bye bye 2009

When I saw the mosaic on Corry’s blog I knew I wanted to make my own, so I borrowed her idea…  I finally discovered how to make one of my own!

1. Rain Forest Quilt, 2. A Christmas Wish, free BOM by Gail Pan, 3. Embroidered matryoshka’s, 4. Meadow bag, 5. CWD 8-9 Bull Run, 6. CWD 9-3 Battle of Fredericksburg, 7. blue/brown raggedy quilt… for Midas, 8. atarashii quilt, 9. dutchbag6, 10. Dutch bag, 11. little drawstring bag, 12. One tree hill quilt for my mum, 13. Bath-cape for Joep, 14. Mailbag, 15. Dear Jane J1, 16. Breast of friends BOM block , 17. detail quilting, 18. block 15 quilt 2, 19. african universe, 20. quilttop scrappy cabin blocks, 21. baby blanket, 22. diabolo quilt, 23. Pink Delight table-runner, 24. African fields, 25. blossom tablerunner made of Midwest Modern (Orange dahlia) by Amy Buteler, 26. Hundertwasser 1, 27. Spring/Easter tablerunner, 28. H-12 Hannah Lou’s Hearts, 29. inside of drawstring bag, 30. blue drawstring bag, 31. ronduitrechtnicolette, 32. try-out block for bushfire quilt project, 33. Project Improv Charity block 2, 34. Rose quilt, 35. Advent quilt , 36. dutchbag11

Thanks for all your support, friendship, encouragement, visits, comments, gifts and not the least your inspiration during 2009!

I hope to see you back on the flipside of 2009, i.e. 2010. Happy turn of the year to you all!!

Nicolette

rain forest quilt

Some startling colours for someone who’s favourites absolutely aren’t green or purple!

The man of the house loves the quilt and the colours, so it’s ‘his’ now! And Midas loves it, of course he does, he loves all quilts.

The ingredients: a bali pop roll and a pattern I figured out myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if it already exists. It’s a really easy one, the fabrics needed to stand out.

I used all the little scraps from the strips in the backing.

Comtemplating about quilt patterns and designs…. I’ve seen quilt patterns that look totally equal, are ‘designed’ by different designers and made from different fabrics. It’s the chicken or the egg dilemma, which came first. And I guess we can’t invent the wheel again. It’s hard to be authentic.

Having a graphic design background, I’m would love to walk the quilt design path myself, one day. However, I always wonder if the ideas that pop into my head are originally mine, or inspired by things I’ve seen from others. It’s a thin line between being inspired and playing the copy-cat!

Rain Forest quilt was quilted on the longarm by Leslie from Northseaquilters. I love to choose the quilting pattern and -thread together and to be surprised when I go back to collect my quilt. Her quilting is always the icing on the cake! Or in this case, the oxygen in a rainforest!

That’s all for today. Make it a good one! There are only 60 hours left untill 2010!

Nicolette

Christmas evaluation

I’m a happy camper! Bec from OhSewBusy made me a gorgeous SSCS gift, a big shopping bag. I love the cheerful colours and I love the size, cause I’m not the tiniest of persons, so I love big bags!

In the bag I discovered more goodness. A very sweet needle-case, a stitchery pattern, some fabrics and yummy eucalyptus drops.

And this gorgeous ribbon was hidden inside the needle-case! Thanks again Bec!

And a sincere thank you to Donna, for organizing the third SSCS, with over a hundred participants.

I received an unexpected Christmas package from Anne from Finland (yes the amazing Anne – alias Santa Claus). Santa was very generous again! A book about Finland, a box of chocolates, red Christmas hearts and a card from Syko,  one of my favourite designers. I feel so spoilt! Thanks again Anne!

From my brothers’ family we received this cowish pig. You can write on the animal with chalk.

We enjoyed a lovely, simple dinner with family. My mother joined us, which was the best gift we could wish for.

Christmas 2009 was a peaceful, quiet and relaxed one.

Can’t believe it’s only 4 days untill 2010!

Nicolette

Vrolijk Kerstfeest !

Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël, Frohliche Weihnachten, Felice Navidad !

A last-minute quilt-top… ‘A Christmas Wish’ by Gail Pan. I didn’t manage to finish the quilt. I made most of the stitcheries during my visits to my mother during her recovery. We enjoyed the hours, stitching, reading and chatting.

Some Christmas pin-cushions, inspired by a picture on Christina’s blog thesometimescrafter, from Holiday fabric scraps from the quilt above and some linnen.

May your Christmas be merry, peaceful and magic!

Nicolette

Civil(ized) Quilt War

The 25 Civil War Diary quilt blocks I made during the last few weeks are  haunting me. I worked so hard because I want to finish the quilttop. 74 Blocks of the 121 are ready now. I’m still indecisive about the quilting though, but first… finishing the top.

