Happy birthday!

It's my little brother's birthday today! Sooo... I've made him a card and a present. I don't think he's got the present yet because I was a bit slow getting to the post office... well... to be perfectly honest, I hadn't finished his present in time (I was waiting for the batting to arrive in the post). And it's really hard using the sewing machine with Susie around. She tends to "help" me a bit too much... pressing the pedal, pulling the cord, running away with the rotary cutter (or licking it)... or just rearranging the bookshelf and make a general mess... So I'm mainly a night worker when it comes to patchwork/sewing. I don't think my brother read this blog, so I'll take my chances and post some pics of what I've made.

Just a quick card for him... (Why can't I just make up a batch of cards to save for when I need them?? I always end up with just having to throw something together in a hurry... )


Ok... now you're getting impatient.... "will she never get to what she's made"... Place mats!! I saw these place mats on a blog a few months back and fell totally in love with them. I just knew I had to make them. So after a bit of research on the web, I found the pattern for them (thanks Merete). I really wanted to keep these myself.... but I couldn't think of anything to give my brother for his birthday, so I decided to make these for him instead. I hope he likes them...

I made four of them. I'm kind of hoping that won't be enough... cos then I can make some more and give him for christmas....hehe...
Oh... forgot to say... this is what I needed that black fabric I wrote about earlier for.

A couple more for my shop

I've made another couple of needle books for my etsy shop.... Both Hardanger embroidery on white evenweave with black fabric lining and two white felt pages for your needles.

Come to a party!

It's quite unbelievable, but Susie is going to be 1 in a couple of weeks! Where did the time go?

I'm having a small party for her, so yesterday I found my stamps and sat down to make some invites. The three top ones are just different lay-outs I tried out, and as you can see I settled for the left one... well, Maja helped me choose... actually she decided that we were gonna go with that one....
This is what they look like on the inside:
Of course, Maja couldn't resist a chance to use my stamps, so she helped me out. This is what her invites looked like:
I think this one is really nice! (almost nicer than the ones I made....) Don't you just love the rainbow sheep...?

Ballband dishcloth

I've wanted to knit the Ballband dishcloth ( Mason-Dixon Knitting by Kay Gardiner and Ann Shayne) ever since I saw it in a blog, but didn't know how. I did a search on the net and found the pattern for it HERE. These dishcloths were really quick and easy to knit, and fun as well....and they are definately gonna look much nicer in my kitchen than the old store bought dishcloths I already have...

They're made of 100% cotton and they are really nice and thick. I don't know if they're any good, but I hope so. I'll give one of them a try tomorrow.

Catch of the day...

I went to the quilting shop in Linlithgow today. I needed some black fabric for a project.... can't tell you what yet, because it's going to be a birthday present and the person who will receive the prezzie might be reading this... These are the ones I settled with. The top one, I found in a "sale" box, it's 1,5 meters. The other four are fat quarters.

While I was there, I picked up another bargain... Two small rolls of squares (12x12 cm) for £2! One with red fabric and one with purple. Lovely!

Love hearts...

This is what I made with my green and blue fabric squares from my previous post; lovehearts!
I just love hearts... ehh... love lovehearts.... whatever.... and lime green is one of my favourite colours... so I think these turned out quite good.... especially since I haven't done any patchwork for a long time. They are a bit on the small side though, 7x7 cm. So that makes the seam allowance at the tip of the hearts a bit on the small side....

I found the pattern for them HERE as part of a mystery quilt project by Merete Veian. I didn't really have a project in mind when I made them, but I don't want to make the table runner they were meant to be, so that's why I didn't follow the pattern regarding size of the starting squares, and that's why mine turned out a bit smallish... But since heart shapes are my favourite I couldn't resist makining some. I'm sure I can use them for something anyway (anybody have any suggestions??).

Fabric

I found my old bag of fabric today.... I just love the bright strong colours on these small pieces of fabric! I've been reading a few quilting blogs lately, and they have inspired me to do some quilting/ patchwork again...

So I chose a few colours and started cutting them;

These are the colours I chose (see above).... I've started sewing... got four small blocks, and another four half done. But I'm still not quite sure where I'm going with these blocks... They are really tiny..... I wasn't expecting them to be sooo small.... but I'm sure I'll find a way to use them.

