Old and used embroidery

Over a couple of weeks I found some embroidery in the thrift shops. I always look for embroidered table cloth or samplers. It gets harder but sometimes I'm lucky. This one is embroidered by hand. There are some stains on this one but I can use the good parts someday.

 This small tablecloth is machine embroidered but I like the chickens.

 A very soft and well used table cloth with lovely faded flowers.

 A unusual sampler in just a few colours: light and dark green, black, red and white. To see the white (on white) embroidery you really must look up close. There are lots of initials too but I don't see a date, can you see one?

 These two fabric covered boxes went home with me too. I can always use some extra storage....

See how busy it sometimes is when I look from our balcony onto the water? Nice view isn't it? Sometimes those bigger boats stop and tourists come on shore and do some bike trails here. Mostly American and Japanese tourists. We recognize them because they all ride the same bikes and wear helmets which most Dutch people here don't .

 And this is at our balcony on the other side....new plants in pot like this geranium without flowers only leaves....

 My little fountain.....fun to have a fountain on a balcony!

And Lizzy our little dachshund enjoying the sun. She always knows where to look for a sunny spot.

Have a nice and creative day,

Groetjes
Annemieke
 

The one with the chicken finished!!

And yet another finish....I already made a Spring quilt in turquoise in April, so that is why this is called the one with the chicken!!!
The chicken is a block I draw myself (wanted to make an Easter quilt one day...)

This one really cleared out my closet because a lot of left over blocks were used in this quilt. Also a few unfinished projects are finished because of this project!!

There is embroidery in it, old ( the old round one made by my Mother in law years ago)and new, gifts( the one with the garden gate my friend Marieke gave to me)  and self made pieces.

I made up the long twine of  leaves to use a lot of red scraps. The applique, showing a girl with a flower in her hands is from a book Le petit Monde by Jaqueline Morel 

 In each corner there is a compass. I first saw them  in one of Ingrid's quilts.  My husband draw the pattern for me and I made it into a paper piecing pattern.

The paper pieced blocks were made in a class taught by Gré Koopman. She is sadly enough no longer with us, but I learned a lot from her and admired her as a person, shop owner and teacher.

This Geranium is from a pattern by Lori Holt from Bee in my Bonnet . May be one day I will make the whole quilt. I appliqued this one with a herringbone stitch I showed here. The mini blocks I made during a class somewhere in the 90's....and they survived!

The big character 'A' is made with the broderie persé technique. And the bright coloured block in pink and yellow was bought at an antique stand (and is about 150 years old). The little handkerchief with the character 'A' was a gift when I was about 8 years old.
In this quilt I also included  left over blocks from previous quilts like 'klosjes' from the klosjesquilt, a basket from my basket quilt.

 In the evening sun...

I like paper pieced patterns like this with the flying geese going round, I made that one years ago.

 A lot of big pieced blocks are from a calendar with lots of nice block designs.

A glimpse of the back made from random pieces of pink and beige fabrics. And a binding in dark red.

And I just made a quick picture on my balcony so you can see most of the back of the quilt. Not so exciting but nice and  'quiet' to see if the quilt is turned.

Facts:

Size: 1.70 cm by 1.73 cm,  (67 inches by 68 inches)
Quilting: Hand quilting in big stitches, without a hoop, with yarn from Weeks dye works 
Batting: 100 % cotton.
Embroidered over the finished blocks with perlé yarn numbers 8 and 5, in pink, reds and beige.
Washed in the washing machine (with 6 colourcatchers!) and partly dried in the drier.

Have a good and creative weekend,

 Groetjes

Annemieke

Turqoise, pink and yellow squares.

 This quilt is finished! I first wrote about it here in October 2014. I've had lots of fun with 'just' using squares!

I used old embroidery found in a thrift shop and cut them in squares. All the squares have Dutch scenery, embroidered in  cross stitches.

The embroidery squares are combined with fabric squares from different designers and simple pink plaid  fabric.

I quilted with big stiches and perlé yarn number 8 and the pink is number 5. I prefer the number 8 perlé, it works much easier.

 The back of the quilt is made of a pink and white plaid fabric.

On a garden bench last night, the light was dimming fast.

The quilt is on our breakfast table where it will stay for a while. The colours are very happy and bright to start the day!

This quillt measures approx: 1.70cm by 1.70cm
The individual squares are 11 by 11cm finished size.
Batting: a very thin layer of cheese cloth
Hand quilting: big  stitches with perlé yarn number 8 and 5
Pattern: 'just' squares

Have a nice Sunday!

Groetjes

Annemieke

Old embroidery and fun quilt fabrics

 

This is the start of a new quilt. The top is sewn together.

 The work in progress: I made just simple square blocks of 12cm by 12cm. I chose this size because of the embroidery blocks I wanted to use.

 Like this one with the bunnies in the dunes. All the embroidery blocks are sceneries from my country: The Netherlands. I found this embroidery at the thriftstore (we call it  'kringloopwinkel' ).

 There were exactly 8 embroidery pieces, so I used them all. Who knows who made them ? That is what I think when I take it home. The work is done very neatly. I always think it is a bit sad if such nice work ends up in a thrift store. Well good for me though..I love working with this..

 When it is finished it will fit on this table.

 And another picture, just because I'm so happy with it how it turned out. It took me a whole evening to design everything because I didn't have enough of some fabrics, so I had to start over a few times.

 I like the crazy, pink and yellow horses from Tula Pink.  And the big flowers from the Anna Maria Horner fabric, it matches the checker fabrics, big and small, very well.

  This is one, with the owls, is of my favorite fabric!

 Photo from a distance....and I put fabric on the back ( so called 'toile de beurre' in French and may be 'cheescloth'  in English?)  so I can embroider over the top. This is a bit of an  experiment!!

 I bought embroidery stuff during my holiday in France. Now I only need the courage and a plan to start to embroider.

I read this book: The last Runaway' by Tracy Chevalier. Such a nice book, very well written, about a young woman emigrating to America in the 19th century, about her life,  a lot of history of daily life and slavery and... quilts! So I couldn't ask more and  I will look for other books by Tracy Chevalier.



Have a good weekend,

Groetjes
Annemieke

Overhanddoek

I found this embroderied cloth on a fair for second hand goods. In Holland it was used in the kitchen to hang in front of the towels and we call it an 'overhanddoek'. Nowadays I don't know anybody that still uses them. I know my grandmother did when I was young. This is the second one I found. I wil show the other one if I remember where I put it...It is not that I lost it but I searched for a very safe place to store it, so safe I don't remember. And I'm not even 50 years old yet...


You still can make cloths similar like this one ( I didn't find the same pattern though) and buy patterns. For example
here

Tomorrow I will show a quilttop I bought last week. It's hanging to dry now...

Groetjes
Annemieke