Traditional Costume Fabrics

You know I'm crazy about old fabrics, to make quilts, and my collection of "antique" quilts is slowly growing.

Last year I bought some old traditional costume fabrics to make my "snowball quilt". Today I took it with me to show them. Of course Marne and I couldn't leave the museum without "new" fabrics. (Marne's fabrics are on the right, my fabrics are left). It's all blue, purple and flowers.

Think of all the possibilities to make a quilt with this fabrics, and remembering this day.

And then we discovered those jackets, traditional costumes, they're about 50-60 years old. Quilting Twin sisters?

Spakenburg

It's hard to catch up with my blog, so many things are going on. And we're having such fun all together. PHOTOS SPAKENBURG

Today we went to Spakenburg to the Quilt and Traditional Costume Museum. I think it's my favorite museum in the Netherlands! It's very small, only three rooms, it's all run by volunteers, but they do such a lovely job, and you can have a private tour, and they tell you all about the different costumes. Especially for the mourning costumes they're special rules. For example, when a relative dies you wear for 5 years mourning clothes, and then for 7 monthes another mourning costume with lighter colours and then another 3 weeks another colour. When you go to the funeral you wear black, completely black, even the children. After the funeral you wear different kind of purples, depening if it's your husband, grandma, brother, niece, aunt etc, the purple is more dark. The man in the museum told us, when you have a big family you probably wear your all life mourning costumes. Remember, 5 years! Doesn't that sound depressing.

Marne and I went mad with all the beautifull fabrics, and we both bought something special. More about it later.

And if you think you can see this traditional costumes only in the museum. Well look at the lady with the shoppingchart.

Palace Het Loo

We (Marne, Elaine, Rob and me) are hanging around on the Veluwe (it's in the middle of the Netherlands where our summerhouse is). We're having a good time with visiting all interesting places. Wednesday afternoon we went to "Palace Het Loo". PHOTOS .
The palace was a residence of the House of Orange-Nassau from the 17th century until the death of Queen Wilhelmina in 1962. It's a beautiful palace, inside there are many rooms you can visit, like the bedroom of Queen Wilhelmina with all her toys. And in the stables there are many wagons/carriages, like the white carriage that drove Wilhelmina and Henry when they died to the New Church in Delft. Or the carriage Wilhelmina did her painting, and the toy-car Prince Claus (married to Queen Beatrix) made for his sons Willem-Alexander, Constantijn and Friso.

Very interesting was the exhibition about "Princess Maxima, 10 years in the Netherlands" , unfortunetaley we couldn't take any pictures, but it was so nice to see her weddingdress, and other clothes she did wear at special events. Want to know something interesting about her? She got "big feet", size 42 (9,5 USA).

Quiltshopping is so fun ....

.. on every day, but especially on a very rainy saturday. Marne and I had to check out this new quiltshop in Naaldwijk. And its such a sweet shop, we spend almost two hours, looking around, drinking coffee and buying fabrics and patterns. I think that's rather typical of the most dutch quiltshops, there is always a table for coffee and tea.

Delft

Here are a few pictures of Marne and Elaine's house in Delft. It such a cute house. Don't you love their tiles in the window. Their house is along the canal right to the center. Yesterday we wanted to visit the gypsy festival on the market, but the weather was so bad, that we decided to go home and drink some wine and eat some cheese (and Hema rookworst - sausage). Because no one was in the mood for cooking dinner, we did something very dutch: Chinese take-away. : )

Update last week

What happened? For some reason it seems we had a rather busy week. Lots of things are going on. Saturday morning I picked up Rob in Den Helder (far north-west of the Netherlands), and then we drove all through the Netherlands, to the far east to celebrate Rob's mum 65 birthday in the afternoon.

Sunday we went to Martin and Lies, so my Stone Soup Quilt got a new home. They were very pleased with it.

Monday we did a house inspection in Delft. Marne and Elaine moved to a very cute "little" house in Delft. I forgot my camera so for pictures just click on the link. Then on tuesday we decided it would be nice to buy a second e-bike. Rob got a e-bike for several years and he loves it, and now Paco (our dog) is getting older and not in the mood for very long long walks, we can do more cycling. The bike was delivered yesterday. So we suprised Marne and Elaine at 21.15 in the evening with a short visit. Their temporarily house is only 10 kilometers away from ours. And then I forgot I went to a musical friday afternoon. Wich was really nice, it's called: Crazy Hospital. Yolande's son Peter (12 years old) is leaving primary school. In the afternoon aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters and grandparents were welcome to watch their musical.

Any quilting going on. Yes of course! I basted "Grace's quilt", you know my '30's quilttop Marne gave me. I started quilting, just to see what it will look. Pictures will follow. I now have to find a binding. There is a new quiltshop in Naaldwijk, rather close to The Hague, maybe I have to check that out, because it will be a rainy saturday morning. Of course Dieuwke and I spend some quilting time together this week. Monday evening our quilting bee will be at Marne and Elaine in Delft. It will be a warm day in the Netherlands, so their garden will be a nice place to sit. And hurrah, I got holiday for a whole week.

