Gudrun´s World

Block of the month

 

Fat Quarter shop has started their sign up for the 2010 Designer Mystery Block of the Month. As you might have seen if you checked it out, my name is among the 12 fabulous designers that designed a block for this years quilt. I was extra super excited to find out too that the block they are using to promote this great BOM is mine!! SSSHHHH....don't tell anyone.....but do tell me what you think of the block!! The fabric line they chose for this is really great and fits the quilt perfectly; 12 Days of Christmas by Kate Spain for Moda.

 

They start shipping out the blocks in June and then you get fabric and pattern for one block each month. There are limited spots available so I suggest you sign up right away.  I was so excited to see that among the 12 designers participating, there are many of my designer friends there like Heather, Carrie, Sandy and Sherri....so I had to sign up myself!! I don't know how long it has been since I signed up for a block of the month for my private purposes only!! I think this might be the first time! I am so excited about that. So come June, I will be sewing it right along with you. Now hop on over to the Fat Quarter shop and sign up so that you can sew with me, keep me in check and push me to actually finish this!!

Buzzing

Everything is just buzzing around here. Studio is busy, orders are flying in, time just seems to fly by and there is so much going on with the family this time of year. Both of my sons have January birthdays, a week apart so we have been busy planning and entertaining. 

Gisli just turned 10 last Sunday. "Double Digits!!!" Pretty big deal I tell ya! He notified my of the fact that he would never be a single digit ever again in his life. 

His celebration extended over a whole weekend and included a Minnesota Gopher Gymnastics meet where he got to be the announcer for a few minutes!! A Monster Truck Show with 4 friends, a Gymnastics meet where he had his best scoring meet so far this season, a trip to see the Tooth Fairy at the movies, Jimmy John's subs and of course birthday cake shared with friends and neighbors. Lots of fun but parents quite exhausted after the weekend. I lucked out in the drawing for which parent did what....I didn't have to go to the Monster Truck show, I however had to watch buff, college gymnast bodies at the Gopher meet and saw Dwayne "the Rock" as the Tooth Fairy.....not too bad!!

Next up.....Atli is turning 17 next Sunday! Yes, can you believe I have a 17 year old!! Well, I can't. I asked if we could rewind and if he would be ok with starting over at age 15? Nope, no such luck. I am just going to have to face it, I am not getting any younger and neither are my kids. No big plans yet for the weekend, but I am sure he will come up with some things he wants to do. They will probably NOT include his parents so maybe it will be a relaxing weekend for me. Somehow I am going to have to embarrass him one way or another, it's hard with this kid.

I have been very busy working on new designs for spring market, but every time I get busy in the studio, I have to clean out. This time I did some big time spring cleaning....or winter cleaning and found some leftover kits from shows and lectures. Many of them consist of my fabric lines that have been discontinued so I thought I would share the love since those aren't available in shops any more. I loaded a few up on my Etsy site that I am ready to part with and some of you might be interested in, but there is very limited quantity so act fast. I also listed them at a discounted original price because I am in clean out mode!!

These are the kits that are available now, I will be putting more up next week. 

Oak Ridge Memories

 

Good Fortune Quilt

 

Lakeside Dreams Quilt

 
 Stack'Em Up Table Runner - quilt as you go

Moon Glow Quilt

Afternoon Snack Table Runner - Quilt As You Go . This one is shown on the cover of Fast & Furious

 

 

 

Off to a great start

The new year is off to a great start here in the GE Designs studio and the Icelandic household. The last meal of the year 2009 turned out great as you can see in the picture, my first attempt at a Beef Wellington was a major success. We spent our New Years with friends and neighbors and had a great time. 

Christmas was great this year, lots of relaxing as I have told you before. Here are some pictures of me and my kids. Every year we take pictures by the tree and this year it really dawned on me how time is just flying by. They are growing up so fast that sometimes you just want to hit the pause button. 

 

My oldest son just said to me when we were discussing how weird it was that it is the year 2010!! "Yes mom, I am going to college next year!!" I almost had a heart attack hearing it from him...I am not ready for that....I am not old enough to have a 17 year old kid (I have got about 2 weeks until that happens!)...and certainly not ready for the college visits we are going to have to do this summer. How am I going to get through this?

