Het is alweer zondag wat vliegt de tijd toch snel. Een heel drukke week gehad met weinig "vrije" tijd maar ik ben er uiteindelijk toch in geslaagd om de blokken van mijn reproductie quilt aan elkaar te zetten en ben wel blij met het resultaat. Toen ik aan het spelen was met de stofjes voor de border riepen die verzamelde blokken zo luid "wij willen een appliqué border eerst"! Hebben jullie dat ook dat je quilt of stofjes met je praten? :-))

Dus nu maar zoeken naar een geschikt motief voor een appliqué border. Het enige nadeel is natuurlijk dat dit terug een quilt wordt van lange duur :-((. Ik hoop toch hem dit jaar nog helemaal af te krijgen - zien of het lukt.

Time flies when you're having fun! Not that I had that much fun last week - just overly busy with everything and nothing. I did finally manage to join all the blocks in my reproduction quilt thinking, finally I am going to have a quilt that is not too large and will be finished quite soon. However, as I was auditioning fabric for the border(s) my blocks suddenly spoke out loud and clear “we want an appliqué border”! Does this happen to you sometimes?

Ok I think I will go ahead and look for a suitable pattern for this appliqué border. I will have to accept the fact that once again I am working on a quilt that will take time and more time to get it finished. I am hoping for the end of the year
time will tell.

Herewith a photo of the joined blocks. I am actually quite pleased with the setting, by the look on his face so is my quilt inspector.

Onze eerste prachtige lentedag - dus niet quilten vandaag maar gezellig in de tuin werken. Gisteren zijn wij naar een tuincentra geweest en hadden enkele fleurige lentebloemen gekocht alsook enkele nieuwe plantjes voor mijn keukenraam. Laat de zon maar schijnen want er is nog heel veel werk in de tuin.
groetjes
Jenny

Since we had our first beautiful spring day today quilting time has been postponed and I worked in the garden instead. In Belgium we have to make the most of each sunny day we get. Yesterday I paid a visit to my favourite garden centre and bought some spring flowers as well as some new plants for my kitchen window. So instead of quilts I'd like to share these photo's of my new plants. As there is plenty more work in the garden I am hoping for plenty of sunny days.
regards,
Jenny

This past week I spent babysitting my grandson Ben, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but was unable to go online. However I did manage to do quite a bit of piecing and am happy to say that my challenge blocks have now been joined in 4 rows of 3 blocks each. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to join these rows and finish the top - minus the border that is. I am quite fussy in this way that I like my points and seems to be as accurate as possible this is another reason why I prefer to do all my piecing by hand - I tried machine piecing large blocks or borders before and usually spend more time ripping the seems and doing it over and over again that sometimes it's quicker to just to it by hand :-)). I probably just need more practice.

I paid a visit to the blog of the Hexagon Quilt Along group just now - I love hexagons - and from there moved on and came across the blog and website regarding the Inklingo way of printing templates onto the wrong side of your fabric. There is a demo video on the site and after watching this I was sold. This really looks like something for me, using this method I might even try and make certain blocks by machine and actually get to make some of the quilts on my wish list. I hope you enjoy the link.

As my dear mother-in-law used to say "that's all the news for today" - good night and thank you for visiting my blog.
Jenny

Eindelijk een namiddag vrij om te quilten. Na 5 uur quilten ben ik een flink deel verder geraakt met Ben zijn quilt en zal ik hopelijk mijn doel om deze tegen Pasen af te krijgen nog bereiken.
Groetjes en slaap lekker

Today I finally had the afternoon free and time to quilt. After 5 hours of quilting I managed to do quite a bit on Ben’s quilt and hopefully this way I will reach my goal of having it finished (finally) by Easter.
Good night
Jenny

Ik ben terug - I am back. It looks like sickness has hit quite a few bloggers lately - it sure hit me. I really did not have the energy to spend much time at the computer - didn't even get to do much quilting - just some piecing. Hopefully from now on I will get some more time to do some fun things again.

I did receive my book by the author An Moonen "Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Quilt" or History of the Dutch Quilt. I have been trying for years to buy her previous book which is out of print but no luck so when this new book came out I made sure to order it immediately. From the little I have read and looked at it sounds and looks fantastic.
Aan al mijn Nederlandstalige vrienden - indien je nieuwschierig bent naar het verhaal achter de quilt hier in de Nederlanden dan kan ik jullie dit boek van harte aanraden. Er staan prachtige foto's in van quilts - kledij maar ook van schilderijen enz. In één woord een boek dat in onze bib niet mag ontbreken.
groetjes en tot de volgende keer
greeting and see you soon
Jenny

Had some computer problems these last few days but here I go again.

After seeing a finished quilt on Conny's blog I orderd the pattern from Bareroots and yesterday it arrived. I am absolutely thrilled with the stitchery patterns on it.
I spent quite a bit of time quilting on Ben's quilt. Really want to finish it by Easter, and played with the challenge blocks to find a way to put them together. I do not want to add sashing, just join the different blocks. I saw a quilt like it once and loved it - very scrappy and still lovely. I am still wondering as wether to add a border (plain) to it or just bind it. Your ideas are always welcome.

This afternoon was spent washing, drying and ironing fabric. I hadn't bought fabric for quite a while but in January and February I made up for it :-)) - just could not resist all these lovely bargains calling out to me. I always wash my fabrics before use especially to make sure that there are no "bleeders" in between. I would hate spending all that time making blocks and quilts only to have them ruined one day by a fabric that bleeds.

November last year 4 ladies in our little group decided to make the same quilt - a small wallhanging only 40cm x 50cm (approx. 15" x 19")- it is the first time we have done this as we never work from a pattern and mostly make up our own design. Well there has to be a first time for everything and although the basic pattern is the same the results are so different. I made mine as a present for a person very dear to me in "her colours". I was very lucky to be able to use all fabric from my stash - some of the pieces in my stash only being 8" x 8". Goes to show how a little can go a long way.
When the wallhanging was finished I found it a bit "dull" (see photo above) so after taking the workshop on fabric painting with paintsticks etc. I decided to be brave and used some gold in the centre of the large flower - yuk it looked as if I had messed something on my poor flower. What now - I searched webshots for some photo's of Lilies - this flower is meant to be just that - and found some beautiful shots. One of them had the gold centre and then spots of "gold" running from the centre of the flower and splashed all over the leaves. I then remembered having been given a box full of beads from someone who used to make decorations out with them. So out came the box and there I found these tiny golden green beads. OK - in for a penny in for a pound. Got some fabric glue, a pin and a toothpick and glued each little pearl on to the fabric one by one. This is the result and I would love to hear your reactions. I haven't the faintest idea whether this person will like this or not and am nervous about giving it to her so I am anxiously awaiting your verdict!

The pattern comes from the May/June'98 issue of the Quiltmaker - an American magazine