sunny autumn day

Because the two bigger grandchildren

have autumn break this week

we went on the bike and by boat

to the museum (de Kunsthal) in Rotterdam

(yes ! 7 paintings were stolen last week from this museum :

what a lousy way to celebrate your 25 anniversary !!!)

We had such a fun day :

looking at paintings (Avant Gardes)

and sculptures ( a lot of naked women by Maillol)

modeling with clay

making a viewing box

walking on a treadmill (with music and a painting in front of you)

and having a drink and some sweet pie

on a bench at the river

in the warm sunshine

(a fun painting ... ha, could have been by Kaffe Fassett ...)

And home again

(near our beloved windmills)

...

I found a very thick envelope on the doormat

containing my next felting exchange piece of Joke

sunny !

lovely people

Last sunday we had some lovely people in our house

to celebrate Man's birthday

(yeah : 17 ... sort of ...)

One of the visitors was wearing

this nice real Peru hat

CUTE !

*

The b i g piece I'm working on

will have lots and lots of pieces of fabric that have a special meaning to me,

(I think that's one of the fun parts of it)

Some of these snippets

have come from lovely people who live far away.

 A lot of them I've had for some time already

and they were "patiently waiting" till I found some good use for them :

so Sus, Connie, Jacky, Heike, Eva, Jude ...

somewhere there will be a special place for a lot of your pieces. 

I'm working on the "moon and stars"side now

(that will be the reverse of the "butterflies")

Thére was the perfect spot for some very dear

MEGAMENDUNG

It's amazing how well the dark red background of the megamendung

fits in with the ikat fabric !

Today I did some tea-dyeing to take off the "bright white"

of some pieces and I wove a few strips in them.

Now they fit in with two little "Judes"

These parts will probably became corner pieces somewhere 

The next fun part is the stitching of course

Mmmmm stitching !

a bit of a puzzle

So far I've finished the butterfly centerpiece.

It will be in the center

at one side of the b i g project

Ha, you can still see where the last section was sewn

to the bigger part :

the seams were not yet basted down ...

Here it is pinned down on the ikat fabric

I did the outline with a running stitch

in order to know where it belongs when I'm working

on the opposite side.

This side will have an ikat bórder, the other side will have an ikat cénter

.....

( Mmmmmm the cats lóve it when there is something to play with

nothing much to do when they're chasing each other )

Now my puzzle is what sequense I should take
when stitching on the ikat parts ...

So I removed the butterflies.
They will be basted, or "glue-stitched", on some very thin fabric,
then I will add a thin batting layer,
and then I can start stitching on them.

In the meantime I will start with the stars around the moon on the other side

rainbow stars as you see

a star ... and ... a ghost star

*

Yesterday evening was our mandala group together :

the second time with the theme "earth"

And a little bit of one I'm working on for a gift

rain and sunshine

Yesterday started with lots and lots of rain

real autumn weather !

I went anyway to the Stitch'nBitch group in Rotterdam

in the new location (right in the centre of town)

but, due to the lousy weather,

we were only with five

...

but

the sun came out in the afternoon

and the day ended beautifully !

Today I almost completed the middle piece

for one side of my new b i g project.

I sewed everything together on the machine

and then basted the seams down by hand

(that gives such a lovely feel to it)

A lot of butterflies

like a stained-glass window

...

and butterflies like a simple x  

*

And we ended the afternoon with a loooong walk

with daughter and kids in the autumn sunshine.

...

(O, and you know that I completely forgot I've just started my third blogging year ?)
 no:  no give-away this time

october mandala

October is the "official" month

for breast cancer awareness.

(not that you can't be aware of that any other time ...)

So I drew this mandala for all the women (and a few men)

who have fought 

who are still fighting

and some who have eventually lost their fight

against 

breast cancer 

Life can be hard, but life is beautiful



new beginnings

The "Diaries" class over at Jude's

(which isn't really a class in the normal way)

has started this September.

And now, after finishing the Wedding piece and the Warm Heart,

my hands are finally "free" to start on something new and b i g

And I mean literally b i g, like a blanket,

which is nót the size I normally prefer !

In fact I bought some lovely thick cotton ikat fabric last year.

This fabric I want to use  in a way

that you still see part of the "ïkat" on either side.

(because I also want it to be double sided) 

So I unearthed it from the back of a drawer

and the rainbow colours,

that were still pinned on around the moon,

go just fine with my latest plans for it !

On the other side there will be a lot of butterflies

of which I still had some left

from the Patchwork Beasts class, two years ago.

Lots of new butterflies are being pieced

by the machine, and than the seams basted in Jude's way,

with all the lovely tiny dimples at the right side.

outdoors and indoors

Last week there was a lot of noise outdoors :

it turned out to be

the noise of a chainsaw

(which makes me nervous most of the time)

Some man were busy on the little island

right on the other side of the water next to our garden.

I looked in terror :

Would they really ? ........ Noooo !

the gorgeous weeping willows

In a devastating trapeze act

the man were decimating the two trees

untill ...

there were only two pitiful remnants instead of

two majestic trees

( "it will be for the best" the Parks Department will probably say ... yuk !)

This tiny creature gave me more fun :

Lissotriton vulgaris (a newt)

he (or she) was hiding with another sibling and mum under the geraniums

(but the picture of the three of them wasn't sharp enough)

*

And indoors the stitching on the sunny heart piece went on and on ...

After all the "sun rays" were there

(in rainbow colours)

the magic thread was stitched in place.

Which left me only with the invisible basting of the backside

which I did today !

 

"A warm heart"

will be send of to France tomorrow

 to a very dear friend

(and namesake)