End of summer :-(

Remember my Flickr doll quilt swap? I recieved this beautiful doll quilt from Helen at Patchy Work of Mini Grey. Really....this is mine!! YAY! I am so happy! I have adored these lovely wonky rainbow-colored flying geese since the very first time I saw them! I have followed all the photos Helen uploaded, both in her Flickr account and on her blog, I just love them so much!
So you can imagine how happy and surprised I was, when this very quilt turned up at my house! Thank you so so much Helen! I treasure it!

Some progress have been made on Charles' Christmas-present. He loves brown, so I bought some to make a sashing, the squares are orange batik (he seems to be stuck in the 70s, colorwise. LOL!). I was going to make a wonky star-sashing, but when I see it laid out like this, it really seems quite busy as it is. So I'll probably just do the cornerblocks. What do you think?

It's fun to make these quilts to give away. I would never sew a primarily brown quilt for myself, but I just know he'll love it :-)

AND....good news...I went running yesterday! Yipee!

Quilting, present, date, shopping...GOOD TIMES

I'm almost done quilting hte Plain Spoken! I'm so excited! It was not at all as difficult as I thought it would be. So far, so good.
Until now, I have changed bobbins 3 times and broken 4 needles on this! LOL!

And look what was waiting for me at the post office:
Lisa sent me this huge pile of fabrics from her stash :-) Thank you! I love them all!
Look at all the navy! I'll be able to start the RocketMan quilt for Ask. I'm so happy!

Charles and I went on a lunch-date today! We had Viola so soon after we met, that we haven't really had a lot of time to date. We met for the first time in September 2003, started dating late February 2004, and had Viola in December 2004. Most of you may think, this gives us a lot of time to date.....but no! 3 months pregnant I have to stay in bed, all day every day for the next 6 months :-(
And with children in the house, dates are few and far between :-)
Back to todays date....
Here he is, trying to explain his PhD project description.... Really the date was me talking about quilting, and Charles was just so happy being out without the kids that he didn't mind!

We went shopping, and I found this fabric. Thinking of binding the Plain Spoken with the polka-dots, and the solid brown is for sashing in Charles' Christmaspresent-quilt.
I haven't been able to keep up with my running these past few days :-(
So let's not dwell on that.... We'll talk about that in a couple of days when I have been out running again ;-D

Away from home

The kids and I are visiting my parents for a few days. My classes start soon, and then it'll be hard to find time to go away!
My mom has a huge box of scraps, so I brought my ruler, and made 2 blocks so far.

It's been raining pretty hard here, and Viola loves to be out in the rain. Ask doesn't, so he stayed inside.

Ask is getting his first molars, 3 at the same time. So he is feverish and whiney, the poor guy :-( It must hurt quite bad, he usually doesn't cry. Of course this all started the day after we got here, and it's 4 hours on the train to get home. Not looking forward to that! But I really do believe you should be at home when not feeling well!
So I have asked Charles to come and get us, and as the sweet loving man he is, he just agreed right away.
I'm so grateful! It could have been a really bad 4 hour-trip back to Copenhagen :-( Now it'll be fine!

I brought my doll quilt, and sent it from here on Monday...I cannot wait to hear what my partner thinks of it!!!

Hopefully it'll arrive at its new home soon!

Jen at Crafty Giveaways is giving away Disney princess panels and backing to 5 lucky winners. Go leave a comment! Good luck!

....and I made it out on my 3rd run today...I like running in the rain!

Finished my doll quilt!

I finished sewing down the binding and now my doll quilt for Doll Quilt Swap 4 is ready to be sent! I'm so excited, and very nervous! I really hope my swap-partner likes it!

I used an Amy Butler print as backing, I think it matches the top very well! It will go out on monday....

EDIT: I forgot! I went on my second run today....Can't wait until it starts getting easier. LOL!

July miniquilt swap

Today I went running for the first time in years....and I'm not in good shape, let me tell you! But that will change in the months to come. Of course I'm going to choose the end of summer to start running, just when it's going to get rainy and cold!

I recieved my miniquilt for July from Sarah from House of Krom today! And I absolutely love it!! Orange and pink is one of my favourite color-combinations.... Thank you so much!
Here's a picture of the back, so lovely!
Isn't is gorgeous?!
Sarah also sent all these goodies
Stickers for Viola (I almost didn't get a picture, she was so excited) and lots and lots of I SPY fabric for Ask's upcoming I SPY quilt. There is also a special coin and some beautiful seashells :-)
It's all so wonderful! Thank you very very much Sarah!

I have finally quilted my dollquilt for Doll Quilt Swap 4. I gave up waiting for the batting I ordered, and....uhm....I'm embarassed to say, I managed to find some batting I had forgotten all about....it was hiding in my sewing-room!
I did the quilting on my machine, and I am not at all confident when it comes to freemotion quilting. But since everybody says, all you can do is practise, I figured I'd better just go ahead and sew....

Just need to sew the binding down on the back, and then it's off on monday!! Hope my swap-partner likes it :-)

Scrappy blogs

I convinced Charles NOT to read my blog until after Christmas....so now I can show you the blogs I've made for his Christmas-preset-quilt. I had made 2 and was not at all sure about them, but Charles absolutely loved them -and keeps asking me to sew some more... Little does he know ;-)

I also worked a bit on the hexagons...

It's going to take me forever! Good thing I'm only making a pillowcase!!

Today, I went to the fabricstore to see if I could find some fabric to use for the strawberry-swap.... I'm not sure if I can show you the strawberry-goodies. But this what I bought for me....just because.....

Good thing I'm off the fabric-diet, and can buy stuff again!

New shoes

Today I bought a new pair of shoes.....for running! And other running gear ;-) I need to get back out there, and take a little better care of myself!
Much as I love sewing, it really doesn't do much for my health. LOL!
I do have some clothes tucked away somewhere, but it's probably a size 2, and no way am I going to even try to get into that!!!

I went to a Nike-factory-outlet, and got everything I need (+a pair of sneakers for Charles) for less than those shoes cost in a regular store.

After shopping for not-so-interesting-shoes I saw these

and I just had to have them!
I love them, and they are surprisingly comfortable.

Oh I should tell you!
My sweet Charles is doing his PhD, doing research on folksonomies and collaborative tagging....he might need to do a case-study, and guess what he chose as his topic?! Quilters! How fun is that?!

Going on a diet!

I got this book in the mail today! I love it. A lot of you have it already, and I bought it because I kept seeing your awesome creations, made from patterns from this book :-)

My to-do list is now bordering on ridiculous, there are that many projects on it! So...I'm putting myself on a book-pattern-and-magazine diet for atleast 6 months...well until after Christmas...

-I should tell you, I have NEVER been succesful in sticking to a diet!
But....I need to start sewing a little bit more :-)

The good thing about the new diet is, it requires lots and lots of fabrics! So it's not all that bad....not at all bad actually!

Hooked on Stars!

I really was not happy with how my doll quilt for the flickr swap was turning out.
And since I had some extra fabric, I decided to start over.....again. This time, I decided to do some piecing, since the appliqué turned out nowhere near what I wanted ;-)
I used this tutorial for the maverick stars. So fun to make. I used 3½" blocks and just added the little corner triangles made from 2" squares.
Much better, this I like :-D And hope my swap-partner will too!

I found the PERFECT fabric!!

Look at this!!!
It a Debbie Mumm print, and it is absolutely perfect for the back of my Plain Spoken...
See how well it matches! I'm so happy. Now I need to go get some batting....
I'm always confused when it comes to batting..... What do you use? And why? I need some help here....

I ordered this book, and have been waiting very impatiently for it. It is awesome!! There are 23 quilts in here, and they are all gorgeous! I can't wait to get started :-)
You should visit the blog, or go see some of the patterns.... They are so so beautiful. Now if only there were 48 hours to each day, I would be all set! LOL!
I am trying to find ways to help Viola get over her dislike of buttons. And since we still have the owl- and the purple-craze going on, you can imagine my happiness when I found these little sweeties...
Maybe she won't mind if I use one of these? We'll have to see!

I also got to work a little more on my doll quilt for the Flickr swap. I'm al little happier with it now, and I'm sure that once I'm done, I'll be sad to see it go.
But that's how it's supposed to be :-)

AND......Jen at Crafty Giveaways is having another wonderful giveaway! Go enter! It's a partially finished quilt, and it is gorgeous!!!

Sewing

I finished the Plain Spoken quilttop! And I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Now I need to find a coordinating print for the back. That might be difficult, but hopefully not impossible.

Here is the whole thing, it's a pretty good size for a lap-size quilt, I think.

I made some progress on the hexagons, and I got the brown fabric ironed. I have made myself a rule, that I have to sew as many brown as scrappy hexagons.....I just know, that if I sew all the flowers -the fun part- first, this will be certain to end up a UFO ;-)

I also worked on my doll quilt for doll quilt swap 4. I need to finish -and embellish- the butterflies, but this is how it looks so far.

The colors looks a little washed out here, not so IRL.
Hopefully I'll be able to work on this some more this week, as I need to send it out before Aug. 15th.

Scrap Challenge

I've sewn a few more hexagons, and also made these two flowers. I will not be putting the blue gingham in between -allthough I like it- but brown... The brown fabric has to be ironed before I can use it, so there's no knowing when that is going to happen.

All the fabric I'm using is from my stash -or more correctly, it is scraps left over from the generous donations made for me to finish my I SPY.....

Some of the pieces left over are too small for hexagons, so I have started making some scrappy log cabinish blocks. I'm hoping to finish this before the end of August, it will be my quilt for the summer stash challenge!
The squares are 20cm square.

HA! There's no way I'm going to be able to finish that!