Trip to NYC and Kansas City

Early September I made a trip to the Crazy Quilt Retreat of CQI in Kansas City, USA. Before flying to KC I stayed with my friend Beth at Long Island and together we went by train to New York City for some days.
We started with visiting the City Quilter at 133 West 25th Street. Here I bought some lovely NYC fabrics and we saw the exhibition of Velda Newman's beautiful art quilts at the artquilt gallery (www.artquiltgallerynyc.com).

                                The huge quilt she made of zinnia's is simply stunning...
               Of course we visited several shops to buy stuff for our Crazy Quilting, 
                                          here some  addresses I liked very much:

Dakota Trim at 251 W. 39th. Street. They have rows and rows of beautiful trims, laces, buttons etc.

For beads we visited the next stores:

Toho Shoji (New York) Inc., 990 Sixth Avenue, they have lots and lots of beautiful beads, charms and I love their little flowers for on my quilts (www.tohoshoji-ny.com).

At Beads World, 1384 Broadway (between 37&38th St.) you will find lots of beads and lovely cupped flower shaped sequins (www.beadsworldusa.com).

At the Bead Center 989 Sixth Avenue, you will also find lots and lots of beads and sequins.

In the Garment District around 39th Street you will find lots of fabric stores, look out for the big button and needle, then you are close!

Unluckely for fabrics we only had time to visit Fabrics Express, 239 West 39th Street, but they have lots and lots of beautiful fabrics and of course we supported the American economy over there!

                                             Next time I'll tell you more about my trip!

Puppy!

Since monday we have a new companion, our Ruby (officially Only You of Wundering Heights), born on June 16th. A very cute yellow labrador puppy, but oh boy, did I miss a lot of sleep this week.....

The good thing is that with staying up that late at night watching over her, I managed to do a lot of stitching to my Peacock Crazy Quilt. I am making the blocks for the CQJP2014. If you click on the link, you can see pictures of all participants.
I finished two blocks this week.

The peacock in the middle is an antique embroidered applique. This is also the middle block of the quilt, which will be the focus point.

The four corners will all have fan blocks, this is the first one I have finished.

The quilt is becoming very bold and colorful, unluckely the pictures don't do it justice.

I would love to finish the top of this quilt to show on the Crazy Quilt Retreat of CQI in Kansas City, that I will be attending in September.

Missing in action....

Today I want to show you some Crazy Quilted postcards I have made. 

The first one I made for Helina in Finland. Unluckely it didn't arrive until now. 

It is made in cottons with a print after a William Morris wallpaper, silks and vintage laces and is handembroidered.

Both cards have in the middle a print of a French postcard from the Thirties. I personally love the colors of both. 

I especially love the color combination of the second one, it is in orange, hot pink, brown and sage green. You can find this postcard in my Etsy shop.

Back to blogging -long!-

Sometimes life just gets in the way! A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. A little update:

First the sad news: we had to let go our beloved yellow lab Daisy, our loyal companion for almost 13 years.....

We miss her so much!

The first weekend of June I participated in the Art Route here in town. Here you see me with some of my paintings in the background. It was a great success, we had more than 800 visitors!

 
After that we went to France for holiday. We love to travel around in search for antique-and brocante markets and do some sightseeing in the lovely old, sometimes medieval towns (by the way, you can see more doors and windows on  my Pinterest page).

Champlitte

Painted houses in Adge

Marseillan

Champlitte-de-Ville

Marseillan

Cap d'Agde

Marseillan

Of course I have also spent some time stitching on my Peacock quilt, pictures will follow later this week!

Under the sea

 This is the second block I have embellished for the 

Under The Sea themed Round Robin of CQI.

 It is for Dana in New Zealand.

 Dana loved to have a "coral reef" kind of look, so I started with making a colorful fantasy fish. 

Here a close up of the fish.

After that I added the green fern, stitched in a green variegated perle silk cotton hand dyed by my friend Lorraine from www.colourcomplements.com/shop

After that I stitched the orange coral from bugle beads and added the beaded starfish.

 At last I added a little piece of tatting and the seahorse and crab charms.

Happy Easter!

Another CQJP block finished!

 I just finished the second block from the peacock Crazy Quilt for the CQJP 2014. I am way behind, life is just getting in the way all the time.................

I love sewing on this CQ, I really like working with these jewel colors.

Just now I was sitting inside sewing in the sun  but bad weather is approching as you can see. 

We had very good weather the last weeks, but now it is back to rain and the winter coat.

Even nightfrost is predicted later this week......

                                                                                                    

 And at last some tulips for you from my garden!

Work In Progress....

Today I want to show you my work on an Under The Sea

(in short UTS) block for a Round Robin on Crazy Quilting International. 

Beth and Kathy from the USA, Stefanie from the UK and Dana from New Zealand have joined me in this RR. 

I have to embellish a quarter block for the 15th of each month. 

This is the first block I received from Kathy. 

I decided to start on the right part below, first did some stitching to the seams. 

