September 2018

September again saw me a bit too busy to do a lot of quilting, but I did manage to do some dodecagons

It was busy also because at the beginning of the month I had a little medical issue that needed to be attended to

It took me a little longer than I thought to recuperate, but the view back home was better than the view before (above)

Excitement this month came in the form of a very special police action taking place just in front of me while I was waiting in front of the traffic lights at a large junction close to our house. Already noticing lots of police in bullet proof vests when I arrived at the red light (with one officer taking position next to my car), and a van on my right hand side, standing still, with the driver busy on the phone, all of a sudden two black jeep arrived and out jumped a number of plain clothed police, wearing masks, guns drawn. they surrounded the van and shouted to the driver to come out. He did not, kept on talking on his phone, and after a short stand-off (pfffff, still all those guns so close to me), they had had enough, two of the masked police officers opened the doors on either side of the van and while one officer put his gun away and started pulling on and fighting with the driver, the other one first kept his gun pointed at the driver from through the other open door, before entering the fight from his side, after which the first officer was quickly able to pull out the driver and work him to the ground where he was handcuffed and blind folded, before being led away into one of the regular police cars. All the time a helicopter was hovering overhead and the high school on the corner (Eline’s old school) was in lock-down, with police cars in front of the entrance.

The arrival of this special arrest team, all the regular police officers already there surrounding the van and the helicopter hovering overhead certainly gave me the impression that this was a planned action and I was really impressed by how efficient things were excecuted, the whole action took only a few minutes and no shots were fired. Hats off to these pro’s.

With a police officer next to my car and with being so close possibly being in the fire line should guns be used, I only started taking pictures and video’s when the action was over and the guns had been put away.

As soon as I was back on my feet again after the operation, preparations began for our daughter’s 21-dinner party.
As is tradition she wanted it to be held at home and her wish was for one long table, with 24 dinner guests, we could just about manage that in our living room.

Lots of planning, preparations, energy and time went into this evening, I even got re-acquainted with my sewing machine to make the table runners 

But it was all worth it, it was a memorable, wonderful evening during which we got the help of 3 wonderful friends, Nathalie and Vincent helping out in the kitchen and helping with serving our guests and Lucy (click) and (click) who made beautiful pictures that evening, so we will always have those to remind us of how lovely it was.

Below a few pictures by Lucy, those who follow her blog and Instagram account will recognize her clean, fresh style of photography:

Below 3 pictures I took , strictly snapshot style ;-)  :

Having celebrated with a room full of people back home on the weekend of her birthday we decided – as the 3 of us are foodies – that it would be nice as one of her 2 birthday presents to take Eline for her first fine dining experience to a restaurant that we had been curious about and had been wanting to visit, but we just needed that special occasion to do so. Well, this was it and they certainly lived up our (already high) expectations.

We went to The White Room on Dam Square in Amsterdam.

Her other birthday present came in this little box.

It being a special birthday (21 years) and us only having a small family we seldom have large parties (the last one was 11 years ago) , so we thought we’d go all out for this one and we are happy we did. It was so worth it.

So with some lovely moments from September to look back on, I now look forward to October, with some quilty adventures again.

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Phyllis

August 2018

August still had some great summer weather, but later in the month things cooled down a bit, which made it a lot better for some quilty activities.

But before that there were still some summer outings with Whopper, he loves those evenings on the beach.

On one of those very warm summer days I drove down to Marcha’s shop (click) for her Open House. I was not the only one to drive that way, unfortunately I arrived rather late because of the traffic jams, which meant that I had to miss lunch as I was expected at Karen Styles’ (click & click) workshop shortly after my arrival.

Luckily, Yvonne (click), who was there to promote her book, came to my aid with some sweets, enough to give me that sugar rush to enjoy Karen’s workshop. 

Karen’s workshop was about tips and tricks to make clamshells , which she used in her beautiful Okehampton quilt.

As I had never made clamshells before I found the workshop really helpful, when I ever want to use these in a project, I know exactly what to do.

It was fun seeing Karen again, after our days at Emma’s (click) and in Paris in the spring (click).

Because of my late arrival I had less time than planned to look around at Marcha’s Open House, but there was lots to see (here are a few pictures from the quilt exhibition), to do, to eat and drink and of course I did want to do some shopping.

Karen’s Circle of Sisters quilt is always a star attraction!

It’s fun to see Marcha’s shop-quilt grow, quite a few additions during the Open Days I am sure, I am somewhere in the middle:

Two days later I traveled in another direction to Juud (click), we spent the day (another hot one) sitting outside in the morning working on our Judy Newman projects, so we called it our ‘Judy Day’. 

After lunch it became a too hot to be outdoors so we moved inside, imagine that. Practically the whole year we want to be outside and then when we can it can get so hot you prefer to be indoors….

Multi-talented Juud in ‘domestic goddess’ – mode in her kitchen, making us a yummy and healthy dinner which we enjoyed in the garden 😊 

The end of a lovely day, with lots of chatting and sewing and looking ahead to all sorts of fun quilty things in the future.

So this month I started a Judy Newman quilt, for me it just had to be the Sugar Plum quilt. During the days when Judy was at Emma’s (click) and I was helping out, I saw this quilt the whole time and of all the quilts Judy brought with her, this is the one that represents those wonderful days in France most, the happy, airy, light colors, the cheerfulness of it all.

So far this is what I have done and using Judy’s templates and book, the curved seems are really not difficult at all.

Thank you for visiting my blog,

Phyllis

A winner and a reunion

I should have posted this weekend, but I am so sorry, it was just somewhat busier than I thought.

So now without further ado the winner of my give away, tadaaaahhhh!

 

Congratulations Linda! Can you email me your address so I can send you the fabrics? Hope you will enjoy them.

And for those who did not win, I am sorry, better luck next time (there will be more give-aways), I have entered countless give-aways myself and have never won …..

This weekend was a bit busier than planned, because on Sunday we decided to go to the fundraising event for Animal in Need, the foundation that runs the shelter in La Linea in Spain where we adopted Whopper from. It was also their 5-year celebration and because of all this Peter Koekebakker, who founded and still runs the shelter, came over from Spain to attend. So Whopper was reunited with his rescuer (and of course, Whopper would not sit still for the pictures).  

 

 



Recently CesarMillan, the famous dog whisperer, visited the shelter in La Linea, he trained one of the dogs there and used it for an episode of his series on the National Geographic Channel. It was broadcast over here in The Netherlands on April 12, but will be repeated, which is great recognition and exposure for the shelter and the wonderful work they do over there.

 

Peter and Cesar at the shelter in La Linea, Spain

 

More quilty news next time, when I will show you the finished top of my Jacob’s Ladder quilt, hope to be able to make and outdoors picture of it later on in the week, unfortunately the weather is letting me down today.

 

Don’t forget, this evening: the final of the Great British Sewing Bee!!  If you did not see this, you missed a really nice program.  It is like the Great British Bake Off, only with fabrics! Great contestants, great judges (aaah, the impeccably dressed Patrick Grant), great stories.

 

 

I found out through the Gehring Road blog that there actually is a link which will enable you to watch all the episodes on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR5BqGWYeSw&playnext=1&list=PLdPQHWnWlCxe_FqZpczwhZFUkNgLocq8q&feature=results_main

Watch them from episode 1 and you will enjoy a few hours of great tv-sewing fun!

 

Until next week,

Phyllis