woensdag 27 augustus 2008
Mandala
dinsdag 26 augustus 2008
Marmeren / marbling
Yesterday I spent the morning messing around with some dye. Always nice. And yet another pair of trousers with dye spots because I thought an apron wasn’t necessary. I tried marbling for the first time. First at random, without a plan and with the standard colours. I think it’s a bit wild but nice. Later this week I’ll try it again, this time with a plan.
donderdag 21 augustus 2008
Naar WIlly / to Willy
Yesterday again a lovely creative day. Most of the time we are going to Willy’s, she’s living ‘quit central in the country’. For both Emmy and me it’s about a 100 kilometres (That’s almost half of Holland). As ever Willy made a lot of food. The three of us are enjoying these days. As usual a lot of inspiration.
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Today we showed each other the finished project. The idea was to make a quilt based on a precious toy of our youth. Emmy’s theme was Playing Outside. As a child she used to play outside ever, with good or bad weather. The circles you see on the quilt represent the four seasons. Of course Emmy embroidered it lovely.
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Willy used the theme Merry go Round. In front of Willy’s house there used to be carnival at Quieen’s Birthday (a public holiday in the Netherlands with a lot of fairs and carnivals. Orange is the royal colour). Willy loved the horses on the merry go round and she always wanted to sit on it. Unfortunately she never did. She even put the songs they used to sing as school kids on the quilt.
At the end my ladies. The background was a bit to loud. I treated it with golden painstiks to make de background background again.
’s Middags samen gaan monoprinten. Dat vonden we allemaal geen geweldig succes. De lapjes zien er wel aardig uit. Emmy en ik denken niet dat we het nog ooit gaan doen. Willy gaat nog een poging wagen.
In the afternoon we went monoprinting. We all didn’t like it. The fabric is nice but not nice enough. Emmy and I think we’ll never do it again. Willy will give it another try.
With Willy’s 2CV to the next village to buy some wool, we don’t have something to do yet. It felt like a school trip. A lot of shouting and laughing. It’s a very funny car to drive. Very basic, no dashboard and you can look outside at odd places. But you can drive very hard on speed ramps.
In het hoesje 2 A4’s met Haiku’s. Dat zijn japanse gedichtjes die uit 17 lettergrepen bestaan. De opdracht is om een van deze haiku’s als inspiratie te gebruiken voor een quilt.
Our new assignment came from Emmy. Look how marvellous she made it. In the package 2 A4’s with haiku’s. That are Japanese poems which consists of 17 syllables. The assignment is to use one of the haiku’s as inspiration for a quilt.
dinsdag 19 augustus 2008
Trees finished
Ik heb al mijn gezeefdrukte lapjes in willekeurige stukjes aan elkaar genaaid. Daarna een blad van mijn leiplataan afgehaald. Deze boom staat pal voor mijn voorraam en strooit van die leuke lichtvlekjes door de kamer heen. Dit blad heb ik nagetekend op organza. Toen die er eenmaal op zat viel de kleur helemaal weg dus daar heb ik de paintstiks op losgelaten. Dat werd vervolgens weer te massief dus de heattool maar even gebruikt. Het resultaat staat me niet echt aan. Achteraf had ik het gewoon bij de aan elkaar naaien moeten laten.
I sewed my silk screened fabrics together at random. After that I took a leaf from my trained plane tree. This one is standing right in front of my window and throws around nice light spots around the room. This leaf I’ve drawn on voile. Once on the top the colour of the voile totally disappeared, so I let go the paintstiks on that. After that the result was far to massive so I used the heat tool to make holes. The result was not what I meant to make. I should have stopped after sewing the fabric together.
donderdag 14 augustus 2008
Stapje verder / a step further
Again I made a step forward. The top is ready now. I made smaller ladies in a nice and a bit vulgar fabric. Every Barbie dress needs some sparkle anyhow!
woensdag 13 augustus 2008
In a hurry
Haast, haast, haast, volgende week moet mijn Speelgoed quilt af zijn en er is nog veel te doen. Ik heb de dames eerst eens even lekker aan stukken geknipt. Niet zonder reden hoor. De drie dames stellen de drie barbies voor die mijn zus en ik vroeger hadden. En zoals je waarschijnlijk wel snapt, drie was niet zo’n handig aantal met z’n tweeën. Vandaar de gedeelde barbies. Toen dat eenmaal weer in elkaar zat vond ik de dames toch wel iets te fel van kleur naar mijn zin. Nog maar een beetje knoeien met verf. Voor wat ik verder in gedachten heb is de achtergrond nu wel OK. Kan altijd achteraf nog wel wat verf eroverheen smeren zullen we maar denken.
Hurry, hurry, hurry, next week I have to finish my Toy quilt and there is still a lot to do. I cut them into pieces. Not without a reason. The ladies represent the three barbies my sister and I had in our youth. And as you probably understand, three wasn’t a smart number for two girls. That’s why the ladies are divided. After finishing that part I thought the ladies where a bit to bright coloured. So a bit of paint added. For what I have in mind with the quilt the background is OK now. I can always put some more paint on.
zaterdag 9 augustus 2008
Trots / proud
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Just before the holidays I signed one of my quilts up for the contest of the European National Patchwork Meeting in Ste. Marie aux Mines. I thought nothing ventured, nothing gained. To my surprise I got the message that I am among the finalists. Nice and an honour. There where 162 quilts sent in and 36 made it to the final. The nice part of it is that the quilts will travel through Europe for a year. They will be exhibited in several places. I will have it back in September 2009. The theme of the contest is Feather. My quilt is called Buteo buteo. That’s the Latin name for the common European buzzard. Of course I may not show the quilt on my weblog but I can raise a corner of the veil.
vrijdag 8 augustus 2008
All goods things come to an end
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We visited 3 countries. First we stayed near Venice for a week. Of course we visited Venice. A really beautiful and romantic city. A lot of glass objects and a lot of masks, that's where they are known of, and very touristic but with enough quiet streets and canals to wander around.
After Italy a week in Croatia. Rough coasts, beautiful see and blue skies. Finally we stayed in Slovenia for another week. Quiet country with very friendly people.
Now there are 8 loads of washing waiting for me but I'm itching to get to the sewing machine in stead.