Pictures out and about.

I promised you pictures of Sweden, but having been rather busy I haven't got that far yet. However, Tet who was out there with me has. Here is his page of my pictures. I think he has made a pretty good job of selecting the pictures. If you have a look you will see a picture of 'Iron wool' some rather unusual sheep. This was outside the company with the oldest spinning jenny in Sweden still working. They are a very friendly bunch and produce fantastic yarns, Their web site is www.ullspinneriet.com if you like knitting or other yarn crafts do give them a look. It will help if you can read Swedish, but I think you can probably get the idea even if you don't. A lot of words are quite similar to English.

I also found a photograph of one of my commissions online today. It is quilted but not a quilt. It is Andy Carters engine cover. It is designed to keep the engine warm and clean (and in light rain dry). It was actually about the size of a kingsize quilt before it was shaped to fit the engine. Here you can see it in action as the car is being loaded into the trailer. I don't think this is the engine I made it to fit, hence it looks a bit baggy, but it will still do the same job.

Oh yes, I will be trying to blog from the NEC again this year, but as last time the intnet access at the hotel is very expensive so I will have to use my phone again. This means I may not be able to read comments until I get home. I will see if I can work out a way around that though.

Sweden - Day 5

Well I have had a fun day. I've taken so many inspiring photographs, I can't wait to get home and get started on some of these designs. I had been looking at the wings of the plane bringing us over and I thought the plates and rivets had potential in a quilt, well it is a very patchwork effect. Today we went to the aircraft museum. Lots of rivets and other bits of metal to inspire me. I don't know if anyone would recognise the various planes, but I think they will make fun designs.

The museum also turned out to be the location of choice for the various race related folk. We bumped into so many people we knew it was just silly. You really don't expect that many Brits in a not very big museum. It was nice to get to chat to some of them.

From there we went on to Gamla Linkoping. This is a 1900 town that was moved from the center of the town to the outskirts where it could be preserved and maintained. I now understand what people mean by wide floor boards. The ones in some houses were huge. The paint effects in the Baron's house would have made great quilting designs, but I didn't like to take photographs and I hadn't taken a paper and pencil so I guess it won't be this year I use them I think I can remember one of them at least. I also talked to a lady who spins and knits, who has directed us to a factory/museum with a very old spinning jenny. I don't know if we will make it there this trip, but we may on a future one.

We also went exploring. We do this, and hunt for ancient monuments, forts, and rune stones. Today we found a source of iron ore. It is very pretty with a little waterfall in a forest. We also had a chance to walk through the forest following animal trails. It is so different to London. It is nearly silent. Where we were there weren't even insects making noises. I took pictures of trees, insects, flowers and moss (you had to be there) so I should have improved my source library a lot.

I doubt I will be able to blog tomorrow. Our flight leaves here after 9pm, so won't get to England until gone midnight. Hopefully I will have time to upload pictures Wednesday.

Sweden Day 4

So somewhat sunburned after two days racing (full report at Eurodragster) I have completed the hand sewing on two quilts, just leaving one to finish over the next two days. I have also been catching up on my quilting magazines. I found a new (to me at least) one in my local newsagents just before we left. It is called Quilter's Home, and I quite like it. It is a long way from your traditional magazine. It is almost a cross with a womans magazine, but has avoided the beauty tips and celebrity gossip. I don't like womens magazines but this was fun. I think I will look into getting a short subscription to see if it can keep it up.

I've also had time to think about my new fabrics. From Tyger and Ting I got a fabric that wants to be a quilt pattern, and I realized I have most of the fabrics for that quilt right here. I am honestly trying not to work, but I love what I do so it just sort of happens. It will be very tricky to piece and as I fancy making it bed size I think it is going to take a while. I also figured out why I prefer bed quilts, other than the fact I like art with a purpose. It is because I don't have anywhere to display wall quilts. Making one pretty much is a statement that I won't keep it. So if I want it to be my quilt, it needs to be bed sized. Besides in this case I think it will make it a little easier.

Sweden - Day 2

Yay, today blogger is showing me things in English. I know I want to improve my Swedish but that wasn't what I had in mind.

We awoke to find the weather forecasters had it right. Rain, and lots of it. Given how expensive entry to the track is we decided not to bother on a day when we weren't likely to get a lot of racing. This meant we could have a lie in and then a leisurely breakfast. I like that what we call organic in the UK is called ecological over here. To me it makes a lot more sense, I find the idea of inorganic food bizzare. This hotel has many ecological products available for breakfast.

