My Design Wall

Well, this is what it looks like at the moment.


I'm really sinking my teeth into the Sampler, and I am enjoying every moment of it. This is fun !
Those of you following the Inklingo Sampler blog, can see many of the blocks that I'm planning to keep you entertained. Most of what happens until the end of August is up there.
And yes, there are hexagon-blocks in there as well :-)
They can be made square or be left as they are, and be made into their own project.

Boredom and remedies

I knew I would be bored at work yesterday. I am a sub. at that place, and have a 3 hour break in the middle of the day some days, seeing that it's a public office, and we have to have a late opening day at least once a week. So, everything closes down from 1 to 4. And since it is not "my" office, I cannot do any of the zillion small tasks that are postponed. I can only do "this much" and nothing more. The tenured staff needs their priorities, filing and organizational systems respected. Also, I live too far away to go home, and 3 hours really is a lot of time, if you are on top of your work. I am fortunate enough to be that at the moment so ... what to do.

Well, I came prepared.

I brought some sewing and a DVD to watch on the 'puter. The newest BBC "Sense and Sensibility", (imdb-entry with list of cast etc. here)and my present "carry along and work on forever" project. Rectangle hexagons.

Got another rectangle made, and watched most of S&S at work, and finished it off when I got home.
And how do I like it ?
Well ... its major flaw is, that it is not the Emma Thompson version. The only thing that was clearly better in this one, was Edward Ferrars. I like Hugh Grant a lot, and find him charming in 4 weddings and Notting Hill, but I think his playing EF in the old (movie) version, was the one disastrous mis-casting in that one.

The major flaw with the new one, however, is (to me) that I cannot see Willoughby as instantly appealing. He is not at all appealing, romantic or dashing to me. I found his acting in Mamma Mia flat and unintersting, and thought it probably had to do with having a quite uninteresting part, but that does not seem to be the case. To any and all of you who love him, I apologize. He simply does not click with me.
I can sympathize with Marianne not falling instantly in love with Brandon in this version, and her eventual joining up with him, but ... Willoughby ... no.
I guess that Willoughby, Wickham (in P&P), and Henry Crawford (MP) have the same problem. They need to be charming, handsome and urbane, but also need to be seriously bad news ... and to find a young enough actor to pull that off seems very difficult indeed.

So. Do I recommend this version ? I really don't know. As I wrote, the major flaw is, that it is not the Emma Thompson movie, and for someone who does not have that sort of prejudice, or disliked the movie, I think this one could be a very good introduction to S&S.

And this concludes my first "task" in the Jane Austen Challenge.

Announcing a new blog

So, it is July 1st, and I have (yet another) blog.

You would think, what with the two I am already running (Inklingoprojects and this one), I had enough on my plate.

But no.

Maybe it is because I bore so very easily, and my present projects are all at a pretty boring stage, that I have felt the urge to actually do something I've been thinking about for a long time : Making a sampler, using Inklingo.

So, here it is : the Inklingo Sampler blog. Not very interesting - yet - but the plan is, that for as long as I've got the stamina for it, I will publish a new block every Friday.

So far, all the blocks are really simple to make, can be fully or partly machine-pieced, and the majority are 6" finished ... or smaller, so they can be log-cabined and still end up 6" unfinished.

The picture in this post, shows the blocks I've made so far. Most of them are made with Inklingo shape-collection # 2 (which is extremely good value for money, but, alas, only for Windows-users and only on CD), and more will be coming. You can, however, make many of the blocks using the free collection. The blocks will not finish at 6" then, but at varying sizes if you do that. Bottom line, however, is that it is a fun, easy and very inexpensive way to try out Inklingo.

Today's post on the Sampler blog is merely to announce that I'm here, I'm making blocks and I'm inviting you to join me. It also has links to much of the free stuff you can find that centers on Inklingo, including the free collection.

More Lace

Well, Super-Karla shawl is moving forward rapidly !
It is so much fun to do, that I have to do "just" another square ... and another ... and another.
Also, I've added a row of squares. It simply is not big enough (in my pretty arrogant opinion) with only 8 rows of squares, it needs the 9th ... and as I have plenty of yarn still, another row was added.

Now it's onwards and forwards, next comes the border ... with 400+ stitches in every row.

What's wrong with this picture ?

Well, I was making an Ohio Star block. Very simple thing. Make some QST (Quarter Square Triangles) with Inklingo, and hey presto, no guesswork, no errors ... so ... what's wrong with this picture ?
Can't you see it ?

I place the fabric with the wrong (wrong) side towards the right (right) side of the light fabric, rather than right sides together.

Result ? Mr. Seam Ripper got an outing, and frog-stitching happened.
Then they were placed the right way, with right sides together.

Piecing happened, and the star was finished.

Very simple ... if you know what you're doing and bring your brains to the sewing-room. Not always that simple :-)

Austentatious

OK, "Stephanie's Written Word" blog has a Jane Austen challenge, and I think I might as well jump in. It runs from July 1st 2009 to January 1st 2010, and the challenge is to pick out "six Austen-themed things you want to finish to complete the challenge"
So ... what do I want to do ?

1. Well obviously watch my favourite Austen movie : Persuasion with Amanda Root. Lovely, lovely movie and with a feel very close to the book.

2. Start on my "Fassets of Austen" quilt. The plan is to make a version of the Austen coverlet using Kaffe Fasset fabrics. I will - naturally - be using the Inklingo collection for that. And I do write "start" because I am quite confident that it will not be finished. "The Jane Austen Patchwork Mystery" (book), can be found here. The collection for printing is right here.

3. Try out at least 3 different recipies from "The Jane Austen Cookbook"

4. Watch "Lost in Austen" with my DD (age 14).

5. Acquire (and watch) the old BBC-adaptation of Pride and Predjudice, the one Fay Weldon adapted ... and failing that, re-reading "Letters to Alice" by Fay Weldon, which is her (funny and well-written) introduction to the world and the novels of Jane Austen.

6. Watch the newest Sense and Sensibility adaptation. I have it, but have not (yet) watched it.

... and then - naturally - re-read any and all of The Novels :-)

Oh, and I'll mark all my postings relevant to this challenge with the label "Austentatious" :-) So you should be able to find my (irrelevant) musings.

This should be fun :-)

Knitting lace

OK, so I haven't exactly been sewing these past 2 weeks, BUT, I have been doing needlework :-) I've been knitting. Lace-knitting to be more specific.
Finished one shawl on Friday, and started the next one.
The first one is knitted with a 100 % Alpaca yarn (lovely and soft, brand-name Indiecita), is newly washed and has been stretched gently to show off the lace ... but do you have ANY idea how difficult it is for an indifferent photographer like myself to take a halfway decent pic of lace knitting ? No ? Well ... just be grateful that I went through all the trouble to show you that pic. Teddy Bear is my oldest, still extant, freind. We became buddies the Christmas 'of 59, and his name is Palle Lykke.

And here's the new one. I've been pretty obsessive with it :-) so it is amazingly far advanced.

Unfortunately, it is not only finished lace-knitting that is difficult to take pictures of, lace-knitting in progress is not much easier, and doesn't really show much, but there it is anyway :-)

Noro-yarn, variegated, knitted on 3.5mm needles.
Shawl is called "Super Karla's Fantastic Dream Shawl" and is designed by Karen Noe
... who has the design out as a pattern in both Danish and English.
It is really fun to knit. It is lace, in many different varieties, knitted square-by-square in the technique known as "neverkont" in the Scandinavian languages and "entrelac" (or so it seems) in French. What it is in English, I have no idea. Great fun to knit, particularly since you have to do "just one more" in order to see how it looks now. My kind of pattern :-)

Wombat resolved

The give-away is over.

And I went to the random number generator , and it threw up # 11 !

