UFO no. 3 - Give Away

Read about this give away here and please come back and give me some good advice;-)
You can win secret, but very nice prizes for your good ideas!

Læs om denne give away her og kom tilbage og gi' mig gode råd:-)
Husk, at du kan vinde hemmelige men meget fine gaver for dine gode idéer!

I began Ufo no. 3 some years ago when I spent four weeks at a rehabilitaton center. This photo is from my lovely room there,- it was a happy and good time so good memories are sewn into this top from the very start:-)
Oh... see the white paperbag? Contains cable knitted socks. Are they finished? You have one - and only one guess.  Sigh..

Ufo no. 3 blev påbegyndt da jeg tilbragte fire uger på et genoptræningscenter for et par år siden. Fotoet ovenover er fra mit dejlige værelse der og det var en god og dejlig tid, så der er syet gode minder og oplevelser ind i quilttoppen helt fra begyndelsen:-)
Øhh.. kan du se den hvide papirspose? Den indeholder kabelstrikkede sokker. Er de færdige? Du har kun et gæt.... suk..

Hand pieced big hexagons made with fabric from the stash

Håndsyede store hexagoner med stof fra lager.

  

The corners are all aligned
Alle kanter er syet, så de er helt lige

Detail

Fabrics a mix of Kaffe Fassett, batiks and 'modern'


This top is actually ready to be basted and quilted.

BUT: I think it is too small. Being hand pieced I would hate to finish it and constantly be annoyed about the too small size.

I need to enlarge this with borders - but what color? I do not have enough of any of the fabrics used left to make a border AND I think it would look good with a solid to frame it. But not to boring, right?
Would it look good with a dark/black solid border that maybe could be applikeéd with some of the used fabrics in the top? Or is a dark border too 'hard'?
Or should I go with like an orange/purple solid and enhance the border with some fancy quilting in a contrasting thread?
Ideas are welcome - fancy ideas more so. I'm adventurous here;-)


Denne top er faktisk helt færdig og klar til montering og quiltning.
MEN - den er for lille. Og da jeg har håndsyet den vil jeg hade at gøre den færdig og vide at jeg vil ærgre mig hele tiden over at den egentlig er for lille.

Der skal relativt brede kanter på.
Men farven??? Jeg har ikke nok til kanter af de overskydende rester. Jeg tænker på en ensfarvet kant som måske kunne blive applikeret med de overskydende rester fra toppen. Ville det se godt ud med fx en mørk/sort kant med applikationer? Eller er det for hård en farve?
Eller skal jeg bruge en ensfarvet orange/purple og quilte i en kontrastfarve? 
Gode ideer er velkomne - og meget gerne utraditionelle - jeg er eventyrlysten her;-)


Giv et bud!

UFO no. 2 - Give Away

Read about this give away here and please come back and give me some good advice;-)

Læs om denne give away her og kom tilbage og gi' mig gode råd:-)


My 2nd UFO is a hand pieced Grandmother's Flowergarden. Big-size hexagons.
For a while I'd been hand piecing af lot of hexagons but had to admit that it was too stressfull for my hands to piece those rather small 2" hexies. So I bought larger hexagon paper templates (4"), cut fabric and soon things began to happen. Much easier and quicker than the small ones.
The reason why this never got finished has to do with one of the next UFO's I'm going to show you;-)
I just had to try something else out and then... well you know how it goes, if you are a much better starter than a finisher!
The top needs one more row of flowers on the long side, borders and of course quilting.


Min 2. UFO er et Bedstemor's blomstertæppe i mega-størrelse - syet i hånden.
Jeg havde i et stykke tid syet en masse små 2" hexagoner, men måtte erkende, at de simpelthen var for små for mig at holde på når jeg skulle sy dem sammen. Så jeg købte 4" (10cm) store papirhexagoner og temmelig hurtigt skred det fremad.
Grunden til at jeg ikke er kommet videre har en hel del at gøre med en af de næste UFO'er som jeg liiiige skulle prøve at sy - og sådan er det når man er rigtig god til at begynde på noget nyt og ikke så god til at afslutte noget;-).
Jeg mangler mindst en række hele blomster på den lange led og så kanter og hele quiltningen.


The top laid out on my sofa on a sunny day with good light for photos
Her er tæppet lagt ud på min sofa en dag hvor lyset var fint til fotografering:

Still no ironing;-)
Jeg sparer på kræfterne og stryger altså ikke før højst nødvendigt;-)

Very girly and really not me.
Meget 'piget' og ikke helt min stil.

