Holiday impressions

We are back from the Netherlands! It was a holiday with ups and downs - one of the ups was this castle we stayed in for Christmas, and another one was the snow (on the 27th of December), which the boys loved! Here is my youngest stepping on a frozen puddle - first time he encountered one of those!



The biggest 'down' was my middle son breaking his arm on Christmas Eve. Here he is looking quite happy with his orange cast (he got this one the day before we left Holland), but of course it wasn't fun when it happened, and with the original cast he couldn't swim, which was a shame as we stayed in a holiday park with a subtropical pool later on during the holiday... And it's still no fun, as the fracture isn't healing correctly so he will have an operation tomorrow to insert a wire :-(



A big 'up' was meeting some new members of our family  - the two nieces I made quilts for in the last 2 years, and this little fellow who was born just before we arrived in Holland. He got a quilt too but I can't show it here yet... (it's a project in the March issue of Down Under Quilts)



Another highlight of the trip was my eldest son Hugo (the gymnast) meeting his hero Epke Zonderland, World Champion and Olympic gold medallist on high bar, and watching him at his training:



Apart from being with family and friends I really enjoyed strolling through the old cities and photographing the houses, bicycles etc.



On my photo blog you can find a few series of photos taken in Maastricht, Aachen (Germany) and Zutphen (where the photo above was shot), and also a series of black and white photos made during our visit to the Efteling, a famous Dutch attraction park inspired by fairy tales and fantasy.



We had a two-day stop over in Jakarta, Indonesia, where we visited the old Dutch part of the city (the former Batavia). It was fascinating - some of the buildings and structures the Dutch built are crumbling and rotting away, while others have been restorated and used for new purposes:





More photos of Batavia are here.



In the Netherlands we had a few lovely, quiet days in a holiday house on the Veluwe, in the centre of the country. In our garden squirrels and birds came to enjoy the peanuts. I love robins!



On my husband's birthday we visited the Kroller-Muller Museum which was nearby. It has a large Vincent Van Gogh collection - I really liked this painting called Tree Trunks in the Grass:



Look at that detail!



I also liked this painting by Armando, called Der Zaun:



So much inspiration in this holiday! I may post some more photos in the coming weeks. For now I'll leave you with this one, as I catch up with work, get ready for the new school year that starts next week, prepare for my son's operation tomorrow and let all these impressions settle in my mind :-)

New: Flag Cards!

When I was making my Country Quilts for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group, I thought it might be a good idea to make fabric postcards in the colours of various national flags. I finally followed up on that thought and here are the first two Flag Cards: the Netherlands (of course) and Ireland.



I've added them to my Etsy shop, thinking they might be just the thing for your Irish grandmother or to announce a city trip to Amsterdam to your beloved!

Flag Cards for France, Germany and Italy will follow soon, and after that I hope to add more countries. It's fun to make these cards and a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. I am not a hoarder but I do have trouble throwing away scraps of my precious quilting fabrics - especially the handdyed ones!



I didn't do any quilting on my day off, because I had a custom order - a mum of two boys in California asked me to do this series of three calligram cards for her sons' room. What a lovely idea that my creations will be hanging there, on the other side of the world, soon!

Journal quilts at AQC in Melbourne

I wish I was in Melbourne this weekend! The Australasian Quilt Convention is taking place there now and I would love to go and see it... Unfortunately that is not going to happen, but it's a nice thought that my country quilts are there, with the other journal quilts of the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters.



Many thanks to fellow Aus/NZ Art Quilter Sue Collins for sending me these photos! (and her husband John for taking them!)

Indonesia

Yesterday I finished my last country quilt for the Aus/Nz Art Quilters group: Indonesia. Another country I haven't been to yet, but would love to visit one day.

As in my other country quilts, I have used the colours of the Indonesian flag (red and white) for the background, and appliqued a strip of burlap from a coffee sack on it that says Prod. of Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth-largest producer of coffee in the word, but there is another reason why I have used a piece of coffee sack in this quilt.

As you probably know, Indonesia was a Dutch colony until it gained independence in 1949. One of the most famous books in Dutch literature is Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, written by Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker). It was published in 1860 and contains a strong protest against the abuses of the colonial system of that time. The name Max Havelaar now lives on in the Max Havelaar Foundation, which launched the world's first Fairtrade Certification Mark.



Here are my four country quilts: the Netherlands, Russia, Japan and Indonesia. It wasn't until I made this photo that I discovered that Indonesia is quite a bit larger than the others... :-( Will have to trim it a little, hopefully tonight... and then send them all of so they can be part of the exhibition at the Australasian Quilt Convention!