SO, Brenda, looks like you'll have some hexagons soon :-)

I'll send it sometime next week :-)

Boxed Stars

This is originally a Jinny Beyer pattern from her "Quiltmaking by Hand", however, I adapted it to suit my own purposes. The original pattern uses 2.5" diamonds, I used Inklingo and the 2.25" diamond in Collection 3. I also used a "same background colour" fabric to tie the stars together and frame the boxes.
Jinny Beyer doesn't call it Boxed Stars, but I do. I love the way the boxes and the stars interplay, and the way the graphic of the piece shifts as you shift your focus just a tiny bit.
The ... funny thing about this is, that I started it by picking out all the most boring and drab browns and darks I could find in my stash, then I added a few soft rose fabrics, and a very small handful of golden-hued scraps. The intention was to make a "neutral" and mostly harmless / boring quilt. My DH tells me I failed :-)

It is about 96" and we had to stand on the low stone-wall to hold up the top.
Not yet quilted ... I (still !) need to remove a lot of cat-hairs before I can send it to a pro for quilting. I started doing it myself, on the machine, and the effort was pathetic.
ANYway, the top is finished, only the cat-hairs to remove now.

Lone Star

Lone Star, or Star of Bethlehem, or Mathematical Star, or Morning Star or whatever-you-want-to-call-it Star ... Well, it's one of those patterns I've wanted to do "forever", but frankly, the thought of doing it by hand was too daunting, and the thought of doing it by machine-piecing strips and then sub-cutting into the 45-degree angles, hoping to place your ruler the same way on every strip-set ...
Too, too intimidating.
BUT, then came Inklingo, and then came the 6" LeMoyne Star collection. Now, those of you who knows me, also know that I'm not particularly good freinds with my sewing-machine. I don't enjoy it very much, and it usually ends up in tears ... or at least in un-pointy points and less than happy intersections.
Well ... I decided that now was the time to put my theories about making a Lone Star with the Inklingo 6" LeMoyne Star collection to the test, so ... Thursday May 21st, 2009, I started picking out fabric, and printed the first strips.
Yesterday, I was rather miffed, because the centre would not lie flat.
Today, I added the 4 corner-squares and 4 centre triangles that are the background-fabric, and after that, I pressed well with a good iron, and ... now it lies flat :-)
So, just under 2 weeks to make an 84" finished top, all machine-pieced ... that's rather good, won't you agree ?

WOMBATs

Do you you know what that is ?
I don't mean the cute looking animal, I mean the quilty wombats :
Waste Of Money, Batting And Time.

It is a highly personal thing what might become a wombat, but I have found that I have one.
Picture on the left.

It is a Strippy Scrappy Hexagon project.
I've printed lots of Civil War reproduction scraps, and some that are not repros, but are compatible with them. Not all of the printing is equally visible. Some of the fabrics turned out to have quite dark backs, which does not make for visible printing (until and unless someone knows of someone who produces white ink ?)

I've pieced long strips of hexagons on the machine (50 or 51 hexes to a strip), making 40+ strips.
I've started joining the long strips to each other with hand-piecing, because I can't really see any other way of doing it .... and I'm bored stiff !
What is worse, I don't really like the result when I do a mock-up like on the picture.

So the question is : is there anyone out in blog-land who is dying to get a project like this ?

There probably is :-)

Which is why I'm going to celebrate my return to blog-land by giving it away. A project that I dislike (now), but which might be loved by someone else. Fabrics are good quality, are washed, and come from a home with 2 cats and a rabbit (so pet allergics, beware !)

There are 40+ strips, each sewn with 50 hexagons. The side of each hexagon (finished size) is 1", which means about 2" across from point to point. 20 of the strips have been joined in pairs, forming 10 pairs of strips. The finished quilt should be in the vicinity of 60 x 90"

To have a chance at winning, here's what you do :

Leave a comment on this post before noon, GMT, Friday the 12th of June.
In the comment let me know which quilt-pattern you have never made, but would love to do.
Some time after that dead-line, I'll pick a winner, using a random number generator :-)

G'day late May

Well ... it's been almost a year since I last wrote. Even the most die-hard readers of this blog must have given up on me.

So, what happened ? Did I fall off the face of the earth, or what ?
No. I got work. And worked quite a lot in the beginning ... like ... many hours every day .... and the blog slipped from my list of priorities.
BUT, I hope that it is back now.
At least I have a huge back-log of pictures to show everyone.
Lets start with this one, the first quilty finish of the year 2009, my tiny Apple Core bag.

I made it with the Inklingo Apple Core collection, and "just because" I made a pattern out of it.
You can download that pattern for free if you are a member of the Inklingo group on Yahoo.

Hello again ...

Well, it's been the longest time, hasn't it :-)
The good thing about that is, that projects are finished and others are progressing.
The "(two inches wide)" quilt is finished. Quilted and bound :And here is a detail of the quilting, where you can also see the pink binding. The pink is the same fabric that is used in the blocks so it all ties together nicely :What you cannot see is, that the quilter not only threw bubbles all over the place (which I like), but that she also used a variegated thread for the quilting, which sort-of "lifts" a quilt that could have been very dark in the general tone.

Active at the moment are just two projects. I know the sidebar says 3 projects, but Lollipops are not being worked on unless I'm travelling, and seeing that I'm biking to work right now, there is no time to sew on that one. SO, what I am presently actually working on are :
Boxed Stars (which is not what Jinny Beyer calls it, but I cannot remember her name for it in "Quiltmaking by Hand", so I use my own). This picture is
1. A mock-up on the design-wall.
2. Just a small fraction of the blocks I have made so far, but I'm more than half-way with the blocks. That, however, does not mean that I'm more than half-way with the quilt or even with the top. Never underestimate the border, and never underestimate the time and effort that goes into putting a top together !

And then a true scrap-project. 4" scraps, many from a charm-club I belonged to for a year or two waaaay back, the rest from my own scrap-bag. I've cut 700+ tumblers using an Ardco template for it. This quilt is truly scrappy and it is pieced in a truly random fashion ... the latter meaning that red will touch red and that there will be "runs" of lights together etc. It is a rag-bag of fabrics and colours. Machine-pieced and will be machine quilted too.Halfway with the piecing of the rows on that one too.
So, that is one of the reasons you haven't heard a lot from me. I'm working, both paid work and on projects ... and then - of course - summer is here, which means less time at the 'puter and more time on the deck.

Finally sending off !

Right after posting the winners of the Inklingo give-away, I got work, and have - literally - been working every day since. Today is my first chance at mailing anything, or - indeed - posting here.

SO, the 4 of you who have sent me your snail-mail addy : Your muslin-bits are on their way !
The rest of you : why didn't you contact me ?

There is still time :-) I still have plenty of muslin hanging around here :-) needing to be used :-)

And, as you can see, no comments with street-addresses have been published on my blog, so ... don't be afraid. I won't tell the world where you live :-)

And the Winners ...

PLEASE NOTE :
This drawing was held in May of 2008 !!
There are no more muslin bits to give away now.

HOWever, if you want to try out Inklingo, Linda Franz has a free collection that you can download. All it will cost you is your e-mail addy and a password. You can see it right HERE
And to see some suggestions on what could be done with the free Inklingo download, please go HERE

So, please. No more comments asking to be in the drawing. It is over and done with, and has been for a loooong time :-)
Thank you.

- - -

And the winners of the Inklingo-printed muslin are :
ALL of you who left a comment :-)
Yes. Only 11 people have commented, and one doesn't even want any muslin, so ... that's 10 of you who need to contact me with your snail-mail addy.
The easy way to do this is, to leave a comment on this posting. As most of you have found out, I moderate all comments on this blog, so ... putting your address in a comment does NOT send it out on the www, only into my postbox.
So. Let me have your full name and snail-mail addy. Yes ye in the US and Oz-land too :-) and I will send two sheets of muslin, printed with Inklingo HST that finishes at 1½".

Congratulations :-)

Top finished

Yes. The Indigo-and-Shirtings top is now a finished top.

And the picture here is just the top. There will not be much difference between this one and the finished quilt, so this might be all you get.
HOWever, to become a quilt it needs to be quilted.
To become quilted it needs to be basted.
To become basted, I need to clear the table and put leaves in it, find and iron backing, find and hang batting to "even out" ....
I hope to baste tomorrow ...

