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

Well, it is Thursday here in Holland, but I'm hoping to crawl under the fence of Esther's WOW

My first WIP this week is Flowers for Me, block 4 of Heart's Desire:



And we have one big 'flower for me' all done:



Lots of puzzling went on for Henrietta Whiskers' layout, but I think I have got it now, so I started piecing some of the backgrounds of the last four blocks last night. I did sneak in some minor changes this morning ;o)

The last block is still empty, as it will be revealed by Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs on September 5th. I'm hoping to get the quilt top done for 9th September when I will be doing an applique demonstration at the annual show of the quilting guild in Holland. My main project there will be Heart's Desire, but I would love to show the ladies this quilt top.

o-o-o

I also managed a small start on Herbularius, after a lot of dithering about fabrics. At last, I *think* I have settled for a 32-count Murano in the shade Ivory, which looks more like a tea dye than an ivory compared to the ivory jobelan I was planning to use. Guess I could have used the tea dye jobelan I did last week after all ;o)

I do like how the Copper Petite Treasure Braid metallic and the Chocolat Gloriana looks on this fabric.


Yesterday Jacqueline and I chose the fabrics which will be used for the applique course I will teach at the beginning of October:

Lots of gorgeous batiks! I'm hoping to get the example block done by the end of next week. I hope the ladies who take the class will love these fabrics and the chosen project too.

Thanks for all your lovely comments. They are so inspiring. And I love to click on your names and visit your blogs for even more inspiration.

Henrietta Whiskers: A Puzzle

I'm alternating between Heart's Desire and Henrietta Whiskers at the moment, since the 8th block has been released for the latter, and there is only one block left which will be released on September 5th.

To get a better idea of the total layout, I pinned all the completed blocks and the blocks in progress (I decided to do blocks 6, 7 and 8 at the same time) to a sheet which I hung in our living room so I can keep looking at it and changing bits here and there.

I need to replace a few green squares at the right hand and left hand side, because the first narrow border is of the same fabric and I'm not happy when bits from the centre of the quilt start 'sticking' to the border. Weird, I know :o) For now I have pinned black squares over those green ones, but I'm not sure yet whether that will work. More puzzling and thinking to do.

For now I'm switching back to Heart's Desire, my focus piece of this moment. Esther released her new free BOM today called Peaceful Pathways, so go and have a look if you are interested in patchwork and quilting.

WOW: Flowers for Me Progress

A week has gone by and I'm still workong on block 4 of Heart's Desire. Please excuse the picture, it is 10 pm here in Holland and I had to use a flash.

It is finally starting to look like block 4 is supposed to look, but there is still quite a bit of work to do. Several parts that I laid out on the block are not yet appliqued and I need to make a second sashing. The triangles are all ready to go, so that's what I will be doing next.

o-o-o

I also tried my hand at tea dyeing a piece of white jobelan, to see whether I could prepare a piece that would be suitable for Herbularius. The reason is that my favourite stitching fabric - jobelan - has apparently changed consistency and now has fewer natural fibers. The piece I received a few days back really feels very synthetic and is not very nice to stitch on.

The tea dyeing worked perfectly and I love the outcome, but it is not suitable for Herbularius, because of the yellow fabrics which look nicer on Ivory jobelan. So I'm still hunting for a suitable fabric. My materials for Herbularius have now almost all arrived. So now of course I want to start!

Thanks for your lovely comments on my previous post, and welcome to my new followers!

WOW: Flowers For Me

It is Wednesday once more and time for WOW: Wips on Wednesdays, organized by Esther Aliu.

My focus project at the moment is Heart's Desire, the beautiful quilt designed by Esther. Would you believe that she shared this design with us for free?! Thanks again, Esther!

This is Flowers For Me, my first block #4. There are four of these to do for Heart's desire, one in each corner:



Ever seen such a daunting pile of leaves still needing to be appliqued? Those of you stitching this project probably have.... more than once.... ;o)

This is the main flower in block #4. I'm not quite happy with it yet and still deciding on which colour to use between the pale pink one and the middle petal.

