All systems go

Funny that once I started talking about inspiration and making a journal I realized that I have a journal of sorts - an old binder full of ideas I have jotted down, magazine clippings and what have you. I had a look at it and this idea popped up. I had even bought fabric and knitting wool for it, and once I started thinking about it I just couldn't wait to get going.

Isn't it great when you get that urge to create? You get all tingly and excited and just have to start cutting into fabric and get all those beautiful threads out. Well, I'm saying you, but I really mean I, me, myself ;-) That's how I feel. Once I start thinking about a new project, all those colours and shapes invade my brain and whirl around in there even when I'm sleeping, and the time I have to spend at work can't pass quickly enough - I want to go home and sew! Luckily it isn't like this all the time - I'd be impossibe to be around, but when it happens and I'm able to spend some quality time with my sewing machine it is soooo much fun!

So I started up yesterday and made a quilt sandwich: one layer of fabric, one layer of cotton batting and another layer of fabric. The top one is a brown with tiny dark brown dots. The shade of brown has been all wrong for every project it has ever auditioned for, it's kind of "flat" and dull, and parts of it has faded, but with lots of different shades of brown thread on top I think I might make it work, and the little dots will be like wormholes in a weather-worn window frame. That's the look I'm going for anyway.

I started with stitching the outline of the frame and window panes, and quilted them with straight lines. Then I switched to free motion stitching and sort of "painted" the frame with dense stitching in lots of shades of brown. This took ages, and my shoulders were aching by the time I was done. I forgot all about my own rule of singing while you sew, to make sure you breathe properly and avoid getting your shoulders attatched to your ears! I used miles of thread and had to stop halfway there to clean my sewing machine, but eventually I was happy with the look and it was time to cut out the unquilted bits. That's as far as I got yesterday.

After a night of colourful dreams and a day at work ("I wanna go home") I could get back to it. Today I have basted a piece of water soluble fabric to the back of the frame with water soluble thread (that's those big white stitches you see in the top picture) and added branches of stitched down knitting wool. That seams to be all I have time for today, but I'm going to stitch some more on those branches, adding little twigs and such, and then I'll add autumn leaves. I know - summer has just arrived, and I'm making an autumn picture! Well I have been known to make Christmas things in March as well ... Anyway, the idea is to add leaves and machine embroidery to make it into a window almost hidden by foilage, but when I wash away the water soluble I should end up with a kind of lacy effect with lots of holes, but enough stitching to hold it together. I think. I haven't tried this before, but that's the picture I see in my head. I'll keep you posted :-)

New month, new projects

My Emily Dickinson sampler is finally ready for framing. I came across this pattern in Stitcher's World in 2000 and have been meaning to stitch it ever since. It took me a while to get started... It's not my usual style - whatever that is, but I liked the colours, and the excuse to hang an Emily Dickinson poem on my wall was another reason to choose this. I've been working on it on and off for quite a while - more off, than on, to tell you the truth, because the actual stitching didn't take that long now I come to think about it.

Finishing one project is the perfect excuse to start a new one, but which one, I wonder... There are so many ideas floating around in my head that I really need to tame them a bit. I have been playing with the idea of starting a journal to collect my ideas and maybe become a bit more structured about my crafting. This blog is a help of course, but there is something to be said for a book I can hold in my hand and scribble, draw and colour in. I have been collecting pictures for inspiration for ever, and sometimes make simple collages with them. The first thing I see every morning is this one - a framed collection of postcards from the V&A - one of my favourite places in London. Here are samples of wallpaper, tiles, fabric, tapestries and quilts and some embroidered waistcoats designed by Kaffe Fasset who also gets a lot of inspiration from the V&A.

Maybe I can get some inspiration here for Project Spectrum. The colours for June/July are red, black and metallics.
Talking about colour and inspiration - have you seen this Flickr Toy, the Palette Generator? It will give you a palette of colours based on any photo you upload. Great starting point when you want to sort out your colours for a new project, I think! Must go to play some more...

