Mystery

OK, technically it's not a BOM, but I categorised it there anyway. Stella Witthingham is designing a lovely quilt with blocks, that relate to patchwork and quilting! Cool eh?
I don't like mysteries very much, because I like to know up front where the design is going LOL, but the first block looks very promissing.  Want a tiny look? OK, I 'borrowed' part of a picture from Stella's blog :))

Think you might be interested? You can find it here (and via the button on the left in BOM's)

Cats!!!

It's great to have some help, sometimes I need  more than 2 hands, but did you ever try to copy a pattern to fabric with 2 cats who think they can do it better? They even took turns: one  with her nose on the drawing, the other a bit further away,  pulling the fabric to organise it LOL

In case you are wondering: the patterns is 'Winter Wonderland' by Crabapple Hill, but I reduced the blocks by almost 50%, because there are a bit too large for what I have in mind.

These are the Christmas fabrics I'll be using. The stitchery I will make is a sort of reverse redwork: white perle cotton on red fabric.  With all those small pieces of thread flying around, a cat needs an extra was LOL.

Sometimes I even manage to bann them from the table for a minute and they are not amused when it happens:

When in Zutphen ...

 I have to go to Petra Prins' patchwork shop. She specialises in reproduction fabrics and antique rose designs. All I needed was a bit of Christmas fabric, but I love to have a good look around , because they have so many quilts on display. I was allowed to take some pictures (thanks ladies) , so here are a few of the back room of the shop.

Beautyfull, isn't it? Quilts everywhere, not only on the walls, but folded on and in the cupboards as well. 

This quilt was recently designed by the owner, I think it's only available as a kit (with those very beuatifull red colours).

Finaly a small corner of the shop, which is packed with fabrics, not only on all the shelfs, but the space under the front of the counter has shalves filles with fabrics, as are under the tables with  the precut fabrics.

( The panel is by Moda: Crazy 8 )

Ohhh they have the 'Petit fours' by Moda now too, 320 squares of 2 series in a box. ....Sigh...I think I might need some soon!

Autumn in Zutphen

I went to Zutphen yesterday, a small town about 14 km. from where I live. It is, as my hometown is, packed with history and historic buildings. They even have a large part of the original 'town-walls' . Those have protected the citizens for centuries against armies from other countries/provinces in war time.
But acid rain could what the armies couldn't: distroy those walls.

Luckily the town council realised how important it is to protect those historic walls and had them renovated and added a sort of protection. The wall looks rather new now, but are really very very old , it was probably build in the 9th century!

The crisp autumn weather was perfect for taking some pictures.

People in those days were a lot smaller than we are now: the doors in the watch towers are hardly 4,5 foot high :-)).

A very nice town, Zutphen, with a nice market, nice shops, nice people ( I was born there, can you tell? LOL ).

We proudly present

a new Yahoo group: 'ChattingCrafters', the result of an American/Dutch alliance :-)).
Pennie and I both are members of different groups, about Patchwork,  another about doll-making , others about.. etc. I'm sure you get it :-)) We both like to do different crafts, so like to join (a) group(s) where all types of crafts are discussed and shared. The groups we found had a lot of members, but rather a few mails, because most members seem to be reading and not writing. And that's not something we like too much LOL.
So, we decided to start a new group. We hope we'll get to know and talk with crafters from all around the world, to share the ups (and probably some downs ), of our crafting.
Do you like to craft and talk about that, as well as chat about 'off topic' subjects, we'ld like you to join us.
After all, live is more than crafting and sometimes even gets in the way of our hobbies:-)).
I hope we'll make a kind, friendly group to share our projects and knowledge.

You can click here 

 to go to the homepage and click 'join this group'.
We'll mail you as soon as possible. Hope to meet you there  you soon.

"Give away" season?

Is there such a thing in blogland? Because I seem to see several all the time. And I might add: beautifull fabrics could be going your way, allthough I'ld rather having them going my way :-)).

But if so many quilters are this generous, the least I can do is give you their blog adress.

Here we go:
 Portobella Pixie is having a fabric give-away, but don't forget to look at the previous post too.

Tammy Whelan is ging away a fantastic bundle of FQ's, and when you winn, you'll get patterns too while you have to wait for the fabrics to come in the shops, woww, talking about brand new fabric :-))

And Kay Mackenzie is having a 'different' and very interesting give away, read about it on her blog.

At The Faerie Whisperer it's all about pumpkins

And last, but surely not least: Bluebird Quilts.

Just look at all those great prices and fabrics, makes a girl drooling LOL.

Have fun visiting these sites and good luck!

Autumn

Allthough the weather still is beautifull, autumn is really 'in the air' now and I like it :-)). So it is about time to change the decoraton in the livingroom.
I' ve put some real marrows, chestnuts and walnuts on a try and the windowsill and combined them with some resin marrows, with mice crawling in and out LOL.

Of course my witch was welcome too.I didn't make those, but did paint them , mostly with drybrushing. It's a great technique to build up the colors.
The witch isn't a typical 'fairytail' witch, but a very sweet lady :-)).

She does squint a bit. That was a mistake, but I like it, so left it like that :-))

New 'special' blog!!

I know what you're thinking: there are so many beautiful blogs out there, what's special about this one?
I'll tell you: it's a blog that will be used to publish free patterns from 9 designers, yep NINE! Isn't that great?
Kick-off is october 5th with the first of 9 Christmaspatterns.
You can find the ladies Under the Gum trees :-)). Now..... where did I last see my Christmas fabrics?

I won !!!!

It was almost hard to believe when I got the mail from We love quilting that I was the winner of Eleanor Burns book: Easy strip tulip.  I never win , OK, hardly ever win something LOL. And I think it's special that I, from Holland, won a book with tulip patterns from an American blog. The book is even signed by Eleanor and the picture of that 'event' was included. I love it!!

Of course I browsed through it immediately, couldn't wait till after dinner! And there were several tips I had never heard of before, so this book will give me a lot of fun and help. Great.

Thank you sooooo much everyone who made this give away possible and were willing to send it all the way over the Ocean :-))
A tip for you all who are reading this: pop over to the blog, it's worth while and they have am a give away each month!

PS, sorry for the dark picture, after the first the battery of the camara died on me! I'll make a new one in a day or two.

New BOM!

A couple of days ago I came across this blog: Sew much time, sew little fabric . I read the exciting news Paula will share a BOM with us and it'll be free, how cool is that? Isn't it fantastic she's another designer who shares her talent and ork with us?

I know you'll have questions, and I'll try to answer them for you
- What will the theme be? - I don't know
- How long will it run? - I don't know.
- Is it 'only' patchwork, or will there be applique and/or stitchery too? - don't know, don't know, don't know.

You guessed it: I know nothing!!!! Well, almost nothing. Just look at her other patterns and the tutorials she wrote: is that promissing or what? So I have no doubt that it'll be a wonderfull BOM, I hope it won't take long till we get to see the first block :-)).  I've put her button in the BOM-list.
Now all I have to do is find a dictionairy and search for 'hoot' , but it sounds kind of nice, so I bet it's something positive.