Zürich

Here I am again, back in Brisbane already - I had hoped to blog some from Europe, but it didn't happen...We had a great but very busy time, I'm glad to be home and rest!

The highlight of the trip for me were the 5 days DH and I spent in Zürich, Switzerland, where he had a conference. It is a very old, very beautiful city and I took hundreds of photos. There are a lot on my photo blog (including photos of some interesting patterns I found on the streets!), but here are some more that I really want to show you.

I loved the houses in Zürich, and the ones above are my favourites. How about a fabric design Swiss Houses?? Below is a detail:



Quite a few houses had interesting details:





Seen in a gallery, made by Verena Vanoli, from bicycle tubes:



How cute is this?



Near our hotel:



Details of the Grossmünster church:





In a back street:







At night:



Tomorrow I wil show you the treasures I brought home from Europe!

The Netherlands

It feels so good to be back in the Netherlands! We are having a lovely time with family and friends, visiting lots of fun places like Madurodam in the photo above - the Netherlands in miniature!



I saw this sign at the ladies' in a department store - too funny!



We also went to the zoo - zebras are so stylish!



I had a lot of fun playing with the photos in Picasa...



At the moment we are in Groningen, my favourite city in the world - staying with my BFF Hylkia (aka the Apple Tart Queen). The sign below says 'Free Eye Testing'.



Groningen is so beautiful!







Going to the market is one of our favourite things to do:









And cycling of course!



Yum!

Kuala Lumpur

On our way to Europe we spent one day in Kuala Lumpur. We took a train to the city, visited the bird park and took a hop-on hop-off bus. Here are some photos that I made:



The hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia:













Unfortunately there was no time to visit this museum...











Once in Holland we first went to my mother-in-law's house. It was very nice to see my quilts hanging there:





... and the hippo I made for my boys when they were little:



More to come soon!

Going to the Netherlands!

Tonight we are flying to Kuala Lumpur and tomorrow night on to Amsterdam! Very excited about seeing our family and friends again. I hope to be able to post some pics here (or on the photo blog) in the next few weeks, but it may take a while. Cheers!

Shadow Fighting

I haven't shown you this quilt yet: Shadow Fighting. I made it in January 2012 for my youngest son, Robbie. It is based on this photo of him, at a taekwondo grading last year:



I have described the process of making this quilt in an article that you can find in the current issue of Down Under Textiles:



For a free online subscription to this magazine click here.

New thermofax screens

As I told you yesterday, I had some new thermofax screens made. Remember this picture? It's a photo of a transformer station I made in Adelaide last year (I showed it on the blog here). I made a black and a white print and like how they look together... To be continued!



I also had some of my calligram designs made into thermofax screens. Here is a cute baby elephant:



A butterfly:




And that fascinating animal, the narwhal:


These items will be up in my Blue Jacaranda shop as soon as Etsy reopens! (the site is currently down for maintenance)

This and that

Remember the sunglasses case I made a while ago? I really enjoyed making it, so decided to order some more frames. I still have lots of pieces of lovely commercial fabrics from my early quilting days that are just waiting to be used for small projects like these. So here is the first one, a sunny butterfly case - now for sale in my Etsy shop!




And some news: a while ago Meta Heemskerk, a Dutch fiber and mixed media artist whose work I really admire, asked me if I would be interested in showing and selling my work in her online gallery Galleribba. This gallery will be filled with small work, to fit in standard sized frames like the Ikea Ribba frame (hence the name). Of course I am interested; and flattered to be among artists like Linda Colsh, Cherilyn Martin, Saskia Weishut and many more! The little Sand piece that I showed in the last posting here is the first piece on my page, and I hope to make a few more small works soon.

Today I have been screen printing with some new thermofax screens that arrived this week (yay!). It's too dark now to make photos of the prints but I hope to show them to you tomorrow.

New work

It was a public holiday here today and very cold and wet outside. So I was perfectly happy inside, quilting! I made a little monochrome quilt for Art Quilts Around the World which will be revealed on 30 June, and I made this little piece, something I had wanted to try for quite some time now.

The fabric is actually more yellow than orange. I added a double layer of thick polyester batting (left over from my early days of quilting - I much prefer a thin bamboo batting nowadays) to create the impression of a footprint in the sand:



I think the backside looks good too!



It's a small piece - only 17 cm / 6 3/4 inch square. Just a fun thing to try out something I had been thinking about, after making a photo of a footprint in the sand last summer.



This is a sneak peek of the monochrome quilt for AQATW. I love how this little quilt has turned! It is already hanging in my studio, but I'm afraid you will have to wait a few weeks to see it in full!

Busy

Eight days since my last posting and nothing new to show! How terrible. (well, I did make a few items for the shop) What can I say - I have been busy with other things. It looks like my contract at Queensland Health will end on 30 June, so I am looking at other jobs... There is also the possibility of another position for DH, in another place, which of course needs to be discussed... We are in the process of applying for Australian citizenship for our boys (they can have dual citizenship - we adults can't, unfortunately) which involves a lot of paperwork, phone calls to the Netherlands etc... and most importantly, we have been planning our holiday to the Netherlands!

In 22 days (yes, we're counting) we will be flying to Kuala Lumpur, spending one day there, and then on to Amsterdam!!! We are so looking forward to seeing our family and friends again, meeting our little niece for the first time, visiting the places where we used to live, riding bikes, eating licorice and herring...

And - I just booked flights to Zurich, Switzerland! DH has a conference there in July and the two of us will spend 4 days there, while the boys stay with their grandparents. I have never been to Zurich before and am so looking forward to discovering a new city! The photo above shows the city and Lake Zurich - looks good, doesn't it?

Of course I can't do any sewing or quilting while we are on holiday (no, hand stitching is definitely not my thing) and I will close my shops during that time, but I do plan to take lots of photos and I may try my hand at some writing...!

Anyway - still 3 weeks to go before we leave and I do hope I will be able to show you some quilts in progress in that time. Maybe I can do some quilting tomorrow, if the dentist doesn't keep me to long... And I really should have my sewing machine serviced... *wanders off, muttering under her breath*