For the tiniest baby

A friend of mine had a baby a few weeks ago, and I finally got to see the tiny little thing earlier this week. I wanted to make her something and came up with this little cuddle blanket.
Ei venninne fikk ei lite jente for et par uker siden, og jeg fikk endelig se det lille nurket tidligere i uka. Jeg hadde lyst å gi en hjemmelagd gave og fant på dette lille koseteppet.

The front is with some flannel scraps I had, the back is in minky fabric and there are lots of ribbon tags attached around the edge. Isn't it strange how babies LOVE to fiddle with tags?
Forsiden er av rester av flanellstoff jeg hadde liggende og baksiden er med minkystoff. Det er masse bånd påsydd langs kanten. Er det ikke rart hvordan babyer ELSKER å fingre på sånne lapper?

Close-up of fabrics and tags. I embroidered her name on my machine - a nice personalized touch.
Nærbilde av stoff og bånd; jeg broderte navnet på maskinen min for å gi det et personlig preg.

This animal fabric from Michael Miller is my favorite. I will cry when I use up the last of it!
Stoffet med de søte dyrene på er fra Michael Miller og kan hende jeg gråter når jeg går tom for det!

S is for Sunniva...
S er for Sunniva...

And the full frontal view!
Hele forsiden!

I should mention that the alphabet fabric was from my grandma's stash (she had to retire from sewing due to arthritis). It is super soft. Wonder how old it is...
Alfabetstoffet kom fra mormor som måtte slutte å sy pga leddgikt. Stoffet er kjempemykt og jeg lurer på hvor gammelt det er...

I think the finished size is about 18" square.
Teppet er vel ca. 45x45cm.

If I hadn't embroidered the name on at such an early stage, I might not have been able to give it away. I know my little one would LOVE this. So I should probably get back to sewing another...
Hvis jeg ikke hadde brodert på navnet helt på begynnelsen vet jeg ikke om jeg hadde hatt råd til å gi dette bort. Jeg vet at min lille ville ha ELSKET dette. Så jeg burde vel sy en til...

Mystery BOM - block 3

Hello, hello! I have been a bit of a slow blogger lately. I gave myself a sewing restriction, not allowing myself to use my sewing machine until I got my sewing studio tidied up. Let me just say - it was a mess! I was so eager to get sewing again, I didn't get around to taking any "after" photos before I started messing it up again:) So I'll have to clean it up again so I can share my little corner of the world.
Hei, hei - jeg har vært litt treg til å blogge i det siste. Jeg måtte rydde på syrommet før jeg kunne tillate meg å bruke symaskinen igjen - det var bare så rotete! Jeg var så ivrig etter å sy igjen at jeg glemte å ta bilder etter jeg fikk ryddet. Det får bli neste gang.

I finally got my third Mystery BOM block finished, so I am still on time with that project.
Jeg fikk endelig fullført min tredje BOM blokk, så jeg er i rute med det prosjektet. 

And, as I have done before, I made a mini version of the block. My mini blocks are similar in size, but not exactly (I now have an 8", an 8.5" and a 9" block). So I will have to get a bit creative when it comes to putting the smaller quilt together.

Som tidligere, lagde jeg en miniversjon av blokken. Miniene mine er nesten, men ikke helt, like i størrelse. Så jeg må bli kreativ når jeg setter sammen den lille quilten.

And then to finish it off, a fancy angled view. Ta da!

Og så til slutt, fancy bilde fra skjev vinkel. Ta da!

Linking up today with BOMs Away at What a Hoot and the Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up at Plum and June. If you're not coming from there, klick on over and see what others have going on today.

I heart IKEA (fabrics)

Even though we live in a big house, our baby girl does not have her own room. The house has been remodeled from single family to duplex to single family to duplex and will soon be converted back to single family. We don't need two kitchens, two dining rooms and two entry halls. What we do need is more bedrooms!
Selv om vi har et stort hus har ikke lille gullet eget rom. Huset har blitt ombygd fra enebolig til tomannsbolig til enebolig til tomannsbolig og vil snart bli enebolig igjen. Vi trenger ikke to kjøkken, to spisestuer og to entreer. Det vi trenger er flere soverom!

Until we get the remodelling done (next year, we hope), baby girl has to sleep in a "public" area of the house. We needed something to screen her part of the room, but all the folding screens we found were more expensive than we liked for a temporary solution and hubby didn't feel like a carpentry project.
Frem til vi får bygget om (neste år) må gullet sove i et "offentlig" område av huset og vi trenger noe å skjerme av hjørnet hennes. Alle skjermveggene vi fant var dyre og mannen hadde ikke lyst til å snekre noe.

