Elk Rapids Gwen Marston part 2

A highlight for me this trip was to meet Nancy Ray. Nancy is the owner of the antique tulip quilt I was inspired by to make my own version. It is published in Gwen's book Liberated String Quilts. Nancy went to Gwen's retreat the week before I came. She stayed a few days longer just to meet me, how lucky was I? She wanted to meet me and showed me the original quilt. It was so special to see them together. Unfortunately I can show you a little peek of them together becuase some of the pictures will be hopefully published in Quiltmania march issue. My quilt will be published with a pattern. Isn't that amazing!



I also met Biz Storms and mary Elizabeth Kinch, authors of the book Small Blocks Stunning Quilts. A lovely book! I can highly reccomend this book if you are a lover from reproduction fabrics and quilts.
We took pictures of everything but I don't have a picture of us together. I know there were taken pictures. Hopefully the girls have them and will send them to me and I will post them later.


I am impressed by how small the world is. Carol from Quilt as Desired blog showed her quilt made by Dutch fabrics. Her mom and aunt bought these dutch fabrics in the shop where I work! Actually I helped her aunt choose fabrics. Isn't it amazing that Carol from Canada and me from The Netherlands now met each other in the USA and that I was able to see what Carol did with her Dutch fabrics :-)

And here she is, my idol, Gwen Marston with a pile of her beautiful quilts next to her...



to be continued....

Lucy

Elk Rapids Gwen Marston part 1

Some of you already knew where I was last week. I was at the GWEN MARSTON'S QUIlT RETREAT!!!! Yeahh, what a thrill. I'm dealing with a jetlag right now and my mind is so full with all my experiences. I went with Isabeau, Joes and Bonnie.

It was beautiful up there in Michigan. The trees are turning in so many colors this week. I will share you pictures from the area I took

This is the view from the condo we rented.




and this was outside of the studio



Some pictures on the road to Charlevoix. It was raining that day.



We saw a few lovely old one room schoolhouses just like in the little house on the prairie.







and look at these big pumpkins,beautiful!!




to be continued

Lucy

What’s left to do is wash...

This weekend I finished my doll quilt. Everytime when I quilt a top to me it starts coming alive! Especially when a quilt isn't very scrappy like this one or an Amish quilt.



For quilting I used a flower template I had in my closet. I like using templates for my quilting. They are easy to use. I love the way the darker binding gives the quilt a bolder look. It was a good choice for my quilt.




Now I need to wash the quilt to get that feel and look of an old well loved doll quilt.

Lucy

Windmills

Look what I made in one evening, a doll quilt! I love to sew small quilts. They go together quickly and helps you learn what fabrics work together. I wanted to make a quilt that was not so scrappy and busy. Now that the top is finished I think it is too neat, too controlled, not so my style! I think it will look better after it is hand quilted and washed and dried in the dryer. I'm hoping that the handquilting and the dryer will give the antique look I love.

Lucy

Jacob's Ladder

It has been a long time since I posted.

Gré Koopman, the shopowner of De Sampler(where I work and teach), my boss passed away. She had been fighting for cancer for a short year. Till the last moment she was so positive and tried to go to the shop everyday she could. I will miss her.

Our summerbreak is over. The kids are going back to school next week. I had no luck this summer. I'm dealing for three weeks with a terrible infection which even brought me to hospital for a few days. I'm feeling better now so time for me to sew again :-)

I started a Jacob's ladder. Love the antique feel of it. And funny thing is that I have been listening a lot to Jakob Dylan lately. I love his music. His band is called The Wallflowers and yes he is the son of Bob Dylan. (the Wallflowers One Headlight)



I'm also very happy to tell you that one of my quilts is published in the summer special of Quiltmania. I love the picture of my quilt. The photographer of Quiltmania did a great job!



Lucy

Finished top

.... And then I had 8 star points. Which background should I use?
I wanted to use fabric from my stash.

A dark pink? .. hmm nope.

Mustard?... nice but it doesn't have that WOW!

A dark grey?.. Also nice. But what is under the dark grey fabric. Yes BLUE!

The blue is calling me. I can't help it.

A light blue? ...no.
Yes this is the fabric I like, a darker petrol blue! Yes.

The star is coming together...

Only the tricking thing from a lone star is the center. It's the last sewing part. I'm always a bit nervous for it. Afraid that I sewed a bra!

Pinning carefully.
And there it goes..
pfeww! I'm satisfied. The center is nice and flat!

I also used in this quilt solids from Kaffe fasset. I love to mix them up with Kona solids. It gives such a nice Amish feel! The center is from a Fasset solid. So are the background and the green points.

I didn't have enough of the blue/petrol fabric. I used two different fabrics.

And ta dahh.. finished. My fingers are itching to quilt it. I love to quilt on solids. It brings the quilt alive! Unfortunately it has to wait. Some other projects need to be finished first.

