Egyptian block finished !? Last april I showed you this CQ block I made to embellish during Sharon B's lesson at the Adventure in Crazy Quilting in CT. Maybe you know that I love to make themed CQ blocks and because of the riots in Eqypt I picked this theme. My DH and I have always been very interested in the Eqyptian culture and history and I love the colors of Eqypt, the rich gold and turquoise that I combined with dark brown and terra colors. During Sharon´s lesson I added this to the block.The last weeks I have been working on it now and then and at a moment I thought I had finally finished it. After seeing the picture I made of it, I decided I had to add something to give it a more Egyptian look and decided to add an `all seeing eye´..... It looks a bit more Egyptian now, don´t you think so? I don't know what to add more, if you have an idea please let me know!

Luckely it seems to get a little better with my mother-in-law, let's hope it stays this way. Going to hospital if possible twice a day and working fulltime does not leave much time to do anything else, all I did this week were some little stitcheries in the evening for a new Crazy Quilt I started.
It are images from a book I bought in the USA: Motifs for Crazy Quilting by J.Marscha Miller.Also I don't paint as much as I want to, I only finished this little oilpainting these last months. It got a place in my kitchen.

Recently I am working on 2 big paintings, one in oil, one in acrylics but in one way or another I don't get them like I want it, I think things in my life have to slow down a bit again to find the rest to finish them....

The situation with MIL is still the same, critical. It is so sad to see what this sweet old lady has to go through at age 87, being operated twice in one week and still in pain.... Now back to blogging!When I was in the USA someone told me about the use of Press'n Seal for embroidery on fabric. I bought some at Target to try and must say it works fine. I have drawn the image on the Press 'n Seal with a permanent marker and did the embroidery with several different threads like perle nr. 5, satin DMC and silk yarn from Vicky Clayton. Removing the Press and Seal is easy for the bigger parts only for the smaller parts you need a tweezer.Also I'd like to show you some pictures from my garden, I love hydrangeas as you can see.

It's been a while since I have posted, we went to the South of France last week in our camping car for a short vacation. 2 days after arrival we got a phonecall that my mother in law was taken to hospital in critical condition, so we had to return home immediately. We arrived back home on wednesday. MIL is operated but the situation is still not good, that's why I don't write on my blog this moment.....

I just finished embellishing this crazy quiltblock I made for Sharon Boggons class during the Adventure in Crazy Quilting. I did not use it that day and decided to finish it for a fabric book I am making to remember my travels around the world. The star buttons I bought at Michaels in Orlando. I love the way it turned out.
Yesterday we celebrated my husbands birthday with family in Krefeld, Germany. Over there we visited the "flachsmarkt" around the castle. We try to go there every year, it is a market with hundreds of craftsmen showing and selling their work and of course lots of nice food and biergarten. I love to collect things for my garden, I love stuff like this.
I was doubting whether I should buy this little kingfisher, decided not to do it (maybe I would find something even better later.....) and now regret it!

Have not been writing much lately, I was very busy doing the bookkeeping of our shop, I was way behind! Today I want to show you some goodies I bought on my trip to the USA. These charms I bought at Bead Empire Inc. at 1032 Sixth Avenue in New York City. I just love the little Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.
When you ever visit New York I recommend a visit to Sixth Avenue, here you find a lot of (bead)shops close together, I also loved Toho Shoji (Japanese beadshop) at 990 Sixth Avenue and M&J Trimmings. They had so much lace, trims and buttons, I was so overwhelmed that I didn't know what to buy!I am planning to make a CQ block with some small pieces of fabric I bought at the City Quilter, 133 West 25th Street in NY, they sell their own prints from NYC. I am making 8" blocks to remember all my travels, in the future I plan to make a fabricbook of them. This Victorian Americana fabric I bought in Orlando at Joann 's.

An Adventure in Crazy Quilting - part 4 -
The last day I very much enjoyed our class with Allison Aller. Here you see her Crazy Quilt as example for the lessons. We made several flowers from all kinds of materials like wool, silk and rick rack. It was great to see how all flowers turned out and also much fun to make them. This is my result: I also bought Allison´s Crazy Quilting book and boy, this is a wonderful book, I can recommend it to all of you. Beautiful eye-candy and very handsome hints and tips!

There is already a website with the program of the Aventure in Crazy Quilting for 2012. I hope I get the chance to go again!
At the end I like to show you what I see out of my office window these days.

A pair of Nile goose have got 5 babies. Aren't they cute? You keep looking at them!

