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!

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.

Herbularius

Last night I made good progress on Herbularius.

I worked on it till the wee hours, and only now notice that there are four stitches missing from the centre ;o)

I'm stitching it on 32-count Ivory Murano.

The applique bunny in batiks is coming along nicely too. I will post a picture of it soon.

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my WOW post on Wednesday.

WOW: WIPs On Wednesday Once More

WOW, it is Wednesday again and time for WOW, Wips on Wednesdays by Esther Aliu.

For those eagerly awaiting progress on Herbularius, here is where I am at as of this morning:

No enormous progress, but I'm having to get used to stitching Châtelaines again and I've had frequent visits from the froggies.

This afternoon I prepared the applique pieces for the course I will be teaching in October and November. A block designed by Edita Sytar. Jacqueline of Samsara Quilting and I chose very pretty batiks for this project:

We've had very wet weather again today, which resulted in these beautiful macro pictures which I took only minutes ago. When I came back from doing the shopping, I noticed these water droplets on the clover flowers and leaves by our front door. I can't remember what these flowers are called. The leaves look like clover leaves and they must bring lots of luck, because all the leaves have four petals:

Isn't nature truly beautiful?

Those of you eagerly awaiting progress pictures of my Heart's Desire will have to be patient a little longer. We were away for four days and since we went camping (well, 'glamping' really) I didn't dare do any stitching.

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

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.

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!

Herbularius

First of all thank you very much for your lovely comments on my Orkney skies photographs.

This afternoon I picked up a parcel from the post office containing most of the silk threads for Herbularius, the new Mandala by Chatelaine:

This is what it should look like in a year's time:

Here are some detail picture of the materials I have collected so far. There are some silks still to come and also some beads and crystals.

I will be back tomorrow for WOW (Wips On Wednesdays) organized by Esther Aliu, the designer of Heart's Desire.

At the moment I'm working on my first block 4 and I'm hoping to have more to show tomorrow.