ANOTHER ATC ARRIVED

Today I received this wonderful ATC from Florence in Australia, it is also one from the pot luck swap on Chains of Hearts. It is made in soft Victorian looking colors with lovely silk ribbon embroidery and stitched with nice variegated threads.
Thank you so much Florence!

FIRST ATC ARRIVED.....
Last Friday this beautiful ATC arrived at my doorstep. I have swapped it in the pot luck swap of the Chains of Heartsgroup on Internet. It is made by Margreet from the Netheerlands, I really admire her for her knitting skills!

I wanted to make some more ATC's yesterday but the weather turned out very bad. There was a heavy thunderstorm and suddenly it started to rain hailstones as big as ping-pongballs! Both our cars are damaged very bad and our new garden now looks like some dinosaurs walked throught it! We have been busy all afternoon to clean up the mess, all tomato plants are broken, the hydrangea's were just starting to bloom and most of them are broken off and the leaves of all plants have huge holes or are fallen off, boy, what a mess...........I just was so proud of our garden now everything starts to bloom!

FABRIC POSTCARD RECEIVED FROM THE UK

Today I received this beautiful postcard from Anne in the UK. She is also in the postcard group on Stitchin Fingers
She read on my blog that I recently moved and made this lovely card with house and tree to wish us luck
in our new home, ain't that sweet!
Anne, thanks so much for this lovely card.

FABRIC POSTCARD

Recently I joined the fabric postcardgroup on Stitchin Fingers.
For the first swap I made this postcard for Ruth in Queensland, Australia.
The fabrics with flowers are from Dutch traditional costumes from a little town in the province of Overijssel, Staphorst.
I added the cobalt blue with the tulips and the orange stitching to give it a "Dutch" feeling.

SAVED FROM THE COOKER HOOD

Yesterday morning I was making some tea before going to work when I heard a whining noise coming from somewhere. And again I heard the noise, suddenly I realised it came from out of the cooker hood..... DH and I had a lot of work to pull down the cooker hood, never knew there were so many screws in it! We brought the cooker hood outside and saw a little bird disappaering behind the motor. We had to dismantle the whole thing to get the little fellow out, we think it was a little crow or rook. He (or she, who knows?) has been sitting on the terracetable for a while and then flew away. It took us quite a while to put the cooker hood in place again......and I was too late at work of course!

On Gerry's blog I found this test, look at the result, think I did a good job by moving.......LOL

You Should Live in the Country

You are laid back, calm, and good at entertaining yourself. You don't need an expensive big city to keep you busy. You'll take the peaceful life over the stressful life any day of the week.

Where Should You Live?

My first try on ATC's.....

I thought it was best to start with some little Crazy Quilting after so many months without stitching, here you can see the result.
This morning I was at the market here in Oosterbeek and there was a lady who sold lovely sewing yarns, which I used around these ATC's, the yarn goes from honking green to turquoise to blue to purple, hard to see on the picture. The fabric with the flowers is traditional fabric from Staphorst.
I found out that I better cannot use sequins on the ATC's, they got all flat after ironing.....LOL
I have put fast2fuse inbetween the top and back. Found it difficult when to stop decorating, maybe they are now to busy, what do you think?
P.S. Sorry for the big letters, I tried to get them smaller but Blogger won't let me change it........

Before and after..........


















As promised some before and after pictures of our new built French sandstone fireplace,
yesterday we could burn it for the first time which was really cosy and warm.
Doggie Daisy was enjoying it very much also, she slept in front of the fireplace all evening!

BACK TO NORMAL.........

So, the moving is done and we are a bit back to normal again! We are really enjoying our new home and there are still a few boxes to unpack left. This weekend I hope to unpack more of my sewing stuff, so I can get back to Crazy Quilting soon again. This last week we have been working in the garden a lot, the weather here in Holland is fantastic, temperatures around 24 o Celsius for already a week and it seems to stay for some more days! I have planted strawberries, cherry tomatoes, several sorts of berries and the apple and plum tree are in full bloom!














