Hopfaldera

Dalahorse pouch

I made something for me! After finishing my blocks for the 4x5 Bee, I really felt like making something that I could keep for myself. Don't get me wrong, I love making blocks for other people! It's fun to try different color and fabric combinations, and making a block many times can be a challenge, but is also great practice.

But, as I said, yesterday I felt like making something for me, so I made a Dalahorse pouch! First I traced around a Dalahorse shaped piece of wood that I got from Sweden (I got it from the paint-it-yourself table at one of the Dalahorse factories in Nusnäs). Then I embroidered a running stitch on that line with bright red floss.

For the other side of the pouch I made a mini quilt block (6 inches square) with DS Quilts Collection fabric.

I added some soft canvassy fabric and some quilting and constructed the pouch. Tadaa...

Carina is running a Dalahorse Craft Along. She has a Dalahorse template on her blog, if you also want to make something with a cute horse!.

Blackberries

Last week when they took the boat out after dinner, Frederik and Emil found a blackberry bush. The bush can only be reached by boat so it was still full of berries!! Frederik and Emil ate a large dessert of them, but the next day they went back with containers and brought home more than a kilo of super sweet dark blackberries.

This is what we did with them:

eat them just like that

make dark purple ice cream

make two pots of jam (the only thing I photographed)

make syrup for lemonade (we googled for recipes, found only vague ones, then made something up ourselves)

bake blackberry muffins (using a blueberry muffin recipe by Nigella Lawson)

We had the greatest time!!

Souvenir from Sweden #3

We went to Sweden and we brought home...

2 pelargoniums

a CD by Veronica Maggio

and this sweet Dalahorse

 

We bought this sweet guy in Nusnäs, where they are traditionally made. I found him on the 'seconds' shelf; he is not perfectly white, but this gives him a vintage look. He jumped in my arms, gently walked me to the checkout and went home with us. Did you see that Carina and a couple of other bloggers are hosting a Dalahorse Craft-along? That looks like fun!

Souvenir from Sweden #2

 

While we were in Sweden we heard this song on the radio a lot!!! Jag kommer by Veronica Maggio.

We bought her CD and brought another bit of Sweden home that way.