F a F

Or Finally a Finish!. I handquilted this to dead at first and last week I pulled out half of the quiltwork, quilted the border, did a binding (yeey me) and even printed a label.
My family still has to get used to the more colourfull and less traditional stuff. Their reactions were"Mmm different" and "unusual isn't it?" Btw, it's machine-pieced and not all the seams are were I wanted them to be but enough excuses: I rather like it myself and that's whats counts!

Ikea....

Ever since my FIL passed away and we had to empty his house, I'm busy with my own cupboards/cabinets etc. I'm a reader and I have books in every corner. I do own a bookcabinet (made by my own dad) but it has been too small for ages. So DH and I went off to...Ikea (ofcourse) First time the bookcases were sold out (they were 25% off) so we bought a new bed with sidetables, since we were all prepared to buy something heavy and bulky and planned to get us a new bed anyway. When assembling we saw that one sidetable was damaged..
2 Days later we went to another Ikea store and got the bookcases with 2 small cd racks in the middle. Nice!
Assembling: the cd racks were both damaged.
Then I got all the books out, put them in the new bookcase..bummer...I need 2 extra shelves! DH went back to the Swedish friends with all the damaged goods, changed them for undamaged but no shelves: sold out. (remember the 25% off? The whole nation went to buy new bookcases!!)
DD on the phone: she was about to go to an Ikea nearby her place and DH was going to deliver her Granddad's dishwasher....so she bought 2 shelves and DH brought them home. Meanwhile I decided 1 cd rack was better..
Now we have to go back a fourth time to get the glass doors for the bookcases to keep the dust out. They were to heavy to take along together with the rest.
I wonder how many Swedish meatballs with fries DH can stand..?

There's no room for the quiltbooks so they will have to stay in my sewingroom. I guess that is better anyway since I use them there. I moved other books out of there so I can re-arrange the quiltbooks in a way that there's  room for more *lol*. (I just found a UK cheap book site with free wordwide delivery and loads of quiltbooks: http://www.bookdepository.com/)

Yes there IS one empty shelf but the things I want there are still in the back of another closet that's on the to-do list!

Fun thing about emptying your closets is that you re-discover treasures!! How about these old cameras that were my dad's...and now I can display them to enjoy every day :)

And I can buy another book if I want too: I have room to put it after I'm done reading

I saved the best find for last: a pic that is taken with one of the 2 cameras. Ahhhh what a cuty pie...who could it be I wonder?????

And did I already mention that I'm having the whole week off? It's Autumn holiday here! Woohoo!!

More machine adventures!

Last weekend we (DD,C and I) went to a craftfair:embroidery, crocheting and ofcourse quilting. The trip came out of the blue. Usually we plan way head but now we decided to go the evening before. It's not that we saw new things but it's always good to walk along fabric booths :) Since C hadn't seen DD's new appartment yet, we drove DD home afterwards and had dinner there. All in al a good sunday!

At the fair there was a small exhibition of art quilts and these two little quilts show what one can do with striped fabric and a few embroidery stitches!

We also found that it IS possible to blend in with your hobby....beware:before you know it you might become a quilt :)











Yesterday C and I planned a day to play with the new machine feet and I wanted C to experience how difficult it is to meander on the machine. While my meanderfeet happily bounced up and down, C's did nothing of the sort. She broke needle after needle, made some interresting thread loops at the back etc. After hours of trying all kinds of settings on her Husqvarna we gave up, loaded everything in the car and drove to the dealer. We both have Huskies but C's is more elaborate and it turned out that hers didn't need the bouncing meanderfeet on our practice piece. It works on a really thick quilt but not on our regular thinner Hobbs batting! Now she has an expensive foot that doesn't work :(
We headed home again, a bit older and wiser.. We still went ahead with the plan of me learning C to sew a disappearing ninepatch and later that evening she got this!!

C never made a machinethingy before, but her seams got better by the stitch :) I told her it had a real summerfeel. Her comment? "Good! Then I'm in time with a season quilt for once!"

(she starts e.g. a christmasquilt at the 23th of december)

And what could I show at the end of the day? Two pathetic small rows of a paperpieced christmas wallhanging. I don't think it will be finished before december 2009!!

