Fantastic Flurry!

Look what I've got: My very first Fat Quarter bundle! It's Flurry by Kate Spain and it's very bit as magnificent as I'd dreamed it to be ^^ Now the question is how in heavens name I'll ever bring myself to open it...

Since I don't have much to share with you other wise due to work, playing Portal 2 (which is every bit as fun as I hoped and super cozy to play wrapped under our Companion Cube quilt) and some secrets, I thought I'd break my own rule of "never ever upload a picture of what I eat on my blog" XD
I didn't want to be that kind of blogger you know? But I found this amazing blog written by what appears to be an equally fantastic person who's recipes I'm really enjoying so I really wanted to share.

So this is what we ate yesterday, it's Thai Summer Spring Rolls and I found the recipe over at fANNEtastic Food . They where so much fun to make, the Peanut dip was nothing short of amazing and it was so much fun to make and eat!

And we turned the ingredients into these adorable little wraps that we dipped in chili soy sauce, yum!

New Style: "Raw Edge" Sami bracelets

So I've been wanting to do some experimenting with new styles of sami bracelets for a while and the Handmade Jewelery Club feature was exactly the kick in the bum I needed. It's a perfect design to whip up quickly and makes great use of those leftover bits of braid I always get since I tend to do add a bit extra length whenever a make a bracelet to ensure my final bit of braid is as even as possible.

The glue is not dry in the image which is why it's still visible and the seams aren't completely closed up, I just wanted to snap a picture before the light disappeared hence it looks a little haphazard ^^

This bracelet isn't sewn together but two pieces of glued together raw edged leather.  It gives it a nice, edgy look and the closure is just a piece of leather instead of my normal twirled leather thong. 

I have been featured! =)

I just found out I've been featured over at the Handmade Jewelry Club!

They have lots of jewellery tutorials and so much inspiration and I'm honored they choose to include one of mine, the Macramé for Sami Bracelets one: 

They have lot's of great tutorials over there, be sure the check them out =)

*beams with pride*

Happy Easter!

The Easter and birthday bunny (my mother^^) sent us a package of Swedish candy, lovely feathers and Easter chickens, summer quilting gloves and more and here's some of the decoration that came out of it =)

I've been sewing a lot but there's not much I can show I'm afraid... So in the mean time, please enjoy Easter in whichever way you prefer, my time will be spent in front of the swing machine when work permits, if I can get my hand on Portal 2 we'll likely be playing that too. Eating some (read a LOT) "bilar", and some good food.

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On a less happy notice, Spring hunting is on in Malta.
An activity I really detest, tons of endangered birds of prey are illegally shot and/or trapped. The EU are against this and lot's of people are trying to get it to stop without much luck. So now some fantastic people are arranging "Spring Watch", which basically is volunteers walking the island, trying to ensure hunting laws are followed with risk to their own life.  And this has really improved the situation I believe, if I only could be off work that way I'd be out there in a second. The "risk to their own life" part is not exaggerated, having been on the wrong end of these hunters wraith before and being shot in the chest with a hail gun a few years ago I know what I'm talking about and that these people are not to be taken lightly.

I was working at a dog sanctuary back then and we'd been told by the hunters that for the time of the spring hunting (which was a much longer affair a few year back) the dogs where not to be let of leash, only to be walked on the road etc. Rules we gladly followed to ensure non of our dogs where hurt. However, one morning when me and another volunteer where taking out the first batch of dogs for a walk, a coward was hiding down the road behind a huge pickup truck. He fired two shots (we think, quite a lot of panic here) at us which luckily non of them hit any of the dogs and me got some of the spray in my chest, luckily it was really cold and I was wearing heavy clothing so I wasn't badly hurt, but it stung like a bitch. The other girl got some pieces of hail in the forehead which caused some damage and quite a lot of bleeding, she was only thanking her lucky star she got to keep her eyes...
The bastard took of driving like a mad man and we where to chocked to think of taking his license plate number. The neighbor farms (who where quite positive to the sanctuary and the work we did despite the fact that the dogs sometimes tended to end up in their crops  while learning to be walked off leash ^^) told us though that they'd never seen the man or car before and the speculation was that he had come from another part of the island to avoid recognition. The police couldn't care less when the issue was reported...

Me and Beauty at Noah's Ark: 

The reason I'm telling the story is because I truly believe that if more people got their eyes open for this issue, hopefully something can be done and the Maltese authorities would be forced to take action.