Background fabric is from Moda, Martinique, a light beige with tiny flowers
Baggrundsstoffet er fra Moda's Martinique, en lys beige med små blomster.


Here's the deal:
I like handpiecing. A lot. But I'm not really into this design. It's too oldfashioned the 'wrong' way and too 'girly' for me. Took me a looooong time to admit, but there you go. And I don't know any small girl who would appreciate it, so I plan to keep it.
So - how can I make it more modern? More... sleek, comtemporary and 'engineery' and less 'girly' ?
Can I add something? Make some applikée perhaps that is not flowers/stems - or make a border that will lift this design say.. 60-70 years ahead?? (I never promised my questions would be easy!!!!)
Maybe some geometric quilt pattern?
I also thought about handquilting this top with a thick perle cotton 8 or 12 and use this top to practice on, as it really does not hold any kind of sentiment for me like my other tops.
Lots of questions regarding how to change a design after it's made. Can it be done?


Til sagen: Jeg kan li' at sy i hånden. Men - jeg er faktisk ikke så vild med dette design. Det er for gammeldags (på den 'forkerte' måde) og for 'piget' til mig. Det har taget rigtig lang tid for mig at indrømme overfor mig selv - men sådan er det:-)
Så - hvordan kan jeg gøre quilten mere moderne? Mindre 'tøset' og mere 'ingeniør-agtig' *lol*???
Kan jeg tilføje noget? Måske applikere noget, som ikke er blomster/ranker eller lave en kant, der kan gøre Bedstemors blomsterhave til en moderne have? Quilte det hele eller kun kanten i fx et geometrisk mønster?
Jeg har også tænkt på at håndquilte toppen med perle cotton 8/12 og så bruge quilten til at øve mig på. Sært nok er det en af de quilttoppe jeg har lavet, som jeg egentlig ikke forbinder med nogen/noget specielt, så den må gerne blive en øve-quilt. Går det galt, så går det galt - helt ok.
Spørgsmålet er om det er muligt at ændre det her design - efter det er syet op - til noget mere moderne. Lad høre!

I can't wait to hear about your ideas!

UFO no. 1 - Give Away

Read about this give away here and please come back and give me some good advice;-)

Læs om denne give away her og kom tilbage og gi' mig gode råd:-)


This is my first quilt-top. Ever. An Irish Chain. You can go here and read about how I several years ago confessed to be the Queen of UFO's *lol*

This top holds a lot of sadness and memories about a lot of hard and difficult years but mostly it is a happy piece. I like it very much in a strange but calm sentimental way - it is well made, took about 3 months to layout and piece and was at the time way out of my comfort zone - the colors scared me and at the same time they were so very appealing, because they made me happy - something I desperately needed in that period.
This quilttop made me fall in love with quilting and color and gave me back my passion for sewing, for which I'm very grateful. It deserves to be finished. Really!



Dette er min første quilt-top. Nogensinde. Mønstret er en Irish Chain. Du kan læse her hvordan jeg for flere år siden gik til bekendelse og udråbte mig selv til Dronningen af UFO'er *lol*

Den quilttop du skal se her repræsenterer megen sorg og mange minder om mange hårde og svære år for mig men mest indeholder den en masse glæde. Jeg er meget, meget glad for den på en sær men også rolig og okay sentimental måde - den er godt og omhyggeligt syet over en periode på tre måneder og var dengang ikke i nærheden af min almindelige erfaring med syning. Især var jeg skræmt af farverne som også føltes utroligt tiltrækkende fordi jeg opdagede, at farver gjorde mig glad og det havde jeg brug for i den periode.
Denne quilt-top gjorde mig forelsket i quiltning og farver og gav mig min gamle passion for syning tilbage - noget jeg er meget taknemmelig for. Den fortjener at blive færdig:-)



Here it is october 2007 - all the many pieces (700+ sqares, each 5cm square) on the designboard ready to be pieced (sorry for the bad pic)

Yes. It is HUGE! ca. 205x155cm
I newer knew how or when to stop. I do now;-)
Overambitious, that's me.

And here it is on my bed in my tiny bedroom:

The borders are not completely sewn on yet, but here you see how it is supposed to look..
Kanterne er ikke helt syet færdige.

No ironing, sorry. Too much work;-)
Ikke strøget desværre;-)

There is only 1 white strip on the border although it looks like two here.

My question has to do with quilting the large, white areas.

It will be machine quilted on my very basic domestic machine.

As you can see the white areas are quite large, so I need ideas about WHAT to quilt in those areas. I have thought of some design that will fill out the space and make it stand out as the quilting on the rest - the colored areas - will be quite subtle and not so noticeable as I think the color will overrule the quilting, which will probably be very simple. I also need good advice of what to quilt on the white border strips. If you have links to design ideas it will be very much appreciated.

 

Mit spørgsmål går på quiltningen af de store, hvide områder. Jeg maskinquilter den på min helt almindelige symaskine - altså ingen fancy overtransportør-dims;-)

Jeg forestiller mig et design som fylder det hvide område ud og får det til at stå tydeligt frem, da jeg tror at quiltningen i de farvede områder (som vil være meget enkel) vil blive meget overdøvet af farverne. Jeg mangler ideer til sådan et design,- måske noget der kan bløde lidt op på det meget 'firkantede' indtryk - eller noget der understreger det? Jeg har også brug for ideer til quiltning af de smalle hvide kanter. Har du links til gode quiltdesigns vil det være dejligt:-)

I'm looking forward to your good advices;-)

Jeg glæder mig til at høre dine gode råd:-) 

Secret Give Away... on it's way

Always time for a celebration, right?
(dansk udgave af dette indlæg - se forrige post)


I'm rearranging "stuff" here in my tiny flat and believe me - things don't look good right now.
Fabric everywhere. Boxes, bags and weird stuff like electric cords, old yarn and whatnot everywhere.
You don't believe me?
Here's a peak:

Notice the cupboards to the right? Empty. Shelves not put back since I had to paint the wall behind them. Yep - I'm not skipping corners. Some people paint around their furniture. I'm not one of those, although I thought about it a LOT! hehehe...

Here's the thing: In some of these boxes and a few other, that I'm NOT going to show you - I found a lot of my UFO's. They live sad lives here and rarely see the sun, poor things.
So I took a break and sat down and cuddled them.
I did!
After all it's sunday and you need to cuddle fabric once in a while.
It keeps you sane.

I'm not really into finishing things. I have accepted a long time ago that I'm a 95% initiator/starter/beginner, so finishing things is hard for me..HARD! But there on the sofa surrounded by my ufo's I decided to finish one of them.
I'll repeat:

I AM FINISHING ONE OF MY UFO's!!!

(writing this gives me the shivers, honestly!)

YOU can help me decide which one I shall finish.

I picked out 5 of my UFO's that are not only almost finished but also CAN be finished before... summer. This year, that is.

I will post pics of each UFO 5 days in a row.
Every day I will ask you a question about that ufo - what to do, which border, how to quilt etc.
If you post a comment on one post you'll get one ticket in my secret give away.
If you post a comment on two posts you'll get two tickets in my secret give away
If you post a comment on all 5 posts you'll get 5 tickets in my secret give away.

I don't ask you to become a follower (but you are welcome to!)
I don't ask you to go to someone else's blog and comment, and return and.. and.... just stay here:-)
I don't ask you to blog about this (but you are welcome to!)

All I ask you to do is to answer my question about each quilt top - and help me decide which UFO I shall finish. It's hard for me, you know. I need your advice.

You can do it.

For all your hard work and good advices I have prices for you.
Lots of prices. Well, 5 of them;-)
Nice prices.
Books, yarns, fabrics. Lots of fabrics. Different styles of fabric. Modern, batiks, 30'ies reproduction, Kaffe Fassett, Martinique, Denyse Schmidt. Fat quarters. Lots of them.
And I'll send it to you no matter where you live. Alaska, Ukraine, Japan - you are all welcome to participate:-)

But you won't see what the prices are. This give away is a secret one.
I will not post any photos of the prices you can win. Or describe them in more words than I already did. And you cannot bribe me or force me in any way to reveal anything.

After all - you are here to help me decide which UFO to finish, right?
And not just here to win gorgeous prices, right??? (well, that should probably keep some away *lol*)

I knew that.
Quilters are the nicest people I know;-)
I of course - am not. If I was as nice as you are this give away would be like any other give away where you are not supposed to WORK for prices you don't even know what are.
But thats me. I like to have fun like that;-)

Tuesday Feb. 28th - I'll show you the first ufo and ask your opinion.
Saturday March 3rd I'll show you the last ufo.
You can comment on all five posts til sunday, March 4th.

