Summer Hand Sewing

Summer temperatures have found their way to Oslo, and spending time with Bernie doesn't feel too tempting. The corner where my desk and sewing machine is set up is fairly dark, and it gets a bit hot and stuffy when the sun warms up the bricks of the building. I still have ambitions of finishing my Park Bench quilt within the forseeable future, but at the moment hand sewing sitting outside enjoying the nice weather is more tempting.

I bought Sue Daleys Playing with paper pack 34 at some point after the inspiration night Kathrine's Quiltestue arranged back in April 2011, and it has been sitting on the shelf since. I have opened and closed it a few times thinking to do something with it, but feeling I should finish other stuff first. Now I have decided to give it a go:

The main part of the quilt is made up of only two shapes: the diamond and the jewel, while the edge has triangles, half diamonds and half jewels as well. The blocks are coming together very smoothly, and I'm having heaps of fun with this! Once it is done my quilt will be very different than the original Sue showed at the trunk show:

Enjoy summer!
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Potholder

One of the reasons my Park Bench has been put on hold is I have been doing some smaller stuff in between the long seams. I have been thinking of making one of those long potholder-thingys for quite a while, and when I had trouble coming up with a birthday pressie for my Mom I figured I'd give it a go and see if I could come up with something she would be happy with. Don't think this turned out too bad:

To protect the top of the user's hands I made two star blocks using the Hex n' More ruler - the half hexagon and the triangle was used for the blocks and then they were trimmed down.

I cut some extra triangles and used them on the back to break it up a little. The "hand pockets" are lined with a thin batting while the main part has got a double layer of medium thick cotton batting. Hopefully no fingers will be burned! However when I gifted it to her today, I was told it would not be put anywhere where it might get grease, stains or burns... have a feeling it might end up as a "table runner"...

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

HIPP HIPP HURRA! GRATULERER MED DAGEN!

200 years ago the Norwegian Constitution was signed at Eidsvoll, and today there's a huge anniversary celebration all over the country.

GRATULERER MED DAGEN!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Park Bench: Rows 1 and 2

Making oh soooo slow progress putting my Park Bench top together. Two down,
three to go :-)
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Fabric Shopping

Remember me saying my fingers were itching to make Jaybird Quilts' Night Sky? Well my fingers are still itching a bit, and over the last couple of weeks two envelopes has dropped into my mail box. One with 27 yummy fat quarters, and one with 6 yards of a lovely black on black fabric.

Thinking I need to finish my Park Bench, but I just couldn't resist adding these to my stash. And hopefully one day I will be able to make my very own Night Sky :-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Park Bench - the first row

My Park Bench quilt top is slowly coming together. I have layed out all my blocks, and done a little shuffling around to distribute the colours to the best to my ability. The firsts row is now pieced together:

And hopefully the rest of them will follow shortly :-)
From a beauiful sunny Sunday in Oslo,
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

God påske / Happy Easter

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Park Bench - Block 8: Stoll

The final block is Stroll and I just love this one! Notice the similarities to block 7? The only difference is the strip pieced diamond for the star.

And I just love how it makes the star look kind if swirly like a whirly-gig and at the same time has retained it's "star quality". Almost a shame there's only one of this block is required for the quilt ;-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Park Bench - Block 3: Hopscotch...again.. and again!

Seeing the blocks for my Park Bench quilt coming together I have become less and less happy with how my Hopscotch blocks turned out. Remember my previous ones? The contrast isn't all that good, and the stripe fabric makes the blocks look messy. For my second attempt I included a pale pink polkadot and scrappy reds. While these blocks have a cleaner look, the star points are lost and it kind of look like some sort of hexie flower. AND that pink really clashes with all the other fabrics I have used. It didn't look too bad when I auditioned the fabric, but once I put these next to the other blocks it looks flat and out of place

Soooo... I decided to do a third version... And this one I'm quite happy with. However Hopscotch will probably never be my favorite block :-)

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida