Thinking of Holland 2 - Haamstede

A few months ago a Dutch friend who lives in Sydney asked if I could make a wall hanging for her husband. She had seen my Thinking of Holland quilt and wanted to know if I could do a piece featuring the lighthouse of Haamstede, a place in Holland where her husband has spent many happy days.



I have never visited Haamstede, but I was familiar with the lighthouse, because it used to be on the 250 guilders note, before Holland switched to euros (not that I had that note in my wallet very often...).



I started by making the lighthouse, and then (during the retreat last month) auditioned fabrics for the background - the sky, the sea, the dunes...



After piecing the background together I was ready to quilt the piece, using mainly my favourite Aurifil threads:



I used different quilting patterns for the different layers. I really like the sea and the sky:



This is the back of the quilt:



I am planning a third Thinking of Holland quilt - featuring the Martini Tower in my beloved city of Groningen :-)

Merry Christmas

Photography by Colin Bushell

Tomorrow we fly to Indonesia where we will spend two days in Jakarta before we travel on to the Netherlands, to celebrate Christmas with our family - for the first time in seven years! I am so looking forward to this trip.

I made the curvy Christmas table runner with matching placemats for my mother-in-law - it is a project in the current issue of Down Under Quilts (168). The wall hanging on the cover was made by Charlotte Scott from New Zealand - isn't it gorgeous?



I'm taking my laptop with me and will try to blog when we are in the Netherlands. I don't think it will happen before Christmas though, so I would like to wish you all Merry Christmas (or happy holidays, if you prefer). Thanks for reading this blog - I hope you will continue to do so in 2015!

Take care,
Linda