Hearts and hands for Sendai

When I heard about the earthquake in Japan I immediately thought about my Crazy Quiltfriends Hideko and Emiko. Luckely we heard from both of them after a few days and
they are both OK although very worried about their family and relatives.

I am participating in a project dedicated to helping those affected by the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan.
This project is open to the quilting community at large, so if you are interested, have a look here at the blog of CQI (Crazy Quilting International).
Hideko is one of the listmoms of this quiltgroup.
You can see the blocks that are already made over here.
Please join if you can, our help is needed for our Japanese CQ sisters!

Spring has definitely come!! Yesterday twins are born in the meadow in front of our home, aren't they cute?The weather is getting better, it was 14 o C today, although it is still freezing at night. The birds
have started singing again early in the morning and the daffodils start to bloom, it is good to see the nature awake!

Austrian Crazy QuiltMaybe you remember I am working on this Crazy quilt made from mainly traditional fabrics, that I got for my birthday from Helen in Austria. She challenged me to make a little quilt of these fabrics and kept the other half of the fabrics to make one herself.
These are the blocks I made for it, they are 6"each.I am trying to get this quilt finished to take with me to the USA for Show and Tell. These are a few of the additions I did this week. I have not much spare time, have been to Germany this week to buy spring/summer cloths for our shop, doing the bookkeeping in the evening and of course I am also still working 24 hours a week at the vacation parc for disabled.
In a moment back to work again because our shop is opened from 12.00 - 17.00 on the first Sunday of the month. It will be busy because there is a carnival procession (hope this is the right word in English, think you will know what I mean) in town, luckely the weather is OK, sunny but cold, about 3 o C. Have a nice Sunday!

Another CQ block finished......

The American flag fabric I bought some years ago during a vacation in Orlando at Joann's. I added some red velvet, white satin and blue silk, I also picked the embellishments in these colours. Think this block will become a great memory when coming back from my trip to the Adventure in Crazy Quilting!

Some weeks ago I received a badge to decorate for the Adventure in CQ in april. To be honest I am not that fond of pastels, so I decorated it yesterday in "Dutch"colours and this is the result.Also I picked the threads and embellishments for my "Egyptian" Crazy Quiltblock. In my stash I found some Oya flowers (on the right on the picture) made by Rengin in Turkey, I think they will look great on the block!

For my lessons with Sharon Boggon in April I have to bring two 8 inch crazy quiltblocks. This is the first one I made this week.At first I didn't know what colours to choose, but then I saw the revolt against President Mubarak in Egypt on TV and I remembered a little piece of this "Egyptian" fabric in my stash.
I have added fabrics in gold, turquoise, middle and dark brown and dark red to it.
Tomorrow I am going to search for embellishments in this colours. It is bitter cold again here in Holland and even some snow is expected. Weather to stay inside on your free Sunday..........

The last fabric pages...
I was behind with making this fabric page for November for Lise in Denmark. Her theme is (as you can imagine....LOL) doors. It is called "a rainy day".
I sewed some iridescent beads to it for raindrops, it is hard to see on the picture. The next page is the february page for Claudia in Austria. She asked for a landscape and I made her Dutch tulip fields. Maybe you remember I made almost the same for Margreet. Now this serie of fabric pages is finished and I will receive the last page around the 15th also. Also I have to decide to make a fabricbook of them or not. The pages are hanging on the wall of my sewingroom and look so great together......
Also I like to show you my new teapot and mugs, just started collecting this "Pip"dinnerware
in my favorite turquoise color. I love it!

January fabric pages This is the December page I made for Wendy in Australia, I was already worrying that this one got lost also, but luckely it arrived after a travel of 6 weeks....I took the picture in the evening,
so it doesn't show the right colors of this Victorian fabric page.
I made this Chinese lantarn for Maureen in Australia, she asked for an Oriëntal theme. Luckely this page arrived within a week!

New fabric pages....
Maybe you remember that I sent out a fabric page to Ritva in Finland some months ago that got lost. This is the new page I made for her and luckely it arrived..... Her theme is art nouveau and I used a print from a card I bought in France long time ago for the middle and surrounded it with matching fabrics, old lace, a crocheted piece and some crazy stitching. The colors of the picture doesn't do it justice, but I had to make the picture in the evening with not much light. I received this week this beautiful felted fabric page from Marja in Holland, ain't it lovely?

Fabric postcard I made for Helga in Germany in the Fibre Fever Christmas card swapMerry Christmas everyone!

You haven't heard from me for a long time, but much has happened in my life. During our holidays in France in september we decided to start up a new business. Since then we have been busy searching for a nice store and fitting it up and purchasing clothes. On December 1th my son and I opened our shop in men's clothing, so the last weeks I have been working 60-70 hours a week. I am really happy with this "free" Christmas weekend.

I think like in a lot of places in the world winter has started early here in Holland and we have had heavy snowfall since early December which is very unusual, it is said that it is already the worst winter in 100 years. I really hope it will rain warm water soon....LOL

In between I have tried to make my fabric pages as usual, but I am a bit behind, as you can imagine.

I'd like to show you today pictures of the beautiful fabric pages I received these last months.

The above one is made by Margreet from Holland. It is made from a lovely satin fabric with dragonflies on it, beautiful work Margreet, thank you so much for it.

