Stack of loafs

I've tried out my machine a bit more today. Only had time to test it a bit on Saturday evening since I have been working all weekend. It is a brilliant machine! I even tried the freehand quilting for the first time ever on a pot holder I've been meaning to finish for ages. It is wonky and all but it was great fun to try it out and I can well see myself quilting away on bigger things as well.

For now here is a picture of my little loafs. Great fun to make and I plan to sell a few at my hairdressers once I take my necklaces down. Wouldn't you buy one if they were all jumbled up in a nice wide bowl?

Gobsmacked...

THIS is what Santa thought I should have this year for Christmas......

 Can I just say that I love my wonderful, quite incredible husband James who organized this and that I will forever be showering him with kisses! Loves you!

Merry Christmas!

It is the night before Christmas. Everything is done, food is prepared and sitting in the fridge ready for the oven tomorrow. The house is clean and tree is dressed. Sitting with a nice cuppa and just enjoying the night.
I hope you all have a very merry and bright Christmas!

Bits and bobs..

We went to Rosie and Fredrik today for our pre Christmas dinner and pressie swap. It was fun as usual and the presents were really nice. We got some saffron buns and gingerbread mooses in a nice tin set and a gingerbread house covered and stuffed with sweets! It is all edible! Lovely

We also made these;

It was really fun and a good laugh sitting sewing, even the guys managed to sew some hearts and stars. The star is my new pincushion and the hearts I was thinking about giving to my mum and sister. I am making more as well since they were easy and fun to do. We got plenty of stuffing and material left so will make a few to hang in our tree as well.

I am still wide awake from the wonderful coffee Fredrik made to keep us going. So I might just go and sew a bit

Twinkle little star

Today was a really snowy day, a perfect day to go get our tree. We had a bit of help from my mum with getting the tree back with us since our new car is rather small and we don't have a roof rack yet. I've taken a picture of it but it came out all very very dark and fuzzy so will try and take a better one tomorrow. It is lovely our tree, big but lovely. It did fit. After a bit of pruning.

I've made a bit of progress on one of the quilts but it is slow because of everything else going on for Christmas. But got some stars with the white done and the stripes are in place. There will be an outer border as well with a pin wheel corner. I like how it looks, but wish I had a design wall to hang it on instead of laying it on the floor where it really cant stay.

Santas little helper

Yes that is what I feel like. I've made orange marmalade flavoured with vanilla and cognac, a whole lot of bisqotti, both saffron and chocolate/orange. I've also made some chocolate crispy treats and some rocky road sweets. Tomorrow I am doing some dark chocolate truffles and then I think I am set for our pre Christmas dinner with Rosie and Fredrik.  We sort of decided that we were going to make presents for each other this year. Then we decided that we also could buy some. For the home made part I'm doing foodie stuff and possibly some small purses tomorrow if there is time left and the bought part includes some cool tea strainers and a little very cool looking gadget to help you use ordinary candles in tea light candle holders.

Tomorrow is also tree day! That is my favourite thing to do before Christmas, to dress the tree. As per usual we will get a too big a tree just because we think it will fit and no there is no need to measure it, it will fit. Every year. But does it fit? Does is heck...lol

Im sorry but I cat stop laughing!

Marmalade

Today I walked into town and visited our big shopping mall Kupolen and did some Christmas shopping for US. I now only have to wait and see if the internet orders will come in time and then I am DONE! Oh, I got to make a flower basket for my mum but that's not a shore, that is just pure fun.

Besides the shopping this year I am making some Christmas presents as well. At the moment I am cooking some orange marmalade with a bit of lemon in it. A tip, don't cut lemons when you have skin cracks.... Ouch!
I am also going to make saffron biscotti and some Christmas sweets. But they are all fun so no stress there at least. If I'll have the time I will sew something as well to give away. But at the moment something cooked or baked is a better option for me. I just love baking!

Time goes by oh so quickly...

So, it is Friday.
Just two more weeks and it is Christmas. It is a lovely time of year, its even snowed. So why am I getting a cold sweat?? Could it be because I have not done my Christmas shopping yet? Or is it the fact that we are going to have Christmas dinner here at our house again that is making me quiver.  Or is it that my mum is asking me constantly if I have done HER Christmas shopping list yet?
I am ready to pull my hair out and am asking why I do this every single Christmas knowing how it was the year before! But no, this is the last time, the last straw, the bloody last drop! I AM NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!!
So please, if I mention next year that I am doing Christmas shopping for anybody else then me and Jamie, give me a wake up slap and a kick up my a... and teach me to say NO! Because at the moment I am thinking that dear old Scrooge had the right idea. Bah HUMBUG!!!

Sewing...pffff!

So much for my best laid plans of getting lots of sewing done over the weekend. On Friday I got company for the best part of the day from a friend from work which was fun though. We talked a lot and drank lots of tea and we made a vegetable pie for dinner and talked some more.

On Saturday I woke up late and the sewing just didn't happen. I was getting stuck and just didn't have my heart in it so I made a border and 4 pin wheels for the corners and started doing the striped bit. But.... just couldn't get going on it so I decided to leave it alone for a while.

So today I would get lots done you think, but today was Christmas market in Falun. I went there with my mum and we had a good look around and I bought a very nice shawl, among other things, which I am sitting with wrapped around me now keeping me nice and warm. It is always interesting to go to this market and see what nutty or fun things people come up with. I've had a stall at the market twice selling my necklaces, it was fun, a bit stressful but most of all, it was cold! I might go there again just have to decide what craft to be selling since I do tend to try so many out. Necklaces are fun to make but so is quilting.