Machine quilting

I searched the internet and watched countless you-tube videos on machine piecing and quilting. My eyes are squared, really! It all LOOKS so simple and easy-peasy but after trying myself I must say: I will never ever look down on machine work ever again. Those who master it: you are all artists!
One video is really great and everyone who wants to learn should watch this one, 'cause if she can do it, so can I!
I do hope this link will work. Watch it, it'll make you smile big time!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn2wz58hGAA&hl=nl

Testing!

The "new" laptop DH repared for me was one "little flaw": I could NOT open the Message window Blogger. Only the HTML window and not the regular one. I could not upload any pics either and to mine and DH's dissapointment, the thing was therefor useless. He got it fixed by re-installing the browser and it seems okay now! What better way to test than to show another overall and a detail about Nellie's gorgeous NYB.

I'm afraid the pic is the wrong way up but it's beautifull no matter how you look at it. If you enlarge, you'll see the tiny handstitches. Please do, say again what a great job she did and let her glow once more. She deserves it!

If this post appears as it should, I can spent the rest of what's left of the weekend, organizing my new Toshiba and see if we can become friends. Lots of things of getting used to: I have a mousepad now instead of a button for starters..And where is the "sounds of and on" button? Aha, I can burn cd's now but where can I find HOW? This old dog has to learn a lot of new tricks!

Screw(ed)

First:  pics of a gorgeous New York Beauty I saw at the quiltshow. I do have pics of other quilts, but apparently one's not allowed to publish those on the internet wiyhout written consent. I have consent from the NYB quilter, in fact I donated a few inches of spiderfabric to her that she put in :)

It is a real stunning quilt and mind you: ALL HANDPIECED AND HANDQUILTED!!! I thought I had to shout that :) All points were perfect (and I carefully studied that.) I was all quilted in the ditch and the background she quilted a grid all in those small regular stitches. amazing and what a painstaking job it must have been!

After my pink disaster I made some decisions. One is that I'm going to practice machinepiecing and even machine in-the-ditch quilting. For those who know me that's shocking news but if I master my machine I can perhaps finish a top in less time and increase the productivity :) If you have loads of quilts (wishfull thinking) a colour disaster won't be so bad. You can just pick another quilts you like from the pile. At least that's the idea......

In order to do so I had to invest in new machinefeet. I ordered one for in-the-ditch quilting and a fancy meanderfeet. (flipped pic, but i don't care: you can see it anyway)

Ofcourse the first one that was sent to me was a wrong one but with a very friendly shoplady on the phone this minor bump was quickly solved and within a day I had the right one.

The meanderthingy was a different story! No matter how I tried i could get it on my machine. After examining C's husqvarna I found that I had a different ,and in this case wrong screw!.

A trip to the husq dealer (and a lot of talking... he wasn't too keen on handing over screws) tadaaa the right one!

I also got a table to attach at half prize, 'cause it had some scratches. So up to find leftover pieces of fabric and batting to practice! I have some red fabric in my stash that's bleeding anyway... haha

Disaster!!

My old laptop is making weird noises and electrical cracking any time I expect the final big crack along with some smoke and that'll be the end of my days ping laptop. Fortunately DH's hobby has to do with computers! A Colleague gave him his laptop 'cause it "crashed" but DH got it up and running again and it'll be my new one. All files are allready installed but my faves are all mixed up so I have to spent an evening to get it the way I want it again and find my favorite blogs. Now it's one big endless list ..
My camera memory card passed away too. It fell into 3 pieces. It can be glued together so I can put the pics of the quilt show on the new laptop, but I have not found the time to do so yet. Every time when I want to spent a few hours to fix things I wanted and get interrupted by unwanted phone calls, etc. ...
Like today, when the car dashboard showed a disturbing orange light. Instead of ME time, I spent more than an hour at the garage * sigh * Luckily it could be fixed with no costs!

