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.

Again: Holland Springtime and a flower

Do you know the feeling to be close to someone you never met? I do. I have a friend, I can call her my dearest friend. We share not only our hobby, but also our feelings. And although we never met, I feel as close to her as I do to my sister.
As she is going through a difficult time I want to give her some signs of spring. DD made these pictures exclusively for her. But all of you: enjoy these signs of life, after a hard winter.

As for stitching: Holland Springtime is here again. I added a tile this weekend. My goal is (was?) to finish it in May but I am not convinced I am going to make it. June is okay too, don't you think?

And a flower to add to Flower Garden. Makes a total of seven flowers.

And for fun: some pictures of my local quiltshop Cordi (with permission of the owner). It's a party to enter that shop, all vibrant colours, it always makes me happy.

Small finish and new pictures of wellknown projects

This week has been a busy week (workrelated) so there were some evenings I just could sit and do nothing. Yet Holland Springtime has some progress again. I added the clouds in the lower onion and the corner at the right, just beneath the tulip.

Yesterday I had a small finish, another LHN Ornament. I didn't fill in the year at the bottom, because it's saying 2010. I am using this for a quilt and it might be 2012 before it's finish. Or even 2013 .... so I thought I'd better leave it open, to minimize the pressure LOL

DD took some new pictures of My Tweets and Red Delicious. She has a brand new camera and she makes great pictures with it. The colors are more like in real life, so here they come! Red Delicious quilting, only one block and the borders to go before it's finished.

Center piece of My Tweets, I'm not finished stitching yet, but there is progress!

Small finishes

This week I have been busy quilting on Red Delicious. Another block is done, so only two more to go.

To spare my poor fingers I have been stitching in between. On one of my groups they were going to stitch a scissorfob and I thought it would be nice to join.
We could choose one of the freebees of The Drawn Thread and I decided to stitch Four Fat Friends. However, this isn't meant to be a sciccorfob. It's to big and it isn't square. Stubborn as I am I finished the stitching and decided not to add some backing fabric, but just folded the stitched piece and sew it together on top. It's not my masterpiece, but I am rather satisfied.

I think it's alright to show another finished object. It was sent for a Christmas exchange back in January and I suppose it arrived. The new owner, Gabi, is on holidays for quite some weeks and I think she just isn't at home to unpack.

And I prepared the centerpiece for My Tweets. The pictures aren't very well, I'll give it a try again tomorrow.
The second picture is without flash. Quite mysterious, I think.

Springtime

This afternoon it was sunny with a rather cold wind. But ... I could sit on the balcony, face up to the sun and do some stitching (then looking down of course LOL). The first time this year and first things always have something special ;)

This week I have been busy stitching on Holland Springtime. The lower onion is decorated with flowers now, all I have to do is add some clouds. I think I'll do that this evening.

Another flower has grown in Flower Garden. It is number six.

Besides sitting in the sun I have been preparing part of Miss Kelly, the centerpiece for My Tweets. It's a rather big one, 32 inch square.