July status

This July has been a good month - I've been really productive and made good progress on several projects.

First of all the blanket for my Dad is almost finished.

I need to make another 25 squares which will only take a couple of days to do.
I really like this project, it is fast and very fun.

A block for Jeanne at Grey Cats Quilts for her month in the Scappy? Sew Bee It group. Those giraffes are so fun!

American quilt block

I made 7 blocks for My American Quilt. The center 9-patches are hand pieced and some of the scraps are gifts from American blogging friends. Its a great scrapbusting project!

I finished 27 crocheted flowers and have 30 half done for the flowerbed project! Great project when watching the Olympics:-) .... but one of those projects that I have absolutely no idea about what to do with!
Its just so relaxing, cute and eats a lot of my old yarn:-)

I dug out these super old squares - cut in 6x6 centimeters (they are from waaay back - when I denied that I ever would succomb to that nonsense sewing anything in inches... hahaha!!!!) - and I made 29 blocks. I have enough squares left to make another 15 blocks.
They will be super for quilt practising as they do not fit with anything I have now:-)

I handpieced 16 hexagon flowers in my Hope Valley fabric for the Hexi MF quilt along

2 huge blocks for the Tetris quilt went through the machine quick and easy and was photographed taped to my frontdor....

... and I cut 2½" squares of a lot of old and ugly fabric - and made 9 blocks for the Vomit quilt - more or less done chain piecing and as leaders and enders.
I am determined to kill as much of my ugly and old fabric as I can and these blocks do make a dent although I suspect that I have scraps enough for at least three more quilts of this kind.
But it is easy to do - some mindless sewing - and very addictive when you put them up on your design wall and discover that it actually looks good!

I knitted 1 square of variagated Zauberball yarn for my shawl

And last but not least - I learned a new skill - how to make framed purses and participated in a secret partner swap, which was very fun:-)



Despite whining for a week about a nasty cold and not realising that I actually made a lot in between and also being away for a week I'm absolutely thrilled about this month's status!

So go away bad consciense - today I'm beginning my new project with The Lazy Bums!

August will be dedicated to finishing my dad's quilt and an old UFO and maybe throw in a few hexies and vomit blocks.

Who knows - the summer may turn up eventually and I may finally order that new sewing machine.
Miracles do happen!!




edit: Every first day of the month Lynne from Lily's Quilts hosts Fresh Sewing Day showing the previous month's work and I'm linking up for the very first time in the small blogs category.

Dad's quilt - sort of a tutorial (2)

It is about time to move on with this tutorial.
I went to Tivoli last week and came home with a nice summer-cold, fever and a huge urge to do absolutely nothing in the craft department but whine silently about my poor condition for more than a week.


So - you have made a lot of squares, turned them inside out and stitched the gap closed with nice thread.

Then you top-stitch all the squares about 5 mm from the edge all the way around.

This takes quite a while. You will need a lot of breaks - but DON'T go to Tivoli.
Once is enough.
Instead go buy some vegetables - they are healthy and you know you need them!



Lots of topstitched squares


When you have topstitched all your sqares - or just one - you will add a blanket stitch all around the square.

If you are a perfectionist like me you will want need to do a lot of (unnessecary) work because your brain is too analytical and wants  demands you to meassure and do a lot of math. That's why you graduated an engineer and not a librarian like your mother wanted you to.

But - you know that you can't live with a crocheted edge that is wobly, uneven or do not have the same number of stitches on each side - so you cave in.

You just go overboard.
AGAIN!

You place a piece of meassurement tape that you've cut off from an old and worn out tape and place it the way the photo shows.

Now you can make you blanket stitch with ecxactly 1 cm apart on each side of the square and you KNOW that this is not really important but at least you can sleep tonight.
Without nightmares.

You do this to ALL the topstitched squares.

1 cm apart. Gooooood job!

ALL of them!

Now you are ready to crochet!!!

And of course you have excactly the same number of stitches on each side of the square so the pattern you have so intellingently figured out will match when assembly time comes.
You can be proud of your self.

And now you can relax and just crochet like mad.
You have whined about your cold now for a week, so you need to speed up.
There is a deadline to this, which you hate - but there you go.
This blanket will NOT end up an ufo.

 You just can't help being so proud.....

..... because you KNOW that you have made the PERFECT corners - and you do the happy dance 54 times over a period of 2-3 days in your tiny flat under the roof.

This also helps you lose some weight because you've snacked too much and not been exercising enough.

If your neighbors complain about the noise and shakes that go through the building when you dance - get some new ones. Apart from being quiet and invisibel it is very important that you make sure your neighbors are tolerant and accepting of happy dancing. That way you can continue being a perfectionist and loose weight every time you make something perfect. (which is very often all the time of course).

