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:-)

Quilt on my door

I've had so much fun to-day!

Block 1 of the Tetris Quilt along was superfun, easy, fast and... HUGE!

I had NO place to hang it in the flat so I taped it to my front door - on the outside - to take a pic of it!




Notice how the colors match the walls in the entryhall!


I played a little with my coloring pencils - can't remember when I did that last, but it was fun!

You can read all about this fun, fast and scrap-eating Quilt-A-long at Melissa's blog or press the Tetris button
at the bar to the right --------------------------------------------------------------> somewhere about here.. :-) --------------------------------->






70x70 cm

 
Oh - these blocks are perfect for my future QAYG-practice blocks and for practicing some machine quilting too. Much easier to handle in the machine - me like:-)

6 blocks is all it takes plus border and the usual stuff.


I can't believe how productive I've been these last 4-5 weeks.
I blame the weather. Calling this a summer is a joke!
So sowing  sewing (HAHA - great spelling error!) is flowing here - and everything gets some attention, so lots of progress all over.
Good :-)

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 (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....
;-)

Sticks and dots

Summer is finally here after days of rain and cloudy dark weather.

In between a lot of small cleaning projects and staying outside as much as possible improvisations pop up and I play a little.

There are bags to be practised for the swap when the frames arrive from the shop and a major quilt project is being planned.

The Portuguese whitework is being lined with silk embroidered with french knots and should very soon turn into a small pouch for my pearls. I'm also dabbing a bit on some very old linen and making a baking cloth embroidered with some cuteness. My crewel projects also gets attention on a regular basis.

I'm very well aware that my UFO's are stalling but I'm not going to quilt anything - I finally gave in and realised that I really need a new sewing machine - one with feed dogs that can be lowered and a Walking Foot.
I need to drag myself into the 21st century, pamper my self and for once get that wallet out of its dark place and let go of the savings.

Summer holidays - which for me means travelling abroad - are therefore suspended - instead I'll treat my self to a trip to London in October, where I have booked some small crewel lessons with the super talented Philippa Turnbull from Crewelwork.
I can live with that. Ohhh yes I can!

So - summer at home in Copenhagen - what to do?

HAHA - pack you bag, sister - and get on that bus, that train or that bike - this city is packed with fun stuff to do.

I'll do that:-))

.. and keep playing..........

Dots on a stick

Ahh... ;-)

Danish vintage embroidery

Once in a while I find small treasures of embroidery at charity shops. Usually they are unfinished pieces, some still with the pattern and lots of thread - others are all new and never touched or even opened.

Some of these packages contain really large pieces of perfectly fine linen, meant for a tablecloth - it is perfect for practicing all kinds of embroidery - hardanger, whitework, cross stitch - and it cost practically nothing. I love those finds and I love to 'rescue' some of these embroidered pieces.

Some time ago I found a small bag filled with all kinds of vintage embroidery patterns - from the 60'-70'ies - and I picked one out because I clearly remembered this kind of embroidery - a stylised geometrical flower pattern - and I've tried to recreate it.

Now - the pattern suggests to make it in only 3 shades of either greens, yellows, blues or lilacs. I chose to make it in two shades of teal and orange and a yellow-green for the small leaves.
Appleton crewel wool on linen.

There is no information as to which kind of thread to use - I would think a DMC stranded cotton would be the choise.



Pattern properly documented