Blogger's Quilt Festival

I have been following the Blogger's Quilt Festival for a few seasons now, and I have been amazed by all the beautiful quilts made by the talented quilters out these. When Amy's e-mail arrived earlier this fall I immediately knew I would enter my recent pride and joy: Anne Ida's Loyal Union Sampler - here hung on the attic wall:

I was and still am thrilled to have been able to make this quilt ahead of the Loyal Union Sampler book being published, and honored a picture of my quilt was included in the book.

My quilt consists of  the 121 sampler blocks featured in the pattern book, and 56 Birds in the Air blocks for the border - each block 6" square. The quilt itself measures 90" square.

The few bits of applique in this quilt is done by hand, but most of blocks are machine pieced and the quilting is done on my Bernina Activa 135 - also known as Bernie :-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Christmas Greetings substitute

In an earlier post I mentioned I was probably going to substitute a block or two for my Christmas quilt. However, I  wanted it to thematically still would work in a Christmas quilt, and not be too different from the block i changed. So the choice of a Snow Chrystal block wasn't so far fetched:

In my part of Norway there's a bit of a jeopardy if there's snow on Christmas or not, but still there's always the hope of waking up to a white Christmas.

What block did I replace? There's no secret I have a teeny-tiny scare of applique, and of course one of the final two blocks in the original sampler has some applique in it - this is Flower of Christmas:

Picture copy: block from the original 

Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor by Jennifer Chiaverini

Not too different are they?  Just the center that separates these blocks, and I wanted to do a block that had more or less the same overall appearance as the Flower of Christmas.

The Snow Chrystal block is patterned in the Elm Creek pattern books, but the pattern is for a block with lots of Y-seam construction  made from diamonds, triangles and squares. I don't really mind doing Y-seams, but strip-piecing is rather quicker, and since I do own the Rapid Fire Lemoyne star ruler, and have become quite smitten with it (it's not a love-match, though), I decided it would be a good way to go. However, using this method there will be some more seams to cross when quilting...

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

LUS BOW: Beacon Lights

I didn't get around to making last week's LUS BOW, but I probably won't make all 120 blocks this time around, and have plenty of time to decide if I'll play catch-up on that block, or if I'll just skip it. For now I have enjoyed making this week's BOW: A-7 Beacon Lights:

Not really sure what's going on, but I feel these LUS blocks came together so much smoother when I did the brown/pink/gold version. Might be the background fabrics I used - the white-on-white is fairly stiff, so it might have helped stabilize the pieces better than the fabrics I'm using now - which is bits and pieces from a layer cake and scraps of beige left over from my Dear Jane adventure... This is the block I made for my brown/pink/gold LUS:

Happy Sunday!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Sunday walk to the LQS

The weather forecast actually says -1 centigrade and mentioned something about snow in certain areas tomorrow. So when I had the chance today I went for a walk to the local quilt shop in the area my parents live, enjoying the last of the Autumn colours.

What I bought? Cotton batting for my Christmas quilt, a stencil (thinking maybe doing some hand quilting...) a marker, a ruler and some quilting thread. All stuff I plan on using fairly soon ;-)

 

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Christmas Greetings: the Christmas Eve block

Haven't really had time or energy to sew much since last weekend, but this morning I managed to get the Christmas Eve block for my Christmas sampler together. Not all the points match perfectly, but I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

However I'm wondering how well the yellow points will show once the block is sewn into the quilt... Oh, well, this is the colour combination I felt like ;-)

The block is sewn on freezer paper, which is not my favorite technique, but with all the bias edges on the pieces in this block I figured it was my best bet without having to have to do lots of frog-stitching.

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Loyal Union Sampler BOW and a Christmas block

This week's BOW for the Loyal Union Sampler yahoo group is Winged Square - this is my version made in Harvest Home by Blackbirds:Design for Moda. The picture doesn't do it justice - the background is actually a warm brown, not the horrible pink as it looks in the picture:

This is the one I made for the pink/brown/gold LUS quilt that's in the book - the focus fabric is from Jennifer Chiaverini's Joanna's Collection for Red Rooster:

I have also made a tiny progress on my Christmas quilt - one block down, three more to go. This is Pine Tree:

I had a look through my project today bag, and it looks like I have very little red fabrics left, so I' m thinking the last three blocks needs to be mostly green and gold... or I have to come up with something...