But now the big disaster that really really gave me a big headache.
The "Skulls and Bones" quilt I made for DS was very dirty (he sleeps under it every night) and needed a wash. Oh yeah, you've probably allready guessed: when I pulled it out of the washer I had a QUILT PINK!
OMG! I always pre-wash fabric, quilts and wash with every possible care and HOW I was going to bring this to DS? He's very fond of his Skulls and appreciated it SO much that I handpieced and handquilted it for him.
No I did NOT take pics of the pink disaster, I could not. The pic is a "before". In the end I washed it 5 times with all the chemicals I could find on the internet. The Skulls are white again but theswear swearborder fabric (from Alexander Henry) still has a faint pink glow and the black / white quilting thread is a bit brownish here and there. DS does not want me to make a new border, it is what it is, he says, and it's okay as long as it keeps me warm.

When I told a Colleague, she said: "Oh, I left a paper hanky in my pocket once. You would not believe how my laundry looked like!" Some people just do not understand ...

Pictures!

Frustrated because i STILL couldn't upload pics, i looked for other options and found Blogger has a new updated message editor that does allow uploading pics. Problem with me and Blogger is that half of the features i either do not use or i do not understand. I'm a computer and blogdummy, and I don't take the time exploring and learning. I should! The new message editor is different: has different fonts e.g. so I'll see what works for me.
To try if things work 2  pics of things I found at my FIL's house. Most of the stuff we threw out or gave to charity but these found a new home at my place..
These are antique copper pudding thingys (don't know the correct term and since I've been at the Quiltshow all day I'm too tired to get a dictionary *lol*)

And this old Delft Blue vase. With tulips (and unusual find at the flowersshop this time of year, so I couldn't resist) always a pretty pic! It is a bit chipped but with a leaf in the right place that's a problem solved!

I'll tell about the quiltshow next time: got to go to bed ,'cause tomorrow I got to get up early to pick up C from the airport.

(I don't think new message editor and I will be friends...the font is changing with every 3 words...:(  )

Oh! what DOES work is the crossing out words thing!Not that I use this but I might now  know it;s there. I also found a "jump break" Now idea what that is though.

Prepare yourself for experimental posts in the near future :)..

comments....?

AAArgh!!! Blogger still doesn't let me upload pics. I hate this!!! i can stand hickups for a day but NOT 2 days in a row. That's my impatients nature I guess. But however frustrated I am, there's nothing I can do but wait. Anyone else has the same Bloggerproblems???

I got quite a few comments on different posts from Disa. Apparantly she's japanese or chinese (?) and the comments are in such a language. I tried to translate it on several translatesites and this is what i got:


Supplies sentiment, sentiment, sentiment Supplies, Adult Comics, A piece of a Free, Chiayi net erotic,遊戲Painting, Literature color information, and Rei遊戲color, erotic, erotic piece of shadows, colors Education Hall brothers, net raspberry,遊戲color, self-pulsation, mainland own beat, kk俱樂Department, the National Film concubine, concubines Film, 85cc shadow a Free Castle, 85cc isolated pieces of shadow costs, expenses shadow fragment isolation, isolation遊戲small fee, expenses遊戲isolation,遊戲small遊戲,玩遊戲good, good玩遊戲區, A piece of goods, sentiment,遊戲Multimedia, good玩遊萊姆戲history, history萊姆base遊戲,遊戲line,遊戲Painting,遊戲mouth bags,遊戲mouth of our bags, Multimedia遊戲small aircraft遊戲hand,圖pasting, A specimen under loading, castle shadow adult IKEA to public affection,圖embedded color information, color information, Chiayi net erotic,遊戲Painting, Painting說small, Literature color information, sexual desire, aio Hall friendship love, erotic piece of shadows, color information臺灣network, small garden built遊戲nearest information, Specialty and color information, color嘟嘟Lover net, visual color information Xun, love說small, small information說saying,一葉情貼圖片區goods, sentiment, sentiment, erotic Comics, color information network, a piece of color information, color information遊戲, 85cc piece adult adult web嘟嘟, adult Chiayi nets 18 adults, adults shadow pieces, adult friendship networks, embedded圖adults, adults圖片Multimedia,圖片adult adult writing, adult說small, light碟adults, adults Multimedia breeze, a Free adult strip shadow

Uhh, as you can see I can´t even determine if it´s a serious comment or not. The number of times it says `adults` among other things worries me a bit.. *lol* but I'm also curious. I tried japanese to dutch and got nothing there either. So...Disa, if these are serious comments: thank you (I think) but I really can't figure out what you mean. I'm sorry but could you comment in English? Or something?
Have a great weekend everyone!!

