I have added a few more items to my QuiltedCloth store on Etsy.

Three sweet little pushchair or car seat quilts with fleece backing and Velcro ties to hold them on.

Baby star quilts one in big bright 16patch stars and the other in super soft cotton lawn stars backed with a piece of lovely sari fabric.

A generously sized twin sized quilt with a nine patch design.

A couple of fun shoulder bags both lined.

Two adorable hand knitted baby sweaters on the round using a circular needle in Merino and silk wool.

I have made Quilts and pillows for Andy and Gill in Devon before, I am always pleased when I get a new order from them as its always for something bright and colourful, this latest Pillow is no exception.

They wanted a pillow that Tilly-Rose, now one year old would still be happy to use when she was older.

First I appliqued Tilly-Rose on the top of the pillow then I placed the leaves randomly around, I then machine embroidered the stems and leaves in place. I then had fun cutting and placing flowers and berries which I then free motion machine embroidered on. I micro quilted a tiny loopy loop all over the white background and a figure of eight on the patchwork border. Such a lot of quilting fun.

 We are well into February and I am still wondering where January went! I have been busy sewing pillows and quilts. Two space pillows and a flower pillow for our friend Tina’s great kids.

Horus braved the snow, Poppet did not like it to much at first and Toots has really got the hang of her little door and can even push the wee quilted curtain aside to get out, none of the other cats like it or use it.

Now the snow had gone it is beginning to look like spring might not be too far away. One problem with that is that I now have no excuse to start digging the vegetable garden!

Looks like the kitties are making off with my thread!

The snowdrops are out at last, Lizzie in the Highlands of Scotland’s snowdrops have been out for sometime now and when I look back on Facebook last year they were out here weeks ago, its been a cold few weeks.

There are even a few shoots in the flower garden.

As the spring is in the air I recovered my ironing boards with some lovely floral fabric and they now match my scissors!

I  have been getting a lot of lovely sunsets too, until next time have a great day!

Introducing my  new Esty shop QuiltedCloth.

etsy.com/shop/QuiltedCloth

I have opened an Etsy shop selling my quilts and other quilted items.

These are the first quilts to be listed.

Some baby quilts

Mainly scrappy traditional designs with lots of different quilting designs from loopy loops to feathers.

I am very excited to be opening this shop, it means I get to quilt all day!

I hope you will pop in from time to time.

My son Alan took this super photo of the Christmas full moon.

We have had snow one day then none the next, then more snow and the wind blows it all away again and before you know it the snow is back again.

I went for a walk around the fields, none of the kitties came with me, sensible cats stayed in by the fire. I came across a stack of bales that looked to me like a big snow wave.

The around the place tubs and barrels freeze, thaws a little then freezes again leaving lots of bubbles in the ice and strange holes.

I am feeding the birds twice a day while it is so cold outside, I have three places I feed them, I put them in places it is difficult for the cats to stalk them with out being seen, so far they have not got any, I fill the bird feeders when the cats are snuggled by the fire so it gives the birds a chance to feed in peace. This one is outside my new office window.

I have known Aileen since I was 12 years old back in 1972, living on an island meant that once you were ready for secondary school you had to board on the mainland during term times. I was terrified of going but was so very lucky to make friends with an amazing girl, Aileen, she was and still is everything I was not, stylish, witty and clever but best of all she was my friend, she made me feel like I fitted in and belonged.

Close to the summer holidays my family moved away and I had to suddenly leave with out even getting a chance to say good bye to Aileen,  we started to write to each other and we have been writing letters, then emails ever since. Aileen moved to the USA, married and had two boys, I married and had two boys around the same time so we had lots to talk about.

Aileen’s Christmas card to me this year had tea bags in it and a note “a cup of friendship”. I saved my tea until all the hustle and bustle of Christmas was over and sat down in peace and quiet, made my tea and remembered being a girl. Aileen, someone I have admired for most of my life, thanks for always being there.

A new year, full of new challenges and fun!

This year I am going to be working a lot on the house and garden, I have a plan to grow as much vegetables as I can for myself, now that is a challenge but it should be fun too.I made a start on it last year so this year should not be so daunting.

The house, I really need a kitchen and I would like to design and make it myself with  the help of some Ikea units! I would like it to be white vintage look, I’m going to move the door that leads into the dining/sitting room as it will give me much more unit space.

I finished up two quilts for Devon over the holidays both the same but in different colours.

The weather was so wet and windy making it impossible to take the quilts outside for photos so did the best I could in the studio. They are twin sized with a scrappy look and lots of appliqued country pictures, cows, sheep, dogs, tractors, Devon apples for cider, horses, rabbits,chicks, sailing boats and flowers.

