Sometimes you start something without knowing how you will develop it. The background from the red book is ready but now I have to finish it. It was on my desk all day (next to the other book) waiting for inspiration. What shall I do with it? Yesterday evening very late finally came the answer….I am going to embroider every page. Not too much and in the same colours. The first two pages are ready. I am not sure I will continue like this, maybe it needs more contrast. Black? Red?
maandag 9 november 2009
First pages
Sometimes you start something without knowing how you will develop it. The background from the red book is ready but now I have to finish it. It was on my desk all day (next to the other book) waiting for inspiration. What shall I do with it? Yesterday evening very late finally came the answer….I am going to embroider every page. Not too much and in the same colours. The first two pages are ready. I am not sure I will continue like this, maybe it needs more contrast. Black? Red?
zondag 8 november 2009
Melting pot
vrijdag 6 november 2009
dinsdag 3 november 2009
Too busy
At the moment I am a bit behind on everything I guess…. Learning, working late, meetings…my agenda is completely full for the rest of the month. Now and than I have to remove some blog posts from my google reader because I am very behind, which I despite very much!!! I try to do some creative work every day though, because it is my only way to relax, but it stays with small works.
maandag 2 november 2009
Foil
Yesterday I worked really well but I can’t show you anything. All kind of little paintjobs that don’t make great pictures. So actually, I didn’t have to tell anything, this doesn’t happen often LOL…End of the day I wanted to do something different. In Birmingham I bought some gold foil in a normal fabric store. The saleswomen told me a bit surprised: You can’t sew that! This caused us some hilarity, if only she knew what goes under my sewing machine!!! And this is often more heavy material than this. It did make me a bit curious though, so I decided to try it. Along with the foil I bought some black nylon too, so I want to see what it did between couples of layers synthetic. Well sewing was not a problem at all, which I expected. I had to smile about it though. Then used the heat gun, see what happened, it melted! Actually I didn’t expect that, the synthetic layers (four of them) became like lace by the melting. It was just a short experiment, but very useful, I wonder what the saleswomen would think of this :-)
vrijdag 30 oktober 2009
Large work
Today I went to the dentist again, after 1 o’clock the stupor was over, so I am back to painkillers again. I hope this will past very soon. To get some distraction this afternoon I started on a really big piece. One difficult piece that is. The base is a very thick Lutrador so it is hard to move under the sewing machine. I really have no plan for the quilting. Typical me to start something this big while I am not feeling well :-)
donderdag 29 oktober 2009
Gift wrap foil
Het is wel interessant om het eens uit te proberen, tot nu toe heb ik nog maar één laag organza er over heen aangebracht en zit nu nog te twijfelen. Het is nog iets teveel bling-bling en een tweede laag zwart is te donker, andere kleur werkte niet zo. Het is wel grappig om te zien wat het doet. Het lijkt in de verste verte niet op het werk van Angie, compliment, dat is moeilijker dan je denkt! Maar dat geeft ook niet, het is meer de bedoeling om de techniek eens uit te proberen. Ik denk dat ik nog eens wat laagjes ga toevoegen, zien wat er gebeurd…wie weet welke verrassende dingen ik nog ontdek.
Yesterday evening it was very late when I finally was ready to go to my study. I didn’t feel like working on my present work (no inspiration) so I wanted to try something else and I thought about the demonstration by Angie Hughes that I saw in Birmingham, and I was wondering how it worked. I saw Angie do this technique with a certain kind of chocolate paper but looking at my recent dentist problems (I have to go back to the dentist this Friday, and I don’t look forward to it) I decided to use gift wrap foil. But this is a lot more solid and it didn’t work well. Or I am not good at it, also possible LOL….It is interesting though to try, till now I only added one layer of organza and I am now doubting…I find it to shiny and adding a second layer of black organza is too dark, no other colour worked well. It is funny to see what the colours do. No way, that it looks like Angies work, big compliment, it is more difficult than you think! But that doesn’t matter; it was my purpose to discover the technique. I think am going to add some more layers, see what happens…who knows which surprise I discover
dinsdag 27 oktober 2009
Little work
At the moment I am studying for the next exam. This means that I have to invest some precious creative time. I am trying to find a good balance between the two but this takes some time. Last week I worked on some small works. I want to list them on Etsy tonight but something came up and I have to hurry...
zondag 25 oktober 2009
Liefs uit Zeeland
My thirth fabric book is called Liefs uit Zeeland (love from Zeeland) that is the province that I live. It containes old pictures with traditional costumes from this area. The base has a lot of structure and is made of felt
woensdag 21 oktober 2009
dinsdag 20 oktober 2009
All kind of things

A bit of everything….this Atc was in the mail this week, it is made by Anne from France. Thank you Anne. And here is the information about the exhibition in Tilburg. The first of my fabric book is ready, I am gonna make a slide show from it tonight and will try to post it tomorrow.
maandag 19 oktober 2009
Exhibition Impression
Its done again. It was a great exhibition, well organised and great lights. Compliments for the organisation! The comments where really nice. Yesterday we break off this exhibition and there is the next one! This weekend we exhibit in Galerie Holtrop during the Surface Design convention.
maandag 12 oktober 2009
zondag 11 oktober 2009
Lazy??
I am still working on two fabric books at the same time and it goes pretty well. The pink fabric book is on a break, I have the pages all ready but I want to do something special with it and I don’t figure out how. Fabric book two has already six pages and is going on its own. They form a nice distraction between the rests of the jobs. To be honest I was very lazy in labeling my art quilts the past years, I often kept delaying it, and even that I was so careful in registration the first 15 years, the past 4 years I really made a mess of it….I stopped somewhere at 129, pretty stupid off course because now I have to get everything in order again. Now we have so many exhibitions coming up and I don’t bring my work myself every time I shall have to solve this. I am now sewing a lot of labels, that’s a start. That I don’t have everything in order yet is my punishment I guess, this is gonna take a lot of my time to figure everything out but I better carry trough and change my life in the future :-)
zaterdag 10 oktober 2009
Lost in time
When you live some where for quit a time, you often don’t see how beautiful it is anymore. This morning I cycled to work and I looked at this beautiful sky. Fortunately I had enough time before work, so I could leave my bike for a while to take a picture. Sometimes these spontaneous actions give the best pictures. Last week I also had such a moment. I would love to use more pictures as a starting point but I don’t see how, yet…….
dinsdag 6 oktober 2009
Exhibition
Het maakt niet uit hoe vaak je dat doet, het blijft toch altijd spannend. Op dat moment stel je jezelf heel kwetsbaar op: wat als ze het niet mooi vinden, is mijn werk wel goed genoeg….. Herkenbaar?
Achteraf valt het altijd reuze mee, het was een heel leuk gesprek en die tentoonstelling komt er gewoon maar het is toch altijd weer een overwinning op jezelf. (Dat geldt voor mij tenminste, misschien zijn er mensen die er minder moeite mee hebben) Mijn agenda loopt behoorlijk vol dus, van het weekend heb ik eerst nog maar wat opbergzakken er bij genaaid. Er moeten ook nog steeds wat tunnels genaaid worden aan sommige quilts en er moeten nog wat latten gezaagd worden…..exposeren is leuk maar het werk er om heen vind ik stukken minder :-)
On Saturday I had an appointment for an exhibition, I had to go there with my portfolio. It doesn’t matter how often you do this, it is always exiting. At that moment you are very vulnerable: What if they don’t like my work, is my work good enough….Do you recognize that?