Men...??

Still not in the quilting mode but in the cleaning and funeral mode. After FIL and my neighbour, one of DH favourite aunties passed away. 3 Funerals in 4 weeks is a bit much, but we'll just go with the flow.
Coming saturday oldest DD and I plan to do happier things like visiting the Guilds anual quiltshow. Nice quilts and fabric booths are perfect for lost mojo.
Sunday DH and I will pick up neighbourfriend Corrine and her Dh from the airport. They're coming back from their holiday in Florida and she already mailed me that she got quilty stuff in her suitcase. Can't wait to talk to her again 'cause I absolutely missed her this time!

Speaking of emails...every now and then DH sends me a mail when he's at work. Mostly it's something that he could tell me at dinner like the date of a companyparty.
Sometimes a companyjoke that not even brings a smile (but apparently his whole company thinks is hilarious)
He also sends pics of bikes that are for sale and yesterday a big advertisement of travels to Egypt.
Now I do want a new bike someday and I also would love to visit Egypt but the funny thing is that he never talks about his emails when he's home. So I'm puzzled; does he want me to go to Egypt? Is he bored with me and needs me out of the way for a while? Is it a surprise and is he planning to buy me a ticket? Is he going to buy me my dreammotorcycle? Does he want ME to buy it for myself or for him?
Women would say, later in the day, something like: did you get my email? and then talk it over. I know I would! But not my DH...so I open his mail, read it and delete it. I guess I should be happy he thinks of me once in a while when he's at work. Who said that women are hard to understand?!

Blogger refuses to upload any pics so the only quilty pic I had will have to wait. Only blabla this time but at least you know i'm still alive :)! Perhaps they're emailing their wives too at Blogger instead of paying attention. I hope they're done by the time I get back from the quiltshow!

Back in Blogland..

First of all: thank you so much for the warm comments and emails. I read them all out loud to DH and it sure made us feel better knowing that other people were with us in their thoughts and prayers. Meanwhile we sorted everything at my father-in-law's house. Relatives will come by in a week or 2 to see if there's anything they'd want and the rest will go to Goodwill, or perhaps DD's and I will rent a booth at a fleamarket. After that there will be a lot of tax forms to be filled out and then we're done.
At home I made a start to clear my own drawers and cabinets. Now I emptied a house and found how much stuff people keep, I thought it high time to take a good look at my own things. Why keep a pile of t shirts that I don't wear anymore or keep plates that are chipped?? Towels with holes? Out it goes and it feels better with every closet I go through!

With all things going on and a DH who's having a hard time adjusting to the fact that he's "alone" from now on, I kind off lost the patch and quilting mojo. Another thing is that summerholidays are really over and 2 days after the funeral I had to go to work again :( So nothing much was sewed or quilted: I just went to bed early, after all: I'm not an 18 year old anymore!

This package cheered me up today! An addition to the notions quilttop I made a while ago. Not sure if I'll make some more blocks or use it as a border, but we'll see about that in time..
Doesn't a fabric delivery with a bow make you smile!? (and the fact that it was 25% off..)

Remember the Dutch quilt I was cutting? I took it with me on holiday but it never made it out of the bag. Too much packing and unpacking and traveling going on then. I handsewed a block now and then when I got home. I'll get there eventually!

Quick post to say...

....that I won't be here for (hopefully a short) while. 8 Months after his mother, DH's father quite suddenly passed away. Lots of thing have to be taken care of: funeral arrangements for starters and lots of other things later on. Since DH is an only child, all comes down to us and blogging isn't a priority right now as , I'm sure, everyone will understand.
I'll be back when all is taken care off and life is less hectic!!

Last ones!

Actually I planned to show you lots more of the streets and art of Rome; I wanted to take you for a walk in Venice and let you see what the balcony of Julia looks like (yes, the one from Romeo and..), show you the mountains from Italy and Austria......but I reconsidered.
If you do a google search you can all see how things like that look like and although I really REALLY love Rome and Italy, I don't want to bore other people with my holidaypics. At least, not in too many posts. So i've decided to show some things that are different from the well known tourist thingys and be done with the summervacation.

