My first painting (the little raven) is on display at an art-exhibition until Jan. 3th in the Schouwburg in Nijmegen, so if you're in the neighbourhood, you can take a look, admission is free. There are around 180 sculptures and paintings to see from amateur artists.
The picture is not that good I am sorry....

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

DH and I are home alone enjoying a quiet day.

On Christmas Eve our son with girlfriend and

my mother and MIL came for dinner.

Here in Holland we are having a white Christmas which is very, very unusual....Here you can see some pictures I made this week, views from our window and around our home.

Today I received this lovely fabric page for my French themed fabricbook from Barbara in Germany. What a great idea Barbara to make the French (and Dutch!)coloured flag like this. Must say that
I envy you for your sewing machine that makes that wonderful stitches. Thanks so much Barbara!

Today I received this wonderful Christmas fabric postcard from Faye in Australia from a swap

at Fibre-Fever.

Thank you so much Faye, it's lovely and a Merry Christmas to you too!

I am a really bad blogger these days, but the flu was back for the third time last week. Had the second shot against H1N1 yesterday, so I hope it is over now.

Due to my illness my teacher was so sweet to put the finishing touch on my first oilpainting so it could be displayed on a big Art exhibition "Kunst in de markt" in the Eusebiuschurch in Arnhem last weekend. It is an impression of the slow march of the British Massed Pipes and Drums Band on "the Bridge too far" in Arnhem during the 65th Airborne commemoration last September.

Also I'd like to show you a picture of a fabric Christmascard I made for a swap, it is on it's way to Doreen in Australia.

This is the fabric page I made in November for Lise in Denmark.

It is my first try on fabric paper that worked. Before this one I tried to make a little quilt like this, had my collage ready and dry and when I started to sew the binding on, a lot of paper
started falling off...........
I just don't seem to manage to keep my blog updated regularly. Life is so busy these days.
In my spare time I am working on a painting for an exhibition, have to finish it before the 26th and it is my first in oil paint, so I also need some days to let it dry!
Also I have organised my mothers 80th birthdayparty, which was yesterday and luckely a big success!

Today I want to show you another painting I just finished. It is still difficult for me to decide what I like more, to paint in a realistic style or go for the more loose and faster style...In fact I like to do both!
This is only a small painting, 40 x 40 cm.

Today I want to show you the October fabric page, themed "Together", I made for Marja in the Netherlands. It shows a picture of me and my grandmother Wilhelmina, made in 1958 (I am named after my grandmother). My mother sewed the winter coat and knitted the knee stockings I am wearing.

Here you can see what I have been so busy with the last weeks. It is a big painting (you can click on the picture to enlarge it)after a picture I made in Biloxi at the Gulf of Mexico.I made it for the 24th birthday of our son Wesley. He saw the painting when I just started it and was so enthusiastic about it that I decided to finish it for his birthday last week.

And this is the august fabric page I made for Helina in Finland. Her theme is "a walk in the woods". I printed a picture of a tree to muslin, then surrounded it with green patches and embroideries of leafs.

This fabric page I made in September for Janny in Holland, she choose a "Vintage" theme.

The page with this lovely Parisien lady I received yesterday. Doreen from Australia made it for me and it is a wonderful addition to my fabric pages with the "thinking of France"theme.

I am now working on a fabric page for Marja in Holland, her theme is "together". I'll show you a picture when it is finished.

Back on line.......

My computer died after coming back from vacation in september. The screen went from white with black stripes to black. It went out for repair, came back, worked for 10 minutes and went black again......Once again out for repair and when that didn´t work I had to buy a new laptop. The old one was not even 2 years old and the bad news is that I lost all my mailaddresses also!

Well, I have some good news to share also, I just managed to buy some tickets for the concert of Paul McCartney in the Gelredome in Arnhem on Dec. 9th. I had tickets for his concert in 2003 and couldn't go because I had to stay in bed with a herniated disc!

Autumn has started over here in the Netherlands, the temperatures are still nice, around 15 o C, and luckely not much rain as usual in this time of year. We have found a lot of sweet chestnuts and seen lots of odd mushrooms in the woods next to our home.