After that I added the silk ribbon and the branch on the right, stitched in a variegated perle cotton, both are handpainted by my friend Lorraine of Colour Complements.

Than I couched the yarn over the silk ribbon and made the orange feather stitched coral, also added some shiny short bugle beeds.

I painted the little piece of lace on the left to color coordinate with the branch.  

Than I made the whipped wheel to form a starfish and added the lace on the right, thought it looked a bit like a sea cucumber....................
   At last I added the little orange fishes, charms and beads.
                         I hope Kathy will like the result!

Work In Progress Wednesday-a day early.....

The first block for the CQJP 2014 is finished at last!

Must say that I finally like working with these colors, now the block is finished it looks really vivid!

 I am now working on a corner block, it is a fan block and  almost finished so I hope to show that next week! 

Everyday this week I have been trying to work some time on my shabby chic fabric book, I have finished the cover, here a picture of the front:

and the backside......

Last year I bought a whole box full of vintage and antique laces in France and I can make good use of them for this fabric book. It is much fun to search for and make combinations of fabrics, lace, trims, doilies and motifs, there are so many possibilities. 

The "fleur de lis" I found

in my friend Cathy's Etsy shop.

Now I can start working on the inside pages........

Work In Progress Wednesday

         Today I have 2 projects to show you.

Here an update on the january block for the CQJP2014.

As you can see it is not finished yet.

The green leaves take a lot of time to embroider and my sight is not good enough for stitching them in the evening, so I can only work 

on them by day and my hours are very limited then.

Also I am always working on more blocks at one time, so I still hope to get 2 blocks finished this month!

This is another project I am working on.

I love shabby chic fabric journals and for a long time I already want to start with the making of one of them. 

I have collected antique and vintage laces and doilies for it, but constantly hesitated.

Last Saturday I decided to just give it a try.

This is the start of the cover of the book........

More WIP'S you can find on Sharon Boggons website!

Work In Progress Wednesday

Today I want to show you what I am making for this years Crazy Quilt Journal Project.
These are some blocks and fans I stitched for this CQ to give you an idea of the colorscheme.

 As I already told before, I  decided to work with dark "jewel" colors this time and put some peacock silkies from the 30's on my blocks. 

As you see I couldn't help it to put some polka dots in also, I just like them so much.......

Also I took the decision to embellish the seams in one color. I only don't know if this was wise. I am now very limited in my choices as I will only use the colors that are in my blocks!

That is why I also decided to bead some seams and also use sequins, which is a challenge for me as I absolutely do not like them! 
Others Works in Progress you can find on Sharon Boggons pintangle blog.
More next week.........

A little painting

This poor little fellow flew against our living room window and is now burried in our garden......but not before I made a little painting of him! 

It is a "groenling", Carduelis chloris, a little European bird.

The last time I painted was in June 2013 and I could notice that, but I am happy that I managed to do it again. 
Now on to something bigger!

Under The Sea

At the start of 2014 I challenged myself to be creative every day, ain't that a good decision......? 
Due to my burnout last year I haven't done much stichting, drawing or painting in 2013 but I decided this has to change now, if only for a few minutes a day! 
Today I made a 12 inch block for the Under The Sea (UTS) Round Robin on CQI.

I decided to be coördinator for this swap and 4 ladies from around the world have joined me. 
Every month I have to embellish 1/4 of one of these ladies UTS blocks. 
It is great to see that we have 3 groups starting on CQI with this Under The Sea theme!

CQJP2014

Last year I joined the Crazy Quilt Journal Project but didn't manage to finish much.This year I want to give it a new try!
I so much loved my friend Lorraine's dark Crazy Quilt blocks, that I also decided to work with dark "jewel" colors for this project. 
Through the years I have collected several peacock silkies that I want to use in this CQ.
The silkies are cigarette silks made in the Thirties by Turmac, a cigarette company here in Holland.

This is one of the blocks I started working on!

And this is the ATC I made for this months Fiber Fever swap. It is for Margreet here in Holland. She loves to make papercuts so I decided to make her a silhouette of our new king Willem Alexander. Of course it had to have an orange background! You can find Margreets beautiful papercutting on her Flickr page.

A new blog start on a new computer!

In December we switched from server and my laptop decided not to join......... The guy at the repair shop is now trying to retrieve some data, would be wonderful, I hope not to have lost about 15.000 pictures!!
Now I am the proud owner of a new (pearl white)Toshiba laptop with Windows 8.1, but the trouble is I don't know how to work with it. I am slowly learning, that is why you missed me blogging..........

Today I will show you some pictures of the ATC's I have been swapping on Fibre Fever.

Last month the theme was Paris. This is the beautiful
ATC I received from Helina in Finland. And this one I made for Kate in England

This month the theme is Kings and Queens. Annet from Holland made me this ATC of our new King Willem Alexander, ain't it great?

Here a real picture of him and our beautiful Queen Maxima.

I am still working on mine, the first try was no success....
Will post pictures later!