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

Top done!

I had this done a fortnight ago, but got distracted( again) ánd I am/was doing quite a few odd jobs around the house.

The black outer border is sewn on too, but after that, it did get too big for my wall, so no pic.

Now C has to get her bolt of batting from her attic and then we can layer/baste/pin some quilts; this one and one C made.

Squirrel!!

 I put the red/white aside, ‘cause I got bored by all those square in a square blocks. Instead I picked up the scrappy stars, my “on the go” project. But then…: squirrel!!

Something completely different, and easy to sew. The correct measurements took me a while, I found I had nót printed the template at a 100%. My printer is the most simple one available and instead of fighting the thing for that 100%, I simply drew a template on old fashioned inch paper. Faster and accurate!

I put the newest addition to the family to the test and she most certainly did not disappoint. She sews beautifully, even with the thin 60/3 Precensia thread.

I don’t think that the recipient of this project reads my blog, so this is what I’m doing:

What’ya mean different styles? LOL

And who says you can’t do 2 or 3 projects at the same time?

Stamping

 Quite a while ago, C gifted me a stamp and a inkpad for my birthday. Every now and then, especially when I needed a project `on the go`, I filled a tin with needle, thread, scissors and a pile of fabrics I stamped and cut beforehand.

Now it is stamp time again, since I`m a bit bored by making the endless amount of tedious square in a square blocks to finish my red and white Beast.

Some turned out perfectly fuzzycut

Others didn`t

But all in all

I`m enjoying myself and that is the most important thing of all!

And all I need is a big shoebox with scraps, a stamp and a inkpad….

Quilts, quilts and more quilts..

 Yesterday, C ( my partner in crime) and I went for more than an hours drive to visit the annual Guild exhibition. It has been a while, for those exhibitions are mostly small with only a couple of shops and frankly; we were dissapointed the last few times.

But now, the Guild celebrated it s 40th anniversary and they certainly lived up to the expectation!

There were gorgeous quilts I forgot to photograph….

Quilt with lovely colours…

We got ourselves in a lovely chat with a quilter and a store owner

Ate a blah breadroll because the caterer was really bad..

And we had drops of sweat running don our cleavage (yep) because it was ridiculously hot in the exhibition halls..

We had a great day!

There were special parkingspots for the royal family and parliament members. Apparently they visit the fancy next door hotel? I don’t know.

Too bad C refused to relocate her car there.