Technical stuff...

To my surprise it has been about 2 weeks since my last blogpost!

Partly due to computer problems (which have not completely been solved yet…L ) and really, there was not a lot to blog about.

Busy with Eline who this week has to chose the subjects she wants to study for the next years of her secondary education and her final exams in a few years time.

‘Busy’ complaining about the weather, although we are lucky, incredibly cold but no snow as in parts of the US or the UK.

Busy with my Jacob’s Ladder, made these blocks, just 6 more to go and I can start putting the top together…

These two blocks will get a special place in the quilt, the fabrics were gifts from her.

 

 

And unfortunately, I have had to put the word verification on for comments on my blog. I am really sorry, I know it is such a pain, but since a few weeks I have been receiving a lot of spam on my blog via the Comments. This started after a few weeks ago I made one (1!) blogpost using Google Chrome rather than my usual Windows Explorer L…



 

And since I am not interested in buying “steroids” or “Viagra” from ‘Anonymous’,  I thought I’d try and keep things as clean as possible by putting on the word verification.
I do hope it will not stop you from leaving a comment, I love hearing from you and I really, really appreciate each and every comment, thank you!



Then I read that  Google Reader will stop in a few months, I never used it, but I read a lot of users are changing over to Blog Lovin, so I thought I’d try it out and it’s great! I find it really easy to use (and I am not an IT-wizzard). For those who are still on Google Reader and are looking for a replacement, try it out, it even gives you a special option to transfer your Google Reader feed in one go and I have read that works.

Sorry about this rather boring post, but sometimes that’s all there is…. Enjoy your week & one thing about this cold: it’s great quilting weather!

Phyllis

It was spring...

And  it was last Monday,  March 4.

I enjoyed that day, the first day of spring always sees me spring cleaning, and I always start on the windows.

After that I earned my first latte in the sun outside of the season, on the bench in front of the house, with the sun shades down, lovely!

Even sewing inside is so nice, with the sun shining in and the windows open, I finished more circles of the King George III

Last week there was also another day of sewing on my Jacob’s Ladder with fellow Feathergirl, Hubertine…. and her cat Teun!

Some of the blocks of my Jacob’s Ladder, altough I am not a big fan of green,  somehow this green block has become one of my favourites in that quilt.

Monday night was bee night again this time at Anita’s, the bowl on her table looked very wintry and Xmassy with the four candles, but it was filled with chocolate Easter eggs, maybe it was inspired by the strange weather we are having

because this morning, walking with Whopper, I took this picture, apparently we have just had the coldest March night e*v*e*r, - 13C/8.6F in some places….

I am ready for some more spring and sunshine, how about you?

Phyllis

Feathergirls update, a doggy dental visit and more

A few days ago my fellow Feathergirl Hubertine came over so we could check the progress on our Feathergirls quilts.

I laid out my Jacob’s Ladder blocks so far:

Getting somewhere! I want to make 63 blocks, 7 x 9, so not that far to go anymore.

Piles of goodness!

This week saw the midterm school holiday in our area, unfortunately my 15-year old daughter, Eline spent the beginning of the week ill on the couch, wrapped in a quilt.

She missed joining me for this: Whopper’s dental appointment!

Inside:

“I’m having none of this, what are you doing?!”

“Uhm, actually, Linda, this doesn’t taste that bad after all!”

(Chicken flavoured toothpaste!)

“Tineke, I’ve been a good boy, can I have my goodie bag now?”

 

And what a great goodie bag it was!

Seriously, this was a free instruction at our vet’s office to show you how to take care of your dog’s teeth, great initiative, Linda and Tineke were great with him.

Later on in the week Eline had recovered enough for a shopping trip to Rotterdam, where we had a great lunch at Bazar, one of our favourite restaurants there, love the interior:

Even though it was lunchtime we went for the breakfast Bazar, which they serve almost all day:

After lunch we went to this:

Really worth the visit, a very interesting exhibition! You are allowed to take pictures, but I won’t show them here, you should really go and see for yourself if you have the chance.

Have a nice week!

Phyllis

New blocks and a visit

This week I finished blocks 7 and 8 of the King George III quilt.

My blocks (or rather circles) so far:

Then, at the Blogger’s Bee in February Hubertine and I were invited to visit the their weekly bee again, so that’s what we did one evening last week.

At the Bloggers Bee I also met Rennie for the first time and we have mailed a few times since. In one of those mails I promised to bake her a banana bread (which I had also made for the pot luck lunch at the Bloggers Bee) so this was a good opportunity to make good on my promise. Since Yvonne had invited me initially months ago and was also the host I of course could not arrive without making her one as well, and while I was at it decided to make a third banana bread for the other ladies to enjoy that evening. Phew!

I promised to put the link of the recipe on my blog, you can find it here.

There is one thing I add to the recipe: 50 grams of chopped walnuts for some extra bite and I always put 5 walnuts on top before I put it into the oven.

Waiting at the bee were the gifts Shannon made for the participants of the Bloggers Bee, but which unfortunately arrived too late for that, lovely crochet flower brooches. Such a nice gesture from Shannon, this is the one I chose:

The evening was great, lovely ladies (and two very well behaved dogs), nice projects, laughs and a glass of wine. More on this evening here.

Hubertine showing off her quilting skills at the bee.

Thanks ladies for your hospitality and also Shannon for your gift, it was a fun evening!