Lucy

(who had to use blue in this quilt :-)

Hi

Hi, life’s busy here,

I have started running again.. I run three times a week approx. 4.9 miles. I enjoy it so much. I guess running is as addicting as quilting :-) I’m thinking of a splendid goal…I want to run the marathon of New York when I’m 50!! ( well keep dreaming Lucy ;-) Right now I’m 43 so I have loads of time to train for it .



Finally I’m working on my small Amish Lone star. I’m teaching the Lone star as a workshop and I think an Amish quilt is a good example to show.



This was my first choice of fabrics.



But somehow I have always blue and red in my quilts. So I decided to change the blue and then also it ended up that I changed some other colors too. But now I miss the blue..



Well it is time to choose the background.
I will keep you up posted

Lucy

Solids

Spring fever has hit here and I am enjoying spending lots of time outside, running and of course taking pictures.

Today I took some solids from my stash. I want to make a small lonestar. Think solids are perfect for this.
I hope to show you my progress coming week!

Lucy

Elburg

There is not so much sewing going on here. I'm still working on projects I can't show at this moment.

Maybe you like to see some pictures I took when we visited Elburg about a month ago. It's a nice old place here in the Netherlands.

Some beautiful old houses on a street.

The saddle from an old delivery bicycle.




This is a typical Dutch fishermans boat. It could be 100 years odl and maybe even more. I love the color of the wood and all the browns.


Since I bought my DSRL camera 1.5 years ago, I'm more and more into photography. It looks like that it is going to be my second hobby! I have to learn a lot but I enjoy it so much.

Lucy

Houses

" Dit huis is proper genoeg om gezond te zijn, en stoffig genoeg om gelukkig te zijn."

It started with one little house made inspired by The Little Quilts houses. It's a very fun block to make from scraps.

With four houses I could make a mini quilt..

But sometimes an idea doesn't work.. I couldn't choose how to set them.

Nothing worked i.m.o.

I decided to go for simplicity, four houses together framed by a nice red fabric.

Quilted and almost the binding is done, BUT there is something. I still don't like it. The chimneys are blending in the doors.

So four new houses were easily made..

Yes this is better, just with sashings and cornerstones simple.

8 houses and two mini's further and I finally like it :-)

Lucy

I thought about the post where I promised to explain how I make my writing space wider.

I found these two websites, since the sites are much better at explaining then I am, I decided to post the two links for you. ;-)

The blogger guide

Tricks for new bloggers

Lucy

Flour sacks

Thank you for your congratulations! It means a lot to me :-)

Lucy




Flour sacks

A little time ago LaDonna, from Gracious Hospitality, saw flour sacks in her favourite antique shop. She thought of me because we are going to do a Sun Bonnet Sue quilt together. Thanks to her help I could buy these beauties.
Look how bright the colours of the labels are. I don’t know which year these flour sacks are dated. I don't think they are that old. Does anyone know more about them?
I don't dare cut the flour sacks. I will keep these in my collection of feed sacks.
Thank you LaDonna. The sacks are shining on my rack in my living room.

Lucy

Quiltmania

I am so excited… look what I am holding in my hands!!!!! .
The newest issue of Quiltmania.

And the biggest surprise is that I’m in the magazine!
Quiltmania came to visit in December when Bonnie was here.They took pictures in our home of a few of my quilts. I’m so happy.

Who else is in the same issue? My dear friend Bonnie! Quiltmania wrote a very nice article about her new book!

Lucy


Ps. Quiltmania choose 7 quilts of mine that they will publish with a pattern in future issues.

I bet some of you were wondering why I haven’t been posting about my quilts in progress, this is why!
When they are published in the magazine I will let you know . Once they are published I will post about them with pictures of the quilt..
This is so exciting for me.

Lucy

*update*


Many of you have asked which issue I am in.
Its Issue no. 70.

The magazine comes out in the USA weeks later so you will have to look out for it.
You can find Quiltmania in Barnes and Noble, Borders, quilt shops and I am sure there are shops that carry it on line.
As soon as I hear it is available in the USA I will let you know.

Larger pictures

Some of you asked me how I enlarge some of my pictures. Larger as the 'large' size which is available in blogger.
I hope that the following information is helpful.

Upload your picture as usual. In medium size.
Like this...

When you read the Html of the picture you will see this:

WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 214px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bbCRFiRAtDA/Sa45DnLQ4dI/AAAAAAAACvc/54oeymMIkgw/s320/eieren+027.JPG" border="0"

Here it comes..

Change:

- WIDTH: 320px into 640px
- HEIGHT: 214px into 428px

and read a bit further change

- s320 in s640

That's all and ta daaaahh here it is; the picture a bigger size.



Another question was how did I make my writing space wider. I have template 'Scribe' and a long time ago I customized it. My son taught me a lot. Bonnie showed me how to make a nice background and I read a lot of information sites about blogging. Since that was a long time ago I have to go back and take a look to see what I did. I will find which site was very helpful for me and I will post the link to thsi site.

I hope to give you more information about this in a few days. Please just give me some time :-)

Lucy