Brrrrrr...

It is cold out there!
I just had a look and it said -20! It was a bit magical coming home tonight from work though. There were some hanging frost in the air and the cars headlights showed up as pillars of light going up in the sky in the distance because of the frost. Can't believe though how fast some people drive when there is so evidently a thin sheet of ice on the road because of the cold, you could see it glitter in the headlights but still people were blasting past.

Planning to sew

This weekend I am planning to get a lot of sewing done on the two heart quilts. I am off to buy some fabric tomorrow or on Friday and then I am just going to sew and sew and sew and have a break for the Christmas Market in Falun on Sunday. I got this vision in my head how I am going to finish the quilts off. Got to put some details down on paper though as well I think. Tricky bit is getting the size right for the other blocks. Will make some of my scraps and calculate if it is the right sizes before cutting into the nice fabric I think.

Second heart

The second heart is now done. Just got to figure out how to finish the quilts off with the smaller stars and pin wheels now. But that will be fun!

Arrrgghhhh!

How difficult can it be to find someone who actually has THIS ruler in stock!!!!!! So far I've tried 12 sites and either they don't stock that specific ruler or they are out of stock.... I would love to have it for the quilt I am making for our bed since I wanted to have a flying geese border . And also for a future quilt I want to make with different sized flying geese.

Just got to keep on looking, sigh...

Snowstorm update

Yes there has been a snowstorm, we just caught the outer edge of it but that was bad enough. Very windy with horizontal snow and drifts on the roads. To top it off the temperature is now plummeting!

Nah, seriously it's not that bad. I would say its normal winter temperatures out there, about -7 at the moment with it going down to maybe -13 tonight. Still a bit of snow being blown about but generally clearing up and giving us a bit of sunshine before the sun sets.

I am off to work soon, we are going to have a customer evening from 4 o'clock until we close with lots of low prices and bargains. We are expecting lots of people and general madness is to ensue. But at the same time it is lots of fun when there is a buzz about the shop. Actually looking forward to go to work today, have you ever heard anything like that from me???

Well it also helps that our new boss D has finally told Mr B off for behaving like a shit. So now Mr B is doing his job and not hassling everyone else what they should be doing and that they are doing it wrong, he is actually not talking a lot at all. It is such a change from how it has been at our place I still can't believe it. It is bliss as long as it stays like this. So lets keep our fingers crossed that it has finally hit home for Mr B that he cant go around being a shit without some consequences.

Weekend update

We had our good friends Rosie and Fredrik over yesterday for dinner. We sometimes cook dinner together and have a lovely time doing it and then just keep on talking until late in the night. Yesterday we made pasties with three different fillings and later on we had a English afternoon tea with home baked scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam. Oh the scones very to kill for fresh from the oven with butter melting on them.

Today we went for a long walk in the snow and had pizza with the left over pastie fillings as topping plus a bit more cheese. They turned out very yummie. For dessert I made a saffron cake with raisins.

If you want to try it out here is the recipe:
200g butter or margarine
1 sachet of saffron, 0,5 g
2 eggs
2dl sugar
1½ dl milk
4 dl flour
 raisins
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Grease a spring tin about 24 cm in diameter
Melt the butter and leave to cool a bit.
Grind the saffron in a mortar together with a sugar cube.
Whisk eggs and sugar until nice and fluffy. Add saffron, melted butter and milk. Mix the baking powder with the flower and add to the mixture add a few raisins if you like. Stir gently to mix it all together. Pour into tin and bake for about 45 minutes at 175 degrees Celsius. Dust with some icing sugar before serving

I managed to do some sewing today as well and have finished the top part of the second heart and are halfway done with the bottom part. But all the strips are sewed and ready to be cut into the right sizes.

This is how it looks like. I really like how these are turning out but then comes the hard bit, deciding on how to finish them off and figuring out the size of the blocks that will go around it. But I am looking forward to it all.  I must be insane!

Outing

Yes we went to Stockholm today for a day out and about shopping! In the end it wasn't much shopping, just a new winter hat and gloves for me and a few necessities from the English Shop. Oh also a stop in one of the food halls for some lovely dried fruit and huge raisins and just a wander to have a look at all the different food available was quite what we needed. But being tired from the weeks work we should have done this tomorrow we realised coming back and falling asleep on the train.

One finished

Here is the first heart finished. I am in the process of cutting the strips for the second one but had to quit for tonight, all too tired to be using a rotary cutter..

I am very pleased and relived  that Selma liked her heart and am now a bit anxious that Ajla will like hers too once hers is done. I have already started sewing the top bit of her heart because I wanted to see how her colour choice looked together. I likes it a lot, but will she....

Monday....

Oh how I don't like working weekends! And still I have to work every other one.. But thankfully with my new schedule I only work mornings in the weekend which leaves me with the afternoons to do what ever I please with.  Which isn't much since I am quite tired from  the week before. But now I only have 3 days to work before my long weekend off!

Not done much quilting because I've been too tired after cooking and walking and washing and everything else you have to do besides quilting but got one heart almost done. Just got half of the middle section to do and then its pressing and sewing together time! And on to the next heart. They are so much fun to do and very colourful, just the way I like it!

Heart

So far so good and things are matching up beautifully. Top part of the first Bargello heart almost complete

Apples were needed since I haven't pressed it yet and the corners roll a bit because of the small squares...