Family fun at the fair

I just wanted to share some pics of what I have been up to this week... It was so much fun having Stella and her parents here! The Molly doll seemed to go over well, too:

Kisses! Stella loves softies, so I have a hunch I'll be making a few more for her over the years! :-)

We had a great week. We spent an entire day at Liseberg amusement park, going on all the kiddy rides and winning a huge prize on a chocolate wheel! We also spent a day in Haga, a lovely historic neighborhood here in Göteborg with lots of fun shops and nice cafés. Here's Stella and me hainging out by a fountain at Järntorget:

I hope you all had a good week too!

Molly Monkey Doll

Hi all! This is a scheduled post, because I am way too busy this week to find time for blogging... Baby Stella and her parents are in town visiting us for an entire week! Yay!

I decided it was about time I made Stella a nice doll (she's over a year old now you know!) and I decided on this pattern from the talented mmmcrafts. It came out so well, I might have to make another one!

The little monkey doll is a free pattern on the mmmcrafts blog, and it was just a joy to make! Really clear instructions, even for someone with limited sewing skills like me! :-) And I just love the pattern, the proportions are perfect... Those long skinny legs are too cute!

Here is Molly packaged up and ready to go to... Along with some more goodies for Stella. Being an auntie rocks, I love making toys and playthings and now I have the best excuse! :)



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Simple sewing for Stella!

I have some sewing to show you - about time isn't it! Last month I received some lovely fabric charm squares in a a swap, and I knew at once what they would become. Here are the squares, along with some very pretty buttons:

Here's an in progress shot. As you can see, my kitchen table is where I do most of my crafting! :-)

And here is the result - a doll quilt for my niece! Stella turns one in a couple of days, and she had her birthday and namegiving party last weekend. My mom bought her a really cute little dolls bed, so I made this little quilt to match.

I matched the charms with some fabric in my stash, and I think it turned out quilt nice. I really like this color combo!

Wedding photos, finally!

I'm still alive! We've just been having a bunch of computer problems, but here's the good news: our brand new mega-awesome computer will be arriving tomorrow! It might take Keith a couple of days to get it set up, but from then on I will be blogging in style!

But before that, I've been dying to show you some wedding photos... I thought since this is a craft blog, I would start with some of the crafty stuff. First up is this card I made to go along with the gift from my sister and me:

It's got some vintage lace at the bottom, and I also used some of the paper flowers I won in Gina's giveaway last week. I'm not very pleased with how the card turned out, but the bride and groom liked it, and that's what matters!

Next is a photo of the table setting and decoration. If you think it looks a bit odd, perhaps I should explain a little bit a bout the venue. The wedding was held in an old mill, built in the 18th century and still in use today. The building is really beautiful, constructed in a traditional Swedish style, and it sits right beside a forest lake. The wedding ceremony was held at the ground floor, and this picture shows the top floor where the reception, dinner and dancing took place.

As you can see the theme for the decorations was autumn; red and orange flowers, rowanberries, rose hips and pretty fall leaves. The next photo shows a little centerpiece I made for one of the smaller tables - the vase is actually a little red teapot we found hiding in the kitchen! :-)

And since I know many of you share my love of vintage, I'm sure you'll adore this as much as I did: All the walls in the downstairs hall were decorated with vintage china! Just look at all those yummy teacups!

Lastly, here is the most important picture - the bride and groom! Now I may be a tiny bit biased, but doesn't my mother just look radiant?

My latest ATCs

I'm busy preparing for yet another exam, so I haven't had a lot of crafting time... Just thought I'd show you my latest ATCs. I'm in an alphabet ATC swap at Craftster, and we've reached J, K and L. Here are my contributions:

This batch was a lot of fun to make! The L card is my first fabric ATC, it's a bit wonky but it was fun to try something different. I favorite is "J is for jam", I love working with watercolors!

And just for fun, here's another pic of little Stella!

Back from my vacation

I had a great week visiting my parents and my sister, and of course my little niece. Stella is completely adorable! My father, Keith and I were the first to visit her, just four days after she was born. I thought I'd share a photo of her wearing the little booties I made!

