First crochet finish and a give-away!

Just before I really get into the spirit of Xmas here is something completely different: I finished my granny square crochet blanket!

I started this in the summer of 2013, because I wanted to do something different than sewing and to make it really different I decided to use colors I don’t normally use (except maybe when making a quilt for my daughter, Eline). The way this turned out is bright and cheerful, which is especially nice during this grey and dark time of the year, I had to wait a few days before I was able to take some nice pictures outside, it was just too dark!

 

 

I was going to do a scallop border, but decided enough was enough, I really wanted it to be finished and also, something I did not realise (this being my first crochet project), the thread I chose to do this (Drops Paris) makes this really (and I mean really!) heavy.

It was fun to make and I will definitely do another crochet project, but with another thread!

So much for that, now it is time to look forward to Christmas! A few posts ago I posted my 100^th blogpost on this blog so reason for a little celebration which means a give-away! How about this Christmas pattern? Not too big and not too difficult, you may be able to finish it before Christmas - if you are quicker than I am with these things ;-)  -

Leave a comment and send me an email (address in my profile, that way I also have your email address to contact you) if you are interested. I will draw a winner Wednesday evening(December 10).

Enjoy your Christmas preparations!

Phyllis

 

 

 

Crochet finish, sort of...

After finishing my Lucy’s Ladder quilt, I wanted to do something different, just for a little bit, so I revisited my granny square project.

All 120 granny squares were finished, they needed to be put together into a blanket. I tried to crochet them together, in two different ways, but did not like the effect. The whole thing did not lie flat, which is what a want, I am a quilter after all! So, being a quilter, I decided to sew them together.

I made rows to make sure that – even though they are all different – granny squares that looked a bit alike would not be put next to eachother.

Whopper was guarding the little piles to make sure no one would mess them up!

Sewing these granny squares together goes so much faster that sewing those fabric patches!

After a few days this was the result.

It still needs a crochet border, I will think about that later, after a week of this crochet project I was itching to go back to quilting again!

During the weekend we visited a culinary festival in Scheveningen and with Scheveningen being a fishing port it could only be about fish, the name for the festival was appropriate: Vissch!

The set up was that several fish restaurants from Scheveningen presented smaller versions of some of their dishes, a great idea!

A few dishes that we tried:

The fish and chips from restaurant Day by Day

The lobster from restaurant At Sea

The lobster ravioli from restaurant Het Gouden Kalf

Crabcakes from restaurant At Sea again (crabcakes on any menu anywhere, I have to try them!)

And these had loads of crab meat, yum!

Also for dessert we stayed at the At Sea tent, Caipirinha ice cocktail with strawberries and limoncello froth.

It was a the first time for this Festival, I sure hope it will return!

 Enjoy your week!

Phyllis

Eline's Stars!

It has been a bit quiet on my blog and again it is because l am still quilting my Jacob’s Ladder, but now it is spring also busy with gardening etc.
I did not have anything specific to blog about soooo … a few weeks without a blogpost.

With not a lot of new things to show you I’d like to take this opportunity to revisit Eline’s Stars, the quilt I finished earlier this year. Because the weather at the time was not very nice (and therefore the light inside was also not very good for pictures) I never got the chance to make good pictures of the quilt, but now I can, so here it goes: Eline’s Stars!

More details regarding this quilt can be found here, but I forgot to mention at that time that the pattern I used was by Bonnie Hunter, her Maverick Stars.

A closer look at the quilt, which I made for my daughter Eline who wanted ‘happy colors’ not the usual retro/civil war fabrics I normally use.

To make the bright colored stars stand out better I chose a light colored fabrics for the background, using the low volume technique to prevent it from becoming boring.

 



I both machine and handquilted this quilt and that was a first. I really enjoyed using both, the machine quilting was really fast because I only quilted straight lines and for handquilting I used the big-stitch quilting technique in the centre of the stars. I did not use a hoop for this and just used a basting stitch, I loved it! It was so easy and relaxed to work without a quilting hoop and I really like the look of the stitches.

 

Like mentioned before the quilt also has fabrics given to me by fellow bee members, a lot from Anita (no blog unfortunately) and therefore contains their memories as well as mine and Eline’s. This fabric we bought on one our trips to Texas:

The backing and binding were bought here, the Boerenbontehal in The Hague (they are also on the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam), contrary to something I read on Facebook they are still there, luckily!

Apart from quilting my Jacob’s Ladder I have been doing some crochet, I am giving the granny squares I started last summer an extra row of bright pink before I will put them together.

The crochet is wonderful to do outside in the garden when the weather allows it, hopefully there will be a lot of opportunity to do so this weekend.

I’d like to wish everybody a lovely Easter!

 

Phyllis





Update x 3

After packing up my Phebe quilt months ago (remember this?) I finally had the courage to take off those borders and redo them …….  you see, at the time when I had mitered the corners of the applique border I found that there was  way too much fabric there

So ….. the borders had to come off

Then I found the problem was in those dogtooth borders, so they had to come off too

 

 

And they had to be redone.. a bit of a boring job so I did it while chatting to a friend, which was not a good idea…

 

To keep my spirits up I have also made a plan to put together Eline’s star quilt and am making rows now, hope it comes out the way I want it, more on that later…

 

Have also decided how to put my granny squares together… with pink! A bright pink seems to be the color that can pull everything together, so I will crochet an extra row of pink on each square before putting them all together.

Loads of time recently to work on these projects with all that rain outside, but when the sun is out the garden looks like this & I love those red leaves

Likewise Whopper is enjoying the sun when it is there, he is always looking for that spot in the living room where he can catch some sunrays

 

Time to get back to all my projects, have fun with yours this week, now, which one shall I start with first?

 

Phyllis



Ah, this summer!

Is just lovely, isn’t it? The sun, sometimes the rain, the great temperatures, sometimes a bit too hot, but still, I love it.

So do my strawberries

 

But then so do the birds, they looooove my strawberries! We usually only get to eat a few they have left for us J .

 

 

 

This summer I bought Zoku cups and Eline and I have become addicts. We put all sorts in there: strawberry lemonade with strawberries, pureed fruit with yoghurt for fruit smoothies, chocolate milk… in less than 10 mins it freezes and we have slush, frozen smoothie or some really good frosty, mushy chocolate stuff, yum!!

 

 

 



 

My summerprojects?

Eline’s wonky stars so far:

 

 

 

 



Eline’s granny squares so far:

And remember this wonderful quilt from two blogposts ago?

I wrote I did not make it, but I didn’t know who did at the time. Well, now I do, it was made by Nicolette and this (click) is her blog.

Love this, her version of a Dear Jane quilt is so different and cheerful!

Enjoy the summer!

Phyllis

 

 

No summer break

Many bloggers are taking a summer break from blogging, quite understandably, since there is less going on right now. 
No bee’s, no exhibitions and this summer (finally, after some bad ones) I find it often too hot to quilt or crochet. So for me no blog break, just less and shorter blog posts from me this summer.

When it is not too hot I am working on both my summer projects:

 



 

 

Eline’s wonky stars quilt:

 

 

 

And my granny squares, which Eline has claimed as well now, once the throw is finished, she has asked if she can have it in her room. Of course she can.

 

And recently my husband picked this up for me when he had to go to Zutphen (where Petra’s shop is), now I finally have my copy of this gorgeous book:

 

And signed by both An and Petra:

 



‘See’ you in a bit & enjoy the summer!

Phyllis

Concerts and things...

Woke up this morning at this time….

Yes you saw it right, 00.55 am… and all because of this:

 

No I am not going, but hubby is. Together with a few other madmen he is driving to Calais, to take the train to the UK at 05.30 hrs and then they will drive to London, leave the car somewhere and make their way to Hyde Park….

And then after the concert they will to do the same in reverse, so that is a non-stop 36 hour just to see Mick, Keef & Co…. and they will be doing the same for next weekend for the July 13 concert…..

Well, I did get a few hours of sleep after he left, but had an early morning anyway, which was nice, great weather today, lovely early morning walk with Whopper to see loads of our bunny friends…

 



And finally some time for a blogpost!

Several things have kept me from blogging the past few weeks:

I have had a horrible cold with a bad cough for the past two weeks, it just won’t leave me and together with my pollen allergy it has left me feeling drained of energy;

 

My computer hasn’t been working well for months and it finally broke down altogether so I was without for a number of days, but with a new hard disk drive I should be back in business now….

Basically I am working on just two projects right now,  Eline’s wonky stars quilt and my crochet granny squares, so not that much to show you, but here you go

 

I love working with these fabrics

 



And these are my granny squares so far:

 



Although I am not joining hubby on this trip to the Stones I did go with him and Eline to the Bruce Springsteen concert two weeks ago which was fantastic! I think it is the 5^th time I went to see The Boss and he never disappoints, what a great performer, so much energy and such a nice man…

 

It started by waiting a few hours, we had a great spot just behind the fences, so once there we could not leave anymore

The Boss came on at 19.30 hrs exactly (such good manners not to keep us waiting),  and did not leave the stage until 22.50 hrs, playing constantly …

 

 

We were right underneath the US flag…pictures taken from the big screen, only had my telephone with me so could not take pictures very well.

With Steven van Zandt, another hero of mine, he is great in the E Street band and I loved him in the Soprano’s (my all time favourite tv-series)

At the end of the concert it was pooring down with rain, Bruce stayed out on the catwalk in the rain getting absolutely soaked, same as us, cracking jokes: “It just doesn’t rain enough!” and  “It still doesn’t rain enough!!”
Hence, my nasty cold…..

A few days after the concert I had two fellow quilters over for a day of sewing and chatting, always nice to see Rennie and fellow Feathergirl Hubertine:

 

 



Rennie gave me a big bunch of beautiful yellow roses … , they remind me of this  

Ah, Texas…

Just heard from hubby, they are at the Hyde Park venue now, near the front, the weather is great, the crowd huge. Can’t wait to hear the stories tomorrow morning!

 

Have a lovely and sunny weekend!

Phyllis