Practice, practice and practice again

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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 ;-)