Gooseberry bumps

I won't pretend to be an expert gardener, and I have no idea about the right time to prune and cut back or whatever the terms are, but today I did a bit of improvised gardening anyway. I cut off all the lower branches of the little bush which resides on my balcony for the third year now. It's really quite exciting to see something so dry and unpromising as these prickly sticks crammed into a corner during the winter suddenly start showing tender little green ears once spring starts. Over the last couple of weeks I have watched the little ears growing and becoming fully fledged leaves, and today I noticed that little berries had started to form. Oh, the wonders of nature! I don't want it to grow into an unruly bush though, because there just isn't room for that, so a bit of cutting back was necessary - let's just hope I didn't kill it!
The bleeding heart has grown as well, in spite of this very cold spring, so I might risk it now: a trip to the gardening centre to stock up on plants to fill the balcony for the summer.

I find myself getting all excited just thinking about it - what will I find this year? Some hanging plants of some sort, some Verbena, trailing Pelargoniums and what else? Pansies of course, herbs, and since my Fuchsia didn't survive winter in the basement - somebody had decided to mix cement right next to it, and it had suffered a mafia death - concrete shoes... - I need to stock up on Fuchsias - there are so many great varieties to choose from, I can't wait!

The bleeding heart inspired this quilted postcard a few years back. Unfortunately I gave it away before I could take a proper picture of it. Maybe I'll make another one.

Just as I finished my spot of gardening today it started raining though - the perfect excuse to go inside and do some sewing. I have dug out my Mumbo Gumbo blocks again. The first 24 are finished and I'm working in the next set of 12 - there will be 48 in all, and the weather forecast for tomorrow tells me I'll make some progress...

Home for the duration

I never seem to learn: when those lovely sunny spring days arrive, it's off with the coat and into the sun. The wind has quite a sting to it though, and I invariably end up with a cold. So I've spent the last few days in bed or on the sofa, completely wiped out. Still, that's not always a bad thing - I've caught up with all the daytime soaps, I know all the advertising jingles by heart I've slept a lot and I've finished the latest Marian Keyes. I haven't had the energy to add a single stitch to anything - you know things are really bad when that happens! Things are looking up now though, I've made it to the computer, and I have located my cross-stitch sampler with the view to doing some work on it, so I must be getting better. If I don't stay up all night coughing, I might even be able to go to work in the morning...

Thanks for the lovely comments and mails about my Amy quilt! I finished it just in time to have something to snuggle up under when I got ill. Oh, and I finished my miniature house quilt the other day. This was a UFO for years, because I had intended it to be a housewarming present for a couple who ended up splitting up instead of buying the house of their dreams. That was so sad that I completely lost my motivation for finishing the quilt. They are both happy in their separate lives now, so maybe the split-up wasn't such a bad thing after all. I have decided to keep the quilt for myself, though.

Bliss

Ginger Bliss. Mmm, savour that name! It should come as no secret that I like fabric, but I rarely have the kind of reaction I experienced when seeing Amy Butler's Ginger Bliss collection for the first time - it was love at first sight! I just knew I had to have some. It seemed I was rather late in discovering it, because Free Spirit Fabrics had already placed it among their "previous collections" since Amy Butler's Charm range was being launched. The Charm range didn't do it for me, it was that Ginger Bliss I craved. Thank goodness for the internet (Weeell, I wouldn't have discovered it at all if it hadn't been for the 'net...) - several quiltshops later I could sit back with my smoking credit card and wait for those first parcels to arrive in the mail. I only found a few here and a few there, so I ended up buying from five different shops and one doesn't just order one or two pieces of fabric from one shop now, does one? I ended up with yards and yards of the stuff - and it was lovely - pure bliss!
I played around with different ideas for a quilt, but decided to keep it simple to let the fabric shine on it's own. This is what I ended up with: a simple block pattern of squares and rectangles:
It was quite difficult to get a good photo of it from a distance, and this one seems a bit blurred, but I quite like it anyway - it reminds me of that special afternoon light in Italy. And it just occurs to me that there is a kind of Italian feel to the fabric as well - I remember when my grandparents returned from a holiday in Italy when I was five, they brought back lovely floral scarves for all the women in the family, and my gran had bought a new dress in a fabric not unlike that turquoise with the large flowers. They were so thrilled with their holiday and all the things they had seen and experienced, and yet so happy to be back with their family. Maybe some of the happiness of that day far away has something to do with my instant love for these fabrics?
Well it doesn't really matter, just another reason for me to ramble along so I can share as many pictures as I like of this quilt;-) The one above shows the fabric I used for the border on the other side, which is, in fact, not an Amy Butler, but Kaffe Fasset's Lotus Leaf in pastel.
Yes, I'll call it "the other side" of the quilt, and not the back, because after trying out different ideas I ended up with two sets of blocks - enough to make two quilts, really. However, I decided that one was enough, so I made it a reversible one instead. Here's the block I used on the other side, a kind of free cut nine-patch using the stack and slash-method: four pieces of fabric, four random cuts and then I moved the top fabric from the four side pieces to the bottom af the stack before piecing together the four blocks. I machine quilted it all in pink thread with loose florals and swirls, and after going on about it for so long I bet it comes as no surprise that I'm quite happy with the way it turned out ;-)

