Fjallkonan 17 júní 2011

Fjallkonan, or the Lady of the Mountain this year in Bolungarvík was my DD2 Ebba.

June 17th is the Icelandic national holiday and it is tradition to have the Lady of the mountain recite a patriotic poem at the celebration. The Lady of the Mountain always wears this costume which is one of the Icelandic national costumes. The name, Lady of the Mountain, is a metaphor for a free Iceland. If you are interested you can read about it here.



This costume is not a true costume, it's made of velvet with painted on pattern and poly lace. A true costume is made of wool (black) and hand embroidery at the bottom of the skirt and sleeves and on the front of the bodice. Like in this photo.

It's been much to long since I've posted, I wont promise to be more active but I'll try.

Sunna.

Lots of Tops.

I have been busy lately sewing when I should really be quilting, but I feel like sewing so that's what I've been doing.

This morning after milking it finally felt like there was no wind so I thought it was the perfect opportunity to take some photos in a good light.

This is what I took with me out to the clothes line.
A basket full of tops.

First of all is my version of the Thread Head quilt along I told you about in last post. The top is finished and as you can see I had to really stretch the golden brown fabric to make it last for the bprders. Lol. It measures 74 x 56 inches.


There was some light breeze, but I managed to get photos of all the tops, here is a mystery from a yahoo group called Threads_Of_Friendship. The quilt is called the Friendship quilt and I did it after the mystery was revealed. I used 2 3/4" strips instead of 2 1/2" as I have a lot of them stored since doing mysteries from Iowa Star Quilts. I also only sewed the last strips around every other block to use them as sahsings. It became very dark so after I put a 2 3/4" inner border with the same fabric as in the corner stones I compensated by putting a much bigger, lighter outer border. It measures 76 x 59 inches. Bigger than I meant to make it, but that's how it wanted to be.


Then come some tops I'm making for my free motion practice/charity. They are made out of panels cut from curtains and lots of scraps that I've been sewing together in twos for years. These smaller tops measure 40 1/2" x 33 1/2". Here the only difference is the outer borders. The left is from a quilt fabric, the right is from a curtain bought at Good Will.


The difference here is the thin inner border, well, aside from the panels being mirrored. Wow, that's a word. Lol. The outer fabric is very old from my Granny Bubba. It's rather coarse and only measured 33" wide. I've taken it out many times for use, but it never felt right until now. I got this really nice feeling when I laid the fabric next to the half sewed top. I guess Bubba amma is happy too.


The last of the smaller ones has a border made of old curtains, bought some time ago at Good Will. Lovely fabric shop, Good Will. LOL.


This top measures 51 x 40 inches and the border (which I will also use as backing) is from a duvet cover bought at.... you guessed it, Good Will.


And in the end comes a girly quilt that I have still not finished quilting. I was quilting it when my Janome 6600 started complaining about not having had a check up in the four years I've had it. I've got the Janome back home now, running ever so smoothly, just haven't felt like quilting. That will hopefully change in the near future. This quilt measures 46" x 39". I'm not sure what I was thinking when I made the top and bottom border so much thinner. Now that I think about it I seem to remember not having enough of the fabric. Plan ahead, plan ahead.... measure fabric, measure top.... (see first top at the top of post) LOL.


That's it for now.

Sunna.

Flying geese, quilting and quilt along.

I have tried many different techniques to make Flying Geese or the other unit (like when making the Poinsettia block) and have not been happy with any of them. Gradually I found out my own way to make the Geese and although I try new techniques when I come up on them I always go back to my way, that can be described as cut before sewing. I like using my 6" ruler with the yellow line from corner to corner best.


But sometimes it gets lost in the clutter in my sewing room and then I use my triangle ruler. Those are the Poinsettia units, as you can see, not the Flying Geese. I can't find the pics. I have, where I took photo of every step. This is the last step, a white square placed on top of the unit and then cut in the right direction, If you cut in the other direction you end up with a FG.


I have finished quilting the birthday quilt for hubby, just straight lines, but I like it.


Here is the back, I've been waiting for my Janome's to come home from the service they had so I could sew the binding on. Well the machines are home, but I've been busy doing some happy sewing instead of the obligation ones. (And believe me, binding feels like a obligation). That quilt is over a year late so it doesn't matter if it waits a little longer. Lol.


This is what most of my time has been spent on, the Thread Head Quilt Along. It began last October, but I only learned of it recently and started on it last Friday. I've made seven of the eighteen blocks that will be in the quilt and five of the alternate blocks. I'm only making one of each block instead of two as most others are making. If all goes as planned I'll have made the blocks by the end of the week. The eighteenth block was posted last week so I'm not that far behind. I'm using solid white as a background in all the blocks.

