Amy Butler Blossom Handbag

The main event during the quilt retreat for me was making a serious, every day use handbag for myself and with this also trying out my very first Amy Butler pattern, and I'd chosen her free Blossom Handbag pattern. I'm very happy with the end result even if the making resulted in a lot of swearing and seam ripping. While I really like the design, I'm not a true friend of the pattern (more visual aids and diagrams would have been very, very helpful!) as it's an advanced bag yes, but after having put it together once I think that with clearer instructions it wouldn't have had to be so difficult as it was.

I added piping to the rounded corners as they wanted to get a little bumpy otherwise, this probably because I used the wrong interfacing.

I'll be honest with you and say that those handle attachments will be used a lot by me further down the road, so cool! And that part of the pattern was also very clearly described and easy to follow which made them a delight! =)

Made some small edits to the inside, divided the big inside divider panel/pocket into two smaller pockets, one for phone and one for the camera. I also attached a small snap hook for keys with a tiny yo-yo. I really wish the pocket panels would have been attached to the lining as as they are attached now only in the top corners, small stuff really rattles around at the bottom making it three places to search for ones lip balm instead of one =)

I of course had to make a matching make up pouch and a cellphone cover ^^ Really love the pouch pattern, allows me to attach the zipper by machine, a godsend! Really like the reinforced bottom too, which wasn't a part of the original pattern but I thought it gives a nice, finished touch =)

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!

Summer Squares version - Grandma's Memories

You have no idea how excited I was when I got an email titled: " A quilt made from your Moda pattern "

I jumped on the email and in it I find pictures of this absolutely stunning version of my "Summer Squares Quilt", it's called Grandma's Memories, made by Jennifer . I love how she used the design as picture frames and I'm sure her Grandmother must love this beautiful gift.

Thank you so very much Jennifer for sharing your beautiful creation with me, I'm truly honoured you choose my pattern for such an important quilt. <3

Make-up travel bag

I've really needed a new one for ages and I finally decided to sit down and make it now before my quilt retreat. The retreat starts on Sunday and tomorrow I'm flying to Sweden again for it and I just can't wait! It's one of the best weeks of the year and I get to spend some lovely quality time with my mother whom I get to spend way to little time with otherwise! And speaking of my mother, it's from her I got the adorable fabrics with the rainbow horses I used for the appliqué on the front, the covered button and also for the lining of the zippered pocket.

The zippered pocket open, aren't the horses just great? I can't stop smiling whenever I see them, so it'll be a good start on every day when I bring this with me =) I'm happy to say I'm feeling really confident with the zippers at this point, haven't had to bring out the seam ripper for the last two at all ^^

Fully packed but unfolded (hence the bumpy looking left side in this picture ^^), it has a really handy place for all the 4 brushes I "must" have with me. Thanks to this set-up, I don't risk destroying the brushes by having them roll around with the other stuff and they're protected when the bag is folded up.

I'm really starting to feel confident making bags of my own design now, which will be very good for my plan for the quilt retreat is to make some more advanced ones following patters with help from the talented ladies at the retreat, so it feels good to at least have a grip on the basics.

My second Moda Bakeshop Project - Charming Rag Quilt Tutorial

2020 - EDIT: Unfortunately after heir wordpress crash this tutorial is no longer available on Moda Bakeshop, however, it is available for FREE in my Facebook group. 

I'm so happy to be sharing my second Moda Bakeshop project with you all, while honestly much less exciting then my first reveal, it's still quite fun I think and it does have some key differences in how it's made (no cutting and perfectly fitting in batting squares) from the number of other Rag projects that's been presented over there lately.  In my defense through, this quilt was finished in December and by then no other Rag Quilt projects at all had been presented there. ;)

It's finally "Christmas in July" over at the MBS and I get to show it too you! Can you imagine how hard it's been for me to not tell anyone about this quilt or show it off for over 7 months?

"Charming Rag Quilt"

It's made with Holly Taylor's Northern Cardinal fabric, while far away from my usual cheery color scale this quilt is absolutely perfect for our living room. The muted colors of brown, beige, and forest green made it a lovely addition to our couch during the winter. I'm also super excited with the pictures as it's so very "Malta" colored and matched perfectly with the sand stone everything is made from here. =)

It's a little weird photographing a Christmas quilt when the weather says full on summer. Got a lot of strange looks that day, dragging my quilt around, hanging it up in all kinds of places trying to get the perfect main picture for the tutorial.

Please take a look at the tutorial for this quilt here: Tutorial at Moda Bakeshop

I'd be so happy if you'd leave a comment over there, and if you decide to make one of these quilts based on the tutorial (or any of my other tutorials), I'd be even happier if you sent me an email with a photo so I can show it off here on the blog =)

This project originally came from my first full size rag quilt, that one you can see here.

