Life is great!    Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I have had a lovely day today just quietly catching up with a lot of things. For a change I haven't been out and about and it just makes such a difference. One can get on with things. As you can see from my lack of blog postings, I haven't quite found my rhythm again. So much to do when you are picking up your life again after a long, but wonderful break. But hopefully life is slowly falling into place again and I'll be back blogging on a regular basis. I have so many half written posts from our trip in my little note/sketch book that I'm always carrying around with me. Someone gave me that tip when I started this blog, and that has really been a super idea. Sometimes it is just key words, other times it is fully written. I have never written a daily journal, but I have to admit that there is something very soothing to put pen to paper, trying to digest and verbalize the impressions of a day. Well better run for now. We are having friends coming over shortly for a three course meal. It is all prepared except that I'm in need a bit of dusting myself :-)

SewDanish HAS REOPENED!    Monday, May 18, 2009

Yeah, we are back home in England safe and sound and http://SewDanish.etsy.com is again open for business. It is so great being out and about, but there is a lot to be said for being back home as well. I love travelling, but enjoy tremendously being home as well. After a long break it always takes a while to pick up from where I left. One of the first things I did was to reopen SewDanish. I have really missed my little shop. Now the shelves are dusted, the windows polished and over the coming days/weeks I will be adding new listings. So if you have a moment please stop by and take a look :-)
My husband and I are still a bit jet lagged trying to absorb the 8 hour time difference between Vancouver and London. Even though my brain is still in a slow mode, I cannot wait to get back crafting, continue working on the projects that I left behind. Mind you before the crafting, I do need to continue working on the mountain of laundry and ironing, as well as a major expedition to the supermarket to restock the fridge. The joys of travelling :-)

North Carolina    Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Card - Applique
Originally uploaded by SewDanish

Just spend a lovely week by the Inter Coastel Waterway in North Carolina. Beautiful weather. A great taste of the summer to come.
Took lots of photos of bark. Some of the old trees had just the most amazing texture. Perfect for being translated into textured, stitched pieces. We have a lot of airports and plane rides coming up and I might do a bit of sketching while waiting. We'll see.

In the begining of our stay my husband was working on his next two Fantasy Football book that are due to be published shortly: 'Fantasy Football Almanac 2009' and 'Fantasy Football Tips' by Sam Hendricks. While he was busy typing away, I did a hand stitched piece for one of my textile groups. The Sindano group is having an exhibition in November and we are all to stitch a leaf. A small piece of hand dyed fabric and a some blue threads were given to us. Right before I left on this vacation, I took a photo copy of a leaf from our garden and traced the outline and veins on to the fabric with a light pencil stroke. So far I have stitched a very delicate piece with tiny running and seed stitches. I really like it, but is debating to add more seeded = shadowed areas. It is a fine balance as I don't want to spoil the feather weight feel the piece has, but on the other hand it might be too boring with out. I think, I have to let it sit for a while longer, while I make up my mind :-)

ACEO from Flickr    Wednesday, April 22, 2009

IMG_1109
Originally uploaded by SewDanish

I've signed my blog up on Flickr and should now be able to send this (trial) post with photo directly to my blog eventhough I'm writing this post on flickr. This is surely a new thing for me, so fingers crossed that it works all right :-)
And honestely.... I am leaving the computer to join the rest of family. Can hear that American Idol is over.... It is just so lovely to be able to fiddel with a computer again. Not having had our own broard band connection for almost three weeks, then leaving for on vacation, you kind of get a little bit of computer withdraw symptoms. Now I'm gone.... :-)

