Simple Things

Not too much to show for myself this time, only the centre block of block #5 of Leanne's House. Yep, I switched to this beautiful project when the new block arrived in the post:

Other than that I'm working on the layout of this block, waiting for the Vintage Valentine pattern to arrive, along with block #7 of Le Jardin, and also doing some painting.

In Love...

with a new quilt project, that is... ;o)

I just ordered the pattern. The fabric kit will have to wait, as it is rather expensive.

It is called Vintage Valentine and was designed by Verna Mosquera.


What a beauty, eh?

Snowbound: block # 6

Here is my little snow lady for this month. The pattern is a freebie by Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs.

Le Jardin & Painting

Another long post with plenty of piccies, since you haven't heard from me for a little while.

I'm still working on Le Jardin, because I have a lot of catching up to do before block #7 arrives.

This is the first part of block # 4:



The sidebar of this block:


And the main part of the block:




They are now ready to be assembled.

And here is block # 5, almost done apart from stitching the end of the washing line (coming from block #4) which the two birds at the top are holding, and the ribbon which embellishes the rabbit on the watering can.



There has been a lot more painting going on, since I managed to create a painting corner in my hobby room. This makes life much easier when leaving the layers to dry, without two young cats who are very interested in the water, the paints, the brushes; basically everything I need for watercolour painting! ;o)

o-o-o

Here are my two favourite paintings from recent sessions:

First of all, Rackwick Bay on the island of Hoy in the Orkneys (Scotland), where I'm hoping to go next year. We will be staying on the island of South Ronaldsay and hopefully there will be a little ferry or causeway to the island of Hoy, where this bay holds the most spectacular collection of boulders I have ever seen.

This painting was painted in mixed media, using water colour paints, gouache and soft pastels.

Rackwick Bay, Hoy, Orkney Islands

And this is one of my favourite places on the isle of Skye: Elgol. A different view from the usual one pointing towards the Cuillins. This is the view towards the islands of Rhum and Eigg.
Also painted in mixed media, using a combination of watercolour paints and soft pastels.

Elgol, Isle of Skye, Scotland

And whilst I was doing that, our little furbaby Luna - who hates to be locked out of my painting room - finally fell asleep on my bed and had a loooooong nap.

o-o-o

Tomorrow Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs (the designer of among others Le Jardin) will be publishing the 6th block for Snowbound. Guess what I'll be doing?

Frogging, Painting, Shopping & Bird Watching

After much consideration, I decided to change the applique technique I was using for Le Jardin by Bunny Hill Designs.

I started off the first two blocks using needleturn applique, but this really isn't for me, so I started block #6 (the most recent one) using fusable applique and blanket stitching and this is much more to my liking :o) In the mean time I'm frogging blocks #1 and #2, and replacing the pieces with fused bits of fabric.

So here are some sneak previews of the newest block, which is rather huge!
My apologies for the creases and Luna's hair which snuck into the dove piccie.

o-o-o

I also worked on Tail Feathers Quilt: block #9 and the corner robins. No piccies yet...

o-o-o

Last week I had some more painting tuition and I painted this landscape:

Tranquil Loch, 18-05-2010

The day before the tuition, I painted my 'homework: a rocky shore, using mixed media:

Rocky Beach, 17-05-2010

I always travel to the town where the studio is by train and always get picked up and dropped off at the station by the artist or her husband (how's that for service!). Last Tuesday the kind people couldn't drop me off, so I walked to the station and on the way discovered no fewer than three stitching-related shops!

At the first shop, which was a tiny quilting and patchwork shop called Liselotje, I found a pattern which I had been searching for for a while. It is called In My Folkart Garden and it is by Marianne Byrne Goarin of Cinnamon Patch:

I'm planning to use the gorgeous pink wool felts which Michele sent me for my birthday (see earlier post).

I also bought one of Marianne's other books called Cinnamon Inspirations. Gorgeous!

The two other shops were pretty good too, and I 'found' these pretty buttons...

... and a skein of DMC variegated thread for Tail Feathers Quilt.

o-o-o

And just to keep the cat lovers happy: this morning I caught three of our four kitties bird watching:

To show you how tiny Luna is compared to the two boys Elvis (black) and Kruimel (tabby), here is a view from above:

Thought you deserved a nice long entry with lots of piccies, since I have been very quiet recently, working on lots of different projects.

Tail Feathers News

It has been ages since I gave you news about my Tail Feathers Quilt, by Cinderberry Stitches.

In the mean time I completed block #7 and block #8 and prepared all the mini-blocks for the last stitchery block, #9, and the corner applique robin blocks.


Here is my completed #7


With a few detail piccies:

And block #8, which I completed last night:

And a detail photo of the smallest stitchery:

I'm trying to keep going with this pretty design, since I'm now so close to at least finishing the stitchery blocks. That still leaves all the borders plus 24 log cabin blocks to do.

Apologies for the creases. I've been told off in the past for too much ironing of my patchwork by my tutor (my Mum) so I daren't iron it too much! ;o)

Fifth Day, Fifth Block of Snowbound!

Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs released the new Snowbound block this morning. It was so much fun to work on!

Other than that I'm working on block 8 of Tail Feathers Quilt and part 2 of Frosty Knotgarden by Châtelaine. You'll find images of both projects in the margin of my blog.