Berries and Bluebirds parts 1 and 2

I never got back to you last week, did I. It took me forever to complete block 2 of Berries and Bluebirds by Gail Pan. I finally got it finished yesterday evening and I joined the two blocks this evening. Coincidentally, I received word that part 3 is on its way to me from Australia.

Lots of dithering is going on, trying to deciding whether to join in with the Building Houses From Scraps project. It took me all evening on Saturday to get the pieces ready and to piece the sky, the chimneys and the roof, and I would need to piece a complete house every day of 2012.

The houses are tiny, one completed block is 3" x 3".

Guess who is helping me to decide?

Thanks for all your lovely comments!

Sinterklaas & QuiltAid

First of all thank you for your kind wishes for a speedy recovery. They worked, because I'm nearly back to normal. I'm still very tired, but that's probably normal after having been ill for three weeks.

On Saturday we celebrated Sinterklaas, a Dutch custom which resembles Santa Claus giving presents.

I received some lovely goodies. See picture below. Luna is inspecting the bird house which I received.




So far six of the twelve blocks for QuiltAid2011 have arrived and they are all so cute! Not sure where to start once my second Berries & Bluebirds block is done.

The fabric which is used is the new line Ruby by Moda Fabrics and it is ever so pretty.

This one, designed by Lynette Anderson, is very high on my list of favourites to start with.

I will be back tomorrow for WOW: WIPs on Wednesdays, and will show you my progress on my second Berries & Bluebirds block.

Flowers from Friends

This afternoon the doorbell rang and my favourite florist in town presented me with a bouquet of roses. Who could they be from? It isn't my birthday nor did I have anything else to celebrate. Far from it, since I have been ill for three weeks.


My friends in England, whom I was supposed to be having a lovely time with this week, sent me these beautiful roses with a lovely card.

What did I do to deserve such lovely friends? Thank you Gill, Maureen and Frances!

WOW: Berries and Bluebirds block 2

For the past week I have been working on my second block of Berries and Bluebirds by Gail Pan. Here is my progress so far, in time for Esther's WOW (WIPs on Wednesdays):

I was supposed to travel to Engeland on Monday, but I've been struggling with a chest infection for three weeks now and I didn't feel well enough to travel. Very disappointing, also for the friends I was supposed to spend some time with.

But it did give me a chance to make some progress on my birdies. Once the second pattern arrived last Monday, I just couldn't stop myself from starting it.

Most of my QuiltAid blocks have been ordered now and will be posted out to me tomorrow. I'm still trying to decide which finishing kit I like best. Each of the stores has designed their own finishing of the 12 blocks designed by Australian designers.

QuiltAid 2011

I would like to draw your attention to QuiltAid 2011. This program runs in Europe, in Australia and in the USA, and is a worldwide project which supports a very special hospital in Ethiopia.
This is particulary close to my heart as I lived in Ethiopia for four years as a child.

If you can, please support this good cause with a block, or two, or twelve! It helps that the twelve designers came up with 12 very cute blocks and that the fabrics which are used, Ruby by Moda, are very cute too.

Watch this space, as soon as my kits start arriving, I'm sure I will not be able to resist starting these very cute blocks, which are a mix of piecing, applique and stitchery.

WOW: Birds and Berries Block 1

It is Thursday already in Holland, so I'm too late for WOW, but I'm hoping to just make it to Esther's WOW before it closes.

As I was still struggling with colour choices for my first block of Berries and Bluebirds by Gail Pan, Kruimel decided to give me a helping paw. He has never before seen his mummy struggle for so long on one block!


After a bit of reshuffling, he came up with this:

Did I mention I love his paws?

Yesterday I *finally* managed to complete the first block. Please excuse the creases. I couldn't iron the block because the tracing hadn't quite vanished (for those who don't use magic tracing pens, the lines vanish by themselves but if you iron them, they are fixed forever).

Since Christmas will be upon us in less than six weeks, and after seeing Lynette Anderson's completed quilt, I pulled out my Christmas Fun project to see at what point it had got abandoned for something much more 'interesting' at that time. These are the WIPS of block 1 and 2, which still need quite a bit of work:

Thanks for all your lovely comments!

WOW: Berries and Bluebirds block 1: new layout

I can't believe a week has gone by and we are once again showing our works in progress for WOW: WIPs on Wednesdays

Nor can I believe that I'm still showing you block one of Berries and Bluebirds! But in a different layout now.

Luna says thank you for all the lovely comments.

Luna

Taking a break from my translation work, I found our little girl being her adorable self on her scratching castle.

I will be back tomorrow with a new layout for my first block of Berries & Bluebirds by Gail Pan, for WOW: WIPs on Wednesdays.

WOW: Lots of Birdies

Wednesday has only a few minutes more left in Holland, so just in time for WOW, Esther's Wips on Wednesdays.