 

At least I still have these two that have a ways to go until college. They will keep me feeling young for a while!

The studio has been buzzing with busy-ness lately. I finished designing a new fabric line that I sent off to Red Rooster last week. That explains the lack of blogging.....and the lack of doing anything else around the house. When I am working on a fabric line, everything else gets pushed to the side so I can really dig in and get it done. Packing it up and handing it over to the UPS guy was followed by a big sigh of relief...it always makes me feel so accomplished when I get this done. Now there will be quite a while until I can show you any of this stuff because it won't be in stores until next year...sorry!!

I also got strike offs for another fabric line that is being introduced this spring. I'll show you some previews of that one soon because now I am working on designing things with it. It will be a while until I get any yardage though so you will have to wait patiently.

I am starting to count down to when my Olivia line hits the store shelves, only about 5-6 weeks now. I am planning some fun things here on the blog for the launch of the line so stay tuned guys!!

I have also been designing and planning lots of quilts for a new book coming out this spring. The sewing has started a little bit but today I am kicking it into gear big time. I am leaving on a retreat....YEAHHH! I have my bags filled with planned projects so hopefully I will come home with some finished projects. This is a very special retreat because I am going to be hanging out with other quilt designers for a couple of days. I will tell you all about it when I get back!!

 
 

Happy Holidays

Christmas has just been great this year. We were hit with lots of snow fall here in Minnesota which made everything look so festive. We have enjoyed lots of family time playing games, playing the new Rockband video game (turns out that I do have some musical talents.....at least in the video game), lots of good eating, good laughing and good relaxing....and of course, lots of snow shoveling!. Just what Christmas should be about.

I am making some progress on my Lone star Wannabe quilt....believe it or not. I will show you a picture soon, I promise. I am also working on a new fabric line design for fall, starting to write for a new book coming out this spring and some other big plans. So there will be lots to share in the new year.

 

For now, I just wanted to send all of you my Best Holiday wishes with great thanks for reading my wacky thoughts this year. 
 

December fun

This is what happens when you leave two creative kids ALONE with an undecorated Gingerbread house, two bags of frosting and a boatload of candy.

  

Yes, they used ALL of the candy, plus the rest of their Halloween candy and some marshmallows from the cupboard.

 

I just get a toothache from looking at it. But I love it and they loved it. I did not love the look of my kitchen afterwards but that is a small price to pay for beauty like that!! Not to mention the happiness of two kids:-)

One of our December traditions is putting together jigsaw puzzles. We buy a new one every year and each year the same scenario happens!! I am always going to save the puzzle until Christmas but that never happens. I have no discipline! Once it is in the house, it has to be started on....and once it is started on.....I can't leave it alone until it is finished!!

 

This year I went online and ordered my favorite puzzle, Wasgij? We got addicted to these when we lived in Iceland. You are actually not putting together the picture on the box, but the real puzzle is what they see! It is so fun to see it come together and the quality is great. It also adds to the pull of finishing the puzzle because you need to figure out what they are all so freaked out about. 

Maybe it wasn't so smart either to set this up in my work room this year....there was no work done there until that darn puzzle was put together. Luckily I got it done in a couple of days so not too much damage was done!!

 I have some awesome news to share too! I have teamed up with the travel icon Jim West and his company Sew Many Places to bring quilters to Iceland in 2011!! It is going to be the trip of a lifetime with lots of quilting and knitting related activities and connections. Jim's online FREE magazine Quiltposium, December issue just came out with the planned trips for 2011. Our trip is on there along with an article that I wrote about Iceland. So I suggest you hop on over to www.quiltposium.com and register for the magazine. It's super easy....then you can log on and read the whole thing. My article starts on page 50!! Let me know if you check it out.

I hope you are having an awesome December too!!

Oh, Christmas Tree

I am so happy to have my house in holiday mode, it just tickles me to wake up and have the trees lit. We put up 2 christmas trees. One upstairs, that is a smaller tree that gets all our handmade, collectable ornaments, kids crafts and such. The kids now take care of decorating that one by themselves and they did a great job. 

