A weekend of vitamin Q

On Friday nine women packed our sewing machines, fabrics and notions, ongoing projects and patterns for new ones, and went for a weekend stay at Lapp-Elisa's in Lennartsfors in Sweden.

I think we all were in need of some vitamin Q. Lots of sewing was done, all of us working dilligently on our projects. Friday night I finished my last block for my Christmas quilt (and forgot to take a close-up picture, but it's the one on the top left corner), and yesterday I worked on the setting for the blocks.

I managed to get all the sashing stitched, the center of the top together and add the inner border before it got too late Saturday night

And before breakfast this morning the outer border was attached. Just as the blocks in this quilt is from a Jennifer Chiaverini pattern, the setting is found in her pattern book Traditions from Elm Creek Quilts, however my borders are a bit narrower. 

A few pictures of the sewing room with some of Elisabeth's colourful quilts and quilt tops, as well as all our stash spread around. the tables

We have already started planning our next get-togeher here - the date is set and we have started thinking of what to do.

Of course I spent some money, but I haven't unpacked my bags yet, so that will have to be shared in a later post.

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

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

Christmas Greetings From Elm Creek Manor - September

This weekend I finally found some time to sit down at the sewing machine and finished up some swap blocks (I'll share those later), and I managed to get this month's block of our BOM Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor done - this is Star of Bethlehem:

Anyone remembering the block for April (or scroll down to the next picture *lol*) will see this has the same construction as the Star of the Magi block - but I had some trouble getting this one together - for some reason the points didn't want to line up properly, it turned out a tad on the large side, and there are some strange pressing lines. But at one point I had to say enough is enough, and this was the best it would be, and hopefully I can adjust the setting for the blocks to compensate for the bit it is off size. 

And once I was at it I just had to pull the other blocks out of the drawer and lay them out together just to see what they looked like

Can't believe we're half way though this BOM already - seems like we started just last week!

Happy week, everyone!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

August BOM block and a very pretty girl

This weekend was our annual girl's trip to Nordens Ark (The Nordic Ark) in Sweden. As usual we had a fabulous time, and apart from a much needed short thunderstorm around mid-day on Sunday the weather played nice. I took over 700 pictures over the two days, and it's gonna take me some time to sort through them all, but I want to share one of my favorites from one of the major highlights of the trip - we got to watch this pretty girl named Sparta being fed:



Coming home I guess I was a bit more tired than I thought because my brain couldn't function properly. I was going to do the August block of the Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor block of the month - "Glad Tidings". This looks like a simple block, doesn't it?

And it was, once I got my head wrapped around it! It only took two major errors, a block that's 1" too small (that's one for my orphan blocks box), and a night's sleep to get it right *lol*. Well, at least I learned something! Now I get to breathe before the September block :-)

Wishing everyone a fabulous week!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

This month's BOM block

Bernie being out of action, this was the perfect month for Connie to pick an appliqué block for our BOM - the Christmas Cactus block. I'm not a strong appliquéer so I knew I would need time on this block, so I cheated and started it in early May.

Tonight I finished stitching down the last of the red buds. Now, i used the same template for all of them except the four in the middle, and none of them turned out the same - but I guess there aren't two exactly similar buds on a live Christmas cactus either *lol*. Luckily next month's block is EASY!! *lol* My blocks so far look like this:

A little certain someone is just too curious about what two-legs is doing

and it doesn't alway go well being nosy

Luckily he didn't have far to fall *lol*. Oh, and I had a call from the shop this afternoon; I can pick up Bernie tomorrow - woohooo!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Getting the holidays mixed up

I couldn't resist snapping this picture of my latest appliqué block in progress and a the Christmas cactus from my Mum's kitchen :o) Not hard to see where the inspiration for the block pattern came from, even though I still have some red buds left to appliqué.

A few weeks ago I joined a block of the month program at the SBS & Other Elm Creek Quilts yahoo group. At the moment there are 14 of us working on blocks from the Christmas Greetings from Elm Creek Manor quilt. This is the April block - Star of the Magi:

The Christmas Cactus isn't due till June, but I'm slow at appliqué, and I needed something portable, so cheating and skipping ahead on the block was a good option.

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida