I could not resist...

this……!!

After making the orange crochet crowns in April I found I really liked crochet, so I wanted to do some more. And guess what? I think I found a new addiction!

I got these at Echtstudio during the grand opening of their store last Saturday and what a fun day that was!

At noon exactly Kim, the owner, cut through the ribbon

 

 

and in we all went, it was busy, busy!

 

 





<3  the colours!

 

 



A beautiful old cabinet filled with little goodies like pendants, beads, etc. to use for your crochet projects.

 



Of course it did not take me long to fill up my basket

 



Nice goody bag with my purchase

 

 



What will I do with my lovely cottons? Granny squares!

 



This will be a nice project for the summer time (am sure summer will happen, even if it is just for one day…) and while I am quilting my Jacob’s Ladder. And now that I have found crochet as a nice diversion from quilting that ripple blanket will happen too sometime….

 

 

The week before – during the few hours of sunshine we had -  I kept myself busy with cleaning the garden furniture , which went from this

 



to this:

 





Always such a gratifying job, even though my back doesn’t think so!

Recently we spent a nice afternoon on the ‘Pure Markt’ in The Hague, where we found some great stalls with nice food (even though we watch our weight, we are foodies), like

 

English pies

 

French breads with herbs

 



Surinam barra’s, freshly fried by a very cheerful gentleman

 



Falafal and couscous salad

 



French butcher

 



And last but not least, the first time I had this in The Netherlands: pulled pork!

Look at those huge American bbq’s!

 

 



It was delicious, great thing about this: they did not put a lot of sauce on it, so you could really taste that beautiful meat!

 



Well, the sun is out, better enjoy some of it, it never lasts long over here,

 



off to the garden now!

Phyllis



Jacob's Ladder top finished!

Yes!! I finished my Jacob’s Ladder top! And I am really happy with how it turned out. I love the pattern (of course), but now that all the blocks have come together I also love the way that it looks with all the colors and different fabrics. Each fabric appears just once in the quilt, so as there are 63 blocks, 126 different fabrics were used.

 

Making this top has taught me a lot about machine patching and my black Featherweight, The Duchess, which was the reason for making this quilt in the first place. Also for my fellow Feathergirl, Hubertine, since we both got our Featherweights at about the same time, we decided to do this project and go through the learning process together.

 

In all those blocks of course there are some favourites, one is right in the middle, the light blue block, not only made of sweet fabrics, but I was allowed to pull them from the stash of my fellow Feathergirl, who should show you her result today as well.

 

As soon as I can I will sandwich this quilt and then machine quilt it. That will be a learning process too, I have only ever once machine quilted a quilt. I will not do the machine quilting on The Duchess but on my Pfaff. It is a broader machine and will therefore give me more space while I am quilting.

Will show you pictures when I get to that stage.

Thanks for stopping by,

Phyllis



Veldhoven quilt show 2013

Yesterday I was at the quilt show in Veldhoven. I saw some beautiful things and met some lovely people:

 

By Petra Prins:

 

 

Of course her stand was beautiful too

 

Centre of a quilt by Petra Prins, appliqued tree of life

 



And by Di Ford

 

 

 

 

It was great to have Di sign my copy of her book, such a nice lady and such a gifted quilter

 

 



So much inspiration!

Phyllis

April 30, 2013

Today sees the inauguration of the new King of our country. Eline wanted something a bit different to wear to during the festivities, so I made her this crochet crown, the pattern I found here.

 

 

A lot of orange decorations can be found everywhere but we will stick to these….

 

 



orange crochet crowns and orange tompouces, yummy!

Enjoy today!

Phyllis



A winner and a reunion

I should have posted this weekend, but I am so sorry, it was just somewhat busier than I thought.

So now without further ado the winner of my give away, tadaaaahhhh!

 

Congratulations Linda! Can you email me your address so I can send you the fabrics? Hope you will enjoy them.

And for those who did not win, I am sorry, better luck next time (there will be more give-aways), I have entered countless give-aways myself and have never won …..

This weekend was a bit busier than planned, because on Sunday we decided to go to the fundraising event for Animal in Need, the foundation that runs the shelter in La Linea in Spain where we adopted Whopper from. It was also their 5-year celebration and because of all this Peter Koekebakker, who founded and still runs the shelter, came over from Spain to attend. So Whopper was reunited with his rescuer (and of course, Whopper would not sit still for the pictures).  

 

 



Recently CesarMillan, the famous dog whisperer, visited the shelter in La Linea, he trained one of the dogs there and used it for an episode of his series on the National Geographic Channel. It was broadcast over here in The Netherlands on April 12, but will be repeated, which is great recognition and exposure for the shelter and the wonderful work they do over there.