The back of back quilt has a big tractor, I used the pattern for the tractor from Lori Holt’s book, Farm Girl Vintage.

Once I had machined quilted it I thought that they needed something more so I used pearly cotton to hand quilt around the applique.

It was nice to sit and hand sew in the evenings with the log burner and a movie. I hope you have a wonderful new year.

I’ve finished knitting up the squares for Maria’s challenge.

I’ve not counted how many there are, but they range from 10cm up to about 50cm square.

I love all the colours, now to make something striking from them!

Scottish artist and story teller Lizzie McDougall and I have been working on a Highland Story wall-hanging for Dunbeath Heritage Center.

Working with Lizzie is always a wonderful experience which I always look forward to and this project was no exception. I asked her what drives her to preserve as many stories of Scottish folklore as possible, here’s what she said.

“I believe that stories play an important (if not essential ) role in  Community however Community is in danger of erosion . This project is my response to that. I want  to create a work of art , that is warm and comforting like the feeling of a sense of community, hence the medium of a Patchwork Quilt and I want to make it with people , with Community (not about community).

Communities are made up of fragments , as is a patchwork quilt , of different kinds of people , so for the appliquéing the pictures Iv used a range of materials of different textures , also scraps and bits that might have been otherwise discarded , all  have a new life when brought together .

My aim and my hope is that  by gathering and picturing stories that have been shared for generations by the Community and  by involving the Community in the making of the quilt, The Quilt will be a visual expression of all the connections between people , place , past and present that make up  Communities of the North and Inner Moray Firth . and that this will reflect the Community and inspire enjoyment and appreciation of the stories and that this will strengthen the sense of Community everywhere. Each panel has a few stories in it , which will be great for Storytelling with the finished Quilt .It is so important that people are involved in this and quite wonderful that in each area people who have worked so hard to preserve  the Heritage of the Area have taken part and that the curators or past curators have taken part in  Dunbeath  Portmahomac )Tarbert , Groam House and the Highland Museum of Childhood. Aprox 80 people have contributed in some way or other.

I am enormously grateful to everyone who has taken part and of course my very clever and skilful and wonderful quilter/ sister in law Brenda”

http://www.tracscotland.org/tracs/storytelling/directory-of-storytellers/storytellers/lizzie-mcdougall

• The six story blocks before trimming.
• 

  

Design wall decisions.

Changes made.

Finished quilt.

The weather was so bad I could not take it out to get some better finished quilt photos before I had to send it off.

I have not knitted my son a sweater for a long time, once they get to a certain age they just will not wear a hand knit sweater but I thought that the time had come to give it a go.  Last year I knitted him a scarf which he liked and wore so I hope he likes this.

I used Onion organic pure wool yarn, which I bought from Maria’s stall at the last craft fair. It’s ultra soft and knits up easily and smoothly.  Check out Maria’s website  Tekstil-kunst.dk

Oh, my, it was difficult getting nice photos of this sweater, if anyone can tell me how to take good photos of a sweater, please tell me how!

Last night we had a bit of a storm, the very strong winds and heavy rain lashed the house all night. We had to go out and rescue our barn doors as the strength of the wind blew them off their hinges. We had a power cut which did not last long but it was pretty frightening. I read somewhere recently that the full moon this month was called a storm moon.

My poor greenhouse lost 6 panes of glass and a lovely silver birch came down in our wood, along with some smaller trees in the hedge. The upside is that we will have some more firewood for our log burner this winter.

A long line of fir trees came down at the top end of our wood.  Fortunately, they are not our trees and didn’t come down on our property!

Another tree came down next to the Arctic Fox pen of the Scandinavian Wildlife Park next door.  Luckily it did not bring the fence down and the lovely foxes are fine, but they were a bit spooked by the storm.  I always go and say hello to them (and to the wild boars, the deer, the hawks and the Polar Bears) when I am out for a walk – they are all so cute and well looked after!

It’s still stormy today, and a part of my studio eves was blown off, but it was an easy fix and while the house sounded like it was being blown to bits last night, there was no damage to it.  A shed from our neighbour in the village blew away (tin sheets in the fields everywhere!!) and the farm on top of the hill lost a bit of the roof on one of his pig houses.  Everyone was out and about doing repairs, now we are back to normal and we seem to have got off lightly.

We had our first snow, I woke up on my birthday to find it blowing a snow blizzard! It soon calmed down and we were left fantastic drifts, it snowed continually throughout the day, too cold to take many photos, and by the next day it was all gone.

Toots and Horus came for a nice walk in the woods after all the snow was gone as none of the kitties ventured out in the snow much and they needed to stretch their legs a bit, Toots took to climbing the trees!

