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

It is finally finished!

It's kind of hard to believe, but I have FINISHED this quilt that originally was two quilts. It has been a long journey getting it to where it is today.

I started piecing the Dear Jane on Sept. 23rd 2007. My goal was to make the full DJ quilt, and have it all pieced and appliqued by hand. For a while I was very eager stitching the blocks, but soon I found other projects more interesting. I did sew some blocks from time to time, but there really wasn't much progress. Most of the time it was stuck in a project bag. By the time I realized this was going to end up as a UFO I had stitched 63 blocks using 868 pieces.

When the LQS presented "Svennebrevet" as their BOM a couple of years ago I was absolutely certain I was never going to make it. The two main reasons was on the one hand that I wasn't very inspired by the first shop sample, and on the second hand that most of quilting Norway does their BOMs and I like to do my own things. But I had a hard time resisting, and when the patchwork school started in "Familien" and my Mum dumped the patterns for the first blocks in my lap it was a sign to start. I'm not going to go into all the hassle with cutting measurements and block size here (click the label below if interested), but with a few modifications I stitched 21 blocks that more or less resembles the blocks in the original quilt.

I did a lot of playing around with both sets of blocks, but I really loved the layout of the original Svennebrevet, and with a little advice from Rose after sending her pictures of layout suggestions, I ended up sewing alternating wide and narrow rows. During a fun sewing day with Yvonne I got the scrappy border sewn on, utilizing a lot of my leftover fabrics and the few spare blocks. The quilting would probably have been finished sooner if Bernie hadn't gotten ill, but I'm thrilled to have it done now :-D

So my long list of work-in-very-slow-progress has with this been reduced with two projects. And I have a goal of reducing the list even more in the weeks to come - a couple of the smaller projects will be top priority, Lucinda's Gift quilt-along will start on July 1st and end with a finished quilt, and then hopefully I can make some progress on the quilts I have ready basted and/or has started to quilt....

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Binding the "Svennebrevet/DJ" sampler

Woohoo! I finished quilting it on Sunday! And last night the binding was added. The plan for tonight is pulling out an audio book and get the binding hand stitched down to the back. Then hopefully the quilt will be ready for the washing machine tomorrow for that fresh and crinkly goodness. And another thing: I glue basted this quilt, and even though the glue is supposed to be odorless, I still feel there is a smell - hope it will wash out!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

New Year's resolution 2009: reflections

Remember this post? In the beginning of January, Rose and I made a promise to ourselves and each other that for 2009 we were going to make what we love! We figured the UFO's weren't going anywhere, but we solemnly promised we wouldn't add anymore UFO's to the list. 2009 has been all about finishing whatever we wanted to start! So how has this been going? During this year I have started seven quilts (wow, is it really that many?):

1. The Sugar Camp Quilt
For me, this was the reason for the resolution in the first place; a deliberation whether to focus on WISPs and UFOs, or start something new. I hate to admit it, but this one is still at the "flimsy without border" stage - however I do still have hopes to finish it before the year is over! A little discipline!?!

2. Red & White Swap sampler
Wohoo! It was a lot of fun working on this one! The girls had done a fabulous job on the blocks! And I had a ball testing out my collection of quilt stencils and trying out different shapes in free motion quilting. The sign-up for this swap was in Dec. 2008, so not really sure if it should count… but the blocks weren’t sewn and swapped till January 2009, so I’ll let it ;o) FINISHED May 8th!!

3. Nanny Sharon's Picnic Quilt
A Threadbare Creations pattern I totally fell in love with when Rose published it back in October last year. It was a quick, easy and fun quilt to make! FINISHED May 24th!! Just in time for picnic season (it now have some tomato sauce and strawberry stains - shows it has been used *lol* - need a wash!)

4. Mini Bear's Paw
A reaction from doing those large quilts, I decided to make a mini - in four days ;o) FINISHED May 27th!

5. Sol's birthday quilt
This was started at DJ class with Hanne in March. This sampler was an experiment with blocks of different sizes - the smallest 4.5" and the largest12". FINISHED ehh... in time for her birthday July 29th!

6. Sister’s Choice jelly roll quilt
My oldest jelly roll was cut up in September - it was slow progress on this project, I was a bit un-inspired and I was spending my stitching time doing DJ blocks and working on some old WISPs. But this week I made the decision to get it done! I brought the binding to quilt guild last night, and I hand stitched quite a bit. Coming home I figured I was on a roll, so I spent a couple more hours on the sofa with needle and thread. And behold, it's FINISHED December 9th!



It has fleece on the back:



Not sure how much I enjoyed quilting fleece... So it's not very heavily quilted :o)

7. Carolina Christmas
This mystery was started in late November, and we are up to clue 5... I still have a little ways to go on step 4... I'm going to give myself a bit of leeway on this one - it is a huge quilt, and it has lots and lots of piecing... if I can get it finished in January I'll be happy!

Looking at my list of finishes I see I have been quite productive over this year, sewing smaller things in between these quilts. And if I can get the Sugar Camp Quilt finished by the new year - I will give myself a pat on the back and say "good girl" ;o)

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

Long time, no see....

...and so on. Hope everyone has had a great summer! Summer has gone by so quickly, with a trip to England and France, and a little time at the summer house. Hardly any quilting, though. Aside from the place mats in my previous post, I have only one finish and no other stitching to show. So what's this finish? Remember this post? What was jumbled up in that second picture was these blocks:



It's a 18" Dresden Plate, four 12" blocks (Batchelor's Puzzle, Bear's Paw, Castle Wall and Mill Girls), four 6" blocks which were my picks for the SBS block of the week program for June (Lemoyne Star, Fool's Puzzle, Weathervane and Sarah's Choice), and sixteen blocks from the DJ.

I set the blocks very simply with some white spacers, and some large HST units in a pale blue and white creating a diagonal effect:



I ended up with a piano key border, both because I think they are pretty, and also because I didn't have any large pieces left to use for a solid border, and I didn't have the time to go shopping for the perfect one :o)



This quilt was made as a present for my best friend on her 30th birthday, and I wanted it to be warm and snuggly for those chilly London winters, so for a backing I chose a very soft flannel. The flannel was slightly stretchy and a bit hard to quilt, and I wanted to preserve the soft feel - so I did a rather sparce all over meandring.

I gave her the quilt when I went over at the end of July - and she was thrilled :o)

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida