The tale of two quilts.

Phew the last month just flew right by; I can’t believe it’s almost May.
Even though I haven’t been around my blog for quite a while it doesn’t mean I’ve been slacking…
In fact I’ve finished two quilts… two!!

The first one is my giant hope valley quilt for my in-laws.
It came back from long arm quilting a couple of weeks ago, and I finally did the binding last weekend. So here it is:

I love the way the quilting turned out.

here’s a close up:

The other quilt I finished is one that I have been procrastinating for a long time. I had a hard time deciding on a back for this one, but then we had another screen printing class at school, where we were to design an ornament and put it in a repeat pattern.

And the perfect backing fabric was born.

I must say that I really love this quilt, both front and back.

Finally I’ve joined the urban home goods swap over on flickr, and here is what I’m thinking of sending my partner:

Aqua, red, linen placemats. I think it should be right up his/her alley.

Oh and by the way, I'm featured over on Amy's blog today... how cool is that :-)

Take care

Isa

a bird in the hand.

Or my adventures in fabric print and design.

But first, you may remember the embroidery pattern I made inspired by a Korean wedding kimono, well after many hours I finally finished it:

It's the first big embroidery I've made and I really learned alot from doing it. The fabric has pulled in some places, and some of the stitches are a bit too long, but all in all I like it.
Laura and I have decided to use it for a dress she can wear to my sisters weeding in May.

I used the same inspiration in a silk dye and screen printing course at school. But here I only used the bird motif.

First I did alot of testing both with ground colours, pattern layout and howmany times the dye were to be brushed through the frame, it's a really time consuming procedure because you have to dry, damp, wash and iron the fabric between each routine.

I ended up dying and printing two pieces of fabric measuring about 1 square meter. They are far from being perfect, but if used as scarfs where all the flaws are less visible I think they look ok.

I also uploaded the pattern to spoonflower to try it out. The colors turned out pretty much as I had hoped, but I was quite surprised at how small the bird was (the original drawing is on the left)
It nedds some correcting; there are some streaks I hadn't noticed at first (I don't have photoshop or illustrator and made this using paint and picnik)

But it's quite fun to have some fabric I myself have designed, and I allready have ideas for other designs...

Finally I really have been lucky in both the doll quilt swap, and the pillow talk swap.

I received a wonderful quilt from Emma Louise

And a gorgeous pillow from Kerri

Don't they look good together?

That's all folks... Thank you for tuning in, take care, and drive safe :-)

...and they are off...

...Some will go furhter than others..

The first will only go 400 yards down the road, it's a lst minute birthday gift for my sweet sister.

Using Anna-Marie Horner's little folks voile, I made a 40" x 40" inch square and folded it in half and stitched down the edge.

The next two will cross the North Sea

Euro bee blocks for Aneela

Bee Europa blocks for Maria

This one will fly across at least one ocean... As part of the pillow talk swap

It's made of 1" x 4" inch Hope Valley strips, and white Kona cotton. One side made in cool colorway and the other in warm colorway... It may be symbolic, but you never know :-)

The final one is my rainbow doll quilt for the DQS8, this is a sneak peak at the back...

it will also have to travel through a higher altitude :-)

xo

Isa

swapping shopping bees

January were Monika’s month of the Euro bee, in she asked for squares and stripes made in the wonderful shirt fabric she had sent.
At first sight an easy task, but she had asked for it to be measured in cm, and even though I use the metric system for everything else, it was somehow difficult to use it for quilt making… Go figure :-)
I also signed up for the DQS8 over at flickr and have been assigned with a secret partner with a love for wonky houses…

I spend hours trying out different fabric for the houses, it was really hard to find a combination that clicked, the rainbow fabric came together quite easy.

I used lecien honeycomb dots for the binding, which I think frames it quite well.

I’m keeping the back as a (hopefully) pleasant surprise…

On a different more serious note, I hope you’ll consider shopping in the crafthope etsy shop to support Haiti; I bought two wonderful softie patterns from bird and little bird

And Sara (from kindred crafters) and her generous daughter Emily are selling the cutest onesies from Sara’s webshop frugal Adeline, raising money to help Haiti. Please go and have a look!

xo

Isa

Getting in the christmas spirit

Well it certainly feels like Santa read my letter… Look what arrived today in the mail.
This wonderful pillow made by the very talented Brioni. I had seen it in the Pillow swap talk flickr pool, and crossed my fingers it was coming my way!!

Another wish would be to win won of the fabulous prizes in FMF freaks giveaway.
Check it out here:

Remember to come back for the Sew mama sew giveaway day, I'm also planning a giveaway in the FMF category.

There’s a craft Christmas market at school next week, and I feel like I have had my very own sewing sweatshop in the past couple off weeks, hence the decrease in blog-posts.

