Colours, colours

Most of my regular readers will know I love colours, bright colours, I mean. And it shows in my knitting, quilting and stitching. As for my cloths, I am less colourful than I wish for, but for some reason that seems to change lately. Last week I found my knitted wingspan very wearable and guess what?  Friends and colleagues complimented me about this lovely scarf.
This week I mainly stitched on VHRH. The center part of block nine is done now, so I can stitch the words in it. I really love stitching words. It's like stitching small items in a sampler. Each item is a little finish and when you stitch large designs you are happy with every finish ;)

There's also some progresss on my Bride Quilt. Okay, not even one block done, but I'm only a beginner on doing this way of applique and doing it by hand takes lots of time!
Anyway, there are two birds now. And flowers and leaves added, although not all of them are sewn to the background.

My Expectation scarf is doing well too. I'm knitting the last row of squares now. 

Three techniques

As many of you probably know I love different crafts. I like to do cross stitch, I like to quilt and to knit. I also do some crochet sometimes. 

This week I had a finish, as predicted last time. My Wingspan shawl is finished, and, even more, I really think I could wear this one. Some of my other shawls are nice to see, but at work not quite wearable.

 

This afternoon I enjoyed sewing on the first block of the Civil War Bride quilt. I posted about it before, now I have all the tiny part that you see sewn to the background. That takes time! But I enjoyed it, sitting in the sun at my balcony :)

 Most of my spare time this week I have been stitching on Call of the Raven. I'm in a Dutch group and we committed to do a thousand stitches each month. Last month I didn't make it, so I have to do two thousand cross stitches this month...

 

VHRH and Wingspan

Because of Easter I had some extra time off work. School closed on Thursday afternoon, so I went home early. I did some extra household, mainly on the outside of the house (cleaning windows) because Friday and Saturday the weather was rather good.

Saturday youngest DD and I went for a trip to Amersfoort to visit Laura's Quiltatelier. I ordered a blockingboard some time ago and she let me know I could come and get it.

Sunday and today I stitched, quilted, knitted, so here are some pictures :)
To start with my VHRH. Block 8 is done!

My wingspan is almost ready, I expect to have it done by next week.

In between stitching and knitting I am busy quilting Baltimore Bliss. There are five blocks done now, only nineteen to go ;)

Liebster Blog Award

Last week Otter gave me a surprise:

Liebster is a German word meaning favorite, dearest, or beloved. The Liebster is awarded by bloggers to other new bloggers who have fewer than 200 followers to help spread the word about their blogs and to help them gain wider recognition.

The Liebster award comes with four conditions that each recipient must satisfy when accepting.

1. Choose five up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers to award the Liebster to.
2. Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
3. Post the award on your blog. List the bloggers you are giving the award to with links to their sites. Leave comments on their blog so they know about the award.
4. Share five random facts about yourself that people don't know about you.

Instead of giving the award to five single bloggers, I prefer giving it to all crafting bloggers, like

Knitting blogs http://www.knittingblogs.org/
Stitching blogs http://stitchingblogsweallluvtoread.blogspot.com/
Quilting blogs http://quiltinggallery.com/quilting-bloggers/
Crochet blogs http://crochet.about.com/od/blogsaboutcrochet/tp/Crochet-Blogs.htm
Crafting blogs http://blog.craftzine.com/

Now the hardest part of the deal, telling five thing about myself. Here we go, and read well, because I'm only telling it once!

1 I love booking a vacation, I love planning and booking way ahead two, sometimes three (short) vacations. I watch deals on hotels almost every day on the internet.

2 I hate the day before going on a vacation. I always think the day befiore: Why do I do this, why don't I stay home, I always feel like I'm going to visit the dentist, a feeling that is gone at the moment we start carying our luggage stuff into the car.

3 I love daytrips, and the thing I love the most are the trips on which we don't know where we will end our day.

4 I love starting my weekend in pyjamas, especially in winter. I can stitch and sew, do some household jobs in pyjamas and only get dressed after lunch.

5 I am an impulsive buyer, not only fabrics, yarn and silks, but also tights and pantyhoses (I hardly wear skirts in winter, but I have lots of those!)

A Blog Award and new starts

Oh wow, where to start? I did tell you I do not work anymore on Friday? Well, it seems I'm losing my head. Because of all the extra time I'll have to stitch and sew, I start one new project after another. Only to ask myself after starting them: when will I ever do that??
Oh well, one step ahead, there is no need for a finish, it's the process that counts LOL.

But before showing what my latest projects will be, I'll want to show an update on VHRH. There's almost a home, only a hole in the wall behind the wheel, but it has a roof and that's the most important, don't you think?

Together with some friends I am going to knit a Wingspan shawl, to be started at April 1st. So, obedient as I am, I started today.

And then there is the Civil War Bride. I didn't achieve much, waiting for some fabrics that arrived last Friday. But there are some flowers added to the block. All is prepared, not appliqued to the background yet.

Another project is waiting for me. Yesterday fabrics were washed and ironed for the new mystery of Esther Aliu, Forget me Not. The flower is chosen, pattern is printed, now get me some time to start!!

To end with this blogtitle, Cindy awarded me with the Liebster Blog Award. It comes with some conditions, so I will post about this sometime next week.

Spring is here!

Finally spring is here! Lots of sun this weekend and I enjoyed as much as possible. Last few weeks I enjoyed an extra day off work on Friday and in future I will too. Only four working days a week, quite a luxury!

Last Friday we went to Amsterdam, DD went to a concert and we, her parents, went with her. Not to the concert, it wasn't our kind of music, but to Amsterdam. We left at 13.30 and arrived there at 15.30. As the concert was until late at night, DH and I went walking through the city. We listened to some music at Rembrandtplein, went to a movie and met the girls again at 00.15 to drive home together.

Saturday was a sunny day too, so I cleaned our terrace, washed the windows and enjoyed reading a book in the sun. And I got a surprise, but about that later.

Some pictures now. First of all a flower grew, block 9 of Flower Garden. The pictures (front and back) are too light, the colours are brighter than this. The lines are for blocking the quilt block, look here for an explanation.

Here's an update on VHRH. I'm constructing a house again, but it isn't ready to live in yet.

And as I was travelling a lot these last weeks (I went on a train trip with DD too, a week ago) I had a lot of knitting time. So here's a little slouch hat again, it's now on its way to a girl that liked the picture of the one I already knitted for DD. This one is lilac, picture is also too light :(

To end this post I'll show the surprise I got Saturday morning. I just woke up, a bit late (due to our trip to Amsterdam the day before) and there the florist was at the door. At first I thought the bouquet was meant for my neighbours, but no, it was for me. But I'm not ill and it isn't my birthday, I said.
There was a card inside that said I had been working for the company for 12,5 years now! Isn't that nice, receiving flowers for that?

It's been a while

As I have a job and a family, I mostly use my weekends to do some household jobs, go for a walk or something and update my blog. These last weekends I simply didn't have time to take some good pictures. And without pictures no blogpost .... Today, right after work, I took my camera. I will add in alphabetical order some pictures of my knitting, quilting and stitching. More than a week ago I finished Flaming Red. And a little slouch hat for DD. She wanted something in spring colours and chose this lilac. I had to adjust the pattern, for I used a different yarn. Right after the masterclass I took, I ordered some background fabric for the Civil War Bride Quilt, in future posts to be known as Bride Quilt. Waiting for the fabric to arrive I did some preparation for the first applique, so I started with this ostrich. This weekend my fabric arrived. There's also some stitching done. Block eight of VHRH, flowers are planted. And Call of the Raven is progressing little by little.