Happy New Year/Godt nytt år!!!

All the best wishes for everyone in 2008 - lots of quilting and lots of blogging. And cheers to meeting friends from the world of Blogland!

Biiig hugs from Anne Ida

Santa came

Look what Secret Santa, a.k.a. Sharon, sent me:

Isn't it just wonderful! I love the star Christmas runner - and she also included a cute tin with safety pins, some needles, a divinely smelling soap, a cute little stocking and a pattern for a gingerbread wall hanging. Thank you so much, Sharon! I love it!!!

Hope you all have a great weekend!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Happy Birthday, Rose!

December 27th, is Rose’s 40. birthday - a very happy birthday to you, sweetie!!!

In the middle of February I was blog browsing and happened upon Threadbare. You had just made the first loggie block for your wonderful quilt. That first short comment I left has lead to many e-mails over the months that has passed, a smile on my face every time I see your name in my inbox, and you have come to be a treasured friend! Together we work on our Sylvia’s Bridal Sampler quilts and on our Winter Quilts - a togetherness despite the distance between Australia and Norway - and I love being able to share in your creativity! I have been lucky to be able to follow your journey on building your own design company, and see Threadbare Creations grow. You are such a tallented quilter, and I wish you many years ahead doing what you love!

I hope you will have a wonderful birthday, that it will be filled with much happiness, good company, pressies and fun!
Gratulerer så mye med dagen!!!
Stooor bursdagsklem/biiiig birthday hug!

Home for Christmas

I'll be going home to my parent's this afternoon for my Christmas holiday, and I probably won’t post until sometime next week (what is in the SSCS package from Sharon and some other Christmasy things). I just want to wish all my blogfriends a very Merry Christmas! I hope you all will have a holiday of peace, family and friends!

And I thought I’d show you this:

Isn’t it cozy? My Mum stitched it for me a few years back, and it is now hanging in my kitchen bringing warmth and the feel of Christmas fro me when I get back.

Take care, and happy holidays!
Hugs from Anne Ida

Weekend baking

This weekend was a bit of Christmas preparations. With four doughs for Christmas cookies that I had prepared during the week, I went to my parents house on Friday afternoon. I also brought them The Sampler - which ended up on their bed in a really short time *lol*. While my Mum and I went to a wonderful church concert on Friday night, my Dad and my sis baked up the Galettes that Nadine shared the recepie for - since we don't have a galette cooker they used a waffle iron, that's why they are "triangular" - they are yummy!!! Saturday my sister and I did some shopping and then some more baking; ginger bread and some sour cream bread. Sunday we continued with Goro and some Tyske skiver (German slices):

We also made the dough for some Kromkaker - which my mum made Sunday evening after I had packed down my camera.

Still lots of things to do... Yikes! Better get running :o)
Sincerely, Anne Ida

PS! My SSCS giftie from Sharon arrived on Friday! Thank you so much Sharon! Now tucked away with some other pressies at my parents house so I won't be tempted to open early :o)

Better finished than perfect :o)

Plan for the weekend was to finish the sampler for my parents - and I did it!!! The label is attached and the quilt is now in the washing machine :o) A biiig "thank you hug" to all of you who said I could do it!

This is how it turned out:

This is a close up of the quilting:

This was a bit of an experiment with free motion quilting - rather sparsely all over quilting with hearts and some swirls, and some in-the-ditch in the borders. I still have a long way to go on improving my quilting skills, but all in all this looks ok! ...it could have been a lot worse *lol*

I'm feeling good! And I hope you do to!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Easing my guilty conscience

In May my parents had their 30th wedding anniversary. What is good daughter to do? Make them a quilt, of course! Well, I got started… and then everything just happened very differently then I had thought, and on their anniversary I only presented them with 10 blocks… I took the blocks back home with me and had plans of finishing the quilt in a matter of weeks. Those weeks turned into months… and while I was looking for some fabrics for a Christmas present last night, the blocks looked up accusingly up at me, saying: “Why haven’t you stitched us into a quilt?” Tonight I have done my best to do just that:

