Fabric postcard I made for Helga in Germany in the Fibre Fever Christmas card swapMerry Christmas everyone!

You haven't heard from me for a long time, but much has happened in my life. During our holidays in France in september we decided to start up a new business. Since then we have been busy searching for a nice store and fitting it up and purchasing clothes. On December 1th my son and I opened our shop in men's clothing, so the last weeks I have been working 60-70 hours a week. I am really happy with this "free" Christmas weekend.

I think like in a lot of places in the world winter has started early here in Holland and we have had heavy snowfall since early December which is very unusual, it is said that it is already the worst winter in 100 years. I really hope it will rain warm water soon....LOL

In between I have tried to make my fabric pages as usual, but I am a bit behind, as you can imagine.

I'd like to show you today pictures of the beautiful fabric pages I received these last months.

The above one is made by Margreet from Holland. It is made from a lovely satin fabric with dragonflies on it, beautiful work Margreet, thank you so much for it.

The next page is made by Susanne from Germany. It is a wonderful beaded dragon floating in a pond on a wool felted leaf. Also thank you for your awesome fabric page Susanne!

Halloween ATC's

These are the ATC´s I received from the Halloween ATC swap on Art4Mail. Thank you for your lovely work Vic, Debbie and Vicky! I think it is a pity that we don´t celebrate Halloween over here, I simply love the fabrics you use with skeletons, graveyards, ghosts etc.

AUTUMN....
This autumn we have again decorated a table in front of our living room window and our little friend immediately came back like last year to get his peanuts!

This is the fabric page I made for Yoke here in Holland. Her theme is "Bridges". I immediately knew what to make for her. As a child I heard a lot of stories from my grandfather and father about WWII and the bombing of the Arnhem bridge, the town where I am born and lived for 50 years. Maybe you remember the movie "a Bridge too far"? My father was working for the airforce and we had Airborne veterans visiting our home every year in September, that is why I used "Airborne red" as background. On the back I printed this poem from Max Dendermonde,
I am sorry but it is almost impossible to translate..It is about the feeling in the rest of the Netherlands when Arnhem looked to get liberated and the hell they got instead.

Arnhem

Voor mij blijft Arnhem altijd zeventien september
altijd een beetje zondag, die grandioze
dag waarop de bevrijding hoog kwam aangevlogen

In Amsterdam, bij radio, telefoon, stemmen
en tegenstemmen, riepen wij: "Zij wel, zij wel!"
Atlassen gepakt, de loop van de Rijn bekeken,
een geluksland van Heveadorp tot aan Rheden.
Nog dachten wij aan feest toen. Zij hoorden de hel.

Ook wij, op die afstand, gingen grienend ten onder,
Arnhem en Oosterbeek, de brug, dat waren wij,
onherhaalbare tijden bitter en bijzonder.

Nee, geen enkele keer als ik door Arnhem rij,
dat ik geen spijt voel, zelfmedelij. En het wonder
van die septemberzondag: Ik ook. Ik ben vrij.

BUSY.....

Life is so busy with work, birthdays and other festivities, that it is almost impossible to find some time to do something creative!

These ATC's I made for a Halloween ATC swap on Art4mail and they are now on their way to Canada and the USA.

The fabric postcard I made for Marja's birthday, it is made of a lovely handprinted piece of fabric made by my friend Frauke from Germany, I embroidered it with multicoloured Sassa Lynn yarn and added some sequins.

LOST???

Don't know if it is something in the air, but unluckely my fabric page for Ritva still hasn't arrived........

Also the card I made for Margreets birthday is now on it's way for a month already. It is a pity but I can't make it again because it was made of mostly vintage pieces of traditional fabrics from Spakenburg, a small fisherstown here in Holland.

Here also some pictures from our trip to France as promised, next time I'll show you some more.

We stayed in Villefort, in the Cevennes, this are some gothic windows in the oldest house of the village

This is the castle at Altier, it is a privat property.

This is the lake of Villefort, we looked out on it from our mobile home. You can walk/climb around the lake which takes 2 1/2 hours.And some pictures from around Villefort

Would make a nice painting I think...........

Back from France...

We had a wonderful vacation at the Lake of Villefort in the Cevennes in France. I will show you some pictures soon.

When coming home this beautiful dragonfly fabric page, made by Ritva in Finland was waiting for me.

This month I also had to make a page for Ritva, I made an Art Nouveau page for her.

Unluckely it hasn't arrived yet, although it was posted more than 3 weeks ago, so I am getting a bit worried about that.

The page is made after an Art Nouveau DMC embroiderypattern and surrounded by William Morris fabric.

This fabric page I received this month from Yoke in Holland. It has a drawing of a dragonfly and the rest of the page is felted, thank you so much for your lovely work Joke! Beyond you see the page I made for Robin in Australia, her theme is nature.

Sad week

We are very sad because our dear friend Gerard has died exactly on his 59th birthday.
He was a big, sweet guy with lots of humor and above all a great artist. He was also my artteacher until he got ill last year. Only 14 days ago we were still talking about going to paint
again together in September and now he is already gone, due to this dishonest disease we already lost so many dear friends and family to, life is so unfair sometimes..........

Rest in peace dear friend!

I told you some time ago that I was busy with a portrait and this is the result. I found it very difficult to paint this little fellow, because it was the first baby I have ever painted.

The next picture is of the fabric page I just received from Wendy in Alabama, USA, thank you so much Wendy for the lovely dragonly. I have received 4 pages until now and they are all so different from each other, didn't realise that it was such a difficult subject to do. I love dragonflies, they are so delicate and colorful.

Today I want to show you 2 postcards.
The first one I made for Ati in Norway, who celebrated her birthday last week. She has sent me an article about making fabric paper some time ago, so this was a good opprtunity to give it a try!The next postcard with the sweet little rabbit I received from Lisa, I swapped with her in the Pot Luck swap on Art4Mail. Thanks for swapping Lisa!

This is the fabric page I made for Margreet here in the Netherlands this month. She wrote to me that she liked it very much, she is living in the Northwest part of Holland and sees this landscape with flowers often in spring.

Today I received this beautiful fabric page from Lise in Norway. The background fabric is a rusted piece. I read about this technic in the Quilting Arts magazine, think I am gonna give it a try soon also.

The background of the page is also beautiful, wish I had a machine that could do such wonderful stitching......... Once again thanks Lise!

Hi there,

I am back from a wonderful vacation in Florida!

We stayed in Orlando and Fort Myers Beach and have been driving around a lot.

The last part of the vacation at Fort Myers Beach was awesome. We stayed in a resort at the beach and have seen a lot of wildlife, I especially liked seeing dolphins and manatees diving up close to you!

Unluckely coming back in Holland we both got the flu, there were a lot of people sneezing in the airplane on our way back home.

Now life is back to normal (almost, there is a heatwave here in the Netherlands at this moment) so I started painting and sewing again. This weekend I have to finish a "landscape" fabric page for Margreet, I will show you a picture when it is ready. Last Thursday I finished this painting, some months ago I told you about the lambs that were born in front of our home, these are the little ones with their mother.

The last weeks I have been busy making "pansie" postcards to sent out for birthdays and swaps.3 of these are sent to Jan and Lisa in the USA and Helina in Finland.

Beyond you see a picture of the lovely postcard I received from Sharon H. from the USA in the Pot Luckswap on Art4Mail.

Today I want to show you some lovely items I have received. On the first picture you see a fabric postcard I got from Jan in the USA and 2 yellow ATC's I swapped with Lisa and Mary, they all belong to the Art4Mailgroup. The fabric page with the dragonfly I received from Maureen in Australia. The background is a beautiful velvet fabric all embroidered with shiny threads, this one is made for the monthly swap on Fibre-fever.Thanks so much for your lovely work ladies!

This is the fabric page I made this month for Marja in Holland, her theme you must have guessed already: "Birds". I found it difficult to start with this subject until I remembered an article in a Quilting Arts magazine from some time ago. As I mostly sew by hand it was a little experiment for me to sew by machine and use paint on the fabric page, but I think it worked well. Here in Holland we call this bird a "Roodborstje".
On Art4Mail I swapped a bookmark with Miriam from Ireland, ain't it lovely. She also sent me this postcard she made of an Irish landscape.

Another painting finished....
This is sweet little Poekie, the other dachshund of my friends Karin and John. I showed them the painting (40x40cm)done in acrylics last Tuesday and they really liked it. Today I have put varnish on it and it looks even better.
And this fabric postcard I made for Marja, she had her birthday last week. We are both member of Fibre_fever.

Strange....

to find out how much you can miss the Internet! The last days we were out of Internet, TV and telephone until the Phone company found out the modem was not working as it should and changed it for a new one.........very annoying!!!!!

The good thing is that I read some books, heard lovely music and have started 2 new paintings!

Today I want to show you some ATC's I received and some lovely additions to my "Austrian" Crazy Quilt.These are the ATC's I received back in the Spring ATC swap on CQForNewbies, thank you Alice (2x), Beth, Genie(2x), Ira, Jocelyne, Lesa and Linda for your nice work.

As you might know, I love to visit collectors fairs. That's where I found these lovely additions last month. I just love the little spider brooch I have put on the spiderweb made of metallic Madeira yarn, ain't he cute? (As far as you can call a spider cute.....LOL)I was also very happy to find this vintage brooch made of beads and sequins, on top I have added a little organza bow.Also I found this vintage spider silkie, that came with boxes of cigars in the fifties. It's colors are perfect on this quilt. I have on and off been working on this CQ, made from Austrian fabrics I got from my birthday buddy Helen some years ago. She has the other half of the fabrics and has challenged me to make a quilt of them. I just fund out in an old blogpost that I started this CQ in september 2007 , think it is time to finish it soon!

Today I received this colorful felted postcard from Sherry from the USA. We are both in the Art4Mailgroup and participated in a Pot Luck swap. Thanks so much Sherry for your lovely work.

Exciting.....

Wednesday I already told you about all the pregnant sheep of our neighbours.

Yesterday afternoon I saw for the first time in my life the birth of a little lamb, here you see a picture of it 5 minutes old. It was very touching to see it stand up for the first time......

Half an hour later we came outside and saw a little head peeping out of mother sheep, our neighbour had to push it back and get it out again with the feet in front. The twins are doing fine,

there are now 11 lamb born and we are now waiting for one of the brown sheep to give birth.

Today there was an exciting envelope in the mail!

I won the give a way on Frauke's blog and got these beautiful fabrics she handdyed and printed. Of course I am very happy with them!

Frauke is a very talented quilter from Germany, have a look at her blog. If you live in the Netherlands, you can see 2 of her quilts on the European Quilt Championships next week in Veldhoven.

Spring has definitely sprung!

Today we had to watch the sheep of our neighbours because they had an appointment elswhere. This morning twins were already born, just like some days ago and probably 16 sheep in the meadow in front of our home are expecting. Until now nothing has happened. Here a picture of the first born sheep.I have just been walking around with the dog and made some pictures in the neighbourhood, if you look very careful to the picture above you see our house peep through the blossom. Beyond you see a view to the right from our home and to the other side of the street.