More Great Grannys

The bug is worse than ever!

Cute and romantic. So not me *sigh*

 



I made this collage with PicMonkey but its not really good.



Those colors are all wrong - the outer border is a warm dark rosa and not a purple.

Now I need to figure out how to square these blocks up to 12½". I don't own such a ruler and its not in my budget, so I need to do some math... when I first laid a block up for squaring it seemed easy but actually its not.

Great Granny Square

I have seen them on a lot of blogs - those granny squares and great granny squares - and everybody seems to be extremely crazy happy making them.

I want to be happy too!

So last night I pulled out some of that 30'ies fabric that I've had for years - and that I don't like anymore.
At least that's what I've been telling myself now for a long time.
It is way too cute and really don't go with my personality (!) or with anything else in my home. I am per definition and as a rule absolutely allergic to cuteness.
Dooohh...

I'm a whimp.
This is beyond cute and I now have a serious allergy attack.

Who would have thought that hate-fabric could turn into something so so so so... aughhhh CUTE!


Tutorial here and other cute blocks found here at Hill Valley Quilter who makes übercute squares!
And really vibrant squares at Simply Miss Luella!

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.

A framed purse for my secret swap partner.

This has been staring at calling at me for weeks.

I committed to a secret purse swap some time ago and I have been sweating over this for weeks.

My secret swap partner shares almost the same taste in fabrics as I do - at least I think so - and that uncertainty was causing the sweat because maybe I got it wrong, right?

Well - I finally dug into this completely unknown territorie - I've never made a purse before.

At first it didn't go too well. Which is an understatement thats almost a lie. 

You need to use interfacing to make the purse a bit stiff and that word makes me shake. A LOT. 

Interfacing. Horrible word!

So I bought different pieces and when it arrived I could not tell it apart. HAHA - *sigh*....

Whattodo whattodo?

Samples.

So I ironed different pieces of youknowwhat to fabric and spent a long time feeling and fondling and hugging those samples to find out which one was the best suitable to use in a purse.

Having never seen or held such a purse I did not know anything about how such a purse is supposed to feel and which youknowwhat was the best to use. Huhh.... Not much help there.

I made some patterns.

It looked weird. The engineer in me demanded those patterns to be constructed properly, so I dug out the drawing and meassuring gear.

I looked at tutorials and could not get the angles right. Oh well - the tutorial writers are most likely not overachieving perfectionistic engineers and just plot in some angles with arrows pointing in very very not-engineering-correct-directions - which everybody else understand except me.

I like it ... correct. *sigh*

So I took a lot of breaks and did a lot of crochet instead but kept thinking about this purse. Constantly.

I also caught a nasty cold and felt extremely sorry for myself and all the frames were still laying there - now looking at me in a sort of.... accusing way.

I'm sure they were pointing their hinges at me and snapping closed when I turned my back at them!

Nausea set in. Procastination is a no-go for me, so on with it.

The small frames went bad. Total disaster. But I so wanted to make a tiny, sweet one for my partner.

Not good for rheumatic hands. AT. ALL.

Ruined 3 sewn purses that got glue all over - so I cleaned the glue off the small frames and put them aside. Thankfully I had bought a LOT of youknowwhat so I still had a lot left to practise the bigger purses with.

Oh... Acetone is not good for your brain. But it clears your airways if you have a nasty cold. Just saying.

The middle size purse went much better. Except the proportions were a bit weird...

weird size....

dark interior

... but the finished result looked GREAT!

I was very proud of this!

And then - on to the REAL thing!



Front

  

Back


 

Lining

Finally I was satisfied with my efforts - this I can give away without being ashamed.
Nothing beats that feeling of doing good. HAHA - you just need to be pleased with your self once in a while. And admit it :-))

I have added some goodies for my sweet secret swap partner.

Among those extra goodies is a readymade fabric coordinating small purse with a frame - without the frame glued on!!

I could not help sewing it but there is NO way I'm going to ruin this like the other small purses.

I hope my secret swap partner is up to a bit of gluing:-))

Small purse with DIY-frame!

Looks gooooood :-))))

 

And now the purse + extra goodies are sent on their way to .. well, thats a secret for now:-)



Ready to go!



It was quite a troublesome 'pregnancy' and the 'birth' of this baby was long but I hope my partner like my precious baby. A baby I'm giving away.

I'm a bad, bad woman *lol*

I found a great card that leaves no doubt about my feelings that this purse is now finished:

Pheeew....

Not only do I hope my sweet secret partner has humour - but I really, really hope she likes the purse and that I got her taste right.

Time will tell :-)

My (international) hexagons

For a while I've been hand piecing hexagons in between all the millions of other projects.
It was time to finally cut into my stash of 'Hope Valley' and I found the perfect project -  The Hexy MF quilt along hosted by Katy Jones.

I just discovered that my project is featured on the Fat Quaterly blog with a (one) (1) (uno) photo, so I'm very proud - thanks Katy!

Making one a day is the goal and I'm pretty much up to date:-)

Vintage whitework tablecloth

I just want to show you what I found last week at the charity shop I pass when I need a break and go shopping for vegetables;-)

Some times you just find the most amazing things...... and you just have to rescue them.

Enjoy!




It was not really possibel for me to get a full pic of the tablecloth. The light today is not good, so here most of it is hanging from the shelves in the livingroom close to the window




The tablecloth - 1/4 of it







So beautiful - washed and ironed so many times.  





The maker obviously did not want to cut into the lace in the center but let it overlap. My kind of girl!!!



Lovely, lovely craftmanship!

Detail - close up

Now - can anyone believe that this was just given away?

My heart almost stopped when I found it at the bottom of a pile of old curtains.

I'm so happy I could save it.
Not very often I feel like Florence Nightingale :-)))

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...)

Playing on a Sunday

Min baby quilt top blev reddet fra mit juicy uheld og har det fint. Den venter nu på en gang strygning sammen med en masse nyvasket stof - og det bliver ikke i dag. Solen har været fremme, så jeg har været ude i det gode vejr:-)

Jeg har en hel del strips til overs fra babytoppen, så jeg fik leget lidt i går.
Bente laver de smukkeste New York Beauties - jeg blev inspireret, så jeg har forsøgt mig for første gang.

Ha - det blev da godt nok ikke nogen success - tre - 3 - steder dækkede stoffet ikke papiret!
Jeg ved godt hvad der er galt. Jeg er for nærig sparsommelig. Jeg sidder og fedter med de mindste stykker stof jeg kan finde fordi jeg ikke kan bære at skære for meget fra efter syningen. Ok. Jeg er altså nærig alt for sparsommelig. Hvilket IKKE kan betale sig. Doohh......

My baby quilt top survived my juicy accident and just needs ironing before I can start basting it.
There are a lot of scrappy strips left over from the baby quilt top, so I have been playing.

Bente makes wonderful NYB blocks so I was inspired og gave it a try.
A very poor try. 3 places the fabric did not cover the paper. He - I'm frugal I know. Hate to cut away to much fabric so I fiddle with too small pieces, - just not good. Ahh well...I'll give it another try in the future, where I don't feel so frugal*lol*


Mange af farverne i de strips er lidt.... anderledes og ret svære at vise bare nogenlunde godt her. Det er 'skæve' nuancer, som jeg prøver at sætte sammen så jeg ikke blir' alt for svimmel eller køresyg *LOL*
Jeg blev inspireret af en quilt (jeg kan ikke huske hvor) og så er jeg meget vild med det som Marianne laver på The Quilting Edge - hendes flotte tæpper er syet og samlet som quilt-as-you-go.

Hun har netop lavet en ny gruppe på Flickr, hvor hun viser og hjælper med en QAYG metode, som jeg synes er genial og gerne vil lære. Den er min redning så jeg i fremtiden kan quilte store quilts på min egen maskine - så kan jeg måske endelig komme i gang med at quilte og ikke bare sprøjte den ene top ud efter den anden, som bare ender som UFO'er. Metoden er perfekt til gigtramte arme og skuldre - den slags er lige mig:-)

A lot of the colors in those strips are... a bit 'weird' - at least to photograph. I made quite a few striped blocks that I'm going to use practicing the QAYG method, that Marianne at The Quilting Edge  does so well. I'm very inspired by her work and I have just joined her group on Flickr
The QAYG method is not only a beautiful way of joining big squares/blocks/rectangles but also a great method for arthritic arms and shoulders. I like that:-)


De stribede kvadrater er slet, slet ikke så kedelige at se på i virkeligheden. Farverne gør sig ikke rigtigt på min pc-skærm;-)


Colors much nicer IRL - the pale pink is actually a nice yellow

Her er fx to grønne og en gul strip med et kvadrat - og den ser laksefarvet ud på min pc. Altså slet ikke så kedelig i virkeligheden.
Foreløbig laver jeg stribede kvadrater som jeg påtænker at bruge til at teste QAYG metoden.
Først var der bare et par stykker... men pludselig var der flere og så blev de til mange.
Supernemt.

Juice on top... litterally!

Min baby quilt top er færdig!
Åh ja. Men altså... man skal ikke gå forbi sådan en med et glas juice og så (næsten) falde over en ledning.
Det er dumt. Ledninger er et af mine yndlingshadeemner og dette hjælper ikke på det grrrrr....
Så nu er toppen i vaskemaskinen og jeg har brugt lidt tid på at vælge en relativ stærk blå-turkis bagside og en multifarvet lukkekant ud, som jeg tror vil passe fint til toppen.
I et par dage har jeg gået og tænkt på hvordan i alverden jeg skulle få den samlet - men så i morges fik jeg den gode idé at jeg jo kunne prøve at lime den - det skulle være lidt lettere både med hensyn til at slippe for at kravle rundt og sætte sikkerhedsnåle i og ikke mindst så kan jeg stå i vores vaskeri, hvor der er fine, høje borde - noget som det gigtplagede skrog vil synes godt om:-)

Så jeg kom hurtigt ud ad døren her til morgen og med bussen til quilteforretningen men tak skæbne... resten af de storkøbenhavnske quiltere var der også!
Og så var det jeg kom i tanke om, at jeg afskyer at shoppe om lørdagen. Åhada...
Men der var spraylim på tilbud, så det lunede lidt:-)

Mellemvat er fundet frem og klippet til, undertråd er spolet  op - kort sagt der er lagt an og kørt i stilling.
Jeg er SÅ tæt på at gøre noget færdigt!
Det er lige før det sku' i avisen;-)

 

Blue for the backing and coloured stripes for the binding. Nice!

My baby quilt top is finished!
But you shouldn't walk past it with a glass of juice and then almost trip (I can't stand those electric cords that seem to migrate everywhere!) - så its in the washer now.
I picked out the blue/turqoise for the quilt back and the multicolored for binding. I think it will be okay:-)
I've been thinking a lot about how to assemble the quilt. Crawling around on the floor is just not good, neither is pinning so I thought about basting it with spray glue. There is a nice, big table in our laundry room that will be perfect to use.
This morning I went shopping for the glue - but holy cow! All the Copenhagen quilters must have had the same idea - the quilt shop was packed!.
And too late I remembered how much I detest shopping on a saturday... oh well.
The spray glue was on sale though:-))

Everything is ready - the batting is cut, the spools full - I'm all ready to roll.
I'm SO close finishing something! Wow!
Someone should place a note in the newspaper *lol*

And this is such a nice picture - yesterday was busy: Lots and lots of Kona cotton washed and drying in the wind.
Love it!

Ahh.. masser af nyvasket Kona cotton på tørresnoren - herligt!