Stats and a hit in my head

I finally decided to add a stat counter to my blog this week. I have quite enjoyed reading my stats over at flickr so I thought it would be nice to follow up visits here too. It proved to be much more interesting (and a little scary) than I had thought. I've had 725 visitors since Wednesday! Thank you! I know many of you are "old friends", thank you for taking the time to read my notes and for your ever so kind and encouraging comments! Feel free to say hi if you are a lurker, new or old! I promise to try my best to say something wise here every once in awhile...

The tree quilt was snatched off the shop so I had to get myself busy replacing it. The result is the come what may-quilt. I've had this phrase from Annie's song ringing in my head for far too long now so I thought it best to let it go with a bird. Hope you like it! I have been longing to make some traditional patchwork so I added three scrappy log cabin blocks to it. I got some critique previously for announcing Autumn as started, I hope this is Summery enough for you all!

Things are happening on the patio even if the weather has been very cold lately, here is a sunflower that finally showed her pretty face!

New shop

While rearranging I once again realised what an awful lot of fabrics I own. And what a small part of them I actually use. I have a great supplier of English quality cotton fabrics (Liberty, Designer's guild, William Morris, Laura Ashely...) here in town so I keep buying fabrics. Some of them are seconds, many just sample pieces to bargain prices. Sometimes I just cannot leave them behind, I know you fabric addicts know what I mean! So I decided to open up the SykoFabScrap shop, an idea I've been pondering for a long time, to ease the burden on my shelves and maybe get room for those new fabrics I need to buy.... And share the joy of course, the main purpose of my business! I will be adding new stuff regularly during the following weeks.

Thank you all for the input on the pattern question, I might end up making a Christmas pattern booklet with several designs in the end.

*edit* I forgot to add the breaking news that the first two poppies on our patio showed their pretty faces this morning, how we have been waiting! I am about as crazy about flowers that I am about fabrics, but there is more magic into poppies. Isn't it amazing how a tiny poppy seed can grow up to something like this?

A flower fool

My mum has been here the whole week and we have had a very nice time working on our exhibition. There is less than two weeks left, luckily my mother has been very productive so I can take my time and work on my big pieces (one wip here). It is the biggest quilt I've worked on my bernina aurora so far, cross your fingers! I will take pictures when it's all finished and hanged.
One day we took a break from sewing and went to the garden center, we both fell hopelessly in love with this beauty. Which resulted in the quilt above. Roses make me weak. And the fact that my peony will bloom this year gives me chicken skin.

Cheer me up

Coasters, originally uploaded by -syko-.

Today I just feel like complaining so this will be no long post. This is supposed to be a happy craft blog :) One thing I AM happy about is that I did some planting with little E on Saturday so now we are waiting for sunflowers to turn up in our pots (got to take pictures next time we get our fingers dirty). How I love gardening! We've had some wonderful warm Summer weather for over two weeks. Today was cold and windy, which suited my Monday mood.

I did some coasters with houses too, they can be found in the shop. I made the houses of small scraps with Vliesofix, I get a lot of them making my appliqués. The steam is hand stitched. I love embroidery very much, but since I don't have the time to sit down with anything big I have to keep it very small! This way I can sneak out to my chair in the sun in the middle of the work day to sew some tiny stitches and work on my tan... Now tell me something nice YOU have done today!

There will be flowers

I am on optimist. Also when it comes to gardening. I came up with this design for one of my new pouches. A gardener needs a bag to put the hand lotion in, don't you think? I haven't got much of a garden myself at the moment, but I love reading garden books and magazines collecting knowledge for the future. There will be a time when I will have more time for a garden. You can't do everything at the same time (I keep telling myself).

I thought I might use the design for a sketch book/diary for gardeners as well, what do you green fingered people think? I am thinking that the water should be blue or aqua. It might look too dull in black on a white background...

My favourite Spring shoes are out! The snow is gone and it is officially Spring.

Linen and a tulip

Sorry, but you'll have to wait awhile for the Finland part2 post. Thanks for all your nice comments about my Finnish lion anyway! I have a couple of other things on the same theme that I will show you soon-ish. I just have another project that feels more tempting right now. Or maybe two... I made another make-up pouch that I quite like, I found a great dotty shirt second hand that I lined it with. The follow-your-heart-theme will continue in my next project, i bought some wonderful linens today. And I left some wonderful ones back in the store, buuhuu... Anyway I can't wait to get them washed and to start cutting them up! Little E broke that tulip for me. I like them very much, they were planted by a previous owner and it was a nice surprise when they showed up.

And since I am not digging where I stand today go see artist Janet Bell in Chester, UK. Her house paintings are just wonderful! She also has a blog.