Table runners turned into a bag!

I've made my very first, "real" bag. I made it from the adorable table runners I bought in Sweden from the previous post. I love lupines and poppies so this fabric is just great! It's lined with Kona Coal and the handles are also made from that. While I really like the bag I'm very, very unhappy with the stabilizer I used, it's absolutely terrible! I bought a yard of it when I was in Sweden at the "SyFestivalen" and I really wish I'd gotten the name of it so I wouldn't have to make the mistake of buying it again, it bubbled up from the fabric after just a few hours! Really glad it's on the lining and not the outside fabric.

Inside it has all of the little stuff I need, one zippered hidden pocket lined with my favourite cat fabric (very proud of this, I'm once again, master of the zipper! ^^), one key holder tab with a little plastic clip fastener, and a bunch of dedicated pockets, left to right it's for lipgloss, phone and then big one is for my compact camera. 

Really happy with the folded look of the bottom.

And a not very pretty picture for size comparison with me looking what I am - sleep deprived ^^ It's a rather big bag which is by design, it will be my beach bag so it was important that a big beach towel plus a big book could fit in there while still having room for a 1,5 litre water bottle and lot's of sunscreen =)

All in all, very happy with my first "real" bag project =)

I'm back from Sweden, with fabric =)

I'm back from a lovely vacation in Sweden. I had a fantastic time with friends and family and I even had time to do some fabric shopping (lucky me! ^^).

I bought two very pretty and very cheap (I normally hate sales, but not when it comes to fabric) table runners that hopefully very soon will be transformed into something completely different combined with the plastic curtain eyelets in the picture.

I bought a lovely Tonga Treats pack that I know exactly what to create with, it'll be turned into some very cool stars =)

I also ended up buying some fun novelty wine prints, and a number of very cute rivets and some more eyelets. The eyelets, rivets etc are in the hopes of that I finally this year on my week of quilt retreat (only one and  a half week to go, yay!) will create some cool bags. I always think that "this year I'll make bags" but I end up making big quilts instead... So I figured if I tell you guys my plans, I have some pressure on me to actually create a bag or two this year ^^

And FINALLY got to buy another bottle of 505 basting spray which was very, very fortunate as I'm totally out and no one (if you know anyone who does in Europe, pretty please let me know) ships this to Malta.

I got to see some of my fantastic mothers works in progress which each one is more fantastic then then next, just wish she'd start finishing up all her lovely tops so she'll show them off on her blog soon =)


I'll make another post soon with some more personal updates on what we've been doing =)

Little kitty growing up and Sweden trip

Remember this little guy that we rescued a few months back?

He was named Pjutin by his new owner and had mange, fleas, ringworm etc. You name it this poor little fella had it. Well luckily he was a fighter (and luckily non of us humans got the ringworm, my hands where raw with disinfectant for a while there) and after 2 weeks in our bathroom he went to live with his new owner. His owner is a friend of ours who just moved to Malta and works from home so he really needed someone to keep him company as much as little Pjutin needed an owner. He has quickly adapted to his new life with Jan and is a super cuddly, purring little bundle of love with his owner, while still quite scared of other humans though.

I got this photo from Jan yesterday, look what a handsome young fella he's growing up to be! 

He was neutered a few weeks ago which went over all expectations and been to the vet for all the tests we could think of. I was terrified he'd have Sandfly (Leishmaniasis), a very common and deadly disease nearly all stray animals get infected with here but luckily he wasn't!

I'm so happy for him and Jan =)

On another note,  I'm currently in Sweden for a wedding (it was very nice, will get some pictures up ASAP) and to spend some time with our families. Might be a few less blog posts then usual the upcoming weeks and they may be on the more personal plane then usual, just a little heads up =) However, I'm hoping I'll be lucky to get some quilt related stuff happening too.

Play with my brand new ruffle foot

I've been playing for the first time with my brand new ruffle foot, gosh what a fun tool it is!  Never had I known what a deep seated longing I had for perfect, pretty ruffles until today. ^^ The joy at making them was much, much bigger then I ever could imagine. =)

It took a few tries to get the ruffles right, so I ended up with a bunch of more or less nicely ruffled strips of fabric. I turned a couple of the more decent ones into flowers. As you might be able to tell I'm on a bit of a barrette streak lately. I bought a few ugly, cheap barrettes and now I'm having lot's of fun making them into pretty new barrettes for me to wear for the summer. =)

Here's the result of today's play, one BIG Ruffle Flower Bliss Barrette.

 And a smaller, with a different twist for the middle Sunkissed Barrette