My week was filled with birdies. Tail Feathers Quilt is coming along nicely and I completed block 9, assembled these two rows and took block 1 apart, because I was not happy with how it looked. It was the start of my patchwork, stitchery and quilting journey and that was quite obvious.


I was also naughty and starte a new project, Berries and Bluebirds by Gail Pan. The pattern for block 1 arrived and I just couldn't stop myself from starting it, not helped by Michele who showed her lovely block!

The Flower & The Cat

Still no stitchy picture, I'm afraid, but I AM stitching and still focusing on Tail Feathers Quilt. I have pulled apart block 1, because I'm happy to report my piecing has improved a lot since I started two years ago.

Last week this is what I saw on and behind my living room window. Pity about the dead earwig, but that's nature for you!




By now you are probably bored out of your mind with pictures of Kruimel, but here are a few more, just to show you what a nuisance he is when I'm trying to stitch:

Here he has squeezed himself between me and my stitching and the daylight lamp:

When that doesn't help, je starts fetching so I will throw his favourite toy for him: for the Dutch amongst you, a Beesie from AH:

And this is only a few seconds after I threw it away for him:

What a cutie, eh?

Lots of stash buying has been going on here. There is just so much around at the moment that is beautiful! The biggest buy was an order for ALL the Black Bird Designs quilt books. The result was lots of inspiration, the main one being Home Sweet Home. Can you imagine my thoughts going to my stash, thinking of what I could use to applique those wonderful blocks and even more wonderful border? All that whilst I'm trying to get some progress done on Tail Feathers Quilt.

I promise I will not show myself here again before I have a progress picture or two to share :o)

Thanks for all your lovely comments!

Not Much Progress...

Here I am, wondering why I am not making much progress on my projects :o)

Tail Feathers & Herbularius

Thanks for all your lovely comments, and welcome to my new follower.

Yesterday I thought I had better be good and pull out an UFO and work on it with the aim to get it finished in the near future :o)

This is Tail Feathers Quilt by Nathalie Lymer of Cinderberry Stitches. The very quilt which got me into patchwork, stitchery and applique exactly two years ago.

This is a snap of the quilt which I took this afternoon, after I had pieced rows of three blocks each. I discovered that I haven't actually finished the stitchery on the last block. I still have the tree to stitch and the borders to add to that mini-block, and also to piece all the little squares which come with each block.

Once that is done, I need to make 24 logcabin blocks, using these strips which come from two honeybuns.

I'm not sure whether to just stitch them up in random order, or whether to find some sort of order to place them in, so making four the same for instance, one for each side. Given that there are six of them on each side, there is no middle block to start with, and make two the same on each side. Doing random placement is not really my forte. I like things to be relatively symmetrical :o)

Once I had pulled this project out of my enormous pile of WIPs, Kruimel thought this was very amusing, and he started to lend me a paw.

No wonder I didn't manage to make any progress on this quilt for ages and ages! Although he has calmed down a lot over the past months (so much so that we got worried that there was something the matter with him) he is still very interested in this one, for some reason.

Once I heard from Ineke that two of our stitching friends are so kind to send us a lenght of their Eterna floss, I worked some more on Herbularius. This is the most time-consuming Chatelaine I have ever stitched. It is going very slowly, but what a lovely design this is. I'm looking forward to stitching part 3, which includes some plants and arches. But I still have quite a lot of work to do before I start part 3. These borders need to be filled in and there are golden scrolls with half cross stitches and beads to go around them before part 3 starts.

A big thank you to Abi and Joyce, for sending us some of their floss!


Kruimel has gone outside in the cat enclosure, so I had better get to work on my little birdies!

If you are all still here, thanks for having a look and reading what I'm up to at the moment.

Herbularius problem

As you saw in my previous post, Ineke very kindly sent me half of her skein of Eterna Silks mini twist 4220 which she got in her kit from ECC, so we could both use this thread in part 1 and 2. In ordered another skein from ECC with the plan to share this one with Ineke. A stitching friends plan with no problems we assumed, and we happily used the half skein of Eterna we both had. We thought Cindy would ship within some weeks because it was on backorder. But Cindy told us last week there are severe problems with the Eterna backorders: 'We might not ever get the Eterna'. I also ordered a skein from Thread Express, who hasn't shipped nor acknowledged my order, and hasn't answered to an email I sent to enquire about the Eterna.

So now we do hope some of our fellow Herbularius stitchers will be so kind to send a little part of their skein to us so we can both finish part 2 with the Eterna. We dare to ask because Martina writes 'approximate usage 0.55 skein' and therefore there will be plenty left over from a whole skein. We would be very happy with some 25 centimeter lengths. And do hope some kind stitchers will help us. We are, of course, very willing to refund the postage via PayPal.