So now it's ready to be used on my sofa where I can curl up with my sewing in this basket. Quite stylish, n'est pas?

Decisions, decisions...

I mentioned a while back that I was thinking of redecorating my livingroom. I found just the right colour on the walls of a local gallery (the exhibition was great too...) and have decided to start soon. I'm having guests next weekend, so I'll wait until they've left - the chaos and upheaval of a big decorating project is not the best welcome one could get now, is it? Finding the right colur was great - I only hope it is the actual colour I had in mind when I get it on the walls too - we'll just have to wait and see now, won't we?
Thinking about redecorating means all sorts of decisions though, and lately I have been considering curtain fabric. The curtains I have now are very bright - blue, yellow, green and turquoise stripes, and will have to go. I'm thinking I'll get something softer, but the shops seem to be full of cream, beige and soft brown curtains these days, and that's way too soft for my liking.
I have long been a fan of Tricia Guild and find Designers Guild fabric to be very nice, but it is expensive, though. I have visited one of the two shops locally that carry their lines, but they had only the latest ones, none of the ones I wanted a closer look at (pictures 2-5). I'll have a look at the other one on Monday.
I was thinking green to begin with, but I think that would bring out too much of the green in the wall colour, so maybe not too good an idea. Otherwise the green Amy Butler fabric (picture 8) could work. It would suit my new Amy Butler quilt as well (picture 1, more about that tomorrow). Instead I'm thinking I should go for something floral, with some peach or pink in it, perhaps, so the blue-green of the walls don't look too cold.
I have also been thinking about something in cream and black (I have a black sofa), like the black tulips in picture 4 or the one just below it, found at eQuilter, here. These are all drapery weight fabrics, but in my search online I have also been considering quilting cottons. I might make it work if I make lined curtains - maybe floral fabric on one side and a crisp stripe on the other, like the turquoise Girlfriends stripe from Free Spirit in picture 12. Kaffe Fasset's Lotus Leaf is one of the candidates, but those big leaves all over might just be too much of a good thing.
Heather Bailey's great floral from the Freshcut line (picture 2, last row) has just the kind of colours I had in mind, and combined with her lovely stripe in picture 1, last row, might be just the thing.
I had a brief search for art noveau fabric as well, since my colour choice was inspired by an art noveau exhibition, and came across the tulips in the last picture at Sherwood Fabrics, and although I like it as an example of art noveau design, I have decided that we are not to be...
The search continues and any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Friday WIP

My current WIP. Or one of them... I'm still working on the Amy Butler quilt as well - or, well: it's resting next to my sewing machine...

More of this

meant more of this:Another cold and snowy day and I have made a lot of progress on my quilt. There's a lot to be said for days like this - no guilty concience whispering that I should go out and do something. It's too cold for outdoorsy activities, the shops are closed, there is really nothing I "should" be doing. Perfect sewing weather!

What's this?