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Christmas Greetings revisited

Early 2011 I joined a BOM with a yahoo group making quilts from Jennifer Chiaverini's pattern books. The pattern for this BOM was Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor:

I stitched diligently the first few months and made it through six blocks before I completely lost focus. I did try, cutting pieces for blocks ready to stitch, but they lust lay there in their little plastic baggies until our sewing getaway at Lapp-Elisa's in April. After which my tally was 8 blocks.

I still have to make the remaining four blocks (perhaps I'll substitute a couple) as I have decided on a setting for these blocks that's on a 3x4 blocks grid. The setting is also from a Jennifer Chiaverini pattern but it's not the elaborate setting of the original Christmas Greetings quilt. Hopefully I can get this project finished by Christmas as the fabric I ordered for the setting and border arrived last week:

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

LUS BOW - Abel's Favorite

Keeping on playing with the fun block of the week over at the Loyal Union Sampler yahoo group. This week's block is A1- Abel's Favorite:

It turned out a bit wonky, not sure what I did wrong since I didn't have any problems with my first one, but it was fun revisiting the pattern for this block. Amazing what difference the choice of fabric makes - this is the block I made for my original LUS quilt:

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Le Grand Macabre and a need to vent

Tonight a colleague of mine and I went out to see György Ligeti's burlesque opera "Le Grand Macabre" 

It was a very entertaining but quite bizarre experience... Loved the scenography, especially the lights and the use of bits of film/movie. The performers did a great job, but the story took some getting into - the day after a drinking binge, anxiety thinking the end of the world has come - and the music had some weird bits in it. But all in all well worth the visit to the opera house. 

So why does my heading say "...a need to vent"? This summer I bit the dust and exchanged my old cell phone for a smart phone - yes I have issues with technology, I have just started to get used to the idea I can use my phone to do more than call and text message ;-) As on most theaters, when the show began one of the attendants came on stage and asked everyone to please not take photographs or record any of the performance. She also asked people to please turn off their phones and to only update Facebook, Twitter and Instagram during intermission. Show begins, the woman next to me shoots a picture of the stage. I think "Ok, she violates the regulations getting a souvenir, but will put away her phone after this". But no! She kept on using it - and with the screen quite close to my face I could clearly see she was on FB, she was texting, she was flipping through her photo album and whatever else. Since the light from the screen was interfering with my vision I asked her to please turn it off  - TWICE! And she just kept going! This was a woman about my age (mid 30s), so she should be grown up enough to respect people and shut off the phone when it clearly violates regulations and is an annoyance to people around her! If she though the show was boring she could have left during intermission, but she kept on playing with her phone trough the second half as well! 

I really, really, really hope I never become that attached to my phone! However I used it on my way out to take a picture of their lovely stage curtain

Its a piece of art made in cotton, wool and polyester by american artist Pae White, and she called it "Metafoil". Unfortunately the picture doesn't do it justice, however it does kind of look like scrunched up tin foil ;-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Loyal Union Sampler - appliqué blocks

There aren't many appliqué blocks in the LUS, luckily for me who still have a bit of a scare about the A-word. However I love the look of the appliqué that's there:

E-8 Honney Bee:

I-8  Slave Chain:

...and one of my favorites J-3 Tea Leaves:

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Sylvia and the Civil War

Doing the posts on my Loyal Union Sampler and seeing the LUS blocks popping up on blogs and in the yahoo-group I feel my fingers itching to stitch little 6" blocks again. I'm a member of both the yahoo-group for Sylvia's Bridal Sampler and The Loyal Union Sampler. Both groups are doing a block-of-the-week program, so I'm gonna join in the fun using a layer cake and some cream fabrics from my stash:

Not sure how far they will take me, but at the moment it's just about having fun with some blocks along with everyone else. Perhaps they someday might turn into a Sylvia and the Civil War quilt?

This week's block at the LUS-BOW group is B-2 Camp Curtain:

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida