Ups and downs

 All I did during summer was embroider lost and found patterns from the late 70’s. Must remember to take pictures of those later..

Since a week or 2, I finally started quilting again on the Ups and Downs quilt. So named for it has had lots of ups and downs during sewing ánd quilting with a bamboo batting that’s bearding like mad, but I have decided that it is what it is..

Middle part is all done now, so I must decide what to do with the borders next.

Since the weather is very nice for the time of year I also decided to make daily walks. Downloaded an app that keeps track and gives me virtual medals when I reach certain goals like “ you walked 3 times in a row yeey” 😬 At least it makes me go out the door every day; I don’t want an app tell me that I failed LOL

Since I’ve seen my own neighbourhood, I sometimes take the car to go to another city/town to walk there:less boring than same old same old.

And you learn something along the way! This is the only surviving “mount” ( called “redoute”) of 7, with room for a canon and an armed soldier to fight the Belgians if they would come to attack. They never did btw….haha

And a castle in a huge park with not a soul in sight.. 

Now where will I wander tomorrow?

Sidewalk garden

 About a year ago, the town council decided to get rid of the existing trees in my street and replace them with new ones. The old trees weren’t exactly thriving, so new plantholes were digged, filled with richer earth and new trees were planted. The plantholes however, were twice as big as before ( why ???) and we were stuck with basically a dog and cat toilet next to our car ‘s parking spot.

My neighbour, who loves to garden, was gifted a bag of seeds and we quickly decided to toss loads around the tree.

And what a surprise this turned out to be!

Everytime we thought the flowers were done as they withered, new ones with new colours appeared! 

We had mainly yellow for a while, then all was blue, white, pink and now we have these ( 

We even grew 2 buddleia’s LOL

For comparison: this his how the other plantholes look

and this is ours..

It s a gift that keeps on giving😄😄🥰

Summer of `24

 Now what did I do since May?

Visited a museum to look at some old paintings and such..

Got lost in a big city…

It rained a lot..

Went to another museum that reminded me how we looked like in the 70`s ánd that everything was orange in our house..

Threw seeds on a barren piece of soil with my neighbour and was amazed by the results…

Hunted for and caught some dinosaurs with the grandgirls

And we found the tallest tree in the vicinity.

Finally, the grandgirls painted `happy stones` and decorated the backdrop entrance.( flipped picture, one should tilt your head to the right)

There was some patchwork and embroidery activity as well, but that`s something for another post..

On the road again

 Yesterday C and I went to the beautiful city of Amersfoort, to visit a quilt exhibition in the local St Joris kerk. 

Just a few of the quilts we saw..

                                                        

                                                         

We were especially in awe about the ( hand) quilting. Such small, regular stitches, amazing!

                                     

The blocks in the first picture were no bigger than a cm2. 

I didn’t take that much pics; C and I just enjoyed and admired the craftsmanship of these quilters.

We walked around in the city too, had a coffee in the morning and a fresh roll in the afternoon.

If you want too see all of the quilts, visit the insta of @juudsquilts, she made several video’s.

Spring!

 Two days with family outings! One to the Waterloopbos, where engineers once tested the famous Dutch waterworks in real life on a small scale and 2 days later a trip to the biggest Dutch castle, castle de Haar with the oldest grandgirls

Loved both days, out in the forest and the castle grounds surrounded by loved ones and enjoying the fresh greens of spring. 

Revival

I had not-one-of-my-best winters. I will spare the details, but now spring is here, garden is starting to bloom and I emerge once more.😜

I paused quilting on the black/white/grey quilt that is appropriately called the “ ups and downs “ quilt, because the excess bearding of the bamboo batting drives me nuts and because my hands started to act up. Time for a break.

While browsing my files, I came across the “ Smitten” quilt pattern and it called my name!

Ofcourse the pattern had templates but it was recommended to get Marti Michelle’s set H and they are just the thing for this quilt.

There are large hexagons and hexagons containing 3 small ones…

Fun, but difficult to do for I find it hard to choose the right fabrics, and already made some blocks that I ditched later one. But that doesn’t matter, I like the process so far

Most, if not all, quilters that made this quilt, sew it using the English paperpiecing technique. Tried that, but I see no point in cutting a gazillion paper hexies, glueing the fabric on and get the paper out again later on. English paperpiecing séwing is a nono for me too. Just hate it. I’ll get there with old fashioned patchwork techniques, that never failed me so far