 

Peter and Cesar at the shelter in La Linea, Spain

 

More quilty news next time, when I will show you the finished top of my Jacob’s Ladder quilt, hope to be able to make and outdoors picture of it later on in the week, unfortunately the weather is letting me down today.

 

Don’t forget, this evening: the final of the Great British Sewing Bee!!  If you did not see this, you missed a really nice program.  It is like the Great British Bake Off, only with fabrics! Great contestants, great judges (aaah, the impeccably dressed Patrick Grant), great stories.

 

 

I found out through the Gehring Road blog that there actually is a link which will enable you to watch all the episodes on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR5BqGWYeSw&playnext=1&list=PLdPQHWnWlCxe_FqZpczwhZFUkNgLocq8q&feature=results_main

Watch them from episode 1 and you will enjoy a few hours of great tv-sewing fun!

 

Until next week,

Phyllis

 

 

 



Celebrations!

This April seems to be a month of celebrations, so let’s celebrate!

First up: my 1^st blogaversary (is that what it’s called?), I started blogging a year ago, and of course you start because you think you’ll enjoy it, but I enjoy it even more than I thought, it gives me some structure in my projects, as in: there is more pressure to actually finish them and not get started on that next ufo J  ….  and – more important - I met some wonderful new people through blogging. Both online and in person. Which is one of the reasons I like quilting in the first place, apart from it being a creative hobby it is definitely also a social hobby!

Second: last week was Whoppers 1^st anniversary in The Netherlands and in our family. He arrived from the shelter in Spain on April 10, 2012, when we picked him up at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, you can read about that eventful day here. It is wonderful to have him, he is such a good, sweet and cheerful dog, we took several doggy training courses with him, he loves his cuddles, falls asleep on your lap and we just love him to bits!

 

 

 

And third: later on this month, April 30 to be exact our Queen will abdicate and her son will become King of our country,  a reason to celebrate for many and seeing all the decorations etc. in red, white, blue and orange in the shops it reminded me of a ufo….



 

 

I started this quilt sometime in the early 90’s (my first quilting period so to speak, I started again a few years ago after approx. 12 years without quilting….) , after a quilt by dutch quilter, Mariet Soethout, she makes wonderful quilts.  I think I did a course at the time with Joop Smits. I found some drawings I made as well as some unfinished borders and a nice amount of fabric, more than I know what to do with, don’t know if I will ever finish this quilt.

 

 

 

So with all these celebrations, I think I should share some of this fabric in these very patriotic colors, red and blue with you.

Soooooo, if you’d like to have some let me know by leaving a comment to this blogpost. Next weekend DD will draw a winner who will receive about a yard of various red and blue fabrics out of this box. They are fabrics from the early 90’s and all are washed.

Love to hear from you,

Phyllis



 



Patchwork en Quiltdagen 2013

Nice to have a quiltshow near where I live for a change! The Patchwork en Quiltdagen, just a 5 minutes drive. And I was so looking forward to it because of this, Dorry’s antique quilts:-

 

 

A tied lone star quilt, I love the stippling effect of all those light colored strings.

 

 

 

Look at those edges!

Antique Dutch quilt

 

 

 

 

 

 

Detail of that quilt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

 



… and these are for the quilt police J !



 

 

 

 

 

A quilt show is always a great place to meet up with (quilt)friends. It was lovely to see Marcha again. In November 2011 we sat opposite of each other for 3 days during the Applique Masterclass by Ted Storm. Apart from working very hard to master what Ted was teaching we had a lot of fun and although we had not seen each other since then we did keep in touch. At the time Marcha already had a webshop but since she has opened up a ‘real’ quiltshop too: the Quiltster, with a great selection of fabrics and patterns, including her own.

 

 

For those of you who are not familiar with Ted Storm’s work, her quilt won the Founders' Award at the Houston Quilt Festival 2012 and that was not the first of her quilts to win a prize there!

 

Ted in front of her winning quilt at the Houston Quilt Festival

 

And because I did not have a blog at the time, this is the picture taken (at the Quilthoeve quiltshop) after the 3-day Applique Masterclass of the students and a proud teacher J , with Marcha and I standing on the left.

 

 

 

But that was then and this is now and I had a great time at the quiltshow last Friday, hope you did too and if you weren’t there hope you enjoyed the pictures, the antique quilts were a highlight for me since we do not often get a chance to see antique quilts over here.

Have a good week,

Phyllis