One Happy Knitter

I really wanted to get back to knitting for some time but everytime I tried to do that my neck and shoulder started to hurt again - instantly! I thought I might just have to give up. Last week I decided to try one more time with a different size of needles. I took my bicycle and cycled to this fairly new yarnshop that I just discoverd, Wollig in Voorburg (if any locals are reading.) What a fun shop! I got my needles and of course some new yarn. At home I was too tempted to try the new yarn instead of the new needles. I have gotten alredy this far with no pain what so ever! Happy dance!

The pattern is a version of this one. The yarn is lang yarn merino + color. Love it! 

Linking with Ginny's Yarn Along

Quilt in Green

It is finally summer in Holland and what better way to spend it than sit inside and write a first blog post in a long time... It has been a very cold spring and early summer here. The funny thing is that I have not been complaining about it this year. Am I becoming Dutch? They never complain about the weather  - they just cycle through rain and wind with the smile on their face! In my country of origin Finland we have our share of bad weather but unlike the dutch we deal with it by complaining, getting all melancholic and feeling sorry for ourselfs!

At the beginning of this year it was time to make a big boy quilt to my youngest son. It took a long time to figure out what he likes so I patiently waited until I got it. He loves green! So I bought a big pile of green fabrics, made a plan and started working. Being me I of course changed the plan couple of times along the way. But I have now accepted that it is how my brain works. I just can not follow instructions, not even if I have writen them myself.

Phone pictures...Best I could do for now

After I had pieced the quilt I had a very rare opportunity to spend a whole day home alone! I decided to use the day for free motion quilting this quilt. I have very little experience FMQ and in reality I should stick to practicing on practice pieces - but that is just too boring! With great enthousiam I started in the morning setting everything up only to realise that I had forgot to buy thread. I only had thread in variating shades of blue and yellow to densely quilt my green and yellow quilt. Finally I decided to just use it even though it really would show my beginners quilting.

It was a interesting test. You kind of create a new layer on the fabric and with better skills in FMQ it could really transform a quilt. In my case the result was - like my daughter put it - a bit too sewn on. To finish the quilt later I got my self some green and yellow thread and that worked much better. All in  all I think is a fun quilt and looks nice on my boys bed. It wouldn't win any awards but it serves its purpose and I learned a lot.

I'm a quilter

During 2014 I did not make as much as in previous years and certainly did not blog as much. On that regard I seem to be following the trend, but I hope blogs still are here to stay because I love to read them! But I can see how instagram is enough if you don't have much to say and only want to share your work. I have been commenting less as well, but I would comment much more if somebody would make it easier to do with the smartphone.

Not making as much and not bloggin as often became an un-intentional test - would I drop my sewing hobby all together if I slow down? That has been my fear for as long as I have been sewing. It turns out I won't. I love it and have been sewing through out the year but on a far slower pace. And I like it. It does not quite fit with the internet world of sewing and sharing, but here and there I have noticed that many are ready to slow down a bit. Not just change from blogs to instagram, but you know, maybe watch a TV show and not handsew a binding or knit at the same time. It is amazing how much we quilters and knitters get done. It has been great to make so much during the last four years, but I have reached the point where to just sit and watch a TV show is great too! I also have noticed, that I like to work on a project for a longer period of a time. Let it rest and pick it up again even few years later. Combining these kind of projects with instant satisfaction projects that can be finished in few days seems to be a formula that works best for me.

One of the quick projects that I made this year but did not share yet is my Umbrella Prints challenge entry, only I missed the dead line by one day :( Never mind, it was really fun to make, I really like these kind of challenges!

Even thought I made it in May my inspiration came from Christmas. As much as I like the Carl Larsson type of Christmas musings there is another kind of Christmas magic that gets very little attention. When I was a child we lived in an appartment building and my favourite thing during the dark December month was to look at the Christmas windows of the near by appartment buildings. To me they looked like little happy postcards full of light. So when I was arranging the little pieces of fabric that came to my mind and was my inspiration

Picture taking is still not my strong point. Luckily I had little help this time!

Double Dutch Random Sampler Quilt Along - Block 4

If this is new to you we will start with some introductions:

• you can find the announcement of the Double Dutch Random Sampler QAL here at Lotjes blog. 
• you can find the tutorial for the first block here on her blog. 
• you can find the tutorial for the second block on Muriel's blog here
• you can find the tutorial for the third block on Eva-Marie's blog here
• you can find our dutch modern quilting group "double dutch" on Flickr here- and you can join the QAL on Flickr here

Curves! 

