Oh, I totally forgot what I was trying to blog about on Dec. 24th but in Iceland Christmas starts at six pm. that day. Here it is, it's plain and simple.


Merry Christmas to all.

Blog trouble.

I'm having a trouble with this blogging thing. My fault entirely of course, but although I caused it I simply can't fix it. I was trying to post some photos on Dec. 24th and blogger was giving me some trouble, instead of giving up until later I stubbornly started poking buttons and right clicking. I ended up making all the options like inserting photos spell checking and so on disappear and can't make them reappear. Can some good soul out there help me. It would be dearly appreciated.

Sunna.

Graduation.

This was supposed to be the last picture in the post but I forgot it until to late, I'm not very good at adding photos to the posts to begin with. This is the Fractured Star done and posing for a photo just minutes before it was on it's way to a wedding with us on December 12th, I got a phone call on the 6th with the news and an invitation to the wedding. The morning after I took the top and spent the next five days basting, quilting and binding it. And I made it, with time to spare. Barley. Lol. I like how it turned out. DD1 and hubby are the holders.


This is what last week was all about. DD1, Steina's graduation on last Friday. I was busy all week finishing her Icelandic costume which was her graduation present and also baking for the party that was held yesterday at her grandparents home. Our house would never have coped with all the guests she had invited so I was so relieved when my darling MIL offered her home.


These photos were taken after the graduation, she was so happy with her costume but I have to shorten the belt because it slips down. It's not supposed to so big gap between the chain and the belt. Most of the silver is from my grandfather sister, I had to have the flowers on the sides made though. My aunt had a silverwork embroidery on her costume but I simply don't have the patience for it (I've been doing goldwork embroidery for near two years now and it's so boooring)


Here are the sisters, I've already made the costume for DD2 although it's two and a half year until she graduates. Steina was supposed to graduate last spring but everything got awry when she got mono last winter. She did not get better until late June when she had her tonsils removed, but they had gotten to be a HUGE problem because of the mono. We are all so happy that she has finished collage and that she's well again with healthy color in her skin. It's taken her so long to get rid of a really ghastly pallor.


Yup, that's me in the middle and I think it's only right to mention that both my girls are wearing higher heels than me. Lol.


And here the grandmothers have stepped in, my mom on the left and MIL on the right.


The school hosts a graduation dinner for the students and their family, we have to pay a small price for everyone but the food is always superb, DS2 graduated in spring 2007 and I'm amazed again how the school cook can make such a great banquet without charging us with higher price.

Steina had the most guests with her. Here are her friend Thordis and DS2 Johann. He is sick with flu but would not pass the opportunity to taste again the food prepared by his favorite cook.

My mom.

Smari, DD2 Ebba's boyfriend and my FIL Jon.

Steina and me.

My MIL, Munda and DD2 Ebba.

Ebba and hubby.

And Steina.
DS1, Jon had to work so he could not be there with us.

All the photos we took at the church where the graduation took place are so dark that I wont show them here but Thordis took photos too and I hope I'll remember to ask her to upload them in to my computer. Or download.... or what ever.


Now then it's the wedding I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Here is the bride with her father. She's one of our summer kids, came first when she was twelve and stayed with us for three summers as a babysitter and a helper around the house and the last year as a helper on the farm. Later, when she was seventeen she lived with us one summer while working at a fish factory in town. A wonderful young woman and very dear to us. The men on each side holding cameras are her brothers.

The groom, a very nice and likable young man, with his father.

I´m seeing now that my camera is not so good. I took a lot of photos but most are so dark. Here is our priest, Agnes, with the bride and the groom and on the side is the bride's father holding the soon to become couple younger daughter, she was not happy to be taken from her mothers lap so the ceremony could take place.


In addition to the two daughters they have one boy but although they got married after having three children like we did they declined the notion of having one more "legally" like we did.

I just realized I haven't mentioned their names. She is Steinunn (Steina, one of our Steina namesakes) and her husband is Stefan. We wish them a happy and peaceful life.

Sunna.

Hubby's birthday.

I'm late again with a birthday post as hubby turned 45 on December 2. I have no photo of him since he was a baby but this photo was taken when he was four months past his 13. birthday. He's wearing his confirmation clothes.


This is a photo from his first driving license so he must be seventeen in it.


I've been trying to get a good photo of him but he always turns away from the camera. Drat the man. I'm not going to show you the photos he makes a face at me or closes his eyes or some other silly thing.


