Seams are finally clipped!

After many, many hours of clipping, buying new scissors (which where not much better then the old ones), spending more hours clipping and clipping, every single seam is finally clipped! I swear to some kind of higher power that I will not make another rag quilt before I buy myself a high quality pair of spring loaded scissors. This was a nightmare and I've officially ruined the skin on my little finger and my ring finger... But the feeling when I was finally done was awesome =)

And speaking of scissors, oh how I miss high quality stuff like fiskars scissors easily available in a nearby store. The expensive stuff one finds here isn't high quality at all sadly..

Anyhow our washing machine has been broken for a week and yesterday the mechanic came and took it with him, so I have no washing machine and my laundry is piling higher and higher. That isn't so much of a concern, my biggest concern is that I can't wash my new quilt... And my friend and neighbor who normally lets me borrow his tumble dryer is away on a long holiday until after Christmas so I'm really at loss as to how I'm to be able to finish this quilt before Christmas... Went down to the laundromat a few streets away but they had no instructions on how to work their tumble dryer and no personnel to ask either and I don't want to risk ruining my quilt by running the wrong program in this industrial size dryer. So stay tuned for the continuation of the "tales of the rag quilt" =)

Not sure if you can see much of a difference from the last photo, but all seams are finally clipped here:

Christmas decorations and how I love my handy fiance

My machine is finally working really nicely again thanks to a second tune up by my sweetie yesterday, he opened it up and removed the stopper for the tread tension weel so now I can decide exactly what tension I want without opening it up ^^

I spent some time last night making more apples and fine tuning my pattern, testing different leaves and such - the last two came out really nicely if I may say so myself =)

 My 12 days of Christmas apples:

 Christmas decorated

Now I have to get back to the nightmare that is cutting my rag quilt, the SECOND I get a chance to get high quality spring loaded scissors specifically for this purpose, I'm jumping on it!

My Christmas Rag Quilt is moving along again!

Andreas manged to put Emerald back together! Yay! Thank you sweetie! <3
And while the thread tension now is very off, it's sewing and at least the back of the fabric looks quite nice, stitch wise =)

So I managed to put together the last pieces of my rag quit and it's now fully sewn together! Now I just have to clip the seams, wash and tumble dry and it's DONE!

And no, no worries - it's not all wonky, I just rotated the picture so it would face the right way for you ^^

He's broken again...

Ok, so my poor little Emerald is broken again in case someone is wondering why nothing is happening over here. Andreas has been picking him apart and hopefully he'll be able to put Humpty together again since clearly the machine fixing guy here in Malta apparently didn't really know what he was doing...

On a happier note, my Aloe Vera is blooming for the very first time! It's always been growing like crazy, but it's never gone into bloom *is very happy*

Making Christmas apples

So, I spent my first advent making Christmas apples of the 12 days of Christmas fabric I have left from making the rag quilt. The quilt will soon be put together (if I can get my sewing machine to work again) and I can show you =)

In the mean time, my first apple, I've plans for a few  more. The picture was taken with my cellphone so the colors aren't the best, it's much less gray in person =)

I have a "design wall"

Or maybe more correctly, I have a very temporary but oh so useful piece of batting pinned to my wall ;)

I figured it would solve the problem of getting cat hair on all my fabric pieces while I was arranging them, so I bend down to pick up the camera and voila, there's cat hair getting on my fabric anyway since I looked away ^^

So without further ado, my not so fancy design wall and Diana, who's very, very quick:

My new telephone needed a cover

I just got a new phone, a HTC Desire HD which is a really awesome phone. I can work from it and it really makes my life a lot easier. That and the fact that my old phone (and I'm talking ancient, inherited Sony Ericsson here *lol*)  gave up about two months back this was such a relief that my new one finally arrived! That and it's so much fun to finally be one of the cool kids with a smartphone =)

But since it's one huge phone I couldn't find any telephone covers that would fit it so I decided to make my own, very simple just two rectangles sewn together with a little thin batting and a hand sew on binding. I got to try my new, iron on, super thin batting from vlieseline, which was fun, I'm quite happy with it, perfect for small projects.

Front with phone in:

 Back:

A beautiful gift

Since everything got turned upside down I completely forgot to post the pictures of a beautiful gift I received on the 26th of October. Yvonne is a super sweet woman I met on my 2009 summer quit retreat in Våmhus. She and her husband came to Malta and when we met up for coffee she gave me the best type of gift = Fabric! And not just any fabric, kitty fabric - which is the best type of fabric  ^^

All of these adorable fabrics where in the bundle, thank you so very much Yvonne! <3

Trying to get back to some kind of normality...

So since life luckily tend to go on even when you think it's incredibly offensive of it to do so because you heart is falling apart - we're starting to settle into some kind of everyday life without Edward. But it's much less fun then it used to be to be at home.

So I've started to sew again and my 12 days of Christmas Rag Quilt is moving along nicely. I'm planning on posting a little Rag Quilt tutorial once I'm done as it's such a fun and easy to do project for everyone, no matter if your sewing machine isn't  "made for quilting" =)

I've sewn 84 of these little piles (which is half of the quilt) and yes, I want the flannel to be slightly bigger then the cotton square, it's not bad cutting on my part *lol*:

 Which has resulted in this somewhat bulky and messy looking thing which I know will be lovely once done. If anyone is wondering what the ugly plastic box is, it's a dehumidifier to save my fabric and machine from the most terribly enemy - Humidity!:

The house and our hearts are empty....

Our best friend, our baby, our amazing kitty Edward (GIC S*Räserråttans Gustav, NFO) went to heaven on Monday and we've been completely destroyed here at home. I can't with words describe how much he meant to us, what an important part of our lives he was and how it feels like someone cut out a piece of our hearts that day.

I thought he didn't seem his usual active self on Friday morning so I immediately checked his mucous membranes and they did seem a hint of yellow. I panicked and we called the vet and went there in the afternoon. Sadly our worst fears where realized and he had gotten back the liver infection he had suffered from two years back which he only barely made it through after a year of fighting. This time his liver however was to scarred to even have a chance to take care of the infection. On Monday, only three days after we first discovered he was ill we had to make the most difficult decision of our lives and let him go as he didn't fight at all this time.

We however got two extra years with him from his unwillingness to give up last time and we're so grateful for that. He was so special, he loved his life, his family, every other living creature on the planet and he's in his days made friends with everything from other cats, to dogs, our friends and so on. I've never met a more grateful cat, if we bought him anything from a cat tree to a blanket or a toy he'd love it, he'd sleep in it, play with it and really cherish it in a way I've never seen a cat do. He was no ordinary cat and will always be remembered by us and others who's lives he's touched, the judges on all the cat shows he's been to and won by his gigantic size, amazing temperament, and gentle soul and by the fantastic kittens he got with beautiful S*Wildwood's Repris: http://www.sannafjallet.se/k_kull.htm

You'll live forever in our hearts lilla plogen and one day we'll meet again! <3