swedish way) has been such a hassle and I ended up with more pancakes for the dogs than for us :-o.

But darned if I gave up and even though I still think it's a bore to fry enough pancakes (the Swedish way) to feed a family of four, when I feel in my most generous and caring mood I do. So during family powow on Sunday on this weeks menue, The DH wanted crêpes, so said and done, I made enough batter and fried away - round 23-25 pancakes.

Then a prawn stew with dill to fill them with - look enough food to feed a small army!!

I think there was 3 crêpes left when we where finished.

So I toil away on my small practice sandwhiches, most look like sh-t, but I hope that if I continue to make at least one per day, one of these days they will start too look better.

And maybe I ought to stop being so hard on myself and admit that everything don't have (or can't) be picture perfect at once ;-)

Look what I found

2011-09-13T11:41:00.000+02:00

in a tiny drawer down in the basement:

I made these when I was in my later teens - outlined a bookmark and an ad for cat litter ;-o on a piece of muslin and embroidered away with ordinary sewing thread cause I had nothing else. The some severe laps of tiny zigzag round the edges. I know I made several more (one with Pooh holding a baloon), but I think I gave them away.

And here I was worrying that my embroidery skills wouldn't be up to par for the Butterfly Garden project ;-)

Treasure hunting

2011-09-11T12:47:00.002+02:00

You know I think we Swedes has a very strange relationship to mushrooms. Well not any ol' mushroom, but the wild ones found deep in the forests and to obtain them we go on serious hunts. And - you never ever tell a living soul outside the closest setting of your family where to found the mother load of mushrooms. You just show up at work on Monday morning gleefully telling everyone that you found XX kg of this or that kind of mushroom :-O

We "inherited" our place from my in laws, who generously took us to their favorite spot away from habited environments and we always found a lot of mushrooms there when it was a good year. No wonder, we where the only ones there. But as all things come to an end (minor one) if you see a car parked on the edge of the road close to a forrest, you know that the owners is probably on a treasure hunt. So one thing leeds to another and yesterday The DH took the dogs in the wee hours of the morning and drove down there and when they arrived they where the only ones, but when he left there was 5-6 car parked. And he said that there are clear sings that there are plenty of people who has been there.

But he went the furthest into the forrest than he had ever been and look what he came home with:

A plastic bag full with wild chanterelles - I think they weighted at least 5 kg!! Mostly fall ones but also round 10 big ordinary, yellow chanterelle = happy days :-) And no - I wont tell you where he found them LOL.

It took us some hours to clean them and then I parboiled them just enough to be able to deep freeze them - in my freezer now resides 4 containers with enough chanterelles to be used when November darkness turns our souls to mush;-)
For dinner yesterday we had a large serving of stewed chanterelles along with "Hasselbacks potatoes" and leaf beef (like minute beef). Must have turned out good, since there wasn't a smidgen left of anything ;-9

Today is the day when all media even here in Sweden reports on that 9/11 happened 10 years ago. Many "what do you remember" and "what did you do" from all sorts of celebrities, politicians and folks high up in financial institutions. I do recall what I did - I had just been put on sick leave and was laying on the couch watching some day time soap :-o when The DH called me and told me to put on CNN. I watched the first plane crash into one of the Twin Towers and then the next, with a great sense of unreality.....was this a movie shoot or?? But considering it being CNN I realized that it had in fact happened IRL, with devastated consequences worldwide.....and it still affects our world as it is.

Ka -BOM!!

2011-09-06T11:18:00.002+02:00

Ok, confession time - I've never felt a slightest interest in participating in either a NY Mystery (or any other mystery) quilt nor any BOM (Block Of the Month) ones that there is plenty of "out there". I really can't put my finger on exactly why, it maybe has something to do that a lot of quilters worldwide does the same thing. Or almost the same, most choose their own fabrics.

That was until yesterday when I checked out Kvilt Stinas blog where she shows her latest creation - a BOM called Butterfly Garden by Leanne's House by Leanne Beasly. You got to check it out - it's stunningly gorgeous (Stina is so talented that I almost turn green with envy LOL)

and I knew that I just have to make one too. With my own fabrics and colors - of course ;-9

So I finally found a use of the FQ bundle I showed in my last post, I'll probably need some more fabrics and - I need to go shopping for a good embroidery hoop (the Clover one I got is probably too small), embroidery floss, great needles and - the full 10 block pattern. I did some research and there is a very limited number of shops outside of Australia that sells that pattern and the Aussie shops asks for a whopping 196 AUD (1 AUD = 7,30 SEK). But I found a place in Holland that sells it for 92.95 € (1 € = 9.50 SEK). Not a huge difference, but some SEK saved that can be spent on the supplies mentioned above.

But first - order the set and then wait until it gets here, before I go shopping for anything else. Now I'm not very experienced in either embroidery nor applique, but now I'm going to have a project where I learn something new, that cheers me up and keep me occupied during the dark ages aka the horrifying Swedish late fall and winter. A period of the year that makes any sane person start to despair and long to migrate to warmer climates, hibernate or driving of a cliff ;-o

So I'm gonna grab my CC and purchase that pattern. Tallyhooo!!!

Finished

2011-09-04T10:08:00.002+02:00

I can't say that I have very many WIPs (work in progress), but the few I have tend to neglect totally for a period of time. Like the place mats and the headboard cover. But ever now and then inspiration hits me and I manage to finish the project to my liking.

So after having brought out the headboard cover for our bed and found it really good (and The DH agreed) and yesterday I finally sat down and finished it. To get it in place was not that easy, the bed is a double spring mattresses one and heavy as xxxx and sits tight agains the wall, so I had to ask The DH to go upstairs and pull it out a bit for me. In his kindness he put the cover in place and put the bed back and......that's why it's not on straight.... ;-)

I have to admit, I am rather pleased with the result though :-D

So - no more WIPs in this house - hurray!

What to do next? After some time with no creative ideas at all, last night after the cover was in place, dinner eaten and wine drunken, I suddenly was hit by some inspiration: I have a full collection of FQs

that I so far had no idea what to do with. I thought they where very cute when I bought them, but IRL they was kind of too girly for my taste. But - the star blocks I used for my niece's USA quilt are not too difficult to make and with a flying geese border and maybe some other pieced border, some of them FQs can be put to use in a snuggly, girly girl quilt with a long haired fleece as backing. So I have to go and search through my quilt books to find the measurements of the strips to form these stars, I do think they are 2.5inch ones and then decide which FQs to use.

The DH surprised me with breakfast in bed this morning :-), fall has truly fallen upon us early this year = blaaaaaahhhhh but I try to spend as much time as I can outdoors to kind of store up on sun rays and fresh air before the coming dark season. Often I get company on the porch swing

- a 68 lbs heavy lapdog :-D Am currently reading Maria V. Snyder "Inside out". I read her Glass trilogy and enjoyed it very much and I find this one equally good. I see that she also have written the Study trilogy = yet one more "trip" to Amazon.co.uk

Omg

2011-09-02T15:56:00.001+02:00

Imagine - my oldest (15) very heremit like son came home after school, threw some stuff together, got some money, fetched his bus ticket, his grren card and swoched out the door in record time. To go climbing indoors at the climbing centre with some of his friends at school. Hurray i say - finaly he's doing something! "I'll be back later" was the last thing I heard :-)

Before quilting

2011-09-01T15:47:00.002+02:00

there was perfumery. Natural Botanical perfumery that was. After a life as a "perfumaholic" (first came the scent and then came me LOL), suddenly (due to a severe illness) I could no longer stand and comercial, synthetic laden "fumes".

One thought about handmade soaps lead to lotions and potions and - botanical perfumery. What a magnificent world that opened up...........such a wonderful raw materials there are out there and - some you can produce yourself if you have the imagination and curiosity - tinctures of all kinds. Andf I was hooked for quite some years

Until - I took ill again, my olfactory system went from sensitive to overly so. To that extent that I can lie in my bed on one side of the house at the top floor and smell the DHs shower gel and what toothpaste he uses in the bathroom one floor down on the other side of the house. So I found quilting (or it found me) and kind of gave up on perfumery. I do have created some blends over the last years for a very special group of fellow botanical perfumers, but not much else and not for myself.

And so - today - while reading a review of some comercial perfumes, the memory of different raw materials started to tease my olfactory system - vanilla, tonka, coumarine heavy grass tincture................and what do you know - I'm sitting here with a small list of essential oils, absolutes and concretes, just waiting to be experimented with.

Later - and I did. Created a new base chord without any real formula thought out in advance ( to the above was added some patchoulis and a wee bit of sandalwood vanuatu) and right after blending the scent smelled more than ok on a scent strip and after 30hrs it still was there.

Now I do know from experience, that what smells good upon blending can turn to murky eau de mud after a while. So it will just have to sit there (the beaker is tiny, it just holds a couple of mils), maturing for some time before adding some florals in the heart. I have neroli and orange flower absolute down for that and after browsing Arctander's "bible" (Perfume and Flavor materials of natural origin - an absolute must) maybe the tiniest amount of a gorgeous Tuberose absolute..... I might even delve into the treasure chest where all my rare and special samples of that mostly came as gifts from my very dear and über generous friend L in SF are stored, since this scent is just for me :-D

So cross your fingers and pray that this will turn out, well not magnificent, but at least quite good ;-)

James Cameron Jr ????

2011-08-21T20:38:00.002+02:00

I do have Sam' permission to post this here;

It's a school assignment in the "picture and form" class (Swedish "Bild och Form") where they was divided into teams and was to make a 3-4 minutes long video - whatever topic they choosed. Sam's team chose a soccer inspired theme, but after thinking long and hard, Sam it wasn't his thing and decided to jump ship and do his very own movie - Top Gun on a M1800 motorcycle.

Since Sam is such a stickler for details, it took a while for him to get to the start-to-shoot point and the weeks that followed was enough to drive any parent up the wall and in the end, he was not finished when school was out. But we made one thing very clear to him - before the start of the fall term, that #€€%%&&& film had to be finished. One thing I learned from this - never threat a teenager into doing anything - bribe him instead ;-o

Tomorrow school starts and - today the whole movie is finished in all of it's glory. Let me tell you this - I'm so frigging proud of my darling son - he did deliver on time on money LOL, but not only that - the film is great!

So - here it is: M1800 riders, hopefully you'll like it ;-)

Notes:
The girl is our neighbors sons (Viktor) girlfriend Petrina and it's Viktor who shot that scene. The M1800 rider is of course The DH, Sam is a bit too young to handle that machine ;-)

"SLUT" has nothing to do about loose women;-P. It's simply the Swedish word for "The End".

And the grave side sequence is not filmed at a real grave, but something we put together on our property with a piece of slate and some flowers. I find that scene well put together and quite touching.

Even John, aged 12.5 yrs think that Sam has done a terrific job. If that isn't high praise, I don't what is ;-9

Whats not to like???

2011-08-20T16:42:00.000+02:00

I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone in this world who starts a project, work on it until almost the end and then - fall out of love with it. Happily it hasn't happened very often, but it's so unsatisfying when it does.

During the winter I worked on a new cover for the headboard of our bed and since The DH likes all sorts of mariners compasses, I decided to use that pattern, but in a more easy way - with wedges. I worked and worked and.....got all the way beyond quilting and adding the front piece that goes beneath the mattresses and was just about to add the side and back coverings and kaboom - out of nowhere comes the unlove!!

So I packed it away and tried to figure out what else to decorated the cover with?? Nothing - absolutely nothing spoke to me. Until........

I tried the wedge work for a seat cover using only 16 "spikes" instead of the 32 I used before. Holy Mahoney, I can't remember when I used Mr Grim Ripper as often as I had today....what was so clear to me the first time I used this method has been totally befuddled today and I know I ought to rip it all apart again. Or start over or...something.
But I just had to bring out the headboard cover and check what and how I did it then. And know what??
I like it again! I mean what's not to like about it?????? Me thinks it's pretty great :-D

The picture looks kind of wobbly cause I draped it over the porch swing ;-)

So now I have to take new measurements and get that backside added, cross my fingers and hope it fits in the end.

Now onwards to the kitchen where dinner waits to get cooked.

Auto love

2011-08-20T09:37:00.000+02:00

When we got home from the vacation my oldest fell on his knees in the hallway, kissed the floor and said "home, I'm home!". Yesterday I did something similar; getting my biiiiiig car back from service (having to drive one small and one even smaller car for 1.5 day :-o), I kissed the steering wheel and said "my car, oh my car!" Sillly me ROFLMFAO!!

Not knowing what to sew next, I've started on a mariners compass (one block only) to make a test seat cover. Not in blues, but in several hues of pinks.

It rains so no Mälaren Runt for the DH :-(

Change of plans

2011-08-14T13:05:00.000+02:00

Forget what I wrote below - after auditioning all kinds of blue fusion fabrics I came to the conclusion that I really don't like that top. I think it's the third project ever that I have abandoned fully, but never mind - it's just bits of fabrics ;-9

To little

2011-08-14T10:37:00.000+02:00

I'm sure this happens to all of you, but nevertheless it's danged annoying when it occurs - you are almost out of fabric! No, not that the stash is running low, but when you finally find the perfect fabric for your project and you realize that there is too little of it to go last.

There I was, having done something with my trial run of hexagons...... that is I followed Melody's suggestion and used black as a contrast and put them all together in a row with the intent of making a table runner out of it.

For that to happen I needed something to applique this row of flowers onto. I swear, I went through almost my entire stash to find something that worked. I even went as far as to cut up some red Kaufman Flourish fabric and hand stitched it halfway when I realized that it wasn't it. Finally I gave up and asked The DH for advice, he took one look and said "darkish blue" and at once I knew what fabric to use - Robert Kaufman Fusions 5574-80 Evening. The pic is very unfocused, but you get the grip - it works!

And whatdayaknow? As you can see there isn't enough of it! I bought it from Sewthankful, but of course it was on clearance and they have no more of it in stock. Googled but found only the usual Fusions fabrics, not this one - see me pout here :-( If there is anyone out there who has any idea on where to get some or - have a piece to sell me, please send me a message.

