Catching up...

October was obviously a busy month! Shopping days with BakingDD and with CutyPie, BakingDD' s birthday, an "oma-day-care-and -cuddle day etc....no time for blogging.

Luckily there was  hobby time.

I finished knitting BakingDD 's long winterscarf

Added her OWN special label, since she's so fond of the UK. It took me all day to figure out how to make the label in Word. I used some iron on stuff and needed a mirror image. Little did I know I could simply set my printer on " mirror-image"...*sigh*...live and learn!

I also started to crochet a nativity set, suitable for tiny fingers to play with.

Still need a manger, camel, some sheep and an angel. I'm thinking about a stable..

I found the (free) pattern here: http://mispequicosas.blogspot.nl/2014/12/pesebre-amigurumi-patron-navidad.html It s in spanish, but after an email I got the english version.

The animal pattern was bought at www.echtstudio.nl.  

I saved the best "catching up news" for last: late March there will be another grandchild, if all goes well.CutyPie  will be a big sister!!! This gran will have to make another playquilt😀 and playquilts last for years; BakingDD pulled out the one I sewed when I was pregnant with my first ( the very first I ever made, before even knowing it was a quilt), to play with  CutyPie who's growing up fást!

Bloglist....

Another thing that suddenly disappeared is the bloglist in my sidebar. I didn't do anything with the blogsettings and still....gone!The gnomes took over my laptop I guess.
I tried to restore it but it could be that a blog is missing. Nothing personal, I just couldn't remember them all......

Lost and found!

A few weeks ago I missplaced my " quilting " specs. It 's an old model, nothing special,  but I use it for watching tv ( looking through the glasses) and quilting ( looking underneath, since I'm nearsighted and don ' t need any specs within short distances) 

I missed them! Now it was either quilt and miss my fav tv series, or watch and don't quilt.

Then I bent a needle, broke another and couldn't find the Roxanne needles I was sure I had. Somewhere.....

To top it off, I lost my fav Stamps watch. Just an empty clip on the wristband....

Yesterday I suddenly found my specs AND my needles. I guess they wandered off together ...

And, the watch re-appeared, hidden in the sofa cushions, where I looked 100 times.....

Now I DO believe there are little gnomes hiding somewhere in my house......

Monday......

Old love never dies....

Birthdays of DH and I are both in february. This year we got a combined present from our children and last saturday it was finally time to cash in...
We spent the most wonderfull day driving a 2CV Citroën, the one and only car I ever fell in love with. We used to drive one for more than 10 years, long time ago. My great love was a edition called "charleston"

 When I got pregnant with BikerSon, the car had to go. Not the safest one to transport children and it was getting old and weary too. I cried when DH drove it to the garage to trade it in for a familycar...
Saturday we got a "Dolly"edition! Beautifully restored to her (yes, it's a she) former glory.

 We also got a lovely picknick basket which was more than enough to last a day (or more!), a tablecloth, napkins, picknick blanket, coffee, tea, cold drinks etc etc

 Driving for me is a way to go from A to B. Nothing I like or dislike, just getting around. But not in this car!
I drove all day through woods, fields, villages,  recognizing all her buttons, clutch handle, the SOUND of her engine, the SMELL...OMG I LOVED EVERY SECOND!! smiling, loving it all the way.
And now I want to have one again. I'm ready to break the bank and spent my savings if it weren't that we don't have a garage to stall her safely for the years to come.
But without a doubt: this was the best birthday present ever!
( sadly Blogger decided to flip all the pictures i took :( and no one wants to look at 5 flipped pics..especially 5 flipped ones of a car hahaha)

Hot ☀️☀️

Funny how things go.....last week research showed that the summer of 2016 was " dissapointing" Too cold and too wet. This week it is HOT. Temperature 30C and more. So today 's newsarticle was that this summer is in the top 10 of hottest summers ever.....

Now what to do when temps are rising? You go to church! Not to worship, but to go to a quiltshow..

The building is no longer in use as a catholic church and the Dutch guild held it s annual show there. Plus was ,that is was pleasantly cool inside!

What great effect to paint around a door😀

Now a corner to chat, once a place where babies were baptised.....

The burial place of Engelbert II van Nassau. Somehow related to our king...

But today it all was decor to quilts and quiltshops.

I did not take that many pic's;compared to Birmingham it is a very small show.....yes I m spoiled...

One in particular caught my eye. No patchwork, hardly any colour

It s just stitches! What a great way to pratice machine skills e.g. Perhaps it was that one red bow that did it:)

After the show C and I had a drink in the shade of a giant chesnut tree and then drove to a nearby quiltshop where they had refreshments, soup a great garden and SALE 👍🏻👍🏻

We got " incomplete" moda jellyrolls for an absolute bottom price. The incompleteness ( is that even a word?) meant that no all strips were the same width. Some smaller, some wider. Who cares? It s cheap fabric!!

I also couldn't resist some grey and white. Perfect with red!

Home....

....after a 3 week roadtrip through the UK, together with DH and youngest daughter. We rented a campervan and just took of. What a lovely country Britain is! Nice friendly people, beautifull scenery, narrow roads, quaint villages and modern cities...it s all there.

Such a change after years of going to France or Italy. We drove from Brighton to Cardiff, from the Cotwolds to the Peakdistrict and Lakedistrict to the Lowlands of Scotland. Saw Stonehenge, Hadrian s Wall,

 the Cerne Giant 

and the Durdle door. 

Went to the see where Broadchurch season 3 was filmed, visited the Dr Who experience and walked along the cliffs with DD. 

On our way we payed a visit to Pemberly, home of mr Darcy ( he was not at home unfortunately)

 and missed Downton Abbey by a few miles.....but we did see Blechtly park where the Enigma code was cracked. 

3 weeks wasn t enough. Not by far! So we must go back another year, another summer.....

See more of Scotland 

And enjoy another pint in the local pub

Ofcourse I missed CutyPie! She growing too fast, eating breadcrusts and theething all of a sudden. She s 6 months now and pulled a bit of a lip when she saw me again haha! Didn t know who I was anymore!  We will get re aqainted again. Her other gran ,who takes care of her every thursday, is on holiday now, so I'm on call for 2 thursdays in a row! Cuddling and playing, quilting during naptime....that sounds like a plan to me!

Check!

Not much of summer here. Still rainy and an occasional patch of sunshine.
So.....I cleaned up the garden when it was dry, cleaned the kitchen (overdue) and tidied my wardrobe.
Then there was no reason left to procastnate (ah well, 2 computergames..and a book to finish) ,all chores checked of my list...

The Farmer's Wife! Still not quite sure, but I ran out of options. The white with red dots? Not enough fabric:( Red with white dots? Same story....
So....with most votes of family and friends

 CHECKS!!

Note my "A" in the bottom right corner :)

After struggling with massive pieces of fabric and batting ,Thunderbird C came to the rescue and helped layering and pinning.

And now it can be quilted which, probably, will take forever to do...

Tomorrow i'll make a start; gran daycare duties to perform, so after cuddling and playing CutyPie will need to sleep and gran can quilt.

It has been ages since I actually quilted, so it took some time to gather the supplies. Sorted and cleaned the quiltroom while I was searching for threads and thimbles.

But: I'm ready to roll now!!

Now what?

Farmer s Wife is pieced, except for de final border. And there 's where I'm stuck...

Checks or dots????

I really can t decide....

Still here!

Only a week between me and my holiday! Lots of cleaning to do at work and loads of forms to fill in order to close properly. I'm dragging myself from day to day this week, that's for sure! But after this there will be SEVEN weeks of doing what I want to do instead of what work wants me to do!

Although I was not busy blogging, I did spent my time well. Made a SuperHero doll for Cutypie that turned out quite nice and (almost) finished piecing the Farmer s Wife.

And.....I won a book!

It has the happiest children's quilts ever and each quilt has it's own softie. A must-have if you ask me, for anyone with kids in their vicinity. It has a cd with all templates and the instructions are rather easy to follow

 I made this doll and appliqued a superman logo on het belly and cape with her letter J instead of the original S (sorry for the flipped photo)

And then there were "days out" One of them lead me to the roof of the St Jan cathedral (medieval) in the nearby town. This year they put scaffolding up so you could walk alongside the roof to see the magnificent statues up close.

 

 

Not all was bright and happy though...Yesterday our car kind of died and when we discussed what to do, my eye was caugth by this

 My 30 year old hedges are infected and dying! The F word came to mind again...
While I m writing this post I noticed my sign, hanging on for dear life on it's nail

 

Right on point: keep calm and carry on a bit crooked....

Sad......

For quite a while I read the blog of mamacjt. She loves colour, never makes something with civil war fabrics, or muted ones ( I call them "tea-fabrics" ugh) and she has an incredible talent for drawing. Whenever I see her designs, it brings a smile to my face. I pinned a lot of her quilts, mug rugs and pincushions. A link to her blog is in my sidebar and as you can see the last blogpost has the title " sad news" . I was devistated to read that mamacjt or Carol has passed.
I can t get it out of my mind.....

Where was I..?

Too long since the last blogpost, so time to catch up!
2 Weeks ago, Quilting DD, Sil and I went to the big Jheronimus Bosch exhibition. This medieval painter lived and worked in 's-Hertogenbosch and most of his still existing painting were to be seen at the local museum. Granddaughter was left in the capable hands of her opa....
My absolute fave was "the haystack"

....but all the paintings were absolutely worth while! Colour, lots of details and they all looked as if they were painted yesterday.

One week later I had another opportunity to cuddle CutyPie, when C and I picked Quilting DD up to go to a Quiltmarket/exhibition!

These are the only pics I took (and yep, 2 are sideways...)
We had a nice day; it had been too long since the 3 of us went out together!

And where was I quiltwise?
All one hundred and eleven Farmer'sWife blocks are DONE! Again it turned out a little brighter than I intended, guess i just can't seem to tone things down....( it is brighter in real life!)

 The authore repeated herself 2 times:

 Funny, since she specificly states, that she didn't "want to play favorites" (when she came a block short after putting the blocks on point) "so I added another block"
Nope, you didn't :)

I made only one and instead of the number 2, I made an Ohio Star, since that was the very first block I ever pieced

And the other duplicate I replaced with a signature block....sort of

Blocks with a slight variation that I didn't mind:

 

These 3 are quite the same if you take a closer look:)

 So now the task of (hand)sewing them all together starts and it will take as much time as sewing the blocks, I guess....