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!

Weekend accomplishments...

Oh...I wish there were more hours in a weekend! I had lots of plans for what I wanted to do, but only managed some of it. Yesterday in between baking bread and scones, I made my second block for The Winter Quilt:

This is the quilt Rose and I both are working on - she posted a pic of her block earlier today. Our blocks are so different, but I love them both! Can hardly wait to see how these quilts eventually turn out!

Most of today I spent making a birthday present for a friend - unfortunately I can't post a pic seeing as she might pop in and have a look at my blog *lol*

I had planned on starting a new tote bag for myself once I had made the gift, but didn't feel up to reading patterns and working on something "big". Therefore I went over to the next point on my list: prepare some more DJ blocks! I have now the pieces for six more blocks ready. Hopefully I'll manage to stitch them in the next week or so...

Oh... almost forgot - someone asked me to show a pic of Nadine's stitchery for the Stitchery Swap once I had it up on the wall. Looks great, doesn't it?

Hope you will have a great week!
Sincerely, Anne Ida

And it's a flimsy!

Not much sewing this week, not much time to read blogs or reply to all your sweet comments either... I'm sorry about that! and I hope to be able to do some catching up this weekend. I started this afternoon by stitching the borders to my blue and white SBS swap quilt top - it is now officially a flimsy:

I'm rather pleased with the effect of the log cabin blocks! Now I have to piece together the back, using the last one of my blocks, the siggie squares from some of the other swappers and left over fabrics :o)

Wishing everyone a great quilty weekend!
Sincerely, Anne Ida