Quilting – Mirthful

Another quilt done, and given away

August 23, 2009February 26, 2010 Mirthful Leave a comment

The scrappy hedgerow quilt is done and gone.

First, of course, it has to be bound. By hand. I guess I could do it with machine stitching, but, no.

Here it is in all its glory. And I forgot to snap a picture of the back… Oh, well.

As you can see, I did pretty simple quilting on this one – well, I had to do it myself, for one thing. Just straight lines, one wide masking tape width apart, except in the corner, where I did an A, as the recipient’s name starts with an A (I used masking tape to mark out the A, too, and just sewed around it).

More WIP

August 5, 2009August 5, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

This fabric makes me happy:

So does this:

And these:

Not to mention these:

And this?

This puts a big silly grin on my face. Don’t know why. In fact, I’m considering whether it would be an idea to make a dress out of that last one.

For now, though, I’m combining it with the rest of them, as well as this lovely thing:

And these two:

Inspired by the scrappy hedgerow blocks from Oh, Fransson!

Note to self: Don’t start a scrappy quilt with all new fabric. It defeats the point, sort of. I didn’t have scraps to start with, but boy do I have scraps now.

So you can imagine how happy this makes me:

Which will be a present for a very special little lady who’s getting Christened in a couple of weeks. It should give little eyes something to investigate.

I’m in a quandry as to size, though. It’s already too big for a “baby quilt”, and that’s intentional, as I want it to be useful for a few years. But it’s definitely a quilt for a child, with the fabrics I’ve chosen, so it certainly needs to be useable nowrather than in ten years time. So how big is TOO big for a baby/toddler? My blocks are slightly larger than the tutorial suggests, they’ll be 13.5″ when sewn, and I have 12 of them. Even without sashing it will be 40.5×54 if I use all the blocks, and I’m thinking it will look better with sashing. Also, I need to quilt this one myself, and although I was thinking masking tape and straight lines, I still need to get the middle under my needle. How much fabric can I bunch up under the sewing machine arm before it becomes unworkable, I wonder?

Well, I’ll have to decide soon, I should get most of the work done this weekend if I want to finish in time…

More pictures

July 25, 2009July 25, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the finished quilt – on the morning of the wedding… Here it is, bound and washed and lovely and crinkly.

It’s all done:

Binding:

Detail:

Front:

Back:

If you click through to a larger size of the front you should be able to see that four of the squares spell the names of the bride and groom and the wedding date in place of the “love”. Clever, eh? Even if I do say so myself. Considering this is only my second finished quilt, and my first on a large scale, I’m really thrilled at how it worked out.

I made it!

July 2, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finished the quilt top and back Monday night, got it off express post haste Tuesday morning and now it’s on its way back to me. Merete Ellingsen of MA Quilterne – my new hero – did her part in the shortest possible time. Maude and Posten willing it will be back with me tomorrow, and then there’s only the binding left, and a week to do it in, which should be ample, even if I have decided to hand sew it (I did briefly consider machine sewing the binding, but it does look rather a lot nicer with invisible stitches, so since I have the time to hand sew I will).

I’m still somewhat disabled internet-connection-wise, so this picture is courtesy of Merete, a couple of detailed images (to let you see the beautiful quilting) are available in her Flickr album (btw, Merete also has a blog).

Work in progress

June 25, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 2 Comments

I’m working with these:

Inspired by this.

And the results so far are promising.

Not quite the way I pictured it, but it’s working, and that’s a good thing because I don’t have time to change my mind. I need to finish the top and back – of a king size bedspread, no less – by Sunday, get it off to someone with a long-arm quilting machine by express post on Monday and hope I get it back in time to bind it before a momentous event on the 11th.

Leaving things to the last minute? Me? Never!

Edit: Well, I didn’t quite make it. The main part of the top is finished, but needs a border and the back needs a couple of more seams before it’s done. Going to be busy tonight… Hopefully I’ll still get it back in time to bind it.

Block one done

December 1, 2008April 1, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I’ve finished block one of the Leanne’s House BOM, and received two more in the mail, so a bit behind, but not too much. I still haven’t purchased additional fabric, and that is the main reason why I haven’t started block two, as I really want to start introducing my additions as I go. In any case, there really isn’t much time for non Christmas-related creating in December, but I hope to be able to sew a bit over the holidays, so I need to go shopping at some point.

