Torparglädje - Cottage happiness!

I am dreaming of a Swedish cottage. I have lived abroad for 10 years now and when I get homesick this is what I long for. A red little cottage with white corners.

Located in the most adorable environment with the greenest grass and the most colorful flowers around.

Preferably wild flowers. Wooden fences and pretty dirt roads.

Dirt roads that lead me to a row of mail boxes where I can pick up my mail. Probably located a good five minute brisk walk away from my home. Just to get my blood running through my body and making me feel refreshed. 

Cute porches. Maybe a gravel path to my front door.

Delicate and wonderful windows. 

Isn't this heaven? How I dream dream DREAM of a place of my own like this. All pictures taken in Gränna, Sweden.

Kärlek
Annette

Wedding Quilt - VOILA!

I have been to a wedding. It was beautiful. Not a dry eye around as Sabina and Rickard shares a very special love story. It was a fantastic trip. And even if the rain hardly stopped during my 4 day Sweden visit, I enjoyed every second of it. Just look how beautiful the newly weds are.

And how happy this stunning bride Sabina is.

And my gift, a wedding quilt, was very much appreciated. I got so many compliments from other guests and the wedding couple that I got all embarrassed and kind of hid away in all the gift unwrapping commotion. Silly me, I have always had a hard time taking a compliment.

Here it is. My Wedding Quilt. The front.

I made a patchwork from 25 cm/10 inch squares. The fabric is designed by Tilda. Only a couple of recycled gingham fabrics was added.

The back. Made from a gingham I found at a market and patched up with some Tilda left overs.

I used a brown pin stripe binding. And as I ran out of time I machine sewed it on.

I machine quilted in the ditch between all squares and finished by making diagonal seams to get a cross/square effect.

And I labeled it with a hand written label, hand sewed on with dark pink Cotton Perle embroidery thread using a blanket stitch.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest for a photo shoot, maybe a reason to make another quilt just like this. Thought this was my best one I've made so far and I totally agree.  I love the fresh light color scheme and Scandinavian touch. I am proud. Very very proud. And now back at home I can actually let the compliments sink in without blushing.

More to come about my Swedish trip, but right now it is a lot of other duties on teh list... Laundry, house cleaning, preparations for a number of excursions in school, birthday parties, midsummer feast... Busy busy. Thank you for popping by and I see you soon again.

Kärlek
Annette

Kurbits & thank you... or the other way around

First of all THANK YOU for all your supportive comments on my last post. Unfortunately the situation was the kind where there were no good solution to find so the best one was to find new homes for the pups and we did. Monday. After all we can a only blame ourselves for not reading the contract properly before we decided on getting puppies and we can only blame ourselves for not asking the land lady for permission before we actually brought the dogs home. Sure, I have been angry, wanting to leave and all that, but the fact is she has a dog phobia. I mean PHOBIA. She scrunches up only to the word dog and would probably die of a heart attack if she knew she had dogs next door 24/7.  So, we are moving on. With crushed hearts. Life continues and we love our house and our garden. We don't really want to move so maybe we will just put this puppy thing on hold for a couple of years to see what life has to unfold. But really. Thank you so much for all kind words and shared emotions of devastation. Thank you! We are hanging in there.

So, moving on. I am getting inspired by Swedish traditional folk art - kurbits. This type of decorative painting was very popular in Dalarna in the middle of Sweden during mid 1700s to mid 1800s.

I have had this idea about making a Swedish folk art quilt (one of my first ideas even before I made my first quilt) and I am now collecting fabric and ideas for it. It will probably be a bit of an applique project and take forever but the plan is to have it as a piece of art hanging in the living room above our sofa. I am still far from starting this project but just indulging i fantastic pictures of kurbits makes my Swedish heart pound fast of joy. I really, truly love this type of art. The above photo is from the blog Glorious Applique. It is not really kurbits (or on second thought I guess it is kurbits...) but still a fantastic piece of art. Absolutely stunning applique work.

So lets indulge in crazy kurbits! I found these at Mocklis. So cool!

This cool skateboard is designed by Mattias Norström at Moustache ape.

Kurbits decorated modern clogs from Åsa Westlund.

Traditional Dala horses made in Nusnäs. A typical Swedish souvenir.

A more modern kurbits twist on the Dala horse.

Beautiful banner for a fun Swedish blog about the art of kurbits, named Kurbits.

Kurbits decorated clogs from Clogs 4U.

Modern kurbits art form Los Formos.

Old-fashion kurbits art.

I hope you enjoy this art as much as I do and I wish you all a good night. Now I am off to bed. 

Kärlek

Annette

Puppy love & heartbreak

For over a year the family has campaigned to win me over on the puppy issue and just about a few months ago I started to soften up. We decided to add a new member to the family and began looking for pups. It has been intense. Nelly has been searching the puppy sites daily. We have called on ads but not found. Until yesterday.

The most adorable puppies in the world. Jay and Nelly went the 2 hour drive to "look". Called me up and said "Lets get the two of them.". And I hesitated for a moment but when I heard the joy and excitement in Jay's voice I thought "Lets go wild!". I trust his judgement. If he says we can have two puppies we can have two puppies.  So we got two puppies! Completely insane. I know. The last two brothers in the litter.

Me, Luca and Emmy puppy proofed the house. Got out the little fenced cage area, bowls with food etc. Waited. And just before they arrived Luca bumped into the neighbour, who also happens to be our landlord, and she said "NO!". Just blank "No!. No dogs allowed. It is written in the contract".

Jay arrived and Nelly had grown up 2 years in maturity, bringing the puppies out of the car. But the excitement quickly, within a minute, turned into heartbreak. It never crossed our mind we couldn't have a dog as we already have a cat. It never crossed our mind that it would be stated in the contract as our French was so poor 3 years ago when we signed the contract. And here we are, with two adorable puppies, Jack Russel mixed with Fox Terrier. 2 months old. And we can't keep them.

I instantly fell in love. More than I wanted. And although I am a grown up I wanted to yell and scream, cry and sob just like Nelly did. What can you do as a parent when things go this wrong? Not much more than understand, comfort and let your child cry herself to red eyes and desperation. Feel the pain with her. Her first real heartbreak and I feel so stupid.

It has calmed down a bit now. We will put out an advert to find new owners. The landlord won't change her mind. She has dog phobia. And for the first time I feel like moving somewhere else, just so we can have a dog. Yes, that is me. The one who DIDN'T want a dog. Now I want one more than ever.

The love is instant. The laughter. The joy. Those two puppies brought us all together in a magical way. I laughed like I haven't laughed in a long time with those puppies. So from puppy love to heartbreak it is here at home. And now we are enjoying every second of tumbling around with these two cuties before they have to leave........ So stupid...... How could we miss out on that information?

Kärlek
Annette

Quilt with tape

I've been machine quilting this quilt in the ditch between the big 10 inch squares and I wanted to hand quilt crosses in every square. But I am running out of time. So machine quilting it has to be.

As the squares are so big it is difficult to get straight seams all the way through a square without having to mark the lines before. And I don't want to make marks on this quilt as I am unsure I will have time to wash it before I give it away. So I came up with the idea of using masking tape. Maybe I have read about it somewhere before or maybe not. I can't remember but I decided to give it go.

I let the sewing foot follow the edge of the masking tape.

The seam came out straight and nice after I ripped off the tape. I re-used my tape pieces multiple times. It worked great!

I am very pleased with the results. See how neat that is. Just the way I wanted. Now I only got binding and labeling left.

Kärlek
Annette

Did you find this tutorial helpful?
Donate 1 dollar to support My Rose Valley Blog.
Thank you!

Blog Love

I got some blog love. A Kreativ Blogger Award from 4 Lil'Girls. Thank you Karen. I am so flattered and happy to inspire. That is why I do this. And to learn. There is no better way to learn that through blogging about what you want to learn. I love the way we all share tips, tricks, patterns and tutorials to help each other out.

Karen is new to the blog world, loves pastels and is fabulous at applique and sewing. You should visit her blog. My favorite so far is this ripple blanket. Beautiful, don't you think?

So I will share some blog love too. I want to pass this award on to following 3 blogs:

Gilly Flower
She is fun and I particularly like her patchwork. Simple and advanced, fresh colors. Light. Crispy.

Me Me Rose
She is blue, purple, pink and white. And a crochet maniac. :D Produces in the fastest speed and always has something new to share. Even though I am not a pastel girl I love the consistency in her work.

Popetotrora
A Swedish blogger who makes happy and colorful quilts from vintage sheets, decorates her doll house with the most precious little things and does amazing crafts with anything vintage I would say. She is fun!

And so going back to my last post,. The new fabric in the scrappy quilt is the multi colored dot one. I promised I would tell you. And now I am back on working on my latest quilt WiP as it has to be ready on Wednesday... Am I ever going to make it in time I wonder...

Birthday party today as Luca is turning 7, looking at puppies tomorrow (yes, we might have a puppy soon... me happy? try scared and with big butterflies in my stomach as I have never owned a dog...). Jay's 17 year old niece is coming from the States next week to stay the summer and the house has to get ready for her big arrival. You see, I got a lot on my hands but will peek in to you when ever I have 5 minutes left over. Have a lovely weekend.

Kärlek
Annette

My Scrappy Baby Quilt

So another baby quilt is finished. It is a joyful recycle project, almost all fabrics found in markets and thrifts stores. I call it My Scrappy Baby Quilt.

This quilt contains of old aprons, shirts, bed linen, baby girl dresses, napkins. The only new print is... Can you guess which one? I'll tell you in my next post...

It is backed with soft fleece. When backing with fleece the quilt gets really soft and cuddly. It is a bit challenging to work with fleece though as fleece stretches a bit... My only problem now is I don't have any baby to give this blanket to... Sooner or later I guess someone will have a baby that I can give this to. I wish I had made it bigger. It would have been perfect for my Luca... I guess I have to make another one with the same type of prints. :D

Kärlek
Annette

Bits and pieces coming together nicely...

My new quilt WiP is coming together really nice. It is strange how bits and pieces patched together like this can make me extremely, sensationally happy. I feel all cuddly, warm, fussy and puffy inside when I look at this quilt. Next will be to sandwich and quilt, bind and attach a personal label. Hopefully it will be ready in time for the big event coming up...

Kärlek
Annette