We are walking a lot, at least an hour every day if possible (have to work also.......LOL). I'll show you some pictures made on our walks, the views are all close to our home! We take a look at the little lambs every day, it is across the meadow in front of our house, there are now 12 little ones.
We live very close to the river Rhine, now on the North side, before we lived on the South side!
When we cross the street to the left, we can walk on the "Hemelse Berg", (the Heavenly Mountain) and have views like this, it reminds me a lot of the Black Forest!
We have already seen 2 deer, foxes
birds of prey and a lot of squirrels, you can imagine that I found that very excitingcoming from the middle of a big town! Next time I'll show you some pictures of the inside of our house!

Moving......

Just a short message to let you all know that we are moving next Monday. On Thursday we will get a new provider, so I don't know if I manage to switch my Blogger account to the new address....., I really hope so, otherwise I'll start anew one and let you know it through the Yahoogroups I am in!
All work is done in our new home, now we only have to clean and then bring the small stuff over there for the rest of the week, hang the curtains etc.
On Monday the movers will bring the big furniture pieces. I will be really happy when I live over there, we are already working towards it for 7 weeks, so are both very, very tired!
Hope to talk to you soon again and to start doing some CQ!!!

VIEWS............

This is the view from our old house, a parking space and appartments and this is the view from my new home, a meadow with sheep and horses.....

















and this is a picture from a part of my new bedroom I have wallpapered last Thursday, I just love this Toile de Jouy motif.
Today I have been wallpapering the corridor, I made it myself very
difficult, I choose stripes and that is not easy in a 60 year old house where every wall and window frame is crooked..... Forgot to take my camera with me, so I hope to make some pictures tomorrow!

BUSY......

Sorry for reading nothing from me for such a long time, but we are very busy with our new home.

There is a lot more work to do then we expected.

The new kitchen is almost ready now and the bedrooms upstairs are painted,they have a new wooden floor and tomorrow I am going to start to wallpaper in our bedroom. The painter is now starting downstairs and hopefully within 2 weeks the builders of the fireplace will come. We have ordered a French sandstone fireplace and that takes some weeks delivery time. I hope we can move the first weekend of April.
It would be nice, because the traffic jams are getting longer and longer over here!
I am really looking forward to work in my new garden soon. It is now totally empty with a lot of gravelstone, so a lot of work to do.
There's only one old tree in the garden, hope it is an apple tree.
Last weekend there came a red squirrel visiting us, and 2 pheasants.
I enjoy this so much, where we live now in the middle of town I can see only apartment buildings and cars........
I will show you some before and after pictures in April.
Will try to keep you updated, but we have to change from provider, so I will be without blog and mail for a while also!

GREAT NEWS!!! -long-

Wednesday for 2 weeks we got a call from a housing association that they had a house to rent in Oosterbeek, a little town about half an hour drive from Arnhem where we live now. We could take a look over there with 4 other couples. We were on place 4 in row that made a chance..... We had a look at the house and fell in love with it immediately. It is very small but so very cosy! The frontview was on a meadow with sheep and at the back a garden three times bigger as we have now.... You can imagine how big our disappointment was when nr. 1 and 3 in row wanted the house also and how pleased we were when we got a call last Friday that they had refused it after all and if we were still interested....YES YES YES OF COURSE!!!!

On Friday afternoon we'll get the key and we can start cleaning and painting. This week I have free from work and we have been ordering a new kitchen, curtains, wallpaper etc. and that will all arrive within 4 weeks, so we hope we can move in early April. You can imagine that my mind was not with blogging this last weeks, but I'll make it up with some pictures right now.......LOL


This morning I picked up my little embroideries which are framed now. I think they will look lovely in my new kitchen!
Lesa, the embroideries are stitched with one thread of DMC, but I don't now the count of the fabric, it is done on Aïda.



















Also I received a wonderful needlebook from my friend Beth from Long Island, NY. Here you see a picture of the front and a close-up (sorry for the bad picture) of the inside. Thank you so much Beth! It is a pity that I can't use it right now but I sure will in some months, when all my CQ stuff will be unpacked again!

And Ati, the little Easterquilt is sent out to you last week with a little extra I am sure you will like.......LOL
I only forgot to put a Priority sticker on it (sorry my head is a mess, I don't get much sleep, I am constantly decorating at night....), but I hope it will arrive soon!