Maybe not so easy to guess from this picture, but we had a hail storm today. It's been really cold and wintery, snow in the air, and the mountains in the distance are dusted with caster sugar again. Being an optimist I had put winter coats and boots away, but that was way too early it seems! Well, April is a tricky month, I tend to forget that every year - it's something about the days getting longer and warmer, and you think Spring has arrived, and the next minute Winter lets you know it isn't going to let go yet. And woudn't you know it, when I got my act together and went outside to take a picture of this terrible weather, it cleared and the sun was out! But only for a few minutes...
I had to rescue these tiny tidings of Spring - they looked so shivery and unhappy outside, so they're back in my living room again for now, waiting for better days... It's far better indoors today, both for humans and flowers. The Easter decorations are out and it is warm and cosy here. Lots of books and magazines to read - I got started on a bit of sorting out, so now I have three piles of magazines - one to keep (by far the highest pile...) one to throw out, and one to go to new homes. I'll continue tomorrow by sorting through all my old cross-stitch magazines. There are loads that I will never stitch anything from, and they could do with new homes, and that should leave enough space to store the "keep-pile" from today's purge, I think...
Finding the excuse to stay indoors on such a blustery day (love that word, reminds me of a little poem about bears I have somewhere...) also meant time with my sewing machine. I've been going on about this quilt, so I'd better show you a picture - proof that I am actually quilting the thing now! More of that tomorrow, I think.
Now for that poem*:

Bears, on the whole, like a blustery day

Because it refreshes their plush

And blows out the tangles and crumbs that collect

And which just won't come out with a brush.

So they walk in the wind and think it good fun

To get huffed at and puffed at and blown.

If it's gale force or more, that's all to the good

And you won't hear a teddy bear moan.

But they don't like those days when it's windy and wet,

When it rains and it blows both together.

They'll huddle indoors and sit by the fire

And grumble "What inclement weather!"

On those wet windy days you can seek them in vain:

No teddy, no matter how stout,

Will venture outside, for he knows if he does

His umbrella will blow inside out!

*I found this and several others in a magazine years ago and cut them out and stuck them in my little blue notebook, but stupidly didn't include the information about who wrote them... Hope I'll be forgiven!

Love is all around

A new colour scheme for Project Spectrum this month: green, yellow and pink. How appropriate that I have just finished this baby quilt! I did one in blue and green earlier that worked out very well, I think. When I needed one for a baby girl I decided to use the same pattern, but I'm not quite sure about this one. I love the combination of pink and yellow, but the colours are probably too similair in value for it to work as well as the previous one did. Or maybe the pink fabric is too busy. With the blue one you really get a 3D-feeling with those squares and frames popping out, but not as much in this one, though. I still like it - nice colours and as you can see from the close-up, it's full of love ;-) and that's what a baby girl needs, right! The colour goes well with her name as well - Ruby. No jokes about "Ruby don't take your Love to town" please, though that song has been spinning around in my head while I've been quilting. Let's stick with "Love is all around"!
There's more pink in store for this month as well, as I'm happily quilting my Amy Butler quilt - yes, finally! It's been waiting in the wings for far too long, but I'm getting there now. It's a reversible quilt - both sides are pieced, so it was a nightmare to line up straight on my own. When shall I learn to ask for help? I spent Saturday at the quilt shop (where thay have large tables in the back room) helping a friend to layer and baste her bed sized quilt, and it was such a breeze, there being two of us for the job. Remind me that I ask for help on my next quilt!
I've been doing a lot of small projects lately, and that's not really "me" so it's about time that I get back on track - lots of lovely fabric waiting for the projects I have planned for them, and my sewing room is organized enough to have space to work, but not so much that it kills the creativity. I'm hoping to get a head start this Easter with a few days off from work. Just one more day at the office and my sewing machine and I are off on our next jaunt!

Old work, new work

With the purchase of all that new fabric lately, I really needed to tidy up a bit, and you know what happens then, don't you? Of course: all those UFOs appear! I'm not talking about extra terrestrials or anything weird like that, but those pesky UnFinished Objects that have been lurking in teetering piles of stuff. What I found this time was a lot of stitching. Five pieces in fact! They were all finished as far as the stitching went, but needed to be framed or finished one way or another.

This sampler is from an embroidery class I took a while ago and is full of French Knots, Lacy Daisies, Seed Stitch and Bullion stitch – a nice way to try out all those stitches and keep them for easy reference later. I found a floater frame at a sale, which I thought was just perfect and decided to stretch and mount the piece myself. It turned out that the frame was too big, but after considering it for a while I ended up cutting the mounting board to the size of the back-opening in the frame, cut another, larger piece of mounting board to stick to the back of the frame to hold it in place, and covered the holes for the screws with buttons. I’m quite happy with the result!

