More lino prints

Are you getting bored yet? I'm not! I love feathers.



Gum leaves.

And here's a pic of a flower growing near my workplace. I've never seen it before, but it looks intriguing. Does anyone know what it is called?



The Ernst quilt is finished - too bad I can't show it here :-(

Tantrum

I was happily surprised to see a sneak peek of my Textile Tantrums quilt on Dale's blog yesterday! I never thought of posting a sneak peek here, so, with her permission, have borrowed the pic. I had a lot of fun making this piece!

Thanks for all the comments on the blog posting about hubby's workplace. He asked me to tell you that he only moved into this room a week ago, so hasn't had much time to make a mess! Which he probably won't do anyway, although no, he is not a Virgo (I am though!).

I didn't do any lino printing yesterday - too busy reading the new Dan Brown book. Okay, it's not high-brow literature but very entertaining. Maybe tonight if I am able to tear myself away from the book...

Hubby's workplace

Hubby made this photo of his new room at work. Doesn't the quilt look good on that wall? :-)
(he also still has the postcard we gave him for Father's Day 2008)

I am making one of the lino prints of Ernst into a quilt, but can't show it here yet because I may try to enter it into The New Quilt 2010.

Today I bought some more lino sheets, I hope to do some printing tonight. I have an idea for the Flora quilt for Art Quilts Around the World...

Hope to be able to show more soon!

Postcard and fabric

This beautiful geometric forms card arrived a few days ago from the Netherlands. Thanks Trees, I love it!



And these are the fabrics I have bought today, to make an Irish Chain quilt for our new niece Josien, who was born on February 11th 2010 (you may remember I made a Trip Around the World quilt for her sister Saskia in 2008). I really enjoy making these traditional quilts in girlish colours for the babies in our family!

I finished the Textile Tantrums quilt for the Challenge at the Thread Studio, but can't show it here yet. I can only reveal that it is very purple! ;-)

Ernst, again

I made some more prints of Ernst that I am quite happy with. Here is the original photo I used (made last May at the Queensland Museum, dancing to the Dinosaur songs):



I Photoshopped it into this sketch, which I used to make the lino cutting.



Now to decide how to make this into a quilt... Maybe just some handstitching?
I am also thinking of buying some canvas and paint to make a 'real' lino print...

Ernst

The paint is all wrong (not an opaque one) but the print is so good, don't you think? This is definitely my Ernst (5)! Lino print on paper (above) and fabric (below):



And here is the lino cutting:



I hope to do some more prints soon (not now, have to go, unfortunately) with another paint, but had to show these to you!

Lino print postcard

I made this postcard for the geometric forms postcard swap at my Dutch Fibermail group. I added some bobbinwork with Razzle Dazzle thread that I have had for quite some time but never used. I think it looks good, I may use it in a quilt someday.



Here is another postcard, it is not spoken for yet so if you want to swap a postcard just let me know.

Apart from the lino printing class I have signed up for Linda Schmidt's Filament Fantasy class at Quilt University. I have been wanting to do this class for ages, it just never came at the right moment. It should result in a quilt that I intend to give to my mother-in-law - whom I promised one in July last year, remember?

I am also working on a quilt for the Textile Tantrum Challenge at The Thread Studio.

Any day now our new niece or nephew will be born, and I promised - and will enjoy - to make a quilt for him or her. Could I have a few more hours in every day, please? ;-)

Lino printing

I managed to finish this 'sampler' without any further damage to my fingers (the wound is healing nicely) and also made this cutting:



And today I finally had time to do some printing! First a test print on paper:



The small geometric forms print is a lino cut that I forgot to photograph - I signed up for a postcard swap with that theme and thought I'd make a stamp:



And then on to printing on fabric - the sampler prints are a bit light:



But the leaves printed beautifully:



As did the geometric forms:



Lino printing is great fun! Almost as much as screen printing.

Highs and lows

My brother-in-law's girlfriend made this photo when we were on Straddie - isn't it brilliant? (click to enlarge)

They left to fly back to the Netherlands yesterday. Yesterday was also my oldest son Hugo's 7th birthday. So after a very busy day I finally settled down to start on Dijanne Cevaal's lino-cutting class. I think you can guess what happened! (don't click to enlarge if you're a bit squeamish ;-))



I did have fun before the mishap and will try again tonight!

Len's Quilt!

Ta-da!

DH is moving into a new room at work in the next few weeks, a room of his own (he's sharing a room with 3 colleagues now), so this is a perfect timing!

I'm glad it's finished - I have a plan for a new quilt which involves some screen printing, and I just received the supplies for the lino cutting class... Can't wait to get started!

Weekend away

We had visitors from overseas here last week and spent a long weekend with them on North Stradbroke Island (commonly known as Straddie). So I haven't done much quilting, but I did get to photograph some gorgeous scenery.



I love this Umbrella Tree:



I also love my hubby and bubby ;-)



I have amost finished quilting Len's Quilt and hope to finish it this week. It helps that school is back on this week and that bubby is starting Kindy on Friday!

International art

This week I received this beautiful little painting from Elspeth in Trinidad and Tobago. Although she didn't mention it, I assume it is part of the International Art Exchange that I participated in a while ago. Thanks Elspeth, I love it!



Today I received this gorgeous postcard from Sally in Tasmania. The feathers are lino printed, she took Dijanne Cevaal's lino printing class - and got me so envious that I have signed up for it too! It starts next week, I'm really looking forward to it.



This beauty, that I received a few weeks ago, is from Nadia in the Netherlands, she blogged about it here.



And finally, this card is from my blogless friend Emma in Sydney. I inspired her to make fiber postcards; this is her very first one! Well done Em!

I sent each of these ladies one of my Dutch Houses postcards. I still have a few left; if you would like to swap a fiber postcard just drop me a line!

Dutch Apple Cake

Yesterday we celebrated DH's birthday with some friends and colleagues. I made this appeltaart (Dutch apple cake) that everyone loved. The recipe is the one my best friend Hylkia, the Apple Tart Queen, sent me (zenks, Van Meer). I have had a go at translating it - cooking language is not my forte, but I hope you will be able to understand it!

Ingredients:
Just under 2 kilograms of apples*
300 grams plain flour, sieved
200 grams cold butter, cut in cubes
150 grams caster sugar
2 eggs
juice of 1 lemon
cinnamon
raisins

Preparation:
Put flour, butter and sugar in a large bowl. Beat the eggs and add to the bowl, keeping a few tablespoons apart. Knead the dough with a firm, cold hand (as it says in Dutch cooking books) until it forms a ball. Put aside in a cold place.
Peel and core the apples, cut into small pieces, put in another bowl. Add lemon juice, a few tablespoons of sugar and a lot of cinnamon. Add some more cinnamon (these are the exact instructions of my friend Hylkia).
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Grease a large springform pie dish and use 3/4 of the dough to cover the bottom and sides. Add a layer of the apple mixture, then a layer of raisins, then another layer of apple mixture etc. End with the apple mixture (if the raisins are in the top layer they will burn).
Use the rest of the dough to make a lattice topping on top of the cake. Brush with the remaining egg and place in the oven for 1 - 1,5 hours.
Traditionally, appeltaart is eaten cold with whipped cream, but it is also very yummy when it is still hot, with vanilla ice cream.
Enjoy!

* Traditionally in the Netherlands goudreinetten are used for appeltaart. I haven't been able to find these apples in Australia and use Pink Lady apples instead.



PS I generally don't like to read recipes on quilt blogs and I certainly do not intend this blog to become a food blog, but after mentioning that I was going to bake a Dutch apple cake on Facebook I had so many requests for the recipe that for just this one time I will put it here!

Len's Quilt Top, part two

While looking for a black and white fabric at my LQS I found this black and red, and thought it would be perfect for the border of Len's Quilt. What do you think?
(yes, those corner blocks are a bit wonky, but DH and I can live with that)

As I was sewing it onto the quilt, the boys were playing very nicely together. Meet my superheroes!

Melbourne

We had a lovely weekend in Melbourne. We stayed in colourful St Kilda:



Had a delightful lunch meeting with four other members of Art Quilts Around the World:



Enjoyed the Royal Botanical Gardens:



Saw quilt designs everywhere:




Browsed the city:



And spent a lot of time in both locations of the National Gallery of Victoria, where it was nice and cool on Monday, when it was 43.6 degrees Centigrade outside. They have a wonderful collection of Indigenous Art and also some impressive international art. I loved the Wisdom of the Mountain exhibition, with beautifully painted barkcloth from Papua New Guinea, and I discovered a German artist, Christiane Baumgartner, who makes monochrome woodcuts from film and video stills. You can see some of her work here. Oh, and I bought this book about Op Art. Enough inspiration for lots of optical illusion quilts!





PS More traditional holiday snaps can be found on our family blog.