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!

The theme of this months ATC swap on Fibre Fever was "seashore".

This ATC I received from Catherine in Australia.

                                   And this one I made for her!

It's finished!

Here you see the dragonfly I made on my "lady with roses" crazy quiltblock. 





I am not totally satisfied, but I think it is good enough for a first try!

Work In Progress Wednesday

This week I added some more seam treatments to my Lady with roses block.

The half cirkles are made of handdyed variegated pearl cotton, the green is a handdyed twisted rayon, both come from LES Designs.

The pink lazy daisies are made of Edmar Lola rayon.

 I am trying something new right now, can you guess what I am working on?

Last weekend I visited a collectors fair and found this wonderful card for my Jeanne d'Arc collection.



























It was made in the late 1800's and you could find these in a box of chocolates.

Also I found these lovely postcards from the early 1900's. 

I just love the style of these ladies clothing.

Wouldn't they look great as the middle of a crazy quiltblock?

Work In Progress Wednesday

                                      

This week I finished the beading of the flower lace on my "Lady with roses" Crazy Quilt block and finished a seam treatment.

Also I finished the first Crazy Quilted postcard of this year.

It is made of silk, damask and cottons, vintage laces and embroidered with silk and cotton threads.

I love these old fashioned style and color......

I love to make a Zentangle now and then, this is the last one I made some months ago....

ATC's

Earlier I told you about the ATC swap on Fibre Fever, in September the theme of the ATC's was "owls".




This is the colorful crocheted ATC I received from Margreet.










This is the owl ATC I embroidered for Annet last month.


In october the theme is the Dutch artist Escher. 
This is the ATC I made for Helina in Finland.

I embroidered the fishes and birds in stem stitch and then colored them with a dark grey pencil.

Work In Progress.....

I promised to keep you updated about my work on this Crazy Quilt block. 

I have bought a beautiful piece of handdyed lace from Nicki Lee in her Etsy shop called Raviolee Dreams.

It looks like it is made for my block. The colors fit perfectly......

I have sewn down the lace on the block and I am now busy with the beading of some of the flowers.......

Started a new Crazy Quilt block!
The needlebook and pincushion that I made last month for the White Elephant swap are in my favorite colors, I especially love turquoise and hot pink.

That is why I decided to make a CQ block in these colors for myself also. I am feeling better and am getting back my energy and concentration bit by bit luckely. It will take some more time to come over this burnout but I am happy that I feel like stitching again. I am now busy embroidering the seams of this block. I am working with some of the beautiful threads I bought from my friend Lorraine from Canada. The piece of the doily in the upper right corner is also dyed by her.

She dyes the threads herself in wonderful variegated colors
and sells them on Etsy. Click here and you'll go to her shop called LES Designs.

Here some examples of the beautiful threads, they are in made of perle cotton and twisted silk. I'll keep you updated of the progress of my block!
The weather here in Holland is better then normally at this time of year, not that much rain and temperatures around
18 o C. This is a picture of yesterdays evening glow at the back of my garden.

 Hope the weather will stay like this for a while so I can keep going for a ride on my E bike every day.....

A new project started...

Thanks to my burnout I haven't been sewing for a long time, but I finally started to make something for the White elephant game on CQI. 
I made this needlebook, my own design, and this cathedrals window pincushion.

            My friend Ing from California was the winner!

                        Mystery item........

Can someone tell me more about this item? 

I bought it in France while on holiday. 

It is carved and made of MOP and very delicate.

I suspect it is a kind of spool to wind your threads on from earlier times.....

Thanks in advance!

A rainy day here in Holland today.
Just finished this ATC (Artist Trading Card) for a swap on Fibre Fever. 
Size 3,5 x 2,5 inch.
The theme this month is "Doors", think you guessed that already. 
It goes on it's way to Kim in the USA today.

It is been a long time since I wrote on my blog. In June I was on holiday in France and not feeling well at all.
When back home  I was diagnosed with a burnout. With a lot of rest things must get better. I haven't been creative for months now, so not much to show. 

I am participating in an ATC swap on Fibre Fever which started this August.
This months theme is doors.
I am still working on my ATC for Kim, but received this beautiful ATC from Marja. 
Before going on holiday I did finish my fabricbook, so I will show some pictures of that soon. For the rest I am enjoying my garden, this summer the weather is great here in Holland. 

Some more fabric postcards!

I just realised that I forgot to blog the last postcards I got for my birthday at the end of March.....

 The postcard with the paper fabric rose, one of my favorite flowers, is from Helina in Finland.

And the beautiful landscape is made by Maria from the UK.

And a great felted with free embroidery postcard from Helga in Germany!

                      Once again thanks for your lovely work ladies!

Back to blogging!

Last week we were in Aywaille, Belgium for a short holiday. The weather wasn't that great, it was cold but good weather to make some walks. It is always nice to see the goats climbing the hills but this year we have seen an animal in the wild we never saw before, 

a beaver.... He was destroying a tree on the other side of the Amblève river. The close up pictures aren't that good, he or she was a bit too far away..........

But it was great to see, although the people of the camping aren't to happy with the beaver as you can imagine............

I have not been blogging a lot since I am busy painting for the Art route here in town early June. Last week I could pick up the invitations and poster and my painting of a French cow looks great on it. I may not show more 

pictures of the paintings I made yet, will do that after the Art Route!

Je t'aime Paris block finished!!
The last weeks I have been working on Darlene's block and it is on it's way home now!

This is how it looked before I started working on it. There is a bit of difference in the colors of both blocks I show you, because one is taken in the evening and the other one by daylight.......

I tried to bring more harmony in the block by adding more pink, purple and black to the block. I added the crocheted flowers, the MOP buttons, the lace in the upper right corner, the boot next to Moulin Rouge, the word Paris and the tatted lace next to it. 

Also I added the crocheted salmon pink colored flower to the flower spray to repeat the color of the small roses above the lady charm. I embroidered several seams, decorated the corset and added the Arc the Triomph and butterfly charm at last.

I hope Darlene likes my work!

Kathy is now working on mine, she is really encrusting it, 

can't wait to see it back home.

Have a look at her website to see what she has done so far!