Happy Holidays

I'm back to the world of blogging, having been in Norway for a week - spending time with more family that I even knew I had (I met a third cousin once removed - how's that!!!) and the girls got to hang out with their second cousins (who are much closer in age to them than their first cousins)

(Tara. Marielle, Tuva, Niki, Kinna, Lisa)

The Cousin Quilt (aka Norwegian Red) was well received

 

and put to immediate good use

I was without Internet most of the time, so am days behind in reading and replying to emails, but I will get there.

And I leave you with these images of the place where I spent a good part of each day - my favourite place in the world!

Sunday Satisfaction

Thanks for all the suggestions on what to do with the Norwegian Red blocks: I finally decided I would go with the staggered blocks: It bugged me that the bricks would have a seam down the centre, and I figured I could make bricks the convenctional way (see below for the plan)

So Norwegian Red is now pieced and quilted, and I have machine stitched the binding to the front.  I'm taking it to Norway at the end of the month, and will have plenty of time to hand stitch the back of the binding or the plane, the ferries, and in the car.   It is going to be for my cousin Kire's 50th birthday.  She lives in Kenya, so I dont know that she'll need it much though!  If you have a few minuts, do visit her blog www.kiregodal.com - she is a hugely successful conservation and wildlife filmmaker, and has her work shown on the National Geographic chanel!.  I'm really excited to be seeing her again: we used to meet on holiday as kids, but hardly at all as adults.  She is also beautiful - seriously beautiful - and easily passes for 30, and I struggle with the knowledge that we share a set of grandparents, but she was luckier on the gene handout that I was!

Sorry, didn't mean to wonder off like that.

Also for my trip, I have a stash of picture fabric scraps that I have managed to rescure 4x8 inch blocks, so I will be taking them together with 1 inch strips to hand make a brick quilt


(still no spell check, grrrr!)

Norwegian Knowledge (and a quilt question)

An ongoing project that saw light this week is currently known as Norwegian Red.  The main fabric is red, and it did come from Norway, and the quilt top may become a birthday present for a cousin I will see in Norway this  summer, but its name is also a pun - the traditional red paint used for a vast number of homes in Norway is called "English Red"!

These two cottages are owned by family members: the top one is on the West coast, and it was my grandmother's when I was a child, now my cousin's, and the bottom photo is of the boat house at mum's cousin's cottage just off Oslo - this was taken by a cousin at 11:45pm on Mid Summer's Night



Anyway, enough of the lesson, back to 'Norwegian Red'.  This has been stitched into strips, but now I'm not sure where to go next.  I originally planned to arrange the blocks so they were staggered slightly both vertically and horizontally (pic one) but then I quite like the brick effect in pic two (or are the vertical 'morter' sections going to be too fat?)

 Any thoughts much appreciated

Quick Quilt? Not Quite!

I was itching to start something that would grow quickly, and found some red flowery fabric that my Uncle and his wife gave me a while ago.  I cut the flowery fabric into 6 inch blocks, and got the left-over 2.5 inch strips from the cream quilts I'd been making a while ago.  As the blocks were the same fabric, I decided to use a variety of fabrics for the strips, although they are all the same tones.

I added two borders to each block (well, I did until I ran out of cream fabric!!!!)

This is how I will arrange the blocks - but first I need to get some more cream fabrics - so much for a quick quilt!

I've used this block before, but still have no idea what it's called!