Long time ago I wrote some news. So much to do and so less time ,-) and I just have a hard time to go through.

But today there are finally some pics of my finished Amsterdam project. The first project I did a lot of effort in machine quilting. Yes, and I think it was worth it...

The border is quilted like pinwheels by stipple quilting

The solid blocks have a quilted wreath, someone called it "Partybread"

Also the white triangles of the pinwheels are quilted while the different colored fabrics stand out. It was a very good exercise to get familiar with the quilting possibilities of my new Bernina. But it also means to have learned one thing makes you more demanding and looking for a new challenge

Another trip to the Netherlands

Last weekend I visited the Netherlands with a friend of mine for some days. There was a very sunny day at the sea – wonderful! And two days more cloudy mixed with a little bit of rain, so we saw Amsterdam, Edam and Hoorn, went for a walk, watched a few DVD’s on our apartment, did some cooking and so on. Visiting Amsterdam I bought a couple of fat quarters of Den Haan & Waagenmakers again. We’ll see which exercise to do they will inspire me this time.

A nice Café in Edam, where we sat down and chat for a while

View from our apartment next to the Ijsselmeer

Cobblestones

Nettie's site shows a very pretty pic of cobblestones. All the soft earthtones in grey inspired me to do a color exercice.

I gave the pic a higher contrast and these are the colors I found ...

... and this is the coloring of a quilt design

Finally finished

My “Hidden Pinwheel” blocks are now sewn together, my project is finished.
The blocks came to lie over an orange solid by chance (there were some left overs of my Amsterdam quilt laying around) and I found it fitting together very well. So I took it for a small border stripe. I added a dark sand solid for a second wider border stripe - so the both are a little bit like a picture frame.
Quilting in the border is very geometrical: zigzag lines sewed with a twin needle. I liked to pick up the diagonal lines in the block and repeat them in the border.

The middle of the quilt has some meander quilting but it wasn’t really worth the effort, because the fabrics don’t show enough of it.
Yesterday it was mother’s day and the quilt found its victim :-)

Thanks again to Bonnie Hunter for inspiration.

Back again

Mother over night - this is my feeling at the moment. My second child, son Jonas, has now lived with his father for about one and a half year. He was there because his college is next to his father’s flat. But there were some difficulties between the both – maybe the age of a 17 year old boy. The situation escalated and so Jonas decided to move and live in my house again.
Some month ago I get used to be more independent and free. Now over night the full responsibility and duties of a mother are back again: My daily rhythm changes. There are vocabularies which will be tested before an exam, must be a horse anywhere which empties my fridge faster than I’m able to fill it, three a.m. I hear giggle and laughter of a cute girl in the sleeping room next to me – boy, will I be strong enough to master my lead?

I hope I’ll get and learn all I need to…

Jonas (17), Ben (4) und Nele (20)

80 memories of Amsterdam 2

Now this is my result by doing exercise in free motion stipple quilting. With this new Bernina I bought it is such a fun!

80 memories of Amsterdam

I visited the Netherlands for several times mostly on May when everything has this inspiring fresh green and the air is full of the smell of blooming. Amsterdam is so relaxing to stroll through with its wonderful “Grachten”, small channels of water between the rows of houses. There is a beautiful patchwork shop called “Den Haan & Wagenmakers“ which sells fabrics with old Dutch prints of a very high quality. I love them. I brought a little package of scraps with me, just 80 three inch patches, not knowing what I’ll do with.
Now those 80 memories are my project to improve my skills for sewing triangle blocks. I fear I’ll never master perfect triangle piecing.
Since I had not so many Dutch pieces and I liked to get a quilt of 60 x 60 inches I filled the empty spaces with a warm orange and a fresh white (The pic shows only a little part of my quilt).
Next exercise will be to machine quilt it.