WIP Wednesday

Welcome back!

I've been making progress on my That Cat wallhanging this week.  The applique is on and has been stitched down and it's been sandwiched and basted, ready for quilting.

I decided to swap out the fabric fused collar for a silver metallic ribbon (which is showing up a weird blue in the photo) and once finished, I'm going to sew on a little Hallowe'en-themed silver charm.

Linking up to Freshly Pieced:

Gone Sewing

Summer has finally come to southern Sweden!

It's been pretty ridiculous, to tell the truth - still wearing winter boots, socks, jackets and gloves when cycling right up to July.  It's not normally like that here but we keep having Arctic winds blast through - brrr!  According to the forecasts, it's just here for a week so I jumped at the opportunity to spend time at friends' cottage in the warm weather and of course do some sewing while we were at it.

We worked on a baby quilt for friends, who had their baby last November (so yes, we're a little behind the game).  It's an adorable mix of different textured fabrics, including cotton, flannel and chenille and some Heat n'Bond style applique.  We spent about a day and a half hand stitching the applique down and enjoyed some fruit smoothies and Pimms with strawberries in the process - yum!

Hand stitching done, I sat outside with the machine and joined all of the blocks together, then added the borders.  I'd not sewn with chenille previously and I admit, it was a bit tricky.  It had a tendency to slip around so extra pins were useful to keep it in place.  At other times, the walking foot seemed to have trouble feeding it along and it would need a little push to move forward, which I discovered could also cause the thread to break - annoying.  But I persevered and it came together easily enough, despite all that.

Then we sandwiched the layers using fabric glue - I don't think I'll ever go back to basting and pinning ever again!  I got to work doing all of the straight quilting and my friend Ingrid will later do all of the meander and echo quilting.  I stitched in the ditch between the blocks and borders, stitched a square around the chenille blocks and one inch diagonal stripes over the nine patch blocks.  Then in the borders we made a zig zag pattern.

Not too shabby for four days of work!  We should hopefully finally be able to pass along this quilt by later this month.  Stay tuned for photos from that event.

Odense Quilt Exhibition

Are you ready for some photo love?

Last weekend my quilt guild took a day trip to Odense, Denmark for the Danish guild's quilt exhibition.  Quilting and sewing vendors from throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe were there, along with a lovely exhibition of completed quilts on display.  It was a lovely day out and my friends and I couldn't believe just how quickly the day passed by.

A glimpse among the vendor stalls.

Despite all of wonderful shops, I kept my shopping to a minimum (let's be honest, I really don't need anything more right now...)  Here's my very modest haul for the day: 1m of adorable fox and raccoon fabric, a Fiskars hexie punch (for both scrapbooking and quilting), a brooch and a bottle of Best Press starch (Carribean Sea scent).

 And then on to the exhibition...

The Danish guild had organised a themed challenge featuring bicycles and what amazing projects were created for it!  I did quite enjoy the first place winner (below), just a shame that the lovely hand stitched details were rather lost in the distance.

#1 Winner

#1 Winner - Detail

This was my favourite, the third place winner.  The stamp design is such a clever idea and the black, white and red makes for a dramatic contrast.  The details are just so exact and I love the embroidery on the skirt guard and the metal accents for the bolt nuts.

#3 Winner - My Favourite!

And with this being the centennial of WWI, poppies are all the rage right now, as seen by these stunning beauties.

This particular poppy quilt was just stunning - an art quilt with layering that played with the light and shadows, cut into sections and held together with fancy hooks and eyes.

And another amazing art quilt:

And how about this inchie quilt?

Or how about embroidered bees with 3-dimensional, stitched wings?

And the patchwork quilts were equally fantastic, such as this rainbow beauty:

And of course I had to have a photo of this colourful quilt with the cute owls in the top and bottom borders:

And this applique quilt was truly mind-bloggingly:

Now just looking forward to my own guild's exhibition end of this month.

Pinspiration Sunday

Welcome back to another (hopefully) cosy Sunday filled with eye candy and inspiration!  I'm presently tucked up on the sofa watching some Winter Olympics and feeling extremely tired, having scrapbooked in my brain most of the night when I should have been sleeping.  Is it just me who does this or anyone else fall victim to inspiration in the middle of the night that disrupts your sleep?  Needless to say, it will be an early night.  Anyway, enough of my ramblings - go grab your hot beverage of choice and join me on the sofa...

Currently:

* watching - Winter Olympics (ski jump)
* reading - The Persian Pickle Club (downloaded; honestly starting this soon!)
* making - finished a UFO LO and two cards today - whew!
* eating - Swedish pankakor (pancakes) with strawberry jam - YUM!
* drinking - water
* wearing - jeans, knit shirt & cardie (plus blankie)
* weather - clear, 5C
* feeling - tired but accomplished
* wanting - to go back to bed
* needing - to just get through one more week of work
* planning - my Persian Pickle project
* thinking - of possible new blog names (have any suggestions?)
* loving - having spent the day being crafty
* enjoying - having spent all day yesterday in bed  **bliss**

And now on to the pins...

All Framed Up

How gorgeous is this quilt?  All of those perfect little squares remind me of little postage stamps, all neatly organised.  Fab colours, too.  Want.  Seriously.

Orange Peel

I so love orange peel quilts!  I'm totally lusting over this one with its combination of rainbow peels and hap-hazard newsprint background fabric (I'm a sucker for text prints in fabric or paper).  The instructions on this blog entry are very detailed with a lot of photo references.  This one is going on my to-make list once I've done a bit more hand applique.

How to Hand Applique by Nancy Ellen

One of my skills I want to learn (or perhaps in this case, improve upon) is my hand applique.  This is a good beginner level video that covers the basics of tools, getting started and the basic stitch and turning.  Additional videos cover curves, points, etc.

Owl Handbag

We can't have a Pinspiration Sunday without some sort of owl cuteness so here's an adorable handbag.  Link to the pattern ($5.00 USD) on the webpage.

Family Tree LO

A couple of weeks ago I shared an awesome family tree quilt so it seemed fitting to do likewise with a scrapbooking LO.  Clearly this particular page isn't my style (although it might be yours) but there is so much inspiration one can draw from it.  Pretty spiffy.

Stacked Hearts Card

Here's a simple but pretty and nicely balanced Valentine's Day card that doesn't really require you have a Valentine's-themed pack of supplies or even the traditional red/pink/white colour palette.

Snowman Card

This will probably be the last of wintery cards we can reasonably share at this point in the season but I couldn't resist this adorable nested circle snowman.  I love the unexpected perspective and it's so simple, you could easily assembly-line these.

Plastic Classics by Jane Perkins

OMG, these recreations of classic paintings and photographs will blow your mind.  Artist Jane Perkins uses found objects such as buttons, beads, plastic toys, etc. to reproduce classics and they are AMAZING!  Girl with the Pearl Earring and the National Geographic Girl are my favourites.

My Month In Numbers - Jan. 2014

I may be a month off with this one but if you're looking for some inspiration of a different flavour, you may wish to try Julie Kirk's My Month in Numbers.

Nature Hues

We've had some lovely spring-like weather here in Malmö today so it seems fitting to have a little spring time colour palette.  There's also a little touch of pink in there if you're working on some Valentine's projects currently.

Kiva

And finally, because I'm completely obsessed (in a good way, of course) and whole heartily believe in the vision of this organisation, I'd like to once again mention Kiva.  Kiva is an organisation that helps people, many of whom live in developing, war-torn or natural disaster-prone countries to finance loans that improve their lives.  They do this by providing people like you and I to fund micro loans.  It's an amazing organisation - please take a few moments to read up on them and consider lending a hand.