Monday March 5th - I'll announce the winning UFO - AND reveal pictures of the great prices as well as the names of the lucky 5 winners!

And now I'm off.
This ironingboard needs to be cleared - I have a lot of fat quarters to iron for the give away!

No. None of the fabrics here are a part of the prices.
But - you can see one of my ufo's there - on the top.
And that is all I'll reveal;-)

Hemmelig give away... på vej

Og her er lidt om min hemmelige give away - på dansk;-)
(du kan se en længere udgave af dette indlæg med fotos på engelsk her)

Hjælp mig med at vælge hvilken af 5 udvalgte UFO'er jeg skal gøre færdig - og vær med i en fin, fin men meget hemmelig give away;-).
Jeg har alt for mange ufo'er der ligger til ingen verdens nytte og jeg har svært... SVÆRT.. ved at gøre dem færdige.
Jeg er og bliver en 'starter' - så derfor har jeg brug for hjælp til at gøre en top til en quilt:-)

Hver dag med start på tirsdag den 28. februar og 5 dage frem med slut lørdag den 3. marts poster jeg et indlæg om en UFO, som er næsten færdig og som jeg har et problem med.
I hver post stiller jeg et spørgsmål vedrørende den pågældende quilttop,som DU kan hjælpe mig med ved at svare på mit spørgsmål og gi' din mening til kende. Kommenterer du i ét indlæg giver det 1 lod - du kan altså få ialt 5 lodder hvis du giver din mening til kende på alle 5 indlæg - og 5 lodder er max.

Der kan kommenteres på alle 5 indlæg til og med søndag aften (midnat) den 4. marts.
Mandag den 5. marts offentligør jeg den vindende UFO som jeg vil gøre færdig - samt fotos af de lækre gevinster og navnene på de heldige 5 vindere!

Du behøver ikke være "follower" - men du må hjertens gerne!
Du behøver ikke gøre nogetsomhelst andet end bare blive her - og gi' mig et godt råd!
Og du behøver ikke blogge om denne give away - men du må gerne!

Som tak for dit(dine) gode råd udlodder jeg 5 priser. Rigtig gode priser:-)
Bøger, tråd, stof. Masser af stof. Moderne, 30-reproduktion, batik. Kaffe Fassett, Martinique, Denyse Schmidt. Fat quarters - masser af dem;-)

MEN: det er en hemmelig give away - så du får ikke at se hvad du kan vinde.
Ingen fotos.
Ingen.
Det er jo en hemmelig give away, så du må udholde spændingen;-)

Du er her jo for at hjælpe mig med gode råd, så jeg ENDELIG kan få gjort en UFO færdig, ikke??
Og ikke kun for at vinde fantastiske gaver... veeeeel??

;-)

Glæder mig til at læse dine input!

Scraps

For some time I've tried to kill a lot of my uglyuglyugly and oldoldold fabric by turning it into scappy pinwheels.
They are supposed to be 3" square and those that do not messure up I cut down to 2".

"

According to my scappy-hero-quilter of all times, Bonnie Hunter - there is no such thing as ugly fabric.
"Cut it smaller" is one of her good advices. Apparently the uglyness dissapears in the US - i doubt it counts here in my home *lol*. Those buggers of mine cannot be smaller - or they'll turn to dust;-)

I'm quite excited about my photos these days - if I may say so:-)
I never expected my small camera to get this close and take such clear photos.

However you see EVERYTHING - including non-matching points én masse.
Now I know that I also need a new cutting mat - it really is worn out!!

Huhh... I DID iron those. I did!!!
I'll have to steam the life out of them!

They take a lot of time. Tons of squaring up and ironing. And it is boring. And not so exiting - the pinwheels are actually not that good-looking, so I'll have to come up with some "pop" and "zing" to add to it or I'm afraid the whole thing will be forgotten in some drawer.

Also they are not that well made. The points match about 50% which is way below my usual standard. They are simply too small for my arthritic hands to sew, too difficult to fiddle with in the machine. They may not become a quilt - but now I have realized this - and all lessons are welcome.
Including the 'hard' ones.
No more small quilty things in the machine.
Done with that:-)

Revealed

I'm in heaven!

Yesterday these two books arrived:

Bought chepo-chepo through amazon at two different thriftstores in the US - I practically just paid the postage for them - yeaaaahhh!!!
Both in very good condition - and SO worth it!