Well here is the fruit of my labour, well some of it, there’s a few things not quite finished yet…

Quilts and rattles and clutches (using a pattern from Keyka-lou) and ornaments and....

And softies...

And pillows...

I hope you have a great weekend

Isa

books, books and a pillow

This weeks Sunday stash is 3 new books and a calendar. The calendar is such a great idea filled with sewing tutorials from numerous talented bloggers,

I cheated a little and have already looked through it and found some have to do things.

And the Quilts’ baby book is very inspiring and very well written! I can only recommend this two. I have only glanced at the other books but they sure look promising too.

Speaking off books, I made a book case wall hanging using a pattern from Fun quilts modern quilt workshop book. I’ve promised Kristoffer he could hang it in his office.

On a different note, I finished my pillow cover and have sent it off to my secret partner;

I hope he/she will like it.

I have to admit that I think it turned out pretty ok :-)


I hope you had a great weekend.

Isa

Swaps and bee's

This week I finally got some time to do some patchwork sewing. Time seems to fly by around here; there isn’t much time in between school, children, coocking and so on… So it was really fun to play with some fabric.

The first is a Euro bee block for Rita. She sent some gorgeous fabric and wanted a wonky log cabin, I’ve never done one before but it was fun trying.

The second is for the pillow talk swap, where my secret partner had revealed a love for hexagons, so I tried this layout, it’s been awhile since I did hexagons so the Y-seams where a bit tricky, I’m still debating if I should give it another try :-)

I hope your are having a great weekend

Isa

sunday stash

I know I'm a day late, but better late than never right?

I've joined the pillow talk swap over on flickr, and have been assigned a secret partner.

After a bit of stalking I pulled this fabric. I hope my secret partner likes it.

I sure feel in love with this combination.

I hope your weekend was good

Isa

sunday stash # 11

Panda leaf print from Robert Kaufman

Ava fabric from Alexander Henry

I hope you had a great weekend

Isa

Bugshots

This is Dottie Daisy, and she is just the cutest little girl bug.

Christy from sweet tidings sent her to me as part of our bug swap.

This is Caramella. She is afraid of flying so I had to make her a little friend that could hold her hands, when she was sent all the way to the Philippines. I hope you like them Christy.

And because I had so much fun using Rebecca’s bug pattern,

I just had to make another little fellow.

Speaking of Rebecca from Blinking Flights, she is having a Pay It Forward thing going on at her Etsy shop where if you are lucky you can get one of her softies for 50 cent.

I was the lucky buyer yesterday, and I really look forward to be adding Dot to our family.

Take care

Isa

I'm in love

I finished the one-a-day nine patch quiltalong top, and I love it.

I think it's going to be favorite quilt.

I sashed it with white 1 inch strips, because I wanted the blocks being close together

in this way the colorway idea seems to be more obvious.

I made long strips from the leftover squares,

and Marie was very helpful in arranging them...

I finished the quilt with another 1 inch white border, but I must have erased it,

because I can't seem to find anywhere on the computer or in the camera.

But it looks great, you'll have to take my word for it :-)

I think I'll quilt in a relative simple grid pattern since I really don't want to ruin it, and sometime simple is better.

And I signed up for a bug softie swap Rebecca from Blinking flights is hosting, I've been admiring her bugs for quite some time and she's been kind enough to make the pattern free for download.

I've been signed up with Christy from Sweet tidings, she said she liked polka dots, and when looking at this sunday stash I should be able to find some dots :-)

And I won a giveaway! Nicole had a great giveaway on her blog polkadotbunny, with some lovely vintage embroidery patterns and some floss and fabric to go with it. Nicole makes some really cute embroidery patterns, wich you can find in her etsy shop. She also has a Flickr group where you can see the patterns all stitched up.

I hope your day have been as good as mine.

Isa

Do I have a spot? sunday stash # 7

This weeks Sunday stash is all about spots.

Amt Butler’s full moon polka dots and

Japanese Honeycomb from Kei fabric

Kaffe Fasset spots

I used some of Amy Butlers full moon in this months three by three swap.

I was lucky enough to get my hands on some of Denyse Schmidt Flea market fancy, so I used some of that too.

Otherwise, the sewing has slowed down here, school will be out in a week, and I spent more time outside enjoying the weather.

I hope you had a great weekend

Isa

Sunday stash # 6 on a Monday

Yesterday just flew by, busy trying to make a coaster tutorial

and other little surprises for someone special.

Therefore I post my Sunday stash today.

Its Amy butler full moon polka dots in linen, and Erin McMorris sprout in green.

I'm planning on making nine patches for twiddletails three by three swap.

I've drawn a new winner for my SEWN give away, since my initial winner didn't contact me. I promise if you do Patsy I'll send you a little consolidation prize.

My new winner is number 26 Danielle. I'll contact you shortly.

Have a good day

Isa