The little sheep is a tape measure, the winner is Bobbi! I'll contact you privatly Bobbi for your addy! And now back to:

An Adventure in Crazy Quilting - part three -
On Saturday evening Shirlee Fassell gave a lecture. She showed us her stunning work made with a tambour hook
and the beautiful Crazy Quilt she is working on. You can read more about the making of her beautiful Art Crazy Quilt on her blog Needle and Hook. Shirlee will be a teacher at the next Adventure in CQ 2012.

Sendai block finishedThis weekend I have been working on my Crazy Quiltblock for "Hearts and Hands for Sendai", you can find more information over here.

Some days before I left for the USA, it was my birthday. These beautiful white peonies I got from my friends Matty and Jan as a belated birthdaygift, aren't they beautiful, they smell lovely also! The vase my mother found for me on a jumble sale, can you guess my favorite color???LOL

And my friends Karin and John surprised me with this present from the Dutch isle of Texel, where they went on holiday.The first one who guesses what it is for, gets a nice Crazy Quilted postcard from me!

An Adventure in Crazy Quilting - part two - At Friday evening I attended a lecture with Betty Pilsbury. She showed us the most beautiful antique Crazy Quilts, I so much loved to see them. Here you see some close ups.Isn't this fan beautiful?
When I still was only a "sane" quilter I loved to make quilts with an antique touch, but I had never seen a real antique Crazy Quilt before and never expected them being so colorful and lively! This is one of the beautiful Crazy Quilts Betty made herself. On Saturday I had my class with her. She learned us how to make these beautiful satin flowers and the SRE daisies and forget-me-nots and gave the most handsome hints and tips on sewing and stitching. I so much enjoyed this class!This is the example for the class, unluckely I have no good picture of the whole quilt, but believe me, it is awesome! More next time!

CQ Block for SendaiToday I don't have much time to write, so I only want to show you the block I made for the Hearts and Hands for Sendai, hope I find some time to embellish it this weekend, since we have a wedding and a birthday to attend. When you click on the banner next to this picture you can read more about the Sendai project. I found the fabric with the Geisha in my stash and surrounded it with silks and Japanese fabrics (the reds and the yellow on the right). Will tell more about the Adventure next time as promised!

An Adventure in Crazy Quilting - part one -
On April 7th we drove from New York City to Glastonbury, Connecticut, where I was going to attend the Adventure in Crazy Quilting. For me it was the first time to attend a Crazy Quilting retreat and what an adventure it was indeed!! Big compliments go to Maureen Greeson and her help Susan Elliott for the perfect organisation.Two days before I left to the USA I managed to finish (well, think I am still going to add some more to this quilt....) my "Austrian" Crazy Quilt, because I wanted to participate in the Show and Tell. The first evening we had "Meet and Greet" and we even had some patchwork cake! I'm sorry but I forgot to take a picture of it, so excited I was to finally meet my friend Beth from NYC. She brought me a present to remember my trip to New York. I was really touched when I got this quilt from her, once again thanks Beth for this wonderful gift!

It was great to put faces to the names from Crazy Quilters I already swapped with or read about on the Internet and at last meeting my "Dutch" friend Ing. During meet and greet we saw beautiful quilts, I especially liked the "English Royalty" quilt, made by Irene Leizer from the Baltimore Constellation Chapter.My first class on Friday was with Sharon Boggon from Australia. I had done 2 of Sharon's classes before on the Internet (Encrusted Crazy Quilting and Studio Journals) and learned so much from her. It was great to hear her talk about CQ in Australia and to see her band sampler and quilts in close-up! Wish I would have taken more pictures!Here you see Sharon with her "I dropped the button box" quilt. On Sharon's website you can read all about this sampler and the "button" Crazy Quilt. More next time!

Today some more pictures of our trip to New York City, these were all taken from the 86th floor of the Empire State BuildingRight next to the black building you see the New Yorker hotel we stayed in. View on the Chrysler Building.
And a view on lower Manhatten.
We also went to the American Museum of Natural History, we loved to see the giant dinosaurs.
I liked the way they exhibited these animals! On monday we went to the Moma, but it was way to busy. Afterwards we heard that most of the musea in NYC except the Moma are closed on that day........Luckely I got a good look at Van Gogh's Starry Night ( sorry for the bad picture, but the batteries of my camera died over there!)and my all time favorite Waterlilies made by Monet.I could show you so much more pictures, since I took over 900....

This is the last one from NYC, Times Square by night.Next time I will show you pictures and tell about the Adventure in Crazy Quilting in Glastonbury, CT