A superduper Dawn & Dorry day!

In so many ways a wonderful day this Saturday.

After a drive of almost 2 hours I arrived at Dorry’s farm/shop when the first thing that I always notice when I arrive there is how wonderfully quiet it is. I always take a few moments to take that in.

Then it was on to the house for the Hexagon Event with Dawn Cook Ronningen (click).

The last time Dawn was in our country we spent a wonderful day looking at her beautiful quilts at my house and then visited Delft, so it was wonderful to see her again and meet her husband Mike, who is travelling with her this time.

Dorry (click) had – as usual- made the most of her AGA and had lots of yummy things waiting for us.

Many familiar faces arriving, always great to meet up again with so many fun and sweet quilters.

All in all it was a great, fun, inspirational, creative, yummy day with gorgeous weather, lovely people, great food, beautiful surroundings, lots of stories and lots of laughs.

An impression:

At Dorry’s

Just a few of the antique hexagon quilts that Dawn showed, pictures published with the permission of Dawn:

Some of the quilts were so thin you could see through them

And some quilts/tops still had paper pieces in them, a bit of history

And last but certainly not least, Dorry’s own antique hexagon quilt on the wall in her living room

A yummy lunch provided by Dorry and her mum

Then it was on to the workshop, a great package was waiting for us so we could start sewing really quickly

In between lots of other things going on like Betty (click) taking pictures of her beautiful quilt

Like I said, it was a superb day, also via this blogpost I would like to thank everyone involved again for making it so memorable.

Back to the hexies later today!

Phyllis

Quilting in the south of Holland

After the fun I had trying out their new Q20 quilting machine at the Rijswijk quilt fair (Patchwork en Quilt Dagen) recently (click), the people from Bernina kindly invited me for more quilting fun and a workshop by Elly Prins (click) at their Creative Center in Breda in the south of Holland.

Unfortunately my day started with this…….

 

which made me an hour late for the workshop but not to worry, Elly made sure I caught up with everyone else during their coffee break and soon enough I was able to try my hand at a bit of longarm quiting for the first time ever, on the new Bernina Q24.

 

 

 

 



I loved it! 

I also tried out the pantagraph

I enjoyed it so much, I could have done this all day, I needed to concentrate so much no time to think of anything else, so therapeutic!

 









There was a lot time to play with the Q24 and I enjoyed it tremendously, thank you very much to the people from Bernina en to Elly for this opportunity!

Now I guess I need to win the lottery ……… ;-)

 



 

After the workshop there I had time to make the short drive to the Quilt it & Dotty quiltshop in Tilburg, I had not been there for some time, so this was a good opportunity.

Always lovely to visit Dorry’s shop, great for some quilt inspiration

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



When I was there Ingrid (Supergoof, click) also dropped in, so we had a cup of tea and a chat to catch up on everything.
After that it was time to hit the road again for the 100 km drive back home.

And this is what came home with me

 



the Bernina goody-bag and some fabrics from Dorry, also a shocking pink needle puller, could ‘t resist that one , so cute!

Hope you are enjoying a lovely, long Whitsun/Pentecost/bankholiday/Memorial Day weekend!

Phyllis

 

All things Xmas!

Oh dear, I started my Xmas preparations a bit late this year, so yesterday I had to go down town for some last minute shopping. One of my favourite shops around this time is De Bijenkorf department store, their Xmas decorations are always wonderful! I took this picture of their huge Xmas tree:-

Speaking of Xmas trees, remember I was soooooo angry last week? Guess what..??

Yes, I took this picture too yesterday afternoon, the tree in the Passage is back!!! Hubertine and Sandra already told me on Friday they were putting it up so I had to go and take a look for myself and yes, there it was!
Usually it is up weeks before Xmas and then there are lots of things going on, carol singers etc. It is all much too late for that now, but at least the tree is back, the Passage looks much better now and there were more people around too. I can only guess that all the protests worked. And I am sooo pleased to see this tree again.

Next year, when the Apple Store has opened, you bet I will have a chat with the manager and go on the Apple Facebook page again in time to try my best to get the tree there again!

Of course, there is a Xmas tree at home too, full of soft decorations.

 

Getting into the Xmas swing of things was greatly helped by Dorry’s wonderful Xmas party last weekend. She did a wonderful job, greatly helped by Dorien and her mum and a friend.

Hubertine and I went together and we enjoyed it so much!

 

We had some yummy food

 

Dorry organised a lovely little workshop, nothing too difficult so plenty of opportunity to enjoy the company at the table of some very nice ladies.

 

 

 

Dorry introduced her newest member of staff, Pluis:-

And Dorien showed her beautiful version of the Love Entwined quilt top:-

After all this inspiration I was ready to start planning Xmas dinner, looking at old Xmas issues of my favourite food magazine, making lists..

In between all this I am turbo-quilting, trying to get this quilt ready for Xmas to give to my teenage daughter Eline.  I can safely write that here, she seldom looks here.

 

First I machine quilted criss cross across the quilt and then I decided to handquilt the colored centers of the stars to give it a little more texture (I love handquilting, it just takes so long).



I used DMC Perle 8 and big stitches, I did a workshop big stitch quilting by Laura some time ago at Den Haan & Wagenmakers, it is the first time I used this technique and I loved it. So relaxing not to put your quilt in a hoop and trying to make small stitches! Easier on the eyes too!

The binding is ready and waiting to be attached too!

 

 

While all this is going on I love listening to all the Xmas tunes on the radio, there was one song I kept on hearing and couldn’t get it out of my head, my favourite this Xmas season. When they played it again a few days ago I decided to look it up on the playlist of that radiostation.

And this is what was…..that boy……. before all that puberty madness started :-

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0t8w-0GO8Q

 

 

The same boy singing the same song but very nervously (the hands!) for President Obama..

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGi5wwsQ-Kw

Because the coming period will be busy I doubt I will get a chance for a blog post before the end of the year. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading my blog and has left comments, I really appreciate it. 2013 Was my first full year with a blog and I enjoyed it so much! A heartfelt “Thank you!”, is in order,  it is great ‘meeting’ you all this way and I hope we will ‘see’ each other again this way (or maybe in person) next year.

Wishing everyone a lovely, wonderful, cozy Christmas with family and friends! Enjoy, enjoy!

Phyllis