Instead of going to the racing, we went back into the town. We had a little look around yesterday so we knew where some things were. We were able to lay in a stock of munchies and drinks. One of the things I love about Sweden is their fruit cider. I've tried the ones that get imported to the UK and they really aren't as good. The nearest shop had a range of about half a dozen flavours. perfect. We also picked up some Pepparkakor, these are very thin spicy biscuits. Great car snacks.

We then needed a plan for the rest of the day. Yesterday Mia had given us details of another quilt shop, which I hadn't looked at, and feeling a bit guilty about dragging us off to another shop I let the guys come up with ideas. I am traveling with some great guys, they suggested heading off to the shop. What I hadn't realised is it was over 200km away. We were going to go most of the way across the country. I took some hand sewing with me and off we went. (yes we did think to call ahead to check they were open). The shop we were off to is called Tyger and Ting.

On the way we got to drive through some great countryside. I did take some pictures on the way back so when I get home I will upload them and show you all. Sweden has great bones, there are lumps of rock all over the place. Also it is amazingly green, and full of lakes. Today were were driving along one of the big lakes, Vattern. It really is large, in places you can't tell it is a lake, it goes beyond the horizon. The road is sometimes down at the level of the water and at other high above it, so during the journey you get to see the lake from many angles. It is very inspiring.

We found the shop easily, thanks to good signs from the nearest large road. It is housed in a lovely wooden building, and we managed to get from the car to th shop in a break in the rain, perfect. Wow what a shop, I wish it was closer. The range of interesting shaded fabrics and blacks was simply amazing. Obviously I bought as much as I could afford, but I am hoping she might soon offer a mail order service. I was particularly impressed by the fabrics with silver on them, it is rare to see that although gold is quite common. The prices even compared reasonably with UK prices, impressive. The couple who run the shop are both quilters, but he also makes wooden furniture. Now how exactly am I going to ship furniture back when I buy it? I am sure he could make me my perfect quilt display/storage units, and relative to shipping them from the US it would be cheap right? They also produce their own patterns, which were very interesting. A lot are simple but all clever with neat ideas and tricks. OK they are written in Swedish, but I can see me having to buy a few at some point. Annoyingly I forgot to buy the new magazine they had. It is the first Swedish quilt magazine and it looked good. I meant to buy a copy (it had advertising for shops :) but I can't even remember the name. Oh well I guess I will have to email and ask.

On the way back we stopped off at a ruin we had seen on the way out. We got very lucky, the rain stopped and the sky cleared, so I was able to take lots of pictures of the building with the sun pouring in through the windows, they are a bit arty and technically poor pictures but I like then, and that is what counts. We also stopped at the Swedish version of a 'greasy spoon' cafe. It is a bit different to a UK one. They have apple juice on tap and offer much better food. I finally got my fix of pytt i panne, a fried potato dish, which I've tried to copy but mine just isn't right. It was wonderful, I bet the natives don't see it as a great delicacy.

So that pretty much brings us up to date. I've managed to finish the hand sewing on a pretty big quilt today, and we spent the last couple of hours in our hotel room enjoying the cider and watching the TV (OK I was sewing too). All in all a very restful day.

Sweden - Day 1

So we have arrived in Sweden. It is just as good as I remembered, I love this country. It was scary how little seemed to be growing in the UK when we flew over it, and in contrast how green Sweden is. We have a hire car and as soon as we left the airport we headed for Mias Quiltbod. It was a pretty long way, I think about 2 hours driving, but well worth it. It was great to see Mia again, and I love having access to a new range of fabrics. I did spend rather more than I had intended but, well it is three years since I was here last.

On one of our previous visits we had nearly visited Eskiltuna, but then we read the guide book and ran away. The guide had said it was a grim grey industrial town with no redeaming features, and it is the murder capital of Sweden. Not what you would call encouraging is it. However we really needed to drive though it to get from the airport to the quilt shop. So with much trepidations off we went. It is a very pretty town, and we found a nice restaurant there. OK it does have industry, but then so do a lot of towns. I would say who ever wrote the guide book must have just had a bad day when they came through Eskiltuna. If they want to see really grim grey and industrial I am quite certain I can show them worse if they come to England.