Here’s the completed block:

And some detail:

I had a short length of thread left in the needle when I’d finished the stars. It was too short to be worth keeping, but it seemed a pity to just throw it out, so I added a lazy daisy in one of the checkerboard squares. I rather like the effect, so I think I might add some more, and do the same in the other checkerboard sections.

Done!

November 25, 2008April 2, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

The doll quilt is done and on its way to *******.

Pretty happy with the way it turned out, since it’s actually quite close to how I pictured it. I ended up cutting off the top ray of sunshine in order to square off the top and only realised afterwards that I could probably have fixed it with a scrap of blue instead, but it works like this, no? I would have free motion quilted it, too had I dared switch the presser foot on my machine, unfortunately I dare not, as the part where you fix it is worn and needs replacing and I really need the macine to work next weekend when we have a workshop. After the workshop I am handing the machine in for service, I swear. Here’s to hoping the recipient likes the quilt!

Go have a look in the Flickr pool for the swap, by the way. Such a lot of amazing quilts! I haven’t received mine yet, I can’t wait to see what it looks like.

Doll Quilt Swap

November 22, 2008April 2, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

I joined round 5 of the Doll Quilt Swap (though I don’t seem to be on the blogroll… Hm. Might need to email someone about that…) and I’m finally making progress. I had one design in mind for a while until I realised it was madly complicated and I had two months ‘ till deadline, not two years. I then had another idea, but needed more fabric. Once I got the chance to, I went shopping. I now had an idea and fabric. Then the lass fell ill (she’s fine now, but we had about a week of cuddling and not getting much done) and then I came down with a serious cold. Anyway. I have started, and I’ll probably manage to finish tomorrow so that I can get it in the mail on Monday. That should theoretically be enough, the deadline for reception is 1 December, but international mailing being what it is, well, uhm. I sure hope it gets there.

Anyway, pictures:

That was how far I got a couple of days ago. I now have all the rest of the bits in place, pinned or fused and tomorrow I will attach them, then back, quilt and bind. And voilla. That’s the theory, anyway.

While looking for the fabric I needed for this quilt I found some others that I just “had” to have (surprise!). These are from Jordbærstedet:

And these are from Sy Steen:

Lookie! Fishies!

And do you remember this WIP? I found my stars. Obviously what I now want to do is drop everything else and finish this, but I have TONS of things to do that actually need to be done by Christmas, so it will have to wait. But, you know, look! Stars! Proper stars!

Show and Tell at Jordbærstedet with Natalie Bird

November 4, 2008April 2, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

Of The Birdhouse.

Below, Kitchen Capers, a new BOM quilt which I might accidentally have signed up for. Because I don’t have enough projects, obviously. Ah well.

Imports

October 14, 2008October 19, 2008 Mirthful Leave a comment

I have decided to merge the hobbyblog with the “main” blog. Considering how often (or, more accurately, how infrequently) I post to either, having them as two separate entities seems rather pointless. The crafty entries are hereby imported, and I will be adding to them here from now on. This also means I’ll probably be writing about craft mostly in English from now on. I’ll leave the previous entries in Norwegian, though – please ask if there is anything you’d like to know about them that you can’t figure out from the pictures.

Now, what am I working on right now? Well, various bits and pieces. The one main thing I really need to get going with is the digiscrap pages for the 2008 photo book. Having set a precedent last year with a photo book for Christmas for the grandparents and great grandparents, everyone is obviously expecting a sequel, and I have made – ahem – two pages so far. Yes. Two. Single pages, too, not two-page spreads. Last year I spent pretty much every evening in November in front of the computer speed-scrapping. This year, well, it looks like a repeat… Good thing I work well under pressure. Well, that’s what I say at interviews, anyway. I suspect a more truthful statement would be that I only work under pressure. However, let’s not go into that.

A work in progress, with a picture, no less – though not pictures of any actual work, as I forgot all about taking pictures once I got going – is the first block of the BOM (block of the month) quilt called Leanne’s House. The designer blogs at, you guessed it, Leanne’s House. I’m receiving my packages from Buttonberry, hence they are responsible for the choice of fabric. I will, however, be buying some supplementary quarters, as the quilt will only be 55″ x 55″ once done according to the pattern, and I will want to extend it a bit. Quite how I haven’t yet decided, I might repeat a few blocks – with variations, or I might make a stripey part at the top or bottom. In any case I wouldn’t want to bring in wholly new fabrics at that stage, so I need to start mixing them in as I go.

Btw: I am SO doing a Butterfly Garden in black and white with orange butterflies. Just look at it!