Is This Better?

This is a pic of 4 of the blocks separated by the sashings (made from 3 bricks) and filled in at the corners with 2.5" cut cornerstone squares. If I set the quilt this way...it is going to be VERY much bigger....I have 30 blocks to set 5 X 6.

Anyone think that the blocks look more like the pavement picture below by the addition of the bricky sashing between the blocks? HELP!

Bonnie

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Ewwwww?

Some things just are ewwww...and what works in your mind, just doesn't translate to fabric. These are the blocks laid block to block...what I was going to use for sashings is laid against the outside as a maybe inset border. But still. Here I was going on and on about the Ghee's Bend quilts....wanting to make a quilt that looked like I had used everything with little rhyme or reason, and I'm not crazy about it! Charity Quilt Anyone? :c|


The pics above are of a cobbled pavement in monnickendam. We had stopped there on the way home from Marken to look around, and it was this picture that really inspired me, but it looks better in bricks than in brick fabrics!
Bonnie

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Rainy Sunday.....

It's Raining, It's Pouring, and Bonnie feels like Snoring..*lalalalala!* That's what kind of lazy day I'm having, but boy do I need it! I need to just unwind to refuel for the next week coming up. I'm not even sure what it will bring. I've got some clients scheduled, Friday I'm going to do chair massage in a Dr's office for his staff..that should be fun! Guild meeting tomorrow night in Aiken. Was hoping I'd have a quilt ready to deliver to a client there, but it's just not going to happen..Jet Lag has dragged me down more than I thought it would.

I am playing with an idea for a quilt though.....I've got a bin of bricks in the 2.5"X4.5" size..and a lot of strips that width too, so I am thinking of a bricky something. I spent time in Lucy's garden....just pouring over every word in her huge book that she got on the Ghee's Bend quilts. I am SO inspired by the stories the quilters told. Can you imagine having to make quilts, not just because you wanted to, but because you had to to keep warm in the winter? Sometimes sleeping under 10 or more quilts to keep the chill off? Several people to a bed huddled together for warmth? And you couldn't go to the store to buy whatever fabric you want to make the quilts pretty....no....you are limited to old clothes, dungarees, aprons, dresses that are too worn out to be clothing, but can be cut into scraps for quilts.

So here I come home and look at a fully stocked quilting studio.....how can I even THINK that I have nothing going on here to inspire me? I think we are definately OVER stimulated and that is why we get bored with our UFOs! SO....I'm making a bricks variation quilt, kind of a kick off of courthouse steps....It's just in the beginning stages but I'll send a pic when things are more looking like "QUILT". I'm using bricks that are already cut, and taking the shorter lengths of my strips and cutting them into 6.5" lengths and 8.5" lengths. Is your interest piqued?! :c) I think I'll piece the sashing between the blocks from bricks too...that is going to use A LOT of bricks. In my mind, this quilt reminds me of all the cobblestone streets and courtyards and front gardens in Holland. (but way more colorful!) The pic at the beginning of this post is of one of the streets in Haarlem....I don't know if you can see the cobbles or not..but they are there!

I'm also going through my pics and deciding what to post here for you to see. I loved the buildings so much. Especially the rooflines that did the 'stair step' thing. They are so wonderful to look at!


And that's it for now!
Bonnie

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Home Again!

It is always good to be home, no matter how much fun you have while away! I think Dorothy said it all..."There's No Place Like Home!" This post rambled out very long, so please bear with it all! There is so much to talk about!

My body clock is all screwed up. And I thought I would have time to recover yesterday, but I ended up with 3 clients needing massages yesterday. AUUUGH! So...no rest for the weary! Not much unpacking either. But that's okay. I'm not in a hurry, I can do it a bit at a time, and the major house cleaning I wanted to do can also just be patient with me. Life is back in full swing!

I had such a wonderful time with Lucy and her family. These memories will live forever in my heart, and I hope we have lots more fun times ahead in the future. I can hardly wait until her whole family come to see ME this summer! We get to see each other two times in ONE YEAR..how cool is that?!

I love meeting quilters from all over, but never have I met anyone who is such a "carbon copy" of myself as Lucy. Even though we speak different languages, we can still finish each other's sentences and thoughts. She is definately my "heart sister". And people told us that we could BE sisters because of how similar we look! Tall, blonde, blue eyed and completely addicted quilters!

Something else I've always known deep down....FABRIC IS THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE! Even if you can't speak the language, when in a group with other quilters, you can see their eyes light up, and the ooh's and ahh's over fabric are the same in any language. It was SO great.

I uploaded about 175 pics from my camera! It's going to take a while for me to sort through them, name them (I hate it when they are all numbers and you don't know what anything is..) and figure out what I want to post about. I still feel like I didn't take ENOUGH pictures. And what to post, and what to say about it....my brain is so dead right now!


The pretty flower pics are from Lucy's back garden. There were a few days where the garden was warm and wonderful. We sat out enjoying the weather, having a cup of tea and looking through quilt books. :c) I took these pics to remind me of the beauty of Lucy's garden and the care she takes to have such a lovely welcoming home! She loves flowers, inside and out. My one regret is that her tree that is usually covered with pink blossoms was NOT quite ready to bloom yet..the weather wouldn't stay warm long enough! So...she will have to post pics of that tree in a couple weeks when it finally does pop. The buds are oh so ready!

This pic is of a street in Amsterdam. You can see that the weather turned VERY cold! Not a great day for beautiful photos. This pic was taken right off the stoop of Den Haan En Wagenmakers, the shop with the beautiful reproduction chintzes. Click the photo, I think you can make it bigger to see the sign that says "patch work" on it :c) This shop has the honor of being the home of the most expensive fabric I have ever bought in my life! *LOL* ONE FQ (a metric FQ) was NINE EURO! But it was a once in a life time purchase, I went for it. I want to reproduce the look of antique dutch quilts...*dreaming*


Aren't they GREAT?! I've never been much for really florally fabrics...but I love these antique ones. One quilt they had hanging in the shop just wowed me. It was hanging in the stair well, and I just had to get pics. It is PERFECT for using the dutch chintzes in the big center hexagon, and I love the combination of the plaids and solid black and red to show everything off. It's another quilt that proves to me that people who say "solids just read as flat" do NOT know what they are talking about! I'd love to draft this up. They only sold it as a kit, and there was no way to afford that! I snuck photos. I don't know if I was allowed to or not, but too bad. :c)



I am so far behind on catching up with everyone. I hope you will forgive me, and I hope to catch up with everyone's blog as soon as I can! I've got two clients scheduled today, one at 10am, one at 2:30pm...so in between I am planning on working more on my own hexagon UFO. I got quite a bit done while at Lucy's and sitting at the airport for layovers. We visited with another customer of mine (the one I put the 3 quilts in the space bags for!) on friday night after shopping at Den Haan. She had us to her house (oh wow, it was so unbelieveably GORGEOUS!) and showed us her quilts and studio, etc. So fun! It was a great evening! And I am so inspired by how much HAND PIECING she gets done. She has a crazy job with incredibly long hours and lots of stress...but she always keeps something in a little tin for hand piecing while waiting for this and that, and she gets TONS done! So...that's my inspiration. If she can do this with her crazy work schedule, so can I!

Rambling Still.....
Bonnie

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