This month we are going to sew curves. It is a bit tricky, but fun to try if only this one time (at the end you can also find a no curves option).

There are of course lots of different ways to sew curves. We are going to make improv curves. For instructions watch this  tutorial. The curved part start about after 6 minutes. There are also other tutorials, pick the one you like best, but do watch a video, that really is the best way to see how it works. 

Here is what you need for 6 inch block:

- two strips of the solid (yellow in my block) measuring 8 x 3"

- one strip of both print fabrics measuring 8 x 3"

That was easy, right?

Then you but one solid and one print strip on top of each other like on the picture above. You don't use the ruler for cutting, I just put it there to keep the pieces in place (not sure that helped much). Keep in mind that the final blocks needs to be 3.5" so don't make the curves too deep.

I have made the measurment generous on purpose, so you can start cutting with straight line (1/2" or so). That way you get an easy start when you start to sew. If you wish you can trim the straight part of when your done. For instructions how to cut please see the youtube video, here is the link again.

Sometimes when I use this method in the end the strips don't match. That's fine, you just trim that off. Here the yellow fabric is also a bit thicker than the print fabric which made it harder to sew, so if possible use same kind of fabric.

When you press the finished strips I like to start on the right side of the fabric so that all weird creases that you sometimes get with curves stay on the back side.

Then you make of each strip two 3.5" blocks, assemble them and sew them together. 

For the quilt I might put my blocks on point.

Please, no curves!

As promised here is a no curves option. Repeat the steps above, but when cutting make a diagonal line with your ruler instead of curves. Quick and easy!

Riot!

Catching up.....

Better never than late... Quilt group Double Dutch has started a Double Dutch Random Sampler QAL!For more info go here here and here. And be sure to go HERE to see Lotje's amazing quilt that was the inital inspiration to start the QAL.

I haven't had time to start yet, but I will be soon! I already have a theme and a "color scheme" for my quilt.

The color inspiration is from a piece of paper I found lying around kids craft table:

And the name and guide line I have chosen for  my quilt is: RIOT! So now I start  to hum this song every time I think about the quilt. I predict a riot!

Blogger’s Quilt Festival - For Me

I started this quilt fall 2012 and only finished it this January. I wanted to make the coziest and softest quilt just for me! The front is voile and back flannel, all Free spirit fabrics from Anna Maria Horner and Joel Dewberry. For batting I chose wool for the first time. Choosing the fabrics was sort of an exercise in letting go of all ideas what I like or don't like and be bold. That is also the reason why it took so long to finish. Every time when I was working on it and started to second guess my choices I stopped and let it rest.

I first quilted it by hand with two shades of blue pearl cotton - also a bold choice for me. To be sure that the quilting was steady I added some simple free moition quilting curls on it. I'm still FMQ beginner so did not dare to try something more advanced.

After all second guessing I really do like this quilt and it every bit as warm and soft to cuddle under as I imagined it would be.

I entered this quilt to Blogger's Quilt Festival in category Original Design Quilts. I though that would be the best category for it - all made and designed for me by me!

Warning! Knitting can cause severe neck pain

At least if you are stupid enough to knit with circular needles that cost €0.70 ($0.96). I was so  eager to start with the follow your arrow kal that I just bought them from a local shop dedicated to anything cheap (Wibra) because they where fastest ones to get. Of course the thread constantly got stucked between the wire and the needle causing lots of frustration and combined with a pattern that I kept getting wrong I managed to hurt my neck and shoulders like never before and the only choice was to stop knitting. This was in February.

Today I decided to try again. Going straight back to Follow you arrow shawl felt too adventurous so I added some rounds to my socks project. So far so good, so I guess I can start knitting again!

Ginny's Yarn along is about knitting and reading. I can not do those simultaneously, but they do occupy the same moments of the day, so there definitely is a link. So since I have not been knitting I have been reading. I read Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies (affiliate links). Really enjoyed the Wolf Hall, but read a bit too fast through Bring up the Bodies to thoroughly enjoy it. That happens to me some times, maybe some leftover from the time when I had to race to finish a book before I needed to take it back to library? I don't know. Anyhow it was a really nice preparation for upcoming vacation in England, so I decided to stay on the island and just started to read good old Agatha Christie. This is how she begins the story:

Yep, I guess that is me :)

Linking with Yarn Along

Yay to Little Projects!

This table runner was so easy and fast to make. I love love love this Anna Maria Horner fabric, it is magical. When the day turns to evening and the light changes so does the fabric with all the lime popping up. And I love poppies and so does the rest of the family, so we are all enjoying my little home improvement project. 

