Wolverines playing

I haven't had much chance to sew lately, so I don't have much to show that's quilt related. However I really want to share a little video I made when I went to the Nordic Ark with my family in the beginning of this month:

When we were there they had six wolverines, and we got to see two of the cubs playing for a really long time. This was on a Monday morning, and we were more or less the only people in the park at the time, and a couple of the wolverines came up close to the fence - this is my Dad saying hi the one we nicknamed Finn



(there's a whole long story behind the name - if any Norwegians out there have read the Knut Gribb stories, they might figure it out ;-))

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

The baby quilt...

...is finally finished and was dropped off yesterday afternoon. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I think the lady who ordered it was very happy:



The top is machine pieced and appliquéd. There's Quilter's Dream cotton batting and a soft and cuddly fleece on the back so the little baby boy it's for will have it nice and comfy. I machine quilted it in the same pattern I used on my Chimneys and Cornerstones quilt. Sorry I didn't get too great a photo of it, but lamplight doesn't work well with my camera, but the pic should be clickable for a closer look.

Hope I can catch up on some other sewing this weekend! Have a great and creative couple of days ;-)
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

What I'm currently working on

I'm on a short break from my Mill Girls quilt to finish a baby quilt for one of the ladies I work with. Think this will be pretty on a little boy's pram or cot ;-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Mill Girls - the beginning

Friday was the first day of the Mill Girls Quilt-Along on the SBS-and-other-Elm-Creek-Quilts yahoo group. Assignment for this week is 1) to pick the fabrics you'd like to use (I have chosen a layer cake of Buttercup by FigTree and a white-on-white background), 2) cut the pieces for all the blocks, and 3) if you have the time piece the first 30 hourglass units. I was very tempted to see how the blocks would look, so I pieced together three:



Pretty happy with them :-) And it was so great to find some time to spend with Bernie, too!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Tilda Angel

Not much sewing going on here. During these first weeks of October I've only finish a Tilda Angel for a birthday pressie,



Since finishing this Bernie has pretty much been asleep, but I do have some sewing/quilting lined up, and hope to have something more to share soon. 

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

PS! And a quick reminder - if you would like to participate in the Mill Girls quilt-along, it starts tomorrow morning :-)

Author's Album Blocks

Hard to believe it's been way over a week since my last post - main reason: I haven't sewn a stitch in ages, and those pictures I talked about in my previous post I still haven't sorted through. But I thought I'd share some signature blocks I worked on this summer, and who are now traveling around the world:



These are blocks for a swap with the SBS-and-other-Elm-Creek-Quilts yahoo group from a pattern in Jennifer Chiaverini's pattern book More Elm Creek Quilts.. They were very fiddly to get to the right size, and some of them are a hair off, but I hope the girls won't have any trouble sewing the block they receive into their quilts. The stipulation was 8" blocks made using Kona Cotton Cream and a Civil War reproduction of choice. I used a fabric from Windham's Gettysburg Civil War VIII line.



Debbie, who is the swap hostess, kindly shared a picture of the blocks she received from all who participated before she sent them out. Since the blocks are still en-route between the US and Norway, I have "borrowed" her pic to share. Looks great doesn't it? This will be a very pretty quilt! Can hardly wait for my block package to arrive :-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Akershus castle by night

Culture night in Oslo tonight and we have had a lovely time starting at farmer's market, seeing the palace chapel, the annual autumn art exhibition, a short fjord cruise, hot chocolate at the peace center and fireworks at the warf. I'll sort through my pictures and share some of my impressions one of these days. This is the last picture I was able to take before power ran out on my camera, and since this camera really doesn't perform well in dim light, I'm positively surprised. And the white "blob" is actually the moon :-)

Wishing everyone in blogland a wonderful weekend!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Bogstad gård

As mentioned in my previous post I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took at Bogstad gård. It is a beautiful and historic site and well worth a visit if you are in Oslo. They offer tours of the manor house during the summer, but we didn't go inside this time.



In the years from mid 1600s to the mid 1900s Bogstad was the center of a large corporation, consisting of thousands of acres of wood, three blast furnaces, many sawmills and other businesses. The manor house was the family home, while it was the administration center and entertainment facilities for the company.



The owners were central in Norwegian politics, among them Peder Anker, the first Norwegian prime minister after the end of the union with Denmark in 1814, and his son in-law count Herman Wedel-Jarlsberg.



Leisha beside the courtyard fountain



Bogstad surrounded by one of our oldest English landscape parks, this is today a popular recreation area



Some of the younger maple trees has started to turn yellow



The last of the summer flowers

These were quite small, and such a lovely shade of purple

*

We walked back to the tube station rather than wait for the buss, and turning back when we had walked a bit around the lake this was our view

A lovely place to visit :-)
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Saturday inspiration

Yesterday was a beautiful warm and sunny day here in Oslo, and my friend Leisha and I spent the day at the beautiful and historic Bogstad Manor. Our main reason for going was to see this:

Kirsti Hovland is such a talented fabric artist! The exhibition covers the development of writing from stone age to modern computer age. She has dyed and printed most of the fabrics herself to get the look of stone, wood and metal, and the execution of the quilts are so wonderful! She has also If you live within traveling distance of Bogstad, you should definitely go have a look! There is so much to look at, but here's a peek at my favorite pieces. 

This is a series of six small quilts showing the timeline she has covered - and it was so beautiful,and detailed 

This quilt was inspired by the petroglyphs in the area around Alta in Northern Norway (see the northern light in the borders?) - and one of my two top favorites 

Bronze age - love the combination of those strict lines in the piecing and the soft contours of the appliqué

This is the quilt I kept going back to - I have always had a soft spot for the Thousands of Pyramids pattern (never sewed it, though!), and I just loved the combination of an easily recognizable quilt pattern with the older Futhark (rune alphabet) appliqued as a border. And I love those little bursts of colured pieces of fabric in the binding 

Here's a quilt that probably don't need an explanation - isn't it amazing how easily recognizable the stem of a viking ship is? And I love the combination of the "wood carving" cable and the younger Futhark in the borders

Medieval writing on vellum - you can just feel the texture of it :-)

A jump to more modern time - isn't this one fun? - newspapers on news print

And this contemporary series in black/grey/green - so much fun

I say it again - if you can go see this, DO! It's open for another week. I also took lots of pictures at the manor and farm - will share those in my next post :-) Wishing everyone a wonderful Sunday!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida