Diagon Alley

It's fun time when Amy invites us all to take part in the Bloggers Quilt Festival. Welcome to all of you!

I want to share my recently finished "Diagon Alley". You may recognize this from one of Kaffe Fassets book ... I was lucky to see the original quilt at one of his lectures before the pattern was published. And I fell completely in love!

This is the biggest quilt I have attempted hand-quilting. With help from Anne Rønningen, I got it basted on thin cotton (Quilters Dream Request). Then I spent hours stitching with perle cotton. The quilt is soft and not too heavy. I am so pleased to have finished it. The size makes it a challenge to take a decent picture. Even my husbands long arms was struggling to hold this one!

Showing a pre-quilted picture.

And a picture of the finished top before quilting. Not sure if I will ever try hand-quilting another one this size. It finished at 80" * 85". So it's big enough to share with a friend...

Thank you for stopping by! Please enjoy more quilts from the Blogger Quilt Festival, and let yourself be inspired...

; )

wordless wip wednesday

friday finish

Half a year ago, we had a challenge at my quilt guild. We brought a fat quarter of a challenge / ugly fabric, and then swapped. This week we brought the results for show and tell.

I was lucky to get this fun halloween print with witch hats and pumpkins. It was a nice big piece, so I ended up using it for the bars in this coin table runner. The rest of fabric are scraps from my Ghastly spiderweb and a halloween themed charm pack.

The runner ended up 22" * 46".

This chinese coins / bars variation is a fun and versatile pattern, and I have been using it a lot lately. I love to add a bit of asymmetry to the layout.

Wish you all a lovely weekend!

wordless wip wednesday

the misfits

these are the ones

that didn't get to go

trick or treating

with the rest of the bunch from last years Halloween quilt.

october finish

After a year in the making, my Ghastly spiderweb quilt is ready to be used. And today I'm happy to share some pictures:

A blue sky and sun has been rare around here lately. The sun bleaches out the colors a bit on the pictures...

For a while I was planning to do hand-quilting with big stitches and perle cotton. I ended up quilting this by machine, following the edges of the webs and extending the lines across the border.

This last picture shows the quilting from the back. A "photo - strip" is incorporated with two Hope Valley prints. I was a bit short on this backing fabric, and had to be very frugal making the back big enough. Basting a quilt with a small back is no fun, so I'll try to avoid that next time. The quilt measures 58" * 74". I used Quilters Dream cotton batting, again...

Outside, the trees are looking more and more like the mix of green and orange in this quilt. There's no doubt about it fall is here! Hopefully this weekend we'll see some more of the blue sky.

Thank you all for leaving me such nice comments on my last post! The 30's stash buster tumbler top has inspired me to think of 2012 as the year of using from stash, daring to dive into the collected designer fabrics. At least that's an ambition!

Wish you all a lovely weekend, with or without fabric and thread!

; )

stash buster

Just finished putting together a quilt top (47" * 65") from 30's fabric. This is a "classic" tumbler quilt pattern. Trying to get the random look. Limiting my colors to yellows, greens, blue, purple and black. Using charm pack squares and 1/2 yrds from my stash. Adding a few finds from this summer. Churning them all through the BabyGo! cutter. And then some hours of hassle free sewing, piece after piece. By the end I needed the seam ripper to replace a few patches that wouldn't blend well with the next row.

I like how the black patches add a bit of punch to the mix.

There's still a bit of 30's left in the stash. But then, there's a few other bundles I need to take a look at. Maybe reducing my stash will be my focus in 2012? Strangely it keeps growing... even if there's no more room to do so.

Wish you all a lovely weekend!

... a love that lasts

for Heather Ross' cute and whimsy designs.

They made my summer holiday pictures idea for Amy's block of Ringo Pie come to life.

And they put a smile on my face every time I get to use my new bag:

I had a workshop with the talented designer Andre Wallenborg. When he is not sewing fantastic leather bags for the norwegian royalty, he gives classes to ladies who love to sew. Great teacher, patient and with step by step instructions he made sure all 15 of us finished a bag in a weekend. A nice person, generous in his sharing of sewing expertise, he has gained a big following among Norwegian quilting ladies. We all love you, Andre!