New Crafty Storage

Living in a small apartment in downtown Copenhagen with my 2 kids does mean, that we don't have a lot of room. Needless to say, I don't have a craft room, and I need to be a little creative when figuring out how to store things.

I found these pretty round boxes the other day:

The bigger one is perfect for my growing pile of hexies

One of the smaller ones holds my small solids scraps. It's nice to have them handy when working on Splendid Sampler blocks

Much better than having everything laying around in piles all over the living room :)

A baby quilt and lots of fabric :)

Yesterday we went to see my good friends' baby get baptised...and you know how it is. A new baby means a BABY QUILT!! I haven't been able to share any pictures of this before, since it obviously had to be a surprise :) This picture is taken in the laundry room, right after I pulled the quilt from the dryer, and right before I packed it up and ran out the door...we made it to the church on time, but only just!!
My friend loves it...it 60" square
Like so many others, I like to work with solids, and since I order most of my fabric online, I treated myself to the Kona cotton solids colorcard. Wow. I love it. I see many more solids in my future.
I ordered my color card from Canton Village Quilt Works if you don't know the store, go visit. Jackie has a lot of great stuff in her store! I also bought the FQ pack of rainbow colors from her.

Last week I took Miss V to the fabric store - to buy backing fabric for the baby quilt - and she chose these fabrics. She needs new dresses and skirts, she has grown so much since last summer that all her summer clothes are too short. LOL. So I am going to start by making her some skirts. I also bought these orange and teal fabrics. Orange and teal is my favourite color combination right now.
Also....I am a swap mama in Doll Quilt Swap this round. EXCITING!!! So if you visit the flickr group or the DQS blog, you'll see me there from time to time as well!

One month to go....

...and I haven't made any Christmas-presents yet!!! I have made a softie for my good friend who is having a baby...

....and I have been fabric-shopping. I won't show you all the fabric I bought, for some reason I hoard fabric when I am too busy to sew!

Oooops...the photo is upside-down!

I have started the princess quilt for Viola. This is a picture of the quilt-top. It had me so confused, I never worked with a panel before.

It's a little too pink-and-purple-and-glitter for me, but I am pretty sure Miss V will love it ;)

I finally finished my 8two8 quilt. And I love it!

I love the backing fabric, the dots are happy-happy-happy..

I quilted some spirals in the sashingstrips, and squirly-squirls everywhere else.
This is a picture of the finished quilt. I like it so much. Can you tell?!
I am going to try to get back into blogging, but I am having such a hard time getting into the new routine. I miss you. And I miss sewing. So much.

Presents from my sweetie

Charles has just spent a month at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill as part of his PhD. It was great for his research, and he met some really good collegues and made new friends.

We made do with Skype/Google video chat and emails while he was gone, and it was a great help for the kids to be able to "see" him every day.

Anyway....it is wonderful to have him back home, and he brought some amazing presents. He bought me "Julie & Julia" I have started reading it, and I like it so far!

Also....he bought me fabric....
He got to go JoAnns...I'm quite jealous!

I got this -I have had my eye on it since forever- to use as backing for a future Christmas quilt
and these great dinosaur prints to put into a pieced backing for A's I SPY
and some Strawberry Shortcake and princesses for V
and books for me, the softies in this one are so fun
and this is a beautiful book, the pictures are so pretty I can just look at them over and over again
He got me some great presents, don't you think?
The kids also got presents, and they were so happy :) Most of all, happy he is home!

I have been sick for almost a week now :/ so there is not much sewing going on around here. Or anything else for that matter. I pieced the backing for my 8two8 quilt before I got sick, so I am hoping to baste that as soon as I feel better.....hopefully that'll be before my next post?!

This once a week blogging plan seems to be a good one. I'll stick with it :) I have missed you all so much and it has been so great catching up with how everyone is doing!

Thank you Anne!!!

My friend Anne is sooooo generous! Look at these beautiful Easter baskets she sent for my children!! Needless to say, Viola and Ask were excited! A blue one for Ask and a pink one for Viola :)
Stuffed full of goodies, candy, a moomin scarf for each of them and felted eggs! They were running around ecstatically. LOL.

I have been so busy lately, that I have had a really hard time making Easter special for the kids...but Anne really saved the day! Here are their baskets all the goodies and the moomin scarves.
And Anne had packed some treats for me as well! Look at these stunning fabrics. The pirates will be perfect for the pirate quilt I hvae planned for Ask, and the birds..........ooooooh the birds!
That is such a stunning print, I can't even begin to tell you how much I adore it.

And last -but not least- there was this really really sweet figurine in the package too..
She is such a treasure!

I love everything, Thank you so much Anne!! You are truly amazing :)

Thank you Anne!!!

Christmas came to my home from Finland, beautifully wrapped in giftbags for me and my family :)
Anne sent me this wonderful wooden napkin-holder, already filled with the most beautiful Marimekko napkins!
And look at this Moomin fabric? It is sooooo fantastic! This photo does not do it justice at all. I cannot bring myself to cut into this, so I have plans for a quilt where I don't have to. I love it so much!
Look at these aprons for Ask and Viola! Are they not cutest aprons you have ever seen? I am going to bake something with the kiddos tomorrow, just to see them wearing these lovelies :)
And while we bake, we will be listening to Finnish Christmas-music! I am absolutely speechless. Anne, your generosity amazes me! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
But...it doesn't stop here... Anne included a calender that must be every quilters dream! I know it is the most fabulous calendar I ever saw.

Each month has a little pocket, and Anne put a beautiful fabric in every single one!
Look at these..... I did seriously consider posting all twelve months of 2009 in this post, because it was so hard for me to leave any of these pictures out.
But you will get to see them...I am going to make my own block-of-the-month from these. One block featuring that months fabric :) It will be that special quilt of my very own that I have dreamed of making!

Thank you so very much Anne! I love everything you sent! It is unbelievably beautiful. People like you just make me want to cry! Happy tears ;)

A swap and a giveaway!

Tia from CampFollowerBagLady and I decided to do a swap.....and WOW! She sent me so much! There is a stack of MODA charm-squares, beautiful buttons and one of her handmade bags! And the fabric....oh the fabric!!! Loads of boy-prints! Dragons, pirates, maps, gold-coins.... Tattoos, dogs, houses, cars.... It is all so fantastic! Thank you, Tia!

I have so many ideas of what to make for Ask, now that I have a great selection of boyprints to work with!!

I won one of Jennifers give-aways! If you have not been to her blog yet, you must go pay her a visit. She has a give-away every week, and it is really a lot of fun! And look what I won!

A Disney princesses panel!!! Viola is turning 4 just before Christmas, and she will just love this! You can't tell from this picture, but the purple behind the princesses has glitter in it! Does it get any better than that?!

The prize also included fabric for backing, a lovely print with little purple flowers.

Oh...in this picture you can see the sparkle in the purple background!

Right now I am sewing the binding on the Plain Spoken. I started last night, but didn't finish.... Hopefully it'll get done tonight!
That'll be one Christmas-present done!

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!

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 :-)