Downstairs we have the big tree that I always dreamed of having since I was little, which is "my tree". I decorate that myself and go with a color theme each year. I don't know what it is, probably the designer in me that likes to experiment and not do the same thing every time. This year I did the same thing as as last year though because I loved it so much, all red and silver with a little bit of white. Now, as I said, I get to decorate this tree, but the kids keep on bringing me recommendations on what would work on the tree. Some of them are taken into consideration....others are shot down as gently as possible. However, one morning this little one eyed paintstick snowman had appeared on my tree. The color scheme works, so it gets to stay. 

 

I like to keep my tree up into January too, so between Christmas and New Years, I change out the decorations a little bit.....it turns into a cocktail tree for New Years!! I display all my cocktail themed ornaments, shakers and even hang my plastic wine glasses from the tree. I will have to take a picture of it this year to share with you when the transformation is done. It is so fun....especially when people come over...they don't notice it right away, but after a while they go...OH, is that a cocktail shaker?

I finished another Christmas design, but unfortunately I can't really share it with you yet. It's going into a future publication, but for now....it looks perfect on my table. I'm really sorry that I can't show you more right now. Trust me...it looks great with the new pillows.  

Have a great weekend...I have a great day ahead of me planned by my family (I love surprises). Yep....it's my birthday today......turning 29.....again.....as usual!!!

Christmas spirit

I want to start off with announcing our Flickr winner in the blog hop. This person showed extreme dedication by making every single free project in the Blog Hop. I was so happy to see her screen name come up in the drawing....congratulations bro3ther on your accomplishments. Please e-mail (gudrun@gequiltdesigns.com) me your shipping adress so I can send you some goodies. Many thanks to all of you that loaded pictures of your projects, they are all beautiful and inspiring. If you haven't checked out the Flickr site yet, I recommend that you do because you see lots of different color options for the projects that will inspire you to make yours unique. 

Since the blog hop finished, I have been busy getting my house into holiday mode. I like to decorate a lot. I think it is because my birthday is in December (it's coming up on friday;-), I love lights and decorations. 

I have also been doing a little bit of sewing lately, actually stuff for me! My house! That is very unusual, but I was determined to do it this year and I think I will do more of it. Now...I know what you are going to ask me....did you finish your Lone Star Wannabe quilt? Nope...I did not, but I made Christmas pillow covers:

 

I also made some Christmas Coasters. They are really easy to make, they are in my Fast & Furious book but to make them a little more "Christmassy" I fused a star instead of a circle over the opening. This was a fun 1 hour project!!

 

Then today, the mailman rang my doorbell. It's always exciting when I see him coming to the door, because that means that he has got a package for us...not just mail!! And we got the best kind today, 2 big boxes from Iceland. One was filled with Christmas presents and the other with candy & Malt soda. The Malt Soda is an Icelandic drink that for the Holidays is mixed 50/50 with orange soda and there really isn't Christmas unless you have a glass of that. Usually we have been so lucky to have family or friends come and visit right before Christmas so they have brought us some. But this year we had to send my mom shopping for us. We had her buy 8 cans of soda and then of course she had to pad the cans and fill up the box.....newspaper?...bubble wrap? Oh, no way....we just asked her to fill it up with candy!! This is probably the most expensive soda on the planet now because shopping for it cost maybe 10 dollars but shipping it cost us $80!!! Believe me, it is going to be sipped slowly and really savored!!

 

Unfortunately....or maybe fortunately...however you want to look at it...one of the cans had been punctured and was leaking sooooooo.....we had to crack it open and drink it for lunch! Oh, did you notice that all the candy bags were open? .....yes, those had to be opened to make sure that everything was ok and didn't get spoiled on its way across the Atlantic ocean.....but it's all good so that was our dessert! 

Blog Hop Winners!!!

I bet you have been waiting for this post all day haven't you? It took us a while to get all the logistics of finding winners together, but now we have names of 3 terrific blog hop participants that religiously commented on every blog. They were pooled out of the highest number of commenters that I have ever seen. So Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for spending the last couple of weeks with us. It has been so rewarding for us to read all your comments about our stories, hear your own stories sparked by what we wrote, see your excitement about the projects and then actually see how many of you have gotten to work and finished many of the hop projects and loaded your photos on the Flickr site.

