Hexagons in progress.

This winter I started a new quilt project, because that is what we all should do in the winter. Nest, be cozy, start big projects and drink tea.

I’m using the hexagon shape and paper piecing, a slow hand-stitching process I like. I think this quilt will be in subtle pinks and browns… And I know it will be a long term project. It’s already resting, but I’ve got a whole lot of cut paper pieces and some fabrics in a pile that I might use. Not really thinking about it right now, but looking at these photos I’m dreaming of how beautiful it will be - one day.

Did you know that Sustainable happiness, happiness that is more permanent, unchangeable from external events, come from three keys: good friends, good family, and long-term projects, according to one Yale professor Bloom. And this one is looong-term project perfect to sew on among family and friends, but don’t expect progress this month. ;-)

External Link: Quilt inspiration at the blog Comfort Stitching, a favorite of mine.

My second quilt is brown. I’ve been mixing beautiful rosy fabrics with my collection of brown ones.

I have a thing for browns. Maybe it has something to do with being born in the seventies, when everything was dark brown, with hints of orange. Back then even living room walls here in Sweden (where everything gets depressingly dark in the winter) was painted brown. No matter what design trends will be born in the future I don’t think I could ever paint my walls brown, or any dark colour for that matter. But still, I do enjoy hues of brown a lot. So for quite a while I was collecting thrifted fabrics with browns in them, for this wee quilt project. And now I’ve recycled them into something that is useful, warm and very much finished!

I don’t think you remember, but I actually started this project back in January 2007, but never finished it then… The brown quilt top have been folded away in one of many plastic containers around here, all full of fabric and scraps of fabric. But as you can see from the photo evidence it is now a gloriously finished project, paired with a pink backside fabric with white dots and a romantic edge fabric that I’m quite found of.

The two quilts I’ve made in my life so far, hanging outside in the sun together. One pink and one brown!

Instead of finishing the Brown Squares Quilt I started and finished a Pink Striped Quilt (and quite a few quilted log cabin pillows) in 2008. Both my quilts are simple and quick (even if I’m a rather slow quilter), with no patterns used. I call them my TV-quilts, perfect to snuggle under while watching a good movie and doing some embroidery. Cozy! Can’t watch anything comfortably if I don’t have a cozy blanket or quilt to roll up under!
Here is a view of the pink polka dot backside:

And some snaps from the quilt corner and edge sewing:

I tried another version of folding in the corner than before, it’s called mitered corners. I just winged it and these are a bit more fancy but not difficult. Next time I’ll try to do them following any of the tutorials that come up when searching for “quilt corner tutorial” for example, like this mitered corner video tutorial.

It’s time. Let’s have a I-Finished-A-Project-Celebration^TM and do a Little Happy Dance! Join me!

If you don’t feel like dancing, please have a cookie:

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I’ve attended about forty minutes of a quilting workshop right here in my home which was both convenient and fun. Previously I’ve been enjoying all kinds of creative videos on Youtube so I already knew I enjoy watching others be creative. I think it’s inspiring, especially if I don’t have the energy to create something myself but still want to indulge in creativity. Also lately other shows by Coloricious on the online Country Channel, but more about that later.

Now it’s time to review the DVD Inspired Printing & Patchwork with Jamie Malden (presenter) and Mary Gamester (quilting teacher)! This is the first Workshop DVD I’ve ever seen and I love it! I hope it’s the first in a big inspiring collection!

In the Inspired DVD series you will find video workshops on various textile techniques. The printing is done with non-specified fabric paint and Indian wooden blocks with interesting looking patterns! These DVD:s are published by the company Coloricious and behind that name is Jamie Malden and Holly Pulsford who also teaches and introduces guest teachers in their workshops!

In this DVD Jamie talks about colour theory in length and I would even say it’s the biggest lesson in there. After reading Julia Caprara’s great book Exploring color this DVD came in just in time! Jamie shows how colors works together and talks about primary and complimentary colours as well as warm and cold colours. She also shows pages from her Mood Book. It’s a spiral bound notebook with black pages made into a Color Theory Book. There is a spread for each main color followed by a spread per complimentary colour combination. Each spread shows a diverse collage of different papers (painted or ripped from magazines/advertising) and even items glued in. The book is so inspirational! When my mom, who is a quilter, had watched the DVD she set out to make her own inspiration book! I’m inspired by her book and by Jamie’s.

Just as Julia Caprara states; experimenting with colors is great fun!