Companion Cube Quilt - His

It's finally finished! 3 days before Portal 2 I'm finally able to reveal my masterpiece! Finished at 56x56 inches =)

Ca 600 3" individually pieced solid squares of Kona cotton later it's done, each little pixel separate and carefully joined. It's batting is a very light, bright white cotton batting so he is to be able to make use of it most of the year here in the heat. The backing is all Kona White but with a bit of FMQ writing in the right hand corner:

Andreas with his quilt, we choose a blue for the heart as close to "Portal Blue" as we could:

Can't wait to get started on min which will have a pink heart like the original: 

 It was very windy today when we tried to take these pictures and we got a lot of failed attempts, please see my foot and guess what happened after this picture was taken ^^

The original pixel layout for the cube quilt came from this beautiful cross stitched pin by pixel8bit :

Winding Wines Tablerunner

So since the weather isn't cooperating for outdoor pictures of the Companion Cube Quilt and I'm currently working on some secrets so I can't share in progress pictures - I figured I's show you an old table runner I did a few years back that I just love. It's a really fun project to do as the possibilities are endless with this technique, the downside is that it requires a LOT of thread ^^

I love the wine fabric, I have enough fabric to make something else with it and I think I have to use it soon as this poor table runner will be so sun bleached and washed up that they won't match otherwise =)

Guess what's tumbling?

The compaion cube is finally quilted, binding has been sewn on and it's in the tumble dryer.Tomorrow if the weather is nice, I'll get some pictures of it.

Below you can see one of the reasons why quilting takes so much time for me. When my princess decides to use my WIP as a place for her washing up and a catnap, what can I do but work on something else in the meantime? =)

My beautiful Diana who rules our house and my heart with a silk covered iron paw.

Quilting a Companion Cube

I'm currently quilting the companion cube quilt, I'm doing a rectangular version of a loop de loop pattern I guess is the best name for it =) Andreas wanted something a bit more manly then normal meandering, a bit more edgy, and I thought it only fitting for a quilt of a cube so this is what we landed on.

I also have a trusty "quilt-holder" which is working alongside me on the ironing board, just as I took the picture she of course had to stretch out a paw to make sure it was clear she was actually helping, not just lying there ^^

A side not to future me and anyone else who might want to help out: If I EVER get the stupid idea to do a quilt with a solid bright white backing ever again after I've made my own companion cube quilt, please grab something hard and hit me over the head with it. It was darn near IMPOSSIBLE to not get a black fluff of cat hair in between the backing and the batting. 

The cake is a lie

So I've finally finished the Companion Cube quilt top for Andreas gaming blanket! 600 separately peiced 3" squares later, it's finally done and already basted (please thank your favorite deity for 505 basting spray for me ^^) and by the machine for quilting. It's being quilted using a square loop the loop design which I'll take pictures of the process for tomorrow as it's to dark now =)

Portal 2 (the sequel to the game the Companion Cube is from) is released on the 20ieth of April so the quilt has to be done by then by the latest so he can play it with his quilt around him. I've been working on the back, it's basically just all Kona white but I decided to add a little fun touch:

Those of you who've played the game will know exactly what this is. For the rest of you, this phrase is scribbled on stuff all over the Enrichment Center for Aperture Laboratories, which is where the game takes place. To ensure I got a real feeling handwriting style for the text I simply freehand quilted the text with black thread. It's a little tilted and wonky, just like it looks in the game:

Look what I've got! Sunshine!

Today I got a delivery of pure sunshine! Or more correctly, a big box of Sunkissed by Sweetwater.

I couldn't stop smiling as I unpacked these fabrics, they where even more beautiful then I'd dreamed for the pictures I'd seen on the net, they where so bright but at the same time so soft colors. I just love this line!

Let's just say they have lifted my spirits a lot and I feel like creating again, now all I need to do is manage to get the time to do so...

Work is killing me...

Or at least, it's killing any and all creative spirit.

Problems with the people you work with on a daily basis is terrible, and right now I'm having a lot of them. It's been building up over quite some time and it's finally culminated, and right now it's taking all my energy to deal with it and sort it out. I normally love my job but it's times like these I wish I had a normal job where I just got to call it a day at 17:00 in the afternoon, go home and forget all about work until the next day. 

I've not been sewing more then a couple of seams on Andreas gaming blanket, I've managed to finish another quarter so it's only 1 quarter left to do but right now, I don't see it happening anytime soon. I've also been sick since we got back from Paris which hasn't exactly helped my mood.So I figured I'd show off some of the fabric I bought when in Sweden to try and lift my spirits a bit.

First out is some really yummy browns and coffee fabrics I bought at Mia's Quiltbod, I'm thinking they'll become a table runner and maybe one or two of those currently oh so popular "mug rugs"  =)

These fabrics are also from Mia but in a different sense, she was kind enough to gift me these AMAZING fabrics after I'd been stroking them all day =) She wasn't selling them, they where her own personal fabrics so I was so ecstatic (I believe I even did a little dance ^^) when she declared that she'd be happy to split what she had of them with me. I have a very clear idea of what I'm going to make with them and they're even more neon in person, I love them - Thank you Mia! <3

I actually have MORE fabric to show you from the Sweden trip, can you believe it? But I'll leave that to another day. Now I'm going to go to bed so there's at least a chance I actually get well soon. XD