Back in business!

Our goods from The Netherlands finally arrived last week and it was wonderful to see my fabrics again! As a farewell present the ladies of my Dutch bee have given me a stash of red, blue, white and orange (the Dutch national colours) fabrics and I have immediately started to create a little quilt out of those. Today I finished the top:



I think I will make it into a pillowcase, as the ones we have (bought at the local shopping mall) are already starting to fall apart and this one will suit our couch very nicely.

I am also designing a baby quilt, but will say no more about that, as the baby's mother will probably read this blog and I want it to be a surprise...

Of course the alphabet quilt is waiting as well, and I found the fabric for Wendy Vosters' playquilt that I was going to make for Ernst...

What am I doing sitting here at my computer? Let's get quilting! :-)

Kaffe Fassett

Yesterday I discovered that Kaffe Fassett is coming to Brisbane in June! Yes!!!
I rang first thing this morning and got a ticket for his lecture on June 12th (the workshop was already sold out, but I wouldn't have been able to join it anyway). Wow, I'm so excited!

I finished piecing the emu last night; only have to embroider an eye on it. I'll start on the kookaburra (or the koala, still not sure) next week, after our camping trip to Moreton Island this weekend.

Thanks for the comments on my last posting. The nightingale is a very nice idea, I'll see if I can find a pattern - or design it myself, perhaps? I want to design a yak as well...

Getting started

Last week I was very disappointed because I heard our personal belongings (including my sewing machine, fabrics and notions) coming by boat from The Netherlands will take another 3 weeks at least to reach us. Luckily Pam, a very nice lady living near us, learnt about this through the quilters mailinglist and offered me the use of her old machine. She even drove to our place to drop it off! Pam, thanks very very much!

So now I'm getting started on the alphabet quilt I wanted to make for our boys. The idea is to use animals that start with the same letter in both English and Dutch. Most letters are easy, but there are a few tricky ones, like the N (I can only think of narwal), U (can't think of anything at all), V (can only come up with a velociraptor) and, of course, X (will probably just put a question mark next to it). Suggestions are very welcome!

I am going to use Margaret Rolfe's Animal Kingdom CD-ROM, which is in the boat as well of course... But in the meantime I have borrowed her book Quilt a Koala from the library and have started yesterday on the emu! The K is provided for in this book as well - I'm not sure yet if it will be the koala, kangaroo or kookaburra, but definitely one of those 3! I bought some fat quarters at the Stitch and Craft Show last week, so I hope to be able to finish these 2 blocks while waiting for my stuff. As soon as I've finished one, I'll show it here, of course!

I borrowed Kaffe Fassett's book Glorious Patchwork as well and spent an hour drooling over it ;-). What gorgeous quilts! The rosy quilt is definitely on my 'quilts I want to make one day'-list.