Road to heaven.

Just a short note, we've been invited to a birthday party this evening. Hubby's niece turned 16 a few days ago.

I went to a retreat on the last weekend in September. It was at the same location as last year, Reykjanes in Isafjardardjup. I'm sure this retreat is here to stay, so to speak. It was great and I started this quilt there. I had cut the strips for it long ago and read the instructions at the same time. So I only glanced at the instructions when I started to subcut the strips. Not good. Lol. I turned everything up side down so the dark fabric is light in my top and the light dark. Also had forgotten that I needed light fabric for another project so I'd pulled all of those strips from the box where this was stored.


So it's a bit busy, but I like it and will finish it before Christmas. Enough said of that. This was a mystery from Iowa Star Quilts and I had fun making it as all the mysteries from Cynthie. (Although it was no longer a mystery when I made it.)

Sorry for the dark photos, the afternoon was cloudy and windy and those were the only photos that were not blurred. Here is a closer look.


I was going to show another project I worked on in Reykjanes, but can't find the photo I took a few days ago and now I also can't find the project. Duh. This clearly indicates that I need to take a firm hand with my sewing room. Lol.

And on a bit embarrassing note... Those sheep that came home today are not the sheep we thought they were.... I admit it freely. I don't know my sheep. Sigh. One was the ewe we thought was still missing, turned out she had two lambs, not one. And the other plus two lambs is from Baer in Sugandafjordur, far from our farm and I don't know if the owner has had a sheep come here before. If you take a straight line on a map there is one big sheep farm between Os, the farm where we live and this farm Baer and also one small sheep farm. Sheep are rather territorial so it's strange that this sheep showed up here. We think she must have gone first to Isafjordur and then to Hnifsdalur before she came to our pasture (Oshlid) or maybe it only went over some mountains and straight to Hnifsdalur. Who knows. I once heard of a sheep with two lambs that went in one summer from a place near Blonduos to a place near Egilsstadir. And that is straight across Iceland.

What happened to my short post???

Sunna.

Good sheep, naughty sheep.

One month ago we had our round up day, or herding or what ever you call it. The law says you have to get all sheep from summer pasture before winter so in September there are roundups all over the country.

It's kind a sad how few sheep are left in our area. Not so many years ago the flock was a much more impressive sight.


Here they are coming toward the common fold. There are common folds all over Iceland. Ours is not very big compared to some (most).


In the front are sheep from us, I'm guessing they know the drill and just want to get it over with. Lol.

Here is DS1 Jon (the bearded man on the right) looking for his sheep.

DD2 Steina has found one of ours.

Here is DD2 Ebba in our section of the fold, taking care of the book keeping.

And here is DS2 Johann doing what is called chatting over the fold wall, because the folds used to be made of stone and turf walls. Some still are (or parts of them) and are preserved as some sort of monuments.

For some this is the best way to observe the sheep.

Now, we got most of our sheep home at this point, but there were still three ewes missing along with five lambs. And that is not good, sometimes it's the herders fault when the sheep don't show up at the fold, but sometimes it's the sheep fault. They can really play hard to get and it's easy for them, considering that the pasture is partly rocky mountain side and higher up there are difficult cliffs. So... we slaughter sheep that don't come home at the first roundup or soon after. In our opinion it's crazy to own sheep that you put your self and others in danger "collecting". Those sheep are naughty, very naughty.

Six of the sheep have been seen repeatedly since the first roundup, but they have been at a difficult location and the weather has been so good (they are much more difficult to herd in good weather, simply don't want to come home) that they were left alone... until now.

It's getting colder and tomorrow we expect some snow or at least sleet. So this morning my SIL hubby went with two of their sons and collected the sheep. It went very well and they brought them home where I and Johann stood before them as we call it and guided them to the rest of our sheep.

Here they are coming and trying to go the shortest way to get in the fence where the other sheep are. You can click on all the photos to enlarge them.


We got to do some running when one of the ewe's tried to trick us and went to the beach and the rest followed. You can see by the open mouth of the lambs how winded they are. They usually don't have the stamina the ewes have.

And here they are fenced in together with the rest of our sheep.

Just after we got the sheep fenced in, Ebba came home from work and came to see which ewes had come home and what ewe is still missing along with the lamb.



We've had much autumn rain on and off for weeks so the ground is getting very muddy. For me, this is always a very irritating time because the mud gets so easily inside the house and lets face it, I'm not much of a housekeeper. Lol.

Tomorrow will most likely be a slaughtering day, the lambs will most certainly go, but I'm not sure about the ewes. One is owned by my SIL son (the one with the blue cap in the front of the photo) so she will most likely live, but the other..... we'll see.

I meant to do this sheep post in September, but we've been having connections problems on and off, mostly on, for so long that I've sort of given up on blogging and blog reading. We had no phone or Internet from Oct. 7 until Oct 14 and I decided enough is enough. Yesterday I read some of the blogs I've not looked at for a long time, lost connection a few times, but stubbornly plodded on, so....

While making this post I've lost connection twice... I'm going to click on "publish post" with the hope that the post will indeed get published and not lost. I hate when that happens. If all goes well I might even try for a quilty post later today.

Sunna.

P.s. We are told we will get a new phone line later (when the tunnel making on our farm land, that I've not talked about here because it just makes me so mad sometimes, is finally completely over) Phew.

Thread basting.

This is the bottom photo, read on. lol.

This was taken at guild meeting last winter, I'm sewing the poinsettia blocks from the Bonnie Hunter mystery, Carolina Christmas. (I'm usually one of the last lo leave)


And here is one of the blocks. The quilt would have been so huge if I'd made it as it was supposed to be made so I changed it in to two quilts and one Round Robin center.

Here I was about two weeks ago, thread basting this part of my Carolina Christmas.

A better view.

I've also thread basted the other half, the Christmas Star part and two other of Bonnie's mysteries, Double Delight and Christmas Lights. They are ready for quilting. Not only that, I'm also ready for quilting. lol. Now I can grab a quilt and get to quilt it right away when the mood strikes.

This top is a mystery from Iowa Star Quilts, called Dinah's Delight. I didn't follow the guide lines while putting it together, there are supposed to be sashings, but I was so utterly fed up with doing the sashings on both of the Carolina Christmas tops that I changed it. I also did not piece the setting triangles like I should have. I wasn't happy with all this green and was thinking about ripping out the green fabric when I got this marvelous idea.

Why not just cut some of the green away? Yeah, right. Now it's to short, but I like it better though. So, I'm going to make a pieced border on one end and then add a strip of green. I think that will make it okay.

Would you believe it, I just deleted the photo with the top after I'd cut of most of the green, uploaded it again and I don't know how to move it down here so it's up on the top of the post. Now it's after midnight and I missed making this an August post as I intended it to be. I'm sleepy, that's a good excuse, guess it's time to post this and go to bed.


Sunna.

Blomaros. (Flower girl)

Do you know the feeling that someone is watching you and you can see movement out of the corner of your eye, but when you look there is no one there. Well, I experienced this one fine day this summer when I went out to hang laundry on my clothes lines. So I looked and then I looked some more and finally I managed to look at the right moment and saw who was moving there.


Couldn't you see her? Maybe this angle is better (and adjustment of the camera).


There she is in all her glory. She's one of three heifers that were not pregnant when we let the heifers go on the summer land this summer. So they stayed home, one turned out to have some internal problems and is waiting for a ride to the slaughterhouse, but this one and the third are okay and hopefully pregnant by now. For obvious reasons I've named her Blomaros. She's an absolute darling, curious and sweet tempered.


You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Sunna.

Not another month

will go by without a post from me. I hope I'll be able to post this one as the connection here at my house is VERY unpredictable. We need to get some answers as to what is going on. Some days we have no connection at all, other days there is a slooow connection from time to time and you can't work on the net because you'll never know if the connection holds. It's not so bad for me, but hubby has to make and send reports on the net and he sometimes tries again and again only to have all his work lost. Now that's a bummer.

So, on happier note. Here is a table topper I made just after the Easter. It was a mystery posted on Quiltblockswappers. A group I'm a member in on Yahoo. It ended up on the dining room table at the apartment my daughter shares with two of her friends. If you click on the photo it enlarges so you can better see the decorative stitch I used in the quilting.


Here are some of my Learn a New Block Challenge blocks I'm doing. They are from Michele who is a wonderful lady from the before mentioned Yahoo group. It's so much fun doing those blocks and I've gotten lots of feedback on them because of the black background. That was a challenge for me as I've been stuck on light backgrounds. No more. I'm cured or liberated or ... what ever.


I'm good, hope you are too. Lol.

Sunna.

Finish.

I have a much longed for finish. The Launch Swap quilt is finally done. I posted about the swap in July last year and the top has been ready since September and partially quilted since October when I started doubting my quilting skills. I've decided to throw all self doubt out and just quilt the tops that are waiting. I have four ready and more in the making.


Here is the newest top, the Christmas Star blocks will be Hubby's TV cuddly quilt and I had an inspiration earlier today as to who gets the Poinsettia quilt. I'm not telling now though.

If you click on the photos they will enlarge.

Sunna.

This and that.

This post is posted 4 or 5 days after most of it was made due to power loss.

I've been sewing a lot but have no finishes to show you. Here is my version of Christmas Star which is a part of Bonnie's Carolina Christmas Mystery. I have thirteen of these 16.5" blocks.

Since the loss of electricity I've made these blocks into a top, using twelve of the blocks with sashing and bricks I think they're called rather than corner stones. Will post a photo later, it's been to windy and snowing on and off, not good for photoing.


They are supposed to be partnered with these forty eight Poinsettias (8,5"). And this would make a humongous quilt. I'm not much interested in so big quilts so I'll make something else out of this. At one time I had three, maybe four quilts in mind, but that changes from day to day. We'll see what I come up with. Those were fun to make although I got a bit tired of all the matching seams.

I have also started sewing with these blocks, with sashing and cornerstones into a top.


Now here is the first round of fun blocks (also 8,5") that I'm test sewing with some great women on a Yahoo group called Quiltswappers, (here is where I lost power) there's one more which I've jet to make. The woman we are testing for sends us the fabric cut and ready to sew, how great is that. I chose black kona for my background and felt quite daring, lol, I've been so stuck on light backgrounds since I started quilting that it was long past time for me to try something new. I love it.


I've been doing a mystery called Dinah's Delight from Cynthia at IowaStarQuilts this is what I've done so far and I found out tonight that the last step has been posted so I'm sure I'll soon get itchy to finish it in to a top at least. There is just one of each blocks (9,5") shown here.


Here is a cosmetic bag I made for a young girl who had her confirmation on last Sunday. This is the front, sorry how bad the light is. The bag is made of bits of old jeans from my kids and old lace from my Granny Bubba.


And this is the back. I've made loads of these bags through the years, I use an old fleece throw as batting and the sippers I've ripped out of old gym bags and such. The only new thing is the inside lining (usually some pretty cotton) and the binding which is solid blue cotton.


I'd better post this now, it's snowing heavily at the moment and you never know.... Lol.

Happy Easter.

Sunna.