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  ^^

Jeans Blue Bracelet

Made a new pewter bracelet from my brand new jeans blue copper thread. It was a lot of fun to work with.

I've also been getting a lot of emails lately (thank you all for your interest, it's so much fun!) about how to make ones own pewter bracelets, what materials one need etc. So I will make a full tutorial for you as soon as I can, with every step described and also a complete list of tools and materials needed.  I hope it will be sooner rather then later but no promises =)

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.

A new baggie =)

I made me another storage baggie at the quilt retreat, because you can't have to many right?

Partly to try out a somewhat different technique at making them but mostly to have a reason to buy the fabric I made it from. It has the most adorable collection of cat books and cats on a bookshelf! I just love it, I think I'm actually going to make a framed picture of a piece of it it's so cute!

Mum also made an super cute tiny little baggie, and Anki (who never can make just one of anything ^^) made a whole army of adorable ones.

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.  =)

I have such excellent company and help with my night time sewing

I just felt I had to show you what excellent company I have just this second as I've started playing with my Hoffman Bali Pop Grasshopper. It's a lovely combination of colors (the dark green don't stand out like that IRL, it's the night time photo that's to blame) and Diana obviously thought so too as she immediately settled on my finished strips as I'd laid them out =)

Earlier she's been "holding" the lower end of my measuring tape for me as I've measured my strips ^^ Such a helpful little lady my Diana.

This quilt is going to become my own version of a quilt I've seen both online (where I can't remember for the life of me right now) and then later on the quilting retreat. This one is made by the talented Anna at the retreat:

However, as the technique makes me think of chameleons rather then regular lizards, I think I'm going to make a play on that for my version ^^

Simple table runner "a la Maggur"

At the quilting retreat one of my dear friends had been mass producing these table runners for her friends and in the end I just had to try my hand at one too. It was such a simple strip piecing process and a brilliant ending solution  made this runner a pure joy to complete! Thank you Maggan for showing me how to make this! <3

The colour choice I'm not 100% on, sometimes I think it's really pretty, other times it makes me sort of nauseated... I think that if I'd chosen a dark green edge instead of the pink, it would have looked much, much better and less vomit inducing ^^

This was also my first time of quilting with a decorative stitch, I choose little leafs in a variegated thread and I'm quite happy with the result, not over the moon but it kind of works. It's unwashed in the pictures, I'm quite sure a good wash and tumble will do it good. =)


In case anyone is wondering where I got the adorable shell and the pretty sea-urchin shells (are they called shells?), we've been snorkelling a lot the last few days just about a hundred meters from our apartment. Luckily for me it's a local beach - or beach might be a touch on the grandiose side for a name for this little place - anyhow so there's plenty of finds to make on the bottom around here as the tourists hasn't cleaned it out. We also just got a new camera, it was really cheap as a new model just hit the shelves but I think the pictures are quite decent. It's mainly for partying (it's basically indestructible) and swimming (waterproof up to 10 meters) and we snapped some pictures of our swim two days ago.

 Me giving Andreas directions on where we're swimming next ^^

Andreas swimming, he's amazing with holding his breath, he can be under the water easily 8 times longer then me.

Mr. Octopus was a little shy =)

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