Thimbleanna – Page 54 – My little online diary.

10 Things This Summer

38 Comments / June 24, 2013 August 25, 2013 / Chat

Wow, last week passed by in a blur. Just like that, it’s officially summer. I thought I’d follow Karen’s lead and list 10 things I’d like to get done this summer. I’ve always thought of summer as June, July, and August, but officially it runs until September 22nd (which is good for me since June is almost over!). Three months either way. Let’s get started!

1. Get Together with the Quilty Peeps.
Ladies! We’ve got to git ‘er done! We’ve been trying, with no luck, to find a time that all of us could get together for the longest time. Who knew it would be harder to get together now than it was when we all had small children at home???

2. Organize Some Iceland Pages on My Site.
Before I forget about the trip. I spent too much time last week changing things up around here. You may have noticed the little blue polka dot background is gone. Well, it’s gone on the main pages — there are a lot of pages around here and it’s going to take a long time to convert them. In the meantime, I’d like to start with the Iceland pages.

3. Finish the Ten Year Sweater.
It’s pitiful. I think I have all the parts of this sweater done except for the button band. Why do I do that? Because I hate sewing knitted pieces together. Arrghhh. I don’t want to start a new sweater until I’ve finished this one.

4. Start My Lopapeysa.
If I can get #3 done, I can start knitting the yarn I bought in Iceland!

5. Finish the Quilt I Started in May.
TheManoftheHouse has finished unpicking the icky quilting. I need to re-group and get this baby quilted.

6. Clean Some Closets.
Or Drawers. I managed to clean out some drawers a few weeks ago and it felt so good. I recycled all of our old phone books for starters. Do you use phone books anymore? We don’t — google is so much faster!

7. Clean Up Sewing Room.
This is a never-ending task. I started working my way through a big pile of old cross-stitch magazines, but I never finished. It’s so hard to get rid of them, but it’s time. My fabric is feeling crowded and it needs more space. ;-D

8. Make Enough Blocks for a Quilt Top.
I started cutting out a few blocks and I really love them. They’re going to be slow-going for me, but I’m really enjoying picking out color combinations. More soon when I have a block or two to show.

9. Go on a Picnic.
It’s been years since I’ve been on a picnic. I just need to find someone to go with me!

10. Visit the World’s Greatest Aunt.
This one is a slam dunk. The reservations have already been made.

Do you have a ten things list?
Here’s hoping for a great summer!
XOXO,
Anna

Show Me the Booty

27 Comments / June 16, 2013 August 25, 2013 / Chat, Quilt Market Report

First up, is a little business. I’m a few days late announcing the winner of A Quilting Life by Sherri. If you’ll recall, I had everyone tell me their favorite cookie. If you didn’t answer “Oatmeal Raisin”, I threw your entry out!

Just Kidding.

The winner is Jen who said “Oatmeal chocolate chip are my favorites. Punk too. But I don’t make them often. I tend to go for the straight chocolate in the sewing room. No cookies necessary. :)” Send me your address Jen!

During my travels during the last month, I’ve done a bit of shopping and I thought I’d show you the results of my sins. From Quilt Market:

That’s Sweetwater’s Road 15 in the back, Riley Blake’s Checks and Dots on the left, Anna Griffin’s Elegance in front and Robert Kaufman’s newest Cat in the Hat Prints on the right.

I also got some Flower Sugar from Lecien (in the back). We went shopping one day while we were in Portland, and I ended up buying quite a few fat quarters for an upcoming project from Hollyhill Quilt Shoppe. What a cute little shop! And ooohhhh — did you notice the cute plant markers that Brigette gave me? She made them herself! Thanks Brigette!

After market,there was the trip to Iceland. Of course, I had to buy some Icelandic yarn! In the back is lots of yarn for a Lopapeysa sweater. More Lopi on the right for a little stripey scarf. and I purchased the small balls of yarn on the left in hopes that they will work for some of Julie’s Little Cotton Rabbits.