The next page is made by Susanne from Germany. It is a wonderful beaded dragon floating in a pond on a wool felted leaf. Also thank you for your awesome fabric page Susanne!

Halloween ATC's

These are the ATC´s I received from the Halloween ATC swap on Art4Mail. Thank you for your lovely work Vic, Debbie and Vicky! I think it is a pity that we don´t celebrate Halloween over here, I simply love the fabrics you use with skeletons, graveyards, ghosts etc.

AUTUMN....
This autumn we have again decorated a table in front of our living room window and our little friend immediately came back like last year to get his peanuts!

This is the fabric page I made for Yoke here in Holland. Her theme is "Bridges". I immediately knew what to make for her. As a child I heard a lot of stories from my grandfather and father about WWII and the bombing of the Arnhem bridge, the town where I am born and lived for 50 years. Maybe you remember the movie "a Bridge too far"? My father was working for the airforce and we had Airborne veterans visiting our home every year in September, that is why I used "Airborne red" as background. On the back I printed this poem from Max Dendermonde,
I am sorry but it is almost impossible to translate..It is about the feeling in the rest of the Netherlands when Arnhem looked to get liberated and the hell they got instead.

Arnhem

Voor mij blijft Arnhem altijd zeventien september
altijd een beetje zondag, die grandioze
dag waarop de bevrijding hoog kwam aangevlogen

In Amsterdam, bij radio, telefoon, stemmen
en tegenstemmen, riepen wij: "Zij wel, zij wel!"
Atlassen gepakt, de loop van de Rijn bekeken,
een geluksland van Heveadorp tot aan Rheden.
Nog dachten wij aan feest toen. Zij hoorden de hel.

Ook wij, op die afstand, gingen grienend ten onder,
Arnhem en Oosterbeek, de brug, dat waren wij,
onherhaalbare tijden bitter en bijzonder.

Nee, geen enkele keer als ik door Arnhem rij,
dat ik geen spijt voel, zelfmedelij. En het wonder
van die septemberzondag: Ik ook. Ik ben vrij.

BUSY.....

Life is so busy with work, birthdays and other festivities, that it is almost impossible to find some time to do something creative!

These ATC's I made for a Halloween ATC swap on Art4mail and they are now on their way to Canada and the USA.

The fabric postcard I made for Marja's birthday, it is made of a lovely handprinted piece of fabric made by my friend Frauke from Germany, I embroidered it with multicoloured Sassa Lynn yarn and added some sequins.

LOST???

Don't know if it is something in the air, but unluckely my fabric page for Ritva still hasn't arrived........

Also the card I made for Margreets birthday is now on it's way for a month already. It is a pity but I can't make it again because it was made of mostly vintage pieces of traditional fabrics from Spakenburg, a small fisherstown here in Holland.

Here also some pictures from our trip to France as promised, next time I'll show you some more.

We stayed in Villefort, in the Cevennes, this are some gothic windows in the oldest house of the village

This is the castle at Altier, it is a privat property.

This is the lake of Villefort, we looked out on it from our mobile home. You can walk/climb around the lake which takes 2 1/2 hours.And some pictures from around Villefort

Would make a nice painting I think...........

Back from France...

We had a wonderful vacation at the Lake of Villefort in the Cevennes in France. I will show you some pictures soon.

When coming home this beautiful dragonfly fabric page, made by Ritva in Finland was waiting for me.

This month I also had to make a page for Ritva, I made an Art Nouveau page for her.

Unluckely it hasn't arrived yet, although it was posted more than 3 weeks ago, so I am getting a bit worried about that.

The page is made after an Art Nouveau DMC embroiderypattern and surrounded by William Morris fabric.

This fabric page I received this month from Yoke in Holland. It has a drawing of a dragonfly and the rest of the page is felted, thank you so much for your lovely work Joke! Beyond you see the page I made for Robin in Australia, her theme is nature.

Sad week

We are very sad because our dear friend Gerard has died exactly on his 59th birthday.
He was a big, sweet guy with lots of humor and above all a great artist. He was also my artteacher until he got ill last year. Only 14 days ago we were still talking about going to paint
again together in September and now he is already gone, due to this dishonest disease we already lost so many dear friends and family to, life is so unfair sometimes..........

Rest in peace dear friend!

I told you some time ago that I was busy with a portrait and this is the result. I found it very difficult to paint this little fellow, because it was the first baby I have ever painted.

The next picture is of the fabric page I just received from Wendy in Alabama, USA, thank you so much Wendy for the lovely dragonly. I have received 4 pages until now and they are all so different from each other, didn't realise that it was such a difficult subject to do. I love dragonflies, they are so delicate and colorful.

Today I want to show you 2 postcards.
The first one I made for Ati in Norway, who celebrated her birthday last week. She has sent me an article about making fabric paper some time ago, so this was a good opprtunity to give it a try!The next postcard with the sweet little rabbit I received from Lisa, I swapped with her in the Pot Luck swap on Art4Mail. Thanks for swapping Lisa!

This is the fabric page I made for Margreet here in the Netherlands this month. She wrote to me that she liked it very much, she is living in the Northwest part of Holland and sees this landscape with flowers often in spring.