Half Square Triangles with Inklingo

What do you do with an excess of muslin cut-offs. They are good quality, but I have no clue which ones (if any) tie in to the other muslins I have on my shelves.

First : wash the fabric. I live with 2 teen-agers, 2 cats, and a rabbit. It has probably been washed, but heaven alone knows who has been in it since then ... with what.
So, washed it is.

Iron freezer-paper to the right side of it. No, wait, this is muslin, so it really doesn't matter which side it is. Now, for the sake of frugality, I ought to cut custom-sizes of the freezer-paper, to give me the best use of both fabric and freezer-paper, but I really can't be bothered.

Trim the fabric from the edges of the freezer-paper.

Re-iron the edges and corners (just to be on the safe side)

Pop your Inklingo, shape-collection # 2 into the 'puter (no picture. I tried, but I am *not* a good photograper)

Print 1½" half-square triangles (HST). Inklingo gives you the finished size, so what comes out will finish at 1½". Printed, each shape will be more like 2½", but ... that includes seam-allowance on all sides :-) I have chosen to print this sheet of muslin in Inklingo colour # 02. I probably could get away with using the lightest colour (# 00), but ... my eyes are becoming middle-aged :-) besides, it doesn't seem to show on the front. Still, the lines are not nearly as visible in the picture as they are in real life :-)

Repeat the above as desired.
Trim.

Layer with coloured fabric
Sew along the dotted lines
Cut apart on the un-dotted lines. Trim.
Iron.
You are now ready to roll, making some of the many blocks that are possible with HST.

The real beauty of this is, that there is no measuring. No cut-off points (if you've followed the sewing-lines). Perfect size. Every time !!!
And *that* is why I love Inklingo.
Preparation is extremely fast, and the results are as close to perfect as it can be, if I just follow the lines :-)

And honestly ? My opinion is, that Inklingo is bloody brilliant (pardon my French).

P.S. You can download a free trial-version of Inklingo right here. And yes, it is a LeMoyne star, and yes, it has triangles, 45-degree diamonds and squares. Lots of shapes for you to enjoy.

May goals

I'm back from my road-trip. Great and stress-free. No kids. No DH. No cats. No rabbit. Just me to consider. Sleeping in. Buying fabric (yes). Stopping at sights and get an icecream. Moving on when I felt like it.
Very nice. I think I'll repeat it soon :-)

Above is how far the Indigo-and-Shirtings quilt got before I went away. Time to focus on it again ... which leads me to my May goals ... sewing-wise, that is. I like to set up goals for me. Not too hard or demanding. Just enough to help me keep at it. And this May, my goals are to keep on keeping on with the following :

1. Indigo and shirtings (with the provisionary name of "Perfectly good").
2. Boxed stars
3. Lollipop Trees

That's 3 big quilts. I hope (plan) to at least finish the Indigo-and-Shirtings top this month, and to move the two others forward.

I have started applique'ing the first Lolipop-block and ... whoah ... that's the easiest and fastest applique I have ever done in my life. HUGE bits :-) and next to no tricky inner points that frays and acts up. I am beginning to think this top might be finished in less than 5 years :-)

Oh, and via a comment on a previous post, I found out that there are at least 4 others out there in blog-land doing Lollipop trees : Kathie over at "Inspired by Antique Quilts", and her freinds at "Sew Easily Distracted", "Canterbury Quilts" and "Will Work for Fabric".
Now, what I find really ... interesting :-) is, that these 4 seem to be doing Dear Jane blocks (and I am a Jane ... have one finished full-size Jane-quilt, and lots of small ones), AND they are doing Feathered Stars. I have not started on a Feathered Star quilt / block yet, but ... I recently acquired Marsha McCloskey's book, and look forward to doing (at least) one.

Have a wonderful week-end

Spring has sprung in Copenhagen. Pear-tree (and apple-tree) is in bloom.
Lovely, isn't it ?

I'm off on a road-trip and will not be back until Sunday. Visiting freinds and quilt-shops :-)
Life can be hard :-)

Much more to my taste

Here's the glue-basted block # 2 of the Lollipop Trees (or, as my DH referred to it "That Candy Plantation")
MUCH more to my taste. With kick ... donkey colours :-)

And as I was putting things away yesterday evening, I suddenly realized exactly what it was that was all wrong with the first block. Or at least, why it was so very displeasing to me :-)
That is now emended.

You might not be able to see what has changed, but the general feel of the block is very different to my eyes. 4 circles out, 4 new circles in. Easy :-)
Anyway. Two prepared, 14 to go ... and then lots of small blocks. But at this rate, preparation will be a piece of cake.

Back to Lollipop Trees

Well, "(two inches wide)" is now a finished top, and is winding its way towards the LAQuilter who also quilted "The Advantages of Natural Folly" ... with which it shares colours, fabrics and history :-) Anyway, here it is :
And then ... do you remember the Lollipop Trees ? That I started last year, and found so ... disenheartening that I decided to stall the project for as long as it took to either get me exited about it again, or decide to not do it.
Well. The first block (that disenchanted me somewhat, seeing that it is too bland for my taste), is now (finally) basted and ready to roll. The background fabric for this one is a soft mauve with leanings of green. I cannot say that I love this block, and I might decide - in the end - to re-do it entirely. Time will tell.

This time, with advice from the creator of the pattern and the original quilt, Kim McLean, I have started the other way round : by picking the fabrics. Block # 2 will be fuchsia and cobalt on a bed of very light green.
The selection has been made, and the 3 fabrics for the "big bits" has been chosen. So ... lets see how this one plays out. The fabrics I have pulled look harmless enough when presented like this, but they do have more zing than the above block, and that's what I want.
This one will be glue-basted, and - in the end - have a big basting-stitch run through all the bits (on the machine) to ensure that they stay put until the block is finished. This might take a while, seeing that the ambition is to prepare all the applique before starting to actually sew :-)
... 'tho I just might bring block # 1 for a week-end at freinds' place.
... just to see.
BUT the plan will still be, to prepare ahead as fast as possible. Project preparation is my achilles heel when it comes to quilts. I find it to be mostly boring and definitely time-consuming. The strategy of preparing "everything" ahead worked wonderfully with SE-2, so I hope it'll work with this one too.

The easiest shawl in the world !

Standard knitting abbreviations (at least I think they are) can be found at Knitty.com
Disclaimer : I take no responsibility for your possible addiction to making these. They are really fast to make, very easy to do if you can just do the knit-stitch, and the "long" edges means that it is great to snuggle in to on cold days.

Use any sort of good, fine yarn. Preferably one with a bit of texture on its own. The above is knitted with a mohair-yarn, which needs a size 4 needle (European), or - if you want to have a loopy and lacey quality, something larger. I have used a size 8 needle for the ones show in this post (there are two more, made with variegated yarns, below).
It runs 300 m to 100 gram (and if you want to translate that into US measurements, you can go to this converter site)

To get a nice edge (on any knitting): On every row, take the first stitch off without knitting it. If you - like I have done on this shawl - only do knitting and no purling, take it off as if it was a purl-stitch. You will get a lovely, even edge this way. Over at Knitty, they call this :

slp slip one as if to purl

You will also need to increase with 4 stitches on every other row, and (again from Knitty), they call this :

m1 : Make 1 stitch: Insert left needle, from front to back, under strand of yarn which runs between last stitch on left needle and first stitch on right needle; knit this stitch. 1 stitch increased. If you "just" knit, you will have a "hole" in your knitting, and for this shawl, I consider it a desired effect :-) If you don't want that hole, knit through the back loop.

And finally, the directions :

Cast on 5 stitches, any old way you want :-)

All un-even number of rows (1, 3, 5 etc) : slp, knit the rest.

2. slp, k 1, m1, k1, m1, k 2 (7 stitches).
4. slp, k1, m1, k1, m1, k1, m1, k1, m1, k2 (11 stitches)

- and now the "fun" begins :-) I would advise you to put a thread loosely in there, just before the middle stitch, to help yourself keep track.

6. slp, k1, m1, k3, m1, k1, m1. k3, m1, k2
8. slp, k1, m1, k5, m1, k1, m1. k5, m1, k2

Every other row, the amount of stitches between the first two and the last two increases, are +2. The bold-type above
And now, you just go on this way, until you run out of yarn :-) I can make a "big enough" shawl, using a good quality, fairly thin, fuzzy yarn, with 150 grams ... that would equal 450 meters of yarn on needles size 8 :-)

As announced : two other shalws knitted from this pattern. Both with a variegated yarn.

Two Inches Wide - again

Well, you have now seen the big diamond-quilt "The Advantages of Natural Folly", and one or two might remember the layout I had on my designwall, using some of the full-size diamonds that didn't make it into the big quilt, and some half-size ones as well. The working-title of that one is "(two inches wide)" seeing that that is indeed the size of the smaller diamonds.
Well, the top is almost finished. Still needs the final border.

And yes, the small diamonds used to "set" the larger ones are really only 2" wide. And each side is 2" too. Half-size.
I put it together on the machine. Not my favourite way of doing things, and there are points that do not meet as perfectly as they would have done, had I put it together by hand.
So, not perfect, but - with the words of a fellow struggler against UFOs - perfectly good.

And then I had the inspiration to take the top out into our tiny yard, to set off the colours with the spring-colours found in the yard right now ... and this is what happened :

Rabbit was told "munch and die" so ... after a little while she pottered off the top, and I could put it back on the safety of the wall.
What is it with critters and quilts ?

Old news

I realized that there are actually 3 quilts that I have only shown partially or unfinished. My 3 most recent big-quilt finishes ! SO to amend that, here are 3 pictures :-)
The "oldest" finish, from the summer of 2007 "The Advantages of Natural Folly" :

Then comes "The Sampler", made mostly with blocks from Dear Jane and Dear Hannah, but the blocks are 6" square rather than the 4½" found in DJ and DH. Finished in February this year

Finally, SE-2. A not-quite copy, but close sibling to the triangle-quilt I made for Brenda and for the Dear Hannah book. Got it quilted exactly like the first one :-) And the first one, which is in the Dear Hannah-book, and lives in the collection of Brenda Papadakis, is called Sara Eleonora for my DDaughter. Hence the name SE-2 :-) Finished in March this year.

FINISHED !!!

Yes. "Allsorts" the applique album quilt with 96 blocks each 4½" square (and then sashed so the quilt got a decent size), is now FINISHED.


Quilted, bound and signed (with a pigma-pen on the back, but signed !)
And here it is :-)
First block sewn on June 1st 2003 (!), quilting started October 29th, 2007, last stitch on binding taken yesterday evening, April 16th, 2008.
Hand applique. Hand quilting.
Go me :-)

I forgot ...

Being organized in one (small) area of one's life does not of a necessity indicate, that one has it all together. SO, here's a picture of the finished Raspberry Truffle quiltlet. 22" square (or thereabouts), made with 2 sets of charms and some added chocolate-fabric. Not by any stretch of the imagination is it great quilt-art, but ... it's a nice enough piece. Useful and cute, and really ... how much more can one expect :-)


And here's a closer look at the binding. Not huge, but wider than I usually make them ... if not, how could one see that it is indeed chocolate-fabric on the edge :-)

Feeling organized ...

Feeling organized is *always* a dangerous thing with me.
Feeling organized AND being on the last leg of finishing a project is a killer-combination. Occasionally one has to give in to temptation ... or one does not deserve it !
And all of this translates into the fact, that today a PIG has been dug out of the closet, and is being experimented on ... oh, and to avoid any humane societies (which - strangely (considering the name) - has to do with animals) becoming upset about my experimenting with PIGs, let me hasten to assure you that these are the textile variant : Project In Grocerybag.

This particular PIG consists of gorgeous South African Indigoes, lots of different US shirtings. The original plan was to make Bear's Paw blocks, but ... I reconsidered that. I'm thinking that something excruciatingly simple is in order, to show off the indigoes properly, and ... here are the experiments so far :


And then, in order to not make more scraps, I'm not only cutting up the remnants as I go, I am joining them into small (2" finished) and medium-size (4" finished) 4-patches :


*And* I even have the 4-patch "kits" gathered in a tin, pin through the f, to be leaders-enders the Bonnie Hunter way :-) And, eventually, they will possibly be a doll to lap-size quilt :


Yes. I am feeling very organized today ... good thing I'm not showing pictures of the floor :-)

Organizing !

OK. Scraps have now been dealt with. And the box of ironed and cut scraps is overflowing.

They used to fit into the box in the back of the picture (to your left) , but ... not any more.
The front bit is a box with 2" squares. Next row is a bag with 4" squares, destined to become a Tumbler-quilt (in the fullness of time) and 1 ½" squares, ready to be made into tiny scrappy 4-patches. In the back, the 2½, 3, 4 and 5" squares.

And I will *not*, NOT get a bigger box !!!

After cutting and sorting and generally dealing with (most of) my scraps, I decided it was time that my sewing-boxes (yes, plural) got a work-out.
First empty 3 boxes (on the right) :



Then empty the "Present handwork on the couch"basket and the "loose change" carry-along bags as well.
And we have a fine old mess on what was, 2 minutes previously, a nice, fairly empty table.


BUT less than 10 minutes of focused attention brought the mess down to this (on the right) ! There really was a table and a cutting mat beneath all the ... stuff :-)
And even that got cleared away, as I gathered everything necessary into the 3 nice boxes I have
To the left is the one for hand-quilting (I bought the candy for the box).

To the right / below, is the box for applique. Yes. I've taken off the lids, so you can see them. That's what makes these boxes seriously nice :-)

And finally, below left, my present work on the couch basket with the hand-sewing tools necessary to piece or - as is the case right now - to handsew a binding down.







All in all, not a bad result of today's organizational zeal ... even if I do say it myself

Scraps !

I'm in scrap-mood.
Forced on me by the need to find / make a binding for Allsorts. I only have two repeats left to quilt of the border-design, after which it will desperately need a binding.
I ordered some fabrics to test, but none of them really worked with the quilt. SO, last ditch effort is making a striped binding, comprising of all the batiks that make up the applique's.
Which necessitates my cutting the strips first.
As luck would have it, the bag of miscellaneous batik-cuts, used for the applique, had not yet been sorted or cut into squares and strips, so ... that's happening now.
And as I work, I realise some things.
First : It is a joy to go through fabrics you have used, that you know and that you love. There is no sadness in cutting up the last itty bit of a scrap of fabric that has been used for several different projects. Only joy.
And remembrance.
And the knowledge, that when next I fondle this little bit, it will be because it goes into yet another quilt, and yet again tells me stories of the diverse usages that one piece of fabric can have.
ANYway. This is what my table looks like right now.
Slightly messy, but still workable.
To the right, the strips that will be turned into a binding. At least I hope the monster-stripe that will result will work as a binding. If not, I'm up the creek with that.
Top right : the cut-offs. The bits that cannot be used for anything even remotely sensible.
Centre left : a strip of the first batik I ever bought, and two tiny squares of a yellow that has had a long and productive existence in my stash, being used for Jane-style hexagons, a RowJane, a Baltimore medallion and Allsorts. Now being put into the scrap-box, where the ironed and cut scrap-squares go to live, until something is made of them.

Right now I'm cutting strips from the red-pink colour-family, and many of the pieces tell stories about quilts and freindships made.

I think there might be a lesson to me somewhere. Something about not being afraid to use my fabric to the last thread ... something about not hoarding ...

Last day of March

Another long silence from me in blog-land. Well. Can't be helped. Occasionally real life takes priority.
BUT, just to let you know that I'm still alive and kicking, I thought I had better post something, so here's a picture of my "folly", with the working-title "Raspberry Truffle".