When I met Berglind in Iceland, she was so sweet and she gave me some wonderful gifts. Among them are beautiful pile of fabrics and a new book, both by Gudrun Erla, an Icelandic designer who now lives in Minnesota. I love them and I’ve already picked out a project in the Fast & Furious book that I want to try. Berglind also gave me a DVD to show me how to knit my lopapeysa — how perfect is that? I can’t wait to watch it and get knitting! Thank you so much Berglind!

And, of course, when I was shopping with Berglind, I had to buy some Tilda fabrics. It was hard to only choose a few, but my resources were limited!

Oink Oink. I feel like a little piggy. Now I just need to stay home and get some work done. I have had some quilting time this weekend. (In addition to helping TheFirstChild and SweetiePie pack their kitchen up for their move.) I finished the quilt top I was piecing and I strapped it onto the Flynn Frame and started quilting. What a mess — I’ve decided the older I get, the more I hate that frame. Not sure I’ll be using it again.

Anyway, I quilted about 1/4 of the quilt and decided to bail out. TheManoftheHouse and his trusty dental tool are very kindly helping me unpick the quilting. New plan coming soon.

I hope you’ve had a good weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

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An Icelandic Yarn

24 Comments / June 11, 2013 July 13, 2013 / Knitting, Travel

Thank you for all your entries for the giveaway of A Quilting Life. It’s been so fun to read everyone’s favorite cookie of choice. I love that some of you stood up to me and don’t even like to snack on cookies while quilting — chocolate will do very nicely thank you very much. And I was a bit shocked that some of you don’t even allow food or drink in your sewing room. A lofty goal indeed — but not one that I could ever keep. I’m too weak! The giveaway is open until the 14th, so if you’re interested in the book and haven’t entered, go here.

So, before the giveaway, I promised to tell you the tale of my little blog meet-up in Iceland. About two months before our trip was scheduled, I noticed a comment left on someone’s blog that was signed by “Berglind from Iceland”. I was immediately intrigued, since I knew we would be going to Iceland soon, so I clicked on the link. What a wonderful treat! Berglind’s blog is just beautiful! I immediately e-mailed her, told her that we’d be coming to Iceland soon and asked if she had any suggestions for our trip. I was surprised and thrilled when she suggested that we meet and she would take me to a few of her favorite shops. Wow! What a fantastic offer!

We were going to be in Reykjavik on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, so the plan was for Berglind to pick me up at the hotel on Saturday morning and we would shop for 3 or 4 hours. And then the flights-from-hell happened and our three days in Reykjavik were reduced to one. I couldn’t ask my family to wait around while I spent half a day shopping with Berglind, so I e-mailed her to cancel. I was SO upset — I love meeting local people when I travel and the perfect opportunity was slipping through my fingers. Then, the brilliant FirstChild suggested that we add a day to our trip so I e-mailed Berglind again. She was so sweet and so flexible — and I was VERY lucky. Our meeting was moved to the following Friday, at the end of our trip, and even better, since our time together would be shorter, Berglind suggested that we meet at her house.

What a thrill for me! I got to meet Berglind AND see her beautiful home AND get a tour of her sewing room. I’m kicking myself for not taking pictures of some of Berglind’s beautiful quilts. There were piles of them in several rooms. I have no idea how she gets time for all her quilting. (BTW, I’m very proud to say that Berglind is a Viking girl like me — I would expect no less, coming from the land of Vikings LOL!) Berglind is just gorgeous! She has four children — the oldest two were in school, but I was lucky enough to meet her adorable little four-year-old (almost five!) Arna and her new two month old baby boy.

Isn’t Arna a doll??? I’m sure you can imagine that I wanted to take her home with me. And look at her perfect little braid! (Oooh, and I hope you’re noticing those beautiful quilts too!)

After a quick visit at Berglind’s home, we had to get down to business and go shopping. We only had time for two shops — I had been to a few of the yarn shops (more in a bit) while shopping with my family, so Berglind narrowed our choices down. She took me to see her favorite place that carries Tilda fabric — I had mentioned that I can’t get Tilda fabric anywhere near me. The Tilda fabric is actually in a larger store — Berglind called it a stationary store, but it had a lot of craft items — it reminded me a bit of a small Michael’s — only with more atmosphere. Here are the Tilda fabrics — ummmm, Yum!