This is the "Sampler" in the to-do list in my sidebar. There is a theme in the block names - marriage, home and family. I had originally planed a different setting for the ten blocks, but I still haven’t figured out the measurements and how to cut the pieces for that setting, so in stead I made two more blocks (a Rosebud - my mom loves roses and had roses in her bridal bouquet, and a Sawtooth Star - my dad knows his way around a saw and he is a star ;o)) and decided on a straight setting 3 x 4 with cornerstones. Now the border remains – I’m thinking piano keys in the three focus colours (the fabric that looks a little brown is actually a shade of pink). Hopefully I can stitch those tomorrow and ad them to the centre. If I then can layer it and baste it on Friday (purchased batting and quilting thread yesterday) – do you think I can quilt it this weekend? – And then do the binding when the rest of the Christmas gifts are done?

Goal: Since I couldn’t finish the quilt for the date of their anniversary, I should at least finish it within the year of their anniversary!

Hope you are having a great week!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

A time for secrets... and PIF

It is hard to believe it's a week since my last post, and it is the first Sunday of advent already! I've sent of my pressie for xxx in the Secret Santa Christmas swap - ohhh, I hope she'll like it! And I've started making some other little presents - none of which I can show *lol*. I've put up light in the kitchen window today, but that is as far as I've gotten on my decorating (hmmm... I know I need a purple runner under there... the fabrics are in the drawer, just haven't gotten there yet).

And I thought I'd let anyone interested know: I've stil got a free spot on my Pay It Forward - please let me know if you want to participate (you get a hand made giftie from me, and you make three to send to someone else).

Wishing all my blog friends a great December week!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Butterfly Garden - the beginning

Some have asked me to show my first blocks for my version of Leanne Beasley's new BOM: Butterfly Garden. This is what it looks like so far - four blocks, no butterflies yet:

Since I haven't received the patterns yet, I've begun on blocks Leanne gave us drawings of in the class she held in Trysil, and blocks I can draft from the picture on her blog. I really enjoy working on these little cuties :o)

Hope you all have a great Sunday!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

To my secret Santa

Dear Santa!
I want to savour the element of surprise for our family opening of gifties on Christmas Eve. Please don't spoil it for me by posting a picture of my pressie on your blog until after that!?

Thank you!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

A lot to share

I've got a lot to share tonight - all of it good!!! Firstly, any of you reading Rose's post today saying she will be having a friend for a visit in February? Guess who??? MEEEEE!!! I'll be flying to Australia, spending a couple of days in Melbourne with Rose and her family (hopefully we'll run into some other bloggers as well), a week in Tasmania with them, including a weekend class arranged by The country Quilter, attending a quilting class, with Rose teaching her beautiful new design! YEY!!!! And probably meeting some other very talented Australian designers as well. Doing the happy dance in the couch *lol*

Secondly I saw a post on May Kristin's blog today about this:

I'm very happy to be able to participate in this and I hope some of you want to play along - this is how it goes:
It’s the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. You all know I’m already a PIF type of person. So here’s how it works. I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

On the quilting front I can report that I still am doing bits and pieces on my WIPs - as you might have noticed a few more progress lists have appeared in my side bar. I've decided to follow Hanne's example from quilting her Watermelons on quilting the blue and white SBS swap quilt, at least one strand of thread a day.

I've also made a head start on Leanne Beasley's new BOM - Butterfly Garden - the patterns won't be here until december, so I've started on the stitcheries of quilt blocks that I can draft myself. I will probably make a very personal version of this quilt, and swap some of the blocks she has used in hers for something that suits my tastes and skills better. Pics will come...

Hope you all have a wonderful evening/day/morning
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Tagged, SSCS, and 4SQS

The other day I got tagged by Anne Heidi for a meme on some crafty questions, so here it goes:

The rules are: Answer the following on your blog and then let five other bloggers know that you have tagged them to complete the meme.

1. When did you start to create and make craft?
No idea… I have all my life seen my Mom and her Aunts and cousins sewing, knitting and crocheting – one of my favourite toys as a child was a rag doll made by one of Mom’s cousins. I can not remember when I started myself… Remember weaving in kindergarten (wool yarn on a hand loom), and I do remember that my first quilt block was made in 3rd grade, a quarter log cabin sewn into a cushion :o)

2. Why did you start creating?
Just a natural part of the way my life has progressed, I guess…

3. Why do you create?
I can’t imagine not to.

4. What do you create?
Quilts, table toppers, cushions, bags of different types and sizes… anything I can do on a sewing machine (except clothes). When my arms and shoulders allow I also knit and crochet – I have knitted a few sweaters over the years, and I love to crochet small snowflake like table toppers – log time since I made one, though...

5. Has this changed since you began crafting?
Over the years, yes. As a teenager you weren’t supposed to do crafty stuff… I guess I really got hooked once I started making quilts that were a bit bigger than doll quilts.

Ok, so now I have to tag someone for this meme – and it will be: Rose, Valerie, Jeanette, Heather, and Yvonne – hope you’ll play along, girls :o)
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So what have I been doing lately? Well I’ve been quilting my blue and white SBS quilt – I’m hand quilting it and it will take time to get it done. Even though my fingers are getting sore, I'm loving every minute of it :o) While quilting that I’ve been thinking about what to do for the Secret Santa Christmas Swap, and this will be it:

Picture removed by author 19. Nov. and will be re-posted after Xmas (if I remember *lol*)

I finished stitching down the binding tonight, still have to make a label for the back. This is as close as you can get to an “Anne Ida original” *lol*– a very simple pattern made up as I went along, but inspired by things I’ve seen in magazines and in blogland. It is 3” squares with a border around it and some appliqué. The appliqué is a drawing of the front part of the Oseberg ship – a Viking ship from the 7th century. It was found and excavated in the early 1900ds, and it was part of a woman’s burial mound. It is probably one of our most popular tourist attractions, and the image is also engraved on one of our coins (20kr). So I figured it would be nice to feature it on a table runner for an international swap :o) Now I just hope the recepient will like it!
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Lastly: The Four Seasons Quilt swap has opened for registration for the winter swap. I’ve joined in, will you?

Wishing everyone in Blogland a great weekend!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

The Trysil Bag is Finished

The bag I started in Leanne Beasley's class in Trysil is now finished:

The pattern is called "The Waverley Bag" - to me it is "The Trysil Bag" :o) I'm really pleased with how it turned out (sorry, but colours in the pic are not the greatest). This was my first attempt at needle turn appliqué; the result is far from perfect, but I had fun learning the technique. It is definitely what I will do for appliqué in the future!

This was a fun pattern to do, and being able to attend Leanne's class made it even more fun!
Happy wishes from Anne Ida

I just love this:

I don't know how everyone feels about comics, but I'm a big comics reader (show me a drawn figure with a talking bubble above it's head, and I'll read it :o)), and the other night I happened upon this Snuffy Smith strip on KingFeatures web site:

Isn't it just perfect? *lol* I love the way John Rose have used "quilty" lingo to capture these women gossiping :o)

Wishing everyone a great weekend! Hopefully I'll be able to do some stitching (one project or another) during the weekend, and hope you do too!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Stitching progress

Over these last couple of evenings I've been working on the stitcheries on the Waverley Bag I started this weekend, and I thought I'd show what I've done. I've now finished the three blocks that are all stitcheries, so next I will start on the appliqué (still some stitchery to do in the centre, but I'll appliqué the bucket first).

