I've got mail! Today two lovely surpirses came in the mail, my friend Beth from NYC has send me a package with pieces of fabric and lovely NYC buttons to help me out with the CQJP project. Aren't they great?

Also this beautiful button with the handpainted gold finch arrived today, a gift from dear Gerry. You can find her wonderful buttons on: www.etsy.com/shop/olderrose

Thank you so much ladies, you both made my day, just what I needed!

Today I have finished the painting of this brown pelican, that I saw on Fort Myers Beach last April. It is done in acrylics.This week I have also been working on a CQ block from Sandra for First Timers 20 swap in CQI. Renee and Beth did already work on it before me. I have added the lace with the Lazy Daisies, the brown feather stitch on the right with the yellow beads and the red Herringbone stitch on the right corner, now it is on it's way to Donna in the USA.

This is the second Journal Page I made for the CQJP2012, my challenge this month was to work with novelty fabric.
As you can see I used the colors of the novelty print all along the page for the embroideries and added some bling bling like in the costumes of Elvis and my pin from Graceland.
I already told you that my theme is "Memories" and I dedicate this page to my father, who was a big Elvis Presley fan and always played his records. When I grew up and was old enough to go to the cinema, he always took me with him to watch the newest Elvis movies. Songs he played often were Return to Sender, Wooden heart and In the Ghetto.This is a lovely memory of my childhood, since my father worked long hours, all time spent with him was precious....
In June 2009 my DH and I visited Graceland, the home of Elvis Presley in Memphis, Tennessee, here are some pictures:

My little TAST 2012, week 5 sampler with Herringbone stitches, for the first time I managed to finish a stitch in the same week as announced by Sharon!

This week arrived the Crazy Quilt Gatherings Winter 2011 magazine. I am very proud that Pat Winter asked me to write an article for it!
Crazy Quilt Gatherings is a quarterly published magazine dedicated to Crazy Quilting, you can order it at MagCloud.

On CQForNewbies I have joined an Orange Color Study last year. Although Dutch (orange is our National color) I have absolutely nothing with orange (sorry CJ), so I had to take the challenge.....
I have been working on Peggy's block and made this floral spray of feather stitches for her using EdMar threads, silk ribbon and some crocheted roses.

It has been a long time since I wrote on my blog. A lot has happened these last months. We have closed our shop at the end of December, the results got worse due to this recession and we decided we could better stop. Due to this my son lost his job and home and it was very difficult to find a new place to live for him. Last week he moved into his new home, only I haven't been able to help because I got ill, at first it looked like I got pneumonia again (have had it 3x before)but luckely it is only a bad cold, hopefully it will get better soon. In December I decided to join Sharon Boggon's TAST 2012 (Take A Stitch Tuesday). With the busy program from the last weeks I started with the Feather Stitch of week 3, here you see the results.

In the last post I already showed you the first Journal Page I made for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012. The challenge I made myself for January was to work with plaids in a CQ block, so I used Scottish tartans. For February I decided to work with novelty fabric and bling bling. I have already used the Cretan Stitch (TAST nr. 4) on this block, the rest I'll show you when the page is finished!

Winter in Holland has started today with the first snow, temperatures will be -8 o C this night.

This is the first journal page I have finished for the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012. It is a year long project and you have to make one journal page each month. My theme is "MEMORIES". This block memorises the trip to Scotland I made in 2007 together with friends from England, Canada, Denmark and Italy. We stayed in a cottage in Fort William with view on the Ben Nevis and made great walks through the Scottish countryside.The tartan fabrics I bought during this trip from a kiltmaker next to the Tartan museum in Inverness. The black fabric represents the unfortunate end of this holiday when I was close to the terrorist attack at the airport in Glasgow, which gave me the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

You can see more pictures of this project on the CQJP blog.

My Christmas cake is ready at last and Christmas brunch is waiting...........
There has a lot been happening in my life this last weeks but I will tell you more about that later, let's celebrate now!
I am wishing you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS, enjoy a quiet time with friends and family!

Some projects for 2012........
Maybe you have seen the two new buttons on the right, I have decided to join Sharon Boggon's Take A Stitch Tuesday again next year, beginning Jan. 3th.
I have participated for some time in the last years and hope to pick up some new stitches again next year. In April in Connecticut I have seen Sharon's band sampler "live", what a gorgeous piece of work,it is now almost 23 metres long....
Also I decided to join the Crazy Quilt Journal Project 2012.
This is a great project to make Crazy Quilting more known all around the world. There are already hundreds of participants and I am really looking forward to see all the journal pages that will be made!
This week I received this Christmas Cracker from Theresa from the USA, I can't wait to open it!

The postcard above I made for a swap and sent out, haven't heard yet if it arrived!

HONKING ORANGE!!! I already told you that I joined the Orange Color Study on CQ For Newbies, this is the first block I received from Angie to embellish. I have to embellish a quarter of the block and this is what I did. I found a piece of tatted lace in orange and it was perfect to make the striped piece a bit more quiet. Then I added a herringbone stitch with Edmar yarn above it and extended the seam with lazy daisies. Then added an orange trim to the top seam. I painted the lace rose and sewed that to the right part and added the feather stitch next to it and some sequins to the butterfly in the middle. The orange color is difficult to make a good picture.......

