Here is the latest update on Tango. The hands are in place. The accordion-player (who stands to the left of the couple) is in good progress.
I have been a lousy blogger lately, but here is an update on the Tango project. Their clothing is in place, but their hands are still missing. It will take me some days to do them. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so detailed in my work, but it is probably what it takes to get the result I want :-) It was fun to do this clothes and I think I have got the right fabrics. I'm especially satisfied with the fabric for her dress. It's velvet in real life and I had to google a bit to find fabric that looked like that. I'm always excited when I recive the package, because the colors are not always as I see them on my screen. 
This is the sweaters I knitted for my two grandsons when they both had their birtdays in November. The motif is from a popular kid TV program. I also have two granddaughters that will get one for Christmas. One is almost finished and hopefully I will manage to finish one more in time. The only problem is that one of my granddaughters - Mina - she wants a real tractor, too!
Dette er to Gråtass gensere som jeg strikka til mine to barnebarn som begge hadde fødselsdag i november. Jeg har to barnebarn til som også skal få jenteversjonen av den til jul. En er snart ferdig, og jeg håper jeg rekker å få ferdig den andre også. Bare et lite problem - Mina ønsker seg en ordentlig traktor også, som virker!
The picture is of the famous professional Argentine/German tango couple Luis Pereyra and Nicole Nau. The photographer is Guido Gayk and I have got his permissin to use the picture. I wanted more in the picture than just the two, so I have merged three pictures to make this one. The background is a street scene and I have added an accordion-player to the left of them, too.
Jeg har endelig kommet igang med et nytt prosjekt - Tango. Det har vært et langt "svangerskap" så langt. Jeg begynte å lete etter bilder for ca 6 måneder siden. Jeg fant mange jeg likte, men dette bildet var akkurat hva jeg lette etter. Det uttrykker alle de følelsene jeg forbinder med argentinsk tango. Masse lidenskap og drama.
Bildet er av det berømte profesjonelle argentinsk/tyske paret Luis Pereyra og Nicole Nau. Fotograf er Guido Gayk og jeg har fått hans tillatelse til å bruke bildet. Jeg ønsket mer enn bare de to i bildet, så jeg har blandet tre bilder for å lage dette. Bakgrunnen er en gatescene og jeg har også lagt til en trekkspiller til venstre for dem.
The size of the project is 59" x 43" and my largest so far. The persons are in full size. Most of all I love to make faces, but this one has so many details all over so I think it will be lot of fun!
Størrelsen på dette bildet er 150cm x 110cm. Personene er i full størrelse. Det jeg liker aller best er å lage ansikter, men her er det så mange detaljer over det hele så jeg tror det blir masse moro!
I have done a lot of dyeing lately. It's a real passion to see the fabric turn from white to a wide range of beautiful, vibrant colors. This triangle contsist of 66 different colors with yellow, red and blue in the three corners. All the other colors are a gradiation of the first and last color in the row, both from side to side and top to bottom. It gave a lot of greens, browns and purples in variations. All the colors are mixed only with yellow, red and blue. The picture is not very good, but I am going to take a picture of each color. I hope to add a web shop to my web site next year with a collection of hand-dyed fabric for sale. This is only the first step.
Jeg har farget en hel del i det siste. Det er blitt en lidenskap å se stoffet forvandles fra hvitt til en hel masse vakre, vibrerende farger. Triangelet består av 66 farger med gul, rød og blå i hvert sitt hjørne. Alle de andre er en gradering av den første og siste fargen i hver rad både vannrett og loddrett. Resultatet var masse grønne, brune og lilla varianter. Alle fargene er blandet fra kun gult, rødt og blått. Bildet er ikke særlig godt, men jeg planlegger å ta bilde av hvert enkelt stoff. Jeg håper å kunne tilføye en nettbutikk til hjemmesiden min etter nyttår med en serie håndfargede stoffer for salg. Dette er bare første trinn.
I have spent the last three weeks creating a new web-site. I could not find a template I wanted to use, so I have built it from scratch. I made one with some bluegreen pattern first, but I think the colors stole a lot of attention from the pictures. So I removed all the backgrounds except for a narrow stripe from my peacock painting and I am much more pleased with this version.