Most of my vacation week was spent at my mom's house, relaxing, enjoying the countryside and of course, crafting! I spent an entire day helping my mom organize her fabric stash. It was a lot of fun sorting through all that fabric. We found lining fabric from a jacket my mom made for me when I was a child, left over corduroy from an awful pair of trousers I made in high school, and scraps from all sorts of other projects. We are both very proud of the result - what do you think?

We also arrived at the house at the perfect time for berry picking, so we spent a lot of time picking raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries. My mother and her husband-to-be have the most amazing wild raspberry plants in their garden, they pick like a kilo every day and there are still berries left! So of course Keith and I couldn't pass up the chance to take home some amazing home made jam and juice!

The picture shows all the berry goodness we brought home with us: raspberry jam, raspberry and blackcurrant jam, raspberry juice, rhubarb syrup and fresh redcurrants. Are you jealous yet?

I'll leave you with a shot of some of the lovely flowers in mom's garden. Pretty, aren't they?

Say hello to Stella!

Yes, I am now officially an aunt! Little Stella was born yesterday at 11.57. My sister sent the adorable cellphone picture, and I can't wait to meet the little cutie. I will be leaving for my mom's house today, and we're going up to visit Stella and her parents together. I will be away for about a week, but hopefully I'll be able to blog from my mom's computer once or twice. Have a good week while I'm off in baby land! :-)

Memories

Remember that little sneak preview I showed you last week? I finally uploaded enough pictures to tell you the whole story! This is easily the largest sewing project I've ever done all by myself, and I can tell you it involved A LOT of research and scanning the web for tutorials! It was so rewarding to teach myself everything from scratch! The result? My very first memory quilt!



The idea of making a memory quilt for my mom came into my head about six months ago. Both my grandparents passed away last year after being sick for a long time, so naturally it has been a rough time for her and for the whole family. For me, working with this quilt was a good way of seeing past all the sadness and remembering all the wonderful things about our family. I wanted it to reflect happy memories, so that she (and all of us) could look at it and remember all the good times.

It is a quilted wall hanging, about 28" x 32" in size. Incorporated in the design are 8 photos, printed on awesome EQ Printables fabric sheets. I thought I would just give you a quick review of the different products I tried for the photo squares - I could write half a book on photo transfer techniques after this! I first tried a couple of different inkjet iron-on transfers, but they all gave the fabric a really thick, yucky plastic coating. Then I tried printing the photos on Miracle Fabric Sheets which looked OK - they didn't have the drawback of the plastic coating, but the contrast and color depth were not very good. I finally tried the EQ sheets and the quality was SO much better! Strong colors, sharp lines and a really good quality fabric. I very much recommend it for projects like this! It is a bit pricey, but I want this quilt to survive for a long time so it was definitely worth it! Here are a few close ups of the squares:





The last one is not a photo, but I think it's my favorite square in the whole quilt! It is cut from an old pillow case, embroidered by my great grandmother! It shows her initials, MB, and it's got to be around 70 years old. I can't believe how many times this has been washed, and the embroidery still looks perfect! I was so happy that I managed to incorporate it into the quilt, I really feel it adds another dimension to it.



This is a picture of the back. I used fleece as batting, because I didn't want the quilt to be too "fluffy". After machine quilting the layers together, I used this great tutorial to make the hanging sleeve. It turned out great but all that hand sewing was such a pain! I wanted the stitches to look nice and neat (my mom is a textile crafts teacher so I just knew she would look...) plus you have to be really careful not to stitch through the quilt top. I made that mistake once and had to rip out several inches of tiny stitches... I barely finished in time to wrap it up before my mom arrived!



When it was finally done I just sat and stared at it for a while, I was so pleased! It was a bit hard to give it up after having spent so much time on it, but I know it will be loved in its new home! I'm planning to visit my mom in July to check out her new sewing studio, so hopefully I'll be able to show you what it looks like on her wall (did you put it up yet, mamma?) then!

Whew, what a long post! I hope you didn't fall asleep halfway through? I'm so excited about finishing this project, I could go on about it for hours... But I've got to get up early tomorrow (the flea market beckons!) so I really can't spend all night blogging. Shame! :-) Have a great weekend!