It's a small top, made from two sets of charms. Judie Rothermel's Charleston IV, with a few snippets of some chocolate fabric from my shelves.
Not great art, but fast and fun :-)
Oh, and two sets of charms with 28 pieces of 5" squares equals about a yard of fabric, so ... that's one yard less on the shelves and out in circulation ... and there will be a backing too :-) So ... all in all, 1½ yards will go into the making of this one.
Amazing, isn't it ?

Have to sign off now. But I promise, I will attempt to not let another month pass before I let hear from me again.

Critter approved

I folded the two quilts shown in the post below, and put them on the doll-bed that resides in my sewing-room. Mostly to have them out of the way of rabbit, and to have them looking as neat as is possible in a messy room.


That, however, does not deter other critters from examining the pile, and - as you can see - the pink thing (SE-2) is definitely critter-approved. Pushkin, our tailless sort-of gentleman, has been sleeping on it since I put it there ... maybe he thinks its his quilt ?
ANYways. The handsewing of the binding on The Sampler has started, so his Prince on the Pea pile has been reduced slightly since this picture was taken.

I have quilts !!!

My two most recent DearJane-style quilts are now home from the quilter.
SE-2 and The Sampler.
You will just have to live with the shoddy photograhpy and the less than happy selections of bits of quilts that are shown, but I really needed to share these with you.
The quilting is wonderful ! Done by the same quilter that quilted the original "Sara Eleonora" which is in the Dear Hannah-book. AND as is the case in the book, she has used a wonderful variegated thread for quilting. Unfortunately, it does not photograph easily. But here it is, all the same :-)

Above : One of the "blank" setting blocks
Below : One of the corner-blocks with part of the border

Above : One side of the quilt, draped in the very cramped conditions of my sewing-room
Below : One of the blocks. Isn't the quilting in the white setting-tris wonderful ?

And that was that. Hope you enjoy. In the fullness of time, there will be pictures of both quilts, taken under decent conditions, and with binding on. For now, just be happy with me :-)

Homemade bread

There are few edible things in the world as delightful as freshly baked bread. However, most people don't do it. They think it is horribly difficult or a lot of bother.

If you belong to either category, please enjoy the below. And please do not think that you need to have freshly starched linens or newly picked flowers for it to be delightful. It tastes great on any old plate you have in the house. The rest is just glamour.

If you have trouble with my metric measurements, here's an easy-to-use converter.

You will need :
A baking-form. Mine is 10 x 10 x 30 centimeters.
A bowl for preparing the dough
A ladle or spoon of sorts, likewise for the preparation of the dough.
A dough-scraper to get dough out of bowl.
Some sort of grease (oil, margerine, butter) to grease your baking-form ... unless you have professional bakingforms with a silicone layer inside. Even a teflon- or "slip-easy" forms really should be greased for this recipe. Or use baking-paper :-)
Do not ask me how I know !

When baking bread it is not necessary to take measurements as absolutes ! Baking bread is not a question of getting every measurement down pat to the last milligram. It is an acquired skill which grows with every bread you bake. As you get to know your oven, your tools and your tastes, you can tweak this recipe endlessly, using different grains or seeds, adding spices, or making it as a completely plain white bread.


The bread.
*4 deciliters of milk, fresh from the fridge. Use low-fat if you're afraid of the calories.
*2 deciliters of boiling water.

The general idea here is, to make the fluid approximately body-temperature. Use your pinky-finger to test. If it feels hot, add a bit more milk, if it feels cold, add a bit more boiling water. If you get waaaay more than 6 deciliters, pour out the surplus.

*Add yeast.

Oh, dear. In this country we use live yeast, so I would say "half a packet", which is approximately 25 grams. My guess is, you would need 2-3 teaspoons of dry yeast. HOWever, if you "under yeast" a dough, it is just a question of letting it raise a little longer. "Over yeasting" however, can make a bread taste ... yeasty.

*1 teaspoon salt
*1 teaspoon sugar
*A dollop of neutral-tasting oil (or butter, or margerine).

Yes. Very precise again. Anywhere from 2-5 tablespoons. You need something, or your bread will grow dry too soon.

*Half a kilo (approximately a pound) of wholemealwheat-flour. Any sort is good. The one i usually pick up is ground and not wholegrain, but wholegrain works too.
*Add ordinary wheat-flour until the concoction has approximately the texture of thick (to very thick) porridge. It's ok if it's one sticky lump, but it should not be fluid or in danger of dripping.

*Put the dough in the form.
*Put the form in the cold (!) oven
*Turn the heat to 50-75 centigrades (very low)
*Let stand for anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, depending on how much yeast you put in the dough. It should raise to just below the edge of the baking-form or roughly into double size.
*Turn up the heat to 175-200 centigrades
*Bake for 45 minutes

*Turn off oven.
*Take bread out of oven.
*Take bread out of form.
*Put bread back into the oven, preferably on a rack, while it cools ! to get a wee bit of crust on the sides that were hidden in the form while baking.

*Serve while still slightly warm, just with butter. Or, if you really must, with some sort of GOOD jam or your favourite cheese.
Tastes wonderful with soup too :-)

The real worktime on this one is less than 10 minutes, and once you have baked it a couple of times, the real worktime is closer to 3-5 minutes. Much faster than going to the supermarket or mall. And much tastier too :-)

Oh, and if you do not finish it immediately, wrap in a clean dish-cloth or something like that. Do NOT put it in the fridge. Putting wheat-bread in the fridge makes it hard. Much harder, and much less edible compared to out of the fridge. When the bread has cooled completely, you can put it in a plastic-bag for storing it ... but really ... eat it while its fresh and good :-)

Two Inches Wide

In a letter to her nephew Edward, who apparently sent his aunt some of his writings, Jane Austen wrote : "What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour ?"
Now, readers of this blog might remember that I love Jane Austen. Readers of this blog might also remember, that I'm not alone in that passion. Quiltbook author Linda Franz has made two books of diamond patterns, all named with quotes from Jane Austen.
And I have made one fullsize quilt with those diamonds.

I didn't use all of the diamonds I made, and this past week, I was given a book. Richard Jenkyns : "A fine brush on Ivory" (reviews here and here) and was reminded of the quote ... the full quote, that is.

And now, dear reader, you are asking yourself : what does that have to do with anything ? Well ... back when I was first making Quilted Diamonds, I not only made "big ones", (i.e. diamonds with a finished side of 4"), I also made some in half-size. These half-size Quilted Diamonds are "(two inches wide)". SO, with that book prodding me, I dug out the leftover blocks from my big diamond quilt, and the tiny ones. A selection of the "biggies" and all of the tiny ones are now up on my designwall :

... and they will, I'm sure, in the fullness of time, become a small quilt. At least the mock-up looks good, and I have plenty of fabrics left from the big one, to make it.

SO, will I throw aside everything and start making this top ?
I don't think so. Right now, I procrastinate on cutting the strips that will log-cabin the 2" diamonds, and while I procrastinate, I quilt on Allsorts :-)

Never Underestimate the Border

First off : Prizes from the Fat Tuesday giveaway has now been sent to the 3 winners. The rest is in the laps of the postal deities.

And then the header.
I didn't come up with that beauty. A correspondent on a list did it, but it is brilliantly put, and oh so right. 'cause we do. Underestimate the border, that is :-)
I'm still quilting the Allsorts, and I'm almost there with the blocks. 5 more to go, and then all the blocks will be quilted !
Then "only" the border remains.
But ... the border is as wide as the blocks, so the quilting of the border equals another round of blocks. And this means, that when I've finished quilting the blocks, I'm not "almost there". Far from it, in fact. I'll still have about 1/3 of the quilting to do !
Good think I have taken it into consideration already, 'cause if I hadn't, this would definitely be a stalling-point.
So : NEVER underestimate the border of your quilt. Unless you're doing it in plain strips of fabric, sewing the border-blocks, or ... applique'ing the border will, in all probability, take you as long as it took you to do the blocks. And the same holds true for your (hand-)quilting of the borders.
With a 25-block quilt, adding a border same width as the blocks, will almost double the area !