The quilting that is made is fairly easy and aimed at the beginner that wants to get started quilting. I’ve explored all the styles that Mary Gamester shows, and didn’t learn anything new from these segments except her technique on folded circle patches. You’ll learn strip patchwork, log cabin square and crazy patchwork! If you want to start quilting I think this is a great DVD to purchase, you can watch it over and over again, and as a bonus you’ll learn both color theory and printing your own fabrics.

It’s the printing and making your own fabrics that I’m most interested in as a mixed media artist. There are many possibilities and endless of products to try out! Just watching something like this gives me energy to start, and that is a good testimonial from me!

Recourses Quilting Inspiration

• Mary Gamester’s homepage - textile artist presenting her work. My favorite is her beautiful quilt Tulips at Chenies! Wow, right?!
• Coloricious homepage - information about the DVD’s they sell etc.
• Inspired Printing & patchwork - buy it online and check out images from the DVD projects
• The Colouricious Blog - info about what’s going on over there
• My Book Review Page - check out the must-own-books too!

Here is a short preview of what’s on this DVD:

Buy this DVD here!

Oh, and if you’re like me and love crazy quilting you should check out Diana Trout’s interview with Susan Cohen. I love crazy quilting because you don’t need to think about straight or “correct”, hehe. Have you tried it yet?

Two artists I adore

Oh, and what creative DVD’s are your favorite ones? On my wish list right now are Alisa Burke’s Expression Session Creating Vivid Mixed-Media Fabric by Interweave and Collage-Acrylic Paint Pizzazz (Collage Techniques for Paper and Fabric) with Sherrill Kahn, by Creative Catalyst Productions Inc.! Oh my. Want.these.now!

Go to Alisa’s blog and Sherrill’s homepage and you’ll understand why I love these two artists - they create beautiful things!

Green buttons, green fabric.

Here is photo of the whole thing from above, it’s not giant, but not small either:

What you get for helping out with quilting and sewing:

Homemade chocolate! Deeeelicious!

When someone I know are really creative and does cool things I sometimes have to share that on my blog though I primarily blog about what I create and do here. I’ve blogged many times about my quilting mom and her creations and mentioned my cousin Charlotta and her beautiful Sculptural Lamp before. Now we’re back with another school project from Charlotta!

It’s a inspirational quilt with lots of photos that I call The Landscape Quilt. She came to me with the background fabric, the idea and found photos printed and ironed to fabric.

We put it together in 1.5 day and today I thought I’d show you how to make a Photo Inspiration Quilt on your own, weather you are Landscape Architect or not! I want to make one for me too, but it took a lot of time to make it, so I will store it in my pile of great ideas one day to be…

1. Chose a theme. Our theme is nature - inspiration for a landscape/garden. Yours could be your own garden, your family, knitting (adding yarns too), kids, postcards and letters that you scan and print, artists you admire, rainbow colors or a collection of photos from a trip or holiday. Anything, the sky is the limit!

2. Print your photos onto fabric in some way (there are a lot of products to chose from) and cut them all out.

3. Background fabric. Plain white or very light is good if you want your photos to “pop”. Though we thought that just adding the photos would be a bit boring and “photo album like” so we decided to add already (rotary) cut fabric strips to add a bit of color. The stripes are mostly nature greens and soft colors.

4. Pin each fabric strip down and start sewing.

Trying to fit a quilt into a regulare sewing machine is, as you might know, hard! It’s a lot of work, turning, sewing, moving all that fabric through and then sewing again. Drink water, take breaks.

5. Place the photos where you want them! After all the background stripes were attached we went back to “the drawing table” ie. the floor, and added another layer - the photos printed on fabric.
-Where should this one go, where does that one fit in? Some where left out, all couldn’t fit!

Photos on fabric - yummy inspiration!

6. Pin the photos in place. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but there are special needles for quilting. They are longer and have bigger heads. They are great for when you pin together several layers to quilt together. We added the batting at this stage too, so when attaching the photos with a straight stitch on the sewing machine we also quilted the layers together!

7. Time to sew again!

We took turns sewing, because there were lots of images and wrestling with the fabric.This is my cousin doing some serious stitching on the sewing machine.

Then I had a go at it, sewing some:

And this is where we decided to take a beak for the day and eat something. I hope you will be inspired to make your own photo quilt! I will post the finishing result photos of the Landscape Quilt next week!

If you want to sign up for the DIY Postcard Swap do it right now, I will close it a bit earlier than announced because I’m going away this week end. Sign up ends Thursday night! Check out the tumblr blog Good Mail Day for postal inspiration!

Yes, it’s time for a tutorial, don’t you think? I promised this one when I made balls early this summer and quite a few of you were interested in learning how to make this pretty toy! I have had it on my to do-list since then but haven’t come around to actually sitting down and creating a tut start to finish, mostly because it takes a few hours to do it. But yeah, today I finally did it!

Playful - a toy ball for my cousin Jennifer.

I’m doing this today not only because I’ve promised to do this tutorial but as a gesture of thankfulness for what you give to me. It’s free to download, print and use - right now! I bet you have all the “ingredients” at home already!? Also as a part of the August crusade with the theme: Pay it forward:

Think about what you are grateful for - a kindness of some kind that has been directed your way, and then think about how you can honor that kindness by paying it forward to someone else.
/Michelle Ward

I’ve already expressed some gratitude this month by sending off small gifts in the mail. And today I’ve scanned, worked in InDesign and tried to find words to correctly describe how to make one! Please let me know if it’s confusing or if you have some tips! I used the layout that I created for my first PDF tutorial How to make decoupage magnets, but with some modifications (improvements). I had fun until it was time to save it and it said dash argument invalid, but that’s fixed now! I hope you like it!? Let me know!

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Hey! Are you looking for wedding images from Maria’s wedding? look here and please let me know what you think. Tack på förhand!

What is it with me and log cabin pillows? I just love making it!

I’ve made a new batch with the leftovers from my pink quilt!

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When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I have not a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’
/Erma Bombeck

As promised, here is mom and the blue quilt she made alongside with me! I decided to make a pink quilt out of stripes as shown previously and she made hers is blue because;

1) she loves anything blue
2) it’s her signature color and pink is mine
3) mom has very many blue patterned fabrics in her stash
and
4) she was inspired when I was inspired and so we made similar quilts! Inspiration is contagious as you might know. Being around inspired people is the best thing to get your brain working. One of my favorite things to do is to inspire others, that is one of many reasons why I still come back and write this blog.

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It is finished!

My pink quilt is finished!

It’s a bundle of love when it is folded like that, and spread out on the floor it is a feast for the eye. I think I’ve used almost every pink fabric that we have and I love love love it!

This is the third and last part of The making of a Quilt, a bit of a tutorial and a bit of documenting the process.
The other parts in this series are
1) The making of a quilt - Starting is easy
2) The making of a quilt - Sewing it together
plus some thoughts in 2½) a drink in the veranda

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When I sit down by the computer to write I think about craft and art. I think about sewing, embroidery, how to make little polymer clay flowers that I’ve sketched, painting on fabric, taking photos of pillows I’ve finished, drawing princesses in my Art Journal or something else I want to try right now.

Then, when I settle down with a project I come up with these great blog entries and I write them inside my head. I have titles, themes, photos and sentences set up in my head but when I come back to the computer…

I sit down and start surfing, clicking around and forget to write and what I was wanting to write about! And the weather is nice again so I want to make stuff but be outside so I…

Oh well…

Today I took mom’s sewing machine out for a spin. I’m sewing together even more stripes for the quilt, now it’s the border I’m making. It will be one long stripe of different fabrics. I took this photo with the self-timer on my camera.

I’ve gotten so many nice comments on my recent posts, and I haven’t written to any of you to say thanks. I’m writing in my newly opened Moleskine diary in the morning and reading great books during the day. I need to write a couple of reviews to tell you about them too!

My view if I look up. In my ears I have CraftCast show with Tonya Davidson that I hadn’t listened too (oh now I want to go to her art shop and buy stuff to try soldering and resin but instead I’m going here to order Moleskine Pocket Japanese Accordian Album because I’m going to be in a Moly x-change and I’m thrilled about that, plus I hadn’t looked at this Accordion Moleskine book and I think it looks like so much fun to fill one of those!) and CraftSanity podcast show number 76 with an interview with knitting book authors Larissa and Martin that wrote the book Knitalong (it has so many nice patterns in it, I want it!).

Yeah.

And while sewing you need a drink girls! I swear, it just gets better that way. This is my favorite pre-dinner drink in the summer time. It’s called Åkesson and it’s from Italy, I think? Hm.

Then we had dinner.

Summer dinners are the best!

And Miss Smilla the cat?

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