This year's, or rather, last year's handmade Christmas presents

Well... Christmas is over and a new year has begun... I guess I'm safe to put up pictures of some of the things I made for Christmas presents last year (it feels so funny to say last year about this Christmas...)
I made my mum and dad a quilted Christmas tree skirt. Well, that was what it was intended for... but I think my mum wanted to use it as a table cloth as well.... I guess it has many uses, so I'm happy for her to do as she wishes with it.

It was hard to catch the colours correctly, but you get an idea.

For my hubby's family (sister, brother, nieces, nephews, all with family) I made egg warmer hens. Some of them has been pictured before, so I'm not going to show them again.

For his brother and his sister I also added a bread basket with a quilted cloth that matched the egg warmer hens (I didn't make the basket though...or the egg cups...)

The blue and striped pin wheel basket cloth was for Per's sister and her hubby, and the red and blue flying geese cloth, for hubby's brother and his wife.

Here are the hens that went with the flying geese....!;)

I gave some other handmade things as well, but most of it has been picrued on my blog before, so I'll just leave it here...

You are a STAR and a WINNER

I'm sure you are all waiting for the results of my giveaway.... I'm sorry to have kept you waiting the whole day, but I'd promised Maja that she could help me with the draw so we had to do it after she was home from school. But then we had someone over for dinner this afternoon, so when I was gonna do the draw, I was busy preparing for having dinner guests. I hope you understand.

Anyway, after keeping you waiting for so long, I thought I would keep you waiting for a wee while longer... cruel, I know... but I just wanted to show you the hand pieced/ paper pieced star all finished. I ended up making a coaster... as I suggested in my other post. I used two layers from an old flannel nighie after Susie as batting, so it's nice and thick.
I wouldn't look too closely at my quilting... It's awful... it almost looks like the basting is still in... but, hey, it was my first time hand quilting... But then again, the coaster goes quite well with my favourite mug colourwise, don't you think?
Ok, so over to the draw! Here Maja is helping me cut all the entries into separate strips. (Isn't her nightdress cute?? I just love that cow pattern...)

All the entries are in...

Who will be the lucky winner....

Eileen! You won! Congratulations. Please contact me with your address, and I will send you the prize.

Eileen said...
Tonje, these are beautiful prizes. I'm sure you made the adorable slippers! Congratulations on your 100th post. It is a lot to keep up with especially when you are moving all about!thanks always for visiting me and leaving such lovely comments. :-)
07 November, 2008 11:50

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And this is what my wee helper did with all the non- winning entries... she shredded them! I think maybe she enjoys using her new scissors...

I would like to thank all of you who took part in my giveaway. I really appreciate your comments.

Lazy Saturday morning

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Don't forget to enter my 100th post giveaway!

Today we had a really lazy morning. It was cold outside, but we'd lit the fireplace, and while the girls were snuggling on the sofa watching a DVD and being quiet for once (this photo isn't from today, but this is what they looked like. Today's photo was too blurred... I was probably too tired to focus...)...
...I was trying my hand on hand piecing for the first time. Is that what it's called when you tack a piece of fabric around a piece of paper and sew it together by hand...?? This is something I've never done before, it was quite relaxing although a bit repetitive.
Here is the star I pieced, tacking on and everything. I'm quite amazed that the colours are so true in this photo ... I always have a hard time catching the colours correctly. Finished with the piecing. The tacking/basting is out and it's ironed. I'm not really impressed whit my stitching... maybe I should have matched the thread better with the colours?? Or maybe I shouldn't have watched Tintin with the girls at the same time as I was stitching...Well, this was just for fun, just to try it out and see if I liked it, so it doesn't really matter. I'm thinking maybe I would try to hand quilt this as well. That's another thing I've never done before.
The star is quite small, so I guess I'll have a (nice) coaster for my morning coffee when this is finished.

This afternoon I started a new knitting project as well. I guess this was the day for starting new things... I just totally fell for this neck warmer when I saw it. So that's what I'm knitting. I'm not using the same yarn as in the pattern... I'm going a bit cheaper with "Oda" from Trysilgarn (colour 209 if anyone is interested. The colour in the photo isn't quite right though).
The pattern seemed pretty straight forward to start with... only two rows to repeat. That was until I started knitting... It was a bit hard to wrap my head around what the pattern really said, and how to do it practically. But after a couple of (four, five) trials and errors, casting on, ripping it off, casting on... etc... I finally got it. This isn't really a quick knit... well, not for me anyway, even though I use needles 8mm... but, hopefully, I'll have a new neck warmer in a few days... that is if I don't start a new project in between...

To Switzerland and back

Last weekend I was in Switzerland with my family, to attend Pirmin and Angelas wedding. It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful old church set in even more beauiful surroundings. Even the place cards were beautiful... decorated cookies... wow!
We didn't understand much of anything anyone said in their speeches (or in the church)... If they only had spoken "normal" german instead of "Käse Deutsch" (as my hubby calls it...) we might have stood a chance... but it didn't really matter because all the people at our table during dinner spoke english very well and we all had lots of fun.


The girls had a ball of a time. Maja was so lucky as to be allowed to hold the brides bouquet at the party... she was sooo thrilled... and they both loved the table decorations as it was big bowls filled with water, candles and rose petals... why are children always so attracted to water??