So....in the Vatican Museum, in the room where you can see "the Greek school" from Rafaël (the "Stanza from Rafaël"): look at the floor! It makes you wonder what was first: the patchworkpattern or the floordesign??

How about Venice at night? We got lost that evening and it was after 24.00 when we finally found the 'piazza Roma" where we parked the bikes..

Another thing you can do with pizza...

This is what you get when the street is a canal!

No comment...:)

Does anyone know the BBCshow : Top Gear??? The owner of this car gave me one of his stickers!

In Germany they have special parkingspots/places for women...I couldn't resist!

They did such a good job although they're oldies :) They brought us more than 4500 km through France, Italy, through the mountains to Austria and Germany. We traveled the south coast of France, all the way to Rome, Venice, lago di Garda, Verona. .They made our butt ache, took a lot of petrol and mine swallowed some liters of oil.. but we made it back home safely. Don´t know if I would do it again: 3 weeks of helmethair is enough for now, but probably i forgot all about that next summer *lol*

While we were away, DD Lotte and her BF stayed at our home for a few days. Look what she left behind: THE best doormat!

Rome

We finally landed at the lake of Bracciano, 50 km north of Rome. You could go with public transport to the city but we decided to attack the Roman traffic ourselves. Well the traffic was oké, but the numerous one-way streets made it almost impossible to find your way. I've been in Rome for 7 days, 3 years ago with Lotte, so I knew where I wanted to be, which direction, street etc. but back then we flew to the city and did everything on foot.

After cruising the city for an hour we could finally park the bikes in front of St. Peter. (an advantage of driving a bike instead of a car:) Climbing to the roof of St. Peter gives you a great view. On the roof there's a tourist shop!

After visiting the Basilica we drove to the Colosseum and did the rest on foot. First I'll show you random pics of the city. Sometimes I'll use a photo taken when i was there in february, just because it's a better pic...

Firts Piazza Navona with it's famous fountains (anyone read "Angels and Demons'from Dan Brown??) and the Trevi fountain...

Then Pantheon with the hole in the roof

The ugliest building in town to remember Victor Emmanuel. You come across it every time!

Spanish stairs

..and the Forum Romanum

Don't know what Blogger does with my lay-out this time, but no matter what it does today, it'll have to do! More Rome tomorrow!

Travelling!!

Oké! First post about our biker holiday! We (DH, DS DD and me) drove approx. 4500 km in almost 3 weeks..
To get to Italy you first have to drive through Belgium, perhaps Luxemburg and ofcourse France.
First casualty happend in Luxemburg, at a tankstop. Unfortunately, I didn't put my jiffystand out properly and when I wanted to get off, the bike fell down. Only thing damaged was the plastic of my direction indicator and ofcourse my pride. I fell down in the middle of the tankstation for everone to see and i did NOT do it elegantly..
First night we spent between Lyon and Dyon in France.

We decided not to take the MontBlanc tunnel to get to Italy, but drive along the Mediterranean.

That way we would go through St Tropez, Juan-les-Pains, Cannes, Nice and Monaco. It took us all day to do that 'cause the whole coast is one big boulevard and traffic jam.

First view of the Mediterranean..

One off the many yachts we saw. It's more like a cruiseship.

Ds and me in "action" in the outskirts of Nice

A glimpse of Monaco (DD held the camera while on the back of DH's bike)

The whole coast is yachts, casino's, expensive hotels, sportscars and skinny stylish women.

Nice to have seen it but I don't think I will ever return.

After spending a night in a hotel in la Spezia, Italy (too expensive, but it was getting late and too dark to put up the tent) we took a very boring highway to......ROME!

(I'll skip the part of putting the bikes on the rooftop of the hotel parkinglot, and me washing my undies and putting them on the hotel window-ledge to dry, hoping they would still be there the next morning and NOT on the streets below.....)

Next post will all about Rome, so be prepared for an overload of pics :)

Blogger won't accept my layout and messes it up. Better luck tomorrow!

Awarded!

Before I start about my holiday, first I have to tell that just before I left, I got this award from Faith. She says:

The wording for this award is as follows:The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

I'm not sure I deserve these kind words, but I'm very (very!) honoured! Thanks again Faith!