Phyllis

Special days

The past week brought some special days.

First of all there was the Chinese New Year, always a big celebration in Chinatown in The Hague. You may have guessed by now and my friends definitely know that I love Chinatown, shopping there and eating there, so at Chinese New Year I’ll always go to have a look at the celebrations.

The waking of the dragon is always a colourful spectacle, but as usual it was too busy to get  a good picture. Luckily I was able to make a picture of the dragon before the ceremony.

 

 

Another reason I was there was to do my shopping for that evening, last week was just to practice for this night: sushi night with friends!

It is great to share a friendship with a fellow quilter, but even better if the families have a connection too. Our husbands and Hubertine’s son share a love of music, rock music that is, drums and guitars. They played together for the first time this evening,  that was great, at some stage I am sure pictures will follow on our blogs. Our daughters each made loads of sushi and we all enjoyed eating it!

Hubertine showed me some of her mother’s quilts, that was very special.

Later in the week of course, Valentine’s day! The surprises DH and I had for each other  somehow went slightly different than intended.
After 20 years together (!) my DH told me the week before Valentine’s that one of his favourite cakes is lemon cake….  so I thought I’d make him one for when he came home from work that day.

As you see it is still in the tin… it would not come out, my very first ever lemon drizzle cake, too sticky, I should have lined the cake tin with baking paper….. But it tasted good.

DH came home with a lovely bunch of flowers:

 

To his surprise on Sunday morning (3 days after Valentine’s day!) by the time the flowers had opened up a little, he noticed he bought me tulips (which I love by the way) instead of roses as he had planned to…. “I wasn’t wearing my glasses when I bought them….”

And on Saturday, Hubertine and I treated ourselves to a day to Zutphen, Petra Prins’ shop of course. So much inspiration in that shop!

We spent so much time in there that at some stage Bep decided to make us some tea so we could have a little rest.

Bought fabrics for my King George and Jacob’s Ladder quilts, want to get on with those. Walking back to the car noticed an apron in a shop window that was made for a quilter……………

“Darling, dinner is in the cookbook”

J!

Phyllis

A block and a winner

No quilty news in my previous blogpost so this time I will start with my latest block of the King George III quilt, block 6:

As I mentioned before this was a BOM by Petra Prins, that means that every month you got a pattern for a block and a scrap bag. As the months progressed I got a better idea of how I wanted the quilt to turn out, so the first two blocks were made mostly out of the scrap bag, I mean that I looked at the scrap bag first and may have added from my own stash. After the first two blocks I first looked at what I wanted a block to look like: red here, blue there, some pink etc. and then looked at what fabrics to use, both from my own stash and from the scrap bags.

This month block 6 was a bit different, the red striped fabric in the scrap bag was just perfect for the points, so I started from there. In the end the inner sunburst circle is from my own fabrics and the outer circle, starting with the red points, is from Petra Prins’scrap bag.

I also worked some on my Jacob’s Ladder this week.

A few months ago I was contacted (via my blog) by an English quilter had moved to The Hague and was looking to meet fellow quilters over here.

And would you believe it, it turned out she lives practically around the corner from me. Since moving to The Netherlands, she has been infected with the Featherweight bug. So for Christmas her husband gave her a Featherweight, which means that now I can just pop around the corner with my own Featherweight and we can enjoy few hours of sewing, so that’s what we did.

 

And then it is time for……. the winner of my first giveaway!

I realise the flip side of this giveaway business, I only have one book to give away and I really wish I could give everybody something…. Thank you to my new followers for signing up and I am so sorry I cannot send each and every one of you a little gift, but there will be more giveaways, promise (love them myself, even though I have never won anything) so here it goes, DD drew from the bag of names….

Cisca!

Congratulations Cisca, please send me an email with your address and I will send you the book a.s.a.p.

Have a nice weekend, everybody!

Phyllis

Giveaway: 50 Followers!

Over the weekend I noticed I now have 50 followers! Wow! Thank you followers and also everyone else who reads my blog and have not signed up as a follower (yet). I really appreciate it.

Apart from the creative side quilting is also a social activity for me, as is blogging. Both give me a lot of enjoyment and  I have met so many new, nice people through both.

Soooooo, to celebrate this it is time for my first Giveaway!

On Friday I will ask my DD to draw a name among those of my followers at that time, he or she will receive this handy book! A mini encyclopedia on quilting, always ready to answer any question you may have.  If you are not a follower yet and wish to participate, you can still do so.

(If you do not, not to worry, I am planning another little giveaway for everyone in April!)

On another note, DD and I have been busy this weekend making sushi. In this household we all love sushi and sashimi. Even Whopper seems to get more exited at the smell of fish than at the smell of meat in the kitchen. It was DD’s first experience at making sushi and she took to it like a duck to water J !

First on Saturday afternoon we went to one of the supermarkets in Chinatown and to the fishmonger nearby to get our ingredients.

Back home it was preparing the rice the proper way (for me the most difficult part, the rice has to be moist and sticky, it is easily either too dry or too moist, in both cases it will not be sticky enough), making the Japanese egg omelette and the Japanese mushrooms. We bought the seaweed salad ready made at the fishmonger’s.

And then – DD’s favourite part – putting the actual sushi together.

After that, the best part, eating it!

This is DD’s picture, she often knows how to get a different angle in a picture.

Until Friday!

Phyllis