... oh, and to not make this yet another non-pictorial post, here's a picture of Allsorts as it looks right now :


AND a picture of a small ... bag ? purse ? I made to hold my iPod :
It still needs some sort of button and some sort of handle. However, the hexagons are sewn, its all together and quilted, and it does hold my iPod ... and seeing that that is the case, I had better get going on the button and the handle, or else it'll never happen !

The winner is !

And the winner of the Inklingo give-away is : Debbie ! from Pieces of Treasure
The winner of the fabrics are Jane from Sew Create It and Joanne, who seems to have no blog, just a profile. Jane and Joanne, I need to know which of the two fabrics are your preference.
I numbered all comments and then asked DH to call one of them. As fair as I could do it.

All three winners : You can contact me by leaving a comment on the blog. As most of you have found out, I moderate all comments on this blog, so ... putting your address in a comment does NOT send it out on the www, only into my postbox

Further, this has been so much fun for me, that I do believe there will be (at least) one more Inklingo giveaway in the future. Possibly with shapes that works well with machine-piecing :-)

Watch this space !

Inklingo Fat Tuesday giveaway

It is now Fat Tuesday all over the world, and a winner has been drawn. Please check the above post.

Fat Tuesday is just around the corner and right after that, it's Lent.
Now, in days of yore, Fat Tuesday was the last day before lean lent set in, and therefore, it was the day where you used the last of the fat, the pork, the eggs, the cream. Whatever contained lots of cholesterol and fat and had potential BCBs (burnt, crunchy bits) And you ate it !
And what you couldn't eat yourself, you distributed to the poor :-)
Now, giving away food to the poor is not really something you do easily in the western world of today, so, rather than giving away lard and eggs and the like, I'm giving away some things from my shelves.

I am giving away 3 "things" this Fat Tuesday. All good stuff. All something I know I will never use.
Two are in the post below, third for giving away, is a kit of Inklingo-shapes.


Let me tell you about Inklingo.
To my mind, it is brilliant. Literally the best, most exiting thing that has happened in quilting since the rotary-cutter. No, I don't own any shares in it, but I have been a beta-tester on some of it, and I was exited from the word "go".

What you do is, you print your templates on fabric. Cut them out and sew. You can see a demo-video at Linda Franz's homepage.
Brilliant.
And it's very easy for beginners to work with too. Not only are there cutting-lines, there are stitching-lines with markings to keep your bits properly aligned. A freind of mine is making her first king-size quilt, hand-piecing, Grandmother's flower-garden shapes ... and this is her second attempt. She would never in a zillion years have done a quilt like that with English Paper Piecing (just like I would never do it), but she is having a field day with her Inklingo-printed shapes :-)

And no, you don't have to be a handpiecer to enjoy Inklingo. When doing the Half-square triangles or the squares or the Quarter-square triangles, machine-piecing is my favourite. But I'm not good enough freinds with my machine to piece inset seams galore on it, and you do get that with hexagons.

Inklingo is extremely easy to use, and oh so useful :-)
Here's a run-down for those of you who don't know, or can't watch the video :

Iron freezer-paper to the front (!) of your fabric.

Put the Inklingo-CD in your computer.

Choose the shape, the colour of print, the size of paper you're using.

Put the freezer-paper-fronted fabric (well, not backed, is it) in your inkjet printer (and yes, any old inkjet printer will work wonderfully here !)

Print

Cut apart, with scissors or with a rotary-cutter

And ... you're ready to start stitching !

Linda explains it much better, so, if you haven't heard about Inklingo before, go to her home-page and watch the video (I cannot see it on Mozilla, need to open my IE to watch it, but then its good)

What I'm giving away is a set of 1/3 hexagons (as shown on the prints above), printed on 5" samples of Judie Rothermel's Civil War classics. I've printed on two sets, and then printed "light" hexagons on civil war reproduction fabrics from my stash.

In the set is also a vial of Roxanne's sharp # 12. I'm adding them because they are wonderful for hand-piecing. Unfortunately, they are horrible to thread. I can only thread them when I use my DH's magnifyer lamp, and there are threads I cannot get through the eye at all ! so I use either YLI Select or YLI Heirloom, thread 10 at a time, and keep them in my Clover Needle-dome :-)
That seems to work.

To complete the kit, I've sewn just one, of the hexagons that the prints will make, so you can see what I would do with them ... if I ever got around to them. The side of my sewn hexagon is 1.75", so the finished size of the block is approximately 3½ x 3 ". There's enough in there to make 50+ of these blocks.

All fabrics good quality, washed and ironed, and I doubt that this kit will ever happen in this house ! ... which is why I'm giving it away. Spreading my abundance.

If you want to be in the drawing for the Inklingo-shapes, leave a comment to this post, and I'll draw a winner on Fat Tuesday, February 5th.

Fat Tuesday giveaway

Fat Tuesday is just around the corner and right after that, it's Lent.
Now, in days of yore, Fat Tuesday was the last day before lean lent set in, and therefore, it was the day where you used the last of the fat, the pork, the eggs, the cream. Whatever contained lots of cholesterol and fat and had potential BCBs (burnt, crunchy bits)
You cooked it and you ate it !
And what you couldn't eat yourself, you distributed to the poor :-)

Now, giving away food to the poor is not really something you do easily in the western world of today, so, rather than giving away lard and eggs and the like, I'm giving away things from my shelves.

I am giving away 3 "things" this Fat Tuesday. All good stuff. All something I know I will never use. Two are in this post, one is in the next (which is really the one above this one). All fabrics are washed with non-perfumed soap. There might be some residual smoke in some of it, seeing that until 8 months ago, heavy smoking took place inside this house. BUT it has been 8 months, so to my nostrils it isn't bad. (And no, I haven't completely quit the habit, but I am no longer smoking inside the house, which is good for all of my family, and does reduce my smoking greatly)


First for giving away is 3 yards of an old Debbie Mumm fabric, with wide borders. I bought it to make a pinafore for my little girl. She is now 13, goth-light, and would not be caught dead in anything remotely resembling this.

Next for giving away is 2 little-guy fabrics. The little guy is now 15 and would not relish these fabrics any more.
There is about a yard of the blue-and-green and about 1½ yards of the fabric with black background and UFOs.

Third for giving away, see the next post.

If you would like to be in the draw for either of the above, please leave a comment on this blog, telling me which one you would prefer and I'll draw a winner on Fat Tuesday ... February 5th.

Applique answers and awards

Well, I've been out of commision for a while. Paid work and a cold that will not go away, so I've been wating for today to have time and energy to try and
First off : Thank you Wenche for giving me an award :-)

I'm happy to have made your day.
As for passing it on ? I'm not very good at this, so : if you read this, consider yourself awarded. Its always nice to be read, and to know that you read my blog, is making my day :-)

And then, in my previous post Druscilla asked for pointers on applique.

Yes, the Allsorts Applique Album that I'm quilting presently (80/140 quilted, thank you for asking), is all hand applique ... and in case you've forgotten what it looks like here's a picture : Most of them are done with back-basting. Here are some tutorials that might be handy : Thee Handworks has one with pictures, as does Quilted with Love.

My advice on applique are the following :

Use good thread.
And try to match it with the fabric that is on top. I have every colour in the rainbow of cotton-thread, but I have found that I can get by very well with just one, light-grey thread for most applique. You may want to add a dark blue and a soft rose (not pink) to your array of colours. These will, if you take care with your stitches, cover practically all your needs ! I prefer cotton-thread, and usually "make do" with YLI's Select. Others prefer silk-thread, which is very nice too only, I don't have the temper for its slipperiness. If you want cotton with some of the same qualities as silk, YLI's Heirloom thread might be for you.

Use good needles that work for you.
My all-time favourite is Jeanna Kimball's Straw # 11. When I started using them, my applique went from so-so to good ! BUT, you may not work the way I do, and others prefer other types of needles. Try different sorts and sizes, and see what works for you.

