Secret Garden Shawl in Scheepjes yarn

In January my project on the go became this lovely shawl in Scheepjes yarn. I took this with me to India and Ethiopia. I knitted on the plane and in my hotel room. Sometimes just sitting and knitting in the evening after a long day of meetings is soo soothing. And something I don't always manage to do at home.

In April I was almost done and managed a few evenings of knitting to finish it as it was too large to take in my handbag and carry around in a plane. Then the knitting was done and the shawl just waited to be finished.

This morning, we had nothing planned, as last night both my eldest and husband had their "ending of the season" concert. After breakfast the laundry was put on hold and I took some time out to sew in all the ends.

The end result is this lovely soft shawl that will be perfect for the winter.

Linking up with 2019 Finish-a-long quarter 2 and the
This is my second project (3 out of 7) done from my list

Pip Marzipan top finish

June was a hectic month. The schoolyear is almost finished and I was busy with getting all the paperwork done for the new school year. My eldest is already in middle school, so that was easy. However my daughter and youngest son are going to middle school as well. So quite a lot of paperwork to fill out. All that is done now and pending is school transport for all three of them.

And of course I had a few travels for work lined up. Addis, and then not as the trip was postponed to the week I was to travel to Cameroon. In the end both fell through. Just came back from 8 days Asia.

So all I managed this month was to finish the top of my marzipan quilt in Pip colours. This was the original plan, so at least I managed that, secretely I had hoped to do more ...... Next month ...... depending again on my travel schedule.

I do get some knitting done, only to frog as knitting in a plane is error prone when I have to count a lot. For sure, I cannot complain about being bored.

Linking up with OMG June organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts

OMG June Pip Marzipan top

Last month I made more progress on my Pip Marzipan quilt, however the top is still not finished. My aim for the One Monthly May Goal is to finish the top and buy the batting. Although the latter does not count as a creative objective, without the batting I cannot finish Pip. Thank you to Patty at Elm Street Quilting for keeping us motivated and going, I enjoy being part of the quilting community.

Lamp & curtain blues

As part of the make-over of Slava's bedroom, I wanted to redo the lamp. I had bought a lamp at Ikea a few years ago upgrading from the Winny the Pooh lamp and had covered it with African batik matching the curtains and Alexei's quilt. Now that Alexei has moved in to his own bedroom, I painted the walls in blue to match the Marzipan nautical quilt I had made Slava.

Time to change the lamp as the yellow colours clashed with the rest. We bought fabric over Easter and the lamp was made in no-time.

I cut 55 cm of fabric (width of fabric), sew the short edges and made two small tunnels on each side.

As the African fabric will no longer be needed as a lamp (most likely will make some cushion covers) I re-used the elastic and pulled it trough the tunnels. Covered the metal frame et voila, the lamp was covered again.

and the lamp matches the rest of the bedroom. Next step .... change the curtains ....

update:
I made matching curtains and Slava's bedroom has now completely transformed in to this super blue and white bedroom

Linking up with 2019 Finish-a-long quarter 2 and the
Project 6 and 7 (2 out of 7) done from my list

Marzipan Pip quilt - OMG May

My aim for this month was to sew the nine blocks of my Marzipan quilt in Pip colours. And I managed to do more than my goal Hurray !!!!

I sew the nine blocks, chose the colours for the three remaining blocks, cut the fabric, sew the HTS, cut the fabric for the sashing and sew all twelve blocks with the sashes. I was in doubt when I had made the HST for the nine blocks, however now that they are all sewn together the (almost ready) top looks great. Can't wait to finalize the quilt and give to my niece in July. Don't think I will manage to finalize the top, buying the batting and do the actual quilting in one week .......

Am linking up with Patty from Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal for the month of May.

OMG May Marzipan in Pip colours

Now that all my three kids have their own quilt, time to expand.

I started making the marzipan quilt for my niece in Pip colours. When she visited me last year she choose the design (the same design I had planned for my youngest). The quilt had to be in blue. I decided to use blue as the background colour and work with different brighter colours Pip studio style. Pip is a dutch designer mixing blue with pink and greens and flowers and birds.

As I started making the half square triangles I was not sure if this was going to work out, ohh the agony of doubt. However, once I started playing with the HST, the colours looked nice together.

My aim for the One Montly Goal of May organized by Patty at Elm Street Quilts is to finish the 81 HTS in to nine blocks. The fabric for remaining three blocks will be chosen once these nine blocks are done and I have a better idea what colours are missing in the overall picture.

OMG April finish - Cactus and Marzipan

My main aim for the OMG April was to finish the marzipan quilt for my youngest.
As I had a few days off early April I worked in the evening to finish the quilt. During the day I painted his bedroom walls in blue. The result was really nice.

My bonus project for April was to make a cactus cushion with the words "cactus" written on it. My daughter is learning to sew and she made one cushion.

And I made one as well.

For the letters I used my Scan&Cut. I had not used it for a while and thought that this was the perfect moment to see if it still worked, which was the case, simplifying cutting the letters.