Den Haag - Texel ....

..... 146 kilometers of cycling. Rob and Tale made it. They left with 60 other people at 9.00 a.m this morning, around 17.30 they arrived at Den Burg (Texel). The cyclingtour is to sponsor bears for the Juliana Childrens Hospital in The Hague.

http://www.denhaagtexel.nl/

Tierelantijntjes

Bagatelle, floune, fluff, frill, fringe, frippery, frivolity, furbelow, ruffle. If you're in Gent. Don't forget to visit this shop.

Brugge and Gent

What happened this week? Marne and Elaine are still here in the Netherlands, so we spend our wednesday evening quiltbee together at Dieuwke. Thursday morning we drove to Gent and in the afternoon we drove to Brugge. The weather was pretty good, although this morning it looked rather grey and cloudy. But after our boattrip the sun began to shine and we even had our lunch outside. We spend two lovely days together. Brugge and Gent are really worthwhile visiting, although the cities are totally different. Now we (Rob, Paco and me) are back in our summerhouse, and Marne and Elaine went back to Oegstgeest, making a stop in Middelburg to visit their friend Leah. (She's the great granddaughter of the lady who made the quilttop Marne gave me). This weekend: maybe some quilting, and a lot of studying, I got an exam on tuesday.

PHOTOS GENT

PHOTOS BRUGGE

The "Remise"

The Hague got lot of nice suprises. With Marne and Elaine visiting us, we learn new things about our own town. Like this museum. The weather wasn't what they had predicted, and because their new house in Oegstgeest is close to The Hague, we called them to spend a fun afternoon together in the Museum for Public Transport. They have several old trams, and we made a tour with a tram of 1921 through The Hague. Very noisy, very shaky, and no comfortable seats. Half way we switched to a tram of the '60's, much more comfort. This museum is really fun (and it's free, wich is very undutch, you only pay 3 euros for a tramride). Isn't that amazing. I think we will visit this museum more often. The Remise (building were they keepstore the trams) was build in 1906. It was originally build to do service and repair for the electric trams in The Hague. The building was used till 1983. In 1989 it became a museum. The museum is only open on sunday.



More information:
The Hague Public Transport Museum.

On the move

Saturday at 10 a.m. Marne and Elaine moved to Oegstgeest. For some reason they even managed to multiply their luggage. You see the Albert Hein bag, it wasn't there when they arrived.

A new antique quilt

You all know I love Antique Quilt Tops. I really love to restore them and turn them into new quilts. Marne is helping me. She bought this lovely quilttop at the Superfluity at her Church. It's partly made of feedsack, and it's made around 1930-1940. It's in pretty good condition, considering it age. It got a few spots and some loose seams, wich can be easily repaired. The quilt measures about: 68 inch x 80 inch.

But what's so interesting about this quilt she knew who made it, and suprisingly I met her granddaughter Susan and greatgranddaughter Leah in june 2009 at Marne.

This is what we know about the quilt now, but I hope to figure out some more.

The quilt was made by Grace Taylor-Turner, 70 or 80 years ago. Some of the white and all of the pink is made of feedsack. Feedsacks they used for their cattle and their piggs. Grace lived in Ottawa, Kansas. Doris Sullivant (daughter of Grace) lives now in Lawrence (Kansas). Doris her daughter is Susan Hack who lives in Seattle (she's the lady I met in june 2009, because her daughter Leah went for studing to the Netherlands).

More suprises are coming. Susan and Doris are probably coming to the Netherlands in july to visit Leah. It would be wonderful to meet them, and learn more about the live of Grace. I still got lots and lots of questions.

Castle Cannenburch : quilt exposition

"Quilts van Goede Huijse, van noodzaak tot tijdverdrijf". That's the name of the exposition, it means something like: in the past they need to make quilts, to keep warm, now we do it because we like to do it (pass time). I think from all the Quilt Expositions I know, this expo in Vaassen has the most beautiful location. Although I must say the exposition was a little bit disappointed, lots and lots of modern quilts, just one antique quilt, and a few traditional quilts. What happened to traditional quilts? Lots of quilters like myself love them. But the castle itself is very beautiful, with lots of old paintings, furniture and crockery.

We met several people, Mattie, Simone, Jeltje and Bep, wich was really nice, and we did a little bit of quiltshopping. I couldn't resist this "sewing kit". Now I only have to make it. There also was interesting stall about dying fabrics, they do workshops. I think I would like to try that once. Unfortunetaley you weren't allowed to make any pictures in the Castle. The only quilt on a picture is the quilt hanging outside.
History of the castle In 1543 the dutch field marshall Maarten van Rossum bought the ruins of a house. He did a lot (re)building and in 1555 his nephew Hendrik van Isendoorn á Blois finished it. In 1865 the last heir of the family died. Then it got several owners. After World War II, the Foundation "Geldersche Kastelen" got hands on it. They restored it, and now it's open for public.