New Territory

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Today was a bit of a tough day at work, and it left me with a lot on my mind. As always, the obvious way for me to relax and get my mind off things is to sew – it’s pure zen. As was the case today, however the quilt below isn’t from today, it was finished last night.

Frida saw a picture of a patchwork blanket for a teddy bear in one of my sewing magazines a few days ago. She was quick to order a blanket for her Hello Kitty build-a-bear, and I didn’t put up much of a fight. A year ago or so when I last wanted to try making quilt, I ordered a few charm packs from Fat Quarter Shop. I broke open one of those for the picnic blanket – one from Moda called Patisserie.

So I got everything aligned nicely and sewed up all the little squares, and then I thought: “Well, this didn’t take too long, and I’m almost done!” And then I got started quilting, and found out that I was not nearly done.

Trying something new

I struggled a bit with the quilting foot, and I’m learning from the beginning how to control pace, movement, pattern and everything.

As usual, I have been using different sources for instructions: I found help for many things on YouTube, and especially Leah Day has gathered what seems like a year of quilting lessons there, and she is quite pedagogical. Check out for instance her thoughts on basic quilting designs here. And I used her tutorial on how to bind the quilt here and then for the final. She has loads of detailed and really great videos on how to make different quilting designs, which is really inspiring.

All in all – including watching lots of videos on YouTube, learning new techniques, using a new presser foot etc. then for the final closing of the binding after I had attached it all the way round, I used this tutorial from Heather Bailey, which shows clearly how to join the two ends.

To the right here, you see Frida just after she made Hello Kitty at the Build-a-Bear shop following her birthday last year. The cat is almost as big as Frida is, and it takes up just as much space in her heart.

Now Hello Kitty will definitely be able to go picnicing with Frida – which she has been today actually. :)  So here’s the result:

I’m fairly happy with it, although I acknowledge, that I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to quilting. Anyway, while I was attaching the binding yesterday evening, Ronja was watching. And now she wants one. And that is what I’ve been working on today, but it isn’t done yet, so you’ll have to wait. See ya! :)

 

Rainy Easter Sunday

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Tulips and rain outside

Following a marvellous day yesterday, Easter Sunday has been rainy. We were planning to go somewhere, light a fire and make twistbread with the girls, but with the weather today, it just wasn’t possible – or at least it would have been rather wet.

Instead we painted Easter eggs (better late than never), and had good friends over in the afternoon.

This year's Easter eggs

Tomorrow is my last day off before I start my new job – and Ronja’s last day off before she starts in the after-school centre. She will be going there full time as kind of a transition period, until she starts school for real in August. What a big Tuesday for this little family.

Maybe tomorrow we will have weather for twistbread…

Happy Easter!

On The Lookout

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Ronja found her in the sandbox

Weekend. This week became the week when I found out I will be spending the next few months looking for a new job. Not really the situation you would want at the moment, is it..? Especially not since I love my job and have the best colleagues. Well, not for long now.

Do you remember back when you were young and going to school and you had so few responsibilities? And still everything seemed tough enough, because at that time you were in your teens. If only you could have understood the amount of freedom you had…

I wouldn’t mind being able to press the ‘pause’-button on the responsibilities right now.

Head Above Water

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Let me see… Now where do I click in order to create a new post – ok, found it.

Hi guys – long time no see. I want to start out by saying thank you SO much for the concern in shape of comments, as well as emails and messages on Facebook and Flickr. Don’t ever think you can just wander off in the blogosphere and disappear – no siree! I’ve missed you all, but I had to take a break, due to – busy life, I guess. No blogging as you know (not even blogreading), no sewing, and the camera has been taking a bit of a vacation.

Where were we? Oh yes, the kitchen arrived and was installed. The pictures below give an impression of what it all looks like now, if you want to see more, go here.

Kitchen pix - almost there

Kitchen pix - the kitchen sink

Kitchen pix - towards the living room

We are missing a few details, but we love the kitchen, and we so enjoy using it. The finishing touches will be there when we feel like it. The pictures were taken on a sunny day in December, and they don’t even quite show the kitchen the way it looks now, because some wall cupboards are missing, but I’ll show you sooner or later.

But so many other things happened during November and December, and I’ll just leave the very short version here – wouldn’t know where to start otherwise. In November they had mass lay offs at Mads’ work, which happily he avoided. Frida’s hearing kept getting worse, followed closely by her speech, which caused her to have new ear tubes inserted in December – it’s all much better now. My father passed away late November, which kept me busy emotionally and led to lots of thoughts. We all went to funeral in December, and in spite of the occasion we had a nice day with the family. And then of course winter colds, flus and the likes to top it all off. Just before Christmas Frida had the chickenpox, followed closely by Ronja on the morning of New Years Eve.

Frida and Mom

We have had our share to deal with over the last couple of months, but during the Christmas break we have done nothing but relax. Nothing! Stayed at home, gone for walks, watched movies with the girls, had friends over for dinner, spent an afternoon at Tivoli’s Christmas Market as we do every year. It has been great, and we could’ve easily spent another month like that.

Out finding a Christmas tree

That’s pretty much it for now – but I won’t be gone long this time. Finally I just want to show you the beautiful picture of Ronja walking in a Lucia parade in the day care – even though it has been a while. :)

Serene

That Was That…

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Yesterday was our first day back on the job after our summer vacation. I could’ve used more vacation for sure, but getting back in the office wasn’t so bad after all.

So what did we do for the last bit of our vacation? Well, we had visits from the grandmothers, visited Land of Legends Lejre (Sagnlandet Lejre), relaxed a lot, went for walks, did little outings. It was the kind of days that when you look back on them, you can’t really account for your whereabouts – which is rather nice, I think.

Impressions from the last bit of a summer vacation.

Land of Legends Lejre

Sailing in a log boat at Land of Legends Lejre.

Grinding grain into flour

Grinding grain into flour – I’m not sure I even made enough flour for a Digestive…

Grinding grain into flour

Ronja worked hard as well – we had to promise her that we will go back there to grind some more before too long.

Rødvig

The weather hasn’t been amazing summer weather, but this was a good day. We drove to Rødvig for an icecream and a bit of walking around at the harbour looking at boats. Frida loves boats – there’s definitely a sailor in that little girl.

Rødvig

And we did some jumping.

Flying

And a bit of flying as well.

Now we’re back to our regular rhythm – I drop off the children at their day care in the morning at 7-7.15 and they have a full day there until Mads comes to pick them up in the afternoon. We both work full time in Copenhagen, so the girls have long days in their day cares – good thing they’re really fond of them!

So guys, back to work – but it won’t be long before we take on a new project. Remember this? Well, we haven’t finished. I’ll let you in on the details soon.

A few days out

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Guys, I’m off to Amsterdam for a few days on a business trip. I’ll get to see my brother and his wife as well – really looking forward to it. And spring in Amsterdam is beautiful!

House number

I’m sure Ronja will be dancing around the cherry tree in the mean time. :)

Under the cherry tree with an Ipod