I'm still alive!

I just wanted to pop in and let you all know I'm still alive! 

I've just got so much going on right now, the release of our new game OviPets, running our "old" game PonyIsland, I what free time I have has been spent preparing for a big contest here in Malta (rehearsals every day now) and diving with my friends to make use of these last few days of warm ocean before winter. So this is what I've been up to lately (my poor Horizon is so neglected).

Me, my fiance and our friends going on a boat dive to Gozo:

Crocodile rock with Azure window in the background, had a lovely dive here. 

Beautiful Moray Eel who got more then a little upset with me for trying to get a good photo of him ^^

It's me! ^^

Andreas relaxing.

This Painted Comber was very sure of his camo.

Boating with friends

We're engaging in some acrobatic play in the crystal clear waters of the blue lagoon.

Hopefully things will slow down in a week or two, but I don't dare to make any promises this time XD

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I've also received a picture of a beautiful folded star I just had to show you all, it's made by Cindy Murphy and it's just gorgeous!

What I've been working on for so long =)

I was thinking that maybe a few of you could be curious about what I've been working on lately that has been keeping me from all crafty stuff and other less important things - like sleep - lately =)

It's a brand new game finally ready for reveal, introducing:

Me and my fiance are web game developers and this particular new game is super cute and fun if you ask me! It's made for Facebook and it is, to quote my own clever description from the front page:

An exciting new pet game focused on genetics and breeding! In OviPets, you and your friends will be able to research new species, splice eggs with new mutations which can then be passed on to their offspring along with their colors and other genetic traits, and raise and care for pets in all the colors of the rainbow. What will you research?

Aren't the Draconis cute?! I just love this breed! Our artist is just fantastic!

It's tied with the Felines as my favorite I think...

If you where to check it out OviPets  now though - please keep in mind that it's still in beta (meaning not completely finished) and only made for the newest browsers out there, so update your browser to the latest version (IE 9, Firefox 6 etc.) before paying us a visit.

While this game is a little like quilting in the sense that you get to play with colors and how they combine, and you can add and remove genes such as wings/tails/manes etc, upload your own patterns on the pets in the shape of tattoos and such I bet most of you are wondering when in heavens name this blog is going to go back to showing off some crafty stuff and hopefully giving some inspiration, the answer is: Any day now ^^

You'll find out what my little preview from a while back is from in a few days I promise, and it's a new tutorial to boot =) And after that I'm hoping to have our new game under control and have some time to quilt and craft again.

New header

While waiting for stuff to upload when working or just grabbing a 5 minute break for sanity (such as my little fabric therapy session the other day) I realized that my blog really needed the little face lift I've been trying give it for some time. While I loved my banner with Edward on it, I felt that I could finally move on and change it now without feeling like I was doing something bad - it was a major step for me. =)

So I started fiddling about during my mini breaks and looking around for blog designs I liked, and I ended up on a bunch of digital scrap booking pages. While many of them where lovely, though maybe a touch to busy for me, they had lots of interesting ideas and elements I really liked. I found lot's of lovely free stuff one could use and ended up with what you see now after many mini breaks.  It's mostly basic Photoshop shapes and a few scrapbboking embellishments.

And while I was at it, I also made a little post divider. I'd love to hear what you think about my new style! =)

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I also have to show you this little adorable fellow who accidentally ended up in my sink the other day. He was hiding in a pot which I took inside to water (since I'd forgotten all about my poor plants in the last week of work) and as I turn on the tap - up shoots this little guy! Luckily Andreas caught him quickly and I snapped a few quick photos before we let him back out on the balcony in a separate, dry pot =)

A little fabric therapy

Today I felt I just had to touch some fabrics - for no other reason then for my own sanity.

So I dumped my scrap bin on the freshly steamed carpet and dug out every, single, little scrap I had left from my Sunkissed jelly roll. Which was surprisingly much! If you've read my blog before, you already know how many projects I've made with the leftovers from my Sunkissed Summer Squares quilt. But I figured I could always squeeze out some more from the little roll and I've decided to do one (or two if I can push it that far) of the pillows from my new "From the heart" pattern for our couch.

