Saturday 27 December 2014

Start of a new pine cone and a pine cone pal!

 Dit is de start van een nieuwe pine cone quilt!! Alleen deze keer werk ik niet alleen. Dat wil zeggen dat mijn pine cone vriendin, Teri (Maryland, USA, no blog),  daar haar eigen pine cone maakt en ik mijn pine cone hier in Nederland. We e-mailen elkaar om elkaar aan te moedigen en op de hoogte te houden van het hele proces en de vooruitgang natuurlijk. Teri gaat een hele grote cirkel maken totdat ze een king size quilt heeft (dus bijna 2 bij 2 meter groot) !!!Hoe gaaf zou dat zijn als dat klaar is ???? Mijn plan is om een tafelloper te maken die zal bestaan uit 16 of 24 cirkels. Het worden dus kleine cirkels met kleine driehoekjes erop. Of ook een grote cirkel...ik heb nog niet echt besloten.

Eerste klus: strips snijden, vierkantjes snijden en daar driehoekjes van vouwen/strijken.

Starting a new pine cone!! This time I will not work alone....that is to say: my 'pine cone pal' Teri, from Maryland, USA, will make a pine cone at her own place and to encourage one and other, I will be making a pine cone here in the Netherlands. We e-mail each other and sent pictures of the whole process and of course the progress. Teri's pine cone will be a big one. Her idea is to make one huge circle, that goes on and on, until she has a king size quilt!!! How cool would that be???
Mine will be a table topper made out of 16 or 24 small circles (probably sewn on 20 by 20 cm squares) or may be I will make a bigger one too. I didn't decide yet.

 First job: cutting strips, squares and folding/ironing them into triangles.

Ik heb blauw gekozen als hoofdkleur. Ik heb veel restjes in blauw, sommige liggen al jaren in een ladekast.

I chose blue. I have lots of scraps in blue. Some of them waiting in my drawers for so many years.

Als contrastkleur wil ik geel en misschien een beetje oranje gebruiken.

As a contrasting colour I will use yellow, may be a bit of orange.




Ik gebruik ook hand geverfde stoffen. Ze zijn geverfd door Teri en aangekomen per post op kerstavond, 24 december!
  
I will also use hand dyed fabric, dyed by Teri and sent to my on christmas eve! 



Zo spannend om een pakje te krijgen!

Exciting to receive a package from a friend from a far!

En zoveel stof in zulke prachtige kleuren...het kost me moeite on niet alles in de pine cone te gaan gebruiken.

And so much fabric in so many beautiful colours....I'm almost tempted to use all of them in my pine cone.


Hier zie je al de eerste driehoekjes van de geverfde stoffen in blauw en geel. Ik moest ook al een andere opberg doos nemen want de ander was veel te klein. Misschien moet ik gewoon snel gaan naaien.


These are the first triangle I made of the hand dyed fabric. I had to take another box to put all the triangles in, the other one was far too small. I guess I just have to start sewing soon.

In het pakketje zat ook dit handige gereedschap. Hiermee voer je stof onder je naaimachine door als je er met je vingers niet bij kunt. Ik gebuikte hiervoor mijn tornmesje of schaartje.  Het was er al lang geleden en in het Engels noem je het een 'awn' of ' stiletto'.  Misschien zou je bij ons priem kunnen zeggen, maar dat is het niet echt. Weet iemand de Nederlandse naam hiervoor?

The other present in the package was this little thing. Teri made it herself. You can use it to feed the fabric through the machine if it is too difficult to do it with your fingers. I used to take my seam ripper for it but this is much handier and beautiful too.  I looked it up and they call it a awn or stiletto I think. It was there along time ago too.
I'm off making another badge of triangles, have a nice weekend,

Ik ga gauw nog wat driehoekjes maken,
fijn weekend,

Annemieke
ps. on 26th of januari 2015 I changed the name of the pattern from Pine burr into Pine cone.

Monday 8 December 2014

Red and blue experiment, more crocheting in wool and dolls bed.

New project... It is just an experiment and not finished yet. I'm quilting the red and blue scraps with the  cotton (see the balls above) in red and blue.

I like quilting in big stitches with the thin cotton (number 8). May be this piece is just going to be a quarter of a whole quilt. I have to make three more pieces then and sew them together with the 'quilt-as-you-go' method. We'll see.

Some times the light is so beautiful here on the river,  that I have to get my camera out, even if I'm still in my pajamas. This was in the morning.


And now my progress of the woolen crochet blanket. It is 72 cm long now, so I crocheted one third of the whole blanket I guess.

I hope my father in law, who did all the spinning of this wool, has some of the darker wool left. I almost ran out of it and it gives such a nice contrast.

If I'm crocheting I can cover up my legs easily see? He once made me some pair of socks too (the ones I'm wearing here). I saved them for my wooden shoes, which I hope to use again in the garden.


On our last trip in september to the Vendeé (France) I bought an old dolls bed at Les Sables d'Olonne (no website).  It is made of wood and came with a matress and cushion, filled with excelsior (the stuff old teddybears were stuffed with). My home-made teddybear has his own crocheted blanket with ripples.


Here the little bed in the sun in France. I hope to make small curtains for it some time. May be some made out of small hexagons would be nice.






 The matress and cushion were in the fridge for 48 hours,  just in case some little animals were living in there.
 The shop owner said the bed is from the 1930's.

 The bed is totally foldable too!

Our view to the west at the end of the day. The beautiful sky is different every minute of the day and there fore difficult not to photograph, I think.

Have a good week,

Groetjes
Annemieke