Be(e)ing Unfashionably late

Warning!!!

Don't get the idea to give your home a makeover by moving the bloody couch, if you got a bad back!!
I repeat: Do not move the couch if you got back problems, it will only make you fall behind in every sewing plan you got...

Well, luckily it feels much better now, thanks. And I'm able to sit at the sewing machine again, and begin to catch up on my bee's.

Block for Claudia:


Block for Nadra:

And finally me very own "Love your dishes" euro bee quilt:

Front

Back

I LOVE IT.

Thank you so much to the talented Euro bee ladies for helping make this wonderful quilt!

Thank you for tuning in :-)

A winner and a quick tutorial

Thank you for your comments!!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one here :-)

And the winner is:
Jenny with number 2, I'll contact you shortly!

And for the rest of you, I'll show you a handy little finger-pincushion tutorial:

Start with a 4,5" inch square (I used a 5" square, and it turned out just a little too big)

Fold it into a triangle, with right sides together.

Stitch along the open edges, leaving a little gap for turning and stuffing.

Turn, and fill stuffing through the little gap, stuffing it firmly in the middle, and leaving the sharper points unstuffed.

Blind or slipstitch the oppening together.

Gather the two sharp points making them slightly ovelap.

Stitch them together forming a ring

And there you have a fancy little pincushion always nearby.

I would love to know if you use this tutorial, or if you have any questions or comments :-)

By the way, do any of you know how to stop spam comments, I've been getting quite alot lately, and think they are really annoying!!!

Take care.

Isa

Hello again...

Well, hello there....
Long time no post... I'm sorry for leaving you alone for so long! But I've been so busy these past months. I had finals in June, a birthday in May, and in between school, kids and everyday life, time has just flown by.

Speaking of May, it was my month in the Bee Europa, I asked my fellow bee members to make a sort of strip stacking block, using Erin Mcmorris' Wildwood fabric.
And here are the result so far:

I think it's going to be great...

I also had my fist final in school, it lasted about a month, and consisted of several different steps, that I won't bore you with here. But I am going to show you the final product:

A blouse I designed, made pattern for, embroidered and sew. (I got a good grade by the way :-)

Afterwards, Laura and I went on a long weekend to London. We had such a great trip, just the two of us.

We went to the wonderful Victoria and Albert museum, where I could have spent an entire week. It just so happened that they had a great exhibition about quilts, that was very good.

They even had some special edition fabrics that I couldn't resist:

We also went by several different fabric stores carrying Liberty of London fabrics, and I just might have went a little overboard in fabric shopping, but how often do one get to go too London right ;-)

And for those of you readers who's still here despite my recent blogsilence, and for those who made the end of this post, I'm going to share some Liberty love:

A small scrap bag with different liberty prints.

For a chance to win, leave a comment here before July 15'th, and be sure to leave a way for me to contact you!!

Thank you for tunning in in!!

Take care

Isa

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 :-)

More hope valley

I had some time of last week, and instead of working on projects already in the works (and collecting dust in the closet), I started a new long overdue one...

Shortly before Christmas my in-laws bought a holiday appartment, and being in the Christmas spirit (or because the punch were spiked) I offered to make a quilt for their new home away from home, an idea they were really thrilled about.

But I must admit my palms got a bit sweatty when my mother in law asked for a king size quilt...

Thankfully she fell in love with a daisy chain quilt pattern, which would come together quite easy.

I suggested the blue and grey colortone of hope valley, and the plan was a succes, except for the part of me sewing it... I simply have not had the time before now.

It's made with 9" ninepatches and 9" squares of white kona cotton.

After this picture were taken I added both a checkered border and an extra white border. It ended up being 108", and is by far the biggest quilt I've ever made (and will continue being just that in quite along time...)

I decided to have it longarm quilted, since I couldn't imagine this giant fit in my sewing machine.

I chose this chantilly lace pattern, and really look forward to see the final result.

In the meantime I'll play with the leftover blocks, I'm thinking maybe a matching baby blanket, Marie has said she really wants to spend the night at her grandparrents. (well actually she said: dabadesu...muu, but I'm certain she meant the other...)

I hope you had a great weekend :-)

Isa

...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

sunday stash

This week I don’t have any fabric to show, but I do however have something I have been working with all week:
Copic sketch markers.


In the week before Christmas I went on a fieldtrip with my school to the National museum of Denmark, to get inspiration for an embroidery pattern.
Besides a lot of historical Danish artefact, it also contains a lot of effects from cultures all over the world.
From this trip we were to pick an item to be inspired from and do a study about

I fell completely in love with a traditional Korean bridal kimono, I’m sorry for the bad picture, but it was really hard to take one without lights being reflected.
The embroidery depicts bird Phoenix with chicks and symbolizes life, resurrection and fertility.

I did some research on the subject and came up with the idea of a dragon and a phoenix, symbolizing ying-yang, male-female, water-fire and so forth.



I coloured it in different ways, trying to decide the final layout.
I got a bit sloppy in the last one (and a bit dizzy from the marker fumes…)
Not yet sure which one to pick.

I’m going to sew it up on dupioni silk with silk floss.
The final project isn’t due until March 18’th, but I think I know how my evenings until then will be spent.

Happy Sunday :-)

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

A start and a finish

But not of the same project

First the finish:
A dress for Marie using Anna Marie Horners new flannels, it’s so soft and easy to work with, and Tula Pinks aqua ladybugs.
In Danish a ladybug is called a “Mariehøne” which means Marie-chicken, so I figured it was a perfect choice.

Second the start of a new quilt.

When Amy Butlers new fabric line LOVE first was released I honestly wasn’t sure whether to like or not, the patterns and colors were very different from what I’m usually drawn too. But when I saw blueblossomgirl's circle quilt on flickr I knew I wanted some.

As you probably remember I used a large portion of it for my sisters Christmas present, knowing that this fabric would be right up her ally. But there were a lot of fabric left that I didn’t know whether to put in my scrap bin or back in my stash.

So I started cutting it up instead, using Marti Michells drunkards path templates. The big circles were easy to cut and piece, but the small templates were quite slippery and harder to piece, therefore some of theme came out a bit wonky and more oval shaped.

I ended up with 14 big circles and 23 small, and very little fabric to spare, I hope to squeeze another small circle out of the scraps.

I’ve been trying different layout styles and am not sure which way to go from here. The circles don’t stand out as much I had hoped, but I guess that was to be expected when it was cut and sewed without any sort of plan.

Maybe some sort of solid sashing would help, I just made an order for some kona solids, and I think I’m going to wait and see what happens with that.

And even though it has no reference for to this post I want to show you my new rug, we just got it yesterday, and I love it so much, it’s so colourful and cherry. It’s from the Danish Design Brand Hay in case you are wondering.

Thank you for tuning in

Take care and have fun