It's that time of year again..

The time with grey skies and less daylight, days with less energy and still the same workload, holiday season with presents to buy and things to do.
Wintertime is just not for me although I can't complain about weather conditions overall. No snow and ice yet, thank you very much!!

DD finally sent some pics of our trip to Amsterdam a few weeks back. C, Baking DD and yours truly went to the Rijksmuseum. It had been a very long time since I was there so high time for a renewed visit.
We saw the wellknown Dutch masters, old and new

But this made the biggest impression....

We admired happier displays too....remember we have a wedding coming up? Check out these weddingdresses!

 

 After hours of strolling past every single item, DD decided it was shoppingtime. She still had energy to goof around :)

 The quiltshop however was allready closed....

I guess another trip to Amsterdam needs to be scheduled!

Quiltshow..

I had a week off; autumn-break. I planned a quiet week but that's not really how it went. A day with Baking DD, celebrating her birthday (24, yeey!), a day with C and Quilting DD at the European Quilt Championship, followed by a day in Amsterdam visiting  the Rijksmuseum.
But first the quilty stuff!
Pictures!!! Just random quilts that caught my eye, no names of quilters ....

 ,,inspired by Freddy Moran; no wonder it appealed to me :)

 detail...

 The theme was "Dutch Masters" Do you recognize van Gogh???

 On the bucketlist: handquilt a whole cloth

 

 Dutch chintz fabric..

 Delft blue..

 Another "I want to make"

 And a GIANT project from the Belgian Guild: make a quilt 20x20 and we will add it. (in short)

 The best of show. The dark clock was transparant. Beautifully made but...I don't get the award, sorry..

 DD, C and I have been visiting every year for as long as I remember. This will be our last visit. The show moves to Maastricht, the most southern corner of the Netherlands.
To be honest; not worth the drive. We missed several booths, and overall we don't get inspired anymore. Are we spoiled with millions of quilts we can see online? Could be, but it's more than that.
We miss demo's of that one new technique with perhaps that one new ruler. We miss notions! Ah, the Craft connection booth in Birmingham with just tools, tools and tools.
We want specialized booths with new things e.g show us that one ruler, tell us why that particular needle is the best, how does that sewing technique works etc. Hard to explain what Birmingham has that, what we miss here.

Perhaps it is what we see around us: quilters are not interested in the how and why, but want ready-to-sew.( and follow every hype that goes around) Questions on messageboards that amaze me like:" who can present me a snowball-block pattern". " have a 10" ohio star, but I need a 15", who has that pattern?"Are you kiddin' me?? Can no-one DRAW a pattern anymore or, for that matter,  see the block pattern in a quilt?
Ah well, maybe I'm just too old school....

Breath in, breath out...

At work, I tried to put the deliveries into the frig too hastily. Picked up a crate, didn't see the one underneath that fell on the floor, stepped on that one and landed next to it:
  one black and blue knee with a bit less skin on it.

 I limped to bed later that day and woke up with a nasty mosquito bite on the other leg. It quickly became a big,red, hot, itchy, painfull "disk".

I noticed the joint in my pinky finger was sore. Arthitis of some kind. Red, hot, painfull, not able to bend. My Mum had it too. Doctor's advice: stop whatever you're doing craft/sew/quilt wise. That's the best thing. (not going to happen, love)

Next day, sat in a chair reaching for something that was out of reach. I still tried but the wood inside the armrest was stronger than my ribcage: the feel and sound of a "crack" and one badly bruised rib.
Painkillers don't really work and just breathing is a challenge.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Apples...

Okay, let's do an update on my whereabouts:)
I'm having a bit of a hard time adjusting to "work-mode". Falling asleep, although tired, is more like hours of tossing and turning and the bags under my eyes in the morning are there to stay, no matter whatever make-up plan I come up with.
Ah well, i will probably "get in the groove" again just before daylight saving time!

Although I started quilting the Midnight, I made little to no progress. That too, will come back, I'm sure.

September here is warm, even hot. While August was mostly grey and wet,but the sun came back for an encore! Summer dresses are out of the closet again!
Next week temps will drop again, so let's enjoy while it lasts..

I did spent a day doing something quilty, as I drove  to Quilting DD to help layering and basting a finished quilttop she made. And since my tiny appletree came up with a crate ful of apples I decide to bake and bring an applepie. That's very a-typical of me; I hate baking and cooking and, to be honest, my last " baking a pie"attempts were pathetic. But i felt convidend and look what I baked!!!

It was delicious and DD and I nearly ate it all :)(breakfast and lunch)

I also made apple compôte or in Dutch "appelmoes", here in progress

It all turned out só good that yesterday...

Tadááá!! and there are still enough apples left for more....
Maybe I should sew an apple miniquilt as well. Already found a pattern. There must be some fysical (sewing) exersize after eating TWO pies LOL

Let there be light!

There's a rail with spotlights on my designwall and one above my fabric dresser. There's no light above the area where I do my cutting. So a trip to Ikea was in order to get another rail. DH immediately got the drill to install it :)

Baking DD and I thought it was funny when the drill got stuck in the ceiling, DH did not agree...

 a few swearwords moments later, there was light!

 

Now I have to cut something so I can tell if it's all the way i want it and then DH will complete it all to be nice and neat.. Yeey!

On the way to Ikea I took Sven in for the much needed needle adjustments and he needs to be serviced as well. Sewingmachine doctor said it was very busy and that they were a bit understaffed, so fingers crossed I can pick him up again on tuesday. (on tuesdays the Husqvarna man is at the shop)

 

Tomorrow duty calls again and it's back to work after 7 weeks of free time.

sigh

i'd better start looking where I left my company shirt and apron

no more guessing!

..'cause now I KNOW that 'lipstick" and "poppy" are more vibrant than my usual "red"

 and "candy green" is really green-ish instead of blue-ish (it really looked blue on the pc screen)

and I cán find the right shade of bright blue

Only problem I now have is choosing a FEW colours. And not even all the colours are on this chart (august brought even more shades to the Kona range)
Who said a quilter's life was easy???

The bliss of online shopping :(

There are quilts in my head that need to come out and they involve solid fabrics! Thing is that there are hard to come by here, (I want Kona Cotton)far more expensive than in e.g. the US ánd colour choosing is tricky when all you have is a pc screen..
I searched online for a Kona colour card (no Dutch shops found) and finally found one for a reasonable price in....Germany.
A couple of days after ordering i got an email confirming my purchase. The waiting began. More than a week later (what?!) I got another mail, saying it was sent. It took that long to process my order?? And how much time will have to pass untill the Deutsche Post will deliver it?

When i get the card, I can make sensible colour decisions and make myself a nice palette. Okay, that sounds a little optimistic, but at least it'll give me a better idea of what a colour looks like in real life.I hope.

Then I have to order that palette of fq's/ half a yard. I am a Fabric Shack costumer and am very satisfied with their service, but...they are in the US and it'll take at least 10 days from there to here.

I bet that I'll get all my stuff when summerholiday is over and I'll have to go back to work again :(

 

 

 

(and I still haven't recieved DH new shaving gear that i ordered from a DUTCH company...Sigh)
Update: the shaving stuff company just let me know that the type I wanted is no longer available and do i want my money back?. It took an email saying it was sent(??) 2 weeks of waiting, and an email from me asking what kept my order so long.. jeezzz...

Clover mesh transfer canvas review

Now that's a mouthfull for a title!
Quilting DD and I both bought the mesh thing in Birmingham last year. We saw a demonstration earlier and it seemed a very handy addition to the notion department.
When quilting the Midnight quilt, I finally came round using it.

It's a sheet of plastic tule, to transfer a quilting motif onto the fabric/quilt. I scribbled something on the quilt's template

 Put the mesh on top and , with a PERMANENT marker, went over the lines, so the design is now on the mesh. So far so good, only thing is that your pen shifts in the holes of the mesh, so your lines are a bit wobbly. It has to be a permanent marker because..a. you don't want to smear your hands while drawing and b. you absolutely don't want to smear your quilt in the next step!!!

Next, put the mesh on your quilt where you want the design. Ah...don't use a black marker when the area is black fabric!

 I got over the lines again with my white sewline pencil. Again, a bit wobbly

 ....corrected the lines afterwards

......and quilted

Since the design was on the mesh for 2 days, it wouldn't come off. It's really permanent, so the mesh can omly be used a couple of times untill it's "full".

I'm not very enthusiastic about it and I don't think it's worth the cost. You better use a piece of cheap tule which does the trick as well....

and sew on..

Sven , the Husqvarna, hasn't stopped. The minor adjustments that were made are still sufficient to keep on going. Woopwoop!!
I needed a new bag, and still had a pattern laying aroud from http://www.michellepatterns.com/ I made things before from her patterns and they are always very clear, with pics for every step.

 2 pockets on the outside, 4 inside

 The lines are on the picture, not on the fabric. It's  polkadotted curtain fabric from Ikea, in solid blue, not with blurred wavy lines.

 Adjustable strap!

And I inserted a plastic bottom (placemats cut up) that were put in places with metal "feet" Also added a snap for closure.
The lining is a red with big white polkadots; what else is new.....

It's roomy, comfy, polkadotted and I love it. Even Baking DD, who thinks all selfsewn bags are yuk and only for silly seniors (like me) likes it. She DOES want one in blue broad stripes (have that fabric ready for her) but she won't take the effort of sewing it (with my assistence :)herself. She will miss out then!

I finally layered the Midnight at the Oasis quilt and made the first painstaking quilting stitches. Ugh, all those tiny patches with loads of seams.

One stitch at the time I guess..