Seven nights to go.....

... ..... and then there will be Sinterklaas. Rob and I are having fun with making poems and suprises.

Any quilting this week ....?

.... yes of course!

 I made a "dog" quilt for Lucca and Barbara. It will be a gift for the 5th of december when we are celebrating Sinterklaas all together with Willem, Dieuwke and Erik as well. You know, a very dutch tradition, Sinterklaas is riding his horse over the roofs and put gifts for the children in the chimney. Sounds very familiar to Santa Claus ; ).



If you want to read more about this very old dutch tradition, or want some food recipes:
http://dutchfood.about.com/od/dutchholidayrecipes/a/Sinterklaas.htm

Introduction
The Dutch celebrate Sinterklaas (the name is a contraction of Sint Nikolaas) on Dec. 5 and 6. The holiday, consisting of St. Nicholas's Eve and St. Nicholas's Day, honors the life of St. Nicholas.

Although St. Nicholas is always shown wearing his bishop's attire, the Dutch tend to see him as a kindly old man, rather than as a Catholic saint. The result is that Sinterklaas is celebrated by Dutch people of all ages and beliefs, without any real religious connotations.

His feast day is observed by exchanging gifts and chocolate letters (of the recipient's initial). It is also customary to make good-natured fun of your loved ones, by way of humorous poetry written by the giver and the infamous 'surprise', which is basically a (homemade) gag gift that hides another present inside.

Food
At Sinterklaas, the Dutch feast on: speculaas (spiced cookies), kruidnoten (mini spiced cookies, also called ginger nuts), taai-taai (aniseed and honey flavored figurines), borstplaat (fondant candies), colorful marzipan, chocolate letters and mulled wine.In Holland, it is more common to give presents on Sinterklaas than at Christmas, which remains a day to spend with family and attend church.

Carrots in your shoes
Dutch children believe that Sinterklaas writes down whether they've been naughty or nice in his red book. They put carrots in their shoes for his horse, hoping St. Nicholas will exchange them for presents if they were good. 

Dinner at granny

Nothing better then a good dinner at Granny. Stew (goulash) with red cabbage, cooked potatoes (something I never cook at home) and home-made apple mouse.

And Granny is going to finish my scarf, well finish is a big work, I bought the wool, but I didn't start it even.
So now I'm sure I can use this winter ; ).

Meeting old friends

Little Quilt made for Miep

For almost 20 years we lived in Almere (close to Amsterdam) before we moved to The Hague. Yesterday Mies and I visited our friends Miep and Diny. It was really good to see them again. It had been a pretty long time, it seems that times flies. Mies behaved herself so well, she was so sweet. She liked to put her head on  the little table before the sofa. Strange dog!

Happy Dog

 

Our Mies is not a very good photo model, maybe she got too much hair ; ).

But we think she really enjoys live at the moment. Especially when she can sniff and run around without a leash. The Hague Woods (Haagse Bos) is still our favorite place to be, it's so close to our house, just a 5 minute walk, so we don't need to pick the car (which is pretty awfull in The Hague).

X-mas Quilt

The dog quilt for Lucca is almost finished, just 50 cm binding to go, that's all, photos will follow next week.

Time for a new project (oke, forget about all the UFO's, that are still waiting).

Yesterday in the "Cozy Country Shop"  my mum and I were looking around and then I saw  a kind of quilt I really liked. Pretty simple, but really cute.

What had they done? They just sew strips of fabrics together. The width of the quilt is about 140/150 cm and the length probably 200 cm. The strips were cut of different kind of fabrics, cotton, corduroy, wool, flannel and even some velvet. The strips had different sizes, for example 10 cm, 20 cm, 40 cm, only the length was about 140/150 cm. I can't wait to make one of my own, and when I was laying in my bed, remembering the day I thought of my "Westfalen" fabrics. Bought in Germany two and half years ago, still not used. And the advantage, the westfalen fabrics are 140cm width of fabric. I also found some matching corduroy in my stack,  maybe I buy a piece of flannel or wool. Applique X-mas trees and mooses?

The results of a fun afternoon .....

..... wiith home-made soup, brownies, carrot cake, nice earl grey tea, and a lovely self-bought quiche. What else do we quilting girls need. And Mies (our dog) liked all the girls especially all the knuffles and attention she got.

Sunday morning

What's the word that keeps me most busy at the moment, I can assure you it's not "quilting" that goes through my head but it's "businesscase". Well I'm on schedule to finish my businesscase about "marketing and  libraries" the first week of december, then it's six week free before the next subject starts half of januar.

The weather is still good today (yesterday was a grey and rainy day), so we're going to take Mies for a walk before the girls arrive around 12.00 o'clock for the X-mas workshop: making a moose. You can find the patterin in the Tilda Book Winter Wonderland.

Enjoy your sunday, I will!!! My dining table is clean from study books, the rest of day just quilting and sewing. No more studying today.