Dark clouds are sailing up and not only in my mind LOL, dark charcoal grey ones, a strong wind and I'll bet it's gonna rain pretty soon. You sometimes it's the little things in life that puts a smile on you face, like getting a new tea mug:

It's painted with different herbs and it comes with a small tray to put your sandwich on and a little lid/saucer:

Think I'm going to make me a nice cup of jasmine tea :-)

Latest purchases and thoughts about prices

2011-08-10T14:41:00.000+02:00

I still consider myself to build my stash, so I buy fabrics I fancy, rather more than with any specific use in mind. Yesterday found my postbox with two USPS flatrate envelopes, stuffed with my latest purchase from Thousands of Bolts, one of my two favorite fabric online stores.

12 yards for just a bit over 500SEK including postage :-) That my friends is round 43 SEK per yard! Can anyone residing in Sweden explain to me why anyone shops at their Swedish LQS (or Swedish online stores) where fabrics are at 150-160 SEK per meter??? The only reason I can think of is if you want to view and match fabrics IRL, but that goes for the LQS only.... but in both cases you are ripped of. OK ToB is an outlet, but I find their range and quality as good as anyone.
The other online store I favour is Fat Quarter World where I occasionally get my Jelly Rolls, Charm packs and an FQ bundles. OK they are not as cheap as ToB, but they have excellent customer services and ships in flatrate envlopes. Every now and then I splurge on a 0.5yrd of some new fabrics, compared to Swedish prices they are still very low, round 65 USD/yard or something like that.

Sam and I went to the vets and had the girls nails fixed, the drive home was a race against the dark clouds and right now we have heavy rains, thunder and lightnings. Poor Fiona hates this and wines constantly, even with fatty cotton plugged in her ears and the radio on.....being gun shy ain't easy. I think I'm going to go out and open up the RV, she feels so much safer out there.

Almost a miracle

2011-08-09T14:05:00.003+02:00

You know how this work with putting the hexagon flowers together have stumped me artistically. It went so far that I laid in bed at night wrestling with hexies thoughts ......round and round.

Then Melody came up with the most genius sugestion - putting solid color hexagons round the colored ones, so of to IKEA I went and bought 7.5 meters of solid black and solid of-white fabrics at sale - SEK 19.00/meter (less than USD 3.00)!!! Since the fabrics at IKEA is far from a good quality, I washed them both separately, dried and ironed them just to be sure of evenness in cutting. Then cut and cut and baste and baste....a lot of little black hexagons, stitched some to two of the flowers and know what? The colors just popped out!!
Look here:

From being an undistinguished jumble of mishmash (se earlier post) bits, the flowers became distinct - miraculous huh? So last night in front of Navy CIS and The Stepford Wifes I basted even more black hexagons, almost holding my breath with the possibilities and having a small creative fit. Ok, the pic above isn't the best one, the camera in the cell phone is great, but not so great that it can take these hard contrasts. But it's going to be very interesting to see how the different colored flowers will hold up to a black border.... Soon very soon I will bring these back small thingees and some flowers out and start stitchin. But first I'm going to copy Stevie Nicks latest solo album that I borrowed from the music club at work. You pay just under 20USD per year and have access to a huge variety of new and old albums. Sweet deal LOL.

Now some might think that hand stitching is beyond tedious and boring, but I love it. Well not so much that I would hand quilt a bedspread LOL, but it's something about this EPP that is mind numbing and soul soothing at the same time. As my former (and the best doc ever) said - Wolfie, sewing is god for the soul! Nobody knows why, but there is something cerebral about it :-D

Thank you so much Melody for your suggestion, without it I would still be stumped. Hugs!

PS I don't know if my dogs love pancakes or lasagna the most, but the latter last longer:

After these two had a go at the dish, you could almost skip the washer ROFLMAO.

The challenge of EPP hexagons

2011-08-07T11:50:00.000+02:00

Reading Mark Lepinski's blog about various aspects of creativity from his point of view, is actually kind of mind boggling and ofter very challenging. That is - in a good kind of way :-)

And that is how I find working with English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagons. Well not to cut and cover them, not even to sew them together - that is easy peasy - whip-stitch-whip-stitch - just like when Sid tried to teach Diego how to swim in Ice Age - paw-kick-paw-kick LOL.

So there you are with 500 fabric hexagons and you sort them after color and after the first experiment where I sewed them on to each other circle wise. Well it did turn out quite ok (see earlier post), but I was still left with umpteenth hexis. So this time I put them together the traditional way, one in the middle and six "petals" and ended up with this:

Kind of hard to try to mach these babies - huh? So the Virgo me and The Grim Ripper got to work and ended up with this:

A pile of hexagons.....Tried to match make 'em better this time, tried to keep to a color theme for each flower instead of going "the more the merrier", laid them out on the table and made little piles - one for each "flower". Found out that it was kind of hard to get these piles not to topple over and keep the hexis in the right assembly order. Then I came up with this so simple idea (in facts it's so simple that I'm pretty sure someone else already done it).
Take ordinary steel pins with flat tops:

stack your stack and push a pin right through the middle. I laid the center hex at top and pushed the needle from the bottom of the pile:

and the little pile "sits" on the flat top :-)

So you sew them all together one more time:

and you get a new nice little stack of flowers.

And it's here where it starts to get tricky for me. I have been quilting for 4 years now and enjoyed most of it and most of the stuff I'm quite proud of, either because I think they look good, or as with the assignment pieces - that I pulled them of instead of crying and giving up.
I am (in mine and others) opinion at my best when it comes to put colors and patterns together, the actual quilting is not my forte, specialty not FMQ....vojjne.

I've done a lot of stuff over the years and even if things hasn't looked good to start with, they in some mysterious way came together in the end. But now I am stumped, I have my pile of flowers and for the life of me can't come up with a working solution on how to marry them the best way. The problem might lay in the fact that I used four different fabrics in each flower, but using only two seemed so ....frugal?

I read somewhere that EPP is a year or more so project and I believe them. Oh yeah, I do believe them.
I put up the sorry excuse for a design wall that I have (The DH promised me he will do a more proper one for me) and started to play around.

This time I tried to pin them up in a sort of color order, otherwise it looked very very muddily.
I realize two things - I have no clue on the this project will be when it has grew up ;-9 or - I didn't plan any color scheme before I started. I just cut through my stash of scraps and some jelly strips, using whatever stroke my fancy and in the end I had to cut into some of my FQs to get the colors even out.

Now the big question is - do I leave them as they are in the picture and try in some way to work on filling the gaps? In my mind I can't see myself making a large piece with 1 inch hexagons, but who knows? Is there a way to make each color to stand out better? Or do I just start over again?

The biggest issue for me with this kind of sewing is I simply can't figure out how you plan the color and audition the fabrics to start with due to the size and - the shape of the hexagons. And it really galls me, I use to be able to figure patterns out, I mean - I did a Double Wedding Ring quilt that came out rather nicely after all :-D so why can't I solve this???

I think I go downstairs and cut up the browny, fudgey cake I baked yesteray. And I even might splurge on a tiny bit or two LOL.

More organizing

2011-08-06T16:43:00.000+02:00

In my quest to tidy up my sewing supplies, I made a quick trip to our nearby IKEA store (appr 15-20 minutes drive from here) to get some storage boxes. I found a new line called "Kvarnvik"
quite nice I thought and got 5 of them in different sizes:

I borrowed the pic from IKEA's website, cause I can't get mine to photograph well:-(

Of course when it comes to IKEA you have to put all sorts of things yourself, even this and the descriptions isn't always self-explanatory......but us long suffering Swedes are used to them LOL.

So two of these boxes (for papers) now hold my smallish stash of FQs, one (for CDs I think) hold Charm Packs (now that is a tiny collection) and one for rulers etc.

Moved a few more books around to get place for all that:

and look - I have even rolled up my jelly rolls :-D

The books BTW are half of my collections of cookbooks and books on gardening that I could't fit in anywhere else....Can't help but wonder what on earth I'm going to do the day the stash grows out of these shelves). Talking about that, I bought a few things from Fat Quarter World last week and here is what I got:

A Moda Jelly roll and 1/2 yrd each from Nancy Halvorsens new collection - a quite modest purchase if you ask me;-9

The hexagons...... well I truly need to put my mind together to talk about them. Talk about a BIIIIIIIGGG challange!!

The last of the cathedrals

2011-08-05T09:03:00.000+02:00

Decided to take the day of before all get back from vacation next week. Realized I forgot to post a pic of the last Cathedral Window pillow I made before the summer holidays, as with it's former siblings, I'm quite pleased with it:

But as usual with pastels (and blues) it's very hard to get the hues right, specially when using the cell phone one. The light pink background fabric is not as dominant IRL as it is in the picture.

Think I'm going to get ready and go to IKEA when they open at 10am, to buy some boxes and baskets.
Later my musings about hexagons and EPP.

Make over

2011-08-03T17:32:00.001+02:00

I used to have a very nice studio, well organized, neat and tidy....the change started when I fell into the grasp of the quilting bug. To get room for my fabrics I had to move several Rubber Maid bins with all kind of stuff for soap, candle and cream making down to the basement. Then The DH build a make shift "garage" for the RV right outside my window and poof - every single ray of daylight was omitted! And let me tell you, it ain't easy to audition fabrics in poor lamp light.

I have been frustrated ever since and last night it hit me - if I move the books from one of the Billy bookcases in the hallway into the Ivar shelves in the studio, I'll get full daylight and - can enjoy my ever growing stash each time I pass through the hallway.

So why wait when you can spend 3 hrs with +25C in the shadow outside and +25C inside? As usual I went full tilt ahead and did it all in one single go, with the exception of a quick cooling dip in the pool. I forgot to take a pic of the actual case I emptied, but it looked quite like this:

OMG, the stuff The DH clutter up my cases with ......

The interesting this with doing something like this is that you find books you didn't know you owned and/or completely forgotten. And - the same goes for the fabrics......I found some pretty ones I had no clue I owned.
So the books went inside the studio - I own so many that I have to stack them in two rows, so I put the old ones in the back and the newest, most readable ones in the front:

The Billy shelf in the hallway showed to hold more fabrics than the Ivar. I confess, when I look how neatly other people stack their fabrics, I realize I have no clue on how achieve that.... I am quite envious, cause deep down my Virgo neatness longs for such order. Until I figure it out, I am pleased with the outcome nevertheless:

Not the best picture in the world, will try later to take a better one, but lokkie lookie - there is one almost empty bottom shelf :-) Said that I remember that I haven't stacked the latest purchases and - I need some bins for Jelly Rolls, Charm packs etc.....

I probably need to more books in a not so faraway future ;-9

Time to fix dinner for my soccer playing oldest darling.

PS The DH who is at times a very understanding guy (when it comes to hobbies LOL) looked at the change when he came home from work and exclaimed "fabrics!!!". The he stroke my back and said "honey you got a lot of fabrics here". My reply was "compared to what? and of he went on his motorcycle with his biking friends.

Before I came upstairs I turned on the lights and viewed this days work and know what? I am mighty pleased with myself :-D

Inspired week

2011-07-30T13:04:00.000+02:00

Last week (before going back to work after a 4 week vacation) was unusual inspiring. First cam the latest issue of Quilters Newsletter. In my opinion that magazine has kind of slide downhill the last 2 years and I had stopped my prescription, only to take it up at the issue before this. I was so disappointed in that one, so this last issue was such a great surprise - it was truly inspirational magazine. Imagine I found three patterns and two new fabric collections I coveted.
But believe me - there has never been such a great quilters magazine as Quilters Home under Mark Lipinski! That one was a true joy to read from cover to cover.

Lucky for us, Mark has an ongoing project on his blog about the creative process from a lot of various angels and they all make perfect sense. All I can say is hop right over and read all of these blog posts, they are fun and enlightening and makes you go hmmmmm, ouhmmm, yahhh etc. etc.

Then my order from Paper Pieces for a hexie 1 inch starter pack and a book arrived on Tuesday - that was the quickest USA-Sweden turnaround time ever. I placed the order on Friday and it arrived on Tuesday - simply amazing. The books is full of solid advice and ideas for creativity. right now I think I need to browse through it again because I have piles of hexies that I simply can't find the right color placement for.

But first - back to the 3 loads of laundry that is on my to do list for the day.
Have a lovely weekend :-D

Now what?

2011-07-25T21:42:00.000+02:00

In preparation for going on vacation, I asked for some advice on what hand sewn quilt project I could take along. And apart from Cathedral Windows (which I had done plenty lately - in fact I don't think I have shown you the last one - the pinkish and I think I need to take a pic of it tomorrow.....) there was a joint "English Paper Piecing" reply.

Ok I admit, I have always found EPP kind of grannyish, very old-fashioned. But in need, bow in and make do with what there is - I mean not that the Horizon would,'t fit into the RV, but heck if there in a table sturdy enough to carry it's 14kg of weight. So I found a site with printable hexagons in various sizes. Well we all have to learn somewhere don't we? Hexagons seemed to be the easiest of the various shapes and as I wrote in an earlier post, I printed and cut out 898 1 inch hexagon paper pieces. And - I managed to cut out fabrics in various colors and shades from my scrappy stash and left over jelly rolls strips in between all the other vacation planning. I didn't have time to muse over or plan the design nor colors, just used whatever fancied me.

So during our 2 week vacation in the RV, I managed to cover exactly 500 hexagons with all them small fabric bits

Back home I started to assembly them and I'm pretty sure I went about it the wrong way - I think you are supposed to sew 6 pieces to a middle one, but instead I kind of sewed the pieces on in circles outside that middle piece. Still without any idea on how to design the thing, I picked one color the for each "circle". There was times in this project when I thought this was the ugliest piece of patchwork I have done in a long time, but in the end I kind of fancy it. This is how it looks - one pic in daylight with the piece nailed to the outside wall ;-o

and one taken inside on a slightly pinkish wallpaper:

The true look is more like the outside pic and I kind of like it. The DH calls it the "beehive" just because of the shape.

Now the big questions is - how to proceed?? I intent to use it on a large pillowcase (what is it with me and pillowcases???) but the shape....????? Do I applique it on a solid colored piece of fabrics or what?
I have ordered a book on the subject on EPP, but I'm not sure I have the patens (sp??) to wait for it to arrive.