The result for April OMG is the Marzipan quilt completely finished AND my bonus project. And I managed to redo the lamp hanging in his room. While on Easter holiday went to visit the yarn store to buy some more yarn that I so not needed. However as the owner is a lovely young woman, who of course needs to be supported in her new efforts, I buy yarn. She had this lovely fabric, my youngest agreed to the fabric and when back from holidays the lamp was done in no-time. A separate post will follow on the making off.

Linking up with Patty's April One Monthly Goal at Elm Street Quilts.

Finish A Long 2019 quarter 2

There is something about making lists that I like, or should I say, striping something on my list as done gives me a feeling of progressing and finishing and hence a feeling of accomplishment. It is time to make my list for the Finish-A-Long 2019 Quarter 2. During the first quarter I managed to finish 4 out 5 projects, one of them was from last year and I still have this one project stalling and stalling. I did make some progress, not enough though.

So for the Q2 my plan is to finish seven projects.

1. Marzipan quilt in Pip colours
I started making the marzipan quilt for my niece in pip colours. When she visited me last year she choose the design (the same design I had planned for my youngest). The quilt had to be in blue. I decided to use blue as the background colour and work with different brighter colours Pip studio style. Pip is a dutch designer mixing blue with pink and greens and flowers and birds.

2. Shawl in Scheepjes yarn
In January my project on the go became this lovely shawl in Scheepjes yarn. I took this with me to India and Ethiopia. I am almost done now and will plan a few evenings to finish it as it is now too large to take in my handbag.

3. Blouse
The fabric is cut and pinned, so now it just needs some sewing and my summer blouse is ready.

4. Grey linen pants
The grey linen fabric matches the fabric of the blouse, the pattern is cut so just need to cut the fabric and sew it all together.

5. Ross blanket
Ross is progressing slowly. The advantage of keeping Ross on my list is that I have to work on it.

6. Lamp
Last quarter I finished the marzipan quilt in nautical colours for my youngest. I painted two walls in blue and the other two in white and all the woodwork in off white. The fabric of the lamp and curtains will need to be adapted now as well. They are still in African fabric matching the quilt of my eldest.

7. Curtains
The curtains in the blue bedroom will need to be changed to matching fabric with the nautical quilt and the lamp (project 6)

Linking up with the lovely group of bloggers hosting the FAL 2019.

Nautical marzipan quilt

I was amazed with myself this time, and yet maybe should be more amazed with my new sewing machine. The top of the nautical marzipan quilt came rather quickly together. For several reasons: the blocks are large, they are all the same layout so I did a lot of continuous sewing and I plan more time for myself when working on a project. What also helps is deciding what to make and finish in a given time, this really allows me to stay focused and get going on a project.

This quilt is for my youngest, he choose the design and the colour blue. He loves water and scubadiving, so when I saw this fabric on Higgs and Higgs website, I knew this would be perfect.

For the back I ordered matching fabric on-line, cute tiny dots on a marine blue background.

For the actual quilting I decided to make a spiral as it is easy and not complicated as the top is pretty large. I installed myself a few evenings at the kitchen table (empty and large) and concentrated on the spiraling.

Last weekend all that was left was the binding.

The nautical quilt looks great, my youngest loves it. The next step is re-doing the walls in his room, changing the fabric of the lamp to a nautical theme and choose the fabric for the curtains. This is the dangerous part, I should have ordered when buying the background ........ A good thing I have a few days this week at home to focus on painting the walls and choosing fabric.

Linking up with FAL 2019 Q1. This is project 5 from my list, 4 out of 5 done. Hurray.

Thank you lovely ladies for organizing this challenge.

OMG April Marzipan and cactus

The month of April has a food theme I realized as I had to type a title for the blog post. It is OMG setting time again and decided for this month to go for two projects. Simply because I have time this month and because I have a reason to celebrate.

My main aim for the OMG April is to finish the marzipan quilt for my youngest. Next week I will have a few days off and will use the time to repaint his bedroom. Up to a year ago he was sharing the bedroom with his older brother. The theme of the room was sunny walls with African fabric used for the curtains and lamp, and the quilt I had made for my eldest. The room is now for him alone and time to give it a new theme: Marine/sea life. In May I can then redo the lamp and make new curtains. The advantage of living in an old farm house is that the windows are small, the curtains will be done fairly quickly.

My second project will be a bonus project. I had bought this cute book "Hygge" last year with Hygge projects including cactus projects (and yes one can eat cactus - hence the food theme).

My daughter had made one of the cactus cushions as she is learning to sew. Earlier in March, Patty of Elm Street Quilts had written a blog entry
about the blog hop for the book "Text It! - Quilts and Pillows with Something to Say" by Sheri Noel - playing and quilting with words. We were invited to comment with the word we would quilt and I chose "Cactus" to quilt on a cactus cushion. Happy dance when I learned that I had won 2 large spools of Aurifil thread. So now no escape, I will quilt myself a cactus cushion if time permits.