So what did we do?
Så hva gjorde vi da?

Took one of these:
Tok en slik:

Added some of this:
Pluss noe av dette:

And ended up with this:
Og endte opp med denne:

Okay, maybe not the fanciest of all screen walls, but it will certainly do the job and I love the colors in the fabric. So much I will probably use it for color inspiration for baby girl's future room. The top photo probably shows the colors most accurately...

Ikke den flotteste skjermveggen, men den gjør jobben og jeg syns fargene i stoffet er fine (øverste bildet er mest korrekt). Så jeg kommer nok til å bruke det som inspirasjon for fargene i hennes fremtidige rom.

And while in the IKEA fabric department I picked up this fabric I blogged about last Thursday. The plan is to possibly "color" in some of the designs with embroidery and/or fabric paint/markers. Here are some outtakes of the design:

Mens vi var i stoffavdelingen kjøpte jeg også noe av dette stoffet jeg skrev om på torsdag. Planen er å fargelegge noen av delene med broderi og/eller stoffmaling/tusjer. Her er noen av skissene på stoffet:

Farm scene

Wind mills

Teepee, igloo, candy factory (?), bird singing about ice cream (?)

Rockets, planets and a light post...

Cute little doggy!

There are flowers growing out of the down spout!

Large castle and fort

Boats, a crab and some cherries...

Can you believe the variety of doodles they fit on one fabric?!? And this is only a small part of it! Now I just need to find out what to do with this fabric and then find the time to do it!

Kan du tro alt det rare de har fått plass til på ett stoff?!? Og dette er bare en liten del av det! Nå må jeg bare finne ut hva jeg skal gjøre med stoffet og så finne tid til å gjøre det!

How do you feel about IKEA? Sometimes I love it, sometimes I don't...

Hva syns du om IKEA. Noen ganger elsker jeg det, andre ganger ikke...

Linking up to the Let's get Acquainted! Monday Link Up at Plum and June.

Really Random Thursday Ramblings

Hello, it's Thursday and time to ramble on about this and that. Mostly sewing related for my part...

The other day I saw these photos by Susan of Canadian Abroad - isn't this just adorable? Oh, I hope she doesn't mind I borrowed these photos. Her daughters embroidered those top two, by the way! What a great concept to color fabric with embroidery.

Anyways, I thought this was a cool idea, but I don't have this Summersville fabric (although I would like to buy some now...). Then I thought "IKEA usually has some graphic fabric in yardage, I should check out their website." Lo and behold, this is what I found:

Lots of fun designs (castles, teepees, windmills and saguaro cacti among others), just waiting to be colored in with some thread. Better get myself to IKEA.

And they also have this text fabric, that would work well on the back side of a quilt (I think it's quite large scale) if you're into text prints. At only about $5 per meter, it's a steal:

I didn't even know until just the other day that people hoard text prints... So I guess if you do, then this is probably very interesting:)

If you've never bought fabric at IKEA, you should know that you cut the fabric yourself and then the cost is actually calculated based on the weight (even though the price listed is per meter).

IKEA does not sponsor me, by the way.

Did you know that IKEA makes its own sewing machine? I don't know about the quality, but it sure is cute in its Swedish colors:

Speaking of sewing machines... I'd really like to get a serger so I can sew nicer clothes for my baby girl (and maybe myself). But I have a hard time deciding whether I should get a cheap basic model to see if will get used, or if I should invest more to get a nicer model that may give me more enjoyment. Advice, anyone?

On my sewing to do list for baby girl is this dress pattern from Prudent Baby - need to have it done by September 1st, so should probably get on that! I already have the fabric picked out and ready.

So, there's my random ramblings. Linking up to Really Random Thursday at Live a Colorful Life.

WIP Wednesday

It's been a while since I had a WIP Wednesday post. I guess I have been working on a few quicker projects that never make it to WIP status...

Mostly photos today, so this will be in english only.


FINISHES

An orange orange sewing kit


A sunny rainy day pouch


Star on fire Christmas pillow



PROGRESS

Vintage Holiday QAL (hosted by Heidi at Fabric Mutt)

I have my first 4 blocks finished. These were very easy to assemble and turned out quite cute.

Block 1 detail - love those little birdies in a row!


