Two very different visits

Over the past two weeks I went for two very different visits, first I needed more material to finish this:

So I went back to Echt Studio, where I bought the materials in the first place, love that shop, all those colors against the white walls!

 

 

As before the ladies there were wonderful in helping me, this time Wilma showed me various ways of putting the granny squares together (that is Wilma behind the counter, but that is not me in front of it…)



 





I bought the balls of Drops cotton I needed, they are discounted now by 35%.  Sooooo…. If you want some, this is the time to get them!

 

My second visit was of a totally different nature. Eline cleaned out her room recently and had stacks of books she no longer wanted to keep. Because they were in perfect condition and what you would call ‘youth literature’ I mailed various places to see who wanted to have them and got a positive reply from the Ronald McDonald House in The Hague.
I was invited to bring the books and was shown around.

The Ronald McDonald House offers a place to stay for parents, families who have a sick child in the children’s hospital, in this case the Juliana Kinderziekenhuis, so they can be with the child as much as possible. It runs mostly on volunteers who do a wonderful job there and it wants to create comfortable atmosphere, a home away from home. Parents (or a family) have their own room

Their own space in the kitchen (they make their own meals)

There are shared living rooms (with bookcases!)

And even an outdoor terrace.

 

Usually a Ronald McDonald House is located in another building nearby, but in this case it is located right on top of the children’s hospital, like a penthouse, which makes it so much easier for the parents to be with their children.

I am sure there are corporate sponsors for these houses (the name itself points towards this, but I am sure there are others), but private persons can contribute as well, with money but also with items. At least in The Hague, the Ronald McDonald House specifies on their website which items they will gladly receive.

I received this gift as a ‘thank you’ for the books, but mostly I am glad that they found a good new home.

When Eline was a baby and toddler she had three emergency hospitalizations and I always stayed with her in her room on a fold up camping bed, so I know how it is to have a (very) sick child in hospital and needing to be with them. There was no Ronald McDonald house where we lived then, so I understand how importance of these houses.

It was an interesting afternoon thanks to the ladies there who received me and showed me around, they do great work over there!

 

Phyllis



Crafts and food

Two of my favourite things!!

And I got plenty of both the past two weeks.

As mentioned in my previous blogpost I wanted a (hand)project to work on besides the second Featherweight project I am working at with Feathergirl Hubertine and I decided to work some more on Phebe. I have a difficult relationship with this project, I know I will not finish it this time, but working on it now and then for a period is probably the best way for me.

So I got everything out of the box, rearranged the fabrics and started prepping flowers for that (for me problematic……) second applique border.

Also, our bee was invited for the ‘house warming’ of the new premises of The Stitch Cottage, fellow bee member Sandra’s  - now only online  - quiltshop. She plans to be offering mostly BOM’s via her website (love this one!) , we loved her new workspace and hope to enjoy more bee nights there in the future.

 

Hubertine gave a little show and tell of the Jules blocks she is handquilting, using the big stitch technique

 



Food wise there was a lot going on, this is the time of year for outdoor events:

First , in one of our favourite neighbourhoods in The Hague, there was the Taste the Neighbourhood (Proef de Wijk) event where local restaurants presented themselves. For a few Euro’s you could try their food:

Spanish paella

 



Indian food

 

which was one of our choices

 

With the weather being so nice it was great to enjoy all these different tastes with other people sitting on the benches in the evening sun.

Also we are lucky, living in one of the suburbs of The Hague it only takes a few minutes by bicycle before we are in a wooded area with farms and fields. On the Whitsun (Pinksteren) Monday morning during such a bike ride there was a surprise: a farmers market!

Lots of stalls with lovely produce

Unfortunately we did not know about this (and had already enjoyed a nice breakfast) else we certainly would have participated in this, a breakfast in the fields where normally the cows graze….

We love going to food markets (and street food) ,we did plan to go to this one last Sunday: Pure Markt in The Hague.

And since we planned this visit we had a small breakfast that morning so we could eat this…. pulled pork from the bbq

Also here, beautiful fruit and vegetables, love those colors!

And this…. was  sooooo delicious!

 

The stall from the American Baking Company was irresistible, filled with beautiful cakes, cupcakes and pies, I had to have the peach pie, but since I really could not eat anything anymore at the time, it came home with me…..

To be enjoyed later on in the evening, together with more of this…. which is fun to do while watching the World Cup matches.

This was my view from the table enjoying my peach pie and crochet.

Whopper doesn’t seem that interested J !

But I will be back at the table with my crochet in a few hours’ time for the game, hoping our guys in orange win again, just like they did last Friday, wasn’t that just the most spectacular game?!!

 

Phyllis













A quilty update... at last

At last a quilty update. I wasn’t able to blog about quilty things recently because all I was doing was quilting my Jacob’s Ladder. I quilted and I quilted and I quilted……

 

but I wanted it finished because I was afraid that if I would start on other projects as well I would leave it laying around for too long… luckily I was able to spend another lovely day at Karin’s B&B Quilt Café last Wednesday and like before I was able to do a lot of work on it.

 

 

I planned on finishing it that day, but I got a bit distracted by the projects of the other ladies and of Karin herself, so I did not finish it during the day but I did in the evening time at home. So YESSSS  I finished quilting my Jacob’s Ladder!

 

Next thing is the binding (which I still have to find) and the label and once that is done I will show you more of this quilt.

 

With bee night at my house last week I used the Texas cookie cutter Tammy gave me when I met her in Houston in April. It was years since I made cookies, but this evening we were able to eat a bit of Texas.

 

 

 

Soooo, with the Jacob’s Ladder quilted I have time to go back to other projects: first of all the second Feathergirls quilt I am making. Remember, fellow Feathergirl Hubertine and I decided on our second Feathergirl project, I introduced mine here and Hubertine introduced hers here, so now I had time to work on this again, and this is where I am now.

And these fabrics are next in line to become Ohio Star blocks:

 

Of course I am making this project on my Featherweight, but I also want to have a project I can do by hand this summer, so I will have to delve into my WIP boxes to decide which one it will be.

This one?

This one?

Or this one?

Decisions, decisions…….

Enjoy your day!

Phyllis