Use good fabric !
If you are a beginner at applique, of any kind ! be good to you and start yourself with some batik-fabric. It holds a crease beautifully and has - compared to most other fabrics - hardly any fraying at all. I enjoy shopping with Batiks-plus (no affiliation) but then few shops in this country has a decent selection of batik-fabrics. The down-side of batiks is if you're hand-quilting. They are tightwoven and thus not as easy to quilt through as some fabrics

Try different techniques.
I have fallen in love with back-basting, because it gives me precision of placement, and once the pattern is drafted on the back of the background fabric, it is eminently portable. You might feel differently :-) so don't take my word for it. Try as many techniques as you can find, on the web and in classes, and then, from each of the many techniques, take the elements that work for you. We are not all the same.

Know that applique, like all other handwork, is slow work. You cannot crank out an heirloom block in the Baltimore-style in an afternoon. It takes time to do it and do it well, but ... it just might be worth it in the end.
... and if your patience isn't good for hand-applique, consider doing machine-applique the Beth Ferrier way.

Happy New Year

Yeee-ees, I do realize that I'm a couple of weeks behind on that wish, but I have reason ! The entire family has been sick, in shifts, more or less constantly since just after Christmas, and DH (poor dear), only got out of his bed yesterday.

All the same : Here's wishing you a happy and blessed New Year. May all your points meet, your straight seams be straigt, and may your seam-ripper gather dust.

On top of everyone being down with some sort of flu (or tummy-bug ... or both ... yuk) winterexams have started, so I spent the better part of what is called "day-time" at this point of they year last week, examining poor undergraduates, and will spend the coming week and a half the same way.
SO, not much has been done. Of any kind. Except survival.

BUT, I am keeping up with the quilting. One thread a day, most days more (apart from the 4 days where I had cut my right hand thumb and couldn't). And even if you cannot see the progress on this picture, compared to former posts, you can at least see, that the quilt is already critter-tested and approved.That's our shy, black lady "Sorte", taking her midday nap today. I got up to fix myself some lunch, and when I got back ... well ... no quilting. At least not know. I'll get it back when, later in the evening, I open a tin of cat-food.

And yesterday I sat down and played a bit, and two new Jane-blocks were created. G-1, Hattie's Hen-House and G-2, Mohawk Trail ... question is, should I continue this and make G-3, Four Leaf Clover ? That one is all applique, so it might be a nice distraction from the handquilting.

The blocks here are 6".
I printed out the 4½" size and blanched. And I've even made the whole Jane-quilt in that size ! Don't know why it suddenly seems extremely small ... but it does. So, 6" blocks it is.
Will it be a "complete" Jane-quilt ?
Probably not. I'm doing another long-term swap with Martha, and seeing that neither of us have very firm ideas about how much, for how long, or any of the other wh's, lets see how far it goes :-)
The theme for us this time around is "bright" ... which isn't as easy to achieve as one might think ! at least not if you want any sort of pattern to be clearly defined.

On the top one, G-1, Hattie's Hen House,, I had plans (hopes ? dreams ?) to use my Curve-Master foot, but ... that didn't work. And yes, it was an operator-error rather than a hardware error. I'll learn. Eventually :-) SO, the two parts that could be joined by straight seams, outside and centre, were pieced on the machine, and then the top was applied to the bottom.

The bottom-block was made with the aid of Inklingo (shape-collection # 2) and seeing that it is a 6" block, I just printed HST (Half-Square-Triangles) on the light fabric.
I printed one piece, 5.25 x 10.25". That gave me 16 triangles with a finished size of 1½" Add the coloured fabric, and you have the 32 triangles that makes this block.
Very simple. Very precise.

And that was the update from me today. Don't hold your breath for the next one. Even with (most of) family (mostly) healthy again, odds are that I'll not be blogging again until exams are well and truly over. And that's not for another 10 days.

End of the year status

To me, keeping tally of what I have and what I have not, is ... necessary. I love to get new things and I love to start new projects. However, I have a tendency to put away projects for no good reason at all ... which is how I got to a point of having "more than 50" UFO (UnFinishedObjects for ye who do not know the quilty vocabulary).
About 5 years ago, I started chipping away on the multitude, and to finish things. My goal then was to reach "10 or less" active projects. And when I got there, I realized that 10 projects were too many as well. I cannot keep them all in my head and I cannot work consistently on more than 1 or 2 projects.
... and yes. I need to work consistently on a project to see progress and to stay ... if not exited, then at least interested :-)

SO, I've been chipping away and this year, I end the year with only 5 projects on my list ... 3 of which are in the "being quilted" stage ... which is an extremely nice place to be.

My present list of projects is as follows :
SE-2. A Dear Hannah triangle-quilt. Presently with LAQuilter
Sampler. Mostly Dear Jane-quilt. Presently with LAQuilter
Applique Allsorts. Being hand-quilted.
Lollipop Trees. Applique-quilt in preparation
Boxed Blocks. Jinny Beyer pattern from her "Quiltmaking by Hand" with Inklingo templates. An "on the run" project. (mock-up of the so-far work below)
My goals for the coming year ? Well, basically to keep on keeping on. To not acquire any new UFOs. To this end, I have made myself some basic rules, and for the year 2008 they are :

1. To finish (at least) one project before starting a new one.
2. To use (at least) one PIG* before acquiring a new one.
3. To use (at least) as much fabric as I acquire.

And more specifically :
To not start a new quilt until the 3 "being quilted" projects are actually quilted and bound. I don't know if I can keep that one, but I will try.

*PIG : Project In Grocerybag. Doesn't have to physically be in a grocery-bag. It means, that everything for a project is there : pattern and fabric. Ready to roll. Just ... not rolling ... yet.

Happy Holidays !

Another long time no write. Well. I love blogging, but sometimes, family, freinds and festivities comes first. Christmas is one of those times.
Still, belated, but no less heart-felt : Happy Christmas to any and all who celebrate, and here is wishing you a New year filled with blessings.
May your seams always be straight, your points be sharp and may your seam-ripper gather dust.

I got DSis-in-law's quilt home from the LAQ just before "the day", so I've been spending time binding it. Slow work, but I always try to get the binding on asap when a quilt is quilted. If I don't, this final step in quiltmaking has a tendency to grow into an ogre.
On the Jewel-box-quilt (for DSiL) the quilter made some - to my mind - very good choices. Very simple straight lines, and then, a wee feather in the "big" red squares on point. As can be seen.

Further, I've finished another pair of socks, so ... right now, I'm down to a surprising 5 not-yet-finished projects ... two of which are sent out for quilting and one of which is being hand-quilted.
Very good :-)

Naturally, there is BOB too, but it doesn't frazzle me. I have been very good about not swapping during the past couple of years, so I don't have oodles of sets of blocks that needs to be turned into quilts. Most of BOB are experiments and left-overs, and as such, BOB is mostly a source of fast-finish projects and small stuff.

Holidays are here

And they have arrived with a teeny, tiny bit of decorating.

The "nisser" are up,

and so are the snow-globes.

And thise is just some of it. The more fragile of both types are put in places that are - relatively speaking - cat-safe. We do have 3 cats, and at least 2 of them likes to jump onto high places. Preferably high, crowded places. After all, there might be a quilt up there, and quilts are favourite sleeping-places.
The really unusual thing about this is, that for the first time in years, I'm not acquiring any new nisser. Not for me, and not for kiddies. We have enough. And it will be quite a few years before they will have any interest, what-so-ever, in decorating their own homes. Until then, I'm sort-of "stuck" with their decorations, so ... nothing new this year ! When they - eventually - move out and take their Christmas-things, I'll evaluate whether I "need" more ... or less.
Oh well.

Things still to do :
Get tree.
Decorate tree.
Get presents.
Wrap presents.
Buy food.
Bake cookies.
Cook.

Blog-readability ???

Found this test over at Jane's blog, and ran it on my own.
And frankly, I feel quite good about the rating. After all, I am a non-native speaker (and writer), so its good to know that at least one 'puter programme considers my English to be at high-school level :-)

Lollipop-preparations

Sometimes, even my best efforts seem to be of no avail.
I've started preparing the blocks for Kim McLean's "Lollipop Trees", using Kaffe Fasset's fabrics, and ... I'm running into ... trouble.

Nooooo, the block doesn't look horrible (as you can see), however, it doesn't look like I wanted it to, and that feels something like failure.

I wanted it to glow with colour ('cause thats the way I like it), instead, it seems rather ... bland. A bit flat, in fact, in spite of the wild and wonderful colours of the fabrics and the decided bubbly happiness of the pattern.

Further, I have trouble adjusting to the fabrics. Love them. Love the wild and wonderful colours and patterns, but ...
This particular pattern is completely left-right symmetrical, so to get it "right" you need to let the fabrics reflect that ... only ... mr Fasset's fabrics are - in general - not mirror-image fabrics, giving me some problems in achieving the desired symmetry.
BUT, I guess this is a learning experience, and hope that the flavour of "failure" is mostly due to the time of year. I really, seriously, don't like this time of the year. It is already far too dark for my taste, and it will take another month before it will be this light again !

Guess I'll pack up this block and call it "prepared" (when I've basted and ironed the brown tree-bits too, which will happen soon), and then I'll proceed to the next block, hoping to get it ... more to my taste.
I'll keep you posted (but it'll probably take another week or two before I have anything to show for my efforts. Preparing these blocks is time-consuming, and time is not what I have the most of right now)

Quilting in Progress

There really isn't a whole lot to show when the main focus of one's quilting-life is ... quilting. Progress is slow, and the visual change from finished top isn't huge. The change is in texture and feel.
HOWever, I have attempted to show how Allsorts is being quilted in the first picture. You just might (might !) be able to discern the straight-line frame-quilting I'm putting into and around each block.

To get the picture, I laid it out on the floor, as straight as I could (living in small rooms with much furniture), and sat down, trying to get the light in at an angle where quilting-line-texture might show. And, mirabili dictu, I succeeded in taking a few pictures before "that" happened.
And what "that" is ?
Well, in this household we have critters. 3 cats and a rabbit. Put anything remotely quilty within easy reach of either of these, and they will not only investigate, but will lay down. As can be seen on pictures.
Rabbit came first and was told "Nibble and die", which - naturally - sent her away. Quilts are no fun unless you can taste them. And when she left, the tailless gentleman, Pushkin, felt that my sitting on the floor, with a quilt spread out, was an invitation to himself to play and cuddle.

So, yes. Even if it is "only" about 1/3rd quilted, critters have, well and truly, taken to it and have started to "house-break" it :-)
... there is a reason all my quilts need to be washable.

Stash-management

There are quite a few people out there in blog-land who are doing their best to bust that stash ! And there are oodles of wonderful blogs with easy-to-do scrap-quilts for people who want to make something from their stash and start using it.

Now, my stash is ... a nice size.
On the right hand shelves, two top shelves are batiks, two bottom ones are multi-colours and kiddie-freindly ones.
On the shelves that holds books and sundry stuff, bottom-shelf is clothes-fabrics, second-from-bottom shelf is quilts, and then comes a shelf of "other" fabrics , which mostly means silks and velvets in small quantities, and then comes a shelf of orientals ... which in this case includes japanese indigoes and daiwabos.

Now, it looks messy, but it actually isn't as bad as it looks. The "sundry fabrics" are organized according to colour. One shelf with neutrals, one with pinks and black-greys, one with reds-to-yellows, one with greens and browns, and a full shelf of blues ! I don't use much blue, so whenever I acquire some, it seems to stay on that shelf forever.

Not tooooo big, but big enough to enable me to pull just about anything from it and make something. The problems with my stash are not in its size. At least, I'm not at the point where it feels too overwhelmingly big.
Still, it needs management. And by this I do not mean simply folding and putting in neat stacks (that will be nice too, but not strictly necessary). No, I mean to buy most of that which I use most, and buy least of that which I use rarely.

... and then I need to start using some of the multi-colours. I don't. Which is also why there is so much of it. The problem is, that while kiddies were small, I bought the novelty and "pictorial" fabrics. And with each buy, there was a dream to make something for my babies. Most of these dreams never came through ... which means that compared to any other "style" of fabric (except batik, but I use that a lot !), the kiddie-freindly type is abundant. Further, when I look at what fabrics I have in big pieces (to me, that is more than 1 yard), there is practically nothing but kiddie-fabrics (lovely shirt / dress / shorts -dreams)

Unlike many others, I don't feel a driving need to do stash-busting. I like the variety and richness of my stash. And yes, I do realize, that compared to some my stash is a puny little thing. It is, however, big to me :-) big enough.
SO, stash-management in the coming year will include a pledge, given here, in full public ! to not buy more than I use. From now on, and until I say stop :-)
Can't be fairer than that, can I ?

Oh, and to counteract all this super-woman planning and plotting and managing, and to counteract the impression of messiness given by the picture of my the stash (which doesn't seem as messy in real life as it does on pictures ... guess I've gotten used to it), I'll end with a picture of my work-station in the sewing-room. On the chair to the left (barely visible), Pushkin, the tail-less gentleman, in the quilting-frame, Allsorts, on the design-wall, nothing at all, and on the table, Josephine, my velcro-cat, draped over : notes to the book of Isaiah in Hebrew , dictionaries, grammars and the Hebrew Old Testament.

Which Moomin Valley Character

Don't usually post these things, but I just happen to love the Moomin books by Tove Jansson, and I just happen to loooove the character I turned out to be :-) I believe he's called Snufkin in English. Sorry, but the text presumes that you read Norwegian. If you do : enjoy !

	Hvem er du i Mummidalen?
	Mitt resultat: Snusmumriken Du er Snusmumriken! Du er modig og rolig. Du er også selvstendig og kan ta vare på deg selv, men du er likevel venn med alle.
	Ta denne quizen på Start.no

Moving ahead

Well, the quilting of Allsorts is going well, thank you for asking :-) but it is slow work, and really, there is nothing much to show. All the blocks are quilted just the same. Around the applique, and then in square "frames", so you have seen it all in the post of Nov. 5th. The only difference between then and now is, that more blocks have been quilted, but the basic look is the same.

Usually, I would be starting a new quilt now (or 2 or 5 ... well, yes, it has been known to happen), and I will soon start preparing a new applique-quilt, but I'm not starting just yet. I'm knitting instead.
I've been knitting "seriously" since I was 13 (and that is now so many moons ago that I don't care to think about it), Kaffe Fasset style from his first publication in "Creative Knitting" (a book released by Penguin back in the 1980es, not the now magazine), Scandinavian style two- (or more) colour knitting, just about any wild thing you can think of.
Unfortunately, my wrists don't hold up well to lots of knitting or really big projects. It has helped enormously that I changed my needles from steel to hard-wood, but still, I can't overdo it, so a balance between sewing/quilting and knitting is nice :-)
And for knitting in front of the TV, I need something mindless. This is where the Opal-yarns come in. No-brainers with lots of patterning and stripes. Not always beautiful, but always interesting. Besides, who's ever going to see them, apart from yours truly ? so if they turn out hideous, it doesn't matter.

And then, yesterday, I went shopping
Small basement-shop going out of business. I only found out she exists 2 weeks ago, so yesterday was probably a 3-in-1 shopping : first, last and only. Too bad. She had some nice yarns
One of the nicest was the St. Magnus angora. Six skeins went home with me, and the first skein is almost knit up :-) Scarf on your right. It will get another skein, and then - hopefully - be large enough to look good as well as be warm and nice.
I might be looking at getting more ... wouldn't it be gorgeous with a triangluar shawl, knit up in the softest of angora-yarns and lace-knitting ?
But not now.
Particularly not seeing that I got something like 20 skeins of the Opal-yarns. Kiddies will get socks as well as myself, but even if DMiLaw gets some of it (and she will, if she wants to), there will be plenty of yarn to keep me in knitting for the rest of this winter ... and probably some :-)

November

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!
Thomas Hood


That about sums it up.
November is hitting hard this year.