WOW: Wips on Wednesdays

Well, it is Thursday here in Holland, but I'm hoping to crawl under the fence of Esther's WOW

My first WIP this week is Flowers for Me, block 4 of Heart's Desire:



And we have one big 'flower for me' all done:



Lots of puzzling went on for Henrietta Whiskers' layout, but I think I have got it now, so I started piecing some of the backgrounds of the last four blocks last night. I did sneak in some minor changes this morning ;o)

The last block is still empty, as it will be revealed by Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs on September 5th. I'm hoping to get the quilt top done for 9th September when I will be doing an applique demonstration at the annual show of the quilting guild in Holland. My main project there will be Heart's Desire, but I would love to show the ladies this quilt top.

o-o-o

I also managed a small start on Herbularius, after a lot of dithering about fabrics. At last, I *think* I have settled for a 32-count Murano in the shade Ivory, which looks more like a tea dye than an ivory compared to the ivory jobelan I was planning to use. Guess I could have used the tea dye jobelan I did last week after all ;o)

I do like how the Copper Petite Treasure Braid metallic and the Chocolat Gloriana looks on this fabric.


Yesterday Jacqueline and I chose the fabrics which will be used for the applique course I will teach at the beginning of October:

Lots of gorgeous batiks! I'm hoping to get the example block done by the end of next week. I hope the ladies who take the class will love these fabrics and the chosen project too.

Thanks for all your lovely comments. They are so inspiring. And I love to click on your names and visit your blogs for even more inspiration.

Henrietta Whiskers: A Puzzle

I'm alternating between Heart's Desire and Henrietta Whiskers at the moment, since the 8th block has been released for the latter, and there is only one block left which will be released on September 5th.

To get a better idea of the total layout, I pinned all the completed blocks and the blocks in progress (I decided to do blocks 6, 7 and 8 at the same time) to a sheet which I hung in our living room so I can keep looking at it and changing bits here and there.

I need to replace a few green squares at the right hand and left hand side, because the first narrow border is of the same fabric and I'm not happy when bits from the centre of the quilt start 'sticking' to the border. Weird, I know :o) For now I have pinned black squares over those green ones, but I'm not sure yet whether that will work. More puzzling and thinking to do.

For now I'm switching back to Heart's Desire, my focus piece of this moment. Esther released her new free BOM today called Peaceful Pathways, so go and have a look if you are interested in patchwork and quilting.

Two Blocks and a Foxglove

First of all thanks for all your lovely comments on my framed Secret Victorian Garden.

I completed two blocks the past days: Block 5 of Henrietta Whiskers, the free BOM by Bunny Hill Designs...

...and block 1 of In My Garden by Hatched & Patched. My Mum helped me to solve the problem.

Here are a few details of In My Garden. It is so much fun to stitch!

The light was very beautiful over the weekend. I took a few snaps of our foxglove plants. Here is my favourite.

I finally caved and started Heart's Desire, a free BOM by Esther Aliu (see my sidebar). It is very beautiful, but a lot of stitching. I'll keep you posted.

Lots of things to show you

First of all my Secret Victorian Garden by Châtelaine fresh from the framer and still partly in its packaging. I'm very happy with how it looks. Just as well, because it cost me an arm and a leg to get it framed.

Above are the fabrics I bought this afternoon for Heart's Desire, the free BOM by Esther Aliu.

I finally caved, seeing all the lovely works in progress on this BOM's Yahoo group.

This is Minty, our fourth cat. I don't often get to show you our little girl, because she is very shy and frightened. But recently - since we moved her downstairs and kept her in her own safe little world (a big dog crate) - she is doing really well.


Lots of buying of fabrics has been going on recently and this is a beautiful example of what I bought in a sale: Sumptuos Living by Robyn Pandolph for RJR Fabrics.

Not sure what I will do with these, but I'm sure the perfect project will come along at some point.

Thank you for your comments on my recent post about the first block for In My Garden. It will get sorted somehow and for the time being I have moved to safer ground: block 5 of Henrietta Whiskers, which is coming along beautifully.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Henrietta Whiskers Progress & In My Garden

I'm finally all caught up with my new version of Henrietta Whiskers, the free BOM by Bunny Hill Designs. Sorry for the poor quality of the photograph, it is suprisingly hard to photograph big projects like these.

o-o-o

In the mean time I have fallen in love with a new BOM by Hatched & Patched. It is called "In My Garden". The subtle delicate colours are so pretty.

The pattern for block 1 is on its way to me from Australia, so of course I had to pay my favourite quilting store a little visit. This is what I have collected so far for this beautiful project:

I still have to raid my stash for suitable fabrics for this project.

Two Sophies

Last night I finished block 4 of Henrietta Whiskers, the free BOM by Bunny Hill Designs. The Sophie sitting on the pumpkin still needs a necklace or other embellishment, but I cannot find anything suitable in my stash. Something will pop up somewhere that is just perfect for her. Back to work on the last stitchery for My Garden by Lynette Anderson, before the first block for the new Christmas Fun button BOM arrives in the post from Australia. There is still a lot of work to do on My Garden, because most of the courthouse step borders need cutting and piecing and then I need to assemble the whole quilt. Thanks for your lovely comments!

Away & Some Progress

Panic over, translation completed. Thanks for all your encouraging comments. Now I need to wait until I get feedback from the publisher's, which gives me time to catch up on my My Garden project by Lynette Anderson. Here is block 6, not yet with the courthouse steps border strips: My Garden # 8:

And this sweet little cottage for block 9:

What I did not tell you (for obvious reasons) is that I was away. I travelled to my beloved Scotland and it was such a joy to actually get to go there after two cancelled holidays due to a volcano in Iceland and an operation.

I stayed on the Isle of Skye in Scotland during the first week and my friend and I stayed on the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides the second week.

This is a beautiful area on the Isle of Harris called Seilebost. The colours of the sea and sand are just amazing.

And I met these cute sheep when I stopped to take a picture of the landscape in the background. They made for a nice foreground! These images will be used as inspiration for some painting tuition which I have coming up next week.

And guess who was really happy when 'mummy' came back after having been away for such a long time:

Luna is now nearly two years old. Her birthday is on the 16th of April, but she is still tiny and ever so cute!

Now of course I was going to work on the last stitchery block for My Garden this evening (the beehive, block #7) if it weren't for the fact that Anne Sutton released the new Henrietta Whiskers block a day early!

Off to work on that!

Thanks for your lovely comments.

A New Beginning

I wasn't happy with my first version of Henrietta Whiskers, the free BOM by Bunny Hill Designs, so I went shopping and bought some new fabrics and used some from my stash.
With a lot of help from my furry boy, I stitched two new blocks replacing the previous ones, and also stitched block 3 of this sweet BOM, which was published on March 5th.

This is the - still incomplete block 1 - which still needs the three pieced blocks on the right-hand side pieced.

This is the new version of block 2 -Sophie.

And block 3, this month's block, with a very cute Henrietta pulling a little cart with acorns.

And of course, our furry boy helped me!

With a big translation deadline looming, I will be a bit quiet for a little while, because there will not me buch time for stitching.

Henrietta Whiskers Block #1

Here she is at last, my Henrietta Whiskers.
This project is a free BOM by Bunny Hill Designs.

I'm using a line of fabrics called Samsara by Bernatex. Henrietta's paw, tail and scarf are made of wool felt. The pink button was given to me by Michele, in one of the great parcels she sent me.

Sorry for the creases. Handling an ironing board is a bit too much at the moment.
Not that I mind ;o) ;o)

o-o-o

Thanks for all your good wishes and comments on my recent operation. The amazing thing is that I was never in pain. I just suffered from extreme nausea and this lasted about two months.

When I woke up from the general anaesthesia, the nausea was gone! Yay!