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

The last of the summer reruns

Wow, the summer sure did fly by, I didn’t finish as many quilts as I had hoped,

but I did managed to finish some.

I had almost forgotten about this quilt, and found it while I was cleaning up my fabric cabinet.

I don’t know why it took so long to finish because it came together quite quickly in the end.

It fits the ending of summer just perfect, since the colours and prints has a felling of fall to it.

I’m experimenting with different batting trying to find a favourite,

and figured that a cotton/wool blending would be just perfect for this

. I didn’t like working with it, since it was very slippery
and made it hard to avoid wrinkles on the back.

But I think the end result is quite cute, very retro and perfect as a baby blanket.

Otherwise there really is allot going on around here. Marie turned 1 last Tuesday, and started day-care, we are having a party for her tomorrow. My maternal leave is over and I have returned to school, which is extremely exciting, but also steals away my quilting time. (Not that I’m complaining, I’m going to sew a lot in school, how lucky can one be!!)

So I’ve decided that September is going to be a small project month, I’ve been wanting to do various little projects for a long time and now seems like a perfect time to do it.

I hope you have a great weekend.

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

Copycat

Have you ever seen a quilt and known that you had to copy it?

Well I have, many times. But this time it came out of the blue…

I’ve had a bunch of blue Kaffe Fasset prints in my stash for a long time, it was some of the first fabric I bought online (Boy, a lot of water have been running under the bridge since then!) and I had planned to use them for a lady in the lake quilt. But then I saw this quilt, Rita from redpepperquilt made a while ago, and I just loved how the cotton/linen blend made the printed fabric light up. So I decided to make a very similar one.

I never tried to make a quilt with linen, so I was a bit anxious to use it.

It’s not a favourite, but it sure isn’t the last time I use linen.

I made this quilt for my sister and her husband a couple of weeks ago,

but I haven’t gotten around to posting about it before now.

Otherwise sewing and bloggin has been a little slow, I think maybe because of the heat.
And because Marie is teething again (who needs more than two teeth anyway?)
I’m not finished quilting my snippets quilt from the ORBC quilt along,
but I’m getting closer.

Have a nice day
Isa

Quilting along

I’ve started quilting the ORBC quiltalong quilt,

and it’s slowly coming along, I’m ¼ of the way.

There’s still at least 6 hours quilting left,

and I decided not to work on anything else before this is done.

But with a million or so degrees outside,

leaving us all hot and sweaty,

I don’t think it will be finished before sometimes next week.

I’m quilting in “wonky” straight lines, with random spacing

and in alternating directions.

I think it enhances the pattern in a good way,

and give the quilt a great texture.

I hope you have a great day.

Isa

Catching up and falling behind

I’ve finished the top for the ORBC quilt along.

I’m sorry for the bad pictures, but it’s pouring down and there has been absolutely no sun light.
I’m not ready to baste it yet, I need to get some more batting.

But I should be up to speed with this quilt along.

I made 6 more nine-patches making a grand total of 43,

I’m falling a bit behind in this quilt along I’m afraid.

I’ve been thinking about making it a lap size instead, but I’m not sure yet

Oh and I won library gal quilts SMS give away, yay for me!I haven’t heard from my second winner Patsy from the SMS give away. I’m thinking I’ll draw another winner Monday if I haven’t heard from her by then, does that seem fair to you?

Have a good day

Isa

Damsel in distress

It’s not me who are in distress but this nice little lady, who seems to be missing her hair….

I think its cold to be that bald; I better make her some hair

She’s a gift to my niece for her first birthday; I used the pattern from

Alicia Paulson’s “stitched in time”. It’s the first time I tried to make a rag doll,

it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad I got so many girls in my life

that can be gifted with this type of toy.

I also got to “try out” another book from my birthday.

If you are new at embroidery (like me) I highly recommend the doodle stitching book.
It explains the different type of stitches really well,
and have some great “how to” graphics.

My coaster swap buddy Sara has received my parcel and seems pleased with it.

I’m glad she is, I’m always a bit more nervous

when sending stuff to another craftster,

am I the only one who feels that way?

And to round this week up (…) I finished the on the spot quilt top.

I like the idea a lot, but not so much the execution.
I think I’m gonna try another method for the next circle quilt.

Maybe Anna Maria Horner's super circles.

Have a good day, I’ll be back tomorrow with Sunday stash fabric.

Isa

playing catch

Just a quick post.
I’m trying to catch up on the one-a-day quilt-along

Greens:

Yellows

Orange

My favourite is the one with flowers and rockets.

I will go play some more

Have a good day

Isa

Am I stacking coins ore laying bricks?

Well neither I’m afraid. This was supposed to have been a stacked coin quilt top. But somewhere my math went wrong and it ended up far too wide.

Probably because I don’t have a design wall, and instead I'm using my dining room table.

I simply don’t have the energy to rip it all up and rearrange them. I'll just pretend it was meant to be some sort of brick laying quilt, and give it to someone who don’t know off the mistake :-)

Isa

P.s

Now there’s five quilt tops awaiting me.And I still have scraps left from the color-wheel bundle, but I’ll leave them for now.

Color-wheel

Well, I was supposed to assemble some more quilts. I have three waiting. And I really meant to do it; honestly… But on my way doing so, I was lured in by these, just lying there awaiting my strokes with the ironer.

I’ve enlarged the pattern of Joelle’s color-wheel quilt so instead of 56 inch square it would be 84 inch. And I had to see if the fabric pieces were big enough for the template.
They were, with a lot to spare.
And then one thing led to another, and suddenly all 52 wedges were cut out. So I thought I’d just lay them in the right order. Aren’t they pretty?

Then I worried about getting them all mixed up if I didn’t sew them together right away… Ahem…
Well that was the reason I told myself (and others) anyway. It went so fast that I forgot to take any pictures of the process. But I got a pic of the finished quilt top



As all the quilts I make it is far from perfect. In this one the curved piecing was kinda difficult, it’s definitely not my favorite kind of piecing.




But it's well worth the effort











This print is one of my favorites , love the little birds







I have a good excuse for not finishing this one I don’t have enough bating and backing fabric.
So now there are 4 quilts awaiting me… And I really want to finish them.



But you know the scraps are already arranged in coordinated colors, and I thought about making a color way coin quilt inspired by this one. I’m a real sucker for color-way quilts, and it wouldn’t take to long to cut the pieces, and I could easily do some chain piecing… so it wouldn’t be time consuming at all… Hmm…Hmmm. Maybe I should just cut some of them.

Isa