Richness in different ways

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 ;-)

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 ;-)

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

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

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

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

Happy feet

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 :-)