Time to get ready for bed, have a meeting with an eye doc tomorrow morning, so no sleeping late :-(

Roadtrip 2011 - the full version

2011-07-24T12:29:00.000+02:00

After much planning, fixing and packing 3 weeks ago, the RV was ready for take of - first destination was Lindstad outside of Huskvarna to leave the furry gals at Fionas kennel. The kennel is set right in the middle of nowhere and even though Fionas breeder no longer raise RR puppies, the kennel is full of canine guests. I would lie if I said I have well behave dogs that voluntarily went into the box.....actually we had to gently push them ;-)

The first primary goal was Gothenburg, but instead of driving there directly, we stayed at a very nice camping ground outside of Jönköping called Lövsjö camping. It's situated at a small lake with surrounding woods - very picturesque. Sam and John went swimming in the lake while I made dinner.

First camping dinner for the year and Sam is gearing up for the big event on Sunday evening - The Big 4 concert at Ullevi in Gothenborg

I know I have promised never to post pics of my kids, but hey - you can hardly see that it's my oldest. The attitude? Now this is what you get when you raise a kid on hard rock concerts ROFLMAO. Nahhh, behind them shades he is the sweetest thing most of the times.
Both me and the boys truly want to come back here, the DH is not overly convinced though I have no clue why.

Onwards to Gothenburg and one of the camping grounds that is owned by Liseberg - Kärrdal. The plot we was given was a sorry excuse of a plot - we couldn't even put our chairs out. Well the whole grounds was utterly boring - the only good thing was that the tram ran closely and it takes 10 minutes to the Liseberg amusement park and 15 to downtown and one thing is for sure, we will never get back unless it is some great concert. I confess, I had totally and completely forgotten how much I love this town. My maternal grandma lived here and when I left home I visited her a lot. That lady was always well turned out - tailor made clothes, hats, crinking corset, well made up and smelled nice always. And despite her somewhat stern look, she was a hoot. I will never forget when she and a close friend danced the Charleston for me :-D Hmmm, maybe my sis was there too? It's so long ago and my memory is short ;-
Well we went downtown, walked around, bough me and John new shoes (The DH is a marvel in picking out nice shoes for me), a new backpack for The DH and a shirt for Sam and then we where ready for some RR at the Hard Rock Café. Burgers, spareribs and a Caesar salad. But first - a cold lovely drink - Strawberry Daiquiri:

Next day we tried in vain to find the large Ferris wheel down at the harbor, but gave up when we came to the Central Station. HAHAHAHA, if only we had gone 2 or 3 more blocks we would have been right at it.
John and me took the train to Liseberg, while The DH and Sam went to Ullevi to get in line for the concert. Now lesson number 1- never walk in new shoes for too long, no matter how soft and comfy they are. I had to walk around barefoot the entire afternoon with blistered heels.

Neither John nor me are much for riding attractions but out plan was to at least go on the Flumeride. Well right - guess how long the line was??? Fivefold and John stated that noway in h-l he would wait in that line. So we wondered around, had some snacks, bought the most teethhurtingly sweet slush (even John thought it was too sweet and throwed it away and I can assure you that that's a first), John played at a lot of wheels, hit-this-or-that and such and won absolutely nothing. But he was in good sprits nevertheless. Went back to the Flumeride, but now the line was even longer so we took the tram back, bought some pizza and just hanged out.

After a good night sleep for everyone, onwards to Tylösand which in my mind is one large beach and plots with seaview. Taha, whatdayaknow - the campingground was situated mostly in the woods! Well we did get a very nice large corner plot but where the heck is the sea? Me and the DH went for a walk to try to find it but gave up, but John went around on his bike and he found it. The thing was that you had to walk a bit on a boardwalk and then you came to this:

Amazing, you can hardly believe that you are in Sweden. We spent an afternoon there sitting on our Brasse chairs, catching the sun while the kids happily swam in the Atlantic ocean, had some ice creams and soft drinks.

Nice as it was, I don't think we will come back to this place though.

So far we had booked our camping lots in advance, but it's always a risk since you also have to pay in advance. So from here and onwards we called the camping grounds 1-2 days in advance and had no problem finding a place to stay.

It was jointly decided to return to our favorite place from last year - Torekov and was in such luck that we got the best place of them all - close to the beach, close to Torekov city and the only spot with a complete open ocean view:

There is a tennis tournament called Swedish Open that is hosted in the nearby town of Båstad every year. And with that comes all the brats and "I'm cooler than you" kind of young people. You knw - the kind with porkchop hairdos, fast and xpensive cars, poolo shirts with a special little mar and who "sink" champagne.....buy one bottle to drink and one to poor down the sink...isn't that the most ignorant and idiotic behavior. Well luckily, the tournament started after we left, so the kids had just started to arrive.

We loved it so much here that we ended up staying 5 days. We walked over to Torekov and got some delish seafood sandwiches (except for Sam who had a burger) and two nights we had luxe pizzas - talk about great vacation time;-) One of the most favorite things for kids to do here is to go crabbing. John tried his luck on one of the piers, but in lack of the crabs favorite bait shrimps, non of them did bite :-(

After these five marvelous days (trust me, we are coming back next year and will book this plot long in advance) we felt the need to move on and even though some of The DHs riders who came visiting told us that Mölle was great, I still wanted to go to Råå - cause it looked nice in the cataloge.

Lesson II: never trust the pictures in the camping.Sweden catalogue!! We asked for a corner lot (these are the best for getting the RV in place more easily) and look what we got:

view from one side and view from the other direction

As in Tylösand the sea was kind of hidden LOL. Well you can't see it from most part of the camping ground and for these with the best situated lots, there was "vallar" between. Me and the DH took a walk and just saw grass and sea, but then I went the other direction alone and found this:

You don't see it but the beach is quite lower than the "vallar" so you have to walk down a long stair to get to it.

The camping ground hosted a 50m long swimming pool, but know what? Even though we had paid for our lot and electricity, they still wanted admission fees for the pool. My economically minded kids refuse to go there ;-). This is not a place we ever going to come back to.

Time to mix with the rich and famous? We booked two nights at Ljungens camping in Falsterbo (most known for the annual Falsterbo Hourseshow) and from what we heard is the most posh place in the entire Kingdom of Sweden to have a summer house in. The prices asked for a little cottage is astronomical...

Well the camping ground was so and so - the plot was surrounded by grown hedges, so it gave a lovely feeling of privacy and so far so good, but in the rear end, the one and only heavily trafficked road leading into Skanör Falsterbo passed by. The DH and the kids went out on their bikes exploring but was not very convinced of the place grandness. Two days was enough, so onwards to Norje Boke.

We had decided to follow the Skåne coastal line instead of going on the motorway and my oh my how beautiful it is and we found some places where we very well can imagine to move to when the kids are grown up and we have retired.

The trip took 3-4hrs and here are some random pics shot through the window:

After a couple of hours we arrived in the Norje Boke camping grounds. Now it is kind of funny, but Norway is spelled Norge in Swedish and is pronounced like Norje. Or so we thought, we found out that the O is kind of hard in Norje, but nevertheless, it does sound very much alike.
We where given a great lot - a corner one under old large trees almost directly on the beach:

Look great doesn't it? Hmmm, just turn your camera a bit to the right and you see this:

Now you may call me grumpy, but I can for the life of me understand what's wrong with parents of today. I am not that old nor stern, but I do believe that kids should be raised not to disturb other people. Of course kids should play and have fun - but is it necessary to shriek and shout on the top of your lungs when people "live" nearby? Of course the kids here was on the beach and on the playground without any parental supervision.
HA, but there are not only kids that don't behave - we met a lot of grownups as well who under the influence of to much alcohol behaved worse than bad. Wont bore you with the details, but they totally managed (along with overly salted roasted pork) destroy what was supposed to be a nice night out :-(

The trees we parked under:

They must be some remnants of the Fangorn Forrest ;-)

Our home away from home and we love it.

After 4 days it was time to leave, we where booked from the 18th on Bödasand on Öland. This time we took the motorway when we came upon it and when we came closer to Kalmar (the mainland city before the bridge to Öland) the weather started to shift and after checking up on the forecast we made a snap decision - we are going home! I mean, who in their right mind voluntarily goes to a camping ground when the forecast says heavy rain for several days.

So after an extremely boring trip crosswise (from Kalmar over to Jönköping) where there is nothing but forests, small unexciting villages, forests and forests. After 5 hours (pitstop at Burger King at the way) we came back to the kennel and oh my - what happy dogs! When they where released they didn't which foot to stand on, they ran in circles and jumped at us with full RR force LOL.
We didn't linger, but packed them up and of we went and you have never seen more relieved and extremely tired dogs. They both found "their" places and slept all the way home.

After being on the road since 10am, we arrived home at 8pm. Me and the kids unloaded the RV in 30 min. flat (talk about teamwork), Sam fell on his knees and kissed the floor in the hallway and me - I cooked dinner.

Two summers on camping ground we are starting to wonder if that is truly our style???? We do have all necessities and comforts onboard, why live closely people you don't know or even like? Well it's a long step to go from camping grounds to what here is called "free camping"...only time will tell.

All I can say is that we had two very nice weeks together and we are lucky to be at home and not in the parts where there is torrential rains. If you might wonder what I did to pass the time when the men in my life was on the computer, played PS3 (yup) or watched DVDs, look here:

I had printed and cut 900 1 inch hexagons and fabric to cover and at the end of the 2 weeks I had used up every single piece of fabric. This is the result of my handiwork - and had covered hexagons which I currently is piecing together after my own fashion. Not entirely sure I'm doing it the right way, but I look upon it as a learning piece :-)

One more week of vacation = yayyyy.

Happy Midsummer ?

2011-06-23T13:41:00.000+02:00

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

2011-06-18T14:17:00.011+02:00

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

2011-06-16T17:48:00.000+02:00

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

2011-06-10T10:47:00.001+02:00

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.

Generousity

2011-05-27T22:55:00.000+02:00

For the last couple of days I have (once more) been thinking about how generous some people are to virtual strangers. Like when I found this

in the mail two days ago. These beauties came from Annika, the girl who got my extra O2 Horizon foot. The thing is - I love surprises, both to give and to receive, so along with the foot, I cut some pieces of some of the latest fabrics I bought and sent them too.

As long as I have been active online in several handicraft groups and forums, I have met truly generous people and all of them women. Botanical perfumery, handmade natural toiletries, soy candles, mineral makeup and now - quilting, where all girls willingly share knowledge and materials. I have got: books, I have got makeup brushes and flocked sponges, I got exotic botanical materials, lovely tinned jars, home grown and distilled lavender oil and waters. Some friends has acted as go-betweens when more substantial stuff has been bought - like a pool cleaner and tableware for the RV;-) And I have got threads, fabrics (ack you should have seen the immensely large zip locked bag filled with 2.5inch strips in blue, red and white that the Pickles had collected for me some year ago and hear a sigh of pure amazement) and I got nifty notions like a small 1/4in ruler in clear plastic. All this stuff that is almost impossible to get here. Everytime one of these packages has arrived, I've been struck with gratitude and couldn't help to ask myself "how is this possible"? That women on the other side of the world comes to a poor Swedish girl's rescue?

Of course I have reversed their kindness, trying to find typical Swedish things to send and that my friends are not exactly easy;-) since most things in our stores are imported. But one think I've been thinking of even more, is that this seem to be a female trait. Now, I don't have any experience from any male dominant groups, but The DH has his motorcycle club (M1800riders) and I don't see very many of his members sending him anything, only the other way around :-(

"Give and you shall receive" and know what - I'm positively sure that that's just the way things are :-D

Latest achievement

2011-05-17T21:30:00.000+02:00

We needed new pillows for the couch in the living room and I had to think long and hard in what design to make the rectangular ones, not wanting to copy the old ones. At first I was lending towards some blocks from the Japanese Quilt Block book, but since I already used some designs from that book, I was not really up to it. And then it hit me - Cathedral Windows!! Maybe with bits from that latest FQ bundle? Nahh, to mundane...what I really fancy are jewel colors. Said and done - out with all the bags of scraps and start sorting through them and I ended up with one pile of reds, one of greens, some yellows and some in between.

This is the first time ever I think, when I have felt a twinge of joy in the middle of a project, but as I started to add these tiny bits to the windows, I felt pure joy. And - the end result bring me imense pleasure, now I just have to wait for more of the cathedral fabric and that mamba green/gold one to arrive, so I can make one more like it.

Right now we have some awful weather - heavy showers of rain and hail - gash. But here is something reminding us of sunnier times:

My sweet sunbathing Fiona :-D

In need of project

2011-05-17T15:29:00.000+02:00

Well summer is approaching (even though todays weather leaves a lot to be desired for) and it's high time to start thinking what kind of hand sewing project I can bring along for our RV vacation. I do have some books on applique, the latest "Flowers, Hearts and Garlands Quilt" arrived in the mail the other day and honestly, I absolutely don't get it.....:-( I think I need to revisit my books on applique, including Dear Jane and some versions of Baltimore quilts, because as it is now I have no inspiration at all. But I do need to find some pattern so I can start audition fabrics and purchase the ones I need - yayy LOL. But I have found some usable threads, a small collection of YLi's silk variegated ones. I've said this before, but I do love variegated threads - they are like jewels me think and they are extremely useful. Since I dollar vs SEK exchange rate is so favorable for us right now, I might as well splurge :-o

Anyone with favorite applique patterns to share - please holler!

One of these days (bit of longish)

2011-05-12T09:40:00.000+02:00

I checked out Kviltstinas blogg yeasterday and my oh my what a miracle she has accomplished!! From a like unruly storage space to a quilt studio showroom - she must have worked like a derviche. And the now the studio isn't only a marvelous creativ working space, but it kind of mirrors Stina's blog as well - the colors, the layout, the feeling.....

And I get somewhat jeleous...I want something like that too. No the coloring and such, but the space and the possiblilities that comes with it. Today I have a rather small studio that was originaly set up for my natural toiletries and botanical perfume making with a small desk (posstivily overrun by glass bottles holding tinctures and various old perfume blends, nailpolishes and other clutter), 3 IKEA Ivar bookshelves, two cabinets, one armchair and a couple of glass shelves holding my dilluted essential oils, absolutes and concretes, forming a small perfumers organ. When the quilt bug hit me bad, I cleaned out the middle IVAR and a lot of Rubber Maid bins went down into storage in the basement and now it holds my fabric stash. Well at least part of it - opened Jelly Rolls and bags of scraps, IKEA fabrics for pillow backs, a fleece blanket, a couple of meters of T-shirt fabric (pink :-o what did I think of??) and some VIP that never will be finished are all piled upon the armchair, boxes of threads sits inside one of the cabinets, rulers here, stabilisators and freezing paper there.....and - nailpolishes in the very small spaces in between. Needless to say, that place is impossible to work in, at least sewing no matter how much I would clean up the mess - there isn't simply enough room for all three passions of mine.