The countryside is looking very colourful after the snow.

Now that it is colder I have had to put a mini quilt over Toot’s door.  She did not much like the look of it at first but has got the hang of having to push the quilt aside to get out and it keeps her private as the other kitties will not go near it!

Maria has given me a bundle of lovely organic yarn, a  wool/nettle mix. I am going to knit two bundles of different sized squares and then we are going to each make them up into something, sweater, blankets anything and see what we come up with. I will add more photos as progress goes on.

My studio got some much needed new lights and a heater!

As I had to clean up after the lights were installed I had a good tidy up and rearranged things a little, I set up a new cutting table with locking wheels so that when I am doing paper piecing I can roll it over and sit it beside the sewing machine, I can also use the table when I am quilting with my domestic sewing machine.

While the weather is still amazingly warm for the time of year the flower garden has been tucked in for the winter, there are a lot of bud and shoots showing and I hope that they will survive the winter when it comes as I am sure it will.

Kitty greens have germinated and as you can see from the water barrel its been raining a lot.

The last of the tomatoes and sprouts for supper tonight, as you can guess I have never grown sprouts before so its a big thing for me!

Its really amazing to see flowers still blooming in the garden, the sweet peas look lovely, I can see them from my kitchen window.

The asters are an amazing colour and the sedum too.

There are still marigolds, coreopsis and helium’s.

There are lots of other flowers still blooming.

And beautiful leaves too.

The fall has arrived with misty mornings and the trees suddenly turning golden.

There have been some frosts but not hard frosts that last the day.

Horus has been coming with me on my morning walks as Toots the sleepy head has decided that its far too cold to be getting up before noon!

Marigolds through the frosted glass of the greenhouse.

I am very lucky to have met some lovely people since coming to Denmark, very understanding about my dismal attempts at learning Danish.

Even better is meeting some really great quilters, Gitte is the driving force of our small group full of enthusiasm and ideas, always sharing her knowledge of quilting with us, I have leaned so much her.

The quilt below is her Grandmas Garden quilt, she designed, pieced and quilted it all herself, I particularly like the pond in the middle and the quilting is incredible.

The quilt below is another one of her own designs. It was her version of our modern quilt challenge, I posted mine in an earlier post.

Quilting is much alive here in Denmark!

When our little group last met at Maria’s Gitte showed us how to do one kind of trupunto.

She also showed us how to make our samples into a bag.

I used my domestic sewing machine to have some fun quilting them.

On one side I did needle quilting and on the other side did some small meander.

Meander on the little machine was difficult and the thread kept breaking, how did I quilt all those quilts on this machine before, I used this machine to quilt all my quilts including the king size ones!

Toots is always with me when I work in the studio, today after I loaded my Christmas quilt onto the frame Toots jumped up and made herself comfortable on top of the machine!

She stayed there while I filled the bobbins and threaded the machine, in the end I had to lift her off, I always switch on my machine a good 15 min’s before I start quilting as I find it runs better if I do so it must get warm there with the lights on.

Here is some of the quilting I did once Toots was settled in her own little basket.

I have not finished the quilt yet, it is made from a layer cake that my good friend Ethel from Saudi Arabia sent to me a few months ago. I made it into a Christmas quilt and want to get it finished before then. I used red thread and a pantograph with leaves and flowers that I think look a bit like those red Christmas flowers you get at that time, the name eludes me at the moment.

The yellow raspberries are still fruiting I get a good handful everyday!

The tomato’s are still going strong, although they are slow to ripen they do eventually get there, I am going to leave them in the greenhouse until they stop fruiting.

We got lots of pumpkins and marrows but will have to get them is soon as there is a good chance of frost at night.

The brussel sprouts and the purple sprouting broccoli are coming along nicely.

And there is still plenty of colour in the flower beds.

Our small modern quilt group challenged us to make a modern quilt using different fabrics than we were used to using. My sister Susan gave me a bundle of solid fabrics so thought that I would use them to tackle this challenge.

I could not resist throwing in a printed fabric. I think if I had put another piece of the orange fabric on the other side of the quilt somewhere it would balanced it better, as it is it looks to me a bit unbalanced. No matter, its very soft and I am happy to have had a go at this kind of patchwork, I am thinking of doing another one soon.

I quilted whole quilt with loads of different fun designs framed to look like layers and as it is nearly Halloween I quilted a spider web or two.

I put a nice big bright star on the back to make the quilt reversible so you can use it anyway you like depending on your mood. I really like the blues they are so cheerful.

I had a lot of fun quilting this, mostly I made it up as I went along.