Yesterday I made a baby quilt top to get a break from my fruit basket series. Even though I love it I just had to look and think about something else for a while. So when the quilt top was finished I decided to make another :)

I decided to use this grey/purple japanese print fabric I owned and found colors that would go well with it. I ordered the grey one from the fatquartershop not knowing what I wanted to do with it but just loving it. It is kona cotton and from a colletion Elizabeth Hartman designed with them. The other two are leftovers I had enough of.

I then decided to make it a rail fence. My first quilt was a rail fence quilt my grandmother helped me with.

I started to to cut and make long 2" strips, then I joined when together and cut then in to 6" squares. When I was piecing the third square this happened ...

I could cry !!
Now the machine is back to the repairshop.

I will probably get it in two weeks. Until then I just have to clean up my sewing space and organize my fabrics :)

But do you like the combo of colors?

I really love making these fruit blocks from my Fruit Basket Series. 
The lemon is so cute and today I will be making a 12" square plate mat with it. 

You can buy the Lemon block and the rest of the patterns from the Fruit Basket Series on Craftys:
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Buy the pattern here :)

So lets get started. First you need to print out the pattern and make sure it is the right size by checking the 1" square on the pattern. If you want it in another size than 6" you can copy it and use the percentages given on the pattern sheet. 

Lets begin. Since I have made so many Sew Along posts for the Fruit Series and you can find them all if you click the Sew Along Category to the right I am going to make this one short. 
Follow the pictures and read the caption:

If you have any questions you can comment on this post or leave a comment on my Facebook page.

You can also watch this tutorial video where I make the Banana block from my Fruit Basket Series. 
It is also a Foundation Paper Piecing Pattern (FPP) and could be useful.  

Now we are on to the Apple block. I think the Apple and Pear blocks are my fave. I don't know why, just really like them :)

You can buy the Apple pattern and rest of the Fruit Basket Series over at crafty just click the link
Buy the Apple pattern

So now that my wall hanging with 6" square fruit patterns is finished I am on to making plate mats that go with it. 

This is how I made the Apple block, follow the pictures and read the caption :)

This is one of my fave blocks ever to make and look at, I love it. I might make a wall hanging some day with just apples :)

If you want a little tutorial video on paper piecing you could watch my Banana video below. 

Hope you like it and if you make it please share your pictures with me on Facebook 

Today I finished the Fruit Basket quilt I was making. I will post a blog about that tomorrow with pictures and two more sew along posts :)

But since I finished the wall hanging and I have been making fruits for weeks now, I decided to do something else for the rest of the day. So I made this quilt top

How do you like it?
I am not sure who will get it but I am sure I will find a new owner soon enough :)

After Japanese class today I took a little walk before I picked up Margret. On my walk I saw some signs that spring might be just around the corner and I got so excited :)

Then I saw this truck near a field close to the kindergarten. I think it is some green onions but I am not sure.

These days Margret is quit independent and wants to do everything herself. She was not happy when I tried to help her put her shoes on!!!

Here is a video of me sewing my Banana block. 
It is my first Youtube video and it is far from perfect. English is my second language so it is a bit difficult to make this kind of video. I am a bit stiff and boring in this video but I still decided to upload it since I have to start somewhere. The next one will be even better :)

Now is it the turn of the Pineaple :)

Start by watching this video explaining Foundation Paper Piecing.

Now lets start sewing. 

Here you see the final result, I quilted a check pattern on the pineapple itself to give it more texture. 

So how do you like it? 
It will end as a plate mat for my sister's family and I can't wait to finish the whole series and send to Iceland to them :)

It is so hard to look at oneself in a video.  Yesterday in class they showed a DVD of my speech from the speech contest. I had to go outside of the class room when they were playing it, it just don't like to hear and see myself in a video. 
But today making my first sewing video and having to have to watch myself over and over and all the mistakes, it is so difficult, but at the same time so funny :) 
I plan to catch up on my sew along by my Friday post so I better get to it ;)

So hopefully by tonight or tomorrow morning I will be able to post my first sewing video on youtube. Wish me luck !!!!!

On 3rd of March is Doll festival or Girl's day in Japan. It is a custom to display dolls and people used to believed the dolls possessed the power to contain bad spirits. This day traces its origins to an ancient Japanese custom called hina-nagashi or "doll floating", in which straw hina dolls are set afloat on a boat and sent down a river to the sea, supposedly taking troubles or bad spirits with them. People have stopped doing this now because of fishermen catching the dolls in their nets. They now send them out to sea, and when the spectators are gone they take the boats out of the water and bring them back to the temple and burn them. Families generally start to display the dolls in February and take them down immediately after the festival. Superstition says that leaving the dolls past March 4 will result in a late marriage for the daughter.

This morning there was a parents morning in Margret's kindergarten. Everyone's parents came and we did some craft together. Since Girl's day is soon we made cute versions of these display dolls. Here is a picture of our's, notice the boy is ginger ;)

It is always so much fun to go to Margret's kindergarten an see how things are done here :)
After the craft section all the parents gathered in the auditorium to have a chat and get information about the changes when the kids go up a class in April. Then we all talked together about problems we are having with the kids and got advise from the teachers. It was a fun morning :)

While we were in the kindergarten Siffi and his teammates got on the team bus and drove for many many hours to Fukui because they have a game there tomorrow. I think they will return tomorrow night which means we will have Sunday together. That will be so much fun :)

Now that I know that I passed the N5 level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and I have taken part of a Japanese Speech Contest, nothing will stop me :)

When we went to Hiroshima City last Thursday I went to a book store and here is my picks. Listening exercises, grammar textbook, kanji textbook and practice tests for level N4 !!!!

When I will be able to take the test I don't know but I will !!!