By the time you read this .....

I will be here!!!!

This is a picture of 2 years ago, my first time at the Houston Quilt Festival, this was the banner that greeted us quilters flying in from all over the world just behind the immigration booths on your way down to the luggage belts at Houston Intercontinental Airport, isn’t that wonderful? Can you imagine something like this just behind our customs guys at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport before you reach the luggage belts….noooo…  but this is Houston, a very welcoming town, I love it!!

I packed my bags a few days ago, suitcase full of gifts and Dutch seasonal (Sinterklaas) goodies for the friends I will be staying with:

In the pink package, one pincushion for my friend, enjoyed making it so much made one for myself as well, although I don’t quite understand how they turned out to be different sizes..

I will be staying in a wonderful old neighbourhood of Houston called The Heights, look:

 

 

 

Yes, this is Houston also. And within the inner loop too, just 15 taxi minutes from downtown and the Convention Centre. Most visitors, also those visiting the Quilt Festival will not see much else than downtown, high rises, freeways and shopping malls, but there is so much more to this city.

And of course I have this to look forward to:

I hope to come back with lots of nice pictures for you (although at many of the booths and some of the exhibitions picture taking is forbidden, but I am sure there is still enough to be photographed), see you in a bit!

 Phyllis

Jacob's Ladder update and Antwerp

As you probably already have seen here, the Feathergirls got together again for some stitching on our FW quilts.

What is it about FW’s and soup??

Although not finished on the day – too much chatting – I did finish these six blocks later on

All my blocks now look like this

With it being the mid-term school holidays not a lot of stitching is getting done this week. Having a teenager around the house sort of ruins your daily schedule. Yesterday was a nice day, shopping in Antwerp and enjoying this

Seeing this

 

 

 

 

A strange sign on the door of a shop that was closed…

because of “work”…

And because of the lovely weather, we had dinner on one of the terraces, on Oct 23, can you believe it?!

 

 

Not bad at all!

Phyllis

Meet Blanche

First of all an update on Phebe, I finished and attached the first of the applique borders (or ‘frames’as Di Ford calls them in her pattern). I don’t know if I will do more of the little flowers on the corners, it looks like I could do some more, but once the next frame is attached to it, this will be a thin frame so I will have a look at it at that time.

Then: some of you may already have noticed her in the pictures in this blogpost.

Sunday week ago (October 7) was my birthday and DH surprised me with this beauty. Actually, I saw her on the internet a while ago. At the time DH suggested I might want her as an early birthday present, he figured with my maiden name (White) I should really have a white Featherweight too, and who I am to contradict such a wise man??

She arrived in a familiar box,

tightly wrapped,

in her pretty case

carefully unpacked

She works like a dream, and we bought her here, same place as The Duchess. Of course she needed a name, something a bit more frivolous than the classy Duchess and so because of that and her colour I decided on Blanche.

I think we’ll have much fun together, The Duchess, Blanche and I!

Phyllis

 

An evening with An Moonen

Last weekend the QuiltersPalet quiltstore in The Hague celebrated their 5^th year anniversary. They celebrated in style, with lots of reductions etc. and they invited An Moonen, an authority on antique Dutch quilts to hold a talk about the history of Dutch quilts.

An, former curator of the Open Air Museum in Arnhem, wrote three books and  lots of articles about the history of Dutch quilts and brought some antique Dutch quilts with her to show us. I loved listening to her (history was one of my favourite subjects in school anyway), she had so many interesting things to tell (and a great sense of humour!), I found it fascinating, I learned new things, historic facts not just about quilts, but also of other cultural facts and historic events.

Here is An, signing a copy of her latest book, A History of Dutch Quilts, for one of the attendees:

And below some of the antique quilts An brought to show us:

Needless to say, I had a great evening.

We were surprised by Evy and Petra, they gave us a voucher for the amount we paid to attend the talk. Also, when you bought something (at wonderfully reduced prices) you were given this template (with the name of the QuiltersPalet engraved on it) with a pattern.

Thank you very much, ladies, I will use both with much pleasure!

Phyllis

Second Featherweight Day

Yesterday was the second Featherweight Day at Atelier Bep in Hall and unlike the first FW Day in June this time the weather was beautiful.

We arrived in the morning sunshine.

We were greeted with coffee and carrot cake and we quickly set up our machines, because like last time Bep had a organised a workshop for us, we were going to make a sweet scrappy bear (Bep’s example on the picture). A first for me.

Busy, busy, busy… we with making our bears and Bep with making her by now famous Singer Lentil Soup …

for our lunch

Caro gave a show and tell of her antique quilts, she also showed us a quilt she made from old blocks

More sewing in the afternoon..

And in the other room…

The end result, a small army of scrappy bears basking in the afternoon sunshine!

It was a lovely day, great seeing ‘old’ quilt friends again and making new ones. A big “thank you” to Bep and her family for their hospitality, it was wonderful.

Phyllis

A new look at an old love

With the season changing into fall I felt the urge to pick up an ‘old’ project again. All my temporarily (?) abandoned projects are boxed up with their names on the boxes. So I got the ‘Phebe’ box  Saturday morning, and got re-acquainted with the pattern and the fabrics I had bought for this quilt. I put everything I had on my design wall and there she was again: Phebe!

I started this quilt about two years ago and it seems to be my fall/winter project. I abandon it when the season changes into spring and pick it up about 6 months later again. Do you have projects like that?

Having something like a design wall now really makes this a lot easier now, I mean making the fabric choices, which I find is the most difficult thing of this quilt. My so-called design wall is really a simple thing, one of those systems you hang paintings from, a large piece of flannel and some hooks, that’s all.

I am really glad I finished the applique centre and whenI look at what I have so far I really need a few lighter pinks in my stars and a few more of the darker pink/cherry stars, don’t you think? Do you see the star with that color that really stands out? Any other ideas, tips? I welcome them.

I am making only a few minor changes to the original pattern by Di Ford, no major ones, I just love the pattern as Di designed it.

So now you know what I will be doing those dark long fall and winter evenings when the storms are raging outside, especially here in The Hague, the infamous November storms. Although while writing this blog post I heard on the radio the first autumn storm will be with us this afternoon and evening!

Phyllis

This morning

I went to the Sue Daley workshop at the Quilters Palet in The Hague. It was my third Sue Daley workshop there in as many years and as always Sue, Evy and Petra had everything ready and waiting for us, fabrics, thread, templates, patterns, the only thing we needed to bring were a pair sharp pointed scissors and ourselves!

Here are Sue’s things and the examples, we were going to make the appliqued basket on the needle case during the workshop, the pattern and materials (including one of Sue’s applique needles) we could take home with us to finish the whole needle case.

With a room full of quilters Sue still managed some one on one instruction, for her

and for me

Oh, those glasses! Showing my age now, recently I got a second pair of glasses made, I now use one pair for reading and for patchwork and the new pair for applique. Still have to figure out which one I’ll use for hand quilting…

 

 

 

Like before Sue brought over a suitcase full of quilts to show us, just a few examples:-

The quilt that is on the cover of her new book:

A medallion quilt made from Petra Prins’fabrics:

Another medallion quilt, loved the eggshell patterns in there (I think Evy just can’t get enough of these quilts ….!) :-

This I loved, two very different quilts from the same pattern!

Of course, some shopping had to be done, so many fabrics to choose from, I was among the last to leave the shop, sorry for the blurry picture, my arm was a bit heavy from the fabrics I bought , I think…….

Thanks again ladies, for a very enjoyable morning!

Phyllis