Animal parade

Circus is in town so today it's animal parade! To start with, here are two oistriches. You have seen them before, but now this block is officially finished! As a fun detail I added two pieces of fabric that belonged to a friend. She and I did our Jane quilt together and now we are doing the Bride Quilt together. I think she doesn't remember I borrowed this little piece of fabric when we did our masterclass applique last winter. For her it might be just a piece of fabric, but for me it is more than that, it's a memory of our friendship and I hope to do more projects together!

And then there are four black horses. They belong to the Apple Orchard Farm, block ten of the Village of Hawk Run Hollow.

Christmas Bird Exchange

It's not even Christmas and yet I received a Christmas Exchange last saturday. I signed up for the exchange on the HoE-board and this is what Marie P stitched for me.
It's a design from the 2009 JCS Ornament Issue, 'Caroline' by Miss Crescents Crowne. She added a lovely piece of  fabric and some matching threads. Thank you, Marie!

Of course I did some stitching myself too. Block ten of the VOHRH is started and I managed to stitch the first horse and the apples (?) on the floor.

This week there was a trip to Amsterdam with pupils of our school and I had some time for myself, so I went to 'De Afstap' where I bought this beautiful book of lace knitting. 

Of course I had to start a new project immediately, but there's no picture yet, because all I knitted had to be ripped out again :(

A finish, a gift and a trip to Berlin

We had a vacation last week and DH and I went to Berlin. We really love this city! As we were there for the fourth time we had time to explore other things than the highlights, seen that, been there. For those of you who are interested in what we did in Berlin, I will tell more about it at the end of this post.
In the evening, when my tired feet had to rest, I sat down and knitted and as a result Expectation is finished! A big shawl that keeps me warm during cold evenings this summer and coming winter (yes, there will be another winter after  this summer LOL)

VOHRH has another finished block. Only three to go before it's a total finish and a happy dance!

Coming home from Berlin, there was a package in the mail. A friend knitted me a lovely snood, wearable as a hood or cowl. It really is a very comfortable one, soft and light and a beauty to see! The third picture shows the lovely design, the colour is the darker one on the first pictures.

Berlin! Having seen the highlights of a city, we like to explore it another way. So I make quilt routes, or in case there are no quilt shops,  yarn routes. We explore parts of the city in which a certain yarn shop is located and that way you have another view of it.
This trip we went to Handmade Berlin, a beautiful shop in Berlin Mitte, with great luxurious yarns and, great combination, a cafe. 

We also visited Die Wollust. This is the birthplace of Lazy Katy, well known to many knitters. It's a wonderful shop, if you ever visit Berlin, you should go there! 

Another lovely yarn shop is Wollen Berlin. The friendly owner designs lovely things and was very helpful in finding other yarn shops. She even printed the route to another shop,  for me! 

Of course we did lots of other things too. We visited the Dom, Pfaueninsel, the Botanical Garden, we had a boat tour and in the evening , when my feet were too tired to walk anymore, I knitted on Expectation.

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!)