Whilst I have a think about that, I had better get moving with those leaves.

Thank you for your lovely comments on my Herbularius materials. I have now chosen my fabric: 32-count Ivory Jobelan, and it should be with me within the next few days. Another small parcel arrived in the post today, containing the Gloriana Florimell Peacock skeins for Herbularius. I had never seen a Florimell skein in the flesh before and I love the sheen and the amazing colour of this floss. There are still a few Florimells on the way and also some crystals and Delica beads.

Those of you who cannot wait to see my start, hang in there. Believe me, I will start as soon as that fabric arrives!

WIPs On Wednesdays

Sorry for ignoring you.

It is once more Wednesday, time for Wips On Wednesdays on Esther Aliu's blog.

I'm still working on Heart's Desire. The whole quilt layout has been revealed. Have a look on Esther's blog to see her gorgeous quilting on it.

The centre block has had some things added to it in the last layout; more leaves and berries. I've started adding the leaves, some are still basted.



I'm still dithering which border to use, the one with the stripey scallops....

Or the one with the pink fabric with roses:

What do you think?

o-o-o

This is my other WIP at the moment: Vignette in Stitches by Leanne's House. The first block is still in progress. There is a LOT of stitchery to do.

I had a mishap with the mini-block with the bird and my name, I cut it slightly too small, so had to add a narrow border:

And my third WIP is this pretty sampler: Sampler aux Bouquets. Not a lot of progress since the last update:

I promised you pictures of Orkney sunsets in my last post, but they will have to keep for a few days, otherwise this post would get a bit long!

Thanks for your lovely comments on my Scottish wild flowers and all your well wishes for my legs. It turned out not to be vasculitis, because it healed all by itself within a week.

Heart's Desire: Love Entwined

At last I have the first of three block three's of Heart's Desire finished. This block is called Love Entwined. It took me a while to find the right fabrics for the leaves and I chose to do the stitchery in satin stitches, which seemed to take forever, but which looks rather gorgeous.

Here are a few details of block 3:

On Tuesday postie brought part 3 of Christmas Fun. Part 2 is still lost in the post and will be replaced soon.

This is Lynette Anderson's version of Christmas Fun #3. I absolutely love this block. A while back I showed you the fabrics I will be using for this project. I'm hoping to start soon, alternating this project with Heart's Desire.

Image copyright: Lynette Anderson


These are the fabrics which I picked up last week. They are for the first block of Vintage Christmas by Bunny Hill Designs. I joined this BOM which Samsara Quilting is running at the moment.

Thanks for all your lovely comments and a warm welcome to all the people who recently became a follower of my blog.

Blank Canvas & Other Things

I just love this stage of a project, starting a new block of some quilt or other (in this case the first block 3 of Heart's Desire), tracing the pattern onto the fabric with a magic marker.

This is probably the most complicated applique pattern I have attempted to stitch so far. This block is called Love Entwined and you can probably see why!


The peonies which my MIL gave me after my operation have opened up beautifully. The blooms are huge and so pretty. And they smell lovely too.


This is the first of our hydrangeas beginning to flower. I think the leaves have suffered somewhat from the frost we had in December and January, but thankfully all our hydrangea plants are covered in buds.


And of course I have to finish this post with a picture of our litle sweetheart Luna, on the very rare occasions that she was in the house since we built the cat enclosure.

Heart's Desire: Be Still My Heart

At last I've completed the centre block for Heart's Desire, the mystery BOM by Esther Aliu (see my sidebar).

This project is so much fun to stitch, but a lot of work too! I'm way behind on everyone else. I have another 8 blocks to stitch and lots of borders and corners too.

Sorry for my lack of posting messages on your blogs: Blogger won't let me!

Thanks for all your good wishes!