I received some wonderful fabric pages the last months, today I show you the ones from August and September. The first page is made by Helina in Finland. She broke her right wrist and managed to make it with her left hand, my compliments! She wrote that the picture reminded her of Hansi. I first thought of German artist James Last (his nickname is Hansi also!)but then remembered cartoons I had seen on postcards in France and the picture sure looks like work of Jean-Jacques Waltz, the artist/cartoonist from Colmar!

The September page is made by Helga from Germany, she made a felted page and stitched a beautiful French lavender landscape on it, I will show you a close-up of her wonderful work. Thanks so much ladies of the Fibre_fever group! Tomorrow I'll show you the pictures of the pages I made and what kept me so busy the last weeks.... Now back to bed, I am still

having trouble with the flu!

Yesterday I received this lovely package from Lola in Canada.
Fabric in my favorite color, a Piglet for my collection, an old hankie to use in my crazy quilting
and this little ashtray made from
Dutch Delftware, ain't it funny that this possibly travelled to Canada with someone and now is back on Dutch ground?
Thank you so much Lola for this price for the finishing challenge!

Fabric pages

These are the pages I made for June and July.

The first one I made for Doreen in Australia, her theme is "Butterflies".
The color of the picture is not very good, it is made of rich purples and greens.

The second one I made for Helga in Germany, her theme is "Angel among us".















I printed a picture that I made at Graceland, Memphis from a statue next to Elvis grave on fabric and found the poem on the Internet, the maker is unknown.

Fabric pages (sorry, but Blogger doesn't let me change the size of the characters....)

These are the fabric pages I have received in June and July.

The first one with Joan of Arcs emblem is made by Marja in Holland.
She made the page of felt and it looks just like an emblem you can sew on a jacket.
The other page is made by Janny, also from Holland. She stuffed the page made with Provence fabrics with lavender, so it smelled lovely when I opened the envelope.
Thank you both for your lovely work, I have pinned the pages with the other 4 I already received to the wall of my sewing room and it is becoming a wonderful collection.

June 2009

La Belle South, a trip through 7 states.......

I don't know where to start with telling you about our wonderful 2964 miles long trip through the USA in June.
We started in Atlanta, here you see a view from our hotelroom. In Atlanta we visited the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site, where we saw his church, house of birth and grave, which was very impressive. From there we travelled to Cherokee, where we visited the Museum of the Cherokee Indian (interesting). The town itself we found a bit to touristic, because of that we joined the seafood buffet in our hotel where I ate my first lobster thanks to the cook who explained me how to eat it....
The next day we travelled through the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains on our way to Charleston, I have never seen mountains with such colorful vegetation and the most beautiful big butterflies! Also we met and talked with several motorcyclists,it must be so great to make this trip by motorbike with these temperatures!
I forget to tell that all the time we were in "La Belle South" there was a heatwave with temperatures around 95-100 degrees!!

To be continued......

Gone to soon............

Today is a sad day for Michael Jackson fans all over the world, including me and my family. We just watched his memoral service and were very touched by it.
I grew up with Michaels music, danced on Billie Jean as a teenager, also our son, born in 1985, shares our love for his music.
Michaels made so much wonderful music, I think my favorite song is "little Susie".
I am happy that we all have seen Michael perform here in the Netherlands in the Amsterdam Arena in 1997 with the History tour.

Michael, rest in peace, your music will live forever!

Today I want to show you a picture of another painting I have finished. It is a view from the Kerkepad close to our home in Oosterbeek in direction of the river Rhine and the bridge across it.

"Greetings from Paris"

Yesterday I received this lovely fabric page from Lise in Norway, ain't it great?
It brought back lovely memories of a trip to Paris with my mother a long time ago, think it was in 1980 before I got married......

Under the sea..........

Maybe you have seen the blocks I received in the DYB (Do Your Block Round Robin) already. The last weeks I have been busy with embellishing my own block and sewing the 6 blocs together. Since there is no "sea bottom", I just embroidered over the other blocks also to get them more together and added some fishes and shelfs. Here you can see a close up of the block I embellished and the blocks all sewn together.
I once again like to thank Maureen, Margreet, Hideko, Helina and Ati for their lovely work. Please click on the pictures to view them bigger!
I am now going to work on the border and hope to get the quilt finished soon!

Fabric
page

This is the fabric page I made for Cobi this month. She asked for a page with a Haiku on it. You can click on the picture to view it larger.
A Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry, consisting of 17 morae in 3 pfrases of 5,7 and 5 morae respectively.
I made the haiku in Dutch because that is Cobi's language also, but can give you a free translation:

Colourful butterfly
with your wings so fragile
transitoriness

Some more fabric pages finished!

Here you see the april fabric page I made for Barbara in Germany. Her theme is "Universum". I planned to do much more on this page, but found it a pity to cut up this beautiful fabric Stargate by Robert Kaufman, it is so much speaking for itself.
I highlighted and made some falling stars with holografic thread, embroidered more stars with golden thread and stitched around the moon and stars and page with shiny (variegated) threads. I also finished the pages for May and June, but can only show you them when they have arrived at Cobi and Doreens doorstep.

I also want to show you a beautiful rhododendron I saw on our walk with doggie Daisy today, have never seen one in this orange color!

You must have noticed that I have not been writing much on my blog lately. It seemed like everyone in my family (including me) was having healthproblems. I have got a new medication and have to get used to it. Today I was feeling much better and DH and I decided for a small bicycle trip in the neighbourhood. The weather was very nice today, about 18 o and sunny. These pictures I have all made within 10 minutes by bike from my home.

Today I want to show you the wonderful fabric page Maureen from Australia made for me.
She knows about my Joan of Arc collection and even painted her house of birth in Domremy on the page.
Great work Maureen, I am very happy with it!











On the next picture you see me in the front door of Joan's home in her birthplace Domremy.

Thank you all for your nice comments on my Under the seablocks and the congratulations for my birthday. Especially for Ing a picture of what I bought in Florida, it might have been worse.....LOL
Unluckely I am not feeling well already since my birthday, have been to the doctor and did some tests, will get the results next Wednesday, don't want to bore you with more about that.........
Today I also like to show you the beautiful fabricpostcards my friend Gunta from Latvia made for me. The first is for Valentine and the other one for my birthday, she is a very talented lady!

Can you imagine that this picture was taken 49 years ago on my first schoolday? And I still do not like ironing.......LOL
At Sunday it was my birthday and at breakfast my DH suprised me with presents and cards from quiltfriends, he had collected them until my birthday. Than we visited an exhibition where we bought a lovely painting of the harbor at Honfleur, France and in the afternoon my mother and MIL and my friends Karin and John came to visit at teatime. In the afternoon DH, me and my son had a nice dinner at a restaurant here in Oosterbeek. In July DH and I will celebrate our birthdays together with a big gardenparty. These lovely flowers I got from Karin and John.

Here you see the blocks from the "Under the sea"
blockswap embellished by Hideko from Japan and Maureen from Australia. These blocks have seen more of the world than I have, that is for sure.
Wish I could have travelled with them, it would have been great to meet all these Crazy Quiltfriends!
Hideko added some beads from Venetian glass to make the starfish and ain't the little seahorse cute? I also love how she made the movement in the block.
Maureen added an oya made by our friend Rengin from Turkey, it looks like a real sea urchin! I love the coral made from double cast-ons at the dolphins tail and how she made the other sea urchin I can only admire........
The last picture is of the fabric page I received in this months fabric page swap from Mieke in the Netherlands. Love the "tournesol" and the Provence fabric in this page, looks really French like I wanted!

My "Under the sea" DYB blocks are back home again and they are GORGEOUS!!!!

The first one is embellished by Helina from Finland, I love the corals she did and the seaweeds with real shells!

The next one is done by Margreet from the Netherlands, look how she turned the sweet little fishes into little piranha's.....LOL and the beautiful starfishes.

The last one is done by Ati in Norway, I love the jellyfish in the middle and the sea anemone and the coral which she made of an old collar!

Tomorrow I'll show you the blocks done by Hideko and Maureen.

Now I have to embellish the last block by myself and then sew the blocks together and add a border. I did already buy a beautiful cobaltblue piece of silk, I hope it colores with the blocks.