A day with Reiko Kato

Yesterday morning I left home early for my two hour drive  (one of which in the pouring rain, with sometimes terrible visibility) to Petra Prins’shop in beautiful Zutphen for a workshop with Reiko Kato, designer and maker of beautiful Japanese applique quilts and smaller items.

I was certainly not the one who made the longest trip to be there: there were ladies from Belgium, Germany and even from Australia.

The workshop was being held in a part of the Oude Bornhof, a series of almshouses in Zutphen, such beautiful surroundings. Unfortunately, arriving just in time for the workshop I had no time to take pictures of that, but will certainly do so on a next visit.

Upon entering the room waiting for each of us was a package from Reiko Kato with fabrics and the pattern of the wallet where we were going to make (a start with) that day.

Also waiting: some delicious little cupcakes in great looking colors, almost (almost!!) too beautiful to eat!

It’s all in the detail, isn’t this as cute as a button..??



Time to start, Petra intruduces Reiko.

Work!

Oh, the pieces are so tiny! This is how far I got at the end of the workshop I am afraid ... but then I am always somewhat distracted during these events, great to see 'old' (not literally meant, ladies) quilting friends again!

And this is what it is supposed to become. Isn’t Reiko’s work beautiful? I love applique, this was my introduction to working with Japanese fabrics and color scheme’s.

Of course my day finished with shopping at Petra's shop, greatly helped by Gerda , when I could not choose which fabric to buy (sounds familiar?) simply said: "Why choose?"  Enough said....

Enjoy your day!

Phyllis

Award... me??

An award for my blog...??? Wow, I am so pleased! Not that I am into awards at all, but this one is really nice, because it is for blogs with less than 200 followers and aims to give them a bit more exposure. And blogs, I guess you write them in part for other people to read and so it is a way of making new (online) friends. Otherwise you may as well keep a diary.

So I am really pleased that Josephine thought of my blog also when handing out her Liebster Awards. Thank you Josephine, for 'getting my blog out there', I really appreciate it.




Now, there are a few rules to receiving a Liebster Award.



First rule: thank the blogger who gave you the award, check, see above.



Second rule: tell 5 things about yourself..... here we go...

1) I am a foodie, love good food. It does not matter if it is french fries with mayonaise (a Dutch thing) from a street vendor or a posh restaurant, the quality of the food has to be gooooood.

Will tell you at a later date where you can get the best french fries ever in The Hague & food will definitely be on the menu on this blog now & then, watch out for it.

2) Did you know:

I have had a period of about 10 years when I did not quilt at all? Can you imagine?! However, I did keep all my quilting materials in 15 big boxes and took them with me during 4 house moves, never unpacking them, until about 3 years ago. And then I was fully addicted again. So much lost time!

3) That about 1,5 years ago I became a member of a great quilting bee here in The Hague and I am so pleased about that! We have some very different quilters in our group, very inspiring and I have learnt so much from them.

4) That I married my high school sweetheart? But not until some 17 years after we graduated. There is a hiatus there... story of my life (see nr 2 of this list)...??

5) That I loooove Texas & Houston & Texans!! After 4 summerholidays there and 2 visits to the Quilt Festival in Houston, I am a believer! Great state, great city, great people.


Third rule:

Pass the Liebster Award on to 5 other blogs with less than 200 followers:-

1) Quiltwel, Hubertine's blog, such fun! And varied too, quilts, cats & rock (check out Mullet!);

2) Urban Style, Jantine's blog, great quilts, great teacher who helped me make my first quilting stitches on a sewingmachine;

3) Tovernaald, great looking blog and quilts;

4) Crea-Marcha, we had so much fun in November during Ted Storm's 3-day Applique Masterclass and she her work is so neat..

5) Stitch and Travel, I love reading about Yvonne's travels and stitches!



I have passed the award on now and hope the bloggers in question like this. However, do not feel obliged to do the same, I passed the award on for the reason I am happy to have received mine. It is not a chain letter, it is not a 'must', feel free follow the 3 'rules' and also to pass the award on or not, as you wish.

Enjoy!

Phyllis

First quilt

As promised in my last post this time I will write something about quilts, at last.
 

Jantine asked me about the quilt in the background of my blog. The reason I chose this quilt as a background is because it is a pineapple quilt. And as the pineapple block symbolizes welcome and good will I thought it was only fitting to have this quilt as the background of my blog (at least for now).

Also, it was my first finished full scale quilt. I finished it in 1991, a long time ago. I would use more color now, but am still happy with the quilt and use it every winter.


I tried to give it an old look with my fabrics choice, but at the time there were no Civil War like fabrics, unlike now. So, because of this and being a beginner at the time, I found myself somewhat limited in my choice of fabrics.

Because I could not find a lot of fabrics for this quilt at regular quiltshops at the time I bought some of them at the Boerenbonthal , then only in Amsterdam. I still like to go there, especially since they are now in The Hague also.


Because the quilt is handpatched and handquilted (in the ditch) it is really soft.

The block size is approx. 10"/ 26 cm, which makes the size of the quilt approx. 80"x 70" / 205 x 180 cm.

Each blocks consists of 57 pieces, which makes 3.192 pieces in the quilt...... just can't believe I did that by hand!

I still also really like the fabric for the binding!

Phyllis

Whopper!

Finally! Two days ago we went to Amsterdam Schiphol Airport to meet and pick up our new dog, Whopper! It felt really strange to finally meet him in person, up until then we had only seen him on de website of his shelter in Spain where he was known under the name Vado and via a video the volunteers there made of him. We learnt of this shelter after reading about Josephine's experiences with her newly adopted dog, Pepper. For a long time we had been thinking about getting a dog and when we saw the dogs on this website we knew this was right for us.

So off we went to the airport, where we waited with a few other 'expectant' adoptive dog parents until the plane from Malaga landed. Again we had to wait and wait until finally Peter (owner of the shelter in La Linea, Spain) came through customs with the dogs!

We were lucky Peter himself came to The Netherlands with the dogs this time, usually the dogs come with volunteers, it was really great meeting the man himself! Unlike a few other dogs who were totally taken aback by the whole experience, our Whopper was happy and excited and as soon as he came out of his bench did his 'thing'! Luckily we brought a big roll of kitchen towel to clean it up with.


One last hug from Peter.....

and off to a new home!

So far he is doing great. Sleeping in his bench at night, DH on an inflatable bed still next to him! After day one, he already seems to be housetrained. Tomorrow first visit to the vet and next week first time to the puppytraining at our local dog school!


Promise I'll blog about quilty things soon, but I did so want to have the arrival (& related things) of Whopper on my blog.

Phyllis

Waiting......

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog!



I know, it is still a bit empty and dull over here, but I am sure that will change as I learn more about this blog-thing.



With regards to the title of my blog? I am a quilter, totally addicted to fabric, patterns, threads etc. etc. so you'll be reading about that. Now and then, I'd also like to show you things of my hometown The Hague in The Netherlands. There is a song about our town: "Oh, Oh, Den Haag" ("Oh, Oh, The Hague"), hence the name of my blog.



Below is a little video to give this blog a cheerful start:-

I am not a big fan of musicals and do not like flashmobs, but sometimes two minuses make a plus (and "a needle pulling thread" is very applicable!). Please watch beyond 2.20 mins, it gets a bit more funky there!

Thanks for visiting!

Phyllis