Sooooooo - I have a plan :-9 Even though our house is quit large, the layout is done in a strange way, leaving us short of bedrooms but with big open spaces in between. As it is now, John has the large den on the topfloor as his room,but he starts to long for a real room with a door to close behind him.

So if I clean out my studio, paint the walls, manage to fit in a closet and somehow convince The DH to draw a lot of cables and install outlets for TV and internet, then Sam can move down there (he will get a bit larger room than he has today then) and John can move into Sam's small room (but is has a door and a small walk-in closet). Sell the Italian corner leather couch (now that is going to be a hard nut to crack with The DH) and the sofa table, clean out all the medium high Billy bookshelves in the "hallway" from kiddy stuff and then - I will have a large space just for me, lighted wonderfully. A verraaahhhhh large space in total :-D

A cutting table, an ergonomical sewing space, nice shelvings for books and patterns, the Billys to hold the fabric stash and my collection of lovely tin boxes (from my overly generous friend Lisa in USA) to hold all notions. Maybee I can even convince The DH to make me thread holders and - I think I keep the armchair for handiworks in comfort. Thus the dining room table will be free of the sewing machine and what ever ongoing project I'm working on, all little notions that sits on the bookshelves will be gone and so will the quilting books and magazines, holders filled with clippings and whatnot....

Ack ack, maybe it all will just have to wait until Sam leaves home? But in the meantime I dream a little dream for me LOL.

More strange animal owners

2011-05-03T16:49:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I took Fiona for her "every 3 week" manicure at the vets and just inside the door sat a woman with 3 Chinese Crested/Powder Puffs. One of the started to bark at Fiona and that women went "oh she is an alfa, thats why she barks, she don't know she is small". Normally I don't get in clinch with these types of persons, but this time I just glared at her and went "I hardly think she is alfa bitch to Fiona". The girl got all flubbery and changed her version to that the barking ninny was alfa to the other of her dogs.

In the waiting room we met a gorgeous BIG male dog who I thought was a cross Ridgeback and Rotweiler, but he was a Rotweiler Amstaff mix at "only" 90lbs at 11mo old. Oh he had the kindest sweetest eyes and was calm as a cucumber. We sat there doing small talk when an elder woman came through the door carrying a cat cage, looked us over and said "oh how many dogs there are". Many dogs? Heck it was just two of them there, the tinis resided at the bench inside the door. She got singed in, looked at us again and went "there are so many dogs here today". I just couldn't help myself but blurted "oh is he allergic to dogs then??" "Oh no, but dogs usually bark at him". Here she had us big dog owners in titters (and no, don't get me wrong, I have nothing agains small dogs nor cats) and neither of us had ever had our dogs barking at a cat...chasing them - yup, but never bark and especially never barked at all at the vet waiting room. One of Leo's (the big boy) three "mothers" whispered "but please feel free to let him out and he will certainly be well exercised" and we giggled like silly little girls LOL. Sorry, I know it isn't nice beaviour, but sometimes you can't just help yourself, specially when other animal owners behaves is such silly ways.

Well Fiona was reluctant to go with the vet assistant but came back after a little while having behaved very well and got her her piggy treat ear - as usual:-) Finally it turned out that her claw pulps are very long (even though I take her every 3 weeks for a mani) and maybe it's because of that that she always hated to have her claws done by us?? That even tiny bits of claw fix has been bordering on painful?
Well, one thing is for sure, we will never go back to do her claws ourselves. 150SEK every 3 weeks is cheep for a painless (for all) beauty treatment ;-)

The place mats round III and stupid dog owners

2011-04-21T09:14:00.000+02:00

The day before yesterday I got the Rhapsody (and it's siblings) in the mail and could finish the 3rd set of place mats. Well, the first two are just tops, so they don't count fully ;-)

I made two of each, so they last for almost the entire extended family and in the end I'm quite pleased with the result.

On a different note - does this look like a lethal dog to you??? This girl has never even showed her teeth to anyone (but the neighbor GS pup Teves when he went for her teats LOL).

The DH let the dogs out round 8am and of course - three women with a whole bunch of dogs (two golden and the rest was Yorkshire) came round the corner and WOWOWOWOW and wipwipwip. Then one of the women asked The DH if ours use to jump over the fence and he answered "only once"! Oh piped the woman, then you shouldn't let them out by themselves since they have bitten of the leg of another dog!!! Bitten of a leg??? Our dogs??? The DH went mildly berserk and told her that she ought to be sure of what she sail before throwing around accusations like that! Even when provoked, the Queen Bitch of the Universe Fiona, has never as much as nibbled on another dog. Not even her worse enemies ;-)

I told that lady how far of she was and which neighborhood dog it was that took to bite small dogs. an Airdale Terrier that is thankfully in doggie heaven for quite some years now.

Tomorrow is the start of a 4 day Easter Weekend here and today is a "short" day which both me and the DH has taken of = five days from work :-D

Happy Easter all!!

Out of ideas

2011-04-17T11:04:00.000+02:00

While waiting for the Rhapsody fabric to arrive so I can finish these placentas, I want to make some new pillowcases for the couch. Since four of the five inner pillows I have today is old and/or of very poor quality, I bought 4 new feather ones at IKEA (60X60cm and 30X60cm) and some fabric for backing as well. And after that my mind draws blank..... I have three or four large books on quilt blocks, one on applique, one on thread works and several others of mixed content and non of them make my creative mind go yiihaa. Heck, I'm can't even wrap my mind around making a new smallish pouch for the music thing. This time quilted, not embroidered ;-)

I give up and read some more...

Shopping spree

2011-04-16T11:38:00.002+02:00

Haven't bought any nailpolish lately, so I felt I could splurge on new fabrics ;-) Mostly bought with a project in mind - you know them place mats that I have been changing my mind about this way or the other.
So two packs of Bali Pops, Berry Blue and Blue Hawaii from Hoffman:

A full FQ bundle (the second one full collection that I ever bought) Scarborough Fair:

All these three from Fat Qarter Shop and I think I'm gonna use some of them for a new snuggle quilt just for me:-)

And yesterday some grayish ones (the camera didn't capture the correct colors) came from Thousands of Bolts:

These i bought with a new color scheme for place mats in mind, thought they would go well with the new china. But now I'm not so sure - to much alike colors can't be good can they?? Again, why on earth do I fuss over these place mats when most parts of them are covered by plates, glasses and cutlery? Sometimes I despair over myself LOL.

So far today I have one load of laundry in the washer, have picked up all dog poop, raked the entire front from twigs and leaves and put them in the large "garden rubbish" bin. Yesterday I took all the soda cans and bottles (four large plastic bags full) to get the money back (here it's called "panta", did the grocery shopping for the weekend and then took all the cardboard boxes, bottles, tins, newspapers and plastic containers to the recycling station. Pueeeee. Only tow more loads of laundry and marinate some pork for the grill dinner to go. Full tilt ahead LOL.

The mystery remains

2011-04-15T15:40:00.001+02:00

I have been thinking a lot about what on earth could have been the cause of the fabric disintegration on these two pillow cases.
* I sew five different ones during the same time frame.
* As far as I can remember, I used the same thread on all of them.
* The inner pillows on all of them differs
* Once of the cases are made from a FQ bundle containing among others these fabrics:

Most selvages are gone, but on the few remaining it say "Antique Flower collection printed by Lecien", but I doubt very much that all fabrics are from the same collection of the same producer since they feel very different to the touch
*When you look at the pillowcase made from a lot of fabrics like these above, you see that only some fabrics are affected, which rule out the ideas that it can be the batting or the inner pillows or the thread or the xxxx that is the culprit.... Heck, I do wish it was the Guterman thread I used back then would be the cause, because then I would knew for certain that all latter projects will be safe, since I never use these threads for quilting any more.
* Maybe it's the house mouse Coffee that had a field day before he was captured by Sam? He sure loves fabrics and batting and Sam has got a small stash of left overs to use in Coffess little Hobit house. Or maybe it was the dogs when they was false preggers? Nahhh, how come some fabrics are unaffected then?

On a sidenote - I used a lot Mayflower Muslin from Benartex in my MIL's DWR quilt and some of the melon wedges kind of kid brittle, crackled and fell apart from ironing. Have no clue why, but it might have been that just that fabric was very very sensitive to heat...(or the stupid Tefal iron went highwire), but not all of it since most wedges stayed intact. Maybe it's just me?? The fabric shredder;-P Nahh, I have made quite a few items that by now are around 3-3.5yrs and they are just fine. So far.....

The spring has sprung and my miracle music thingee has started to behave very strange. It does not go to the next tune, but repeat the last played one over and over again. I have read the manual, restarted both the pod and the computer to no avail. .......heavy sigh.

Edited: read some more on Apple website and rebooted the pod and low and behold - now it works like a charm again. Women can too!!! ROFLMAO. Now I don't have to listen to John and his friend Erik playing PS3 just outside my room:-D

Distressed??

2011-04-14T15:08:00.000+02:00

This is pictures of some of the first things I sewed when I started on the quilting adventure.

The two pictures on the left shows a pillow made with quite expensive (as everything quilting is here) FQs that I bought a bundle of at the Sewing Festival in the fall of 2007 I think and the one to the right is made of both quilt fabrics and the green one is bought at sale.

Now I wonder if anyone out there has any idea about what has happened to these fabrics? It's like they just have disintegrated or something like that. When I see these I kind of despair, what if this phenomena happens to objects I have made on commission or as gifts to loved ones in four years ahead in time? Is it the threads, mice with acid or bad fabrics that is the reason???

Thankful for any input on this matter. I've been to IKEA to get some new inner pillows and some fabrics for backing. Now I just have to figure out what pattern to use for some new covers :-)

I have some more pillowcase I made around the same time, but they are just fine.

I found it

2011-04-11T13:23:00.000+02:00

the small tiny label saying "Red Rooster Rhapsody" and I found the fabric on sale along with two more of the same series. 5 yards for 15$ is not a bad bargain ;-)

So now I can finish three of the place mats and then lay aside the last two until that package get's here. What to do ...what to do in the meantime? I do believe that I'm going to start on some new cushion covers, the ones I made four years ago are starting to fall apart of their seams. I got some lovely plaid fabrics from a dear friend that I'm planning to use as focal fabric. Lucky me who has friends like her, not only does she create magnificence soaps, she send me fabrics as well :-D

RELP RELP

2011-04-09T15:41:00.001+02:00

If anyone knows what fabric this is (and manufacturer) and even maybe have a small bit to spare (10x100cm or 2inchX1yrd) I would be ever so happy.

I need it to be able to finish the binding of the last two place mats.

Edited- of course I need more than 1m or 1yrd - I need 20cm on full width, nothing less, otherwise it would be doll mats LOL.

Placemats over and over again

2011-04-08T14:53:00.000+02:00

On and off (a long bit off) I have been working on making place mats for our large dining room table which seats 14 people with a bit of good will;-)

By now I've made three different themes and not being entirely happy with any of them:

First round I decided to make two of each of seven different color schemes, but most of them looked quite sissy. Then I selected the one in the middle, cause I really loved the India colors. Got as far as binding the ones with the elephant in the middle, layered and quilted eight of them and then it struck me -upholstery is blue and curtains has dark purple olives printed. So dark red/yellow might not suit?

OK, blue place mats then....had some leftover blocks from my nieces USA bed spread and used them. With a disastrous result. I mean - just look at them!! Have you seen anything as boring in your entire life? Not only boring, they are plain ugly. Good thing I didn't get as far as sandwiching them before I was struck by that insight;-)

So here I am now, back at quilting the rest of the middle once, I have one to go. And then it hit me - these will not look good with the new china! And here is where some might think I'm a bit crazy or something in that vicinity.....but I finally decided on a light grey, dark grey and cream theme and ordered some yards of fabrics. Since it will take a week for them to get here, I have all the time in the world to come up with a design that I really truly like.

They are only place mats - right? And they will mostly be covered with plates and cutlery and glasses and napkins and.....Well at times I am a bit of a overachiever, that's for sure LOL.

Wolfie in Sweden where it's rey and a bit rainy, not the nicest weather to start clean up the garden in.

Things to long for

2011-04-06T15:03:00.001+02:00

Ack, my heart bowled over with longing when I read this. But nevertheless a great longing, it just don't feel right to go on such trip without the family. And - not sure that non Aussies can tag along....

So I spent some of our money on some new good china instead - this:

Well not the coffeepot or the cups.....but I really would want some of the individual bowls that is part of the series Grey Pearl. Not Black pearl mind you, Grey LOL.

Richness in different ways

2011-03-29T15:42:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I got this in the mail:

I haven't started on any of them - just keep myself in suspense and instead read an old Modesty Blaise novel for the time being.

Today these waited for me in the mailbox:

The blue ones are for finishing the new place mats, the red/green ones for my stash. I got them from Thousands of Bolts, a great place to get quality fabrics at affordable prices and from where I get most of my treasures.

Surprise of the year - I got a bit of the bonus system at work for last year. I haven't got a krona (SEK) for the last 10 years. Not because I don't deliver or reach my goals, far from it, but for one reason or the other, I was never qualified enough to participate according to the leadress I had at that time. Lucky me who now got a boss who sees and recognize my qualities :-D

Laugh if you want to ;-)

2011-03-27T14:58:00.001+02:00

The reason for non quilting posting latterly is not due to idleness but trying my hands at stitchery.

Let's start with that I'm not an embroidery type of gal....when the other girls I worked with at the large operation/surgery ward was hard at large and intricate Clara Waever embroideries, I red and only relented once, doing a small pink cross stitched rose. Which got me one more nickname (the first was Ylle) - the Rose ROFLMAO.