This kitten was stitched during a long summer of convalescence three years ago. A serious infection in my leg left me fairly immobile for the whole summer and in between hobbling to the loo and to the kitchen to get drinks of water all I could do was read and stitch. I have never finished a cross-stitched piece so fast before, but once it was done and I was back on my feet again I couldn’t stand the sight of the poor thing. Now, when I came across it again, I realized that it was quite sweet and really deserves a space on my wall somewhere.
I also had two pictures of cat’s eyes (one domestic and one wild) lying about. I had thought that because of the dimensions of these I would have to have mats and frames made especially and that would be quite expensive, so I hadn’t worked up the courage to inquire about it yet. However, at the same sale as the first one I found two photo frames I decided I could use. There was not enough fabric around the stitching, so I stitched a strip of green leaf fabric and a strip of black fabric top and bottom of each and used that to stretch around the mounting boards, and it worked out quite well. Ideally the frames should have been wider so there could have been some “air” at the sides of the motifs as well, but I decided to go with what I had, and now the pictures are up on my walls instead of lying unfinished in my workroom. There is one piece yet to go, a blackwork picture of five cats (Why on earth have I been buying all those cat patterns?), which will become part of a small quilt for a friend. I have just the right fabric to go with it – hmm; maybe I should get started right away…

On to an entirely different subject: My mother and I visited an exhibition of the designs and drawings of Alphonse Mucha last week. I loved the drawings, but what really floored me at this visit was the colour of the walls! I have been looking for this exact shade of subdued blue-green for ages, but not been able to find it. Seeing it on the gallery walls and seeing how well it worked both in direct sunlight and in areas with more shade was great, and I knew that it would be perfect on my living room walls. I phoned the gallery the next day, and they were ever so sweet about it and came back to me later in the day with the colour reference number for the paint, so now I know how I’ll spend my days off at Easter!

True Granny squares

There has been a lot of talk about granny square afghans in Blogland lately. Thought I'd share mine. Crochet is not my kind of thing, I must say I prefer quilting, and I have come a long way from my very first quilt, which can be glimpsed in this picture.
It doesn't bear further inspection, as I knew nothing whatsoever about quilting when I made it! I had seen a small photo in "Better Homes and Gardens" or whatever, of a bedroom with a quilt on the bed, and decided to make one just like it (the best way to learn a new craft is to start with an enormous project, right?). The quilt part of the photo was about a square inch, so I had to do a lot of guesswork to find out how the blocks were put together. Then there was the challenge of finding fabric. Not the right kind of fabric, just any cotton fabric at all - it was that scarce. Eventually I had rounded up four different fabrics and set to work. Precise measurements and even seam allowances were totally unfamiliar expressions, and I ended up with no two blocks the same size. But with a bit of pulling and ruching and creative use of language, I managed to get them together into a quilt top anyway. I had worked out that there needed to be some kind of batting, but thought I couldn't add a backing fabric to the equation at this stage, 'cause then the stitches would show on the back... duh! So with a quilt top fastened to the cheapest kind of polyester batting with tiny pins I fought my mother's sewing machine all the way and managed to stitch in the ditch along most major seams, while scattering pins all over the room. I then added a backing fabric and tied it to the top at intervals with crochet cotton before rolling the edges of the batting into the outer border and slip stitching it to the back. I still remember the feeling of double knotted shoulder muscles when I was done, but I also remembered the pride of the achievement. It took many years before I attempted another quilt though, but when I did I had picked up a few tips along the way, fabric was more easily available, I found a guild, and the rest is history.
Talk about getting distracted - I was going to talk about that afghan! Well, I can't take credit for it, that's for sure. But while I was struggling with that quilt, my grandmother used all my leftover yarn (she probably realized that I would switch from knitting to quilting...) and made lots and lots of granny squares. She did a lot of crochet and embroidery in her time, but this was her last ever project, before she became to feeble to do any hand work, and she made it for me, which is why I treasure it so much.
I have made lots of quilts, but most of them for others, so I have never got around to making a new one for my bed. This old one is way too short (somehow it ended up much smaller than I had planned...), so I usually drape the afghan over the edge of the bed to hide that fact and to remind me of my grandmother's love.
So there you go - that's why I'm not going to make a granny square afghan - I've got the one my granny made for me :-)

Fabric, fabric everywhere

-but when am I actually going to sew anything...? I usually hate shopping. Not so when it comes to fabric, though. It is all too easy to pop out that little piece of plastic with the magic word "VISA" on it when I come across tempting pieces of cotton. I have great plans for some of them, but others are bought on a "need to have" basis.

