Good times

This last week I have been working hard on my bicycle quilt and so far it is looking good, even on the back side!

Apart from that I have nothing to show here (I have an idea for the self portrait quilt for AQATW, but am waiting for the supplies I ordered), so here is a pic of the bag I bought in Berlin:




Is it scrumptious or is it scrumptious??? (I love that word!)



PS Remember how I whined a while ago when my TB paper and my quilt were both rejected in the same week? This week my paper was accepted in another journal and I also had a very exciting email about my quilts... but I'll tell you more about that at a later stage!

In the mail

Home again! It's great to be back with my boys (big and small).
It was also great to find a lot of mail waiting for me... Especially the big Spoonflower parcel, with two yards of my white on black Dutch Houses design printed on canvas - I'm going to make a bag with it. There were two yards of the black on white design on quilting fabric as well, to use for the lining and some other projects. Can't wait to start!



And here are two swatches: my Len's Quilt printed on fabric (how cool is that? Maybe an idea for some readers?) and my new Umbrella Tree Leaf design - both are now for sale in my Spoonflower shop.



There were also two fiber postcards waiting for me; a gorgeous stencilled postcard made by Tonny and a very cute Hats postcard made by Ellen. Thanks ladies, I love them!



My jet lag is slowly disappearing, so maybe tonight I will start up my sewing machine again... So many projects to work on:

- Stone Soup quilt for Art Quilts Around the World;
- Self portrait quilt for Art Quilts Around the World;
- Calligram quilt for Robbie;
- Bicycle quilt;
- Blues quilt;
- Dutch Houses bag;
- Oilcloth bunting for blue Jacaranda, using the new oilcloth I bought in the Netherlands;
- and finally: finish the scarf I started knitting in the Netherlands!

I'll keep you posted!

Europe

After a great conference in Berlin I am now in Groningen, my favourite city in the whole wide world. I'm staying with my BFF Hylkia and yesterday we had a great day, doing a lot of shopping. At the market I bought some funny yarn to make a scarf:



There was a stall with a lot of different oil cloths. I bought a nice one to make buntings for Blue Jacaranda. It was hard to choose just one!



I visited Cordi Atelier, a wonderful quilt shop, and bought some Den Haan & Wagenmakers fabrics (chintzes):



The funny thing is that this shop is in the street behind the one I used to live in when I was working in Groningen (and has been for many years, so it was there when I lived there) and I never knew it!
This is the little house I owned at that time:



It's great to be here but I do miss my boys and will be glad to see them again in 4 days!

Off to Europe!

I am off to Berlin today! And next week I will be in the Netherlands - I'm so looking forward to that!
Of course I haven't done any quilting in the last week, so I'll leave you with some inspirational photos taken at Mount Glorious on Sunday.
I am taking my camera and computer, so may do some blogging in Europe - although more likely on my photo blog and our family blog than here.





And here's a pic of my men - I will miss them!

Blues

At play...

Hats

After a very busy week (work, tax return, birthday Ernst) I finally found some time to play and made this postcard for this month's Fibermail swap; Hats. When I saw the theme I immediately thought of this photo:



(posted on my photo blog on May 20, 2010). I used an old hat and shirt of Hugo to make the card, so it is very authentic ;-). The light blue on the card is actually more grey.

The next project is to finish the Stone Soup quilt for Art Quilts Around the World (I should have finished it before Nov 1st, but there just wasn't time...) I hope I will manage that this week, for next Tuesday I am flying to Berlin! I'll spend 5 days there at the Tuberculosis Conference and then I will take the train to Groningen, the Netherlands, yay!!! I'll stay with my BFF Hylkia (aka The Apple Tart Queen) for 3 days and after that visit some family and friends in the western part of the Netherlands, before flying back to Brisbane on the 20th of November. I am really looking forward to that trip, and the same time a bit apprehensive about being so far away from my children... (if something happens it will take me 2 days to get back! )

If any readers in the Netherlands (or Germany) would like to buy something from my online shops at MadeIt and Craftumi but haven't done so until now because of the postage costs, this is your chance! If you let me know what you would like I can bring it with me and save you a lot of shipping costs! :-)