All kinds of sewing,done and dreamed off.

Here I am again, have finished repairing an Icelandic costume for a friend of mine, also made an apron and a shirt to go with the costume. Here it is finished, if you click on the photos they will enlarge and maybe be a little clearer.

This is before repair.

And this is after.

I put the next three photos here so you could see how different the gold work is, you could put fifty women together and none would be wearing the same pattern in their gold work.


Here is mine, the flowers are from my great aunt but the eight parts (don't know the name) with the chain attached are from my grandmother, both from my father's side.


This belongs to DD2 Ebba, I bought her gold work from a woman that sells old gold or silver work on commission. It was all black and broken so it was not expensive but cleaned up very nicely. That did cost some but it was well worth it.


While sewing for my friend in the dining room I totally meshed up my sewing room while looking for items I needed. There was no way I could do anything in there until it was cleaned up.


And I did, although it's not so obvious in this photo, but there are loads of stuff either in a big black garbage bag (clothes needing mending) under the stairs outside the sewing room or in some other hiding places where I hopefully wont find them. Any time soon.


Look at that beautiful thing I got from hubby's parents for Christmas. This great wood thing to hold my rulers. I'd seen one at my MIL that a local carpenter made for her and admired it so much, both with words and touch lol, that she had him make me one. It fits well in there.


And this is what I've been doing for the last two days, well not the whole days, the blocks were made by various members of my guild and I sewed them in this top that will later be made in to a hero quilt, for some local hero.


And then it's my dream, would this not make a great wall hanger. This picture of flowers is painted on the panel in a small church in Northern Iceland. Hubby and I went there last weekend to attend a funeral and it was so beautiful and peaceful sitting in the church waiting for the ceremony to start, looking at the flowers, both on the walls and in the front, all the time feeling the heat of the sun on the side of my face, as it shone through a side window. Today was the first day since sometime in November that the sun shone through the windows in my living room. I was going to make the traditional sunny pancakes but I'd forgotten that the milk car comes on Fridays too (not only Tuesdays and Thursdays as it used to) so there was no milk. Oh, well there's always tomorrow.


This is the altar in the church Skinnastadur, it was built in 1854 (I hope I remember it correctly) and as I said, it's a small church who holds maybe 120 people so there were many that sat in their cars outside and listened to the ceremony on the radio. The woman we were saying good bye to was married to my mother's cousin, she was a wonderful, warm and caring person.


You can see through the windows that there is not much snow outside, it's the same here where I live and it's plain not normal. We've been having unusually warm weather most of January and then we hear on the news about abnormal weather in other parts of the world. In a normal year we would not even have thought about driving 740 kilometers to attend this funeral. I'm glad we could and that we did.

Sunna.

No quilting.

I got my blog fixed, it was so easy it was almost funny, mostly embarrassing though and although I watched it fixed I would not be able to repeat the actions taken. I better not make those glories again.

There is not much happening here that has to do with quilting but I've been sewing a lot, repairing an Icelandic costume for a friend. Also made her a shirt (only have to finish around the neck) and an apron. I've been sewing the gold peaces on the corset today and my fingers plain hurt, the velvet backing for the peaces was in such a bad shape I fitted a bit of card board inside it (between the old paper sheets) and getting the needle through it takes a push plus it's a real challenge hitting the right spots when pushing the needle up through the fastening holes. I'm pleased with how it's turning out, there were dents in the black velvet where the gold peaces had been before but I managed to raise the velvet with steam from my iron. The corset was much to long when it was first made, then my friend had someone to quick fix it which was done by shortening the front of the corset and then removing two of the gold peaces but that really did not make anything better.

I'm going to finish the corset before I go to sleep, then it's the skirt tomorrow and hopefully I'll finish the shirt on Tuesday. After that I'm going to start practicing my quilting, I really, really would like to get some control over my free motion quilting.

Sunna.

Happy new year.

I want to wish all my blogging friends a happy new year. I've been trying to comment on blogs for a few days and have finally realized that there must be something wrong with my setup or whatever because I don't get a word for the word verification. You must think I'm a bit slow, not figuring this out sooner but I've had a dreadful cold since December 26th and it simply wont get better. I've woken up for the last two days feeling much better, so happy and hopeful.... for about ten minutes. Yikes and double yikes.

Today has not been all bad though, I'm finally getting my energy up to a normal level since it totally crashed on our second day of Christmas. In Iceland Christmas starts at six pm. on December 24th, many go to church then but we have the milking and feeding to do so we never go. Then it's dinner, at our house it's pork with all the trimmings and after that, around ten in the evening, it's present's time. I got some lovely presents but can't show them jet as I still have not been able to fix the problem with the icons on my blog. It's not that I'm writing in Edit Html, wish it was that easy. Sigh. I've been waiting for THE COUGH to get some better before I get on the phone with a friends hubby who is a computer wizard, she (my friend) said the other day that I can use him (the hubby) as I please. Now that is a true friend or what. Lol.

To explain the capital letters above: how come when having a cold I can never get on the phone unless after a few moments I get these awful coughing spells? sometimes it does not stop until I throw up Another sigh.... a big one. Am I feeling sorry for myself or what???? Well somebody has to. Lol.

So, back to Christmas, December 25th is Christmas day and our first day of Christmas. It's a red day and also the day the Jule lad (the Jule lads were a nasty bunch of hooligans who, now a days, have seen the errors of they're ways and matured into the same character as Santa Claus) who came to town last (on Dec. 24th) goes home. December 26th is our Second in Christmas and is a red day too and on this day the Jule lad who came to town on Dec 23rd goes home. And so it goes until all thirteen Jule lads are gone to their home in the mountains where they live with their parents, Gryla is their mother, big, mean and ugly who eats the naughty children and the ones who don't get new clothes for Christmas (what a dreadful folk lore) Leppaludi is the Jule lads father, a tiny bit of a looser who is completely oppressed by Gryla and is never allowed to leave home.

The last Jule lad to go is the one who came first and he goes home on Jan 6th but that day is always called The Thirteenth. As it's the thirteenth and last day of Christmas. It's the day most people take down the Christmas ornaments and the Christmas tree and in the evening there is a bonfire (in turns in our town or the next, it's in next town this year) because we are burning out the Christmas (also by burning down the left overs of the candles used during Christmas) and it's also a magical night when cows can talk and the hidden people are traveling to new homes through our world. So there are hidden people singing and dancing at the bonfires and in later years also Gryla and Leppaludi with their thirteen boys and also all kinds of other creatures. It ends with a beautiful fire work show. I wont go this year, I usually don't go, it's just to darn cold to be staying out doors for so long.

I wonder at the direction this post took. It was just supposed to be a quick happy new year post. Well, I guess I was in the mood for a long talkative one. It's long after midnight here so I better go and make hubby sooo glad and happy as he tries to sleep through my cough spells. We have been taking turns in leaving the bed, he to sleep on the living room sofa or me to sit in the kitchen waiting for the coughs to finish, hot lemon water helps a little. I sure wish I had not developed this acute allergy to codeine during a hospital stay two years ago, it was the best thing to temper my coughs. Hm... that reminds me I used to own an inhaler (for asthma) to use if I got a cold or if I had to go out in cold weathers. I threw it away after I stopped smoking twelve years ago because the trouble with cold weather lessened. And I so seldom get these types of cold anymore. I'm having an aha moment here, lol, I'll phone the doctor on Monday if I'm no better by then.

I hope you all have a good productive and at the same time rest- and peaceful year. I sure hope I will.

Sunna.