Happy Thanksgiving!

Who are you in Moomin Valley?

	Hvem er du i Mummidalen?
	Mitt resultat: Snusmumriken Du er Snusmumriken! Du er modig og rolig. Du er også selvstendig og kan ta vare på deg selv, men du er likevel venn med alle.
	Ta denne quizen på Start.no

Just in case you need a little background info... The Moomin characters were created by the Swedish-speaking Finnish author/illustrator Tove Jansson and appeared in her comic strips and numerous books. Remember the Moominmamma jam I made in May? I found this quiz on Solvi's blog.

I don't speak Norwegian, but here's my attempt at a translation:

You are Snufkin! You are brave and fun. You are also independent and can take care of yourself, but at the same time are friends with all.

I'm afraid the bear paw progress (or lack thereof) doesn't warrant a photo today.

Slowly but Surely, Fluffing and Stuffing

I've had trouble finding any sewing time this week, but I have started quilting the bear paws and hope to have them finished by Thanksgiving. I'm celebrating here with friends on Saturday - if I'm feeling kind (and if I find the time) I'll bring some pumpkin bread or the such to my classes on Thursday. I did manage to do a little baking for tomorrow this evening - the famous Lingonberry Tea Cake.

So far, I'm stitching in the ditch along the sashing. I remember Paula Reid talking about fluffing and stuffing at Maine Quilts a few years ago and I find it much easier than rolling and unrolling. Next I think I'm going to stitch 1/4" inside the paws themselves. (You'll notice that I don't usually quilt with my walking foot - not sure why not - have never gotten used to it and feel like it works ok without it.)

Went to a fabulous play here in Vaasa last night - an absurd cabaret inspired by the poetry of Christian Morgenstern. More about it here (på svenska). Wasa Teater is also doing Dicken's A Christmas Carol this year - I hope I can get there before I leave for the holidays!

Another Rainbow

These two posts inspired me to make this colored-pencil roll-up. I think I'm going to make a few more and give them as gifts for the holidays. I quilted the background and did a traditional binding, but may try a few other (simpler) techniques with the others.

I'm having a great crafty weekend - I hope that feeling will continue once I bite the bullet and start quilting the bear paws!

With this as inspiration, I worked on a small Christmas gift today. I'm still not thrilled with my zipper skills, but hopefully with each little bag, I'll get better at it.

I finally have the two borders on the Bear Paws and have sandwiched it using every safety pin I could find! Now on to the quilting!

I also made a yummy (veggie) pea soup today, but the color is just plain unphotogenic. My pea soup tip - add sweet potato. Perfect for this grey day - looking not quite as grey now with the drizzle turning into flakes!

Interested in a Swap?

Sign-ups have begun for the winter round of the Four Seasons Quilt Swap. Head on over to find out the details. I missed the fall sign-ups, so I'm really looking forward to participating. I had so much fun with the Doll Quilt Swap this summer: click here for the one I made and here for the one I received.

Bear Paws

Just a quick update on the bear paws - all the blocks are together now and I've decided on two easy borders. Hope to have the whole thing sandwiched this weekend, but am very worried about quilting something this big on my Bernina! Hopefully, there will be more photos soon.

Snow!

I hung twelve of my bear paw blocks in front of the window last night and woke up this morning to this scene:

The light looked beautiful reflecting off the snow and through the blocks - I'm not sure the photo does it justice, but nonetheless, the snow falling this morning really goes a long way to get over the darkness this week here in Vaasa! The sun is now rising at 8:15 and setting at 4:15, making those 8am classes even tougher than usual! We did have a little snow three weeks ago, but this is the first snow that's accumulated.

I think I'll be able to sew the blocks together today, but I have a few dilemmas about proceeding. My original idea was to do a saw tooth border with the light blue and plaids between two thin dark blue borders, but now I'm considering a thin dark blue border and a thicker plaid border with blocks of the plaids. Part of the reason for this is simplicity (or ease), the other part is that this quilt is going to have a sibling based on this quilt and I think that border idea is better for the second quilt and maybe having the same border will help them to look like a set. The second dilemma, how to quilt it?! I'm going to do it on my machine at home and still feel a bit unsure about my quilting. I've never done something this large on my own machine. How would you quilt it?

Yesterday, I got a wonderful bit of quilting mail from Guðrún in Iceland! (Who, by the way, had a similarly snowy photo this week, too.) Thanks, Guðrún! The patterns are called 'My Season' - perfect for me, a Christmas baby! This will work perfectly with the Christmas fabrics I got from my mom last week (on the right).

Now a little blogland news... Sew Mama Sew is hosting 30-days of crafty gift ideas for the holidays - check it out! Force Majeure Farms has a new edition of The Bent Needle out, complete with a mention of my Barcelona letter photos! Finally, just a mention of three of my favorite non-quilt blogs: Nami-Nami an Estonian food blog I've mentioned before, Strange Maps a self-described collection of cartographic curiosa, and Post Secret an on-going community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on homemade postcards.