Värmland winter light

Just wanted to share a few pictures from a walk my friend K and I took while visiting their family house in Värmland in Sweden this weekend - loved the light on Saturday

Only a little sewing has been going on, but haven't shot any pictures of it yet.
Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Sunday walk to the LQS

The weather forecast actually says -1 centigrade and mentioned something about snow in certain areas tomorrow. So when I had the chance today I went for a walk to the local quilt shop in the area my parents live, enjoying the last of the Autumn colours.

What I bought? Cotton batting for my Christmas quilt, a stencil (thinking maybe doing some hand quilting...) a marker, a ruler and some quilting thread. All stuff I plan on using fairly soon ;-)

 

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

Take a walk

Last weekend we opened the summer house for the season, and I took a walk on the beach with my Dad and sis, and played a little with my camera along the way.

Hope to have some quilty stuff to share soon!

Hugs and stitches from Anne Ida

New Year's resolution 2009: reflections

Remember this post? In the beginning of January, Rose and I made a promise to ourselves and each other that for 2009 we were going to make what we love! We figured the UFO's weren't going anywhere, but we solemnly promised we wouldn't add anymore UFO's to the list. 2009 has been all about finishing whatever we wanted to start! So how has this been going? During this year I have started seven quilts (wow, is it really that many?):

1. The Sugar Camp Quilt
For me, this was the reason for the resolution in the first place; a deliberation whether to focus on WISPs and UFOs, or start something new. I hate to admit it, but this one is still at the "flimsy without border" stage - however I do still have hopes to finish it before the year is over! A little discipline!?!

2. Red & White Swap sampler
Wohoo! It was a lot of fun working on this one! The girls had done a fabulous job on the blocks! And I had a ball testing out my collection of quilt stencils and trying out different shapes in free motion quilting. The sign-up for this swap was in Dec. 2008, so not really sure if it should count… but the blocks weren’t sewn and swapped till January 2009, so I’ll let it ;o) FINISHED May 8th!!

3. Nanny Sharon's Picnic Quilt
A Threadbare Creations pattern I totally fell in love with when Rose published it back in October last year. It was a quick, easy and fun quilt to make! FINISHED May 24th!! Just in time for picnic season (it now have some tomato sauce and strawberry stains - shows it has been used *lol* - need a wash!)

4. Mini Bear's Paw
A reaction from doing those large quilts, I decided to make a mini - in four days ;o) FINISHED May 27th!

5. Sol's birthday quilt
This was started at DJ class with Hanne in March. This sampler was an experiment with blocks of different sizes - the smallest 4.5" and the largest12". FINISHED ehh... in time for her birthday July 29th!

6. Sister’s Choice jelly roll quilt
My oldest jelly roll was cut up in September - it was slow progress on this project, I was a bit un-inspired and I was spending my stitching time doing DJ blocks and working on some old WISPs. But this week I made the decision to get it done! I brought the binding to quilt guild last night, and I hand stitched quite a bit. Coming home I figured I was on a roll, so I spent a couple more hours on the sofa with needle and thread. And behold, it's FINISHED December 9th!



It has fleece on the back:



Not sure how much I enjoyed quilting fleece... So it's not very heavily quilted :o)

7. Carolina Christmas
This mystery was started in late November, and we are up to clue 5... I still have a little ways to go on step 4... I'm going to give myself a bit of leeway on this one - it is a huge quilt, and it has lots and lots of piecing... if I can get it finished in January I'll be happy!

Looking at my list of finishes I see I have been quite productive over this year, sewing smaller things in between these quilts. And if I can get the Sugar Camp Quilt finished by the new year - I will give myself a pat on the back and say "good girl" ;o)

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

Inspiration

Our LQS Kathrine's Quilte Stue sometimes arrange inspiration events, and tonight the talk was by very talented designer Lynette Anderson, visiting all the way from Australia.

She presented a beautiful trunk show, and a power point presentation on her work and inspiration. I did take some pictures at the beginning of the trunk show, but in the end I just let my camera lay still, and just sat back and enjoyed!

I even went home with a door prize! I won a copy of Lynette's new book "Gathering of Crows", and she even signed it for me :o)

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It was a truly inspirational evening, and it was lovely too see so many fellow quilters and quilt bloggers.

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

Autumn

Not much is happening on the quilting front here. I have stitched and prepared some more DJ blocks, but haven't gotten around to taking pictures of them yet. But I thought I'd share some pics from a walk I took with my sister along the river a few days ago

- isn't autumn beautiful?

On my way home I ran across a few of these little guys - and this one was good enough to hold still for me to take a picture :o)

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

It's finished!

I'm a bit behind on my blogging... And I have some quilty things to share :o)

Those of you who attended our quilt guild meeting a little over a week ago know I have finished my red and white swap sampler. This is how it turned out:



I have even gotten a label on it!



Big thank you to Gudveig, Gunn Torild, Heidi, Karin, Rita, Mona, Tove, and Åse who participated in the swap!

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If you have been following Guðrún's blog you know she has been to Norway. Along with May Kristin I was lucky to be able to spend a day with her and her SIL. We had a bit of a quilt shop marathon visiting Kathrine's Quilte Stue, Lappemakeriet and Lille Stasjon all in one day. And of course we had to go for pancakes when we were at Bærum's Verk:



Thank you for a lovely day, ladies!

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

A resolution and some progress

Rose and I have both been feeling a bit guilty for starting new projects while there are piles of WISPs and UFOs that should have been finished, but for this year we have promised each other that we will make what we love! The UFO's aren't going anywhere (some of them might be finished), but we have solemnly promised we won't add anymore UFO's to the list. 2009 is all about finishing whatever we want to start!!! This shows our resolution for the year:

Feel free to join us in not feeling guilty - all you have to do is promise to finish what you start :o) And what is my first new project - that I won't feel guilty about and won't become a UFO? The Sugar Camp quilt of course! Suzie expressed a wish for me to show some blocks as I finished them, and of course I'm happy to obey! These are the first finished blocks of a total 36 mountain blocks and 5 landmark blocks:

I love the look of this so far! The next circle of mountains will be blue, and then there will be another brown circle before the border. I have wanted to make this quilt for so long, and I think this will be a favorite :o) It is going to be aprox 84" square, so it's quite a large quilt, and will take some time to put together.

Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida

PS! Sigrun has a guessing game on her blog in the honor of her almost 150 posts; guess how many rulers she have :o)

Yummmmmm.....

So what have I been doing this weekend to call for a heading like that? Leisha Camden and I have been making marshmallows!! None of us had done it before, so it was lots of trial and error, especially in the beginning with the measuring, and some of the ingredients the recipe called for were impossible to get here, but despite the difficulties we had heaps of fun!

As you can see from the first pictures it started off looking pretty disgusting, but once we started beating it we got more optimistic *lol*

The girls were working hard, and the end result; YUMMY!!! (taste like Bamsemums!)

What else have I been doing? Playing with yummy fabrics, of course!!! I have cut and pieced 344 HST units that finished at 2.5" and 32 HST units that finished at 8.5".

(The pic shows about half of them, the brown ones are still on the ironing board)

What are they for? Have a look at the Quilts Through the Pages blog :o) Btw: If you are reading the Elm Creek Quilts novels, and are/have been making quilts based on the novels, know that you are welcome to sign up for the blog ring!

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Hugs and stitches from
Anne Ida