A Long Time Ago...

... I thought cross-stitch was far too difficult for me. Then I made some small Christmas chair ornments and I was hooked. This was probably my first attempt at something larger. I made it for my husband's uncle and aunt. I had never taken a digital picture of it, so we were visiting them now and I took my chance to put this one on the blog. G

Needlebooklets

We missed the Make-it-and-take-it session at quiltshop "De Sampler" in Haarlem this time, but our friend A. gave us the paperpiecing pattern and the material needed to make this needle-booklet with the new logo of "De Sampler". We hadn't seen our quilt-mate I. for some time due to illness. She was all well now and we had so much fun last night. It turned out to be quite difficult, but M. and I. finished it in two hours. It took me a bit longer, of course, having to rip out several seams, but finished it is! Thanks A.! G. (The blue one is M.'s, the pink one is I.'s, are we surprised? well, no....)

Baptism and Misfortune

Baptism. I thought the diary entry was about a baby being baptised, but it turned out to be a girl of 15.... Well, they like pink cuddly sheep too... I hope

Misfortune. This block didn't have any white in it. I thought it wasn't special enough to stand out like that and added some white. G.

Grammar Class by M.

Last one... a couple of H's... I am in quite a quilting mood this weekend. Will leave the fabrics at G. and focus on one of my UFO's... the doublesided logcabin... till our next CWDQ class.

M.

Love Letter by M.

Nearly there... block number 5. Completed on Saturday night. Love letter... had to use pink. And my favourite fabric... this week it is...

M.

John Morgan by M.

Took me a long time deciding on the colours for this one. Looked at nearly all blues in our box. I wanted to use two similar fabrics that look the same from a distance for the background colours and a third colour for the star. Finally decided on these three... looks a bit 'Confederate Delft' to me. By now it was Saturday night.

M.

A Day At The Fair by M.

A merry day at the fair... completed on Saturday morning... couple of hours before our ballet performance... Number 3... watch the blue fabric. It is new and I absolutely love it!

M.

Baptism by M.

Pretty, flowery pink...

M.

Misfortunes by M.

'Misfortunes' marks the start of my Civil War Diary Quilt weekend. I managed to finish 6 blocks. Hold on tight...and watch the magic appear right before your eyes.
M.

Civil War Diary Quilt - Homework G.

John Morgan

Love Letter

A Day at the Fair

Grammar Class

I decided to start the paper-piecing blocks of our homework first and leave the fun blocks for last. Just a hint for M. and I.: I cut out strips of 3,5x1,5 inch for the legs of the H's and 1,5x1,5 inch squares for the pieces inbetween. It worked perfectly. G.

The "Very Easy" Evening Dress

Last week I finished the evening dress for my baby sister's wedding this summer. It was supposed to be a dress for my Mom. She wanted to make it for my other sister's wedding last September. I offered to help her. As the pattern was a "very easy Vogue", I thought we would be able to do it without any problems.... Well, there was nothing very easy about the whole thing. The pleats were very difficult. the shoulderbands didn't stay up and the whole dress was a disaster. My mom threw it in a corner and bought a great dress for the occasion. I just couldn't admit defeat and took the dress to my sewing-class. There my teacher changed the pattern, I picked out a number of seams and the zipper (again and again), and here's the result. G.

Bike-key

I've almost lost the key to my bike several times, so I decided to make it stand out a bit more. G.

Civil War Diary Class - January

Our class has been very busy the last month. These are all our finished blocks.

M.'s blocks on display.

The top 7 are mine. G.

Quilt Exhibition at Fries Museum - Part Two

Quilt Exhibition at Fries Museum - Part One

Pictures for now... story later...

Parlor Activities by M.

Parlor Activities... love the title... sounds like rustling skirts, southern belles drinking tea...
Last of the lot - next paperpiece patterns released coming Tuesday ;-)

M.

Games, Music and Knitting by M.

G. and I have been quite productive this past month - 7 new blocks in all. I made this one while I had a virus in both eyes and could not see very clearly. At the time I made it, I was absolutely convinced all corners matched up perfectly.

M.

Catching Up - Sad and Lonely Days by M.

Book-marker

During the holidays the kids made their own book-marker (their first cross stitch experience). G.

Skirt

This was the last of the 'stoffenspectakel' fabrics for the girls. G.

Little Miss T.'s Purple Skirt

I had picked out a purple-ish fabric for a skirt for little Miss T., but it wasn't purple enough, she wanted this one... Well, her wish is my command, so I've made this pleated skirt (the same one that was M. and my first project on clothes making). Her big sister didn't think it was fair that I had made another skirt for little Miss T. so now I'm using the other fabric for a simple skirt for her.... (one of the Bizz Kids one-hour projects!) G.

Sad and Lonely Days

Don't worry about the title... my days are far from sad and lonely, it's only the name of this Civil War Diary Quilt block. M. and I made it together, which was a very good thing, because it wasn't easy to figure out. I'm afraid we're overdoing it a bit, this month, so I made M. take all our fabric with her and I can't make another one! G.