The project was fast, but even better I learned something new! I used a tutorial from Silly BooDilly how to face a quilt which basically means how to have no-binding-binding. My dislike for bindings is not just about the fact that they are hard to make perfect. I often don't like how they look. I don't want to frame my work. So this was just perfect. Since I used a very strong color for  for the back of the quilt it still peeks out a bit, but I like it. Little ray of sunshine coming through.

 I free motion quilted it and it was so much fun! Have to have more of that. 

What a perfect little project. Makes me happy! 

Purge

To decide what not to do. There are so many things I would love to do and be able to do and last year I feel I was jumping to do this and that resulting not getting that much done. So it is time to let go of something and for me it is garment sewing.

My secret plan last year was to make a me made wardrobe and take part in me made may. I spent hours and hours sewing a fancy dress for a wedding starting with a muslin version first and doing everything the best I knew how. And it did not fit! I pulled it out of the closet just to get a picture for you, but did not bother to iron.

It is not possilbe to talk about garment sewing without mentioning your breast size, is it? Well my issue is that I'm kind of busty and not very long. L is too long and too wide on the shoulders, M is tight on the bust. Buying fancy dresses is a challenge so it would have been so cool to be able to make my own. Turns out that being busty means that patterns will not fit you either and adjustments are a big hassle. I'm not enjoying the process. I just want the damn dress.

I also tried a skirt. Hours and hours of hand sewing...and I don't like the fit. It was from the Alabama Chanin book and I blogged about the making of it here in 2012. After three pregnancies I'm over sensitive about looking pregnant, but still I think the cut accentuate the tummy area in a unflattering way. Of course I noticed that only when I was already done. Also I lost some weight and in the end it was too big. Frustrating. (not the loosing last off baby fat, but spending hours on sewing something that does not fit). Here a small blurry photo of it taken by phone by my then 4 year old. I know, the tummy looks OK here, but there are some other pictures...

Even though I'm throwing in the towel I do enjoy looking at other people's creations and process. I found it fascinating how little changes alter the whole look and how something fits. I love the whole process of creating your own look. But for now I will admire from distance and  put my own creative energies elsewhere. 

After I had wrote the first draft of this post I read Jennifer Louden's blog post about finding your creative medium. Interesting read for sure!

Letter I

I is for Inspiration

I think I was talking about trying to make some smaller projects to feel more accomplished? So now I'm dreaming of big quilts with big shapes....Women can change her mind, right?

I'm dreaming making lot of big triangles and then just play with them. This would however demand a lot of fabric so why not think big and then make a small version of it? Inspriration from here and here and some other places that I can't remember anymore. I think this would be easier with an ruler, but maybe I can just make a template? I still have some template plastic from my first quilt course that I took in 2010. Still haven't finished that quilt.

I'm also thinking about to make something very minimalistic and then add a very dense and busy free motion quilting. Inspiration came from here.

Sugar Block Club January - Intention

I is for Intention

To make this happen, or even to make some of it happen I really need to be more intentional with my time -which was the team of first Sugar Block Club block. I'm so glad that I participated. I made my blog at the beginning of the month and it does give me an accomplished feeling to know that at least I did that.

My plan for the Sugar Blocks is to use a lot of yellow with some orange and green accents. I have wanted to make a yellowish quilt with traditional blocks for the longes time and it is finally happening, yay!

I'm starting to think that key to planning is not only to decide what you do but also what you don't do. I really look forward to working with my "old fabric quilt" (I need a catchier name for that) but have been very strict with myself - that project is for february. This keeps me from feeling too busy and using less time wondering "what shall I do" when I actually have time to do something. 

Good Things in Life that Begin with Letter S

S is for Socks. 

Woolen socks that is. I don't have any strong feelings about other kind of socks. I asked from Santa sock yarn and look what I got! Will keep my hands busy for a while. I finally decoded the heel and have put together my own sock pattern that I like. I'm testing it now with the purple one and will post it here when I know for sure that it works. It is nothign special, just a easy to remember formula so that I don't have to look for a pattern every time I want to make socks.

We got finally Netflix here in the Netherlands in September and that is now how I spent my evenings when I should be folding laundry  - watch Netflix and knit. Makes for guilt-free TV watching because I'm actually doing something at the same time. 

S is for the Signature of All Things

Love love love loved it! There is so many things in this book that resonated with me. I don't know even where to start. I won't put any spoilers here but I must say that I was happy not to have read anything about the book before I read it myself. So this is not a book review and maybe not about the book at all. It is more a list of thoughts that the book evoke in me and you probably learn more about me than the book.

I loved the book because it reminded me how I loved nature programs on TV, visiting botanical gardens and dreamed of traveling to remote places, to live on an remote island and study whales, explore the world and of course being dissapointed that there where no white spots on the map anymore in 1980s. 

It also reminded me why I stopped dreaming about those things. I got older and realised the horrors of the white mans explorations, stopped believing in the importans of science and felt that nature does not need us to study it and that I certanly did not have the need to do it. I was just looking for an excuse to sit on a boat and watch whales all day. 

And then it reminded me why I don't really want to be on that remote island, how I in the end dreamed "..to live withing humanity's most recent moment, at the cusp of invention and progress". 

And finally I loved the Dutch connection and the fact that in less that an hour I can visit some of the places she talks about in the book.

In Elizabeth's own words the mega success of Eat Pray and Love paid for this book. If you ever get your hands on big amounts of money I could not think of a better way to spend it! 

Linking wiht yarn along

2014

I'm back from the Christmas holiday that was very relaxing even though some of it was wasted on a nasty cold. I was very exited to get back home and make plans for the coming year. I have also chosen a word for the year, and this time it is:

CONNECTION

At first I thought of making some kind of recap of the previous words, but then this one just came to my mind and felt perfect. I will however incorporate the previous words to this one. Connection guided by trust, joy and confidence. 

To more concrete plans for this year I signed up for Follow your arrow mystery kal and that will be my knitting challenge for this year. Otherwise I will continue making socks. I finally tackled the heel ;) More about that on another post. 

What it comes to quilting my first goal is to continue with a quilt that I started in September made of all kind of old fabrics from my childhood home. Can't wait! Secondly I got very inspired by all the hand made gifts during December and I'm hoping to make some small projects like table runners and quilted tote bags. I'm finally able to free motion quilt thanks to my husband who build my machine an extension table and with little projects I can start to play rigth away and don't have to wait for a whole quilt top to be finished. 

I would also like to feel a bit more accomplished this year which makes little projects perfect. Accomplished rather than productive even though I'm always envious to really productive people. What I do not want is to feel busy, so it is a fine balance. Will see how it goes. 

Maybe a bit belated, but Happy New Year! 

Time for an Update

I'm sure that you are all wondering what ever happen to the socks? And what about the garden? Anything going on there?

But first I want to share my reading. I read....War and Peace! All the 1440 pages, although my e-version did of course not have any pages and without it I could have never done it because I physically could not have carried it around with me like I do my e-reader. That said it was an easy read, it really was. Again Goodreads has a great review of the book, although unlike the reviewer I did like the first epilogue, but would also skip the second one (although I did read it just to be able to say that I read all of it).

I did enjoy the book although not nearly as much as Anna Karenina. I did realise reading the book, that when I was younger and reading books like crazy, the stories where about people older than me and what the characters where experiencing was something that might happen to me in the future. Now my life is at that point where the characters will end up at the end of the book. When did that happen?

I just started Elizabeth Gilbert's the Signature of All Things and my first thought only after one page was "she has had some much fun writing this!" and then I got a link somewhere to this interview and about the first thing she says is how much she enjoyed writing it! And then I stopped watching and will watch the rest after I have read the book. 

So that is all on the book department. Moving on to the socks. 

I did manage to finish them with dozen little errors. I already started a second pair with the different set of instructions, but the heel remains a mystery for me. I do not get it how I'm suppose to pick the amount of stitches from the sides the pattern calls for, so, again, I must do something wrong. I'm thinking of unraveling these and start again with yet another instruction. I want to be able to make socks with little effort watching TV at the same time (in fact that is what I'm doing now as well which might be part of the problem). I love woolen sock and wear them all the time and everybody I know likes them too, so it would be great to be able to do these and give as gifts.

The garden has been a disaster this year, nothing wants to grow except the jerusalem artichoke, which is a pretty plant I must say with is yellow flowers. We harvested it this Sunday. With child labor so readily available it was a piece of cake. 

Now I have to cook, puree and freeze them. But I want to grow other things as well. I thing I need to replace the soil entirely to get there. Better luck next year and I'm truly greatful that my family is in no way depending on my gardening skills for food.