Some days ago, a letter dumped down in my mailbox. It was a letter I had been waiting for. Inside I could read: "We are pleased to tell you that "Swan Lake" has been selected to be judged in the quilt competition at the Pacific International Quilt Festival and will hang on display during the Festival from October 16-19 2008". So now the "Swan" is going on a long journey from Norway to Santa Clara, California. It is my first judged show, so I'm thrilled!
Here is the newly married couple outside the church
Mina was adorable!
The bride's flowers were so beautiful. It was made by a friend of one of our daughters. She's the best and has been a Norwegian champion in flower arranging several times.
This is how yhe table was decorated. Our daughter did this early Saturday morning.
The wedding cake was spectacular! The couple LOVES chocolate cake, so the wedding cake had to be made of chocolate!
Her is a picture of me and my son quite late in the evening
This is the card I made for the wedding of my son and his wife. It's made of silk satin and some ribbons. The letters are sewed with my machine in silver thread.
This is the back of the card. I free motion quilted it with a shiny rayon thread. Loops and hearts was a natural choice.
Dette er baksiden på kortet. Det er frihåndsquiltet med en blank rayontråd. Løkker og hjerter var et naturlig valg.
This is what it looks like inside. I'll try to translate the poem:Not too close - no, not too close - then we shadow for each other - we want to live in the sun
but not too far away - because our branches must be able to stroke eachother -
in the evening breeze
and in the deep nights - we want to feel the slow breathing of the other
in time with the stars and the clouds that slowly drift away
and in the first glitter of morning
I want to hear your leaves rustle near me
not too close - then we nourish from the same soil
and we never can get great
but so close together - that we can touch each other when we are lonely
and fall close to each other in the end
Dette er hvordan kortet ser ut inni. Det har et dikt av Egil Ulateig som heter Ikke for nær.
Here is what I used with my dress. The bag is made from the same velvet as my dress. The gold outlines on the shawl don't show up, but goes well with my golden shoes.dette er tilbehøret til kjolen min. Veska er sydd av samme fløyel som kjole. Konturene på skjerfet er malt i gull, men synes dårlig på bildet. Det passet godt sammen med gullskoene.
Here is the flowers painted. The pattern is not my own. It's a free stained glass pattern from stainedglass.co.uk. There is a lot of nice free patterns out there. But the choise of colors are mine. When I used dye on silk, I used a gutta resist I've baught in a craft shop here and I had a lot of trouble with the dye bleeding outside the lines. This time I used Jaquard waterbased gutta and it was so good to work with and oney one tiny bleeding. For the flowers I wet the silk with alcohol/water first. but the leaves are painted on dry silk.Her er blomstene malt. Det er ikke mitt eget mønster, men et gratis mønster fra stainedglass.co.uk. Det ligger masse flotte gratis mønster ute på nett. Valget av farger er mitt eget. Når jeg brukte farge til å male på silke så brukte jeg en gutta jeg hadde kjøpt i en hobbyforretning her og hadde masse problemer med at fargen blødde utenfor linjene. Denne gangen brukte jeg en vannbasert gutta fra Jaquard and den var kjempeflott å jobbe med og bare en liten blødning.
I choosed a background color that is quite similar to the flowers so I wanted to give it some pattern. First I wet the silk with alcohol/water and painted it in a brown color. The I dripped alcohol on top. It gave some pattern, but not as much as I wanted so I spred some Jaquard silk salt on top. Here you can see the salt has start to work.Jeg valgte en bakgrunnsfarge som er ganske lik fargen på blomstene så jeg ønsket en del mønster her. Jeg fuktet først silken med sprit/vann og malete den i en brun farge. Så dryppet jeg sprit på toppen. Det laget noe mønster, men ikke så mye som jeg ønsket så jeg strødde Jaquard silkesalt over. Her kan du se saltet har begynt å virke.
Here is a closeup after the salt has worked for a while.Her er et nærbilde etter at saltet har virket en stund.
This is how it looks after it's dried and the salt is removed. It is also heat set with the iron. Now it have to stay untouched for 48 hours before I wash out the gutta line. I plan to do all the contours with a gold paint. I will have gold shoes, so I think that will be nice. I will post a photo when it's done.
# 2
"Night Watch" by Olga Ovsynnikova, Moscow, Russia
# 3"Hostas after the Shower" by Patricia Collinson, Bideford
This one is just beautiful. It was first dyed with yellow and then overdyed with purple. There is so much wicking here and so many different colors. This is the nice thing with Shibori dyeing - you never know how it will look before you open it. This one will also get some additinal prints and be quilted.