These two photos were taken the evening before last at a dinner party held at DD1 school in a celebration for the graduation students and their families.


There will be more photos from this event in the next post. And by the way, hubby had a happy birthday. Lol.

Sunna.

Finished tops among other things.

Here is my Fractured Star top, it was a mystery from Cynthia at Iowa Star Quilts I had fun making this even though the mystery had been revealed when I started it. The lighter borders are from the only fabric I had enough off to make wide borders, I think it would have been better with some other fabric but there is no quilt shop around here and I was determined to use from my "stash". I really like this top but it's not a good photo of it, I didn't want to take it outside for photoing because of the heavy wind today, I've learned my lesson since The Boxy Start top got so badly frayed corners last winter. I had to cut 1/4" off all around it to fix it.


And here is my Christmas Light top, a mystery from Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville It was the same story here, I worked with what I had and also decided to use fabrics I've had difficulty in getting to play nicely with other fabrics, like the blue snow fabric (with white and silver snowflakes) and some of the red fabrics. Also the green fabric has gold trees outlined on it and I found myself always putting it aside when choosing greens for other projects. The red border has all the variety of red colors in it that are in the blocks and although I worried it would be much to red it sort of works out. All that said I kind a like the top. It grows on you. Lol.


My BIL and his wife had their birthdays a few days ago and I made those potholders to give them along with a barbecue pliers (hope pliers is the right word).

You can put your hand inside, my favorite potholders are like that so that's what I made for them. Talk about being self centered. Lol.

And lastly come two photos of blocks I made for a Christmas block swap at Quiltblocswappers on Yahoo. I made three like the block on the top and one like the one on the bottom.



I made one more top this summer from the launch swap blocks, also from Quiltblockswappers but after starting to quilt it I had to put it away due to a birthday party, mine I think and haven't looked at it again. And wont until the end of January but then I absolutely must finish it because my friend who's birthday present it was intended to be has had her birthday. Ouch.
That's it for now, until next Sunday.

Sunna.

My mom.

My mom was born on October 14. 1939 so she turned seventy this year. I'm guessing she's three years old in this photo.


Here is a confirmation photo of her. She's thirteen and a half.

Twenty years old in her Icelandic costume.

She's oldest of four siblings. Younger were three brothers, this is the middle brother, Josep. He had Downs syndrome and was born the year my mother turned fourteen. He died when he was thirteen years old. I have only one vague memory of him.
On the left mom is with the oldest brother who is two and a half years younger than her and on the right she's holding the youngest brother who turned fifty last summer. I always look more at him as my brother than hers. He lived with us for a year when I was eight due to some illness my granny had.

This photo was taken, I think, in 1994 when she went to Florida to be at her nephews wedding.

This is probably taken in 2004. A hard fight with TB's in her kidney (left over since she was a baby) and then after no luck in healing, the removal of the same kidney has taken it's toll.

And this was taken last summer at my uncle's birthday party. He wanted to make something big out of turning fifty so he put a little announcement in a news paper and rented a place to accomodate the guests. It was a great fun. Palmi 67, Oskar 50 and mom, Hanna, still only 69. Lol.

My birthday present from hubby and kids were flight tickets and time off to go to my mom for her birthday. She did not want to make any fuzz about the day but I'm glad she changed her mind. We held a small party at her home but grrr... no one remembered to take photos.

Now I'm going to peak at some blogs before I go to bed.

Sunna.

Finally a new post.

I've been of blogging and blog reading for three months now due to some health issues, it was only supposed to be two months but somehow time just flew by.

I turned 46 on October 8. so thought I'd make a birthday post about myself. I can't find the album with my baby photos so here I am three years old with my five years old brother at our younger brother's Christening .

My brothers

Christmas most likely at our grandparents.
On our way to visit our aunt and family by bus as my parents didn't own a car until I was about nine years old. I'm about five or six in this photo.

Seven or eight years old with my younger brother. We were very close when we were young.

Eleven years old, I put this photo in my wallet after I got it from my dad when I was a teenager and forgot for a long time to take it out and put it in a album, hence the damages.

Fourteen years old. I went through a very short makeup period the next year. I'll not show a photo from that time. What a ghastly sight.

Color photos taken on home cameras come out so dark when I scan them so there are no more from my younger years.

This was taken last summer when I was at a pizza place in the city with DD1.

I was going to put photos of my mom in this post too, but changed my mind. She had a big birthday so she'll get a post of her own.

Sunna.

Blogger finally let me in again.

I've been trying to get to my blogger site for over a week with no luck until now suddenly. And I'm not ready with a post. Lol.

I found this photo of a table topper I made a few years ago, only two fabrics and I was so bored that I didn't feel any longing to finish it until my friend saw it and was thrilled by how the colors were just the colors in her kitchen. She got the table topper two years later as a birthday present for two birthdays, it took me that long to finish it. Mainly because I meant to hand quilt it but my hands don't allow me to hand quilt anymore. So I picked out what little I had done by hand and machine quilted it. She's very happy with it. (Click on the photo to make it larger)


I've been busy sewing but there wont be any photos until later, I'm not taking the chance to upload photos from my camera while I'm here on my blog. If I loose it, who knows when I get in again.

I'm going to bookmark all the blogs I follow so I'll be able to read them when I can't get on my blogger site. I'm so behind on reading my favorite blogs but will read them tomorrow and the next day, in between quilting a quilt I sandwiched today. On Friday we are going to Borgarnes for a agricultural show and while there we'll be staying in a rented summer cabin (house) for a couple of nights and then we're going to the city for some quilty shopping (me) and spare parts and so on (hubby). DD2 will be coming along and her boyfriend will come from the city (where he's going to school now) to stay with us and maybe my mom will come for a visit too. I'm really hoping for a good weather.

Now I'm off to practice some quilting pattern.

Sunna.

Fractured Star and swap blocks.

Since I finally got to blogger, we've been having connection trouble and blogger is one of the sites I can't connect to unless everything is okay, I'm not letting go. Lol. I've been doing some sewing now and then, and have made all the units for the Fractured Star.


It's a mystery I wrote about in an earlier post. I'm putting the blocks together as leaders-enders while making blocks for a swaps I'm in. I've never been quite happy with sewing from corner to corner without marking the line, but I'm also lazy so I've been "winging" it and not always satisfied with the result. So I finally started to think about a solution instead of being grumpy while "winging " it. This is what I came up with, instead of cutting the triangles off after I've sewed the line, I cut before and then sew both pieces. No more ripping out the seams, but I of course forgot to take a photo after the sewing.


This bloc and the next were for (I've already sent them) a quarterly block swap I'm in. We are nine women that sew a pair of 6" blocks and send out four times over a period of a year. These were mine for the first swap, now I have to chose which pattern I'll do for the next. We try not to do the same pattern twice, although there are a few of the same, but the fabric will be different so I don't think it will matter so much. This one is called Interlocked Square and was pure fun to do.


Here is a star pattern called Mosaic. I don't like the colors as well in this block as in the other although those are what I considered safe colors. Now I'm starting to sew scrappy 8" blocks for a one time swap with sixteen other women, due in the mail before September 1. I've got them cut up and they are not very difficult to sew so I'll meet the deadline easily.


I'm also in the process of cutting and sewing shashing for swap blocks I received recently. I'll post about them when they've made it in to a top. And I'm happy to say I've gotten a craving to do some quilting (machine) I've apparently stopped dreading it, and that feels so good.

Sunna.

Birthday, a day late, again.

Yesterday there were 22 years since that little boy was born, on August 16. instead of October 12. as he was supposed to. Always in a hurry. He was 4.4 pounds and 17.5 inches.


But he grew fast and by the time he was supposed to be born he was at healthy 9 pounds. He was and is a very cheerful and sweet character and quick to see the lighter points in life.


As much as I disliked having to use the bathroom in this stage of repairs (demolition) he just loved taking baths like this.

With granny Hanna. (My mom)

Here he is, proudly pointing at a message he wrote down after answering the phone for his dad. And yes, he's dirty, this was his usual appearance in the summers at that time.


In all the photos taken after this time until last year his glasses were at an angle so there is an ugly glare in his face. He was always bending, breaking or scratching his glasses, from the first one he got at three years old until about four years ago, when we refused to pay for any more.

Here he is fooling around with his brother earlier this summer.


He graduated from collage with good grades two years ago and then decided to get him self a truck driving license. He got a job with a truck company right away until he'd thought carefully and then decided what he wanted to learn at the university..... he's still thinking about it.


He's content at work and as long as he is, there is no rush. (I do ask though from time to time)
Happy birthday Johann Olafur.