September 2018

September again saw me a bit too busy to do a lot of quilting, but I did manage to do some dodecagons

It was busy also because at the beginning of the month I had a little medical issue that needed to be attended to

It took me a little longer than I thought to recuperate, but the view back home was better than the view before (above)

Excitement this month came in the form of a very special police action taking place just in front of me while I was waiting in front of the traffic lights at a large junction close to our house. Already noticing lots of police in bullet proof vests when I arrived at the red light (with one officer taking position next to my car), and a van on my right hand side, standing still, with the driver busy on the phone, all of a sudden two black jeep arrived and out jumped a number of plain clothed police, wearing masks, guns drawn. they surrounded the van and shouted to the driver to come out. He did not, kept on talking on his phone, and after a short stand-off (pfffff, still all those guns so close to me), they had had enough, two of the masked police officers opened the doors on either side of the van and while one officer put his gun away and started pulling on and fighting with the driver, the other one first kept his gun pointed at the driver from through the other open door, before entering the fight from his side, after which the first officer was quickly able to pull out the driver and work him to the ground where he was handcuffed and blind folded, before being led away into one of the regular police cars. All the time a helicopter was hovering overhead and the high school on the corner (Eline’s old school) was in lock-down, with police cars in front of the entrance.

The arrival of this special arrest team, all the regular police officers already there surrounding the van and the helicopter hovering overhead certainly gave me the impression that this was a planned action and I was really impressed by how efficient things were excecuted, the whole action took only a few minutes and no shots were fired. Hats off to these pro’s.

With a police officer next to my car and with being so close possibly being in the fire line should guns be used, I only started taking pictures and video’s when the action was over and the guns had been put away.

As soon as I was back on my feet again after the operation, preparations began for our daughter’s 21-dinner party.
As is tradition she wanted it to be held at home and her wish was for one long table, with 24 dinner guests, we could just about manage that in our living room.

Lots of planning, preparations, energy and time went into this evening, I even got re-acquainted with my sewing machine to make the table runners 

But it was all worth it, it was a memorable, wonderful evening during which we got the help of 3 wonderful friends, Nathalie and Vincent helping out in the kitchen and helping with serving our guests and Lucy (click) and (click) who made beautiful pictures that evening, so we will always have those to remind us of how lovely it was.

Below a few pictures by Lucy, those who follow her blog and Instagram account will recognize her clean, fresh style of photography:

Below 3 pictures I took , strictly snapshot style ;-)  :

Having celebrated with a room full of people back home on the weekend of her birthday we decided – as the 3 of us are foodies – that it would be nice as one of her 2 birthday presents to take Eline for her first fine dining experience to a restaurant that we had been curious about and had been wanting to visit, but we just needed that special occasion to do so. Well, this was it and they certainly lived up our (already high) expectations.

We went to The White Room on Dam Square in Amsterdam.

Her other birthday present came in this little box.

It being a special birthday (21 years) and us only having a small family we seldom have large parties (the last one was 11 years ago) , so we thought we’d go all out for this one and we are happy we did. It was so worth it.

So with some lovely moments from September to look back on, I now look forward to October, with some quilty adventures again.

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Phyllis

March 2018

This month still did not bring springtime weather, which on the one hand is not so very nice, I do long for some warm sunshine on my face, but on the other hand means no work in the garden yet, so more sewing time 😊!

I spent my sewing time finishing my King George III quilt! Pictures of the whole quilt to follow when I have had a chance to make them, so for now….

also I made a few more dodecagons

… and did some clearing up again. I found a box in which I thought I would find an old BOM. I did, but not just one, I found two! Remember the Civil War Tribute quilt/bom designed by Judy Rothermel? I still think that is a lovely quilt, so I sorted the everything out, put things in the correct order and did some sewing on this.

The other one? The Camelot quilt BOM by Dorry (click) , pattern by Trish Harper.  The fabrics are lovely, really Dorry-style, but since I have already made the King George III, I really do not fancy to make another quilt with a similar pattern… so what to do??

Later on in the month the Mr. and I took the car a drove a few hundred kilometers southwards where we spent a great day criss-crossing Paris. It had been 25 years since we were there and it was fun taking the metro from one place to another. We started off at the Place de la Concorde

next:  metro stop Ile de la Cité for the Notre Dame

Hop, hop, into the metro for the Louvre (due to lack of time only visited the outside, hope to be back someday to actually go in)

Question: has anyone visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam? If so, you know the cyclepath that runs underneath it with windows on each side where you can look into the museum…. We walked through the walkway underneath the Louvre with windows on each side where you can also look into the museum and what we saw and the experience was soooo similar to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam…

When I visit the Rijksmuseum again, I will take pictures so I can really compare.

After this back into metro to metrostop Anvers for the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre

we climbed the steps all the way up to the Sacre Coeur, only to find out once we were up there that there is a small finucilair railway that can take you all the way up, no sweat, no painful knees or backs…. Pffff… but it was worth it!

Also the last few steps..

After admiring the view from up there, our favorite part of the day: a lovely, relaxed walk through lovely Montmarte, at this time of year hardly any tourists, it was wonderful!

There were more artists than tourists at the  famous Place du Tertre, it was very laid back

The back streets of Montmartre were also quiet and often empty, which gave us a good opportunity to explore

We took those pretty Montmartre steps to walk back down again

and treated ourselves to some drinks and ‘tarte au citron meringuée’on a terrace with this great view

Last but not least, a visit to two huge fabric stores

We ended our day in a typical French restaurant, with a typical French meal, yummm!

The next few days in France were spent at Emma’s beautiful shop (click) chopping up beautiful collections into fat quarters… a lot of fat quarters….  because Emma was preparing for a big quilt show

friends and family all joined in getting things ready, many hands make light work!

Back home again and I have some great moments to look back on.

Hope you had a lovely Easter and that April will finally bring some spring time weather.

Thank you for visiting,

Phyllis