The first group here looked so good together, I couldn't bear to split them up, and I decided they would look good in a table runner - brown, tan and cream with turquoise binding. The question was when I'd get round to making it, though. Yesterday I signed up for a workshop at my local quilt shop where we will make table runners in just the kind of technique I wanted to try out. I usually work on my own, and I could probably work out how to make that particular pattern as well, but then I'd miss out on the community feeling and fun of spending a day among people just like me - people who don't think of me as funny-peculiar just because I spend my time cutting fabric into pieces and stitching them back together again... So that fabric may rest until April.

I try to support my local shop, but the lure of the internet is there, and occasionally I succumb. I started seeing those "measuring stick fabrics" on blogs everywhere and just had to find them for myself. A quick search later I found them at eQuilter and in four different colourways too, so I just had to get them all!

I also came across those turquoise and brown fabrics there, and as turquoise is a colour I can't resist, I just had to have some of those as well. The one to the right got a bit too much light so it doesn't show up to well - I'll have to take a new picture. It has pieces of newsprint in a collage-style all over, and looks really great. I love fabric with any kind of writing on them: newsprint, numbers, measurements, "handwriting", whatever - I'm building up quite a stash of these. I have seen them used to great effect in Japanese quilts, talked about in Juju's blog a while ago, and I intend to let them show up more frequently in mine as well - because I will cut into them, I will....
The last lot was a clearance offer at my quilt shop and are part of Jan Mullen's great fabric line, which for some reason never was a success here. I love them and have used them to great effect before, so these will fit in quite well with the rest of my stash.

I realize that this is beginning to sound a bit defensive ;-) But I suppose that's to do with not finding enough time to do any actual sewing lately. I have decided to take a day off my usual chores today though, and maybe finish quilting that baby quilt I'm working on.

Off to the sewing machine!

Taupe

My quilt shop got a new line of fabrics last week. I have been admiring those Japanese taupe fabrics from afar for a while, thinking that they weren't really my cup of tea - "I'm more into bright and cheerful colours, really", is what I have been telling myself. But then I saw this bundle lying there so innocently...
"Hm, that's nice", I said to myself on Tuesday (when I popped in to buy a birthday present for a friend), "but I'm not buying...".
On Thursday I had to pop in again to get some pink quilting thread for my current project, and I noticed that same bundle again. "Hm, that's ever so much nicer than the others with those pinks and blues included" I told myself, paid for my thread and left.
On Saturday however (yes, I know - three days a week - I confess - I'm an addict!) most of the other bundles were sold, but "mine" was still there. And what do you know - before I knew it it was mine!
Not a big surprise really - I'm a pushover when it comes to fabric! So now I'll have to come up with a project to justify the purchase. I'm thinking handbag/tote or something - these nice subdued colours work so well together and won't clash with whatever I'm wearing, is what I'm telling myself. I have been noticing a lot of nice Japanese handbags in magazines and books lately, so now I'm on the lookout for a nice pattern. There was mention of a new book that would be in at "my" quiltshop this week - but I'm not even going in just to look - I think...

So far so good

I've been promising to post pictures of my scrap quilt, and here it is. The first twelve blocks are ready and I'm more than halfway on the next twelve. I decided to make it in batches of twelve at a time to allow for string piecing without getting too bored.There is something said for actually finishing some blocks so you can show them off - it makes it seem like you have actually accomplished something. The blocks are 11 x 11" and "extremely scrappy". I was worried at first, because I didn't really like the look of them up close, but laying them out on the floor and getting gut reactions from people around me has convinced me that I am on the right track after all. This was going to be a predominantly blue quilt (in keeping with Project Spectrum guidelines), and I think I'll use less of the contrasting greens, yellows and pinks in the last 24 blocks and then alternate them with the colourful ones I have made so far, to give a slightly calmer impression. I like how the varying widths of the strips set the blocks off from each other by not letting the seams match, while still giving the overall impression of big blocks.
The funny thing about piecing with scraps though - as I'm sure others have noticed before me - is that they multiply! I started with a full bag of strips. I have made almost 24 blocks and been ruthless about throwing out the smaller pieces and the bag is still full! How does this happen? The whole point here was getting rid of some fabric, but by the looks of it I can make several quilts from what I have left in the bag ;-).

