Button cookies

The other day I saw a photo of button cookies on Facebook and I just had to try and make some. Aren't they cute?



I used a Dutch recipe for 'sand cookies', but of course you can use your own favourite biscuit recipe.
I don't have a round cookie cutter (I'm not really the baking type) but found an egg cup with a diameter of 5 cm (2 inch) and used that to cut out the shapes. A bottle top was just the right size to make the indentation, and a straw was perfect to make the buttonholes. My boys loved the cookies and are already asking if I can make them again!



And now for something completely different... Last week I noticed this photo on the Spoonflower blog - it's the classroom / community space at the Spoonflower HQ. See that blue fabric on the wall? Could that be my Dutch Houses fabric? Yes, I think it is! How exciting! :-)

Good news

Yesterday I received an email telling me that my quilt Speed had been selected to appear in 1000 Quilt Inpirations by Sandra Sider, due to be published by Quarry Books in December 2015. How exciting!



This little quilt (A4 size) is getting a fair bit of limelight, for it was also featured in the American magazine Quilting Arts in 2011. It lives in Holland, as I made it for my uncle who loves cycling. I will have to get him a copy of the book!



More good news: a dear friend bought my Forest quilt and it is now hanging in her home office. That is making me very happy! :-)

See-through pencil roll

As you know if you have been following this blog for a while, I have a thing for pencil rolls. Last week I was buying some fabrics at Spotlight when I spotted (see what I did there?) this clear vinyl table cloth, and I thought, 'Would it be possible...?'



Yes it would!



Sewing it wasn't very difficult - although a bit weird, looking into the machine like this:



But turning it was a pain! ;-)



I am very happy with the end result  - think it looks pretty cool!



Here is the balloon ball I made a few weeks ago for our little niece in Holland. It was her first birthday yesterday and I was told that she loved her present!



:-)

PS Yes, I have finished my big art quilt and I love it! But I'm not showing it here yet - you'll have to wait a couple of weeks to see it...

Gymnastics bag 2

Yesterday I made a gymnastics bag for my youngest son Robert (7) who, like his older brother, is a competitive gymnast. He is in Level 2 now and had his first competition in June, where he won his first silver medal, on rings! This weekend he has his second competition, the Junior Regional Championships. Very exciting!



It's a simple drawstring bag made from two of my Spoonflower gymnastics fabrics and lined with plain white cotton. I made a similar bag for Hugo in 2010:



It has been used intensively for 3.5 years and is still keeping up very well! Hugo loves it and even prefers it to the cool Gymnastics Queensland backpack he got this year as part of the Queensland team. I have stitched his Level patches onto the bag (Level 2 is on a singlet and he skipped Level 5):



Here are both bags. I hope Robert's bag will be used as much as Hugo's!

A new hat

At the moment I am working on the largest art quilt I have ever made (I showed a sneak peek in the previous posting). I have put in many hours of quilting already (and also quilte a few hours of unpicking...) and about 75% of the quilt is finished now. This weekend I really felt like doing some quick and easy projects, so first I made a present for one of our nieces in Holland, who turns one in a few weeks - will show it here when it has arrived. And then I made a hat! A reversible one - the black side was supposed to be the main side, but as it turns out I like the lilac side better!



The pattern is from Betz White - I have been following her blog since last year, when I bought her book Sewing Green, and when she announced Sew-long Summer!, a reversible Bucket Head Sew-along a few days ago, I decided to join in (even though it is winter here Down Under). The black fabric is my favourite Thea & Sami handprinted fabric and the lilac is one I've had for years (I made a halter top out of it in 2008).
Very happy with my new hat! :-)