Virginia    Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Just a brief note to say hi to you all. My husband and I are now in Virginia having a lovely time with family and friends. It is great being back catching up. Tomorrow we'll head up to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Unfortunately there won't be enough time to fit a hike in, but just being there will be great. Maybe next time. Later this week we are going down to North Carolina spending a week at the Inter Coastal Waterway. Very different nature to the mountains, but there is a lot to be said for long walks on the beach regardless of the weather. I just love watching the pelicans flying along the shore line, fishing.
Today I took a lot of photos of some some old trees. The bark was just amazing. The texture with its deep grooves and subtle changes in colors were just beautiful. Areas had peeled away leaving smooth patches among the very rugged areas. An elderly man was walking his dog while I took the close up photos. I smiled and said hello, but he just looked at me as if I had lost it a bit....
Before I left for The US, I prepared a lot of small hand stitching projects. On the long flights and car drives I simply need to keep myself entertained. So far I haven't gotten a whole lot done as we have been busy, but I'm sure I'll get down to a bit more stitching in the coming days. Better finish this post for now and join the rest of the family :-)

Flickr    Wednesday, April 22, 2009

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Notice....    Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Just a brief not to let you all know that I haven't forgotten you. Unfortunately I won't be able to blog on a regular basis for a while. We are currently having major broad band problems which will be followed by upcoming travels. I will when ever possible try to write a post, but realistically it will be rather infrequent for some time. And here I was having so much fun. Ah well, I guess that whats happens when real life interferes with computer life. Take care and see you all soon :-)
Birgitte

Unique Women In Business #UWIB    Friday, April 3, 2009

You might have seen the occasional twit from me about UWIB, Unique Women In Business. I belong to quite a varied mixture of teams and groups and 'Unique Women In Business' is one of them. It is a great group of about +100 ladies. All the ladies are shop owners, many are on Etsy, but quite a few are not. It is a really nice mixture of shops. I first came across UWIB in the Etsy forum. I did a bit of research and was debating on and off for a while to join or not. One of the few group rules is, that to stay a member, you have to make a purchase from a group member each month. I'm not a huge shopper and didn't really like the thought of being tied down to having to buy something. But after a while I decided to 'take the plunge' and joined. When you join your initial purchase has to be with the one who referred you, after that you can choose any group member you like. To leave the group you just don't make your monthly purchase and you are out. Very simple :-)
But seriously, I'm so pleased that I joined. I have now been a member for about 6 months and I'm enjoying myself tremendiously. I have been building up a nice little collections of ACEOs made by fellow members. It is so much more than just 'spending money' group. Lots and lots of great info, links and support are being shared. If one has a question, you can be certain that somebody knows the answer or can give you a push in the right direction. Some group members are very active in making fantastic treasuries and spotlights, something I yet have to figure out how to do. Looking at my Google Analytic quite a bit of traffic to my shop comes from UWIB's blog and UWIB members blogs. It is such a lovely group of energetic ladies. Erin Keys who is the group moderator is doing a superb job keeping track of it all. You can find the link to UWIB blog and a selection of links to UWIB members shops in the right hand side column of my blog. On Etsy you can also do search on 'UWIB', as members will have tagged their listings. Feel free to contact me if you would like more info on the group. I'll be happy to answer your questions :-)

Spring Clean    Thursday, April 2, 2009

I have had a sort of spring cleaning today. Not in the sense that I have been cleaning the house, rather that I have been working on finishing a lot of small projects. Over the last couple of months I have been working on several batches of items to increase my stock for Autumn fairs, sales tables at our upcoming exhibitions and for my etsy shop. I needed as well to start preparing for an upcoming workshop that I'm teaching. At my Wednesday sewing group to day, we were having an 'own sewing day'. I had been debating whether to bring the long exhibition quilt that is slowly progressing or to bring lots of the tid bits that needed finishing of. I decided on the latter and I was very productive. One of the things I did was to cut a lot of 1 inch strips of fabrics. I have made a lot of straight forward coiled bowls, but would like explore the technique a lot more. And as I'm teaching the ladies of Sindano how to make the bowls, it is a perfect opportunity to have a good play. You might see the results in my etsy shop later on :-) I like taking technique and see how far I can push it.

Out Hiking    Tuesday, March 31, 2009