Here the fabric is pleated in a random way and the sewed over the pleats. Dyed with purple and left to dry completely before rinsing. A lot of WOW's here this week!
This is how the piece above looked after dyeing and before the threads were removed. I did som free motion both with normal stiches and zik zak.
This is the front. Slightly wider at the bottom.
The dogs wanted to be in the picture, too, so here they are. Emma to the left and Pippi to the right.
This is the final result. A deep rust color with pattern in deep blue purple. The technique is called arashi shibori - you wrap and scrunch the fabric around a pole to get the pattern. It didn't go just as I wanted, but the result is fine. I'm only sorry you can't see the wonderful golden shine in the velvet when the light hit it!
Here is the velvet curing in a dye bath to get the rusty color. I had to use a tub to get all the fabric in. It's 5 yard of velvet.
The pole I have is about one yard and I didn't think it was long enough to get all the fabric on, so I scrunched it on my table. I also spun it to get out the water, I think that was a mistake. I applyed the dye for the pattern carefully, but the result got more blotchy than I liked.
Here the dye is applyed and I already saw that this wasn't going to be striped!
When the first attemped had cured and the fabric was rinsed, I gave the pole a try. And it was long enough. The velvet it scrunched very tight on the pole and new dye is applyed.
Here is a close up of the velvet. Since there was enough bloches on the velvet, I was a little bit too careful when I applyed the dye. I might have redone it once more, but I don't want to "kill" the rust color, so I'' say I'm pleased with it as it is. Now on to the sewing!
This is what you see when you enter the studio. It lies in the basement and I have an entrance both from upstairs and from outside.
Here is my Zone where I can read and relax. An old armchair got a new, loose cover.
Here is my sewing table. The desk has follow me for many years and I didn't want to get rid of it. The only new is I have recessed (?) my sewing machine in the desk. It makes the quilting so much easier when the level is even.
The jacket on the wall is one I made to my youngest son 24 years ago. I got a week free to go to a batik class. I loved this jacket and I think it was the one piece of clothing that he wore the most. I also see that it is the first thing I quilted! There is some closeups of the jacket at the botttom here.
Her er sybordet mitt. Skrivebordet har fulgt meg i mange år og jeg hadde ikke lyst til å kvitte meg med det. Det eneste nye er at jeg har felt symaskinen ned i bordet. Det gjør at quiltingen går mye lettere når flaten er jevn.
Jakka på veggen er en jeg laget til den yngste sønnen vår for 24 år siden. i fikk en uke fri for å gå på et batikk kurs. Jeg elsket den jakka og det var det plagget jeg brukte mest på ham. Jeg ser også at det er den første tingen jeg quiltet! Det er noen nærbilder av den på slutten av dette innlegget.
This is my new design wall. Twice as big as the old one!Dette er den nye designveggen min. Dobbelt så stor som den gamle!
This is my cutting board which I can move around if I need to. On the to is a ironing board. I have made this small one and one there is as large as the table. Both are made from Sharon Schamber's video. You find it here: http://sharonschambernetwork.com/free_area/free.html I like that they are quite hard and you can move them to where you need them. Dette er klippebordet mitt som jeg kan flytte rund om jeg trenger det. Oppå ligger det en strykeplate. Jeg har laget denne lille og en som er like stor som bordet. Begge er laget fra Sharon Schamber's video. Du finner den på linken over. Jeg liker dem fordi de er ganske harde og kan flyttes til hvor du trenger dem.
This is from the room where I dye my fabric. Someone in a QU class came up with the idea of a whiteboard over the dyeing table. It's very useful because it is not easy to write with a pencil on paper with large gloves full of dye!
This is my storage room. It's so nice to have a place for everything. And all my fabrics are folded. We will see how long it lasts!
Dette er lagerrommet mitt. Det er så deilig å ha plass til alt. Alle stoffene mine er brettet. Vi får se hvor lenge det varer!
The other side of the storage room with my books, binders from QU, paints and other stuff.
Dette er den andre siden av lagerrommet med bøkene mine, permer fra QU, maling og masse annet.
Kjetil's jacket. Batiked and quilted in 1984!Kjetil's jakke. Batikk og quiltet i 1984!
The back of Kjetil's jacket.Baksiden av Kjetil's jakke.