This is the new issue of Crazy Quilt Gatherings and I am very proud that Pat Winter asked me to write an article in it! You can see my contribution at page 32/33!!
You can buy this magazine or watch a preview over here!

My Christmas Cracker is ready to be sent out to the USA. It will go in the mail early next week. First have to buy a Christmascard for in the package.I have stuffed the cracker with a lot of goodies, hope the receiver will like it!
Have been to Artschool again yesterdayevening, made a small painting of a little bottle of Maja perfume.This vintage bottle was from my grandmother, she liked Maja soap and perfume very much, I can still remember the sweet smell. I always bought some Maja for her when I was on vacation in Spain. I have put a stylo next to it on the picture so you can see the 4" size!

ANOTHER PAINTING FINISHED
I am now working on a serie of perfume bottles, new and vintage. This is the first oilpainting I finished, a bottle of my favorite parfum "Daisy" from Marc Jacobs.
And a close up:
Since this month I am participating in a Crazy Quilting color challenge on CQ For Newbies. It is a challenge to do this Round Robin because I don't like the color we have to make the block in and embellish: ORANGE!
Here in Holland orange is our National color, so I have to give it a try.......
This is the block I made for it:
Monday will be my mothers 82th birthday, she is very strong coping with her bad sight. I have bought her a big watch in black and white, because she can't see the time on her own watches anymore and I will make her a mango cheesecake tomorrow. We will go out forChinese dinner on monday.
The weather here in Holland is getting chilly, at night we have had frost already for several times.
Have a nice weekend!

Finished today....
the outside block for the Christmas Cracker Swap on Crazy Quilting International, now I can fill it with goodiesand a heart for Betty Pilsbury who lost her beautiful garden due to the flooding in New York State some time ago.The colors are more turquoise and bold cobalt blue then on the picture, the fabric with the flowers is a piece of vintage traditional Dutch fabric from Staphorst with white and yellow painted dots.

Can you imagine that in 2 months it is Christmas?
This week I made the decision to join some swaps to distract me from a lot of things happening in my life at this moment. Won't badder you with that... Today I have been making a block of 8 x 13 inch for a Christmas Crackerswap on Crazy Quilting International. After finishing the block you have to make a Christmas Cracker of it and fill it with fabrics, threads, motifs, little presents and a Christmas card. This evening I started with the embroidering.

Friday I have been to the institute for blind people with my mother. She would love to move to a home over there, but unluckely she has to wait for more then a year, there is a long waiting list. Now that she stills sees a little bit it would be much easier for her to get used to everything!

On May 22th I told on this blog about the Crazy Quilt block I made for "Hearts and Hands for Sendai" to raise money for the victims of the earthquake in Japan. Leslie Ehrlich has done a great job sewing all blocks into many quilts and now they are on their way to our friend Hideko in Japan. All quilts will be shown at the Quiltshow in Yokohama in November. Here you see the Crazy Quilt with my block in it, it is in the middle of the upper row.

Last post I told you that I was not happy with my Victorian CQ block. Gerry was so sweet to have a look at it and you can see her proposals on Gerry's Block Talk. I will show you the end result in time when I have decided what I will change.Now I'd like to show you a great buy I did some time ago. The lady I bought the crocheted pieces from told me that they were made by nuns as examples for later on. There were some very unusual pieces among them. I can't crochet at all, so I admire every piece. They will be great for CQ and multi media projects.After all the encrusted blocks I made I am now working on some very different CQ blocks. I got a postcard with a beautiful antique American Crazy Quilt made in the late 19th century on it and immediately fell in love with it. I think I may not show a picture of it because of copyright. Most of the blocks have an almost childish embroidery on them of flowers, animals, capitals or fans and the seams are stitched with thick perle threads. I have finished these 2 blocks and am working on a lot more. I will keep you updated!

I had not much time to post lately, my dear mother lost sight in one eye some years ago and now she has thrombosis in her other eye and has only 20% of sight left. Her eye-specialist told her that it isn't safe for her to live on her own. You can imagine that she (and me also) are very upset about this, friday we have an appointment in an institute for blind people to see if she can get a home over there.

ENCRUSTED OR NOT? Some years ago I did Sharon Boggons Encrusted Crazy Quilting class. I thought I "encrusted"this crazy quiltblock very good.........Finding the block again after some years I thought it could have some more......so I added some cigar silkies and several leaves to the flowers and a bow. Didn't like the spider so I removed that one.And I still didn't like it. I removed the lace in the upper right corner and added some more butterflies and a flower spray. Now I am still not satisfied by it's look and I have to think deep about what to do more on the right side of the block, especially on the green silk. Any ideas?
Maybe I should ask Gerry?

9/11/2001 - 9/11/2011 May we never forgetPictures made at Ground Zero/St.Paul's Chapel in April 2011