And to this day (well last week or so) I have hold true to that aversion, until I happened upon some lovely and/or fun looking stitchery. The thing is that the pillows on the couch need new covers and I want something different than real patchwork this time and some stitched blocks with flowers would look nice combined with ordinary blocks. But 30 years or so of non-stitching create a necessity for practice before getting down, not to mention practice on drawing designs. So I have spent my free time on small patches of fabrics upon I sewed all kind of stitches and believe it or not, I have even managed to art of French Knots!!

So here is the result of my efforts:

a small "envelope" for my new MP3 player. The design is not to the better part of my own, the floral sprig (and the letters ought to be, but my clumsiness made them different LOL) from the Vignette magazine No1. And I had only a small selection of floss to choose from, but for such a small piece it don't matter. The measurements are appear 10x8 cm and has a little pocket on the back for the earphones:

I willingly admit that this is not one of the best things I ever done (and that hurt my ego a bit), so I can't help but smile (so feel free to laugh you too) looking at it. But if I continue to practice I might be able to achieve the lavender sprigs/wreaths design that floats around in my mind for the pillows. Such blocks would make the best carry-on sewing for this summers vacation in the RV, since it's harder than hard to fit and use the Horizon in there ;-)
If anyone knows of free online lavender patterns, feel free to holler :-D

Gaudi nails ;-)

2011-03-21T16:12:00.000+01:00

A couple of years ago The DH brought back some gifts for us from Barcelona while on a conference: a couple of soccer t-shirts for the kids and this beautiful trinket box in an Antoni Gaudi design for me:

and it has been sitting on a windowsill ever after. Until yesterday.

Remember all these 60 bottles of decorative nail polish I bought from China some months ago? I think I said it before but the quality of these bottles has left a lot to be desired for, so they have been sitting there in a box, doing nothing. Until yesterday.

Not in a sewing mood I decided to try something with my new dotting tools (also from China for under 1 USD :-O) and started with yellow, green and blue. Then it struck me that the result was similar to the Gaudi box, so I checked it out and added red, white and black dots:

So here we are - a kind of Frenchie Gaudi manicure :-D Sadly my camera refuse to focus and give me crispy clear picture, it's probably that shiny Zoya Jules fault.

Heavenly scent

2011-03-16T17:52:00.000+01:00

Oh oh oh, in the mail came one of my orders from one of the two best of the best of the best soap makers in the world: Ana . I'm relived she packed my order in much bubble plastic or I'm sure than some postal person between there and here would have not been able to resist snatching it up for themselves ;-)

Ack - the smells that wafted up when I opened up the plastic was amazing (as always) , can't wait to get into the shower tomorrow with one of them bars of soaps...think I'm gonna start with the Patchouli heavy one. But what truly sent me of may rockers (like when I sampled a jar of feta cheese that I never tasted before) was the Gnarly Bitch Body Butter. It's such an immense pleasure that swoon is a good word to describe it LOL. I have some on the back of my hand and can't stop smelling it. I know what I'm going to rub on my hands before going to bed tonight and dream paradisiacal dreams.

Wel, time to start dinner - Falukorv, fried potatoes and maybe if I feel nice, some fried eggs as well Lucky my family who has me to cook for them ;-9

Itty bitty thing

2011-03-14T15:50:00.004+01:00

Since the MP3 player we got for Christmas at work 3 or so years ago, won't play nicely with my Mac, I had to give in and buy one that is compatible....yeah, one more fruity thing LOL. It came in the mail today, rattling around in a too large box, packed in a appr. 5X5X5 clear plastic cube and my oh my, that is the tiniest marvel I've seen so far. I haven't listened to it yet (but the music is synced) since the battery is charging, but is .....reading the manual!!! I confess, I feel a bit like a dinosaur since it's sweep here, doubletapping there, drag this way or that ... what else can they come up with and cram into that small thingee?? Well I am in a bit of an awe, that's for sure - but Music, Podcasts, Audiobooks can be listened to and pictures viewed...how on g-ds green earth is that possible? Hence the manual reading, I would never understand a thing otherwise.
The other MP3 just played music and that's it, although I do suspect that there was a radio hidden in there too.

The quality of the sound is simply great and - the earphones don't leak sound, so I don't disturb anyone at work. That is if I don't start to sing along ROFLMAO.

And here I am fiddling around with my music toy while I ought to be sewing or at least decide if I should stay with the color scheme on the place mats or - change them (and the pattern) to blue instead...decisions decisions ;-) First I'm going to sew a little pouch, I have the construction of it ready in my mind :-)

Happy Birthday

2011-03-10T15:11:00.000+01:00

to my younger sister who celebrate a significant birthday today. Hurray, hurray, hurray!!!
Welcome over to the "other" side

Happy feet

2011-03-09T16:18:00.001+01:00

There are sewing machine dealers and then there are dealers of sewing machines ;-) and I have understood from my American friends that there are people out there who simply ought not have the license to deal at all. Maybe it's the same way over here, why shouldn't it? Even though the dealer who I bought the Janome 6600MC from gave me an almost unbelievable deal (but we had to travel round 700km to get it) I never had much to do with him afterwards. When it came to upgrade to the magnificent Janome Horizon 7700 I ended up with a local dealer, Stockholm Sycenter, mostly cause they offered the best price. But - afterward they have been nothing but good when it comes to customer services, answering questions, finding out facts and mailing the cone holder to me when I didn't feel like going downtown to pick it up.

On the Yahoo group for this machine, there have been some talk about that the original O-foot (that came with both the 6600 and 7700) was so bad that Janome has come up with a new and improved foot called (wouldn't you believe it) - O2 and all Horizon owners that register their machines online, get this new foot for free. Well - Janome Sweden don't have that register function on their website and don't offer any exchange of feet for that matter, so I emailed my dealer and asked if maybe we in Sweden could benefit from the same deal. The answer was - send me your serial number and I will get Janome to send you a foot. Now how about that - huh? I think it's terrific and such a very good way of conducting business. Whenever there will be an even better machine, guess where I'm going to buy it? Right now that seem like an impossibility, getting an better machine than the Horizon that is :-)

All time high

2011-03-08T12:56:00.001+01:00

On Sunday I reached an all time high here at Wolfie Stitches with 73 unique visitors. Wow, I don't that happened back in my Ruby's Jewels days. You get a kind of fuzzy feeling knowing that 73 people world wide reads what you have written. Now all I could wish for is some more comments. Come on now guys - a little comment hasn't hurt anyone and I promise that I will reply to each and everyone of them.
Yesterday it was sunny and a bit of the snow and ice thawed and of course, during the night it was freezing again. Soooooo blank shiny ice in the morning and when I drew through the gatepost the car lost all steering ability, just gliiiided on that ice and honest to g-d, the neighbor across the street was very close at getting a dent in her fence. For sure I have no clue whatsoever what I did to manage avoiding that collision, but I did with a pounding heart and red splotches on my neck. Gahhhhhhh!!

A taste of heaven

2011-03-07T16:11:00.001+01:00

Well my dear foreign readers, the rest of this post will be in Swedish since I find it hard to believe that any of you will travel round the world to visit this marvelous little butcher shop in Helenelund, Sweden.

Dagen före det stora snöovädret åkte jag för ovanlighetens skull med SL och slö som jag var, så orkade jag bara inte släpa mig uppför den branta trappen och ännu brantare gångvägen upp till vår "kulle". Istället ställde jag mig och väntade på 178an ( för en enda hållplats... ja ja jag vet) och slö-glodde som man bara kan göra när man väntar...Huset tvärs över gatan innehåller en väl renommerad Iransk restaurang, en liten hål i väggen till frisörsalong samt Dannes Godishörna, ett lockande häng för traktens ungar. Men hålla - det står inte Dannes på skylten längre utan Håkan. Och inte godis utan kött och delikatesser!! Väl hemma googlade jag, men Håkan är en hemlig man - han har ingen websida han inte. Däremot hittade jag en blogg av en tjej nån stans i grannskapet som varmt rekommenderade Håkan och hans varor.

Så i fredags tog jag mig tid och gick dit och det kommer jag aldrig att ångra. Första intrycket var; liten affär, litet sortiment, men ack vad jag bedrog mig. Ja alltså, affären är ju liten men vilken kunnig, trevlig och genereös man och vilka himmelska varor jag kom hem med. Jag slog till på fyra stooooora biffar av det mest fantastiska marmorerade kött (nöt ytterfilé), två paket om sex grillspett, en burk fetast så god att jag var tvungen att stöna lite av njutning, en burk "chimchaya" sås (ni får ursäkta mig men jag har inte den blekaste om vad den heter egentligen eller hur det stavas) oerhört kryddig tomatröra, het och med en viss rökighet, en burk aubergineröra som även den fick mig sucka av lycka. Dessutom fick jag helt gratis ett paket av Håkans hemgjorda korvar och en burk bearnaisesås. Allt detta till det oerhört facila priset på 430kr. När jag lyckligt trippade ut genom dörren insåg jag att min kasse var tung som en liten tegelsten och insåg att jag hade rena fyndkassen i handen.

Biffarna hamnade på grillen till middag på lördagskväll (så dom kom inte med på bild) tillsammans med en vitlöks- och gräddstinn potatisgrating. Och här måste jag klämma in med; vi har under sommarhalvåret (ja ibland på vintern med när man kommer åt grillen) köpt kött på två av Sollentunas köttbutiker - olika sorters kött, mest mu - men aldrig, aldrig har vi under dessa 12 år ätit maken till mört kött som det jag köpte hos Håkans. Det bara smalt i munnen och när vi var klara fanns det inte minsta lilla smul kvar, förutom några kantbitar som voffarna fick lyxa på.

Söndag fick familjen för ovanlighetens skull lunch - korvarna grillades och inmundigades med världens torraste korvbröd. Suck, dom håller inte alltför länge i frysen dom inte, korvbröden alltså. Men korvarna var fantastiska de både luktade underbart i rått tillstånd och smakade förträffligt gott tillagade.

Till middag gjorde jag familjens potatisfavorit - Hasselbackspotatis och grillspetten grillades. De var lyckligt befriade från allt vad grönsaker heter, utan innehöll bara små fina filébitar på träspett som var marinerade i en marinad fullsmockade med vitlök, chili och andra spännande kryddor. Fram med alla såser och röror, jag tror jag åt upp större delen av aubergine röran själv, lika glatt suckande och - jag som knappt får i mig några större mängder kött nuförtiden, slukade två spett utan problem.

Till helgen hoppas jag att de beställda kambenen har anlänt, sen ska jag ha en stooor burk feta ost och mer augergineröra och...... Föresten, vill ni veta trickset med att få till fin-fina kamben? Det är att koka dem i en buljong tillsammans med Liquid Smoke (koncentrerad rök smak på flaska) till dess de är genomkokta, låt den svalna i buljongen och grilla dem sedan penslade med vilken grillsås man än må gilla.

Så - du där i Helenelund, Tegelhagen och Silverdal, jag föresten hela norra stor Stockholm (ja resten av Stockholm med, det ligger ju vid pendeltågstationen) - har du inte redan varit där - skynda skynda. Inte nog med att Håkans Kött och Delikatesser har en suverän kvalitet, men dessutom trevligt bemötande och helt fantastiska priser, så butiken absolut värd ett besök (och två och tre och...) Ju fler vi är som handlar där, ju större sannolikhet att han blir kvar. Jag vet att jag från och med nu kommer att gå dit varje fredag för att införskaffa helgmaten. Gör det du med!

Och nä - jag har inget som helst ihop med Håkan;-p, jag blir bara så vansinnigt glad över att hitta sådan fantastisk kvalitet till ett sånt makalöst pris och - nära.

Things we need and don't

2011-03-06T14:56:00.001+01:00

This one I got in the beginning of my quilting adventures, cause some more experienced people said they couldn't live without it. Well, let me tell you this - I think I only have used it 3 or 4 times during a 3 year period. It just lurks behind the curtain in the dining room, living a nice, quiet and un-stressfull life.

This one I forgot to put in the last post, but this one came home with me last weekend. Now the best iron I ever owned was a Philips that you could use with or without the cord. I would never ever bought a new one if I hadn't dropped it on the floor and the water tank started to leak at the bottom. So I bought a Tefal (high on Ws) and even though I'm not that fond if it, it did it's work except that it started to go strange on the thermostat and burned some of the muslin pieces on the DWR quilt = GRRR!!! And then a piece at the very top broke of the water tank and the silicon that held it all tank to the iron kind of hardened and started to crack, so water dripped out while ironing = more GRRRR.

So I found this beauty, a Braun with an attachable sole for garment ironing. Now that is what I call innovative - one sole for quilting and one for clothes:-) And it has a 8 seconds timer, that is if you don't touch the iron for 8 seconds, the thermostat shuts it of and when you move the iron, it get back on. Now there must be some real thinking people at Braun, thats for sure. Just hope that the water tank holds better on this one ;-)

A gifted week ;-9

2011-03-05T11:38:00.002+01:00

When I met The DH he told me that if I was looking for someone to bring me flowers and trinkets, I looked at the wrong guy. And he has been true to his word...until Friday last week (16th wedding anniversary) he came home with this beautiful bouquet :

and was mighty pleased with himself surprising the socks of me. So he did get a kiss or two ;-) Not to be misunderstood - he do get me a gift for my birthday, but that's about it. The presents for the rest of the year, I pick out myself .

Then a friend from M1800Riders came by to pick up some stuff and he brought me a gift:

from him and his wife. Why?? Christmas came and went and my birthday is a long time away...The reason was kind of too personal to post here, but let's just say I got it cause I'm nice, kind and caring, which might come as a surprise to some ROTFLMAO. The carafe is from Eva Solo and is glass with some stainless steel and a zippered neoprene coat. I really truly like it.

I also got a package in the mail yesterday, the cone stand I wrote about . I did bring out an ordinary screwdriver to adhere it to the Horizon, but it was way to large to work. So I used the small screwdriver that comes with the machine (the regular one, not the flat) and after soma wiggling, I managed to get it into place:

It comes with some (at first glance) strange things - two of them plastic comes and two pair of nylon nets to put over the cone of thread.....I have not tried them yet, but will later today. Edited: I did finally understand what these cone shaped "cage" like things where good for - they make the thread wound of evenly instead of the whole cone going like a merrygoround.

You also get two nets that you supposedly should put on the cone of thread, but dang if I can get it to work. When I got the net in place, the thread got cought inside it and broke.

