Day one

As you can see I made a start on my plan for a rotating UFO vs more exiting things system. I have marked them 1-7. As you can see nr 3 is missing. That is quilting my quilt that is in my frame now.

This is the progress after day nr one. I did some work on making HST, my cardigan, my quilting and my crochet. So today I am going to start with project nr 5, which is the same as nr 1.

Project nr 1 is making HST for a special gift. It is going to be a quilt for my brother. I hope I can keep it a suprise untill Christmas. I found the pattern of the quilt on a blog called Quilting Twin.  She really does some amazing work. Here is the quilt I will be making for my brother that can be found in her archive. It is the “star” blocks from the first entry on that page. I am going to make it in blue’s and beige colors. So I have cut everyting I just need to piece 500 HST. The reasson why I have it in my list twice is because I would love to get the HST done, so I can start the more fun part of piecing it together. The 22nd of September I will be going to go on a weekendquilt marathon. I am allowed to borrow my friends machine that weekend to do the quilting. She has this great machine which has a bigger area  between the arm of the machine and the needle making it easier to machine quilt. So I am hoping to get the top done untill then.

Well that is all for today. I am going to start on nr 5 …HST.

Barbara

want to join me?

The thing is that I have “some” unfinished projects. They are almost done, but the novelty has worn of. I have new things in my head and in my sewingcloset. I just know the satisfaction I will get of finishing it, and how much less guilt I will feel when I start these new projects. But still it is hard to get started

So I have heard of this idea before on some other blog…a rotating system. In theory I think I will be able to do some of the old things if I have some new things or more fun things to do after the borring stuff.  So I will try and work out a scedule where I rotate borring with fun stuff in one hours secments. I can do one hour of borring things,…..right?

So this is the plan so far:

1: doing some HST for a special project

2: knitting my cardigan

3: quilting my diamonds quilt

4: crochet my ripple blanket

5: my “girls day out” quilt

6: the HST Triangles again

7: my baby Double Wedding Ring quilt as a try-out for the real quilt

I think this is my list…so far…*lol* I might find some more UFO’s as I am working in my quiltroom.

So this would be cool to do with other people on-line, as a september project. You might have some UFO’s too..

Let me know…

Barbara

P.s this is the result of my first try on the cardigan.. Yeah I un-did the whole thing. So I will be making new balls of wool tonight.

 

Welsh trapunto

In Birmingham I went to a meeting/workshop breakfast gathering organised by the Welsh Quilt Guild. It was wonderfull. We were in a conferance room. In the middle were tables where you could sit, have breakfast and try and solve some quiltrelated quizes.

At the sides of the room there were different tables with demonstations. I learned the beginnings of trapunto and loved it. So I just finished my fist practice piece and it turned out well. It is the pattern of a Welsh lovespoon. I am now looking for some other models as examples and will try to make my own pattern, but we will see how that goes.

I have started this small ripple blanket some time ago, and I think the time has come to try and finish it. It has some really cool colours and is quite bright and happy.

Last week I went to Stockholm for some shopping. I forgot to tell you…but…We bought a house a few weeks ago. I went to Laura Ashley to look at some wallpaper and found some nice ones. We also went to a scrapbookingstore that seems to have some really nice classes this autumm. I also went to some englishbookstores and bought some cool books. Yesterday I borrowed the latest Harry Potter book from the library…so now I am kinda stuck reading that…lol

Well, Back to the reading the book. We are having a pyamas sunday…

have a great sunday too!

Barbara 

The trip …

hi!

 I have been back from the trip for some days now and had a lot of fun. I met Celine, Cathi and Sherry and we had a wonderfull time. We bought a new computer so it took some time to get online again.

I bought some great fabrics and made this antique looking quilttop. Most of the fabrics where bought at Petra Prins . This is a close-up of the quilt. The white patches are a lace kind of fabric.

Last Sunday we had a sewingday at my house and we exchanged summergifts. We drew names months ago and had to make a gift for them. I made these 2 small bags.

 

I got a small bag as well (but forgot to take a picture) and a small cat made with needlefelting and he holds a small pincusion in his hands:

Other then that  I am quilting my diamondsquilt and hope to get finished soon so I can start quilting my antique looking quilt.

bye! 

One for Cathi, One for me

I am of to the quiltfestival in Birmingham soon. I am leaving in 3 hours for the airport. I am so looking forward to it. I made these 2 bags. One is for my friend Cathi, and the hexagon bag is for me.

Here is a picture of Cathi’s bag:

I also make these bags for others, so if you would like to order one please contact me for prices and so on.

Of to Birmingham!

Bye

The golf quilt

Hi!

 I wrote 2 weeks ago (sorry about that) about the golf quilt I was making for my DH. It was a miracle but I did get it finished on time. 

I used a pattern called Garden twist. The pattern was fun and fast. I made the quilt into a quillow. It was so funny because I gave my DH the quilt as the pillow and it took him some time to discover that it was a quilt.

This is what the quillow looked like:

The quilt:

A close-up:

I also made a quilt for the shop I work:

 

So I am now writing the pattern for the quilt, so that starting quilters can get a good pattern of this easy to make quilt.

The last weeks have been quite hectic. We are looking at new houses and I have been doing some quilting and been outside a lot as well. I have also been making some small make-up bags for a friend at work, but forgot to take a picture before I gave it away.  I am also giving classes again this fall, so I am making instructions and samples for that.