Other then that, all I do is work, eat when I remember and sleep when there's time. Yep, I'm super boring right now, to you dear readers, to my friends and to my poor neglected kitty. I'm very sorry.

Houston, we have a problem...

Namely work...
At the moment work is taking up 110% of my day (meaning, it cuts into sleeping and eating too ^^). We're beta testing our new game and it's lot's of work and stress to fine tune stuff before it's ready for a worldwide release. However, luckily it's very fun work but it means I have no time for sewing or crafting, which is sad.

On a craftier note, today I got the pattern from Don't Look Now! It arrived so quickly!

Really love these patterns and I can't wait to get started on some pillows for the couch, thank you so very much Kellie! =)

So in order to not leave you completely in the dark, I figured I'd show you a sneak peak aka extreme closeup of what's currently baking over at my place ^^

Yep, that's Flurry by Kate Spain.

Chameleon top finished

My chameleon quilt top is finished! I'm quite happy with the borders, made the whole thing a bit more fun I think. I'm about to order backing for it from the UK, I'm thinking about trying shopping from Doughtys Online this time. While I've been sewing, Diana and Andreas have been playing Witcher 2, a really awesome game.

A few days ago this little package arrived from my mother, it contained some lovely buttons, zippers and other notions I'd ordered when I was in Sweden last time. And she (being the best mum in the world) also included a pack of these amazing microfibre cloths I tried when I visited her last time. Each color is good for a special job but the best one is great for cleaning screens with, amazing!
Those zippers are each 24" long, good quality and each cost €1, how cool is that BTW? You've got to love Stoff & Stil!

*realizes she's just blogged about cleaning supplies* I'm seriously sorry for that disruption from our regular programming, we'll be back to sewing and similar more creative talk in the next post I promise  ^^

Chameleon walking by....

Chameleons are some of my favourite animals! I just love them - and let's face it - what's not to love? Their adorable little feet? Their long tongues? Their cool eyes? The ability to change color?  Nope, all pure love =D

So when I saw Annas beautiful lizard quilt I immediately thought CHAMELEONS! And that's what I've been up to lately with my Bali Pop - Grasshopper, but since I couldn't find any suitable artwork of chameleons that looks like the ones we have here in Malta - I had to draw my own which presented some difficulty but I think that the final result is absolutely satisfying. =)

Here's me and a chameleon we found outside Maltas old capital city Mdina a couple of years ago so you'll see what I mean, most artwork are of the more fancy looking, rainforest type chameleons. I don't have any recent chameleon pictures, they're sadly getting rarer and rarer here :(

So proud of my mother and our friends!

My mum (to the left in the photo) and 3 of our friends, Annika (on the right), Anki and Maggan are currently hosting a quilt show in Borlänge, the city I'm originally from in Sweden. And I couldn't be happier or more proud for them, it's so cool! <3

The local papers have both been there and here are some of the pictures from the papers and a link to the stories, (though it's in Swedish). Borlänge Tidning and Dala Demokraten.

Quilt retreat picture time!

I just had to share some photos with you from the quilt retreat. Because, we'll a picture says more then a thousand words so then a bunch of pictures much be as good as your average novel right? ^^

Anki and mum hard at work, Anki is the fantastic person who let me borrow one of her sewing machines for the retreat, can't thank you enough Anki! <3 I sit just opposite mum on the same table.

I tried my hand at Meshwork, it was quite fun =)

This is what can happen when you don't pay attention... We had lot's of laughs over mistakes like this one, most of them could be blamed on "drinking and quilting", but not this one though if I remember correctly ^^

Fabrics, lot's of fabrics!

Half of the big room where we sit and sew. Me and mum always sit on the side you don't see here though.

Our time to cook dinner and we where enjoying a well deserved glass of wine and good food in the kitchen after having cooked for a few hours. It's more difficult then one would think to make a recipe work for 30 people...

My maternal grandparents came to visit one evening which made me so happy as I miss them a lot and I very rarely get to see them. <3 It's quite late in the photo though and we're all very tired.

Some of me and mums early work, one bag each (in my case not so much a bag as a "prototype" of a bag ;) ), I love mums bag with the wood fabric, so cool! And do you see the adorable Miranda bear hugging a heart? The lovely Anki had made that for me and it was waiting for me on the sewing machine I got to borrow when I arrived! I nearly cried it was so sweet of her! <3

Annika, our lovely entertainer/singer extraordinaire! The reason for our toned stomach muscles after each quilt retreat - thanks to so many hearty laughs. She'd made such an adorable owl backpack for her beautiful granddaughter Myran -amongst other things =)

Ankis beautiful Tonga Treats quilt top. This pattern was really all the rage this retreat, sooo many other, equally beautiful versions where made that I sadly didn't photograph.

Yes, I was somewhat, let's use the word "frustrated" with the bag at this point...

Being here is complete relaxation <3

Thank you all fantastic ladies for yet another fantastic week of "symester"! 

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, they where all taken with my compact camera.  =)

Back from my quilt retreat!

Hi everyone and most welcome to all new readers! <3

I'm so excited to see that I now have over 50 followers, I can barely believe it... It's so fun and exciting to see and I hope you all feel welcome!  I try to reply to all comments through email but I'm a bit of a scatterbrain with tons of work related emails too so please don't feel ignored if I should forget to reply to your comment, I promise I treasure each and every one.

Please know that my vacations for this summer is now over and pace will be picking up here as I have so much to share from my quilt retreat  (I'm a bag making lady now, can you believe it?) and also sooo many things planned for Moda Bakeshop and for the blog both when it comes to both personal projects and tutorials for everyone.

I really need to get back to normality (been travelling quite a bit this spring/summer) and work a little now but hopefully I'll be able to share some of what I made and what happened during the quilt retreat shortly. I met a lot of old friends and made great new ones, will tell you more later.

In the mean time I thought I'd show you something that made me super happy while I was away: This beautiful version of my Summer Squares quilt made by the fantastic Ms Brown! It was made as a baby shower gift and was naturally, very, very appreciated by the receivers. I just love everything about this quilt but especially the way she quilted it! Both the beautiful use of the negative white space to spell out the recipients name and the pretty flowers in the squares! Lovely! <3 It's made with "Hoo's in the Forest", a simply adorable line!

Thank you so very much for sharing your lovely creation with me and for choosing my pattern, it really made my week <3

Our June Sweden trip

As I didn't have time to share any photos with you during the trip I figured "better late then never" right?

The main event for our June trip was Andreas last sister getting married (last as in the other two already married ^^), Andreas is now the only unmarried sibling. The wedding was lovely and the bride was absolutely beautiful, however the weather was not so we where freezing the entire time. Can you believe she made that lovely bouquet herself from flowers picked in their mothers garden?

Me and Alma (our god daughter) at the wedding party, we where teaching her a lot of stuff I'm sure her mother will love when trying to take pictures of her in the future =D We where also huddled up for the cold.

Here's the bride from the previous picture in a somewhat different setting, she was trying to teach her young Icelandic stallion how to behave in reins, it typically went a lot better then this but I of course had to share this lovely picture of defiance =)

We found this poor little birdie trying to cling onto a water lilly leaf in the river so we immediately went after him! I managed to scoop him up which resulted in him sitting in my hand for 20 or so minutes recuperating and drying before it's mother came and it went after her into the bushes to be fed. Happy ending to what could have been a very tragic story.

In a Andreas parents tiny little pond we also found this beautiful little fellow, it's actually the first time any of us saw a wild Salamander in Sweden. He was gorgeous and his belly beautiful! We of course let him back in the water directly after snapping these few pictures.

Andreas oldest sister Therese  has what only can be described as a small zoo at home with just over 150 different animals (lot's and lots of birds, hens, pheasants etc.) and she had just gotten two adorable Alpackas! When we get a house somewhere I'll absolutely have Alpackas. They're the most amazing little animals, really sociable, sooo soft and clean, don't make any noise (sounds like soft bird noises) and I could just pet them forever. This is me and Momoko, and no I'm not choking her, just stroking her super soft neck =)

So since I love animals, going back to Sweden is always a lovely time for me even through it's almost always insanely stressful to have time to see everyone we want to see. Thanks everyone for a lovely visit!