PS: Martina has revealed today that the Eterna 4220 is only used in parts 1 and 2 of Herbularius. Hope this helps! :o)

Since it has been a little while that I showed you pictures of our furry friends, here are a few I took over the past days:

We got rid of the 'telescopic' scratching pole which kept going crooked, and bought our sweeties a scratching castle. As you can see, Kruimel and Luna love it!

Luna has taken up residence in the tower. She loves to have a snooze there.

Thankfully our very shy little girl Minty has also accepted this alternative as her scratching place. She doesn't like changes very much.

This is how I found Luna and Kruimel on our bed yesterday afternoon. In this picture you can see the enormous size difference between them.

Luna was being her adorable little self. Aren't they sweet when they are asleep.

As you noticed by my lack of posting updates, I haven't had much time to stitch over the past two weeks. There was lots of translation work and this took up most of my time.

We also re-landscaped our garden - well Marcel did mostly, with some advice from me ;o) - and it is now nearly ready. Marcel took the month of September off to do this big job. We usually spend three weeks in Ibiza at this time of year, but instead we stayed home and he spent his holidays working on this big project.

Once it is all neat and tidy and finished, I will show you pictures of how it looks now. Much tidier and bigger too, because we bought the piece of land adjoining our garden from our local council several years ago, and finally got a permit to move our fence 1m80 outward. Our garden grew by approx. 20 square metres! Totally worth the trouble and the money spent on erecting new fencing and landscaping the whole garden.

Hoping to show you some more stitchy pictures next time!

Forgot Something Important!

In my previous post, I forgot to thank Ineke for very generously lending me half her skein of Eterna silk *and* giving me her remaining Peacock bicones, which are no longer made by Swarovski.

So this one is for you, Ineke! Sorry I forgot to mention it in my previous post. I couldn't have finished part one of Herbularius without your help.

WOW: Herbularius Part 1

After a lot of beading which seemed to take forever, but which is so beautiful, I have nearly completed part 1 of Herbularius by Châtelaine.


Those dark blue lines need to be stitched in preparation for part 2 which has already been released and I need to find four golden beads which will fit in the pink jessica stitches. I do have the Aurum bicones which should go there, but I'm not sure I like them. Maybe something round would be better. I did the same for Victorian Garden and I like how it looks.






I did a needleturn demo at a quilt show in Holland, in a beautiful church, Pieterskerk in Leiden. Alas I do not have any pictures, because I was too busy explaining to all the eager ladies who want to learn how to do needleturn applique. It was my first time and I enjoyed it very much.

Edited to add: Rennie kindly sent me this picture of my 'booth' at the quilt show. Thank you, Rennie.

On the right you see Jacqueline of Samsara Quilting in the middle Rennie herself and on the left you see me, looking rather puzzled by what my visitor is trying to tell me :o)

Now it is time to pick up one of my quilting/patchwork projects once again. They have been sadly neglected since the show last Friday.

Thanks for your lovely comments.

WOW: Flowers For Me & Herbularius

It is Wednesday once more, well only one more hour to go here in Holland, so time for my WOW:

My first block 4: Flowers for Me of Heart's Desire by Esther Aliu is finally done. As far as I can get it done before the centre is pieced, because some of the leaves go onto the next blocks.

I will be work on this project whilst I do a 'demonstration' of applique at the annual quilt show of the Quilt Guild in the Netherlands on Friday, in Leiden.

My Herbularius has been sadly ignored whilst I'm preparing for the above, but I did make some progress:

This is Minty, the fourth of our pussycats. She is very shy and frightened of the camera, so it is really difficult to take her picture. She was called 'Minty' by the people of the cat shelter because of the white patch (peppermint) on her breast. She has come along so much since we first adopted her almost six years ago.

She just would not look at the camera, poor little shy girl.

Thanks for your lovely comments.

WOW: Wips on Wednesdays

Wednesday is nearly gone here in Holland, but I'm just in time to post a link to my blog on Esther's WOW.

My two main projects this week are Herbularius by Chatelaine and the rabbit applique block which I will be teaching in October.

I made some more progress on Herbularius. Part 1 is quite big and part 2 was published today by its designer Martina Rosenberg.


The bunny block got finished and I will take it to Samsara tomorrow or Friday, to be displayed in the shop. The design is by Edyta Sitar.

Our hydrangeas have started to display their autumn colours. August is nearly over and our summer has been very wet. Hopefully nature will have a nice Indian summer in stall for us.

My number of followers grew over the past week, and I would like to welcome my new followers.

Thanks to everyone for your lovely and motivating comments.

Herbularius: more progress

My Herbularius is growing slowly but surely. Only two more days to go before part 2 is published!

Here are a few pictures for those of you eagerly following its progress:

Not sure I will get part 1 finished before September 1st, but that's alright. It is not a race. I'm enjoying the journey.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and welcome to my new followers.