Mirthful – Page 19 – enjoying it while it lasts

More WIP

August 5, 2009August 5, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

This fabric makes me happy:

So does this:

And these:

Not to mention these:

And this?

This puts a big silly grin on my face. Don’t know why. In fact, I’m considering whether it would be an idea to make a dress out of that last one.

For now, though, I’m combining it with the rest of them, as well as this lovely thing:

And these two:

Inspired by the scrappy hedgerow blocks from Oh, Fransson!

Note to self: Don’t start a scrappy quilt with all new fabric. It defeats the point, sort of. I didn’t have scraps to start with, but boy do I have scraps now.

So you can imagine how happy this makes me:

Which will be a present for a very special little lady who’s getting Christened in a couple of weeks. It should give little eyes something to investigate.

I’m in a quandry as to size, though. It’s already too big for a “baby quilt”, and that’s intentional, as I want it to be useful for a few years. But it’s definitely a quilt for a child, with the fabrics I’ve chosen, so it certainly needs to be useable nowrather than in ten years time. So how big is TOO big for a baby/toddler? My blocks are slightly larger than the tutorial suggests, they’ll be 13.5″ when sewn, and I have 12 of them. Even without sashing it will be 40.5×54 if I use all the blocks, and I’m thinking it will look better with sashing. Also, I need to quilt this one myself, and although I was thinking masking tape and straight lines, I still need to get the middle under my needle. How much fabric can I bunch up under the sewing machine arm before it becomes unworkable, I wonder?

Well, I’ll have to decide soon, I should get most of the work done this weekend if I want to finish in time…

Etsy inspiration

August 4, 2009August 4, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

I’m in the middle of a new quilt project (pictures to come) and needed some input on sizing, so I thought I’d do an Etsy search to see what other people have done. And boy, have they. Done things, I mean. I was expecting drool-worthy stuff, I must admit, and I was not disappointed. Here’s a selection, saved for future inspiration:

baby patchwork quilt from olivetreetextiles

Modern Baby Quilt by Red Pepper Quilts (knitknat)Mrs. Roy G. Biv Quilt Pattern from CarolinaPatchworks

Agh, my eyes!

July 27, 2009July 27, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

Money Belt

Originally uploaded by Miss Retro Modern

The most wonderful set of images on Flickr: A feast of vintage end retro patterns and fashion.

(Via)

ABC

July 25, 2009July 25, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

1-2-3.

Ok, so now I have a Jackson Five earworm. Sorry.

I just ordered this custom ABC for the lass printed from Shutterfly. A few sample pages:

A is for Ape:

B is for Baby:

C is for Chili:

M is for Max:

I tried to keep the design clean and uncluttered. The background paper is by Creashens and the print alpha by Cathrine, both acquired from Catscrap.

Some words pose more of a challenge than others. Chili, for example, though certainly an ingredient in some of the food she eats is not a word the lass actually knows – yet. Also, since my setup was the “studio” picture with a white background I needed things that could be photographed like that, which is where the Duplo comes in.

The other words on the page include the names of friends and family and other words the lass is likely to know starting with that letter, and colours. The colours are also indicated by the type colour. I thought that was quite clever myself.

All in all I’m pretty pleased, and very excited about seeing it in book form.

More pictures

July 25, 2009July 25, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finally got around to taking some pictures of the finished quilt – on the morning of the wedding… Here it is, bound and washed and lovely and crinkly.

It’s all done:

Binding:

Detail:

Front:

Back:

If you click through to a larger size of the front you should be able to see that four of the squares spell the names of the bride and groom and the wedding date in place of the “love”. Clever, eh? Even if I do say so myself. Considering this is only my second finished quilt, and my first on a large scale, I’m really thrilled at how it worked out.

I made it!

July 2, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 1 Comment

I finished the quilt top and back Monday night, got it off express post haste Tuesday morning and now it’s on its way back to me. Merete Ellingsen of MA Quilterne – my new hero – did her part in the shortest possible time. Maude and Posten willing it will be back with me tomorrow, and then there’s only the binding left, and a week to do it in, which should be ample, even if I have decided to hand sew it (I did briefly consider machine sewing the binding, but it does look rather a lot nicer with invisible stitches, so since I have the time to hand sew I will).

I’m still somewhat disabled internet-connection-wise, so this picture is courtesy of Merete, a couple of detailed images (to let you see the beautiful quilting) are available in her Flickr album (btw, Merete also has a blog).

Work in progress

June 25, 2009July 2, 2009 Mirthful 2 Comments

I’m working with these:

Inspired by this.

And the results so far are promising.

Not quite the way I pictured it, but it’s working, and that’s a good thing because I don’t have time to change my mind. I need to finish the top and back – of a king size bedspread, no less – by Sunday, get it off to someone with a long-arm quilting machine by express post on Monday and hope I get it back in time to bind it before a momentous event on the 11th.

Leaving things to the last minute? Me? Never!

Edit: Well, I didn’t quite make it. The main part of the top is finished, but needs a border and the back needs a couple of more seams before it’s done. Going to be busy tonight… Hopefully I’ll still get it back in time to bind it.

When you don’t know whether to laugh or cry

June 16, 2009June 16, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

… you might as well laugh.

I’ve been doing a lot of laughing, in an exasperated sort of way, over the last few days. See, this woman called Hanne N. Herland has been figuring in the Norwegian media for stating the – uhm – unusual* opinion than women should be good little wives and please their husband sexually and gastronimically and be happy about it (oh, and don’t forget to freshen up your makeup before he arrives home from work and greet him with a smile). She also said that it’s no wonder Norwegian men marry Russian or Thai ladies because at least these ladies like sex and can cook. Apparently. Also, Norwegian ladies are all hedonist and jump into bed with just anyone, especially their friends’ husbands. Why they would chose to do so if they don’t like sex hasn’t been explained yet, I’ll get back to you on that one.

So I chose to laugh.

Then some other ladies chimed in to say that really, all this equality-talk has gone too far and how it’s a shame that young women nowadays have to work full-time AND take care of the house and children.

Let me tell you something, ladies: That ain’t equality. The idea, you see, is that your husband should do his share of taking care of the house and the children. I know, revolutionary, isn’t it?

Anyway. I laughed some more.

And then, this afternoon, Herland participated in a net-meeting, and got the following question:

Du har skjønt det!

Oddvar Solemsli,

16.06.2009 13:29:51

Ja dette var skikkelig valgflesk for oss hjerneløse menn – mat og sex! Kunne ikke blitt bedre. Mitt spørsmål er: Hvordan har du tenkt å komme deg tilbake til førkrigstida der du åpenbart kommer fra når valget en gang er over?

And Herland offered this gem:

Hilsen Hanne Nabintu Herland svarer:

Jeg mener faktisk at det er enkelte ting ved 1950 tallet som er bra! Man kan da ikke mene at absolutt alt var verre før, og absolutt alt er fantastisk nå?

Which is when I stopped reading.

(To enlighten those of you who don’t read Norwegian, the question asks sarcastically how she intends to get back to pre-war times where she obviously belongs. She answers that she thinks there are a lot of good things to be said for the 1950-ies.)

Now Herland, I realise there have been wars since 1959, but generally, when one refers to pre-war in Norway, one is talking about the 30ies, as WW2 is THE war hereabouts. Not that there isn’t a lot to be said for the 3oies, too. But as far as being a woman goes, I for one am grateful I was not around then.

All pretty amusing, anyway.

This, however, this just makes me cry:

A 63 year old man has been sentenced to five months in jail for sexually abusing an eight year old girl. However, the court did not accept the girl’s claim for compensation, and has instead ruled that the girl must pay the abuser’s legal fees.

In what possible light can this be seen as “justice”?

______________
* Which is not unusual at all, of course, and I can’t quite understand why the papers can be bothered to give her any attention.

Refashion

June 4, 2009June 4, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

I love this long-sleeved tee, but it’s too short for me, so I thought I’d try the adult-arms-to-toddler-legs method, and I made a tee from the body to complete the set. I tried to utilise the existing hems whereever possible. I think this is going to be great for hot summer days – whenever they return. Temperatures plunged this week, so it feels like early March again right now.

Adult tee disarmed:

Toddler set:

Another top I loved was too short as well. In fact, most tops are too short on me, I’ve got a dispropornately long torso. This one has a lovely deep blue hue that is really flattering on me, so I was loath to discard it. I had another top in the same sort of material in a greyish hue with a flower print, which was also, you guessed it, too short. I cut a band from the bottom of that and inserted it into the other, and, hey presto, useable top:

Detail showing the pattern on the insert:

Attempt at capturing the blue hue. Excuse the dust:

Male is default

May 9, 2009May 9, 2009 Mirthful Leave a comment

Male is the default; female is exceptional.

Case in point:

The lass has pink clothes. Probably more than I would ideally have chosen, in fact, because I’m not that fond of pink myself. However, most of her clothes are colours that I consider gender neutral (but then, to me, gender neutral is pretty much everything except pink and baby blue), or at least not pink-on-pink, but say, pink and brown, pink and grey and so on. Hence – which follows from the above theory – she is continually taken for a boy. Today she wore

jeans (very “girly” pattern in silver on the back pockets, but quite plain otherwise)
red and silver trainers
long-sleeved t-shirt in yellow, green and red

Both the IKEA employee who was running a “fairground” where the kids got to throw tiny softies at a target for the chance to win a big softie (for free, everyone got a prize, did I mention I love IKEA?) and a mother with a daughter (ok, now I’m doing the assuming, but the kid wore all pink from head to toe) a little younger than the lass automatically referred to her as “he” and “the boy”.

Why? Why when everyone knows about half the kids you meet are going to be female is “male” still default unless you shout your gender from the rooftops by wearing pink-pinkety-pink? What the f*** are we teaching these kids? When did this start applying to toddlers and not just babies (come to think of it, when did it start applying to babies)? I’m the daughter of a feminist, and wore practically no pink as a child, did everyone assume I was a boy, or were they more practically minded in the 70ies?

Disclaimer: I don’t “mind” the lass being taken for a boy, as such. It doesn’t matter on a personal, individual level, I’m just worried about what it says about our society’s expectations for girls (and boys).

The irony? I haven’t been extremely opposed to pink so far. I have even purchased a few pink-and-princessy garments for her myself. But because I am now continually made aware of how much “people” read into the pink/not-pink choice, I am getting to the stage where I might just ban pink from the house. Just when the lass is getting to an age where she might actually start caring.

Mind you. Perhaps that is just the point in time where it is important to start introducing rules and not just go with the flow?