I scanned the blocks and as they are 9 1/2" they didn't quite fit in the scanner so there are corners missing on two sides. And the colors are not quite true, but I'll post a photo (taken outside) when the top is done and then the colors should be more true.

Block # 7.

Hm... Block # 6 seems to be lost in space somewhere.

Blocks # 5.

Block # 4.

Block # 3.

Block # 2.

Block # 1.

Alternate block.

It has been great fun making thees blocks, but the reason for the Flying Geese talk in the beginning is because of the new (to me) technique that Joanne of Thread Tales uses. And I'm simply not good at it so I ended up "doing it my way".

I've also made lots of tops in January and February for kids, that will be given to charity when they are done. I'm using them as a practice pieces for my free motion quilting so there is a bit of selfishness in there somewhere. Lol. Will post photos later.

Sunna.

Big Quilts

I took on a task for a friend of mine, to thread baste a big top she had made to give her daughter. When the basting was done I agreed to machine quilt it too. I wisely did not measure it before quilting it, if I had I would have given up before I began. Here it is laid out on my bed, it was to big to take outside to my laundry lines for a photo. The day was a bit overcast so the photos are rather dark, which is not so bad cause it makes the quilting not show as well as if the day had been bright.


This is certainly not my best work, but I simply had trouble handling the bulk of the quilt while free motion quilting it and my Janome 6600 with it's 9" throat space got pretty annoyed there at the end. It's working still, but it's long overdue for a checkup. So, I need to figure out how to get it across country to the repair man. This morning I suddenly remembered that I saved the box the machine was in when I bought it (at least four years ago). Sometimes I do get things right. I should be able to send my Janome safely with a truck company, but I think I'll buy an insurance all the same, just in case. I really, really like that machine.

I took this photo standing on the steps you can see in the first photo, it's hopefully dark enough. LOL. The computer I usually make these posts on shows photos very dark, I'll have to check this post on my laptop to see if the quilting shows. Oh, well, it is what it is. Anyway, the quilt is beautiful, I absolutely love some of the fabrics used in it.


That's all for now.

Sunna.

PS. Forgot to mention how big this quilt is..... I had no help when I measured it, but it's ca. 90" x 100" For me that is humongous and a bit scary because I have two tops in progress that are of similar size. Sigh. Not good, not good at all.

Solstice.

Today was cloudy with snowing on and off and it was little lighter than twilight at two pm. so there was no trace of sun for me to photograph. I don't think there would have been any sun shining on the mountain anyway. When I was in next town well over a week ago I noticed that the sun shone on just the highest top of the mountains there.

Today there are 33 - 34 days until the sun shines on my home again, that is if the weather permits. It's traditional to bake sunny pancakes on the day we see the sun (it actually shines on us) I was going to make a post about it last January and had actually taken photos to go with it. Maybe I'll remember to do it when the day comes this time.

I thought a photo of our Christmas tree would be better than nothing. This was taken in 2008 and there are lights on the tree, they just don't show on the photo. I really would like to own a better camera.



We have a normal winter weather at the moment, but they say it will get warm again in a few days, until then it's storms and such.

Today I and hubby gave up, sigh, we went on facebook. Yikes. What a time thief.

Sunna.

Road to Heaven

I have one more finish and I'm feeling good. It's a Christmas present and has started it's journey to the new owner. This is one more mystery from Cynthie at Iowastarquilts named Road to Heaven and I added a 2" border to make it a bit bigger.

It was dark when I finished sewing down the binding with help from my mom who came for a visit and as she was leaving the next morning while it would still be dark and taking it with her I took a photo with all the lights on in my bedroom. It was not enough, lol.


I don't have the patience to sit and draw patterns on paper so I usually just jump right in and quilt on my machine. I'm getting better at some patterns and for this quilt I chose flowers, leafs and something that turned out to be sort of feathers. I think. At least sometimes. Click on the photos to enlarge them if you want to see more details.


It's faaar from perfect, but I see progress and I'm content. And that is a good feeling.



I'll tell you after Christmas who's the new owner.

Sunna.

The Sun.

I know this is a bit of an over kill, three posts in one day, but I forgot this photo that I wanted to show you. I took it at 1.30 pm. today when I was photographing the Christmas Light quilt. This is how far down the mountain side the sun shines today. If we have a clear sky on December 21. (Solstice) I'll try to remember to take a photo, to show you how far the sun rays reach then.


The car with the lights on is hubby's work car, called the "sperm car". He was on his way to some farms to meet a couple of cows that were eagerly waiting for him. Lol.

Sunna.