Almost snowed in

I'm back from our quilter's retreat. We had a wonderful time at a rented house out in the country. The drive there was great - a lot of snow on the ground, but the sun was shining. Once we got there though, it started snowing... This is the view from the front door on Sunday morning. And then it snowed some more. The drive back home wasn't that great! Whatever happened to that greenhouse effect?
Enough about the weather, As I said we had a great time. Everybody just brought along projects we were working on and we all worked at our own speed, chatting and enjoying ourselves. No pressure, no deadlines, just a lot of fun. I got a lot of work done on my scrap quilt, so I'm nearly halfway there. I'm still not sure about it, but the blocks met with some "wows" from the others, so I might be on to something... Pictures later! We have already planned a new trip in March, so if I don't finish the blocks anytime soon, there's always a chance I might later...

Will this work in a quilt?

When I first started out as a quilter, I bought "scrap bags" to start building my stash, because there wasn't that much fabric available in the local shops, and I knew I needed some kind of palette to experiment with. I did use many of those early fabrics, but some I have never cut into - the shade has never fit in anywhere, they are too floral, too theme related (teacups, nautical flags etc) or whatever. I love blue, but it is not always an easy colour to work with, so more often than not, when blue is called for in a quilt I find nothing in my stash that I can use, and end up buying new fabric. While I have some turnover in most of the other colours, the blue crates were so full I'd need a shoehorn to fit any more in...
I have long been thinking about making a blue scrap quilt, and now seems to be the perfect time: a whole bunch of us are going on a quilter's retreat next weekend and I need a project. Mindless cutting and stitching while chatting away into the small hours and I could end up with a new lap quilt - that's the general idea, anyway. So I have pulled out all the blue fabric I know I'll never use in another project, added a few greens and some yellow and hot pink for interest and the result is this heap on the floor. Far too many for that quilt, I know, but I'll use as much of them as I can, and see if I can find new homes for the rest. The remaining fabric in the blue crate can breathe more easily and I actually have room to add some more...
What I have in mind is a scrappy log cabin variation from this pattern by Pie in the Sky. With lots of different widths of strips and a pick-strips-as-you-go attitude I just might make it work... Or Not.

Clapotis

clapotis
Originally uploaded by crafty mathea.

I was so eager to start using my new Clapotis that I almost forgot to show and tell :-) This is my second one, the first was knitted from a much thinner yarn and turned out quite short and skinny, so that's nothing to write home about - or blog about for that matter. I found the pattern at Knitty of course, but was not familiar with the yarn and I just couldn't seem to find anything similair in my neighbourhood. I loved the pattern and drape of the scarf though, so I knew right away that I wanted to make a new one. I ordered Lion & Lamb online, the colourway is Lakeview and I just love it! It is made from 50 % wool and 50 % silk and has a really luxurious feel to it. It is a bit brighter in real life. The second picture does it more justice I think - I'm still getting used to my new camera, and the heavy rain clouds all the time makes it difficult to take pictures (at least I hope that's the reason, not just the **** photographer!)

It turned out that I needed more than the three skeins originally called for in the pattern it has later been amended). When I discovered that I needed more, that colourway was sold out, so I had to do some detective work to find another online shop which carried the yarn, but eventually I did, and was able to finish the thing. So here it is, and I'm ready to face the world in it. If only it would stop raining...

Time to let go

It's really time to let go of Christmas now! All the decorations went back in their boxes up in the attic a week ago, but I have kept this picture up until today. Now it will be wrapped in a sheet and tucked away until December. I stitched this picture eight years ago - I spent a few years stitching it... so it must be at least ten years since I bought the chart - and it is such a treat to take it out and put it on the wall in the beginning of December each year. It's like the official opening of the Holiday season here, when this old friend comes out of hiding. I fell in love with it at a Needlecraft fair in London and just had to buy the pattern from Lavender and Lace. It was a real challenge to stitch with lots of different shades of red, gold thread and beads. I splurged on a really ornate frame - not the kind of thing I usually go for, but this picture deserved someting extra, and for Christmas it is sort of all right even if it is a bit over the top. I have been trying to get some close-ups lately, but the light just isn't good enough to get a good shot.
Well, we are way into the new year and I'll have a quick look back at 2006 and what I accomplished. The blog has really helped me keep track of all the things I have made, and I have had a look through the previous twelve months and picked a picture for each month and created this little sampler of my work. Not too bad I think! One of he real accomplishements for me was finishing the project I had going over several years of making bed quilts for all my nieces and nephews. Upon finishing the kite quilt for the youngest in August I felt free to do whatever I like in future.
Of course I keep adding new stuff to my "to do"-list, so it is as long as ever - lots of fun waiting in the wings! There is that Amy Butler quilt - I have finally decided on the borders, so that looks promising.
The "Café de Paris"-top I finished in June is still waiting to be quilted. I put it aside because I couldn't decide on how to quilt it, but why keep worrying about that? Better finished than perfect, I think!
Then there is that tree skirt that didn't get finished before Christmas. I have promised myself that I wil finish it now before I put it away, but of course something else popped up, like it does... This time it was the arrival of a dear friend's first-born, and such a grand occasion calls for a quilt, of course, so I'm in the midst of a new project. But I will go back to the tree skirt when it is finished - I have promised myself that I will!
And all the other projects I have planned? I'll do them one step at the time and remind myself that the important thing is to keep having fun!

New year, new habits

Let me begin by saying that I don't really believe in New Year Resolutions - not the ones about diets, exercise, giving up smoking or whatever (not that I am a smoker, but I have enough of other vices...). Why ruin the already bleak months of January and February by making life even tougher? Let's talk about that in March or April when the promise of Spring and longer days make such major changes easier. But resolutions to make this a colourful and creative period, however - now we're talking!
I am going to begin by looking back on this past year - my first full year of blogging and congratulate myself on what I have accomplished so far. The only resolution I have is to try to be a little bit tidier ;-) and this basket is one of the objects that I hope will help me with that. Behold my new craft basket! I used some of my scraps from the Amy Butler-quilt (still in progress...) to make a matching basket liner complete with pockets and all. So how is this going to help? Well, I tend to walk between my sewing area in the bedroom where my sewing machine, cutting board and my considerable stash is, to my comfortable sofa with my half-finished projects to do my pinning and hand sewing or whatever in front of the TV. And of course there is always some knitting, some sketches and notes about new projects and things like that, making my living room look rather messy.


So I have made this basket to contain all that mess which I move from room to room. It's pretty enough to sit on the sofa even when company arrives. (And once my quilt is finished it will even match!) It shows that I am in the middle of some creative process and that's OK, that's part of who I am, but it helps keeping the room reasonably tidy, avoiding the mad scramble to pick things up when the doorbell rings. And instead of the torn paper pieces and pink post-its scattered around I have bought a moleskin notebook to contain my ideas, and I'll really make an effort to be more tidy so that the mess doesn't impede on my creativity. (Big words ;-))Look, there is a New Year's Resolution after all! Weeeell, at least it will be a little practical help in getting there, but I won't expect miracles over night... Tomorrow I'll clear the mess on my cutting table so I can get started on a new project - a new arrival at the end of the year will need a little something to keep his cot warm - oh what fun, a new quilt! But first it's off to my Mother's for dinner.

From all of us to all of you -

- a Merry Merry Christmas!!!

The angelic guest

Bella aims to be the best kind of houseguest. Never intrusive, but prepared to be a good sport whatever happens. She waits quietly in her room in the morning for the family to finish using the bathroom. She has donned her new bathrobe with hand embroidered flowers over her gingham PJs that she bought especially for this Christmas holiday visiting friends in the country. She has a crick in her neck after sleeping in an unfamiliar bed with her hair wound round pieces of paper tissue and tied with ribbons, to give her otherwise straight hair some semblance of curls for tonight's party. - Now, was that the bathroom door? Yes, time to rush across the hall........ but, too late, one of the teenage girls beat her to it. Oh well, she'll just have to wait outside the door- one of the other guests popped out of her room at the same time, it would be silly to go back to her room now. And she may be an angel, but she is keeping her place in the queue, because she just has to go....