And the 5 winners are ... Rudolf and Christmas Wish

As promised, I am going to announce the winners. I was very happy with all your comments and feel blessed with so many good friends that I have met over the past year. As said before, I added some people to my list, who didn't leave behind a comment, but who do visit my blog and email me regularly, such as my parents, one of my sisters and my sister-in-law (((O:

So here is Laura 'grabbing' into the bowl ...

and picking the following names:

If you can't read the names on the picture, the winners are: Laurie, Satu, Natima, Francis and Maria (O: Sorry I can't give you the links to the blogs, but my computer is not doing what I want it to do and is constantly breaking off.

Laurie, you are the first one to choose from the giveaways, then come Satu, Natima, Francis and Maria. I will email the 'left overs' as soon as the first, second etc. has made her choice.

Congratulations!

On Thursday we had our third Quilting Bee. Look at the lovely project Mai made with us! It is Rudolf. Isn't he cute (O: It was really fun making him and I hope to make some more!

And last but not least, my finished Christmas Wish, which I have finished thanks to Melanie and Karen. This one will travell to the United States I hope this week. I am so bad at getting things posted, since the post office moved away )o:

I once again want to ask your attention for the Dromenquilts in my previous post. Six kind ladies UPDATE 10 LADIES !!! MAKE THAT 11!!! from all over the world have already volunteered to make one or two blocks. Please join this good cause! Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio has donated fabric for the quilts, which I will send to you as soon as I receive it.

Next week I will tell you about my parcel that I received 4 months later and some other projects I finished.

No quote today, because my computer is really freaking me out ...

This and that and a European Virtual Quilting Bee

Today we had a beautiful sunny day. And of course I forgot to take the photos for this post when it was nice and bright. So, sorry about the pictures. The colors aren't what they should be.

Here is my fourth block of Leanne's House, that I am doing together with Jutta. Please go over to her blog and have a look at her Leanne's House block and ... the lovely Autumn stitchery she made for her Stitcher's Angel!

This is my 10th block of the Web Sampler Celebration Quilt 4. I still have two more to go, but they haven't been delivered yet.

This is my 8th block of the Christmas Wish stitchery by Gail Pan. I am doing this together with Melanie, Lyn and Karen.

Lyn at Bluebird Quilts is having a lovely challenge! Three years ago she bought some Vintage Hexagon Blocks made from old worn clothings and she didn't know what to do with them.

Now she came with the lovely idea to preserve these blocks by sending 17 bloggers some of the blocks and letting them make a quilt up to 70 cm x 70 cm, which the participants are allowed to keep! I hope I will be able to join! This is so very special!

The picture was taken from Lyn's blog.

Then go have a look at the blog Block Party. Twelve women in a virtual quilting bee, sewing blocks for one another with blocks designed by some wonderful women. Please go have a look! I was thinking of starting a European Virtual Quilting Bee, to keep the shipping costs down. Is there anyone in Europe who wants to join. If so, please leave behind a comment or send me an email, so that I can start a Quilting Bee. This should be so much fun!!!

Now I need your advise. I am making an Advent calendar for Laura. I am wondering what background I should use. Plain white or the one with the Christmas trees print. The white one is nice and calm, but I think the one with the trees is happier. What do you think?

Melanie and I have decided to make a tablerunner for every season. We have started with the one for Christmas, using this pattern by Alda. Go to her blog and you will find some wonderful tutorials on the left side bar. She just posted a new one yesterday.

The fun part about this pattern is that you eventually have 80 1,5"x 1,5" bonus blocks at the end, from which we will make another quilt. Not sure yet what I will do with them.

Do you recognize the range I used for this tablerunner? It is one of my favorite Christmas ranges this year!

"Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open."

- Elmer G. Letterman

Schnibbles Cindy Lou Who, a win, post from Germany and another finish

Here is a picture of my finished Schnibbles quilt Cindy Lou Who. I don't often say this of my own work, but I think it turned our beautifully! I love the fabrics and the colors. It is too bad you can't see the binding well, but it is a different fabric again, pattern like the red one, but then purplish/pink. Laura was quite suprised that I actually finished this quilt with backing and binding. Guess she knows me, because she said: "You usually only finish the top ..."

A close-up.

A few weeks ago I won one of Dzintra's blogaversary prices. Happy Hearts, a gorgeous stitchery pattern by Hugs 'n kisses. Thank you my dear friend Dzintra for letting me win this wonderful stitchery!!! It is going to be a very pretty stitchery quilt or maybe a nice cushion (O: I will let you know!




And look what was waiting for me on Thursday when we came home late from our visit to Laura in Amsterdam. A wonderful package from Gaby with beautiful Christmas fabrics and ribbon, a sweet pincushion that I will put next to me on the sofa where I stitch almost every night, and a lovely pin (click on the photo and look at the top left corner). Also have a look at the lovely tag Gaby made for me and the card she added with a very dear message.
Thank you so very much, dear dear Gaby (O: You know how to make a tired girl happy (((O:







And this week I also finished my Christmas Wish Quilt. The picture does not do it right at all, but I was too late to make pictures by daylight. I guess I should do it on time next time, because the weather was perfect today for taking pictures outside.



Here is my seventh block for my second Christmas Wish Quilt, which I am making together with Melanie, Lyn and Karen. Only two more blocks to go!






This week I only managed to make one block for my Sampler Celebration Quilt. The other one arrived yesterday. Now I have four more to go.

"Experience will give you the power to share

and you need the strength to care.

Wherever you go,

grow and glow."

~Bhajan~

Blocks, Schnibbles, Bracelet and Leanne's House pattern

I finished two more blocks for my Web Sampler Celebration 4 quilt. The more I make, the more fun it gets (O: I think I have 'only' six or seven more to go.

This is the block I made for Terry's quilt. The theme is 'love' and 'shabby'. I tried to make it look shabby in the borders. Can you figure it out? If you want to see more blocks other lovely quilters made, please go here.

A few weeks ago I joined 'A year of Schnibbles'. I was a bit late, but Sherri and Sinta were so kind to still let me join the fun. This is the 'Cindy Lou Who' Schnibble, by Rosie's Quilt. It is the second pattern. For this quilt I am using the range by Darlene Zimmerman for Robert Kaufman, Clothline Club: Girlfriends and Girlfriends. The fabrics are so much fun to work with.

When I looked at the pattern, I thought it would be a quick one. No way. Lots of cutting and sewing corners. I hope to get the top finished tommorow. It is lots of fun to make!

Here is my next stitchery for the Christmas Wish stitchery quilt. Not a very sharp picture, but I guess most of you know what it looks like. It is lots of fun to make this together with Melanie, Karen and Lyn. Very motivating. I think I might have stopped, if I weren't doing this together with them.

And look what lovely Lyn at Bluebird Quilts send me!!! She told me she was having classes from Leanne Beasley, Rosalie Quinlan and Melly and I told her how I wished I could be there. If you look closely, you can see that Leanne signed it and on the inside Rosalie and Melly signed it! Isn't that just wonderful (O: I told Lyn that when she comes to the Netherlands next year, she will have to sign it too, since she is making and selling her own designs too! Please have a look here.

Thank you so much, Lyn! You are such a darling, to think of me like this.

Please go over to Lyn and send her a comment. She was in the hospital last week with health problems. Luckily she is back home again. More tests will be done next week.

And look what one of my students gave me last week. His mother makes and sells beautiful jewelry. I asked 'my student' to make me a pink bracelet. Now isn't this just gorgeous!!! And when the heart and label touch each other, it makes a wonderful sound.

Detail:

"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together."

- Vesta M. Kelly

Sampler blocks, present and my first quilting bee

This week I finished two more blocks for my Web Sampler Celebration 4 quilt. I have difficulties with all these triangles and making blocks the same size. I guess the more I practice, the better it will get. So at the end of the 12 blocks I should be an expert...



Another Christmas Wish Stitchery finish. And as I said before it is fun to make it for the second time (O:


A few weeks ago I won this beautiful appliqué quilt at lovely Shari's Mumsyblossom's World. She got it at U-Chus and thought it was time to 'share the love'. I was so happy when I saw this, since it fits perfectly in my working room, where I work with lower school children. The colors are even more beautiful in real! This is a close up:

This is the whole quilt:

Thank you so much Shari, for letting me win this beautiful quilt!!!

Ah, and this week I went to my first Quilting Bee ever. It was organized by dear Marie-Jozé at Handmade by Mai, who did a wonderful preparation for the morning! Look at the gorgeous little pin cushion we got to make. And I was even able to start a second one in a different version. Marie-Jozé asked her son to drink lots and lots of milk over the past few weeks, so that we would have enough caps to make these gorgeous pin cushions. Thank you, Marie-Jozé for this wonderful morning and thank you too Mathilda, for 'lending' us the space. I look forward to next month!

It was also great to finally meet Marie-Jozé after 10 months of blogging and emailing. It was about time, since we do not live too far apart from each others and Marie-Jozé works only about 10 minutes away from where I live. Lucky I get to see her more frequently now!

And here are 18 fat quarters of the Santa Town range. I will be making a quilt for Laura. I will first have to work out the blocks according to this pattern and then I can finally start.

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Another finish, my Christmas Wish and a sneak peek

This week my dear friend from the States called me. It was great hearing her voice again. She became grandmother for the second time and will have another grandchild next year in May.

This is the wallhanging I made for her second grandchild. I still have to finish the parts where they can hang it up on, but I am waiting for buttons from the UK, which still have not arrived. The colors are brighter than shown on the picture.

Here is the second part of my Christmas Wish. I made borders with a creme colored fabric that has a silver glitter pattern on it. It fits to it very well. You don't see the glitters on this picture, but you might see it on the next one. I think the green border suits the top best and the binding will be in the same fabric.

The glitter is still hard to see /O:

And here is block 2 of the Gail Pan's Christmas Wish that I am trying to finish together with Melanie, Lyn and Karen. Even though I'm making it for the second time, it is once again lots of fun to make (O:

This week I started a new project. I want to finish the top by Christmas. There are 11 more blocks to go. It is the Web Sampler Celebration 4. This is block 9 by The Fat Quarter Shop.

And this is a sneak peek of a very cute project I also started this week. I have not made one for a long long time and happy to have found a gorgeous pattern. More next week, when I hope to have it finished (O:

Here is a picture of my sweet dog Bibi, keeping me company in my new sewing room. The picture is a mess, but if you only look at Bibi, it is very nice. This is Laura's room, that I work in when she is not there. It is great to have a sewing place where you can leave your stuff and start again whenever you want to, without having to get things ready again. This saves lots of time!

"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird
that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

Two finishes, one ready to finish, two starts for a finish and lovely post from Germany

I finished Laura's quilt and it is already keeping her warm in Amsterdam! The minute she saw it, she said she fell in love with it. I had a wonderful time making it, thinking of her and knowing that it would one day keep her nice and warm!

Part of the back.

I finished Gail Pan's stitchery that I won last December. A great project to make. I used some left overs from Laura's quilt. I think it suited the stitchery very well.

Here are the nine Christmas Wish blocks. I am not quite sure how I will finish the quilt. Maybe I will leave it this way.

Then I was planning to make a second Christmas Wish stitchery for a dear friend of mine, but somehow I didn't get to it. Together with Melanie, Lynn and Karen we are going to make one block each week and post it on Sunday. Sorry mine is one day early.
This time I want Noel to come in the middle of the quilt, so I will have to stitch the letters red.


And look what loveliness that arrived my home this week. It is from Gaby! She made this gorgeous little quilt and added some wonderful goodies, such as a piece of soap, two wonderful fat quarters (pink!), thread and a lavendel pouch.

And look at the lovely heart she added and the handmade card. Thank you so very much, my dear Gaby. The sad part about this post is, that Gaby send it for the second time. She send the first parcel in July, but it never arrived. I was hoping it was still coming. Unfortunately. The same thing happened with my parcel for 'Christmas in July'. I feel so bad for those people who have put so much energy in their work and the post can't be trusted.

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace."

- Buddha

Already two weeks later

I was planning to update my blog weekly, but somehow that doesn't work for me. Maybe next time.

In my last post I promised you to show you some more lovely projects dear blogger friends have made for me.
The very personal lavendel bag was made by the very talented and sweet Jos at Cybele's Patch. Jos is the first blogger I ever met and that was so nice! We could have kept on talking for hours. Soon we are planning to see each other again.
Thank you dear Jos, for this wonderful present. I look at it everyday (((O:

Isn't the back just lovely too! I turn it around every now and then, so that I can enjoy both sides.

Then a wonderful suprise came from my dear caring friend Dzintra at Queen of the Armchair. I love the fabrics and colors she used for this clever bag and the tag is so special: Friends are flowers that never fade. A wonderful present, dear Dzintra and so beautifully made!

Over the last few months I have received quite a lot of siggies. It is so much fun, to receive these from different kind of people all over the world. I am not going to show you all my siggies, since I have them together with the letter people send with them and then I would get them all mixed up. But I wanted to share these two special ones with you. The left one with the note is made by an 85 year old lady, who collects siggies and communicates via email. Now isn't that something. She reminds me of my almost 83 year old dad, who is still into internet and communicating via email with among others his grandchildren. I always enjoy receiving emails from my dad!

The other siggy is from my wonderful friend Jutta at Stoff und Nadel, with whom I make Leanne's House together. She made this one especially for me. And yes, that reminds me, dear Jutta, that I still need to make you one. I haven't forgotten it, even though it is a few months ago ...

This week I received an email from an Italian lady, in Italian. I figured she wanted to swap a siggy with me. The only word I could recognize was - yes, siggy. So I will gladly make one for her and look forward to receive one from Italy!

And this is one of the things I have been working on over the last few days. It is a pattern by Gail Pan, which I won on her blog last December. It is called Gentle Dreams. A lovely stitchery to make!

I have also been working on Laura's quilt, which I showed you in my last post. I received the fabrics this week. So the top is all finished and I got the batting today at The Logcabin. Very nice batting. 80% cotton and 20% polyester. It feels very soft and I wanted that for this quilt. I will show you the whole quilt as soon as it is finished.

Today Jacqueline at The Logcabin had Christmas in August. She showed some lovely Christmas quilts and new Christmas fabric collections. I found these two fabrics to finish my Christmas Wish. The picture doesn't really do them right. Soon you can see my blocks surrounded by them!

Laura is doing well in Amsterdam. She started classes this week and has to get used to the new system and all the homework they get. She was home last weekend. That was so nice, not having seen her for 2 weeks! But we talk to each other daily via skype and there is always sms and emailing.

Two quotes this week, since I could not choose:

"Joy is not in things; it is in us."
- Richard Wagner


"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts."

- Albert Einstein

Have a lovely, happy and creative week and I hope to be back with you within a week next time (O: