Look What Arrived in the Post!

Look what postie brought this afternoon:


The first part of the My Garden BOM by Lynette Anderson, all the way from Australia. Each month I will receive a button - a cute wooden flower this month - and with it comes a pattern for a stitchery with a tiny bit of applique (the bird).

Ineke and I will go fabric shopping for this one on Thursday. The beautiful line of fabrics Evening Mist by Moda is used. We get to choose no fewer than 12 fat eighths to complete the Courthouse Steps. Yummmm!

More Fabrics & More Previews & No Cats This Time

This afternoon I paid another visit to my favourite quilt store in Lisse and bought some more fabrics for the Born to Quilt Mystery:

My collection of Zen Rose by Makower is now nearly complete with the addition of the top fabric which arrived in the post yesterday and the bottom one which I bought today. They are a very pretty pale blue. Blue is not really my favourite colour, but these are beautiful, and the project calls for blue shades.

Three more fabrics: the bottom one is for the chocolate labrador in block 10, the middle one will probably serve as a background in block 4 (the one with the cute sheep) and the top one will probably replace the shutters on the door of the larger bird house in block 12.

And two more greens (more green in real life, the scan has made them look bland) for the stem and the leaves in block 12, which I'm going to frog and replace later today.

And two more previews of block 12, which is never going to get finished if I keep replacing all the pieces! ;o) ;o) You know how it is when you're not happy with what you've chosen and stitched...

This is the smaller of the two birdhouses, now entirely finished. The birdie is still waiting to have its eye and beak stitched.

And the bird at the top has now got a companion. Please excuse the creased background.

We have a pair of collared doves living in our garden (they are wild birds, but have chosen to keep us company) and they have raised two young, which are now also coming to our feeder to help themselves to seeds.

Thanks for all your lovely comments!

An Update With Lots of Cat Pictures

It has been a while since my last update. This is partly caused by a big translation assignment I'm working on, but also because the Born to Quilt Mystery block I am working on is huge and has lots of pieces and stitchery/embroidery.

And this delay in updating was not helped by the fact that the pieced heart in block 11 of this same Mystery just kept calling out to me, and it just had to get worked on last night.

Here is the Ort Master, proudly presenting the applique part of block 11:



He looks like he has done it all himself, doesn't he?!

The pieced heart without the banner. And, no, I'm not trying to hide untidy applique work at the top of the heart ;o) The pattern calls for a star button to be attached there. Not sure this star is exactly the right shade though. It looks a bit too bright for the soft pastel fabrics IMHO. Back to the drawing board.

And the Ort Master had to be in on this WIP picture too, of the heart with the banner which still needs to be attached and embroidered.

Here are some sneak previews of what I have done so far on block 12:

The smallest of the two birdhouses, not quite done yet. It still needs a little round window above the door, the stitching completed of the flowers and the creeper and also some antennae with star buttons to be stitched and attached. And those brown stitched feet still have a little bird missing.

The top of the larger birdhouse, with an incomplete bird, which still needs its eyes and beak stitched. And it needs a companion too, to the right of it.

Some little woolfelt flowers. I'm not too proud of the way that piping on the left is appliqued. Luckily it still needs lots of leaves to be attached, so I'm hoping to conceal the worst parts. ;o)

The big woolfelt flower. Thanks to Ineke for finding the blue woolfelt for me.

-o-o-o-

And for those of you who enjoy pictures of Kruimel the Ort Master squeezed into the basket of his climbing pole:

Sometimes he loses out to our little furry girl, when she makes herself comfortable in 'his' bed:

Ineke was very helpful when I needed pale blue woolfelt, but she was also a naughty enabler, because she 'made' me sign up for this BOM:

It looks like so much fun! Thanks Ineke, for putting me on the trail of this fun project.

Bits of News

A few bits of news to share with you.

This is what I was working on a week ago: a little present for Michele

She received it today, so I can now share it with you.

A while back a little group of stitchers started an ornament SAL and I haven't been very good at participating. I guess this counts :o)

Last Friday I picked up a book that I had ordered from the small quiltstore in Lisse.

It is a book by Véronique Réquena of Born to Quilt in France; the 2008/2009 Mystery.

I started browsing the book there and then and just had to buy a few fabrics ;o) :

These are fabrics to use as backgrounds for the blocks.

One more background fabric and two others for the pieces.

And one more background and a selection of the fabrics for the (bird) houses and other pieces.

And for those cat lovers among you, here is Diva Kruimel:

This is how I caught him having a snooze this afternoon.

Thanks for all your lovely comments. I really appreciate it.