Accordian Sewing Box

I'm the proud new owner of an old sewing box 'syskrin'. Now I can keep my essential supplies in the living room permanently, housed nicely in this Norwegian rose painted sewing box.

She Sells Sea Shells at the Sea Shore

Well, I collect them anyway. Here is my ENTIRE collection! It is about the size of a tea spoon!

I found 6 new shells this week at the local beach. No one can say this hobby is taking over my life and too much room in the house.

Here is a sneak preview of my star quilt. I am piecing this by hand and am almost finished.

Thanks for reading!

Fabric Swap! Yippee!

I got something special in the mail today, all the way from the southern hemisphere on the opposite side of the globe where the summer is in full swing. Thank you N.... for the terrific package of reds and pinks. They will be perfect for my houses!

On a colder note, our family spent the weekend with some friends at their cabin. It was my first overnight cabin experience. Full electricity inside and running water only outside. It was work but it was fun! The kids practiced on their skis and I had a couple nice snowy walks but spent most of the time trying to dry the kids snow clothes in front of the fire in time for their next jaunt outside.

Check out those icicles!

The cabin digs were very cozy and comfortable!

On the drive home the sun came out and nature dazzled us with her beauty!

Egersund Quilt guild had a meeting yesterday and there were some dazzlers there. I only snapped one picture of a small hexy quilt in the most luscious blues.

 In three weeks our guild is having an exhibit at our mall. About 4 months ago I ran out of quilt batting so I have a lot of quilting to catch up on in order to make my quilt tops presentable for the exhibit. Fingers crossed  the batting arrives post haste. I might have to bite the bullet and pay an arm and a leg for batting here. 

Houses Update

I'm really falling behind on my foundation pieced red houses.

 This is my favorite house this week. I love a good healthy dose of red or green.

Snow Soup

My least favorite kind of  Norwegian winter weather..Snow soup! Repeat after me...water-proof insulated boots. Its like walking around in 8 inches of wet cement. My KEEN snow boots are a dream.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get an Italian greyhound outside in snow soup to go to the bathroom. The dog sits on the floor, feet out, being dragged towards the door and the cat clings to the door jam with all four feet and claws. I could start a comic strip with their stubborn antics.

So far my youngest dd is still not eating anything but perfectly smooth food and drink. We finally have a referral for an ENT. Hopefully they can give us a clue why this started so suddenly and how to fix this throat problem. I'm running out a ideas of what to offer her to eat. Even applesauce is flat out rejected.

On the up side, I finally successfully drafted a version of Hilde's Batik Bintan quilt from her Gecko Boxes & Quilts blog. I have been drooling over its beautiful and mesmerizing star design for a few weeks.  I hope to get some star fabrics picked out today and finalized the pattern this evening. I can't decide on the background fabrics.  Hilde's quilt is absolutely beautiful with a black background, but for ease of drawing the templates, perhaps a lighter fabric will work better. Maybe grey? Maybe white? I can't decide.