I'll put my thinking cap on.... Now, I'm going to bed!

Spiral scarf

Maja insisted that she neeeeeded a new scarf. I wasn't gonna buy her one, so I said I could knit one, and she was fine with that. She got to choose the yarn..... fuzzy.... of course. But this isn't just fuzzy... it has got small "bits" in it as well. It wasn't the best to knit with because of these "bits" but I managed. It wasn't really a problem, just a bit fiddly to get the bits through the stitches as you knitted. I made it a spiral scarf. We've got plenty of "normal" scarfs, so I thought I'd make something a bit different.

Christmas presents revealed...

I promised to show you those christmas presents that I made that I only gave you a sneak peak of in an earlier post... so... here they are:

All the sneak peaks were handbags. One for my mother, one for my brother's girlfriend and the rest for my husbands nieces.

The two top ones are the same design and the two bottom ones are the same design. I've used the same fabric for three of the bags but all the bags are different. (It's quite amazing how different they look when you change the fabric.) All the bags had pockets of some sort, some on the inside and some on the outside, some zippered some not. They all had a magnetic snap closure as well.

I hope they all liked their handbags (if not, they could always put them in a wardrobe and use them as storage for bits and pieces.....;))

For your sniffles....

A while ago I saw a photo of a travel tissue holder somewhere (can't remember where), and thought it was a good idea. So last week end I got my scraps of fabric, scissors and sewing machine out to make my own. As soon as I had figured out how big to make them, it was such fun that I made up a bunch...

Some of these has been used as teacher gifts for Maja's teachers. As for the rest of them, if I don't need any more small christmas presents, I might put them in my Etsy shop, so keep an eye out if you want one..... hehe.... Haven't figured out how much to take for them yet though... any suggestions??

I just wanted to share this experience....

Read about the joys of photographing your children for christmas over on my family blog. Don't do the same mistake as me and leave it too late.... (you'll understand what I'm talking about if you read it).

Ooops.... cat hat

I just realized I haven't blogged the previous hat I made for Maja.... oooops.... so I thought I'd at least share a picture.

About a year ago, Maja really wanted a pussycat-hat. With ears and fur..... so I made her one. I can't remember how anymore though.... This hat has been used LOADS! I think it's the only hat she's used since I made it.

Smock hat

It's been almost a year since I knitted a hat for Maja, so when I saw this hat on Bente B's blog I just had to make her one. And knowing me.... I can't wait till tomorrow before I start, so I had a rummage through my wool stash to find something to knit with. My stash is really small at the moment, mostly small balls of sock wool, leftovers that my MIL sent me. But I found some mohairish yarn. I knew it wouldn't be enough of the main colour, so I have mixed and matched different thicknesses and needlesizes to get enough for a whole hat. It didn't turn out too bad. Maja loves it, and that's the main thing. She even has the hat on when she goes to bed at night.....

The hat is supposed to have some of the vertical rows pulled together and decorated with beads but Maja was so eager to start using it, that she didn't want any beads on it. I said she could start using her hat without the beads and I could put them on later, but I don't think she wants any beads on. That's what she says anyway. I might try and talk her into me putting on a few...... we'll see.

Gingerbread....

A couple of weeks back, a group of Norwegian friends met at Malin and Charlie's house to make gingerbread cookies. We did this last year as well, and it's really good fun. Just thought I'd share this yummy picture with you all.... It's of my cookies in the tin.... or more like Maja's cookies. She baked and decorated them all. And they taste deeeeelicious!

Christmas presents....

The reason I don't have that much in my Etsy shop yet is that I've been busy making christmas presents..... I know I should have started earlier with my presents, but I didn't really know that we were going to be so short on "pennies" this christmas..... so I thought why not get the ole sewing machine out and make some prezzies myself and save the pennies for stupid things like food and electricity..... hehe.... sooooo I'm giving a few home made prezzies this year. Obviously, I can't post pictures of these things yet, but a post without pictures is a bit boring, so here are some teasers..... hehe..... enjoy!