Some time ago I already decided I didn’t want to make all the 121 blocks.

This is an image of the original designed quilt with 121 blocks.

I’ve been looking for a way to make my quilt a tiny bit different from the original one. This lay-out is made for 72 of the 121 blocks. They are randomly placed, using small light sashings and bigger dark-blue ones. The border will be from the same dark blue fabric. It still looks quite traditional to me, but I like it better already.

This lay-out has 81 blocks. This is kind of a quadruple-tych (new word?). Somehow the colours of the blocks are more soft-toned. A tiny trick from Photoshop.

Another option is to add a strip between the blocks in vertical direction in an orange/brown/red colour and dark blue strips and borders.

The last one again with a very small light sashing so the blocks won’t diassapear in the dark background…. I don’t know… my middle name is Doubt!

I think I know what I like best, but I would love to hear what would be your choise.

Nicolette

Winter Wonderland ?

Do you like the new cushions Mother Nature made for my garden chairs? They are magically white and fluffy, don’t need to be washed and sound muffled. The new tablecloth fits them well.

Mother Nature and Mrs Winter are great in decorating gardens. Nothing was left untouched.

Tomorrow, December 21st, 18.57 hours, Winter officially begins in the Northern Hemisphere. It seems to be here to stay for a while. We can’t stop talking about it. It’s long ago since we had this amount of snow. We even had a weather and traffic alarm today. It was best to stay inside and enjoy some lazy stitching and making lists for our Christmas’ shopping.

Yesterday, when scrolling through my blog stats I discovered I posted my 299th post, so that makes this one the 300th. Somehow it seems a lot and somehow it feels like I wrote many more. In fact I did, there are a lot of posts I wrote and never published. When I’m in the mood I write more than one and sometimes when reading back, some are deleted because they bore me or I don’t like the content anymore (or I still didn’t finish the project I wanted to post about…!).

I still try to find a balance between posting about my crafting activities and about all the other things in life that I’m interested in or that fascinate me. None of this would be fun without you, so thanks for coming along with me on that journey!

A wonderful week to you all!

Nicolette

dreaming of..

The sky predicts more snow.

The bamboo in our garden is not too crazy about the heavy load.

It’s freezing cold.

The birds that still come to the water bowl find it frozen. I watched them eating bits of snow. Such a sweet and funny sight! A wreath filled with feed for the birds is hanging on the fencing. It’s being well used!

I wonder if Tracy anticipated the cold weather, because some days ago I received this sweet gift from her, which could not arrive at a better moment. My neck will survive the cold when wrapped in this gorgeous roll-collar/neckwamer. It’s beautifully knitted and nice and comfy. Thanks again Tracy!

I hope your weekend will be a happy one!

Nicolette

Christmas fun – part 8

Warning: high level of cat-cuteness!

A proper post for today, because it’s the first Winterday covered in snow! Traffic jams, advise given to stay at home in some parts of the country and children having Winterfun. Midas, my personal Snow Cat adored to watch the flakes coming down and tried to chase them from behind the windows.

‘On the magical eve before Christmas, Santa’s favorite cat falls from his sleigh high in the winter sky into the bustling world of New York below. As Snow Cat wanders the sparkling city, she encounters many ‘nearly’ Santas, but not her beloved Santa.

With a huff from the North Wind, and the light of the big Lemon Moon, Snow Cat’s true Santa can’t be far away’

This text is printed on the inside of the bookcover of Santa’s Snow Cat. I fell in love with the book and bought it after reading about it on this blog. My first Christmas having a blog, in 2007. I enjoyed reading the advent posts at belladia and how she managed to write about a craft that fitted the content of every book she discussed. Many wonderful ideas that are still worth reading!

I love the illustrations by Anne Mortimer.

What to think about these cuties…

Soooo true…!

Nicolette

Christmas fun – part 7

Nearly there…

Christmas fun – part 6

Every year our TNT postal services release special ‘December-stamps’. This year the cost € 0,10 less this year than a normal stamp. With the lower rate it’s possible for more people to send wishes to family and friends.

This years stamps are very straight forward and simple.

I liked the stamps from previous years better.

2008

2007

2006

2005

I love this tradition. Every year at the end of November I look forward to see what the designs will look like.

Nicolette

Christmas fun – part 5

I love to receive mail, especially in December, when there are unexpected kind gestures falling on the door mat.

Like this very sweet embroidered gift from Sonnja, a Christmas cow with her own little decorated tree. Thank you Sonnja!

A card from Anne… thanks!!

Snowmen fabric, kindly offered by Marit after I left a comment on her blog quilt-it. Marit is making a wonderful quilt using these cute characters. Thanks Marit, the fabric is even more lovely in real!

And thanks for the cute piece of tulip fabric!

