Linnea 'Ea' quilts...

To be able to do any sort of crafting regularly, with the kids around and me being a stay-at-home-mom for the time being, I've enrolled in several shorter and one long course at the Arbis-institute this autumn-spring semester. Thursdays are my favorite day of the week, because of the evening quilting course. 2,5 hours of uninterrupted crafting is reeeeeeally nice. Even when the only thing I get to do is cut pieces for works-in-progress. Even when it's boring. Which it was. But I had people around to talk to, so that made it bearable. What to do, when a fabric has both colors? Fussy cut, that's what. I had taken with me my whole stash of purples and oranges, but in those 2,5 hours all I had time to cut up where the purples. It looks like so little, cutting up 8 identical squares. In size 8x8 cm. Good thing that you can fold the fabric and cut through several layers.at once. Since the ironing boards are in the same room as the big cutting table,...

Aimo's quilt, finished. Fabrics used : Each color block has 35 different fabric squares + 1 square of the white background fabric. Most are reused fabrics found second hand, but e.g. most of the turquoise fabrics are new. Batting and backing fabric : Double layer of thinnest polyester batting found at Eurokangas. Reused IKEA bed duvet cover I've gotten from mom. Quilting pattern : Angela Walters' "swirl hook", orange peel and variants thereof.  Top thread :  Gutermann quilting thread, 100% cotton, 200m, color 618. Took slightly more than one spool.  Bobbin thread :  Gutermann Mara 120, 100% polyester, 1000m, color 800 (white). Used a bit more than 5 filled bobbins. Same thread used for piecing the blocks, on interfacing. A bit better detail photo of the "name tag" quilted at the bottom. While I was attending the Arbis course "Jeans makeover" last weekend, I asked if anybody could help me take a photo of the ...

This one is going to be rather picture heavy post. But I don't think you will mind :) I outline quilted his name and birth info. The new marking pen really helped. I did this while at the Thursday quilting course at Arbis, and it was the only project I brought with me. Forces you to stay focused, even when the quilting is boring... Here, I'm nearly done sewing in all the loose ends. Have to do that because I had to start and stop so often because of the letters. At home, I quilted it on and off that Friday through Sunday. Small swirl hooks between the color blocks, larger ones on the border. And an orange peel variant in the crossings. Basically, like this. A small border outline around the color blocks themselves. Some of the swirl are more swirly, and some are without a hook.  Basic orange peel pattern quilted on the color blocks themselves. This is the backing fabric. It's an old IKEA duvet cover, and it's off-white and...

So, one of the things about being a houseowner is that you have to learn a lot of how to fix thing on and in a house. But I actually knew already how to put up blinds from Ikea. Our house gets a lot of noon and afternoon light in through the windows in both the kitchen and the living room, which makes it really warm indoors during the long summer days and nights that Finland gets. So, we've steadily bought more and more of these type of blinds that don't let ANY light in. Because it's really nice to get to go to sleep in a dark room in the summer, even those days when the sun just goes down for maybe 30 min tops. So, my work table in the living room has been looking like this today: I did finish putting up all three today, so from now on, we have 3/6 windows in the living room that have working blinds again. Because trust me, sawing metal and having lots of trash on one of your "quilting areas" isn't a thing any quilter wants!

After the "Jeans makeover"-course had ended, I headed home via the Red Cross second hand store. Up on the second floor, in the hobby and craft material section, I found five fabric pieces. They had a sign saying "3 euros per bit or 5 euros for a whole bag". Yes, I took and started to fill a bag, and no, it didn't matter to me that I didn't get it filled to the brim. Two solids and three prints were a good haul. Somehow, four of the fabric pieces match really well. The green novelty fabric was a "oh, let's just take it" impulse. 5,00  bag of fabrics ______________ 5,00 € total Total spent on stash this year:  193,92 + 5,00 =  198,92  €