Linking with Yarn along


And Keep Calm Craft on

Baby Quilts and Strawberry Pirates

The cake dilemma - do you go for a taste or the looks? My oldest son turned 5 and has been for the past six months tormented with the question: pirate cake or strawberry cake? Luckily I could find fresh strawberries and a giant marsipain strawberry and this is how I solved the dilemma:

This one was so tastey that I did not have time to take more pictures before it was eaten. I made a standard cake with this recipe: 6 eggs, weihgt them, add 0.7 x the weight of the eggs sugar, beat until very firm, gently add the same amount of flour as you added sugar. Let bake in 175 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

For the filling I let frozen strawberries and raspberries to soften in the roomtemperature just so that I could puree them and mixed with 200ml suger. I filled the cake with the berry puree and whipped cream and let it stay in the fridge for a night. Whipped cream and strawberries to decorate and done! So simple and so tasty!

In September I did a last minute decision to make a baby quilt for my friends baby. Last minute because I started on the day the baby was born. I was inspired by Rachel's Pixie Churns quilt but after making five Churn Dash blocks I had no desire or time to make more of those. So the rest of the blocks are improve blocks made around scraps that I had from the Anna Maria Horner sleep sack. The are voile and I think it might be quite nice for the little baby fingers to feel the difference of textur.

Attempt to free motion quilt. It was fun but I do need some kind of quilting table from my machine. 

From Gold to Gray

In October I spent a week in Finland visiting family. I can't remember the last time I have been there in October and I was so glad to enjoy the last faces of the autumn foliage. All the red had already fallen but the golden still stayed. Combined with the October afternoon sun it was magical. Between running after kids and spending time in shopping malls I sneak out to the forest one afternoon and tried to catch some of the magic with my not so great phone camera. The results are quite bad but after some tweaking I still want to share them. The sun was so bright but the pictures are so hazy. Finnish artist Anna Emilia has some great picture from about the same time on her blog.

On the other side of the world Ara Jane has made a beautiful blog post of October that looks like the fall here in the Netherlands. What a lovely month it is! After the cold spring I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought that we would go straight back to the grey after summer so this has been a really lovely suprise! Now if I only could be able to find the beauty in November...

When I was dragging my children to a walk in the forest my oldest asked me why I always want to go there. I told her that I'm actually a troll that went to live with humans when I was a baby. She didn't believe me. But if that had been the case I would have lived around the big stone seen in the last picture.

My Space

I'm of course talking about my sewing space. Because I'm lucky that way and actually have my own table in a small attic room that I share with my husband.

For some time I have been avoiding that space. As I share it with my husband, I was conveniently blaming him for it. Like he keeps the space so messy that I don't enjoy being there and that kind of stuff (very mature, I know). After visiting a friend who just had created the same for herself - her own space - and being really exited about it I realised how lucky I am to have that space and it is up to me to make something of it. Laura's post at little and lots was also very inspirational. Celebrate what you have!

I'm a complete coward and do not have before pictures. All I can say it was messy, unorganized and ugly.

The thing most bothering me was the desk being so unattractive. Now it is covered with Anna Maria Horner's laminate and I feel so much better! I want to cover the desk with it properly but that is a bigger project since the desk is attached to the wall. This works however surprisingly well.

I also put my little precious stash on display so I can see it and enjoy it. All the unfinished projects and fabrics that I rarely use went to the storage under the roof.

The most surprising realisation for reorganising my creative space was that I feel more peaceful if non-sewing related administrative stuff is easily accessible. Before I had all binders tuck away on the lowest shelve and if I needed them it became an instant mess because I had to go through a pile of unfinished projects that were piled on the same shelve. It is so much better now when I can just pick up a binder, do what needs to be done, put it back and continue with the fun stuff.

Heels and Waves

I had such a grand knitting plans for the summer holidays. I brought with my knitting back planning to finish the second sock for my husband and after that start a new one for myself and maybe finish the whole pair. And then I got to the first heel and argh, frustration! It really should not be that difficult but either the description I'm following has a fault in it (I doubt that) or I just don't get it. I did managed to make a heel to the first sock but it did not go smoothly. I should try to find another explanation and see if it makes more sense to me.

As I tend to knit or read I managed to read quite a lot. I read Alex Munthe's The Story of San Michele and enjoyed it. I also read Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers and it was nice but maybe a bit too light. Maybe everything feels light after reading only classics. What I was suppose to read was Waves by Virginia Woolf, but I just can not get through it. I read somewhere that you should read it like poetry. That would explain it since I have never really learned how to read poems. I guess I don't have the patience for it. Maybe one day I will get there. Tackle the heels and the waves.

Linking with yarn along