So - crochet around all your squares and when you are done sew or crochet them together.
Did you think I'm going to show you that now???

Wrong.
I've only finished 10 squares and just discovered that there is another nice tutorial here where you can learn much more about the blanket.

If you want to make this blanket you can sign up for The Fusion Blanket Crochet Along on Flickr

Me?
I need to go crochet.
I'm busy.

Dad's quilt - sort of a tutorial (1)

Cut a lot of squares in your favorite fabric.
How many?
Depends on the size of the squares and how big you want the quilt. (Not much help here HAHA!)
You can figure it out - I'm sure of that.




Lots of yummi fabric !!!!


No. You better go to this blog first and watch a nice tutorial with beautiful photos, that will make your mouth water. Now you know much more about this quilt and why I can't help you with the amount of squares:-)

So - you cut a lot of squares.
Then you cut a lot of batting squares... but only half the amount of the fabric squares and a tiny bit bigger..

Then you put two fabric squares on top of one batting square and line them up. Make sure that the top fabric square is face down and the other in the middle is face up. My plaids are the same on both sides of the fabric, so no need to pay attention to that.




Line the two fabric squares up right on top of each other. My batting squares are a tiny bit bigger cut.


Make a lot and stack them to make them look like a mountain;-)



Pretend it is Killimanjaro - with snow! (it is important to excercise your imagination!!)


Sew each little package together from the fabric side (batting down towards the sewing machine) and leave a gap in the middle of one side. This way you can turn it inside out and cut away the corners to make them nice and pointy.

When the square is turned inside out - fold the seam allowances in and close the gap with a narrow stitch....

... it looks like this. Use a better color thread than I did. I s*uck at picking rigth color thread:-)



Narrow stitch to close the gap



And now you are tired.
You have sewn all day and need a break and a treat.

So go get dressed, put on some lipstick, a dab of perfume and explore the city.

If you don't live in Copenhagen and can go to Tivoli - too bad.
I'm going :-)))


(... to be continued...)

Plaids for Dad

Lousy, lousy weather.

In my last post I declared that summer was here.
It was. For 6 hours. Then it began to rain.
Ever since I have been wearing woolen socks and sweaters, sipped a lot of hot cocoa and watched a lot of movies and television sitting on top of my bed, surrounded by various kinds of nescessities like embroidery projects, crochet yarns and hooks, crime fiction novels, soduko puzzles and a tray with coffee, cocoa, water and too many snacks. Remote control just at my left.

It sounds like holiday, right?
It is.

Inspiration doesn't care about lousy weather or rain.
It pours too....

Squares cut out of yardage.

Lots of plaids...




I was so bored that I played with the photos when editing them on PicMonkey!



 ... to be made into a quilt for dad's birthday - a quilt that does not need to be quilted (great, when the new sewing machine has not yet been bought!) - but needs embrodery and crochet.

All will be revealed in due time....
;-)

Crochet a bag

Jeg er i fuld gang med at quilte min babyquilt. Men det går langsomt, meget langsomt, maskinen driller og jeg er ude af træning. Pauser er der mange af - ikke mindst er vejret supergodt så der er andre ting, der lokker.

En pauseting kan sagtens være at sidde og surfe på nettet og falde over ting, som man egentlig kun kan drømme om at eje. Nogle gange får man måske ovenikøbet den overmodige tanke, at dét der - det kan man da sagtens lave selv. Teoretisk er man jo et geni, så kom ikke her;-)

I'm quilting the babyquilt, its a slow, slow process. The machine is acting up and I'm out of practice. The weather is fine and I need a lot of breaks, which include some surfing and dreaming about things I want to own. Things I in my genious superiority believe I could make my self. In theory that is;-)



fra Net.a.porter (some months ago - not in store now)

Granny squares har sit store come-back og feberen hærger over hele hækleverdenen. Den ER da fin! Men ok. Måske lidt for fin til mig - den er nemlig fra Dolce & Gabbana og koster 1.600 Euro. Yep.
Jeg må indrømme, at det rykker i mig for at få gang i hæklenålen. Det er ikke hver dag jeg kan spare i omegnen af 12.000 danske kroner på en taske og hvor svært vil det egentlig være at hækle sår'n en fyr, hva'?
Kender man en god skomager, der gerne syr skindkanter og hanke med sjækler og fancy metaldimser på hjemmelavede genistreger (og det gør man!) så skulle der ikke være nogetsomhelst i vejen for at fremstille sådan en fin fyr. Hvis altså det ikke lige var for UFO-bunken og den babyquilt, som gerne skulle være færdig inden barnet skal i skole.
Og det er naturligvis den helt ærlige grund og ikke en dårlig undskyldning.
He..he..

Granny squares are all over. It IS a nice bag! But - maybe a bit too nice for me. It's from Dolce & Gabbana and cost 1600 Euros. Yeah..
How hard would it be to save that much money on such a bag? The thought is very attractive. Very!
But the UFO-pile is sky high and the baby needs his quilt before he starts school. And that is not an excuse. Of course not. At all.



Fra Net.a.porter

I stedet må man begrænse sig, ikke gå over gevind (selv om det er sjovt!) så jeg har i stedet fremstillet nogle småting. Hæklede forstås. Og ikke helt let - jeg så en video på YouTube og jeg tror jeg kørte den igennem omkring 35 2 gange. Men jeg lærte det. Og nu er jeg så et geni til at lave hæklede blomster. Åhada. Hvor meget genialitet kan et menneske egentlig bære?

I must limit my self (Which is sooo boring!) so instead I made a few cute flowers. I saw the video about 35 2 times from this nice blog - and now I'm a genious. Again;-)




My photo

 To små og en tredje i dobbelt garn. Set her på en fin blog blog med mange søde hæklede ting. Lidt i den nuttede afdeling, som er ved at orme sig vej ind i mit håndarbejdsunivers. Jeg gør hvad jeg kan for at holde det ude, men altså - så genial er jeg ikke;-)

Two small and a third in double yarn. A bit too cute for me but the cuteness seems to sneak into my crafting life more and more. I can't seem to keep it out, I'm just not that genious;-)



from Apple Blossom Dreams (scroll down)

 
Jeg overgir' mig.
Det er katme' sødt;-)

I surrender.
It is damn cute!!

I am a thief

There are so many very, very skilled and competent artists out there - and then there is me.
And maybe you and fifty millions more who are nothing more than happy amateurs.

We are not supertalented, gifted artists, we can't paint or draw (but we did take classes, right?) or make up great patterns or uniqe things for the world to admire. We are just not artistic that way, we'll never experience fame, write books or make a living from our kind of creativity. 

We are merely simple happy thieves who steal from everywhere and anyone - ideas from pictures and patterns published online or from magazines or from other peoples creations and then we use our small-scale creativity to make these things our own. We twist it a bit, ad another color, subtract an inch - change a bit here and there. This is our ceativity, our small artistic gift and it is ok. Totally okay.

And we - the happy thieves - are content because we enjoy the process and the feelings it gives us to create this way, to make something that we like and maybe feel passionate about.. And we feel secure in the process because we have seen it before, we are in good company, we are followers, it is safe - we cannot go too wrong. Someone else, the artist, has already figured it all out for us - all we have to do is follow instruction and add our own personal twist - which for many of us can be an overwhelming obstacle and quite scary.
We have a feeling of contentment when we sew, knit, crochet, embroider or quilt, maybe even fulfilment but definately af feeling of accomplishment when things work out and we can smile or even shout out loud because what we began ended up a success. It looks almost or exactly like the pattern we bought or the idea or project we saw someone else do - with our own little personal twist.
.
And it is all legal. Totally acceptable and normal. If we're lucky our spouse will be proud of us, the kiddos jump up and down in exitement and our friends and neighbors be amazed and positively surprised of our skills.




no known source

But sometimes.... sometimes there are ideas and things that should not be stolen and (re)made by any one of all us not-so-artistic thieves. Some things are just not worth it.
Some things are just not useful or practical..
Some things are just not logical. At all!

So - leave those things to the artists. The real ones :-)



(Thank God things like that can be put away in the loo!)

En TV-ting.... som har udviklet sig

Det begyndte meget stille og roligt. En hel masse bomuldsgarn, som lå i brændekurven og som jeg bare ikke længere ville bruge til det projekt, som jeg for længst har glemt jeg brændte for.


Orange, gule, blå og meget lys blå - mange nøgler - og så en fin gul-karry-grøn farve, som jeg hækler rundt om hver lap.
Det matematiske og logiske fornægter sig ikke. Jeg fandt hurtigt et system, så jeg ikke hæklede ens lapper - hver eneste er unik - ingen har en 'mage'.

Well - her er så et bevis på, hvor meget TV keder mig *G*. Og det er ikke svært at sidde med - det går hurtigt - 9-10 lapper på en aften, kan man sagtens lave.
80 forskellige lapper, enkelte næsten færdig med den karrygrønne kant omkring - og noget der ligner 400 ender, der skal hæftes. Det blir' sejgt at komme igennem.



Og nu er spørgsmålet så, om jeg skal hækle lapperne sammen eller sy dem.... Skal de hækles, må jeg købe mere garn og så er det jo ikke længere et 'reste-tæppe' og så ender jeg sikkert med at få rester tilbage af det købte. Og så er jeg næsten lige vidt som før - for alt andet lige, så er der sket et stort indhug i bomuldsbestanden.

Jeg tror jeg syr det sammen:o))