When packing I also found the first quilt I ever made, it is this Mariner's Compass in turquoise colors. I haven't labeled it, so I don't know the exact year but I think I made it around 1990??? It is handsewn and handquilted.

And I found another give-away.... Don't know if anyone is interested in this Debby Mumm vest (sorry don't know the name in English), but you sure will have plenty of time to finish this before Christmas .......LOL

Please leave your name at the comments and I'll draw a name next week!

AND THE WINNER IS.................................................
....................................................







so I think the real winner is Ati, because Lita wanted her to have the little quilt, congratulations Ati, the little quilt will be sent out to you!

Also I found the pictur of the French landscape I am making a quilt of and the pictures of the traditional costumes from Spakenburg I promised you!































The dark purple costume the ladies are wearing when they are in deep mourning. The light costume is the " normal" costume.The top of the costume is mostly made of sits fabric and stiffened with starch, it is called a kraplap.

BAGGIE RECEIVED AND ANOTHER WISP...















Today I received this lovely baggie from Rengin in Istanbul,Turkey.
It is in my favorite color turquoise. We are both in an Internetgroup called Crazy Quilters
Around the World and she is my swappartner for this year, we swap CQ baggies each 3 months. Have you seen the beautiful flat oya flowers she made?

The other picture is of a quilt in very slow progress. It is gonna be a landscape in Brittany, France and made after a picture from the book "The world above and beyond". Looking forward finshing this one in the future.

FINISHED OBJECTS!!!

These 3 little embroideries I made during my vacation last year, I love these little French landscapes.
I have put a pin next to them to show you the size. I want to frame these before we are moved, I have bought 3 blue/gray wooden frames already!

GIVE AWAY!!

This little quilt I also found in my cupboard,it is handsewn and the middle part with the attic windows is already hanquilted. You only have to quilt the border and put a binding around it.

The measurements are 14 x 15 inch.

If you think you can finish it before next Easter, please leave your name and emailaddress at the comments.

On Sunday the 3th.of February I let my DH choose a name for the winner!

SOME MORE WISP's......

This is a quilt I would love to finish for on my double bed. It is made of old traditional Dutch fabrics from Spakenburg, a small fishersvillage. I will see if I can find a picture of a whole costume to show you next time.































Close up



The Amish quilttop is made of blocks of 10 inch from a swap on my former website, I think it was in 2004.....OOPS. I sewed the border on in a hurry and am not happy with the result, so when I am moved I have to take off the border and sew it on again!

SURPRISE IN THE MAIL

This week I received these wonderful threads from Maureen in Australia. She painted them herself. Thank you so much Maureen, hope I'll find the time this week to use them, will let you know!














The other picture is from an WISP, think you can see what is still missing......
I am in a group on the Internet called the "Engelbees" and we had a meeting last year in Canada and made this quilt over there. Have to find out where the angel's head is and I want to add Canada in the right corner next to the star. The bees, hearts and angel are stitched down with the buttonhole stitch.


















Once again sorry, but this time I can't get the underlining out, Blogger is driving me mad sometimes...........

BULLION KNOTS

Yesterday I have been practising bullion knots and finally managed to produce some bullion roses! I have made some roses with handdyed silk from Vikki Clayton, color Golden Nectarine.

Saturday we have signed the contracts at the real estate office, so our house sale is definitive now. We have to find a new home before April 29th.
Now the decluttering has started........
I have started to clean out one cupboard (of 5) in my sewing room and found a lot of quilts that are WISP's, maybe I better say WIVSP's......LOL, Works In Very Slow Progress!
I really would love to finish this scrapquilt. Through the years I bought a lot of swatches at Reproduction Fabrics.com and used a lot of them to make this quilt.I love to sew scrapquilts by hand with an antique look.
I will show you some more of my WIVSP's in the next days!

WELCOME ADDITIONS....

Yesterday we have been to a collector's fair in Utrecht. This fair is held twice a year and I always go there with my friend Karin who collects dachshunde.
I found some lovely laces, vintage buttons and some boxes of bugle beads that are hard to find over here. Also 2 beautiful butterflies, these are cigarette silks from the early fifties. I especialy like the ribbon on the last picture, the lady that sold it told me it was used in early days as shoulder straps for nightdresses or petticoats.
By the way, my friend found 7 dachshunde......!