4 Season Doll Quilt Swap

This is the gorgeous quilt I received from Rose Marie (http://appliqueandpatches.blogspot.com).
Rose Marie has chosen this design because she knew I love blues and because she lives in Canada, teh maple leaf tree was a given. I really love the quilt and will give it a nice place in my home. Thank you very much Rose Marie.

The next quilt is the one that I have made for the swap and I will be send off tomorrow. After it has arrived at my swap partner I will show you also the label. The picture doesn´ t do the colours justice. Hopefully the weather is better at my swap partner so she can make a better picture.

Lazy sunday

We had a lazy sunday. This morning we went to Planckendael, a big zoo near the city of Mechelen.

In the lion monkey enclosure the monkeys are free to roam through a part of the forest, so it was really spectacular to see a monkey just a half meter away from the kids.

I have been busy quilting on my fall quilt for the 4 season doll quilt swap. But I don´t want to show a picture because it will ruin the surprise for my swap partner. So once it is arrived, I will show a picture.

It´s a Man´s bag

After the succes of the two handbags I made for the Birthday girls. One of my friends asked if I could make her son a bag as well, so here is my attempt on a ´Man´s bag´. It is not yet finished, but I can´t spoil teh surpise for here. So I will post a finsihed picture after Sil´s birthday, which is next weekend.

At the moment there is not much going on overhere, sine I have a strained neck and can´t turn to the right. I went to the doctor this morning, and it will heal in time, so I got Dafalgan for the pain and rest. Will however work tomorrow from home, because driving is not possible, since I can´t look to the right.

Wee Butterfly

I finished the Wee Butterfly from Wee Wonderfuls. He is really the cutest, why a HE? I don´t know, he feels like a he and not like a she, I don´t know why. But my eldest boy thought he looked great.

My turtle is also shown on the website of Hillary Lang´s Wee Wonderfuls. Thanks Hillary.

Girlie handbags

I made these two handbags as birthday presents for daugthers of friends of ours. We will leave tomorrow morning and stay with friends of ours whose daugther turns 3. On sunday we have another birthday of Merel who is turning 6.

Happy Birthday girls!

Sail Vlissingen

Sail this year was in Vlissingen, so we went there (Zeeland, The Netherlands) to see the tallships from my PIL´s sailboat. And yes, on board I am a pirate mum.

We went for a tour through the harbours and passed this teaching tallship from Poland.

In the city centre there were all sorts of activities, also a kids cart, and Nic showed some other kids that he knows what he is doing, we were surprised how good he can steer.

In the afternoon there was the passing of the tallships, they sail along the boulevard with their sails up. It really looked very impressive. It was a wonderful day, the kids enjoyed themselves, as did we.

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Brewing Beer

Yesterday, my husband´s company had a day were you could learn how to make beer. So we joined 40 other collegueas of my DH and off we went for a brewing course.

First we had a presentation how to make beer. After that we went and started with the long process of making beer.

After having crushed the grains, we had to warm the grain-water mixture. After a couple of hours we had to filter the liquid from the grain mass, which you can see on the picture , was done very professionally.

After 2.5 hours filtering, we boiled the filtered liquid with the ´hop´ which will give the beer its aroma.

And after we were finished we had a great BBQ.

The beer wwas then lagered and will be served on the 60th anniversary of the company. I will keep you informed on the taste.
PV, well done, it was a great day.

Wee turtle

As my patterncards from Wee Wonderfuls arrived in the mail yesterday, I couldn´t resist. Is this turtle not the cutest? He is made from antique pink fabrics and of course brown and green felt. I tried to get a picture of him and our garden real turtle, but I couldn´t find him, must be hidding in the pond.

Hillary Lang makes the cutest stuffed creatures. I just love this new pattern set.

Trip to the zoo

This morning we made a trip to the Antwerp Zoo. It is located in the middle of Antwerp, next to the Central Station. The Zoo is 160 years old and at the moment there are big renovations ongoing to make it a more comfortable zoo for the animals. Less animals on more space.

The kids wanted to see the baby pinguin that was born a couple of weeks ago, but it was still securely under dad or mum´s feet.

The pictures are taken in a big tortoise shell that is displayed in the gardens of the Zoo.

Ther are some other babay animals, like the new sea lion and a baby hippo, a tapir and lost more. So it was a nice morning in the Zoo.

Jeans bag

I made this bag from The new Cotton & Paint I got. Above you can see the pattern and explaination and even though I don´t speak Japanese, the drawn directions were very good so I was able to make the bag without any trouble. It is Nic´s old jeans, and instead of throwing it away, I now have a nice new bag.
OK, I broke a machine needle while making it, but that is a detail. I really like the bright pink colors and I think I will use this bag for my WIP´s.

Japanese magazines

These were brought back for my from Japan. The wife of my DH´s boss is Japanese and visits Japan often, so she brought these back with her. I just love them, they have the cutest designs and very original ideas.

I will now make myself a cup of coffee and enjoy them all by myself (kids are to day-care, DH to work, and I have a day off work).

Four Seasons Quilt Swap - Fall 2007

I so enjoyed making and receiving the Doll Quilt II swap, that I signed in on the Four Seasons Quilt Swap - Fall 2007.

I can´t wait to get started. Tomorrow I have a day off work, and I plan on a day of quilting, after I have cleaned the home, buhh...

Weekend update

Friday night we drove to Rijnsburg (The Netherlands) where my PIL live becaue they had a big BBQ in honour of the visit of Nic´s godfather (who lives in Ghana, Africa).

Saturday at noon the first Fluffmarket was held in The Hague. It is sort of a Felt club and it was held for the very first time. There was quite some interest when you look at the amount of visitors, but not very much stands, but I think there is a real market for this sort of events.

I really enjoyed the stand of Applepiepussy (http://www.loaded-ink.com/applepiepussy/). This lady makes the cutest cell charms. I couldn´t resist buying one, but since I use my cell for work, I don´t attach charms to it. But I have attached it to my siccors. My son nic really loves the yummy chocolate cake that hangs from the charm.

Next thing I bought (yes, for myself) is a ´one eye´ strawberry from ´12punt3´ (http://www.12punt3.nl/shop.html). The lady from 12punt3 told me that I was the first to buy a one eye from the new collection which has a ´fruit´ theme. I just couldn´t resist this little fellow. So now he found a new home in my stuffies collection.

Saturday afternoon we had a birthday party of Laura, daughter of friends of ours. She turned one and I made her this pyjama bag.


On Sunday we drove back home and I made a picture of a grass hopper that was sitting (or hanging on) to our windshield. It managed to stay on the windshield for more than an hour at 130 km/h. So this is a little homage to a brave grass hopper that helas had to let go at 14.55 on the highway from Breda to Antwerp.

The den Heijer´s

OK, I couldn´t resist to Simpsonize my family, so here we are:

Arrived !

My doll quilt arrived! My hubby was working on our driveway when the postman arrived with my parcel. OK, hubby had to pay 12 dollars to get the package, because of taxes that where due on the package. Here in Europe you have to pay taxes on all parcels above 22 dollars. So he placed the package on the stairs so it would be the first thing I would see when I came home.

So when I entered, the package was awaiting me. And the quilt inside is just wonderful! It is so amazing, thank you very much Melissa. I think the quilt is gorgeous and the label so nice... It will get a special place in my collection of quilts.

The book you gave is also very welcome, since my boys are used to be read in enlish to them. I used to read the Harry Potter books to them in English.

Doll quilt II swap

This is a sneek preview of the doll quilt I made for the Doll quilt II swap. It is the label of the quilt. Once my swap partner has the quilt in her possession I will post a picture of the front of the quilt.

Good hairday

Yes, In my opion I have a great hairday. After months of wearing long hair, I finally decided to have it cut. So I went to the hairdresser today and now I am the proud owner of short hair. It makes me fell much better and I think it looks great. For some reason it always does when I come from the hairdresser. This moment lasts until I wash and dry it myself...

But for now I am very content.

Today was a very hot day here in ANtwerp so we went to ´het boerenijsje´ which is a ice cream parlor at a cow farm. They have the best icecream and a nice playground, so for our kids they are the best in town.

Peter

Peter received a Tiloer outfit from his Godmother so we made some pics of the outfit. Doesn¶t he look great.

We have had some trouble over here with our internet connection. On Wednesday they came to dig out the garden in front of the garden. We marked all the places, we knew, where there were cables located, the guy with the bulldozer was very carful and still he broke all the cables on the second dig...
So we were without TV, telephone, internet for three days. Well I will be honest, I can´t imagine live without all these facilities, you can´t do anything, you can´t pay bills, read email, etc.
Luckily yetsrdayafternoon a guy from teh cablecompany arrived and fixed everything, after I rewired the whole system myself. He just had to make the connections, but since yesterdyaafternoon, we are back on the digital highway, pooh!

Last day of school

Yesterday was Nic´s last schoolday, the year went so fast it is unbelieveable. In november he was a small little boy that was just potty trained and now he is so much more mature.

It was also the principle´s last day, for he reached his pension and all the children made a big party for his last day.

As you can see, it was a nice day for him. All the children sang songs and danced and they had a big picknick with all the kids. So it was a well organized and festive day. Nic was so tiered that he fell asleep in the car on the way home.

So ... let summer holiday begin...

Almost the last day of school

Tomorrow is the last day of school for Nic. Another milestone reached, his first year in school is over. Time flies...

I made this little doll (pattern Wee Wonderfuls ), with an old uniform of Nic. He goes to an uniform school, which is great since you never have discussions about clothing and what to wear.

He will be a gift for his teacher Miss Anouk.

Princess Party

This weekend Nic and Peter were invited to my friend An´s daughter Sam´s birthday party. Sam turned 5 and wanted a Princess Party, so Nic came as a knight, look how fierceful he looks, and Peter was a pirate.
It was a wonderful party with a lot of princesses and 3 knights/pirate.
Sam´s dad and Niels baked pancakes and the ladies present took care of the sugar, drinks, etc.

Knight Nic

princess Sam

Doll Quilt Swap II

This is so exciting! doll quilt swap II is under way!! I received my partner´s name. I immediately started on the quilt and it is almost completed. I made it completely on the go, so I didn´t use a pattern and it was made going along.

I really hope my partner will like her little quilt. Will make a label over the weekend, as it is no quite hectic with making appointments with all the workfolk that will pave the land in fornt of our house.

We also noticed that a truck destroyed our pavement and maybe the sewer, so I had to contact community hall to make a complaint and so on...

I know nicer things to do when I come home.

One big party at school

This afternoon we had a special gathering at Nic´s school. They had a performance on the X-files tune and the theme was ´When I grow up... I want to be an astronaut´. The performance was very cute. The girls were more into dancing than teh boys, but the outfits were just adorable. A big applaus for the teachers which made this all possible.

There were all sorts of activities and on one of them Nic won a goldfish which he called ´Piet´ after Piet Piraat, a belgian pirate cartoon on TV.

´Gooische schort´ = a specail apron

I love this apron from www.coolcooking.nl , it is also available in pink and the pearl necklace is part of the apron. It is inspired by a TV show in holland called ´Gooische vrouwen´, sort of a dutch version of Desperate housewifes. I also like the TV show, so I also love this apron.

Rafting

I finally got the pictures of our rafting experience for Arina´s bachelor party. We went rafting at Dutch Water Dreams, an Olympic-level whitewater sports complex located in Zoetermeer, the Netherlands.

The picture is us going down the artifcial whitewater. I can only say: we want more!

Sailing

We went for a sail trip with my PIL´s sail boat. This was the first time that we would spent the nighjt on board with our two kids. Grandma and granddad had a bit of doubt about the whole trip, but they admitted that it was great with the kids. They behaved very well on the boat and had a great time on it, so this was a well spent trip. We sailed from Medemblik to Enkhuizen and back.

On the last picture you can see the amount of mosquitos we encountered on the water, this is a sheet I hung to protect Peter from the sun while he was having his nap.

Swap arrived from India

Today a swap all the way from India arrived. Thank you very much Anuja, these are lovely fabrics. I also really like the handmade journal and the trims you got me. Thank you for a lovely swap.

Guinea pigs

We came home early today. We wanted to go sailing this week, but a storm is forcasted so we will wait until wednesday to go sailing. Wednesday and thursday are predicted to be nice, so...

I decided to give the guinea pigs a bath, nails and a hair cut since their hair keeps on growing.

They are sisters and are called ´Chocolate´ and ´Mousse´. We have them for 2 years now and they are a very special color, a greyish color, very nice. We bought them from http://members.lycos.nl/mirjamscaafjes/fourphotogalery.html.

This week´s project

Peter is always fiddeling with the buttons on my clothes when I pick him up, so hat is why I made hime a nice little (very soft) hanky with buttons to play with. I can´t wait for him to wake up from his nap and see it.

Pacifiers

This is the thing I need before I go mad. The pacifiers of the boys are always lost, especially just before bed time. This is the ideal pacifier storage place and it looks really funny.
Seen at http://www.scandinaviandesigncenter.com/ProductDetails.aspx_InnerCatalog_Accessories_InnerCategory_Children%20Accessories_InnerProduct_6075_Image_img1