End of vacation ....

Tomorrow lazy days are over, school starts again, so I have to be present early in the morning. I had a really great vacation! The weather hasn't been like it should be in summer, a lot of rain, but due to my stitching an quilting activities I had a reaxing time. And we spent two weeks in Germany with lovely summer weather! What else could you wish for?

To start with last week adventures, I had my Holland Springtime framed. It is now hanging on my wall!

I stitched on Mary again.  I found out I can also stitch on her inside, using my ott-lamp and a magnifier, so there is a little progress.

There is also the start of a knitting project. Fall Mystery by Renee Leverington. Clue one is started and finished today.

Holland Springtime finished!

Yes, it's true, I finally finished Holland Springtime. The beading is all done, the last stitches are stitched and I can sit back and look at it! Time to dream about framing and how it want it to be framed. I don't have any ideas yet and I will take my time. Maybe end of the year I take it to the framer.

Time to start a new design. I'm in doubt which one to choose, I have two Chatelaines kitted up, German Ostsee and Classizism Mandala. I think I'll choose the latest, what do you think?

Holland Springtime , Jane and exchanges

Lots to show this week! To start with the last, I now can show the Lizzie Kate Christmas Exchange we did on the HoE Group. I received a lovely ornament, stitched by Anne . It is Noel, a Lizzie Kate Flip-it. She added a gorgeous scissor-fob in exactly my colours (she told me she looked at My Tweets to find out what I like, isn't that sweet?)

Of course I sent an exchange too, mine was stitched for Carla, an item from Tiny Tidings XI.

I have been busy this week. Another block added to The Village of Hawk Run Hollow

and the beading on Holland Springtime is almost finished.

Besides that I finished the quilttop of Blonde Jane. I only have to add the border. Don't look in close-up, I didn't iron her ... I'm not going to back it yet, because I have too many quilts asking for more attention. So she just has to be patient....

From now on stitching and quilting will slow down, because holidays are over, next week duty calls!

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.

Some updates on ongoing projects

If you're a regular reader of my blog you know I have quite some ongoing projects. Progress is not always as fast as I would like to, but there is progress and that's what counts, isn't it?

This week I have to show some beading on Holland Springtime. It takes a lot more time than I expected, so there is only a small area done.

Call of the Raven however, is going fast. I have been concentrating on her this whole week and I finished another page. Only one to go and than there's a row finished again.

My quilting blocks are also coming together. Block three of Hearts Desire is stitched now, two more to go before I can move on to block four.

This weekend I have been washing and ironing the fabrics I am going to use on a new project, a Jane Austen quilt. The pattern is in a book of Kaffe Fassett and I am going to use fabrics with an Asian print. The pink/lilac fabric is meant to be used for background.

There's only one week in which I am going to work and then the LONG holiday starts. Nine weeks off from work, so in that period I am planning to work on Jane. I think I can make a good start :)

Yeah, I made it!!

Do you remember my goal to finish the stitching part of Holland Springtime? Of course you do :)
Well, I'm proud I can say: I made it before the end of May, the stitching is done! Now I can add the beads.

And another goal is reached. I wanted to finish Red Delicious this month and I did. The binding is finished and it hangs at my bedroon wall. I hope DH likes it, otherwise he will have to close his eyes entering the bedroom ;)

I have been working on this quilt for a year and a half and I think I will miss it. It's the first I ever actually quilted and I really love how it turned out.

Holidays!

Tomorrow we leave for Berlin and we are looking forward to celebrate spring in this beautiful city! But first I owe you an update of my Holland springtime. The last tulipbulb is stitched and I started to stitch the border.

And, as usual, at the end of the month I have a 1000 stitches added to Call of the Raven. For now, that is all I have to show :) See you all next week!

This April looks like summer

It has been like summer, high temperatures all week. And this week I am a very lucky woman, because I'm off work from last Thursday until today. So I got an extra long weekend to clean the terrace, rearrange my flowerpots and buy some extra geraniums for my hanging baskets.
Besides that I have been stitching a lot!

Holland Springtime has great progress. As you can see I added the flowers on top of the left onion, and two tiles. Now I only have to stitch the last tulipbulb and then on to the border. I am more confident on reaching my goal , to have the stitching finished by the end of May.

Besides stitching I have been preparing some blocks. From May 2nd until May 6th DH and I leave for a trip to Berlin. We go by car and as I like do some stitching I prepared two blocks. The first is the third block of My Tweets.

The other one is the second block of Hearts Desire.

My Garden and a little bit springtime ...

Is it spring in your country too? Here it is! Flowerbuds are opening, the sun was shining this weekend, so all of a sudden I noticed the dust in my house. And I started a little bit cleaning ... Luckily I don't have to clean the windows yet, because the carpenter is still busy to replace some rotten parts of the window frames. So in spite of cleaning activities I could find some time to stitch this weekend.

I'm a little behind on the BOM of Lynette Anderson, My Garden. But today I finished block 7, only two more to go.

And Holland springtime has some progress too. The tulip in the corner is added. Now I can move on to the left part of the design.

Still spring and a new project

I hope you don't get bored by seeing an update on Holland Springtime again. It's just a nice tile that I stitched this week, typical Dutch, a small village, a church, a windmill and a sailing boat.

I also have some progress again on Call of the Raven. I am almost done with the dress and there will be more variation in colours again, stitching my way to the left.

A new project, another quilt again. It's Hearts Desire by Esther Aliu. I did the first block and like you know me, I did quite some colour changes.

Esther Aliu is the designer of Red Delicious too. I quilted all the blocks and now I continue with the borders. The outer black stripe is going to be cut down to the binding, it's the overlap of the backing fabric, so I only quilt the first stripe of black and the white stripe of fabric.