Japan

Yesterday I made this Japan quilt for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group. Like Russia, Japan is a country that I have never been to but would love to visit. I used the Japanese flag, the outline of the country and the offical name of the country in Japanese to design my quilt.



I need to send off four country quilts in March, for they will be exhibited at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne in April. Although I have made four country quilts, I am not happy with one of them (Morocco) and another one (Blue Rose, my Barcelona quilt for AQATW) does not really go well with the rest of the series, I think. So I intend to make another one in the next week... if I can find the time!

Russia

I have never been to Russia, but would love to go there one day. The first thing I would go and see would be St Basils's Cathedral in Moscow. You may remember I had a thermofax screen made of the drawing I did of this cathedral a while ago. I used this print in a Russia journal quilt for the Australia and New Zealand Art quilters group - I printed it on the red part of the Russian flag (white, blue, red - very similar to the Dutch flag, which I used in my Netherlands quilt). I stenciled the word Russia in Cyrillic script on the blue part. It was quilted simply with horizontal lines. Here is a close-up:



I consider this the second quilt in my series of country journal quilts. The Morocco quilt I regard as a failure and it will probably be cut up to make a postcard ;-).

I also finished the Barcelona quilt for the Art Quilts Around the World group and will post a sneak peek there soon.

Screen prints

Last night I did another round of screen printing. Here is the latest female gymnast. (yes, her leg is a bit thin - this is one of the test prints, not the print on the new quilt!)



I also printed some more Dutch Houses - the postcards are a hit in my shop and I'm thinking of selling the prints stretched on canvas (just have to figure out how to do that! Tips very welcome).



And some more St Basil's prints - they are also very popular in the shop, and I'm thinking of using one in a quilt.

I will be screen printing again soon, for I have ordered some thermofax screens from Linda Stokes, who has opened a thermofax screen service. She is having a giveaway of one of her screens that ends today, so if you go there quick and leave a comment you might still be in the draw.

Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's posting about the Morocco quilt aka the Steamboat! I have been thinking about it a lot. I'm wondering if I hadn't shown the photo, would the reactions have been the same? My intention was not to copy the photo but to reduce that image to its basics - colours and shapes, almost an abstract. It's not about what is actually in the photo, but about my memories of Essaouira - white buildings, a red/brown wall, blue sea and turquoise boats. (they might be someone else's memories of another Mediterranean place but that is irrelevant) I agree that the white shape is too dominant but apart from that, for me the piece does convey the image of Morocco. However, I may make another Morocco quilt since I have a lot of memories...

Morocco

In June 2003, when our firstborn was 4 months old and we were still living in the Netherlands, hubby (then a graduate student) had a conference in Marrakech, Morocco, and we decided to make it a family holiday. It was one of the best holidays of my life (and that is saying something as I am not a holiday person). We saw some amazing places, the people were extremely friendly (they loved our blond baby, everyone wanted to hold him), the food was delicious...



I'm still sorry that I didn't buy that red plate! (it would have been hard though to carry it home in a backpack)



Marrakech is a gorgeous city. We had a wonderful afternoon at the Jardin Majorelle:



When the conference was over we took a bus to Essaouira, a beautiful small city on the Atlantic coast.



We spent some lovely days there and then took the train to Rabat, for our last few days. Another beautiful city where we enjoyed exploring the kasbah:



As you may remember, the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters have a journal quilt project this year with the theme Countries. You can see my first quilt, The Netherlands, here. For my second quilt I wanted to use this photo of Essaouira and reduce it to its essentials.



Here is the quilt:



It's not quite what I had in mind and I'm not sure if I'm happy with it... (my boys said 'A steamboat!' when they saw it!) Would love to hear what you think!

The Netherlands

Here is my first journal quilt for this year with the Aus/NZ Art Quilters. You may remember that we are doing Countries this year, and for the first one I chose my home country, the Netherlands. I thought about it for a long time before starting it and finally decided to use the national colours, red, white and blue, and orange (for our Royal House).

I cut strips of fabric, free hand, and sewed these together. On this background I stitched the outline of the Netherlands. Such a familiar shape, and while I was sewing I mentally revisited all those parts of the country.

I added buttons for the places where I have lived - Groningen, Enschede, Amsterdam and Leiden/Hazerswoude. Here is a close-up:



For the backing I used a Dutch boerenzakdoek (farmers' handkerchief):



This little quilt is very different from anything I have made before, and I love it!

I am looking forward to making more of these journal quilts - my list of countries at this moment consists of Morocco, England, Kenya, Egypt and Ireland.



PS Remember, you can still become a follower to make a chance to win a fat quarter of my Dutch Houses fabric! Or a Dutch Houses fiber postcard... See the details of my giveaway here.