But the biggest news at this moment is: I AM GOING TO THE BIRMINGHAM QUILT FESTIVAL!! I can’t wait to go….just 13 days left..*lol*

Hugs Barbara

SHHHHHHHHHH, don’t tell anyone…

 Me, my husband and Aisling and Aine, Cathy’s children at our visit in Ireland…Oh and    BIBI ofcourse!(the blanket that Aisling is holding)

My sweet dear husband came home 2 days ago with roses and told me..today it is 5 years ago since we met. So this weekend we have been an offical couple for 5 years, and he has informed me that a table is booked together with some cinematickets… Sweet huh? Except I had totally forgotten about it….help!!???

So now I am making him a quilt, it is quite hard to keep it a secret, but I hope to finish it before the weekend… He is a golfer, so I have been collecting fabrics for some time now. Yesterday my friend Helena showed me a pattern and I just knew this was the one.

So I am now panicsewing this quilt….I’ll be back after the weekend with a picture!

The strawberry dream pie

Okay, lets start today with this heavenly strawberry pie. It has real strawberries in it and a marrengue lime topping. This is not a dieet approved pie, but it is so good. 

You will need:

2.5 dl of flower without bakingpouder in it, 2 spoons of sugar, 100 grams of butter and 1 spoon of water. Mix all this together untill you get a dow that you can press with your fingers into a pieform. Leave it for 30 minutes in the fridge and then put it in the oven for 15 minutes on 200 degrees C.

1/2 a liter of fresh strawberries, 1/2 a dl of suggar and 1 spoon of potatoflower. Wash all the strawberries and make sure they are really really dry! If the are not dry before you put them into the piecrust they will make the hole bottom of the pie go wet and moist. Here in Sweden we have outside grown big juicy strawberries, so I leave them whole to avoide it all getting too wet in the oven. If you have greenhouse produced strawberries which don’t have the same amount of juice in them you can slice them up. Dry the strawberries on some paper kitchentowels and add the sugar and the potatoflower.

3 eggs, 1 dl of sugar, 1 peel of a lime graded into small pieces. Mix 3 eggwhites together so you get a really hard marrengue and add the limepeel and the sugar to it.

Put the strawberries in the pieform that has allready been in the oven, add the marrengue on top. Leave it in the oven at 200 degrees C for 5-8 minutes untill the marengue has gotten a nice color!

Enjoy!

At our cottage we have a lot of problems with mosquitos and wasps so I made this net around our porch, so we can sit there in the evenings. It worked prefectly. We always had to get inside at 6 in the evening allready because of all the bites, but now we could sit outside all night!

I also made some new cussions and things for the inside benches:

As I wrote in my last post, I am working on a cardigan for myself. I had come a long way on the back of the cardigan, but it had become to small. So I started over today on bigger needles:-(( But I am still working on it.

 

In the woodshed in at the cottage we had this really nice old sewingmachine. So I have taken it home with me and I am going to try and restore it…paint the ironbottom and the wood. The machine is still working, but the leather strap is missing. I’ll let you know how it goes…*lol*

I am going to try and relax tonight and sit in front of the tv and watch Murders in Midsommer. It is an Enligsh series that I used to love. The newer parts are not so good but still really nice. So I am going to sit down, have a baileys and do some quilting.

Of to the TV!

Barbara 

Ps…sorry…spellchecker is not working today!

Back from holiday!

hi!

I am back from my Holiday..so finally a new blog post!

Before my Holiday my cousin Andrea came to visit me. I introduced her to quilting 3 years ago and she does some amazing work. She doesn’t do any quilting by machine but everything by hand. She has just moved in with her Boyfriend and had some trouble with storing all her things, so I made her a case, and one for me as well.

My cat found this all very interesting and wanted to “help” )

When Andrea was here I showed her how to make zippers and small bags, so she made this small sewing caddy:

The inside looked like this. She was only visiting for 3 days so we didn’t finish it all but :

She also did her first machine sewing and she sewed all the pieces for these 2 quilts and I did all the cutting:

 We started at 15:00 on Monday and on Thursday at 11:00 they were done! We used the Square in a Square technique.

On Holiday at the cabin I did a lot of crafting. I finished this cute baby sweater:

I started working on this cardigan for me:

I also did a lot of quilting on my diamonds-quilt and I am now halfway!….yeah…*lol*

 

Well that is the update for today. I have done some other things ass well…like: a strawberry dream pie and I will give you the recipe later, cushions and stuff for the cottage porch and some Dear Jane as well. You can already go to my flickr album to see the pics if you want!

Bye for now!

Barbara

Pink and Barbara

Hi!

Welcome to my new blog Pink and Barbara. I hope you will stay a while and look around in the different areas and maybe even leave me a comment!

About me:

My name is Barbara, 28 years old, Dutch and living in Sweden with my Swedish husband and my cute cat Zingo. Mainly I am a crafter and love to blog to show others what I am doing, but also to get in contact with fellow crafters. I currently work in a craft-shop called Panduro. It is a chain that is located in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and also in the UK. I work mostly in the fabric department and love it!

So what do I do…

My main interest is still quilting, but I have rediscoverd knitting and crochet and also scrapbooking has started taking up my crafting time. I also like to organise and am now working on my yearly Afternoon Tea Party the 17 of June. I have organised some swaps and exchanges before and have some more ideas for swaps in the near future…

 Some may know me from my former Blog: quiltbarbara.blogspot.com , so if you would like to see more of my older projects there is a big archive there.

 I hope you like spending some time here…and will visit me again…

Barbara