BACK FROM FLORIDAwhere we had a great time. The temperatures were nice, around 70oF/22oC.
We have been to the Mardi Gras festivities at Universal Studios, lovely costumes and music.I especialy loved the Shrek 4D movie and the concerts of the Blues Brothers.
Also we have been to Disney's Magic Kingdom, which was a bit of a disappointment. It was way to busy this Monday, we only visited 3 attractions, waiting times were 60-70 minutes!! We waited until we had seen the parade and went home.
On Thursday we made a trip to Daytona, where the Bikeweek was starting. We visited the biggest Harley Davidson dealer over there, awesome to see a whole department store filled with 1.350 Harley's! My DH loved this bike.
I also drove at the beach in Daytona with our rented Chevrolet Impala, which was great fun.
We also drove around in Celebration, the town build by Disney and saw our dreamhouse......LOL
And for the rest we did a lot of shopping in all kind of Superstores (JoAnn's, Walmart, Target etc.)
and visited the Outlet in Orlando where we supported the American econom
y by buying 6 pair of Nikes, 8 pair of jeans (here in Holland 3 x more expensive!) and a lot of summerclothes and of course we needed a new suitcase also! The last night we had dinner in the House of Blues at Downtown Disney, which was real good. Our son, who had never been to the USA before, also enjoyed the trip very much, he is already thinking of emigrating.........The second night he
has been DJ in the hotel we stayed and could let hear some of his own made music, people were really enthusiastic!
Now it is back to cold, rainy and misty weather, piles of work and wintercoats and start saving for our next trip to la Belle South!
Today I received this lovely fabric page from Ritva in Finland.
Every mon
th I have to make a fabric page and will receive one back, this during 14 months. The size of the fabric page is 15cm or 6 inch.
My theme is France, it's landscape, or music and/or (of course my favorite) Joan of Arc.
The fabric page from Ritva gives a real French feeling with it's glass of whine, landscape, olives and pain.
Next time I'll show you a picture of the fabric page I made for Margreet,her theme is "with a song in my heart".
This is a great start from my collection, thank you Ritva!
Cést si si bon!
ATI's DYB BLOCK FINISHED
Today I finished the DYB block for Ati,
hope she likes what I have done to her block. It became very different from the other blocks in this swap......
This morning I had my second painting lesson,
I started last week to learn how to paint in acrylic and enjoy it very much. I have always painted in watercolour and wanted to try something more loosely. I will show you pictures of my work when it is finished in a few weeks.
VINTAGE QUILTTOP
Today I want to show you pictures of the quilttop I bought on Ebay last week. It is a vintage one and handsewn from fabrics made in the fourties
and fifties. It arrived today by mail and I am very happy with it!
BACK TO CQ!!!
Now it is time to get back to Crazy Quilting. The inflammation is my shoulders is getting a bit better luckely. Before febr. 15th I have to finish 2 things. A fabric page for Margreet in the Netherlands and embellish a DYB block for Ati in Norway. The first one is finished, but I may not show you a picture before Margreet has received it.
The block for Ati has as theme "Country Garden" and this is what I 've done so far. I hope to finish it tomorrow. Next weekend I've no time for sewing, I have to start washing, ironing and start packing for our trip to Florida from 19-28 febr. We leave on Thursday and I have to work on monday until wednesday before we leave. It is now 3 o C over here, misty and rainy weather and the forecast is snow again,we sure hope to catch some sunny weather over there. I am really looking forward to this trip because our son Wesley(23) will join us, it's his first trip to the USA and by plane. Also we haven't been on vacation together for at least 6 years!
My Staphorst Quilt
- part 3 -
Today the last part, a bit late because I was in bed with the flu. First of all I like to thank you for your comments, I had fun writing this story! And Caro, you are right, 
Staphorst is in Overijssel. I always thought so too but changed it after reading a book on traditional costumes.......
Today I show you some blocks with daily wear which is much more colorful.
The next pictures are of some "kraplappen", the upper "kraplap" is for 
a woman, the one beyond is for a girl.
The last picture is of the backside of the quilt, the sleeve is also made from differ
ent fabrics.
The quilt is made of 10 rows of 8 blocks of 24 x 24 cm, which is a bit smaller than 10"x 10 ".
It is handsewn and handquilted with kobalt blue cotton quiltyarn.
The name of the quilt is:
"Blauw en groen, boerenfatsoen",
a litteral translation: blue and green, farmers decency.
My Staphorst quilt -part 2-Today some more about the making of this quilt and some close-ups. When I was designing the pattern of this quilt I had the bold, vivid daily wear of Staphorst in mind. Every few months I try to visit
the shop of Stegeman. The family Stegeman is very helpfull (father, mother and 2 girls)and very friendly. Mr. Stegeman buys traditional costumes from people that don't want to wear them anymore or from family of people that are no more with us. The shop is very cosy with a lot of fabrics, but also other sorts of textiles, yarn, buttons etc. When you click on "fotoboek" you can see it. When designing this
quilt my father -who was already ill for 5 years- got worse and died. At that moment I decided to make this quilt from fabrics people wear when in mourning. On the second picture you see a block made o
f fabrics when people are in heavy mourning. The damask is from a blouse, the black and white fabrics are often with different prints on both sides and are used to make a kraplap. The
black fabric with blue stripes is from the cloth that goes around the neck. This is daily wear. On the first picture above you see a piece of stipwerk in the middle from a kraplap to wear on Sunday. When in heavy mourning you wear black with some white added, after a few months you can change to black and white with some blue and again after some months some green is added. Older ladies mostly stay with the black and white version.
On picture 3, 4 and 5 you can see stipwerk showing this. By the way, when making this pictures I found out that nr. 4 and 5 are the same pattern, so proba
bly made by the same person.
Now you probably wonder why I added the blue and green, which is a very unusual colorscheme. When driving through Staphorst/Rouveen you can see the most beautiful farmhouses and the doors, fencing etc. are painted in these colours. You can see them on this site of Staphorst , click "Over Staphorst", then "Foto-impressie".
-to be continued-
My Staphorst quilt -part 1-On CQForNewbies I told the story of this quilt, it is handsewn and handquilted and took me 5 years to make.
First I have to explain that I love making quilts from second hand fabrics of traditional Dutch dresses, especially from costumes from Staphorst and Spakenburg, 
which I like most. Staphorst is one of the most religious towns in the Netherlands with a lot of people attending 
Calvinist church. It is situated in the province Drenthe, has about 15.000 inhabitants and is famous for people wearing traditional dresses. It is forbidden to take fotographs of Staphorst inhabitants without their permission. On the site of the museum of Staphorst
you can see pictures of people wearing the costumes when you click on "foto's", then click on "museumboerderij".
There are still about 600 women and 6 men who wear the traditional costume. A daily dress is different from a Sunday dress. On a weekday they wear a "kraplap" (upper part of costume) made of cotton or viscose, on Sunday the kraplap is m
ade from a heavy satin and decorated with "Staphorster stipwerk". This is made by nails stuck in corks and then tipped in paint. In early days it was made with a paint with lead in it, which is forbidden now. On the pictures you can see a cap and a close up of it and another close up of 
stipwerk on another piece of satin. Every stipwerk painter made his own patterns.
The Sunday kraplap is different if people are in heavy mourning (when a parent or husband has died),then it is in black and white as shown on the last picture. When in light mourning more colours, mostly blue and green are added to the kraplap, I show you a picture of that next time, also I will tell more about why I used the black, blue and green fabrics and the making of the quilt.
Little flower bouquetStill no sewing for me, so I will show you
a little bouquet I made last month on the red/black Crazy Quilt I am making. This was also my first try to make the cast on stitch! Also a picture from last weekend from the woods behind our home. The mist was frozen to the trees and with the blue sky above it was a beautiful sight. Temperatures have gone up to 1-3 oC, so the snow has melted now. At night it still freezes.
NEW LACES.....
Today we visited a collectors fair in Utrecht, that is where I found these beautiful vintage laces. I especially love the lace in the third row with the birds and flowers, never seen one like this before. They look a bit like the pheasants I made a picture of yesterday, don't you think so?
NEW VISITORS IN OUR GARDEN.....
Here in Holland we are having a very strong winter with a lot of snow and temperatures were this night -20 o!
This is very unusual over here, normally we have no or only 1-2 days snow in wintertime. A lot of Dutch people like to skate and most of us are hoping for an Elfstedentocht, when people are ice-skating on nature ice along 11 cities in the North of Holland, Friesland. This race has only taken place 15 times in the last century. You can read more about it over here.
Today we had some new visitors in our garden, this morning we saw the first pheasant, later they came together.
Wishing you all a happy, above all healthy and creative 2009!I know that life hasn't been easy for a lot of us in 2008 with health problems, not seeing or losing beloved ones or jobs and of course the economic crisis, I sure hope that this new year will be a better one for all of us!
For myself I have decided to try to work one day shorter each week if possible and learn several new creativ techniques. Due to chronic inflations of my shoulders it is sometimes very difficult for me to do handsewing and quilting, that is why I am going to work more by machine. Also I have discovered that after 20 years of sane quilting and making antique looking quilts, I now prefer more vivid colors and artquilts, so I have a lot to explore..........I will keep you updated!
FABRIC PAGE FINISHED
other was having