While we were fondling fabrics, Little Arna was on a mission of her own. She spied some fun pink yarns — Berglind said she and her older sister love to make bracelets with them. Clearly, Berglind is doing her duty to pass on the love of crafting to the next generation LOL! How cute is Arna in her little polka-dot jacket? I’m so sorry I didn’t get a picture of her full outfit — she was wearing the cutest glittery tennis shoes.

Berlind’s other choice for me was the cream-of-the-yarn-shop crop, litla prjonabudin (sorry, I don’t know how to get those special characters out of my keyboard.) (The link will take you to their facebook page — you might not understand the language, but I guarantee you’ll understand the pretty pictures!)

What a treasure! This is just a small little shop, but they had the most beautiful yarns. And they were so helpful — of course I had to have a few souvenir skeins.

Here’s the pretty display in the center of the shop. And the whole time I was shopping, the perfect baby was sleeping (he never made a peep the whole time I was with Berglind) and sweet little Arna was sitting on a chair being an angel. Seriously, she never made a peep either, except on occasion if I said something to her via Berglind. She was so cute — even holding my hand in the parking lot. Melt my heart!

Our little visit was over much too quickly and it was time for Berglind to take me back to the hotel. I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I had — this visit was definitely a highlight of my trip. I still pinch myself wondering if it really happened — what an opportunity! Isn’t the internet an amazing thing???

Anyway, just in case you’re planning a trip to Iceland and you want to visit the yarn shops, I’ll quickly tell you about the other places I visited. (Btw, all five of the places I visited are highly recommended.) Two shops are in the main shopping area of Reykjavik. The first place we stumbled upon was The Handknitting Association of Iceland. Iceland is known for their Lopapeysa sweaters, made from Lopi yarn – the 100% wool Icelandic yarn. The Handknitting Association of Iceland had a TON of sweaters (and mittens and hats and more) to buy and people were standing around trying them on. We found their prices to be better than any of the other shops that carried sweaters. They also sell lots of Lopi.

The second shop is Storkurinn. Storkurinn is a lovely shop — it’s a little hard to find though. I saw the sign on the street and knew immediately that it was a yarn shop, but there was no storefront. It turns out that it’s on the second floor. They had a great selection of knitting books and yarn.

And even a wall of Amy Butler fabrics that eluded my camera. There wasn’t much time in this little shop — I could have easily lingered longer!

Then, the day before I met Berglind, when we were on our way back to Reykjavik from the southern coast of Iceland, I tricked convinced the family to stop at Alafoss. This is the Lopi factory outlet in Mosfellsbaer – a suburb of Reykjavik.

Lots and lots of Lopi in here. And, of course, I had to indulge. How could I not? The average Lopapeysa sweater sold for around $150 – $200 — I could buy the yarn to knit my own for about $50. Sold!

Something Berglind pointed out to me in the store that had the Tilda fabrics was unspun wool. I would have no idea what to do with this, but Berglind was wearing a pretty brown and white sweater that she had made from this type of yarn.

So, that’s it! Now I REALLY want to go to Iceland on a knitting tour. Did you know they have them? I found a great write-up of one here.

Who wants to go with me???

XOXO,
Anna

And BTW — And I can’t emphasize this enough — if you’re not following Berglind, you should be. She has the most beautiful blog. She makes beautiful treasures for her family and she’s beautiful and I’m going to say Beautiful a million times in this sentence so you get the point!!!

A Quilting Life Giveaway

209 Comments / June 8, 2013 July 13, 2013 / Chat

Welcome to my day on the blog tour for A Quilting Life – Creating a Handmade Home by Sherri McConnell! I’m so honored to have been asked to participate in Sherri’s book tour. Sherri is a sweetheart and she’s one of the nicest bloggers you’ll meet. And I feel extra lucky as I’ve been able to see her several times at quilt markets. I love the name of Sherri’s book and blog — it’s a perfect fit for her. Sherri truly lives a quilting life and she’s one of the most prolific quilt bloggers that I know.

Sherri’s book is a treasure! It’s full of fun and straight-forward patterns for quilts, table toppers, pillows, bags and more — all the goodies to make a cozy home. I love the quilt below. I recently placed a very similar version of this quilt in a selection of quilts that could be made from charm packs, so I was really excited to see that a pattern is in her book.

Unfortunately, with our recent trip, I haven’t had time to try out any of her patterns, but I’ve looked over the instructions for many of the projects and they’re clear, thorough and easy to follow. She even uses the same corner square triangle blocks in several of her projects that I’m currently making for a little quilt. I LOVE the quilt below — what a clever use of that same block.

Sherri asked us to share a little bit of how we manage to have a quilting life and maybe give an organizational tip or recipe. If you could see my sewing room now, you would realize that you’re much better off to take organizational tips from the experts. Or even just other average quilters who are actually organized. Recipes, however, I can do. I thought about recipes that are easy and allow me more time for my quilting life. Like many of you, I work full-time outside of the home, so finding time to quilt can be a challenge.

As I thought about my easy recipes, I realized that I’ve already shared many of my favorites with you. So then, my thoughts turned from time-saving to snacking while quilting. In my case, I love a good cookie while I’m sewing. I know I should eat carrot sticks or something while I quilt, but where’s the fun in that?

When MyDadLovesMeBestSister and I were growing up, MeMum used to make a wonderful Oatmeal Raisin Cookie and I always ate more than my fair share. Oatmeal Raisin are my very favorite cookies. I’ve already shared a great Oatmeal Raisin cookie, but that one is a traditional Oatmeal Raisin cookie — crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. This oatmeal raisin cookie is cakey. And yum yummy!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 lb. raisins — Cover with water and boil. Let cool.
1 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
4 cups flour
4 cups oatmeal
4 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
3 teaspoons soda added to water and raisins
1 teaspoon vanilla
salt
1/2 – 1 cup chopped nuts

Cream shortening and sugar together. Add eggs. Sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together. Add to mixture alternately with milk. Add oatmeal. Drain a little water off of the raisins then add soda. Add raisins with water to mixture. Add nuts and vanilla. Drop by spoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

And, just so you know, you can have more than one cookie beside your machine while you’re sewing — just throw in some extra jumping jacks on your breaks!

Here’s the schedule for Sherri’s book tour:

Monday June 3^rdNanette at Freda’s Hivehttp://fredashive.blogspot.com/
Tuesday June 4^thSinta from Pink Pincushionhttp://pinkpincushion.blogspot.com/
Wednesday June 5^th Jodi from Pleasant Homehttp://www.pleasant-home.com/
Thursday June 6^th Judi from Green Fairy Quilts http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com/
Friday June 7^thLissa of ModaLissa http://modalissa.blogspot.com/
Saturday June 8^th Amanda of AmandaMurphyDesign http://amandamurphydesign.blogspot.com/
Sunday June 9^th Me!
Monday June 10^th Amy Smart of Diary of a Quilter http://www.diaryofaquilter.com/
Tuesday June 11^th Kristyne of Pretty by Hand http://prettybyhand.com/
Wednesday June 12^thSherri of A Quilting Life http://www.aquiltinglife.com

Sherri and C&T publishing are generously giving away one book for each of the blog tour stops (international winners will receive an e-book) — that means, if you stop at every blog on the book tour by June 14th, you have 10 chances to win!

If you’d like a copy of Sherri’s book, leave a comment and tell me your favorite cookie to snack on while you’re quilting.

Good Luck!
XOXO,
Anna

A Trip

65 Comments / June 4, 2013 July 13, 2013 / Travel

Whew! There’s been very little blogging activity in ThimbleannaLand — to include not reading your blogs and commenting. I do have a good excuse though, and I hope you can forgive me. If you follow me on Instagram, you know that we’ve had a fun little get-away.

Several months ago, we decided that we wanted to go somewhere to celebrate TheFirstChild’s graduation. During the weeks of conversation, TheFirstChild suggested Iceland.

Iceland?

Hmm, we hadn’t really given it much thought. (And happily, my first reaction wasn’t the same thing that we heard from most people — “Iceland? Why would you want to go to Iceland?) As I started to research a trip, I wondered if maybe TheFirstChild chose this location for ME— for two reasons — 1) Puffins, and 2) YARN!!! (Naturally, I kept this little yarn insight to myself — I didn’t want to scare the rest of the family away!) So, while you were happily reading quilt market reports across blogland, we were winging our way to the Land of Fire and Ice.

The hardest part about a trip to Iceland is getting there. There are limited flights into Reykjavik. We connected from Chicago through Toronto, and unbeknownst to me when I booked our flights, Toronto only has one flight into Reykjavik every other day. So, when our American flight from Chicago was two hours late, we missed our window to get to Iceland on time. Shortly after we landed and collected luggage for customs, they told us to hop on a shuttle and hustle over to the Air Canada terminal to catch a flight to London where we would connect to Reykjavik the next morning. Fine. We hustled.

When we got there, we were told that we were 5 minutes late (still 55 minutes before flight time) and couldn’t be checked in for the flight. We argued with Ms.PeaBrain and Ms.PeaBrainSupervisor for twenty minutes — until it really was too late to check us in. Even better, Ms.PeaBrain and her supervisor offered us no help or suggestions, except to suggest that we get back on the shuttle and go back over to the American terminal. So we did. And by now we were too late for any other options that night. The next best chance was to fly, on Air Canada again, to Frankfurt Germany, the next night. We made our reservations for the following night and went to a hotel around 1 a.m.

So, we lost 24 hours and played a lot of cards in Toronto. I was pretty darn upset at all the planned things that we were going to miss in Reykjavik — most notably, meeting an Icelandic blogger (more on that later).

The next day, while hanging around, TheFirstChild suggested that we extend our trip by a day (to try to make up for the two days that we lost), so we went back to the American counter and met the bright shining star of the whole fiasco — an American agent who gladly changed our return flights. Then, we got back on the shuttle (by now we were becoming fast friends with the shuttle) and arrived at the Air Canada terminal to check in four hours before our flight. And guess what Mr. AirCanada had to say? “There’s no way you guys are getting on this flight. It’s oversold by about 25 seats and we have to honor our Air Canada customers first.”

WHAT??? I looked over at SweetiePie, and this is what I saw:

Yep — THE Vanessa look for panic at the airport. We all looked like that. And, once again, Mr.AirCanada was NO help for options. If you are sensitive, avert your eyes.

Air Canada… YOU. SUCK.

Sorry and Thank You. That felt better. We were definitely NOT going to spend ANOTHER night in Toronto, so we hopped on the shuttle and went back to Ms.BrightShiningStar at American. She was fantastic and she found us a British Airways flight to London with a connection to Reykjavik the next day. (Which only goes to prove how unhelpful Air Canada was — they could have found the same solution. But then, you have to be a thinker.) We happily boarded the BA flight which went smoothly until an hour before landing at Heathrow. The pilot announced that there’d been a fire on one of the runways and we would be diverted to Stansted. The fun meter was pegged out! Luckily, just 20 minutes before landing, the pilot came back on to tell us that we’d been cleared for Heathrow. Shoot, I was really looking forward to the chaos of trying to figure out ground transportation for a 747 FULL of passengers to get them back to Heathrow. {Sarcasm}

Anyway, 36 hours after the original arrival time, we made it to Reykjavik. And we had a FAAAANTASTIC time. Iceland is amazing! When I was planning the trip, I found several blogs that did day-by-day reports of their trips and they were a great help in my planning. I’m going to do a similar report and post it here on the website. In the meantime, here’s a peek. We saw…

Sheep (all that lopi yarn doesn’t grow on trees)

Gorgeous Icelandic Horses

Whales (and we weren’t even on a whale watching trip!)

PUFFINS! (It took more than one attempt and a lot of driving, but we saw them. I love my little family for putting up with me!)

Fjords

Churches

Glaciers

Waterfalls

Yarn sold in grocery stores

Beaches

And Oh. So. Much. More.

That’s plenty for now, don’t you think? When I come back, I’ll tell you about meeting the most beautiful little Icelandic blogger and shopping with her. Have a good week!
XOXO,
Anna

P.S. In case you don’t know, Sherri is having a blog book tour this week. Be sure and visit each blog for chances to win her wonderful new book!