Weekend Quilting Report

It's amazing, this awfull weather here in the Netherlands. Rain, rain, rain!! I'm so glad I'm quilter, if not this weather would probably make me really depressed.

What's going on here?

Dieuwke and I spend our saturday afternoon and evening together quilting. She finished the top and back of a Petra Prins Quilts. That 's why we need doors in our house (to hang over your quilts). And we even got it basted .
I was working on my Staphorster Quilt, I'm really going to like the border, although the hourglasses are pretty small, about 2 inches, I used three inch squares to make them. I need about 200-250 hourglasses.

Crazy Quilt
Today, sunday I started repairing one of my quilt treasures, send by my special collector in Seattle ; ). It's a crazy quilttop made in the second half of the 19th century. I don't know anything about restoring of repairing antique quilttops. Just learning by doing it. The top is in pretty good condition, although some fabrics are really worn out. There is always the choice between leave it, or replace it. I didn't want to replace the fabrics, because I want to keep the quilt as orginally as possible. So I think this is the best solution. What makes this top so special is that there is so much to look at: the embroidery, embroidered flowers, names, dates.

For Sophie.....

she's our niece, and she will be having her 6th birthday in a few days. So I made this little bag. You can use it for your pyjamas or just something else. On the card is a little poem, I bought it in the Childrens Book Museum, it's orginally in dutch but I try to translate because it's so funny.

Ze had een jurk
met bloemknoppen aan
en toen ze in de zon ging staan
zijn al die knopjes
één voor één open gegaan.


She wear a dress with flowers buds,
and then she went into the sun,
and all the flower buds went open,
one by one.

Sometimes....

....... it just takes some time to find the right border. As I told you in one of my earlier posts. This is a 40s-50s traditional costume fabric from Spakenburg. I didn't want to cut up the fabric in pieces. The size is about: 41 inches x 59 inches, 104 cm x 150 cm. So just a border around, that seems not too complicated. I bought traditional "chintz" fabric at the Haan en Wagenmaker. Using half-square triangles seems very traditional consider the book of An Moonen about dutch quilt history. Many old dutch quilts just have a big one piece centre fabric with a border. I arranged the half-square triangles around the quilt. Hmmm not what I expected. Be brave: cut them again, make hourglasses. Hmmm, the pattern is much better, and it's still a very traditional pattern for dutch quilts. Hmmmm, I still wasn't very happy with my choice. I don't know: is it the fabric, is it the colourscheme? Like a friend of my said: too many medium colours. Well maybe try other fabrics, I got these in my stock. Hmmmm, it seems that these colours make me happy, and make the quilt very warm. Put the squares on point, not bad, use a cream fabric for the side, sounds good, and a small velvet purple ribbon between the border and the centre. Well let's give it a try.

It's so dutch ....

to complain about the weather. And I'm not complaining quickly about the weather, but I'm sick and tired of this dreadful weather. I really longing for some sunshine. The weatherman promised us a very nice, warm and sunny weekend. Friday and saturday wasn't too bad, but not what they promised us. Sunday morning, Rob, Paco and I went for a walk, there were some clouds... but we were confident. This would be a nice day. Well it started nice, and then half-way of our walk, the clouds were getting darker and darker, and then there was thunder, and we were in the middle of the heathland/moor (heide). And then the rain came, lots of rain. Soaked and wet we came back at our car, and went straight home to The Hague. Back to my sewing machine ; ).

Proudly present ...

..... my Staphorster Quilttop. Yesterday evening I finished the top. I used orginial dutch costume fabrics from the '50s. These fabrics were wear by the women from Staphorst and Rouveen. I made 244 hourglasses, 144 for the middle, and 24 for each border, and 4 in the corners. For the small dark blue border I used fabric from Westfalen. I used 5 inch squares for the hourglass. I'm very happy with this second quilt of my collection "old dutch costume fabric" quilts. Number three and four are waiting. At the moment I still have "lots" of time for quilting. End of september I'm starting with a 2-years evening-course Business Administration / Management Science (Bedrijfskunde). A busy two years will be ahead combining my job, my study and my quilt projects.