The arial is at it's middle position in the picture, but you can raise it half that length further. Why you would/need that, is beyond me ;-)

To make the thread run smoother, Janome has added a small thing that you put into the whole for the extra thread holder that comes with the machine:

After much trying I thought it was impossible to manage to get that little metal thingee to fit into that hole, but at last I was firm and gave it a real good push and reluctantly it slid into place.

If you ask me, I think it's a shame that the people at Janome didn't figure it out this from the start, that a machine for people who quilt, need to have a stand that can hold large cones of thread attached to the machine from start. Now this add on do work (although getting the screws into place......well let's just say I'm convinced that the person who came up with this solution must be of the male sex :-O) But why as customers/users have to pay for something they missed in the first place? Since the price is so low (even here in Sweden :-0) they can't earn very much from it, so why not offer it for free? Nobody who don'w have a Horizon can get any use from it - or??

Well it's laundry time (sucks) and re-sew some pieces on one of the set of place mats and hopeful there will even be time for some quilting.

Glorious sunny day although a bit windy. You might start believe that spring will actually arrive sometime in the not to distance future,

Cones

2011-03-04T13:42:00.000+01:00

The Horizon has one fault, the spool holder (s) can't hold cones, just small ordinary spools. And when you quilt, using these tiny things isn't an option, you would be ruined :-O I have used the sneak version of putting the spool in a bowl at the right side of the machine, but when spooling the bobbin, it get all tangled up. So the kind people at the Horizon group at Yahoo told me there is an add on to buy that mimics the holders and arial that was on the 6600MC, I asked my friendly dealer to order me one and today it arrived in the mail = hurray. I haven't screwed it in place just yet, but later on I'm going to bring out the screwdriver and get going and as far as I can see at the back of the box, it's going to look like the setup on the 6600 = yayyyy.

It's gray, a bit of a wind and it rained a while ago. Hmm, better rain than snow, that's for sure cause then maybe the huge amount of snow we have will melt away? I have a weekend of umpteenth loads of laundry to do - gahhhh, how boring. And John, my "baby" turns 12 today, time flies ;-D

Miss spell ;-P

2011-03-01T15:44:00.002+01:00

When I back read my posts I find a lot of misspells here and there and that's not because I'm so danged bad at writing, but the automatic spellcheck that wrecks havoc with some words. And since it has checked the word, it doesn't come up underlined in red and I don't notice it. Bummer :-(

Just one more set of tops to go (placentas - HAHAHAHA, damned spellcheck, it is PLACEMATS!!!) and I'm going to start sandwiching and quilting them :-)

African dogs

2011-02-24T16:10:00.000+01:00

Yup, my girls are true to their origin (Rhodesian Ridgebacks aka Africa Liondogs) and bask in the sun at every opportunity they get. Just have to be glad there is no lionlike creatures at this part of the world:-)

UFOs

2011-02-20T10:11:00.000+01:00

I don't know but you, but I hate to have's. Since I am such a Ms Goodie Twoshoes, there aren't very many of them in my house, but those who lurks there galls me everytime I come across them. That headboard cover I started before I did the DWR for my MIL, has been hanging on the back of the chair in my studio and I feel absolutely no drive to finish it. And a sad thing that is, since it is a very good looking thing...

But I do have two projects that are even older than that, a collection of table mats and a top I made from one of Eleanor Burns books - Quick Trip I think it's called (the book that is). The mats I made tow of each colorings in the same design, enough of them to go around our humongous dinner table in case of family dinners. I finished 4, the rest of the tiny tops has been laying there unsandwiched. Until yesterday when I finally came to the "enough is enough" bend of the road. It suddenly struck me - here I have this fancy new machine - let's take it for a real spin. Said and done, sandwiched with spray glue and them four different stitches with the same King Tut variegated thread and then a quite suiting binding. The result:

The thing is - I can't tell for sure whatever went through my mind when I chooses the fabrics for the others - I mean, I think I sued every color scheme there is, like purple and yellow, lilac and pastels, blues, dark green with yellow.....How could I even think they would work together on a dinner table???? Well, since I like the colors of this India inspired mat, I think I'm going to start over and make them two of each more in the same colors, but different fabrics and layout. After that I just need to get some new table ware, I mean blue olive leaves on white plates don't go very well with red and yellows - does it??

Minus 16C and bright sunshine. The dogs and The DH came back after less than 15 minutes ;-)

Happiness in form of metal casing?

2011-02-13T14:30:00.000+01:00

Now this may sound ridiculous to some, but I think I'm "in love" (well it is Valentines day tomorrow, isn't it??) with the new fancy Horizon. Not that I have had the time or energy to take it on a real quilting test round yet, but I have tested a lot of the 250 or so different stitches.

And just look at them!!! I must say that IMHO that the quality of these stitches are miles apart from the ones that the Janome 6600MC produced. Here I was thinking that machine was pretty good, but compared to the Horeizon after just and hour or so, I can see a remarkable difference.

The automatic thread cutter is silent like a lamb LOL. The automatic threader stays locked until the thread is threaded , the lightning is fantastic (even The DH commented on it), the steering knob and the stylo pen......and the very large acrylic table. Not to mention the speed at it sew all these stitches:-O And the fact that it takes to metallic threads umpteenth times better than the 6600 which refused to do it without shredding the thread to pieces every 5cm or so, make me real happy.

You know, I haven't sewn any garments in ages, mostly due to the fact that the 6600 didn't have a free arm, making it virtually impossible to sew in sleeves etc. But the Horizon do have one (that easily can be converted back and fro to a solid table) and sitting there sewing all them different stitches, I felt a twinge of desire to sew something else than quilts - a nice shirt decorated with ton in tone silky thread and different stitches maybe? Need to Google and see if I can find any nice and working patterns.

The creative possibilities are endless, so much that right now I suffer from a sewing block - hehehe.

New toy

2011-02-12T14:23:00.000+01:00

Just look what came home with me today - a Janome Horizon 7700:

I haven't sewn a stich on it yet, reads the manual and will watch the instruction DVD in just a while. But it does look fancy, doesn't it? Can hardly wait to try it out, but it's so different from the Janome 6600MC so I think I better learn a bit first. One thing that really bothers me is - where do you put larger spools of thread???

Winter struck again yesterday and it was chaos everywhere - there wasn't a single bus in traffic anywhere in the Stockholm area and the commuter trains was at least one hour late. In these circumstances I had to go and pick up the big car from it's beauty treatment out in the near countryside. But - I managed and got home in one piece. Today it look like this:

The kids have gone down town on their own for the very first time. Sam is going to ask around for a PRAO place (heaven knows what that is in English) and brought John with him. Ack how fast they grow up LOL.

Now DVD time.

What to do?

2011-02-10T15:01:00.001+01:00

Now that the DWR is finished and left in my MIL's care, I am (as always) at loss what to do. I know, I know - I ought to sit down and finish the cover for the headboard of our bed, but honestly, I'm not really up to it. New placemats (here you can hear me giggle maniacally...you can never in your wildest dreams imagine what the automatic spellcheck came up with instead of placemats? Placentas!!!!!)
Booring! Try to understand the pattern and instruction for that smallish cosmetics bag? My brain feel fried at the moment :-( New covers for the pillows we have in the sofa? Hmmmmm, might sink my teeth into some of the blocks in the Japanese Block Design book. The last fabrics I ordered are quite Asian decorative. But right now I think I need some Treo for the pain in my head.

Outside it's snowing again....gahhhh and here I was hoping for spring;-) I have driven my car up to the garage that will give it some cosmetic surgery and went back home on the commuter train. The dogs are so happy I'm back again (usually never leave them home alone twice in a day), that they are snuggled up close to me on the bed:-)

Finished DWR

2011-02-06T11:17:00.001+01:00

I swear, this is the last time I'm ever going to be sewing under duress and stress....as the spouse of one of the more heavy duty PLs in his field, I ought to have had a better project plan LOL. I don't know about you, but for me there is never enough of the right fabric in my stash or it might be missing completely. This time I had to order backing from TOB and that Fusions for the border from Hancocks of Paducah. Plus add the fact that I do suck at the actual quilting. I do have been getting better at sandwiching, but I doubt very much I ever manage to get to Huston standard when it comes to quilting in this lifetime.

This quilt is appr. 120cm wide and 230cm long and wringing it through the Janome 6600 is such a drag that I once again question my sanity when it comes to these matters LOL. Oh my how I long for a state of the art long arm quilt machine - one where you set the measurements and quiltdesigns in some nifty computerprogram, transfer it all to the LA and then set it at go.......If there ever is such a magic machine, they surely don't sell theme here in Sweden , the market is just to small :-(

But here it is, my latest creation - the DWR for my darling MIL

Friday I had to take the day of from work , so I had two days for sewing like crazy. I do not know why, but the blue borders lengthwise came out all wobbly, so when I added the binding it all came out of a skew. So off with it and think long and hard and came up with folding the backing over the front and it did help. I did had enough time at home to finish the top and bottom bindings, so I brought needle and thread and completed it all at my MILs. Arwen my sweetie, just had to check it out and give her approval LOL.

Now if a quilter looked at this bedspread close up she/he would faint cause the seamstressship ain't that good in the inserts and borders - but the actual ringed top is very ok. My MIL just called and told me that she had put it on her bed and it is so beautiful - like a jewel :-D And was so in awe for all the time and effort I have put in to it and then - it's all worth it.

I have no clue on what project to start on next, except for a small padded drawstring bag for a part of the DHs helmet cam. But today I' just going to take it easy and maybe, just maybe clean up my sewing stuff.

It's a beautiful winter day here in Sweden :-)

Wolfie

New arrivals

2011-01-25T15:05:00.000+01:00

While I shopped fabric for borders and backing for the DWR, I couldn't help but to buy some other bits of fabrics as well. A stash can never get to large IMHO .

As with many of my purchases, they are bought just cause I like them, not that I have any particular project in mind. But I'm pretty sure they will find their proper place one of these days.

DWR part V - need more help help help help he......

2011-01-16T17:07:00.003+01:00

I think I must be more confused than ever since I posted this on my NP blog...

Well now it's in it's right place and this is it:
I have finished piecing the DWR top, all them little melon wedges and centre pieces sewn together. I can't remember that I ever pinned and ripped seams apart as much as I have done the last week. And even after all that ripping and re-sewing, what did I find when I put the top up on the wall??? Two pieces of the four diamonds (the multicolored bits) are puckered, some sewn wrinkles and need to be re-done.

But now I really need some help from those of you who have done DWR quilts and didn't make a scalloped edge. This is what my top looks like so far:

And in the green frame the multicolored "diamonds", along the edges only three parts of one since that's the way the pattern/rings comes together. I have added one diamond to see if the edge can be evened out, but no such luck.

The thing is that I want to add a border of the Robert Kaufman fusion fabric that is on it's way from California and I can't for the life of my understand how I'm going to fit that in with the scalloped edge? I mean, there is no seam allowance that can be used for applique (horror among horrors, imagine appliqueing all them borders into the Kaufman fabric) and I can't cut the borders cause then the rings would be amputated :-(

So my dear follow quilters - how is this solved? Anyone who experienced this? Anyone who knows of a web source that describe how you work this out? All in all - HEEEELLLPPPPPP.

I need to get this quilt done with within the next two weeks, since I want to be able to give it to my wonderful MIL as my "house warming" gift to her the second next Saturday.

Believe it or not, but it's raining outside. Sam braved the elements (hip deep snow and rain) and went out to the RV and fetched all ACDC cds which he now have copied to his cellphone. He's now sitting at the dining rooms table doing schoolwork, singing along in his own hard rocking world LOL.

Secrets

2011-01-11T14:31:00.001+01:00

I don't know about you, but for me there are some secrets I find it darned hard no to tell. Or more correctly, there are coming events that there is no need talking about in advance, in case they don't come through. And I have such a secret, a very humonguos large one that make want to jump up and down and scream "know what!!"and I can't tell a single soul. Not eve the DH who I normally tell most my secrets too;-P Not that anyone told me not to spill the beans, this secret is mine and mine alone and if it goes through, I'm going over different scenarios in my head on how to spring it to the family. And they are the only ones I can tell when time comes.....Cryptic, yup more than anyone ever could imagine and I swear, my mind spins. As fast as the wheels on the little Honda when driven through large piles of slush in our neibourhood.

"Steer Woolfie, steer"was all I could think, but when you go downhill you have to use the breaks - don't you?? Ack, my poor easily scared driving soul - my heart went not only into double gear, but surely thirdly and even more. But I did manage to get home without getting stuck or sliding of the street. Never thought it was possible, but holy cow how much I miss the large car that is in the shop for some beauty treatment. Hmm, well at least restoration, me and that car had an encounter with one of the pillars in the garage at work some weeks before Christmas. A garage that I and many with me wonder what kind of stupid architect has designed. 9 stories high where the enter and exit ramps are the same and the bends between every 1/2 floors are tighter than a hen's patootie and I'm not the first nor will be the last, who's car got scraped.

Fed up with cooking the same food every two weeks or so, I found some new recipes so today we are having homemade goulash soup, which take like forever to make but it probably will be delish. I do need to sew some on the DWR, but honestly I think I need to rest a bit before I have to help Sam with his homework. What evil minded teacher gives out homework on the first day after Christmas leave one might wonder? The kids need time to adjust to reality if you ask me LOL.

DWR part IV - need help

2011-01-07T11:20:00.000+01:00

This is not the finished quilt , it's just the left row that is assembled, the rest are pieced pieces LOL pinned to my very rudimentary design wall. After putting it up there I realized that I had used the wrong melon wedges for the right side of the circles, so there I was again working with my trusted friend Mr Ripper;-)

After finishing that first row, I realized yet one more thing - the half bits of the inner pieces (of-white ones) I had cut to fit into the place where the red arrows are, don't fit when the blocks are turned this way (according to the description I had) and not the way I had pinned them at first. No matter how I turn these bits or the inner pieces, the simply don't fit.

The thing is - I do not want a scalloped edge but a blue border from Kaufman Fusions, because I think it' a nicer finishing touch than scallops. Oh don't get me wrong, I do love scallops in their right places, but IMHO they don't fit in with this scheme.

So dear sweet readers - do you have any idea on what shape of white I can use to make the edges even?? I thought about getting some white paper underneath and outline, but somewhere in the back of me head a nagging voice say "you can bet your sweet patootie that your edges aren't even. Hmmmmm I might have to outline each and everyone of these???? Thank heave my MIL isn't moving until in 3 weeks:-D

DWR quilt part III

2011-01-04T17:16:00.000+01:00

Well my friends, all the little melon wedges and middle pieces are now done and pinned on my "design wall". It's so many of them, that the last row of circles kind of flows out on the floor LOL.

Tomorrow I am going to take pictures and ask for two pieces of advice, right now it's to dark to get any good ones. And I am sort of backing from using a wide sheet for backing and will check out Thousands of Bolts webshop to see if I can find some nice blue backing fabric to use instead. They are always very fast with shipping out orders, so I ought to be within the timeframe to finish it. Tihi, I even bout a roll of wrapping paper on sale, so I can gift wrap it nicely.

I am viewing that design wall with great anticipation - how on earth am I going to sew all these curved bits and pieces together and get them to lay flat??? Lucklily there is Mr Ripper there to help me if anything goes wrong. But I do wish I had a quilting friend on hand who could show me what to do.

Time to get dinner ready. Stay warm, it's still cold out there.

Kaufman fabric

2011-01-01T11:28:00.000+01:00

Good morning, hope that the food was lovely and champagne flowing and that you all are well today. We had our seafood platter (oh my, you should have seen the kids when faced with an über expensive oyster and a drop of real champagne), very nice champagne, reminiscence of the year that past - booth the good and the bad and what we wish for the coming year.

Right now I wish for a fabric;-) My stash isn't extremely large, manageable I would say, so I had enough of good blues to make the DWR. But - I don't have more than one fabric that is suitable for the border and it's a long way from enough. I don't have the entire selvage left but a part, so I don't get the name of this fabric, but I took a photo:

If anyone of you have any idea on the name of this fabric (I do believe it's from one of the fusion series) and ..... where I can find it, I would be so very very thankful.

Have a restful day, here it is snowing........again....

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2010-12-31T14:04:00.000+01:00

to all!! Do you know that Swedes will be setting of fireworks for a joint sum of half billion Svedish Krona tonight? Such an idiotic from all lot of perspectives.

The DH is getting a late McD lunch for us all, so we can save our de luxe seafood dinner and champagne for later :-) But I doubt very much I'm going to able to stay awake until the stroke of midnight, don't think I have for the last couple of years. Must be old age LOL.

DWR saga part II

2010-12-28T14:21:00.000+01:00

I managed to put three rings together and it all looked nice until I added one more ring in the second row - then the four connecting pieces didn't match up and the whole thing looked more puckered than a lemon sucking witch :-( The instruction for the pattern say that you should only sew the melons to the centers just where the purple meets the end parts of the melons (the purple multi patterned pieces).... so I did but still don't get it. The whole thing is now ripped apart and I going to start all over again, but heck if I can get them bits and pieces to add up. Grrrrrrrr.

Feel free to post instructions and great ideas ;-)

One ring to find them....one ring to bind them....

2010-12-19T16:29:00.000+01:00

Well I admit, I'm not totally sure if that is the correct paraphrase from the Lord of the Rings, but I hope so ;-)
After reading the instructions for the DWR quilt I bought along with heavy duty acrylic templates ( I swear - these templates going to last me a lifetime and be my legacy to a daughter in law (if I ever get one), they are like at least 5mm thick!) over and over again, I decided to try it out. So after auditioning a nice collection of blues, I got going with the smallest rotary cutter and it was no big deal at all. I even managed to follow the instructions and could sew the melon shapes and - attach it to the middle part without much trouble. Until I read that you ought to leave the end pieces un sewn until you piece the next rings to the first, so I have to use my nice ripetty--ripper at these parts - hence the wobbly shape. But since I sewed the corner pieces together at first, I know that the whole thing lays flat when sewed together:-)

So without much ado - here is the first ring block:

In lack of natural light, I used the flash so it don't look 100% ok. My MIL like the color blue, so all the rings are going to be in blue varieties, cause I don't think I have enough fabrics for all the rings to look the same. But I strongly suspect that I need to keep all the corner pieces (the most colorful ones at the end of the melon wedges) the same and - maybe the purple ones next, to bind it all together - right??

Now I have to place it on Sam's bed (it's the same width as my MIL's) and calculate how may circles I need to make. To finish it of I plan to make a café au lait colored border and a blue binding.

So what do you think? I'm kind of proud of my very first try out with curved shapes :-D

One ring to find them....one ring to bind them....

2010-12-19T16:25:00.000+01:00

Well I admit, I'm not totally sure if that is the correct paraphrase from the Lord of the Rings, but I hope so.
After reading the instructions for the DWR quilt I bought along with heavy duty acrylic templates ( I swear - these templates going to last me a lifetime and be my legacy to a daughter in law (if I ever get one), they are like at least 5mm thick!) over and over again, I decider to try it out. So after auditioning a nice collection of blues, I got going with the smallest rotary cutter and it was no big deal at all. I even managed to follow the instructions and could sew the melon shapes and - attach it to the middle part without much trouble. Until I read that you ought to leave the end pieces un sewn until you piece the next rings to the first, hence the wobbly shape. But since I sewed the corner pieces together at first, I know that the whole thing lays flat when sewed together:-)

So without much ado - here is the first ring block:

In lack of natural light, I used the flash so it don't look 100% ok. My MIL likes blue, so all the rings are going to be in blue varieties, cause I don't think I have enough fabrics for all the rings to look the same. But I strongly suspect that I need to keep all the corner pieces (the most colorful ones at the end of the melon wedges) the same and - maybe the purple ones next, to bind it all together - right??

Now I have to place it on Sam's bed (it's the same width and my MIL's) and calculate how may circles I have to make. I plan to make a café au alit colored border and a blue binding.

So what do you think? I'm kind of proud of my very first try out with curved shapes :-D

Backing

2010-12-09T13:08:00.000+01:00

I confess, I find that finding backing that suits a project is not that easy. Well of course we can get xtra wide quilting backing over here too, but you can guess the price huh? And of course I can get it from the USA from stores like A Thousands of Bolts, but that mean getting one piece at the time cause there is only so much fabric you can squeeze into a USPS flatrate envelope...

So often I "cheat" that is getting normal wide fabric and sew it together, but that means that you have to have round 5-6 yards to fit a Swedish double bed and honestly, I very seldom have that kind of yardish in my stash. Soooo, I cheat even more and do something many quilter considers a no-no, I use bed sheets:-O Depending on the project, I can't see why not. I know I know, bed sheets don't have the same thread count as quilting fabric has, but for stuff like the headboard cover, the backing don't show at all. And the upcoming DWR quilt for my MIL - how often do anyone think she is going to wash it? Not once I believe. Therefore I ordered two extra wide sheets from a catalogue company, affordable and it matching colors and is quite pleased with myself:-) And while waiting for them to arrive, I'm going to start audition blue quilting fabrics for the DWR. I must check my stash to see if I have enough of cream muslin for the background though, otherwise I simply have to make that ToB order nevertheless;-9

We are sewing, we are seeeewing

2010-11-24T16:48:00.001+01:00

Think Rod Stewart there LOL. After a month or so of non sewing activity, I have set my mind to finish the Mariners's compass headboard cover in a near future. Why? I have come up with the perfect combined birthday and moving gift for my darling MIL. Me and my sis have't exactly been fortunate in the mother department, but I was very lucky to get a wonderful MIL along with the DH. In two months time, she will move to her very first own home ever. The thing is, she has never lived by herself - she got married with my FIL direct out of her childhood home and they stayed together for 56 years. Now a widow since 2 months, she has to adapt to a new way of life. So what to get her? The other day it hit me - a Double Wedding Ring quilt!!! I must confess that I am mighty pleased with this idea and when run by the DH and my thoughts around the project, he totally agreed. My MIL loves blue, so I have to check out the description of the pattern I bought (it included thick acrylic templates - yayyhhh) on how much fabric is needed. Luckily she don't have a Kingsized bed, but a standard Swedish 90cm one :-D

Gahhhh, how I hate this climate and since it's only november, this is probably only the start of a truly horrible winter - heavy winds, drifting snow and only +17C in the bedroom :-(

As far from Huston you can get

2010-11-07T09:35:00.000+01:00

One of my dreams is to be able to afford going to the Huston show, but in meantime for that to happen, we have the Swedish version called The Sewing Festival. After being located at smaller very cramped fairs, it's now located at the very large Stockholm International fair in Älvsjö. You might think that since the fair is so large the festival ought to have grown in size, but oh no - it's only large in space, not in vendors and it took us about just over one hour to walk it through. We was smart enough to get there late in the afternoon when most of the visitors had left, so there was plenty of space and good air supply :-)

Anyhow, the big reward going there was spending time with my younger sis - it's sooooo nice to walk up and down the ails, checking out and discussing stuff. The fair host not only sewing stuff, but all sorts of yarns (that category has grown), scrapbooking and stuff we would rather be dead than caught with LOL. And we where so good - I even came home with most of the money I had brought. I only bought two seamrippers, a pattern for small makeup bags, some stiff foundation and a foundation with cm grids printed on it. Sis only bought some yearns and a new wallet. Plus we bought each other a Christmas present......yeah, this way you get something you really want :-D
Thank you darling sis for a wonderful time!

The thing is about fairs in Sweden - all vendors keep the same price for their wares that they to in shops etc. And absolutely no give aways, no matter if you show yachts, motorcycles, home decorating or - handicraft stuff. I was so fascinated to see how many women actually bought bundles of fat quarters or bags full of yarn at prices you could get twice as much for in American online stores. OK I admit, at times you have to bow down and buy fabrics in a store when you need to get the color combination absolutely right. But in the long run, buying on internet works very very well.

Time to get out of bed and start the lardy - bläääää boring.

Know read

2010-11-02T14:33:00.000+01:00

I finished the Sheldrake mystery novel in record time. Normal I buy most of my books from Amazon.co.uk cause I buy a whole bundle at the time and mostly they are cheaper that buying them here in Sweden. But you on a lark I ventured into Akademibokhandeln yesterday and what did I find? Ken Follets latest "Fall of Giants" all 850 pages of glorious read. I think he is a great writer and has enjoyed Pillars of the Earth and World without End extremely much.

Needless to say - I am sooooo happy that my brain finally has come around to it's usual bookaholic self after years of concentration problems:-D

New wallet

2010-10-31T10:33:00.001+01:00

Well my 9 year or something like that Camel handbag started to fall to pieces, so in a moment of splurginess I bought a new fancy and quite expensive one:-) And of course I had to make a new wallet to go with it:

Sorry for the blurry first pic, but the weather here is rather blahaha today.

I used fake suede (can't for the life of me come up with the right English word) and some simple but artistic (??) threadwork on the closing flap.

A small coin pocket at the back.

And 8 credit card holders inside.

I'm rather pleased with the result and have got some nice comments:-)

Feelgood feeling

2010-10-06T14:49:00.000+02:00

One thing that make me feel good and that is to have a pile of new books awaiting to be read. I do have four Billy bookcases choke full - you know when your first you have one row of books, then you pile some more on top of them and when that's full, you store them in a second front row too. I know I that I tried to throw away some older ones when we moved here in 1999, but the DH got chocked - you never ever throw ways books was his statement. So I lend already read ones to friends and family and in some cases I hope they forget to return them. In other cases (like all Anne Rice, Philip Pullman, Shantaram and others) I'm gonna save "forever".
Anyhow, on Monday and today the latest order from Amazon.co.uk arrived and now I have a nice selection to read, among them a new fantasy series "The Opal Cowen" trilogy and - the one I started and enjoy tremendously "The Help" by Katryn Stockett.

Feeling of richness can also come from something as trivial as a new hoard of nail polishes LOL.

Fall has really arrived, the leaves are turning and a strong wind is blowing = :-(

So cosy

2010-08-31T15:14:00.000+02:00

Well I admit, I have been a lazy blogger... nah not lazy, just kind of uninspired. I think that I over did it with sewing all these things for the RV - after that I kind of deflated and the only thing I have made is this:

a teacosy for the .....RV!! I very much doubt that there are many happy campers that have a real teapot on board, but we do :-) Nothing fancy, a cream colored with blue print from IKEA.

In our very small neighborhood mall (I'm not even sure that it really qualifies for a mall) there is a store selling Juki industrial sewing machines, buttons, YLI thread and such and I have never felt the urge to go in and check them out. But since son No 1 managed to break my ergonomically shaped ripper (from Fons & Porter) one day I went in to see if they had a substitute. Which they didn't. But the owner was a very nice guy and 1,2,3 the next day I brought my Janome 6600 for a checkup and service. Since we had had all the cars in for service the last weeks, why not my machine? They gave it some TLC and - had to sharpen/file the feeder cogs cause they had developed some grades (gradients??? not entirely sure of the correct word). Jeez Louise, I must have sewed up a storm the 2.5 yrs I have owned it ;-O

So here I am, with a almost as new sewing machine, lots of gorgeous fabrics and threads and with absolutely no idea on what kind of project to start on next. I mean it - I have no ideas at all. There are enough quilts (the kids don't want any of their own) and pillowcases in the house, I have some bags and totes, tea cosy (for the house), oven mitts, table runner and a table cloth, Christmasy stuff and the only UFO are a collect of table mats to use when we have company....

So my dear readers - HHHEEEEELLLLLPPPPPP!!

Talk about confused

2010-08-17T13:10:00.000+02:00

How many people do you know who tries to put a 5 krona (5 SEK coin) into the steering lock (have absolutely no clue what the correct word is) in the car? Well, now you know at least one LOL.

