A workshop and a wonky star update

On Saturday Hubertine and I went to a workshop at Dorry’s lovely shop Quilt It & Dotty to learn about the quilt-as-you-go technique which we both want to use for our Jules quilts. I always love going to Dorry’s shop, had not been there is a while, this is one of the first things you see when you enter:

This was my view into the shop during the workshop:

and my view of the floor…love that floor!

Lovely quilts everywhere

The workshop was great, the technique was explained very clearly by Dorry, so we can move forward now with our Jules quilts (as if we don’t have enough to do…)

 

Last week at home I did some more work on Eline’s star quilt:

I decided – rather than keep the blocks separate with solid sashings – to use the sashings in between the star blocks to make more stars. This way there will be an extra row of stars added in between the rows already there. More work, but worth it!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

 

Phyllis



Some serious artwork

This week was a mid-term school holiday week, so while Eline stayed home with Whopper Onno and I got to spend a day together in Amsterdam. We went to the refurbished Rijksmuseum and it is a good thing we are early birds, because already early in the morning it was soooo busy!

 

We headed straight for Rembrandt’s Night Watch (which I had never seen before) and look at the crowd already there!

 

Eventually we did manage our way to the front, I have better pictures than this one, but this one – as it is taken from the side and it shows one of only two ladies guarding the painting (!) – gives you a good idea of the size of the painting.

 



Apart from the Rembrandt paintings also the Vermeer paintings drew real crowds and no wonder, from up close I loved these:

 

Another favourite of mine that day, the Threatened Swan by Jan Asselijn, apparently the very first painting the museum every acquired

 

And this, Festoon of Fruit and Flowers by Jan Davidsz de Heem





Also this selfportrait by Vincent van Gogh, amazing from up close

 



The museum has much more to offer than paintings, like the doll’s houses. The crowds over here made it difficult to make pictures, so I only have pictures of parts of one house. See that reception room on the second floor? Those walls were paintings made with oil paint! And those very small Delft blue plates in the kitchen on the ground floor!

Unlucky for me the library was closed, I did so want to see that (love libraries), so I could only take a picture through the glass door.

And those Delft blue tulip vases, I love these! Can you imagine these with red tulips in spring?!

Not only were the artworks impressive and so beautiful, so is the building itself (it was my first visit, I never went before the refurbishment)

The view from the restaurant

 



We had to laugh too, look at this Meissen porcelain monkey, who does it remind you of:

 



Yes, we named this the Miley Cyrus monkey!

And this drawing by Appel reminded us of …

Yes, Whopper!

And obesity….. not a 21^st century thing at all!

By 12.30 it had become too busy for (our) comfort, time to head out for a nice lunch at the Café Luxembourg

 



Home made tomato soup, veal croquet, home made Russian salad (huzarensalade) with fried parsley and some pickles, yum!

It was a very enjoyable day!

Quilt wise, I worked on Phebe ....after taking off some of the borders, redoing the dogtooth borders and reattaching those and the applique borders, she lies  f l a t !

So now finally I can go ahead with Phebe and give her applique borders more applique!

 

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



Wonky stars & a day in Zeeland

I finally sat down to do some sewing again last week and now have enough wonky star blocks for my daughter Eline’s quilt to start putting it all together:

 

Also I had a great day last week with my fellow Feathergirl Hubertine, going to Zeeland and (finally!) visiting Marcha at her shop De Quiltster in Dreischor. Situated in an old building, it is not a large store but the atmosphere is so nice and cozy. Marcha has a wonderful collection of fabrics and it is no wonder she will be one of the shops hosting the 2014 Di Ford Quiltmania Mystery.

With Hubertine and Marcha in Marcha’s shop

Marcha behind the counter in her lovely shop

With the weather still being as wonderful as it is, after our visit with March, Hubertine and I went to her boat for some coffee and to enjoy the sunshine, the quiet and the view…….. bliss!

 

 

 



That evening, after an invitation from Yvonne, Hubertine and I went to the Katwijk Bee. No pictures this time, sometimes it is just wonderful to sit with other quilters and enjoy the passion we share for quilting, without always thinking of blogging and taking pictures. Again it was really nice to visit with these ladies, I thank them again for their hospitality, hopefully there will be a next time and then maybe again with pictures.

All in all, it was a nice quilty week, hopefully there will be a bit more of that this coming week. The sun is certainly joining in, it was lovely out there today and I read it will be the same tomorrow!

Enjoy it!

Phyllis



Sweet 16!

Today she is 16, our daughter Eline and by way of a present we decided to give her a weekend trip to London…… of course she could not go on her own and Onno and I ‘had’ to go with her … ;-)

We love London and were soooo lucky with the weather, after arriving Friday evening we went into town for a walk around Soho and were just in time to see the beautiful Liberty department store in the twilight…

On Saturday - among other things - Covent Garden was on the program, always fun to see the performers and other people there. We watched this guy for quite some time, Onno and Eline even had their picture taken with him but we could just not figure it out…… how does he do this??

 

And these people:

 



On our way from Covent Garden to King’s Road I had  time to go into Liberty’s, I did not buy anything, the smallest cut of fabric they would do is half a meter at 11 UK Pounds…. but there was inspiration enough!

 

 

Saturday evening we had Eline’s 16^th birthday celebration dinner at one of our favourite restaurants in London, Sticky Fingers. Owned by Bill Wyman, former base player with the Rolling Stones, it is filled with Rolling Stones memorabilia, so for us Rolling Stones fans this place is a must  but even if you are not a fan it’s a fun place, great atmosphere, good US style food.

 

 

For the occasion the people of the restaurant had attached balloons to our table

 

and when we finished our plates some of the staff came over with a little surprise and sang “Happy Birthday” for her



 

 



On Sunday we walked for hours through Kensington and Mayfair, our favourite pastime on Sundays in London. I love the beautiful entrances with flowerpots of the houses there.

And this must be the thinnest house in London!

All that green with the white (or grey) houses, beautiful!

It was great to be in London again, hope to be back soon!

 

Phyllis