I always find it very hard to pass an award on (and Faith already awarded those I was thinking of !) so everyone who recognizes herself in the award wording.....

Don't forget to visit Faith's blog. Now there's a real talented lady who can draw, paint and make beautifull quilts. Check out the postcardquilts she recently made! True pieces of art if you ask me!

Quo vadis?

Yes, where WAS I going these past weeks? Definately not in blogland! Can you guess?
I'll tell all about it when the laundry is done, the camping stuff is cleaned and put away again, the frig is full with groceries etc.
The first pics will tell you where I went, along with DH, DS, DD, 2 Honda's and 1 Suzuki..:)

It wasn't me..!

I guess someone else took over my blog yesterday. It wasn't me, really!! :p
Seriously, I absolutely did NOT feel like myself. The numbness was gone around 4 pm and then ofcourse the pain started. I had my first meal and drink of the day around 6 but, thank god, things got better after that.
I even managed to go out to do some shopping with DS and look what I found after wanting these for 2 years! (they never had the correct size or model)

Yes, I own a pair of brand new, bright red Allstars! Thát's comfortshopping my friends!!

Today I'm me again. The sun's shining, the bleeding is over and the pain gone. Pfff!

Thank you for the support and I hope I don't have to whine again for a loooooong time..:)

Whining

One of my wisdomteeth had become sensitive to hot and cold and I noticed things started to become a bit infected in the back of my mouth. That's not what you'd want during your summerholidays so I quickly made an appointment with my dentist.
8.00 am this morning he was expecting me. (did you know I'm NOT a morningperson!?) The verdict: it had to come out, but I allready had figured that out. My dentist is a very nice person and he absolutely didn't want me to feel any pain so when his first attempt to numb my mouth didn't work, he tried again with another shot. And again. And again. I was home at 11, one wisdomteeth less, unable to speak properly and, due to the overall numbness in my mouth, drooling..
I skipped breakfast, and now at 1pm I still can't drink, eat. I can't smoke either to relieve my inner pain over not being able to feel my own mouth. Can't go out either to do some comfortshopping: my mouth looks funny and people stare. Besides I still drool from time to time.
I hate this. I hate dentists, toothache, the feeling when your teeth comes out. I hate that it rains all day, that I have a bad hairday and I don't know what to cook for dinner today. I don't feel like sewing and I hate that too. I hate commercial telephone calls espescially when you can't speak properly and i hate that i don't know how to spell espescially.
Oké, I guess I'm done now and I think that I might feel the tip of my tongue again and now I'm thinking off it, the left corner of my upperlip.
I wish you all a happy sunny day and perfect teeth..

Stash denial

Neighbourfriend Corrine keeps her fabric in boxes; colour by colour, theme by theme. Her polkadots are at my place because I was busy cutting and sewing polkadotted propellorblocks and we share our dots. She does visit them often.
She noticed that boxes get too small if you keep adding dots and last week she came by to bring a bigger box; the one on top is her old one.

I guess she's really in denial. I allready put her dots into a (much) larger box and as you can see, the lid doesn't even close anymore! *lol* She just said' oh" and when she was at a quiltshop last saturday, she bought a dot fq. She brought me a tulip fq. Not sure wheter she did that because we are friends or to shut me up about het fabric addiction...! (my box of dots is just as big I might add:)

Meanwhile I puzzled a bit more and managed to cut some more blocks from the Dutch fabrics I have.

It would be nice to take a trip to a shop that sells more of these, but DS's motorbike has engine troubles and to my companions here, that's priority number ONE. I kind of agree, ' cause when the bike isn't oké, DS is very lowtempered and grumpy to say the least. I guess fabric-hunting will have to wait; it's no fun to get on the bike and drive a long way by myself..

Youngest DD has another attack of backing tarts and muffins. Vanilla and cinnamon flavoured..

..just as i'm trying to loose some weight before summerholiday-bathingsuit time :(

And no, I just can't walk pass them. The smell alone makes your mouth water!! She made 3 tarts (luckily she took the larger part to her friends) and now she's browsing the internet to find yummy recipes of cheesecakes. *sigh*. I think she needs to find a boyfriend...

Blogger doesn't like my lay-out and messes up pics and text. Sorry for that;i gave up after re-doing this post 3 times...