Guess what half of the family

2010-08-06T12:42:00.000+02:00

are going to do tomorrow? THIS
The DH and Sam are going to spend the day there. Not my cup of tea and John is not into that kind of music. Luckily the weather report has changed from rain, to sun and +22C:-)

My unique tableware

2010-08-03T14:38:00.001+02:00

OK, you can call me a snob and fancy kind of girl, but I do love to have things that nobody else has. I mean, I do know the need for durable stuff in an RV (we did have plastic in the yacht), but I have this need for the dinner table to look great too.
Here in Sweden you can only get melamine tableware and pretty all sellers carries the same line. During our RV road trip I couldn't help but glancing at other peoples dishes in the common dishwashingroom and nobody, I mean nobody had the same fantastic tableware or glasses as I do.
The pics aren't so good cause the light inside the RV where it's parked, is kind of dark, but these are the lovely things we got from the USA:

Just the right stuff that makes a grown woman happy:-D

It's blowing so hard

2010-07-30T14:58:00.000+02:00

that my little Honda Jazz started to wobble on the highway. My heart kind of jumped into my mouth and at first I though I was not concentrating so the car skimmed allover the line, but then I realized there was heavy winds. Yesterday it rained 60mm in the Stockholm area and today this......well at least "vi had i alla fall tur med vädret" during the vacation. Two more days and then back to work :=(
But we are having fresh Swedish crawfish for dinner tonight. Swindling expensive, but I hope they are worth it = yummy

Vi hade i alla fall tur med vädret ;-) PART 2

2010-07-29T09:54:00.032+02:00

Don't ask me why there is a big space showing up here in the browser, since I have absolutely no clue at all.

You know - following the coastal line, first of lake Vättern and then Halland and Skåne along the Atlantic and Östersjön, kind of connect you with the roots of Sweden's history, from the middle ages and forward. The DH and I have always kind of envied the great national pride that Americans have, since it's something that we Swedes lack in spades. But this road trip of ours, made me sort of feel with a something I never had before - a feeling of belonging.

In lack of available lots at the camping grounds, we went to Simrishamn and checked out the harbor parking space for opportunity to "free camp" there and even though I kind os sweet talked the harbor master into using one electricity outlet, we decided to try our luck someplace else. Not that there is anything wrong with Simrishamn, quite the opposite - it's such a charming and cute town and has such a nice feeling to it, that we started to contemplate to move there after retirement LOL. But after much more phoning around I found this small family owned campingsite Landön, which is situated in the only archipelago there is in Skåne. On our way there we passed Kivik and Brösarps kullar - places I only read about and utterly fell in love with the area.

Sadly they don't clear up and maintain the beaches at Landön, if they did this place would turn into a small paradise and as it is now, it's kind of uninviting to put your toes into all that slimy, green goo.
Anyhow - we stayed there a couple of nights and believe it or not - even had some visitors. Two of the members of the DH's motorcycle club came by for a chat and told us a lot of local gossip ;D

Our plan with this trip was to follow the coastline from the southern parts of the west coast to the east. So after leaving Landön we set our sights for Kristianopel. We passed this amazing place - Trollehus - home of the Trolle noble family on the way.
We have been to Kristianopel once before when we sailed with Maggie from Stockholm to Bornholm and it's such an amazing place that I would easily say - if you ever visit the Nordic countries, this is a "must" place to go.

Once again we struck lucky lot wise and this is the view from my bed window. We had very nice neighbors, the beach was wonderful and the restaurant served up a delish barbecue buffet - what more could you ask for? The place was so tranquil and restful that we ended up staying for four nights before we went north to Kalmar and over the bridge that leads to Öland. We had called round at most of the camping sites on Öland, but since it was the "Victoria day" that week, they all where booked solid. Finally I got lucky and caught the very last free lot at Haga Park and we stayed there for four days. But believe it or not, I never got around to take any pics :-8 Haga Park is not a bad place and the lot we got was in the outmost corner, but the people living in the trailer right behind us....well to put it mildly - their behavior left a lot to be desired for. Not toward us thank heavens, but lordy me the way they treated each other...... I confess, there was times while we sat outside having dinner, when I had to cover my ears cause listening to them was way too disturbing and if you think I can be a bitch, oh my - that girl beat me to the post umpteenth times over LOL.

The beach attracted the male parts of my family, but for me it was so and so. There was grass, then pebbles both on land and in the water before you hit the sand and with my wayward sense of coordination and balance, I simply didn't want to take the risk. Plus - after my horrible swimming experience when I grow up (try learning to swim in +13C water!!) I have this rule not to bath in any less temps in the water than +26C :-O. The guys also took bicycle trips in the area while I relaxed with a nice novel...I think I had come to the newest Trudy Canavan "The Ambasador's Mission" by then. I have all her earlier novels and have loved each and everyone of them and this one really lived up to my expectations.

Since we all missed our furry babies, we decided to pick them up a few days earlier and heaven above how happy, no correct that, ecstatic they got. Fionas breeder and her husband is the nicest people ever and even though they had plans to go out, they had stayed at home for an extra hour just to be able to meet us again. After much hugging and kissing, the girls practically rushed into the RV (in case anyone would change their minds into leaving them there again LOL) and we started a long haul to Jogersö camping just outside of Oxölösund. We had stayed there for a weekend of-season last fall, but now they was packed solid and once again we got lucky and got hold of the last available plot. The girls was (true to Birgitta's word) absolutely exhausted

and the kids was ecstatic to have them back.

You can never imagine what difference there is (or maybe you can) between staying there of season and in full blown season.....Many of the people around us was soooooo rude - one guy sat outside his RV staring at us all the time and the family next to us was extremely loud mouthed. There was even one guy who just passed close to our dinner table while we where having dinner and smoked close to our bedroom window during the night. So at breakfast next morning the DH asked us if we really wanted to stay another day and the anonymous vote was - NO!!! So in a hurry we washed up and packed everything and - went back home.

It was good but strange to be back home, I don't think we ever been away from here for such a long time ever and the house felt a bit unfamiliar. The kids was so good helping out to empty the RV and putting everything away and I couldn't help but compare how easy-peasy it is to pack and unpack a RV compared to the yacht :-)

There are good things and bad for just about every issue on this planet and when it comes to spend your vacation in a RV (or any other confined spaces) so far I have found that:
With four people living in a cramped (well not so when you look at the size of our RV, but compared to home it is so) spaced is deemed to get the tempers rising. But on the other hand it is damned cosy.
You have to plan your meals cause the fridge only hold stuff for 2 or 3 dinners, depending on how many bottles of chilled beer the DH felt he need ROFLMAO. And after two weeks you are so fed up with grilled meat that you consider going on a starvation diet ;-)
The beds are semi good, but a long way from home....I don't know the last time when I slept that badly. But when I got home I almost fell out of bed when I turned cause my bed was "the wrong way" LOL.
It costs a fortune to use the washing machine at campsites!! And it cost a fortune to do any shopping at their service shops. A piece of bread cost round 1USD!
I just loooooove our table and glass ware!!! Thanks to my very generous Wisconsin friend (thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!), who helped us to get Corelle tableware and rainbow acrylic glass ware and I promise you, we are alone in the entire Kingdom of Sweden to own such wonderful things. Call me immature, but I get happy every time we use them :-D

So yes, we did have tremendous luck with the weather for most of our 19 days and believe it or not, the day after we got home, it turned chilly and grey. We have had some days of sun but not enough to open the pool and, during last the night we had thunder and now it's grey and rainy again. My oldest has asked me to take him to a mall today, have no clue what he want to get, but it will be nice spending some time alone with him. Three more days and then it's back to work :-(

Vi hade i alla fall tur med vädret ;-) PART 1

2010-07-26T11:36:00.001+02:00

Translation: At least we where in luck with the weather. It's a hilarious Swedsh movie from 1980 about a family going on vacation in their caravan.

I have included a lot of mouse over links, but even though they show in the editor, they don' t show up when I view the blog in a browser and I have noooo idea why. So if you can't see the links and are interested, mouse over each row and hopefully you find them.

And we did....had tremendous luck with the weather - round+30C in the shades for almost three weeks.

Background: I married into a sail yacht of substantial measures (41ft) that the DH and his brother build from scratch. Yup . they even molded the plastic hull all by themselves. All things comes to and end and we decided to sell it in and a new life with two kids and two RR girls began and all our vacations was spent at home. We got kind of laid back and satisfied with having everything we needed here - like the swimming pool and an icemaker LOL.

Last year the DH opened up for the idea of getting an RV and after spending quite of several days going here and there to check out all the different brands that was within our budgetrange, we found a one year used car - a Bürstner Elegance and bought it right away. The pictures in the link are from the seller, but it's not our car. Ours looks a bit different when it comes to upholstery and stuff.

We had two of-season weekends out (and we all loved it) before the harshest winter in a long time struck and during the winter we did a lot of modifications - the DH did all the technical improvements and I placed my butt in front of the sewing machine every opportunity I had and sewed; two bedspreads, curtains for 4 windows, two seat covers and a heck of a lot pillow covers. I tried umpteenth of times to take pictures inside the RV to no avail, so this is the only one I managed to far that is true:

So on July 5th we was packed and ready to go. After much discussions we had decided to kennel the girls (for the first time ever in their entire lives) at Fiona's breeder outside of Huskvarna. Oh my, you should have seen the look at their pretty faces when we closed the door to the box and said our by-byes.....Never though eyes could grow that big in a dog ;-P I swear - they look like that big eyed animal in Madagascar LOL. I promise you this, when we left Arwen told Fiona of in a big way: "why did you have to go and bite daddy like you did, now we both are locked up here in Dog -Sing and I didn't even do anything!!" Well it turned out that Arwen had the highttime of her life while Fiona sulked during their stay.

Of we went to Gränna, the Polka Pig capital of the world LOL. Gränna is famous for their Polkagris candy (Polka pig if you do an exact translation). We had booked two nights at Grännastrandens camping area. The beach was nice , but nothing fancy - it certainly do not look like in the pictures but the kids bathed nevertheless. Our plot was ok, the service houses great and even though our neighbors did a bit of partying, all was quiet round 10.30pm and there was nice selection of restaurants in the harbor to choose from.

Next step went from Gränna over to Mölndal and south via lunch at an IKEA and stocking up with stuff that was needed - like a teapot LOL and then on to Åsa Camping and Havsbad. The interesting thing about this trip was that all camping grounds had their good and bad sides. This one offered us a plot next to the service house (= a lot of people went closely our lot), there was some sort single mom convention with hoards of kids who lacked a lot in their upbringing. The great thing was closeness to a bakery and a grocery store.
Just look at this beach:

You would think you are at the Mediterranean.

Two nights was enough, so we steered our home away from home to the fancy resort of Torekov at a great campingsite where we ended up on a wonderful large plot under high pines with the neighbors at a distance. The immediate beach wasn't as great as we hoped for, but 5-10 minutes or so away on a bike was the real McCoy ;-) The kids had a blast bicycling around, John bought himself a landing net and fished for crabs. He actually got quite a few of them, but animal friend as he is, he did put them all back into the sea.

Since we really loved this place, we stayed on for a couple more day's than planned. Good thing since we hadn't booked anyplace ahead in advance . But with the with the (in) famous "Båstad Week" (where the Brats are partying in a rather discusting way) coming up, we decided to continue our trip along the coast of Skåne.

It turned out to be a very long day trip since we 1) had to shop for more supplies and 2) most camping sites we checked out was fully booked.

TBC.

New threads

2010-03-24T16:03:00.001+01:00

I don't know why, but for me variegated threads are as attractive as little jewels ;-) These are King Tut threads from Superior Threads that are new in my collection. I also stocked up on two other that I already own and use quite often, plus a cone of Bottom Line bobbin thread. Quite a frugal purchase this time LOL.

You learn

2010-03-22T15:37:00.001+01:00

something new every day. Like fussy-cut.....I came across it in some different patterns in the mags I recently bough. I know I asked a year or so ago on the Quilters Home group, but heck if I can remember what it was. When I hear the word fussy I just get a fluffy kind of image, like frays. But luckily I did a Google and found this little movie and voila - everthing is crystal clear, I truly admire Eleanor Burns, that's for sure :=)

Back to finish quilt the last block on the 2nd RV bedtop......

Snow?!?

2010-03-21T12:52:00.001+01:00

Just when you thought that spring was advancing and finally many of the streets in our neighborhood started to be free of ice and snow, 2hrs ago it started to snow again and a lot of it too. Flakes big as a Swedish 5 krona coin and the streets are back to being covered. I mean, you can get depressed for less right? Even more depressing is that the roof of my greenhouse couldn't hold the snow masses when they started to taw and glided down, so two panes are broken and there is a lot of glass shards in the house. Since the backyard still is covered in a huge amount of snow there is no way to change the panes now, so my poor sanctuary will have to withstand all the forces of nature until all snow is gone. Vojjne!

Magazines

2010-03-18T20:50:00.000+01:00

There are a lot of quilting magazines out there (and only one Swedish) and as with everything else, there are good ones and not so. I used to subscribe to Quilters Home (via a Swedish newspaper agency) and found it hillariously funny and rewarding, but when Mark Lipinsky up and left, the air went out of it. Frankly, I got so dissapointed with the copy cat style that the new director has - trying to come across as Mark II, that I quit my subscription right away. I also subscribed to Quilters Newsletter, but that one has become so uninteresting that I quit. The list of magazines offered via the newspaper agency is rather short, some Aussie ones but to get them, you need to sign up for 12 issues. Well, I choose two others:

and buy are they good. I think I have read both before without being very impressed, but these two issues are simply awsome! I think I have read them both from cover to cover three times over and in booth there are plenty of stuff that I realy would love to try my hands on. Like to one on the cover of McCalls Quilting, the one to the left with the starshaped in circles type of blocks...but sadly I do think that is beyond my limitations :-(

On the good side, I have only two blocks to quilt and the light natural deviders, then it's only the bindings and the two bed covers for the RV are ready. Maybe the snow will be thawed at the same time, so I will be able to take them out there. Going to be interesting to see how they fit ;-)

Like Christmas in March

2010-03-11T15:51:00.001+01:00

Believe it or not, but I haven't bought any fabrics in many months, but after auditioning a whole lot of the ones in my stash for the binding of the RV bedspreads, I gave up and simply had to buy some. One of my fav stores is Thousands of Bolts, not only do they carry a very large range of fabrics, but at terrific prices and they get here in less than a week. And - I found one that I thought would fit and today it arrived together with some others:

It's the second from the left and I'm pretty sure it will suit. The one to the far left is a kiddy Easter print, bought it with no use in mind more than it's cute. I think I have some panels and yet one more fabric in the same range and when i told John he just shrugged his shoulders and said "collecting fabrics is like collecting anything else". Isn't he wise my precious son?? ;-D

The other three fabrics are more of "good to have, will come in handy one day" LOL.