The QS Mystery Quilt 2010

Each year Merete Veian makes a Mystery Quilt. I think I have made them all since I first got to know it in 2000. This years issue was very easy to sew. We had to make three blocks of certain colours. Merete made hers from a light background but else I don’t think there are much difference. She proposed we made pillows but I preferred to make a table runner. These were the colours of my choice. I used fabrics from the Benarex Fossil Ferns.

The Table Runner is finished with machine quilting and binding.

I made four blocks because I wanted to have a longer table runner than it would have been from only the three blocks. I chose a brown fabric for the background and a red and a yellow/pink for the squares. Now I have the machine quilting left and of course the binding. I really love making the Puzzles Merete has designed and this year was no exception. I hope to make her Puzzles for years to come.

My last works

I am sewing a little each day. Till now I have finished two cosmetic purses from the Norwegian designer AnnaKa in different sizes. Here is also a photo from the inside with all its pockets





and The newest little bag from the new Norwegian quilt magazine My Quilt “ “Only Handluggage”. They have so many nice patterns in that magazine. The second magazine came out 2 weeks ago and I appreciate it very much. I really like their patterns.

Here is also a photo from the inside of the bag.

Quilting weekend

Last weekend was our sewing days. We are the members of the Quilt Group Intercourse. We met 10 years ago on a quilting trip to Houston and the famous exhibition there. We had a great time together and decided to met after we came back home. So we did and now we have met for 10 years. Some has backed out and one passed away last autumn. We are still 6 but only 4 of us are active. This year we met in the mountain of Vasstulan 1137 above the sea level. It was raining, slushing and blowing all the weekend, absolutely the perfect weather for indoors activities, like sewing.

This time we had decided to make a toilette bag after a pattern from Bente Malm. She is a very talented designer who I like very much. Her patterns are nice and she has designed many bags among other things. Unfortunately there isn’t a picture of the toilette bag we made.  This shows a photo of one I made in January. You can hang it on the wall so it is very practical. I made another one this time but I haven’t sewn on the button yet. All of us made the same bag but all were different.

 

Autumn weekend in Hemsedal

Last week my husband and I have stayed in our cottage in Hemsedal for a seasonal vacation. We have always much to do when we are there and this time the weather was nice and sunny all the time. Before we came up there it has snowed on the highest peaks and it looked so beautiful. We worked with the logs from trees my husband has cut earlier. My job is to split them. Fortunately we have an electrical log splitter that does the splitting easy. I just love it. We also walked in the mountains and of course I took some photos with my small camera. I love this time of the year.

 Some of the days I wanted to sew and quilt. This time I had brought with me the quilt top I partly made in a class with Hanne in Kragerø earlier this year. After my sewing dryness was over I fulfilled this Kaleidoscope quilt. I added fleece on the back and quilted it in the cottage. Some days I sat out on our terrace, machine quilting in the lovely sunshine. When our holiday up in the mountains came to an end, I continued to the next mountains for a girls sewing weekend with my quilt group, Quilteklubben Intercourse. I will blog it later.

Sewing Project

After coming home from the Nec in Birmingham I couldn’t sew or quilt at all. I suffered from sewing dryness. Many quilters suffers periodically from the decease. My period have last for months until my friend Sigrun rang me and asked me if I had made something out of the Jelly Rolls we both bought. I hadn’t so I said so. She told me she had made one table runner and four placemats from her rolls.

Well, my bad conscience got even worse so I went to my room and tried to find out what to do with them. The colours were just so wonderful and suddenly my inspiration was back. Look here what came out of the two rolls I bought: I also added four strips from my own batik stash and then I made this. Later it became one table runner, four placemats, one small, one medium cosmetic purse and one toilette bag. It is all here on the photos below. The colours are not right in all the photos but I think you will get a good impression of how they are. 

Birmingham NEC in August

I know that my good friend Sigrun already has blogged about our trip there but I have to say I have been there. We stayed at Holiday Inn Express and had a very good time together. We ate at Little Owl every night.  They had ok food but the atmosphere there is special. This photo shows me outside the Little Owl.

 

 

We met with many friends from our quilt world and tried to resist some of the many temptations there were, but as you can see from  this photo we didn’t succeed.  The shops were full of goods, fabrics and lots of useful small items. However, there were still some things that came home with me.

 

 

On our round in the shopping area we met these lovely lady with a special hat. I just loved it.

 

There were also many quilters everywhere, all eager to buy fabrics as we are. I bought some new rulers, but I don’t

know when I will have time to use them. Most of the shops sold fabrics much cheaper than we are used to in Norway so I have to admit I got mad. I have a room full of fabrics at home but there are always space for more. I’ll find a place in one of the shelves.

On the plane home I had to take this photo of the lovely sunset. I want to go back in not next year so at least the year after that. It may be in 2012. Bye for now.