Just look at this:



from Crewel Embroidery

That bird is so cute - and the leaves down at the right so delicate.

from Crewel Embroidery

A tree of life piece - so many different stitches




from Embroidery Book

This is where it shows that I'm a lousy photographer. The colors are not near that dull and flat in the book. In reality they are very, very vibrant. This is the green sampler.

from Embroidery Book

This is a blue sampler - again much more vibrant and clear colors in the book

from Embroidery Book

from Embroidery Book

I just love these colors! These samplers remind me of the 60-70ies - I remember using this kind of embroidery to embellish knitted sweaters and woollen skirts. Happy memories:-)

from Embroidery Book

Ohhh... I like this! Colorful and with a lot of texture - great!

I cannot recommend these books enough. They may be more than 40 years old but still have a lot of value.
I'm particularly happy about the sections where the different stitches are shown - much better than in many of the new books I've bought.
Then there are a huge amount of history, spiced with old recipées of  how to make your own dye, how to design your own piece of crewel etc.etc.

And so much - so many of the stitches and designs have such a modern feel to them.

Just look at this (bad pic - not enough light)


design Erica Wilson


 I could easily see this design made up in all kinds of blue - or any other color for that matter - it would look great and very fresh and not at all oldfashioned.

Mail

Ahhh... just arrived:

Two books from US thriftstores at the amazing value at $0,02 each!!!!
What is it?

All will be revealed...later.... I'm of to the comfy sofa;-)

It's knot me

I know.
It's hazardous business playing wordgames in a language you'r not totally comfortable with. I just can't help it. It made me smile and giggle like a 17-year old, which is very rare, so I salute it. After all that is a very long time ago, and at my age everything should be allowed. Wordgames especially;-)

Let's talk knots.

I was given the advise to use a millner's needle when practicing the bullion knot.
Good advise!
I scrapped the sad cloth I'd practised on with some wool and found a piece of very old handwoven linnen and started over. I also decided to use 3 strands of dmc cotton floss - which went fine, although I did not see it coming.
The size.
It is veeeeeeery small.
The hoop is only 10 cm (4") and those bullion knots are supertiny but looks absolutely cute blown up in the pictures.

For some reason the knots sort of makes a little wave, a small curve. I looks okay to me but I'm sure that they are not supposed to!!

(..or maybe I have an unusual hidden talent. Something to think about. Or not;-))

I did not plan to make it sort of a flower/star (HAHA - who knows WHAT it is!!!) - maybe it would have been better to sew the knots more apart... give them some space.

Uhhhhh.....they just don't look so good when blown that much up. On the other hand you can see EVERYTHING!

Out of the 17 knots I'm pleased with one. Most of them are too loose and should have had a couple of extra 'twists/swirls' on the needle.
But they were a breeze to make with the millner's needle.
Lesson learned:-)

It's so crewel!

I have spent several days now on my newly painted sofa.
It still looks good;-)

I can't say the same about my crewelpracticepiecesamplerthing...
I'm trying, I really am.
I need to get down from a certain high horse - I had this thought, that oh well... how hard can it be?
HA! It's hard. And difficult. And sometimes sooo frustrating.
Which by the way fuels me immensely.
I'm very stubborn that way;-)
So - I lay my humble progress out for the world to see:

This is the pattern that I'm supposed to follow.

Here I've started on the large flower. The shading is actually fun although I did it wrong. I did not get that when you make the darker, inner shade you have to work the needle up through the outer strands.

I worked from the top down, which makes a difference, that I'm not able to quite see or understand. Yet.

Then there is the blue pinwheel. Oh boy. It looks very sort of 'tight' to me. But it is supposed to cover the printet circle on the fabric, so I kept going. Somehow I think it needs to be looser, more sort of casual.

  

The acorns were fun to do. I had to rip out all the first many french knots - I'll have to read the instructions better. They needed two strands of yarn and although it is not that good-looking it gives much more definition. They are tricky those french knots - you never quite know where they will turn - making a straight line in the right acorn was a struggle that I lost.

Another struggle is the chain stitch. They are okay when I do straight lines, but there are a LOT of curves in the leaves and I find it difficult to make the turns look smooth and keep the same lenght of the stitches.

I don't think I'll make 3 rows of them - two will have to do.

It is quite scary to look at the pictures all blown up *lol*

Oh well... I have to take a break from the crewel now.

It's time to Swoon ;-)