Happy Midsummer ?

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

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

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

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

Happy Midsummer or have a lovely weekend.

Work cut out for me

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

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

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

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

More pillows

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

Then a red/orange

And at last a blue one:

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

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

Sometimes I wish

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

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

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

Have a lovely weekend all.

Generousity

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

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

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!