White stork (ooievaar) symbol of the Hague

Today the weather is beautiful, it's cold (a little bit freezing) but sunny so we made a walk to The Hague Woods and Marlot. In one of the grass-lands we saw a colony of white storks.

The White Stork is the Symbol of The Hague. They still don't know why this symbol was chosen for the city. But the word "ooievaar" or "odevare" means: good-luck charm. The official name of The Hauge is Gravenhage, that means the small forest of the counts of Holland. Around 1275 's Gravenhage became a separate village. Storks were very common in the village and were well taken care off. Already in 1352-54 the village register mentioned costs for making nests for the local storks. Through the years they were always allowed to nest in the village. Sometimes an official 'keeper of the storks' was even appointed.

Blue-white square quilt for Thomas

My nephew really wanted a quilt, so I made a quilt in his favorite colours. It's almost finished, but something was missing. I wasn't really satisfied, so I decided to sew some buttons on the quilt. And YES, that was missing part, so now I only have to sew 108 buttons.

London Cats

We didn't only buy a quilting- equipment for Rob his grandmother (83 years old), but she also bought some lovely cat-fabrics. (www.quilterspalet.nl)

Quilting Activities

Weekend was rather short, because I had to work on friday (normally I don't work on fridays). So I had to catch some time on saturday and sunday. Saturday I went quiltshopping with Rob his grandmother, we bought her a real equipment at Evy's shop. The afternoon we spend practising cutting, and we made a little quilt together with lions. It's almost finished, it only need two borders, we want to donate it to a Children's hospital. Sunday we did some family visiting, and I made those little bags as a present to take with me.

Ice skating

After 12 years we can do ice-skating in the Netherlands on the lakes, little rivers, ditches and canals. Every day it's big news on the television. Unfortunately it's not cold enough for a Elfstedentoch (skating marathon along 11 dutch cities, 200 km).

Paco loved the ice when were throwing sticks on the ice in The Hague Woods, he was sliding over the ice like a real skater. He only knows the Hague Wood from walking and swimming, so this was a real new experience.

New member in the Family

We've got a new baby-girl in the family, she's born the 5th of januar. Her name is Promise. We have to wait a while before we can see her, because my brother and sister-in-law are living in China, and they won't be back in the Netherlands before Mai.

Happy (quilting) 2009

Happy New Year, I hope it will be a healthy and wonderfull quilting year for everybody.

What I'm going to do this quilting-year: well try to finish my UFO's, at least my logcabin. Finish the puppets I was making from one of the books of Tone Finnanger. Decorate my spare-room in the style of Tilda (Tone Finnanger).

But of course I already started a new quilt, I call it my "Tone Finnanger" Quilt, and I want to finish this in 3-4 weekends. I made 64 squares from 21x21 cm including seam allowance. I used red-fabrics from Ikea, wich matches perfect with our new bed. The applications are coming from the book: Winterwonderland. There will be a border around it from red/white squares.

Where you can get Tilda products in the Netherlands:

http://www.dehandwerksite.nl/

Fabrics I use:

http://www.westfalenstoffe.de/

http://www.ikea.com/