Fabric hunting ....

Quilters are always looking around for fabric. It's our nature, we can smell quiltshops and fabric long distance. Today I found these fabric treasures in a little shop. They're the shoulder parts of the traditional costumes they wear in Spakenburg. I need to unpick them.

Block on point

I'm busy with my Staphorster Quilt, yesterday Dieuwke and I discussed during our two hour drive about the quilttop. Well this is the result, a small blue border, wich represents the dark blue skirts and jackets the Staphorster women wear.
The only thing is that my quilt will be bigger than I thought, so I need more "hour glasses", well there we go another 36. In the middle are 144 hourglasses, and 48 hourglasses for each side.

For the corner I want "block on point". I'm always having trouble with the size ..... but not anymore thanks to Billie Lauder (who is really good mathematic). This is how you do it:

Corner triangle: finished size of block / 1.414 + .875 = size of one square, one square is two corners.

Quilt Atelier Joke

Leaving on sunday morning at 8.00 clock in the morning. That's pretty early for a sunday morning. But it's almost two hour driving to Dieuwke's aunt Joke. Two or three times a year we have a quiltbee together: Willy, Joke, Dieuwke and me. Sometimes in Dalfsen, sometimes in The Hague. We really had a great time. Quilting together is so fun, and of course we had to celebrate two birthdays. I had a very productive day, and finished my top (the one with the blocks, made of jelly roll). And like most of this summer: it was real quilting weather: rain, rain, rain, around 17.00 it stopped and we finally saw the sun.

Childrens Book Museum

We have a busy weekend. Yolande, one of our best friends, is staying at our house with her two boys (almost 13 and 16). It still isn't summer weather over here, so we decided to visit the Childrens Book Museum in The Hague (next to Central Station in the Royal Library). For some reason I thought, even that I'm a book lover, that it would be a little bit boring. Well that's far away from the truth. It's a very exciting interactive museum for kids and grown-ups. Walking through the world "Papiria" we had to conquer the Ink-greed monster, by playing games, collecting words, and making your own story on the computer.

Dutch quilts

Want to know what I did on saturday? Just click here.

It's growing ....

..... my Staphorster Quilt, made of traditional costume fabrics from the 50s and 60s. It's going steady, this cheerful quilt. I have now made about 100 hourglasses, but still another 100 to go. The hourglasses are made of 5 inch squares, finished size: about 4 inch. After all that handquilting (Grace's quilt is almost finished, only two borders), I was in the mood for some machine sewing.

By the way: it's still quilting weather here in the Netherlands. Dieuwke is back from France, tonight quiltbee.

Quilting Weather Report

It's very good quilting weather today.

Hello little bear ...

.... you're almost finished, in a few days you will be moving to the Juliana Childerens Hospital in The Hague. On the 17th june 2011, 70 people cycled from The Hague to Texel, 140 km (87 miles). They raised 20.000 euro to buy bears.

Bye bye .....

see you in Seattle next year.

Cycling

Still two days to go before Marne and Elaine are leaving. Oh our life will be so quiet after they're gone. Yesterday we did a cyclingtour. Through the Hague Woods to House Den Bosch (here lives Queen Beatrix). Then Wassenaar, we saw some nice houses for sale, but they will be probably over budget. From Wassenaar we went to Meijendel, and then back through the dunes to Scheveningen. I'm still amazed, living in a "big" town, how many nice cyclingtours we can make here.

Weather report
It was suprisingly well on sunday. We even got some blue sky. I think we haven't seen blue skies for several weeks. I thought this would be the worst summer ever. But no, the facts tell us different:

In 1913 the average temperature in july was: 15C (59F). This year it was: 15.9C (60.6F). Seems we have no reason to complain ; ).

In 1954 lots and lots of wind, there were only 138 hours of sun. Normally it's: 206. This year we got 143 hours of sun.

But the worst summer ever must be the summer of 1919, 103 hours of sun, and days with temperatures around 11C (51.8F).