  

Hemsedal vacation

We have spent the last week in our cottage in Hemsedal. The weather has been very varied so our activities have also been varied.
We have cycled, my DH has been cutting trees, I have cleaned all the windows in the cottage and done some cleaning of the floors. We have sunbathed on the terrace. We have been visited by friends with a motor caravan who stayed over night. My DH has also fished, but he didn’t catch any trout which was what we hoped for.
Today we started early and went for a walk in the mountains. There was a peak we wanted to explore, Røggjin which is 1370 meter above the sea. The path was steep and stony and many places very wet after the heavy rain we have had for many days now.
We have had a mixed bag of weather this week but the best part was the cycling tour and the walk up to Røggjin today. My knees managed well.

Kragerø weekend

I was in Kragerø at Anne-Berit’s Broderibua last weekend attending a class for sewing Kaleidoscope quilts. She has a lovely place close to the waterfront. There are many houses on her property but we stayed in a little cabin on the camping site close to her place. Hanne Scneider was the teacher and she made a good job. We started to cut strips in the widths that would fit the size of the blocks we had decided to sew.  The picture shows Hanne’s ready made quilt and we show our blocks. It was a very easy technique she taught us. No one finished a quilt but everyone did nice progress for making one. All the classes participated in the evening in a big tent Anne-Berit’s husband had set up for us. We were served very good food and we had a very nice time with lots of wine. There were other classes as well. There were a class for learning how to dye fabrics, one for making a very special small bag and one for plaiting ribbons.

 

17. mai

For the first time our little granddaughter was attending the childrens parade in Oslo. Therefore we had to go there to see her. The 17. of May is the national day here in Norway and people dress in their finest cloth. More and more people wears their National Costume (bunad). There are different National Costumes from different places in the country. Mine is from the county of Telemark, eastern part. My granddaughter Helene, was wearing a childrens costume from Hardanger, embroidered with pearls.

When we were standing there watching, my husband suddenly saw my brother standing only 10 metres from us absolutely unaware of us being in Oslo.

 I went up to him and greeted him. His wife was of course also there so my husband took a photo of my sister-in-law and me both wearing our National Costumes. After the parade we were just walking around in the city centre of Oslo to watch the people. It is so nice to see all people dressed in their different costumes. Many people also wear what we call "fantasy" costumes. They are often very look-a-like the National Costumes. Martin, Helenes brother of nearly 5 years wore his "fantasy" costume.

 Afterwards we took the train back to our Drammen. We had to prepare some food to bring with us when we later on were going to a friend to spend the rest of the day with many old friends. It is a tradition we have had for almost 30 years. We are never very late but rather tired after that day. There are so much walking :-).

Egypt

Since last time I wrote I have been on a week's holiday to Egypt and Sharm el Sheik with my husband. We wanted to feel the warmth and leave the snow behind us. One Saturday we sat watching TV and south. We landed on an offer to Egypt and I went immediately to the internet and bought a week there 2 weeks later. Actually we have been there before so we knew the place.

Our room boy did wonderful things with our towels every day we returned from our day on the beach. The red spots you can see on all the pictures are leaves from the Hibiscus plant that growed all around. He was a real artist. He also used the remote control in the gap of the crocodile.

We had a wonderful time there with snorkling in the sea and looking at fishes in all colours. It feels like snorkling in an aquarium. I love it and cannot have enough of it. There are also beautiful corals there. Unfortunately I do not have a camera that goes under water so I cannot show you all the colourful fishes. The photo shows me and my husband an evening out with two sisters we met in the hotel. We enjoyed their company and had dinner with them several times.

Bag finished

Now my bag is finally finished but I have had big trouble with my blog at the moment and have had for months. I cannot see my contributions when I try to look at it on the screen. Here is the picture of my bag:

Easter holiday

I am in Hemsedal at the moment. I have already been here for a week. The weather has  not been the best. We have skied twice the last week. The last two days it has rained most of the time. Yesterday I started on my new project, a bag from a pattern by Nortern Quilts. Wenche has designed a pattern called "Gullbukseveske" inspired of the Norwegian Curling Team in the Olympic Games in Vancouver in February. I liked it very much and when the I saw the pattern I decided to make the bag.

Before we left home I picked out the fabrics I would use from my stash and try to take with me everything I would need for making the bag. I have done much as you can see from these photoes but now it is stop. I need two zippers and a tiny batting for the lining. I will make some inner pockets and there are also meant to be a zipper on the top of it. I have come so far:

The rest has to wait until I can get what I need to finish it.

More projects finished

Here it goes. yesterday I sewed the last stitches on the binding of a tablerunner I made before Christmas. This wasn't finished because I didn't find the backing. I started to finish it on Sunday with machine quilting it and sewing the binding on. Now it is done.

My next project was a baggage tag for my suitcase. I found the idea in the last Quiltemagasinet. Trine Bakke was the woman behind the pattern. It was very easy to make.

Now I have taken the two last projects I cut before Christmas that were not sewn then. I guess I hadn't hours enough to sew them. I did sew a lot of them for sale at our Christmas fair in November. I used this on our holiday to Canada in February/March.

Sewing on a Saturday

Today I have made a purse for the cup I am taking with me to quilt meetings. I bought the kit almost 2 years ago when NorskQuilteforbund celebrated their 20 years anniversary. I have taken it from the cupboard several times to start sewing it, but have always put it back again. The last days it has been standing in front of my sewing machine to remind me of what I had to do next. Here is the result: