Gudrun´s World

Summer is here

That's right. Summer is here....all my car needs right now is a TAXI sign on top because all I seem to be doing right now is carting my kids around town for their activities. What a change for me to have everybody at home, I am used to having the house to myself to do my work. Now it is hard to concentrate on work with the distraction of the kids.....and the husband!! That just makes it so hard to get stuff done (including blogging), especially for a scatterbrain like me. I had a bunch of deadlines creep up on me last week which I got done, a couple of quilts for magazines to finish, ads, pattern writing for the Minnesota State Wide Shop Hop & more. I will post pictures of my progress when it is time for those things to launch. I am also working on new fabric designs for spring 2009.

We have spent two beautiful weekends at our little retreat on Pelican Lake so far this summer and hoping to get there more in July and August when soccer schedules and summer camps run it's course. It is a heavenly place with a great beach and lots of activities for the kids.

I had to post this picture of my two youngest kids, Svana on left and Gisli on right with their cousin Arnor between them. Arnor is my godson, my sisters first born, and they were visiting us from Iceland for 4 weeks in may and june. We had a great time, we really miss them......it was very fun to have a baby in the house to play with. Not that I am wanting to go there again......don't get me wrong, ha ha ha. It is nice to be able to hand them over when you are done having fun with them;-). We will see them again in august when we go to Iceland.

Have a great weekend.

Incredible rollercoaster called LIFE!

Hello everyone, it has been a whirlwind of emotions running in my head lately. You never know what life will throw at you at any point. One of my dearest friends was just diagnosed with cancer in the prime of life and it has had a real effect on me. I am just determined to be there for her every step of the way, because a journey like she is facing is not fun to take alone. I know that for a fact because my husband was diagnosed with Brain Cancer 2 years ago, and we went through hell and back with him. He is doing very well right now after 2 surgeries and stable MRI's since then, so we are just blessed for all we have been given and try to live life to the fullest every day. So the news of my friend threw me right back into Cancer-Caregiver-Mode. It is like I was just put on autopilot, making phonecalls, doing research, keeping her spirits up and trying to share my experiences and give advice through our own journey. Everything else is put on hold....your priorities change drastically when something like this happens. So please say some extra prayers for my dearest Glo, we need all the help we can get.

So.....sorry for the "no posts" lately, here are the pictures from my Iowa workshop I had promised. We were working on a strip pattern called Strip Search, which is a very fast and easy quilt, so we had lots of fun in class. The best part about the pattern is that you only need 1 jelly roll for a lap size quilt, so they all showed up with the strips ready and could start right away. It was so much fun to see all the different colors and fabric choices, they all looked great.

Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Last week I travelled to Cedar Rapids in Iowa, which is about a 4-1/2 hour drive for me from my house. I was invited by the Eastern Iowa Heirloom Quilters, to do two lectures and two workshops. I got to my hotel room on monday night and the first lecture started 9am on tuesday. There are over 350 members in the guild so there were over 130 quilters there bright and early tuesday, ready to hear my lecture.  My lecture tells the story of how I got to where I am today, from starting out in Iceland and ending up in Chanhassen, Minnesota. This is a great group of ladies, they were so welcoming and very talented quilters, their show and tell was really great. Guess what someone brought to show and tell? My Quiltie Trio, all done up in the fabric line supporting Ovarian Cancer. Aren't these the cutest?!!

After the lecture, we went to lunch at Granite City. The food was very good, I had an awesome cup of soup and salad, but I think they really need to rethink their portion sizes!! My salad came in a bowl as big as a bathroom sink and there was no way for me to eat more then about 1/6 of it! I just hate to waste food like that. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take the leftovers with me since I was going to be doing workshops all day.

After lunch I taught a "Quilt As You Go" workshop. The ladies could pick between two different patterns, Holiday or not Runner, and Bloomin' Runner. I had about 25 ladies in class and we had a great time. Here are some pictures from the workshop.

After the workshop, I did another lecture for the evening group which went really well. The next morning I also taught another workshop for one of my strip patterns, Strip Search. I have another post with pictures from that workshop which you will have to wait until tomorrow to see. Thanks to all of you ladies for beeing so great, I had great fun visiting. Now......back to finishing the June newsletter!