I’m not only receiving, I’m sending some stuff as well, you might get the wrong impression… LOL! This is the ornament I made for the SSCS swap for my swap partner Cathy in Australia.

Nicolette

Christmas (crafting) fun – part 4

Designing my own Christmas and New Years cards has always been the project I most look forward to each year. Inventing funny phrases is the best part! Sometimes I use photos I took months before and I hit upon an idea. Sometimes nothing seems to be good enough… And sometimes the creative juices don’t flow and I need to buy cards.

Some designs, randomly chosen:

‘an old fashioned 2002’

‘a flourishing 2004’

Of course Midas had to model for some cards as well.

‘from what nest 2005 hatches out?’

This one is pretty difficult to translate… The card was for 2007. We pronounce the year 2007 as ‘tway-duizend saven’ and ‘zeven’ (sieves…?) are also the objects in the picture. Does this make any sense?

An easy one, that brought about lots of giggles… (no translation needed!)

I hope you liked the little card tour!

Do you buy your cards, or do you make them personally?

Nicolette

Christmas crafting fun – part 3

Sinterklaas is packing his suitcase to return to Spain today. True lovers of Sinterklaas never start with their Christmas deocrations before HE has left the country…!

There’s no special day or date to put up the tree, though at dutch comfort we often wait until the third weekend of December. This is a remainder of the days we had real pinetrees in our house loosing their needles so soon. Nowadays lots of people buy trees with root balls, so they can be planted outside again after the Holidays. Many people use ‘fake’ trees.

For years I made my own kind of trees, buying lots of green material, which I arranged in a basket. Of course I finished them with lights and decorations. I couldn’t find the pictures to show you.

What I can show you are the 12 Days of Christmas, a quilt made in 2008 from a fabric panel by Nancy Halverson, for familymembers who have their house filled with very traditional Christmas decorations. In the above picture the colours are most in accordance with reality.

These two parts are my favourites.

It was a great project to practise my handquilting.

We’re having very dark December days with lots of rain and wind. I wish I could send some of the water to parts of the globe where it’s needed so badly. We’ve had enough for this month already! It’s great to stay inside, light some candles and have some stitching done. I feel like I want to hibernate!

I hope to visit all my blogging friends next week, I’ve been a slack visitor again, so sorry! I first need to finish some projects and prepare for my third handapplique class, next week. I’m learning the tips and trics of the reverse applique technique and have to make some flowers and branches. I’m more and more becoming a lover of all techniques that are done by hand. Who would have guessed…

A wonderful week to you all!

Nicolette

Christmas crafting fun – part 2

Maybe I should have called this post ‘Am I a chameleon?’ because I still feel kind of split when I look at the projects I make. Some are quite modern and some are more traditional.

The advent quilt I showed in my last post has a traditional pattern and colours.

The Christmas tablerunner above, has a rather traditional pattern of a poinsettia, but I used very modern Holiday fabrics. It’s a project from a 2008 workshop, but I never showed it before. It’s made using the paperpiecing technique. I have some wonderful memories when thinking back at that workshop day at my quiltshop!

detail of the poinsettia.

detail of the back.

I used the same fabrics before. Pictures here and here of a quilt and tablerunner I made.

When you love a discussion about traditional and modern quilts I discovered a link on Victoria’s blog to a new blog called Modify Tradition.

They post quilt block tutorials and show how traditional blocks made with modern fabrics have a very different look. I have some fabric in mind to make the blocks from.

First I want to finish a number of projects, like my Civil War Diary Quilt. I’m working full speed to finish the 91 blocks I want to make for the top. You can follow the progress over at flickr.

Before we start the real Christmas fun and even think about decorating the house,  Sinterklaas will pay a visit to lots of Dutch children on December 5th. The celebration was originally meant for children, but nowadays lots of adults celebrate ‘Sinterklaasavond’ too.

I’m anticipating a quiet, lovely weekend filled with crafting, some delicious food, a walk and maybe watch a DVD.

A happy weekend to you all and ‘Prettige Sinterklaasavond’ to all my Dutch readers!

Nicolette

Christmas crafting fun – part 1

A little Advent quilt I made from a fabric panel by STOF (Denmark). This picture was taken some time ago. I made the little quilt in August, just after the fabric arrived at my quiltstore. It has been there as a sample quilt and the fabric sold out in a blink.

On one part of the fabric panel has a heart and the other part of the panel has the fabric strips to make the little advent-pockets of. I added a lining to the pocket-strips and machine-stitched them onto the heart. I added the border and finished the little quilt with some machine- and handquilting.

I took this picture today. Oh boy do I miss the light from my Summer Photo Studio (my garden…). In the pockets numbered 1 and 2 I have put some little Swedish Christmas decorations made of straw.

I love the little quilt.

However… I feel very inspired to make an Advent quilt like this… maybe next year!

Nicolette