This has been another great weekend. I went to visit my Dad and stayed Saturday and most of Sunday. We are great pals, we talk and laugh a lot and usually stay up way too late. We also enjoy cooking together.

I had brought my Featherweight and was patching some Lady of the Lake blocks while my dad was trying to figure something out on his computer. We were each doing our own thing and both enjoying the company. What a great way to spend the weekend. My dad rules! :-)

Here are the blocks I sewed, I have four more about half way done.

These blocks are fairly straight, it's my photographic skills that are wonky! 

Quilting retreat and aftermath

Wow! That was some quilting retreat! 63 ladies, all bitten by the quilt bug, together for four days in a StayOkay hostel in Elst, situated in a lovely wooded area here in the Netherlands. The weather was not great, it rained most of Saturday, but hey! We were all cozy in our huge quilting studio.

The organizing team, Ingrid, Ariane and Marjolein, had put together a wonderful program. There were lectures, workshops, show and tell, and meals of course, yet enough time was left for everyone to spend patching, quilting, visiting nearby quilt shops, go for a nice walk in the woods and of course chat with each other. What a wonderful time I've had. This was my 6th time in Elst and I must say, it gets better every time. By now, it feels like coming home. Thank you ladies and I hope to see you again next year!

All participants received lots of gifts, some from the in house quiltshop (thank you Angela!), some from the organizing team and some we made for each other. This is a gift I received from Caroline:

It's a notebook with a kitty cover she made, isn't it cute? The little charm pack is exactly the right size for my Ocean Waves quilt (which right now is just a bin containing 600 half square triangles). There was also a sweet little button in the package. Thank you Caroline!

On Friday, Hilde gave a lecture on decluttering the house and quilting studio. Hilde is a professional organizer who has her own company, Yourganize. Hilde had lots of useful tips and suggestions, most are common sense but still very useful to hear, such as: think before you buy (do I really need this?), if you buy a pair of shoes: throw one (or two) pairs away.
And, very important: decide what you want to use a space for. If it's your bedroom, sewing stuff does not belong there! Umm, I have a very small apartment and a lot of quilting materials. I may not be ready to adopt that rule just yet. Or maybe I'll make the whole apartment a designated quilting area - problem solved! LOL!

Hildes lecture certainly has got me thinking again about decluttering my house. Probably Surely something I should do more often. I think the spring weather is also to blame ;-)

On Saturday, Arnout Cosman showed many of his quilts. Arnout is a true quilt artist. I didn't take pictures because the light was so bad, but there's a quilt gallery on his website. Take a moment to visit there, I'm sure you won't regret it! While Arnout was talking about his quilts, the room with over 60 quilters was completely silent. Truly an accomplishment, just like his gorgeous quilts.

(Hi Shirley, I hope you don't mind I 'borrowed' one of your pictures...)

Arnout designs his own quilts using the design software he created. This program, QuiltAssistant, is available as a free download on his website. It is different from ElectricQuilt6 (which I often use). It assists in making quilt designs based on photographs. Arnout also demonstrated how he uses QuiltAssistant to design quilts. It was fascinating and I will definitely give it a go soon.

When I came home on Sunday afternoon, it was wonderful to just be quiet and unpack my many bags. I wanted to go to bed early but had to wait up for the plumber to come and unclog the kitchen drain. The upstairs neighbor's dishwater welled up in my sink and I was very lucky not to have come home to a flooded kitchen.

Yesterday I had another day off to recuperate from the busy weekend. It was so good to sleep in, potter around the house with the balcony door open and sew a little more. The first part of the zig zag border for the Antique Quilt is done, pressed and now hanging on my design wall. Pictures will follow soon!

Sewing machine anyone?

I just love the look of all 'stuff' we bring to quilting retreats...

Retreat!

Just a short note... I'm having a great time with fellow quilters. Here's a quick peek at some of the delicacies on the pot luck sweets table. I'm trying very hard not to keep stuffing my mouth. It's hard!

And here's what I've been working on today:

Over 60 years old but my Featherweight is still going strong! It's a joy to use this tiny machine and this border is going well. I'm even having fun doing these set in seams.

Tomorrow I might get out another project. Fun, fun, fun!

How wonderful it is to have friends on the net to welcome you to a new adventure! Thank you Yvonne, Kathie, Katrien and Inge for responding to my very first blog entry!

Did you notice I sort of cheated with the picture of the antique quilt? When I took the picture, the flying geese borders hadn't been sewn on yet. However, I took care of that on Saturday and even went on to cut lots of diamonds and triangles for the zig zag border that is next.

I don't know about you, but cutting diamonds, especially odd sizes, requires me to keep extra focussed on the job. Cutting fabric is not my favorite part of quilting anyway, so I usually limit myself to an hour or so of cutting at a time. I find this saves on wrist pain as well. If I only remembered stuff like that more often, LOL!

Anyway, I cut all diamonds and almost all triangles necessary and don't they look good?

I'll get busy sewing this border the next couple of days. I like the look of this quilt so much, I want to see how this zig zag border turns out.

Testing the waters...♦

Hi there, how nice of you to visit! I'm new to blogging, though not to blog surfing. I hope to share my love of all things quilty with you here.

My name is Marion, I live in Amsterdam and I've been playing around with fabrics and threads for as long as I can remember. I used to have phases of knitting, crochet, clothes making, cross stitching etcetera. I started quilting in 2002 and haven't looked back. I simply love it! The wide variety of patterns, fabrics, threads, books and quilting gadgets - oh it's all just too wonderful!

The last couple of years I've had very little time for quilting, but that will change soon now. It's just a few more weeks before I graduate from college. Phew! I hope to spend a lot of my regained free time quilting again!

For now, I'll leave you with a picture of the quilt that's currently on my designwall and has gotten most of my limited spare time recently. Sorry the picture's not better. My sewing room is too small for me to get enough distance and the lighting is not good this late in the evening. I'll try to do better next time!

For more information about this quilt, see Guutes blog.