Visit from overseas and, of course, stitching

Last week my friends Marne and Elaine from Seattle visited Groningen. They have been in the Netherlands for over a month now, time to come to the most northern part! We spent some lovely days together, in spite of the rain. It was nice to guide them around in my own town. Unfortunately I didn't bring my camera, but Marne and Elaine did. So pictures are on Marne's blog, here and here.

Saturday we drove to the most northern part of the Netherlands, Noord Kaap Noord. There was not much to see, no tourists (did they all blow away?) only a few sheep. And us.

We also went to Dokkum, the place were Bonifatius was murdered, to give a small lecture on Dutch history ;)

Time for some lunch!

And into the rain again.

On the stitching front there is an update on Call of the Raven. Another page finished, 40 pages done, 29 to go!

And I'm still beading Holland Springtime.

Mission almost accomplished!

It has been a rainy week. Almost no sunshine, so I had to stay at home. I didn't care, beause my roommate Jane was at my side whole week, although the way she looked changed by the day ;)
The only thing that was stable, was her heart.

Wednesday July 13th she looked like this:

Friday July 15th :

Saturday July 16th. You can hardly see it, but there are three parts now, just laying in the right position.

Sunday July 17th. All I have to do is add the borders. But I ran out of fabric, so I ordered some yards and all I can do now is wait for them to arrive ...

Jane

As expected Jane took over my life this week. She is already becoming a dear friend and not only she took over my life, she also took over the livingroom.

It started, like every quilt, with dreams, buying fabrics, sorting them and then, last Tuesday, a friend came over to my house to start our 'Jane project'. She is also piecing the Jane Austen quilt, but in totally different fabrics , so finally we will end up with two different quilts. We cut our fabrics together, at least, that is what we planned (dreamers as we still are!). Ohhh, that first cut in new fabric, do you recognize the feeling? It's exciting and frightening at the same time!

Of course we ended up chatting and even paid a visit to our local quiltshop to buy some paterno to cut some new templates. So after a great day of cutting templates and fabric we still have to do most of the job. However, we did cut our centerblock. This is mine:

During this week I have been cutting ...

and cutting ..

.

and cutting ... (bless my Olfa!)

As my holidays started last week I had plenty of time to get it on the roll, so here the first rows. My goal is to have the top finished at the end of August.