Mini Quilt Retreat

Hi!

We are having a mini Quilt Retreat this week, me and Weronica here in Sweden and Cathi in Ireland..

Weronica was working on a Storm at Sea with the Square in a Square ruler, and is now working on a quilt from the CoffeeTable Quilts book, called decaffinated. In blues, greens and whites.


I did a test with the Square in the Square ruler to make Half Square Triangles. It did work, but it creates a lott of waste, a bit to much for my taste, plus that the sides of the HST are on the Bias. So it was nice to try, but I won't do it again. This was the result. The pieces are 1,5 inches.




I am now working on the Home Sweet Home Quilt from Blackbird Design. So I am tracing the flisofix pieces, so I have nothing to show so far...but will update the blog when I have something to show...


So we will be having this retreat today and friday too!

Thanks for all the tips on my redfabrics, I will start testing this weekend!

Barbara

A Garden with things to show you

Hi,

It has been Midsummer here and we went to our cabin, we had some great weather! Also my niece 12 years old has been here for a week, so I have been very busy. But now I have made some pictures and have a garden of things to show you..


I started making a wallhanging called Making Tea by Ani Downs featured in the Australien Homespun Magazine. The wallhanging is 42 x42". The magazine's wallhanging was just 20 x 20", but I found the applique pieces just to small. I made it for the Afternoon Tea party and by a miracle I finished it just on time. Here are some pictures.





















I won a quilt on ebay an antique on for just 21 dollars with help of Cathi. Here are some pictures:

















I have been working on my Kaleidoscoop and have 5 more blocks to quilt and then I am done!. I started some time ago with quilting a block a day...that worked quite good for a while anyway :-))













I also finished piecing my Diamonds quilt by hand..here are some more photo's





Somebody asked for a close-up of the pincussion we made..here it is:


I made a test-caddy for my quiltingprojects and am now testing it to see how it works. Here are some pictures:






I was working on a Seven Sisters Quilt in red and white, but I had some bad luck with washing my red fabrics (this was allready their second wash) and one of them bled and now all my reds are ruined, so I am quite sad about that. I am now doing my 7th wash of the same reds and they are still bleading and I am now soaking them for a night a special mixture of something...hope this will work
Now I am stitching my Polka Dot Girls and trying a technique that is called square in a square with a special ruler...I will let you know how that works..

bye for now!

AfternoonTea

Hi!

Yesterday we had our AfternoonTea Party. We had so much fun. We were also very lucky because it was 27degrees and no rain! We were 7 girls. My friends Helena and Weronica as always ;-)), My friend Lisselot from Highschool, she lives quite far away but came to me for the party, Lena the very talented artist and Ann-Christine the LQSowner and her daughter Jessica.

The party started at 15.30, with tea, coffee and ofcourse cake. Here you can see a picture of the table with the food.


I used to have a net over my bed against musquito bites and I used that to have over the table so we wouldn't have to worry about insects on the food. I found these great butterflies in a craftstore that I attached to the net.

I used the same butterflies as napkin rings:



This is how the table looked:


As you might remember of my last post, we had a mystery project. We made a pincushion. The pattern comes from an other blogg that had a lott of links of different pincushion. I don't know were the pattern comes from since it was a PDF file, without an address..and I printed it out a long time ago.
I did all the preparing on the sewingmachine so the only thing left to do was to stuff the dolls and decorate them. The nice thing was that everybody got to take a finished project home!

This is what they looked like:




Here are some pictures of us at work:



Well, as I hope you can see from the pictures we had a lott of fun! I will be uploading some of the quilts I did for the show-and-tell soon too...

Bye!

In case you are wondering

Hi!

In case you are wondering what I am up too.. I am working on some projects for the Afternoon tea on Saturday. I am also preparing the mystery project we are making together and some of my own things for show-and-tell..

But since some of the people who are coming are reading my blogg, I don't have much to write about.. So,..

I promise you on saturdaynight or early Sunday morning I will be uploading a lott of pictures of the mystery project...the party...the show-and-tell and my projects...

So please come back Sunday...and keep your fingers crossed hoping for good weather since we are going to be/have to be in the garden!

Hugs Barbara

Building fences, bearquilt and sewingroom

Hi,

I haven't blogged in a while so here is a update!

My cat has gotten the habit of making housecalls to everybody in the neighborhood and not everybody likes that. So last weekend we made a fence around the garden..So he can go outside but not into the neighbors houses. It is working great...he finds a way to get out every other day and we fix that...and he finds a new way. I am curious how long this will be going on but...we will see. He acts like he is a real cool dude..but say the word tummyrub and he looks like this:









I have made some bearblocks that are on there way to Ireland at the moment. It is made out of a Danish bearbook that is now in English too by Dorthe Jolle: http://www.lapp-elisa.com/cgi-images/image_display.cgi?account=lappelisa&image=sdjbp.jpg













I was also talking about stash and sewingrooms and here is mine:





Well that is all for today!

Barbara

Bree Anna

Hi!,

Yesterday I made Bree Anna...isn't she cute? I found her in an Australian Patchwork magazine. She was very country style there, so I made some small changes and here she is. She even has her own purse and pearl necklace. It is the first doll I ever made and I must say am very happy with her. She is about 20 inches, and her lower body is filled with sand so that she can stand on her own.


The quilting of a block a day is working quite well. I have some blocks done. I do it when I have time. I don't force myself to do it...it is still a hobby right?

I also have started knitting again. My friend Weronica made a scarf on size 20 pens and looked lovely. So I made that last weekend. I was so hooked that I started another one. This one is being knitted on a round knittingpen. That is a first for me too.

At the moment I am hand applique'ing a small wall hanging with a little lady making tea...as it grows on trees as we all know. I added a small black and white scan..since I don't have a camera ...but I will soon. I am making mine in Ruhbarb and Gingers fabrics from Blackbrid Design. The design is made by Anni Downs from Hatched and patched in australia. One of my favorite designers.



Well Summer has hit Sweden and I am most of the time in the garden..hope you are having a wonderfull summer too!

Barbara

A block a day?

Today I made some cards for a Afternoon Tea Party I am having in June. We are going to be some sewingfriends who meet. I had this 2 years ago and it was so much fun. Last year I was moving house..so I skipped a year. I found this great project to make during the party. It is kinda Victorian, with loads of beads, silkembrodery and charms. I can tell you more since some read my blog, and it is going to be a surprise..

Well I have been thinking a lott about my quilttops that need quilting. So I am thinking about doing a block a day for while. Don't know if I can keep it up, but a bad plan is better than no plan...:-))

These thoughts came now because I am on my way to finishing my diamonds quilttop. I want to handquilt this one, but I already have some other quilts in my frame. I keep having this problem. I mostly take out the project in the frame because I can't wait to be able to start my new quilting project...hence...nothing gets finished. I am going to give this a try. So ...I am on my way to quilt after posting this.

Barbara