I'm still trying to process all the impressions from the weekend. It was so wonderful to meet these women and be able to be creative along side them! I think we all had a great time. I’ve stolen this picture from May Britt’s blog since I was really bad at taking photos outside class (sorry, MB, hope you forgive me!).

I have to share with all you bloggers out there how sweet these women are: The ladies asked me if I’d like to join them for pizza Saturday night, and of course I was happy to! What I didn’t know was that they was to surprise me and Aase on our upcoming birthdays by having the staff at the pizza place sing us the birthday song and bring us ice cream :o) And they brought me this wonderful piece of fabric as well!

I’m still in a bit of a state of shock! It was so sweet of them! Thank you, once again!

Hope you are having a wonderful day!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

A wonderful weekend

I’m back from a terrific weekend in Trysil with Leanne Beasley and a group of quilting ladies! The days have been filled with lots of inspiration and laughter, meeting many wonderful quilters and seeing al lot of beautiful projects being started. I thought I’d share some of my photos with you. And I know there are even more photos on May Britt's blog...

Friday - I arrived in time for Leanne's talk on her quilts, Hanne May Britt and I sat of the front row.

Leanne showed a lot of beautiful quilts, and here she is with some of them - Bente from Lille Stasjon is helping her hold them up:

She also talked about her scrapbooking , how she works on them and showed us a couple of them.

Saturday - project of the day was the Waverley Bag. A pretty bag based on nine blocks with appliqué and stitchery.

Leanne talked on the history of the bag, how it got it's name, and in detail how it is constructed. She gave us a demonstration on needle turn appliqué:

And she helped us pick our fabrics and threads for out bags. Here are some pics of the ladies working on their bags through out the day.

This is as far as I got on my bag over the weekend - I hope I can stitch some more on it during the week to come.

Sunday - was a workshop/inspiration shop centred around Leanne's newest BOM "Butterfly Garden".

She talked on how she chose fabrics and treads and how she worked on the design, planned the stitcheries and the appliqué acording to one another. Afterwords she helped those of us who wanted some feedback on our own fabrics and threads with how to choose and lay it out - she gave me lots of wonderful pointers to how and where I can use my fabrics (as you saw in my last post I brought some) and what embroidery floss to choose to match them. Thank you so much, Leanne, for helping me on my way to my own Butterfly Garden!

For those of us who wanted it she did another demonstration on needle turn appliqué:

She also made a block for each of us, and spent quite a lot of time drawing and signing:

And she was nice to pose for pictures for those who wanted - and here is one of the two of us:

During the weekend I had to do some shopping, of course! Lille Stasjon and Quiltegaarden had brought their shops with them - goodie!

Hope you have had a great weekend too!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

Off to see Leanne

Running around in circles most of the evening (except for a movie with a friend) I’ve managed to pack for my weekend in Trysil, and class with talented Aussie quilter/designer Leanne Beasley. I’m so excited! I have been peaking at the blogs of May-Britt, Hanne, Sølvi, and Gudveig to see glimpses of her visit so far – and tomorrow through Sunday it’s my turn!

I just hope I have managed to pack everything I need. Fabrics I’m bringing for the Waverley Bag and My Butterfly Garden:

And threads in different colours, and what I could find of pens, pencils, sketch book, and lots of different other things. This is Bernie's first trip away from home (for you who don't know Bernie is my sewing machine) , so I think both he and I am anctious to see how he will fare on the bus :o) Fingers crossed he will be ok, and that all I will need is packed… If not, I will have to do some shopping at the stands the shops have brought up to the hotel.

In between the packing I managed to sew the last stitches into my new toilet bag, so I can bring it with me instead of the old one with a broken zipper :o)

Hope you too will have a great weekend!
Best wishes from Anne Ida
(Who wish the long bus ride tomorrow was over and she was in Trysil)

PS! Look at the treasure I found I had stuffed in my parent's attic:

How could I forget about having all these goodies?

The story continues

In the story of Rose's and Anne's "Winter Quilt" we have now reached the fourth chapter. Their goal is one block a week; this is the week they want to have a tally of four blocks done:

The two women are enjoying working on their blocks, sitting by their sewing machines on oposite sides of the world. Though in physical distance they are far from eachother, they are together in spirit :o)

Last night and today

Thought I'd give a fair warning: this is a long post - all quilt related :o) Elin - Lappetausa - is in Oslo these days, and we have met up for some quilty things. Last night Kathrines Quilte Stue (LQS in Oslo) arranged a talk by Australian designer Lynne Wilson so we met up for that. Lynne Wilson is working on importing Moda fabrics to Australia (wholesale), and designs promotional patterns for Moda. She had brought along a lot of wonderful quilts! Most of them very simple patterns – she said she was working to make quilting fast and easy :o) Lots of big squares and stripes – not a traditional block in sight (except for 4- and 9-patches).

She brought with her a wonderful hexagon quilt – machine made from split hexagons (she has also developed a thick plastic template for this one) (fairly new blogger Patch has a picture of a quilt made with this pattern on her blog - Patch's version is very different in colour from Lynne's though – which is in soft yellows, peach, reds and greens). She also demonstrated her "pleated log cabin" blocks - a fun looking block, but not something I'll do, I think... But nice to see the technique demonstrated!

She recently have desinged a fabric line for Moda called Porcelaine – this is brand new – she hadn't even seen the fabrics until she saw the shipment Kathrine got in! I don't think the pictures do the fabric justice, though. A lot prettier in real life! In the coffee break there was a draw on our entrance ticket - and I won something!!! A Jelly Roll from Moda - The Roman Holliday line :o) YEY!!!

Today it was autumn in the air, a bit of rain and gray sky. Elin and I headed out of the city to Bærums Verk – and guess… Lappemakeriet!

We had a lot of fun, and spent a lot of money *lol* Elin got some sashing fabric for her wonderful SBS, a lovely beige fabric with a slightly darker floral pattern – the combination will be wonderful! - And what have I done!!!??? I have let those ladies talk me into hand quilting my blue and white swap quilt!! Yikes!

So I picked up a template, some betweens, some thread and thin cotton batting… and a few other goodies. After a lovely lunch at the Dutch Pancake House, we even found some time to go chocolate shopping – I’ll sample some of the chilli and cocoa truffles I got while removing some paper from the pp blocks in my blue and white tonight…

Hope you have days of inspiration!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

The quilt on the back of the chair

I had some questions about the quilt in the picture in my last post - the one hanging over the back of the green chair. And when it comes to share my quilts, I'm not difficult :o)

This is one I made the summer 2002 (I think...), and while I still was a student I kept it at my office at the University - to take outside on those wonderful summer days when reading could be done outside or when an afternoon in the park was an ending to a day of studying - afterwards it has been to different parks, beaches and trips. It has been in the washing machine more times than I remember, and the batting is wearing thin and the fabric is wrinkled, but I love it! I found the pattern in this Norwegian book by Grete Gulliksen Moe and Kirsten Vistnes from 2000 (first published 1988/1990):

I also had a question on how it was constructed, so I have made up a couple of blocks and taken pictures as I went along. This is for two mirrored blocks.

I started of by piecing together strips of fabric – I used FQs, so I made two short sets, you can make them wof:

Clean cut four squares – mine were 10" square, and cross cut the squares:

Rearrange the pieces:

Piece them together – I pieced the triangles into HST units and then pieced them together as a four patch:

My blocks turned out 12 3/4" squares. I have a bit of a cold, and feel mostly like getting to bed (but I had to do some sewing tonight - therefore these two blocks), so that is my excuse for not being too focused when stitching the pieces together – got a couple of them the wrong way around on the light block:

I don't think I'll bother to fix it...? I'm going to make these into a cushion by sewing a purple border on them and perhaps a button in the centre, and will let the light block be the back :o)
Enjoy your strip piecing adventure!