This is what the winners are getting!!! Isn't this incredible? These are books, patterns, kits, tools and fabrics that all of us have designed or companies that we work with have graciously donated.

So here they are.....the big winners:

1st grand prize goes to: Thea M  www.theamccurry.com

2nd grand prize goes to: Arlette from Costa Rica http://arlette0521.blogspot.com/

3rd grand prize goes to: What Comes Next   http://round22.blogspot.com/

Congratulations girls!! Please send me an e-mail (gudrun@gequiltdesigns.com) with your shipping adress so I can send you those awesome prizes.

Another Chance to Win!!

Yes, we are giving you another chance to win some of the prizes in the picture if you post a picture of your finished project on the Flickr site. You will have until Tuesday December 1st to upload your photos. We will then draw a name of one lucky person to receive some goodies. Instructions on how to upload a photo are on the Flickr page. This gives you an extra week to get some of these finished and snap a photo. 

Magazine winner

The 2 lucky people (I decided  that there needed to be 2 winners with all your great comments) that will be receiving a copy of the "Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from today's top Designers" issue are:

Shelly W:  "Your block turned out great. I love your choice of fabric. That always is the hardest part for me. I can't wait to check out the magazine. Thanks for all the giveaways and patterns lately!"

and...

Vivian:  "What an interesting recipe -- I'll have to try the Coconut Balls for the holidays. The focus fabric used in the block for the "100 Blocks" issue really makes it pop. Now I've got to "hop" and see who's got it! Between the 100 Blocks hop and the 12 Days of Christams Hop there is so much going on for the holidays -- great way to get the season started."

Congratulations girls, Please send me an e-mail (gudrun@gequiltdesigns.com) with your shipping adress so I can send you your copy.

Kit Winner

One more winner to announce today and that is the lucky person who gets a kit for the Sweet Trimmings Wall quilt. Congratulations to.... 

Lindsay Mattison: "I LOVE the sweet trimmings pattern, and plan to try this for ME !! Thanks for the free pattern, and I'm lookin forward to the awesome blog hop ! "

Hey Lindsay, Please send me an e-mail (gudrun@gequiltdesigns.com) with your shipping adress so I can send you the kit.

Again...I want to thank you for spending the past 2 weeks with me, I have been deeply touched and humbled by your sweet words. I am truly greatful! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

CCC blog hop: Day 12

It is so bittersweet! We are at the end of the hop already! The last but totally not the least designer of the hop is the fabulous Linda Lum DeBono. She is such a talented gal, I just wish I had half of her creativity. She has designed projects with quilting, scrapbooking and everything in between...just absolutely love her work. She has a free project for you today, so go check it out and make sure you comment on the last designer of the hop to be eligible for the grand prize.

The topic of the day for us other designers is a story about a Christmas Craft that you did during childhood or are still doing....maybe a Christmas craft gone wrong!! I think we have all had those moments, but I knew exactly what to talk about today, because it is so fresh and special in my memory even if it happened decades ago!! Wow...

My grandpa Herbert or Hebbi Afi as I call him, is the the best grandpa a girl could ever have. I spent a lot of time at my grandparent's house when I was young since my parents were extremely young parents. Yes, we are talking 16 and 18!!! We actually lived with my grandparents for the first year of my life (not that I remember that), I do remember spending lots of time over there. My grandma was a great seamstress and I remember going through her button box and sewing buttons on a piece of fabric for days. I just loved it! I still remember the cool, unique buttons in her tiny drawers....sometimes wish I could get to them today still!! She has always been a master knitter too, and to this day whips up sweaters, hats, scarves and whatever else for our family. My grandpa made a living as a housepainter but he used to to a lot of art paintings when he was younger. I have a feeling I inherited some of his artsy genious....even though I never was able to do anything with paint and brushes....it just came out in fabric.

He would spend a whole day with me, doing craft projects and whatever else. He is the one who taught me how to read at 3 years of age, by making wooden blocks with letters painted on them. Then he would arrange them into words for me and a few days later....I was reading.

One of my very special memories is making Christmas garlands with my grandpa, out of Christmas cards. We would take old Christmas Cards that he had received, cut the gorgeous pictures out and then string them onto ribbon and hang it all around his house. Some of the cards came all in the same size and those could be made into banners, like seen in the picture below. I really wish I had a picture of the garlands too, because they really are cool......and the best part is.....he still puts them up, every year!! I will have to have my mom take some pictures this year so I can share them with you.

With the Economy the way it is right now....it really is a very inexpensive craft to do with your kids, plus, you are reusing-recycling, and come up with a really beautiful Christmas decoration. So if you have old cards around....go for it!!

Since we are at the end of the hop, make sure you have commented on all the designer's projects through the past weeks. We are giving you an opportunity to catch up this weekend and are drawing names for the grand prize winners on Monday morning!! Check back here on Tuesday to see if you were one of the lucky ones.....these prizes are phenomenal.....lots more than the $360 dollars worth of stuff!!!

See you on Tuesday....have a great weekend!!

CCC Blog Hop: Day 11

We are back in Minnesota for our designer of the day in the blog hop. Today is Roseann Kermes day!! Roseann is the owner of Rosebud's Cottage, a quilt shop in White Bear Lake. She is a regular contributor of patterns to American Patchwork & Quilting, Quilts & More among other magazines. She has definitely cooked up something great for you today so go and check out her blog for the free project.

Along with her fabulous store, Roseann has a little hideout where she works on fun things and sometimes she invites friends over to chill and create. Last time we made these fabulous covered notebooks. It is so cool and I use mine all the time!! Hopefully I get to go play again soon (hint, hint;-)

Today's topic is about your favorite Christmas themed quilts. I have to admit, I have not designed a lot of Christmas themed quilts myself other than smaller runners, toppers and placemats. I do have a couple that are pulled out at Christmas that have been around for a long time, since before I started designing quilts. They have their charm but are definitely not my best work! But it seems like this year, there have been quite a few added to my design collection. Now, being a designer, it is hard to talk about your favorite things because what is favorite today is not my favorite tomorrow. We tend to be a little bit of a scatter brain sometimes (at least I am) because I am so excited about a new idea for a quilt, but half way through making it, I am already loving something else. In my latest book, Strip On, there is a quilt made with holiday fabrics, the design doesn't neccesarily scream Christmas, but I am excited to display that one in my house for Christmas. That is....if it makes it home for Christmas! All of the quilts are out on trunk shows, in quilt shops all over the country. I will keep my fingers crossed that one of my babies makes it home.

This is Twirl Me Too and is made with Honey Buns, and I made a runner out of the leftovers, so I will have something for the table too. There are a couple of quilts out of the Fast & Furious book that I am excited to display this year, the Stack'Em Up Runner...

...and my Tree Time Placemats. I actually planned ahead and got lots of extra fabric from this line so I could make extra placemats for the whole family before Christmas. Hey, we will see if that ever happens!! But I do love them and will definitely use those 2 that I have.

 There is one holiday quilt that is already hanging up in my studio. It is my Fons & Porter cover quilt, Holiday Charm, that I got back from them last week. I really love this quilt and put it up right away. It totally matches my Sweet Trimmings quilt which is also hanging in my studio right now, so I actually have matching quilts....how about that!!

I actually really love this quilt, so this could easily become my new favorite Christmas quilt....at least for a few weeks.

There is one more thing I would like to share with you, and I am doing that hoping that it will put some pressure on me.....what is it....yep, a quilt UFO. (We have those too!!)

This is my Lone Star quilt....Wannabe!! Here is the thing. I have always loved December and the days leading up to Christmas. Maybe because my birthday is in December, I don't know. There is nothing like making Christmas Quilts and crafts in December to get you in the holiday spirit, listening to Christmas Music with candles burning and a cup of cider.....maybe a cookie or two close by!! It usually also has to be something I want to make for me, not a new pattern, not a magazine or anything like that! So this was my last years Christmas quilt, hoping to get it done before last Christmas, but no......a little bit too much ambition there. So now I have 4 units done out of 8 and would love to finish it before this Christmas....at least the top!! So here is your job now...keep asking me about my progress on my Lone Star Wannabe quilt and then maybe....maybe....I will have a new favorite Christmas Quilt to show you next year!