Block 2 detail - candy cane striped:)


Block 3 detail - a cute birdie and a squirrel in a tree


Block 4 detail - ooops, I think I assembled this upside down... See the leaves on the berries (or whatever they are? They are pointing down...)


And the full shot of the first 4 blocks:
 


Cherry Blossom Quilt using California Girl from Moda

I finally got the first block assembled last night. With only 9 blocks for the quilt, this should go fast!

Oh wait, not so fast, because I did this:


Shouldn't be sewing after 10 p.m. apparently.

Fixed it this morning and got this - much better:



Dear Jane - I now have 20 of 169 square blocks completed!



Name tag for RATZ (rapid and tiny zakka) swap

Making it up as I go - I know my recipient likes these colors. I think I have a plan for what do with this... The squares are 3/4". I will be cutting it down a bit. On the diagonal, I believe...



Well, those are my current WIPs and I'm linking up to WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced. You should go there and check out what other people are workin on. Or show off your WIPs. If you haven't already, that is...



Oh, and the guest host this week is the wonderful Cindy of Live a Colorful Life, whose blog you should visit if you haven't before. Just so that is said!

Dear Jane catch-up (13-20)

Info: Dear Jane is a quilt with 169 4.5" squares surrounded by 56 triangles, for a total of 225 blocks that each have a unique pattern. It is based on a quilt made by Jane Stickle in 1863. There are no templates or cutting instructions, only a book with to-scale line drawings. You are on your own to figure out the rest! My mother and I are doing a little quilt-along which we started in June 2012, alternating on selecting 10 blocks to make and sewing 2 blocks per week.

I have been really behind on making these blocks, but now I am all caught up, including this week's 2 blocks. I am very happy to be finished with these - I am taking this week off sewing more blocks, and will do my best to stay on time in the future so I don't have to have a Dear Jane marathon week (i.e. 8 blocks in a week). Some of these blocks take hours to sew! Good thing the Olympics were on TV.
Jeg har ligget på etterskudd med disse lappene, men nå er jeg a jour, inkludert denne ukens lapper. Jeg er glad for å være ferdig med disse og tar denne uka fri fra dette prosjektet. Skal prøve å holde meg til skjema i fremtiden så jeg slipper å sy 8 lapper på en uke. Noen av disse tar timer å sy! Bra og ha OL å se på da.

Here are the latest additions to the project:
Her er de nyeste lappene:

J11 and J1 - freezer paper appliqued, paper pulled out with tweezers before stitching the last 1/2" around each piece.


D3 - freezer paper appliqued, paper removed from back after finished.


D1 and F4 - foundation paper pieced - thought it was about time to add some modern fabrics...


H13 and C3 - more foundation paper pieced blocks... Easy peasy!
 

J5 - gets the prize for most techniques in one block: foundation paper pieced center, the outside english paper pieced and then appliqued onto the center to finish it off.



That marks the end of the second set of 10 blocks - all with "criss cross" patterns. The first 10 were variations on the 9-patch.
Det er slutten på andre sett med 10 lapper, alle med criss-cross mønster. De første 10 var variasjoner på 9-patch.

Here is a mosaic of my first 20 blocks, in the end this will be 13x13 square blocks!
Her er en mosaikk med mine første 20 lapper - til slutt vil dette være 13x13 ruter!

Lastly, I have to admit I am having mixed feelings about this project. The good thing about this project is that it really is a great skill builder. Lots of applique in all sorts of shapes. Curved piecing will come. There are lots of really detailed foundation paper pieced blocks too. And it's fun to have this quilt-along with my mom.
Til slutt må jeg innrømme at jeg litt ambivalent ang. dette prosjektet. Det er en flott måte å trene på teknikker, som applikering, buede sømmer og detaljert papirsøm. Og det er gøy å ha en quilt-along med min mor.

What I am not loving about this project is my color choice. It feels a bit bland to me. And I have spent too many hours on these first 20 blocks to start over, so I have to work with what I've got...
Det jeg ikke elsker er fargevalget mitt. Det føles litt for kjedelig. Og jeg har brukt for mange timer så langt for å begynne på nytt, så jeg må bruke det jeg har...

What would YOU do to give this project a pop of color?
Hva ville DU gjort for å gi prosjektet litt mer farge?

I'm linking up to BOMs Away at What a Hoot and Let's Get Acquainted Monday Link Up at Plum and June. If you're a new visitor - welcome. Please check out some of my other blog posts. My stuff is usually much more colorful...