This was just a short trip, going there on Friday and coming back on Monday. But we had a great time, we even managed to squeeze in a short hike up in the mountains behind the hotel.

As for the present... the place mats... I only managed to get four of them done in time. I was up past midnight two days in a row sewing, but... I really struggled with the quilting (the thread kept breaking), so things took much longer than expected. I will finish the last two asap, and send them in the post though...
I just had to add this photo of Susie...

Wedding present

I'm working on another set of these flower place mats. I'm making six of them this time. Some friends of ours in Switzerland are getting married, and I thought this might be a nice gift for them.

I hope I will finish them in time...

For my bum...

I made this scrappy star block ages ago. The block seemed fun to make and I just wanted to try it out. I just grabbed some fabric that was heading for the bin (and some from my scrap box) and threw it together. My curiosity was satisfied... it was fun to make. I didn't have anything in mind for it, it was just a trial... so it was just put aside. It's been lying with my fabrics for a couple of months now. (Do you recognize the fabric from my previous post??)
I found it again the other day, and decided I could use it for my garden chair. I added a couple of borders and some wadding and voila! A new cushion to sit on when I'm in the garden.
It's quite amazing what a border can do to a (not so useful) block... I think this look rather nice, if I may say so myself... hehe...
The cushion ties in the back to secure it to the chair.

Which one??

HELP!!! I'm going to make a cushion (to sit on) for my garden chair. I've decided to use a Depression block, and I've sewn all the pieces for it... BUT... I can't choose how to put all the pieces together... I've laid them out in different combinations but I can't make up my mind which one works best or just... which one I like best.... I would appreciate some of your thoughts on which block to make... which one would you make??

Ps. Picture 1 and 2 were taken with flash so they look a wee bit brighter than the rest....

Moving on...

...but not too far... I'm still making small quilted bags, just a different design.
I got the pattern for this lovely make up bag (and for a larger one) from Elna in Norway. Thank you very much! The bag was really easy to sew, but I think maybe I did something wrong with the lining, because it seems to be a bit... not big... but it doesn't really fit... it's all crumpled up, if you know what I mean.... no?? But I'm not giving up... I will try to make another one soon, and maybe do the lining part a bit different.

This is the other side of it. The fabric I used was something I found in a charity shop... I really like the brightness of the colours on this fabric.

Finished!!

Here they are! All 7 of them! The quilted bags are now done and ready to leave me for their new owner... Hope she'll be as pleased with them as I am.

The fronts:
And a view of the back of them as well...

More pink...

The quilted bags are finally starting to look like something...
This is what they looked like last night:
The "only" thing left now is to put on the top border and zippers... better get on with it...

Status report...

Sorry I've been a bit slow on the blogging front lately... Had hubby home in the weekend, and then I've been busy getting my house ready for putting it up for sale.

Anyhoo... here's a wee update on my bag order. All the fabrics are cut and I'm in the process of quilting the bags now.
I'm almost done with the quilting, but I ran out of white fabric for the lining, so I need to get some more of that. I went to the quilt shop in Linlithgow today, but they closed at 2pm on wednesdays... I didn't know, so I was there about 10 past.... that meant I had an hour to kill in Linlithgow before I had to pick Maja up from school... went to the textile shop to see if they had some white cotton. But guess what... They were closed too!! I'll try again tomorrow or maybe friday.

My first custom order!

A few weeks back I got my first custom order over at Etsy! Yay!!! The customer wanted 7 of my pink quilted bags (like the one below, this one is still for sale in my shop).
I had to get new fabric for the stripe at the top, because I didn't have more left of the ones I used in the original bag, so the custom bags won't be exactly the same. Yesterday I washed the new fabric, and I've been cutting the pieces for the bags today, so I'm now ready to start sewing.
Guess I should go downstairs and get started instead of sitting here blogging...

Mystery solved

Ok, so here it is... the "answer" to the mystery:

Now, what will I make out of it?? I guess I could make some more of these blocks and make a quilt... maybe...

Talking about quilts, why don't you head over to this blog for a quilt giveaway!! Yes, it's true... she's giving away a quilt. All you have to do is leave a comment on her post. But you have to hurry though, cos you only have until Thursday 20th March...

Mystery quilt

I've never sewn a mystery quilt before, so when one of the girls over at "Norsk Quiltegruppe" posted one yesterday, I couldn't resist trying this out. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, I'll try to explain. When you do a mystery quilt, you don't know what you're making until the very end. You are given instructions to only a small part of the project at the time and when you have finished this, you get the next part. Did this make sense??

Anyway... This is what I've got after part 4 of this mystery: I don't know what this is going to look like in the end yet, but there is only one more part to this mystery, so I'm almost there... Well... I'm curious to find out what this will be, so I'll head over to Norsk Quiltegruppe now and print the last part of this...

I'll keep you updated!

Quilted bags

I've been making some quilted purses/bags the last few days. I didn't have a pattern for these bags, so they are just made up as I went... It was really good fun. I really enjoyed the quilting... the batting made them so soft and lovely. They are all living in my etsy shop now.

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.