Afterwards it is not so bad at all, it was a very nice conversation and this exhibition is a fact but it is always a victory on your self. (at least for me, maybe there are persons who don’t have any trouble with it) So, my agenda is really full, this weekend I sewed some more bags for transporting them. I still have to sew some sleeves on the back and I also need to saw some sticks to hang them….exhibiting is a lot of fun but I don’t like the work that comes with it :-)
maandag 5 oktober 2009
Lost
zaterdag 3 oktober 2009
ATC book
The book from yesterday is started by accident. I was searching for a background fabric for the book I had in mind and coincidently I took this pink fabric I dyed and stamped some time ago. Sometimes work grows on its own…..today I started the book that I really had in mind, so I am now working on two books. I didn’t had anything to do anyway LOL..I forgot to mention that I found the ATC book from Isabelle Auroux in France. A while ago she mailed me to ask if she could use my work for the book, we traded some ATC’s a while ago. Off course I found it a great honour so I gave permission to use them. It supposed to be two ATC’s but seeing the book I realized that they used the wrong name on one of them. That’s a pity but still nice to see your work published.
vrijdag 2 oktober 2009
Vacation????


This vacation is really terrible. Before when went on holiday I had a bit toothache and during the holiday my back tooth has broken. So far no problem, I didn’t feel anything. Yesterday I finally had an appointment with the dentist and he placed a temporary filling because it needs a permanent tooth ( I couldn’t find the English word for this? It is some cover the put on your teeth?) After that I was really in pain, I really felt bad and my flu head was back again. This vacation is not working. In spite of that I started a new book yesterday (before the dentist) I have a lot of things to do but I was so much longing for something new….This morning a feel a bit better, unfortunately it is my last day of the vacation :-( but if this is vacation, I love to go to work again LOL….
dinsdag 29 september 2009
Exhibitions
It goes very well with TeXui, we have a lot of exhibitions coming up. Starting with the handwerkbeurs in Ahoy – Rotterdam on 16 October. This means that this week needs a lot of work. Now that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do this holiday, I have to go over to plan B, this means finishing a lot of work so that there will be some work that have never been exhibited. I have a lot of pieces who don’t need much work anymore, but I keep delaying it. Fortunately I still have this week free from work so I can try to do as much as possible. This quilt is the only piece I work on during the holiday and it isn’t even finished………….
maandag 28 september 2009
Sick!
I am back! The plan was that Arend was going to do a lot of kilometers on his bike and I was doing a lot of kilometers sewing but things were a lot different. The day after St. Marie (Val d’Argent) Arend became sick and the off course the day after that I became sick too. We came home a day earlier than we had planned but I needed some days to recover. Today I feel better and I did spend some time on my sewing. Not much to show you, but I will make it up later on.
maandag 14 september 2009
Second piece
Als ik dan een keer bezig bent gaat het hard, hi, hi....dit stuk is gemaakt van een overschot van het break down printen..
When I am on the run, I'll go very hard LOL...this piece is made from a leftover from the break down printing.
zondag 13 september 2009
New work
Waar begin je dan aan na zo'n drukke week? Eerst maar eens wat lagen over elkaar gezet voor een klein werk. Ik moet slechts nog een paar dagen werken en dan naar Val d'Argent dus het is erg moeilijk weer aan iets nieuws te beginnen. Ik hoop in ieder geval een heleboel inspiratie op te doen. Na Val d'Argent heb ik vakantie en deze keer blijven we thuis dus dat betekend veel werk verzetten:-)
So where do you start after such a busy week? First I added some layers together for a small work. I only have to work for a couple of days yet, before we are going to Val dá Argent, so it is very hard to start something new. I hope to get a lot of inspiration there, because after Val d'Argent I have vacation and this time we are not going anywhere so this means I can get a lot of work done :-)
vrijdag 11 september 2009
Exam
woensdag 9 september 2009
In between studying
And in between studying I do some painting with Koh-I-Nohr. I bought this wonderful landscaped sketchbook in Birmingham. Just two more days..........
zondag 6 september 2009
All kinds of things.....
Cats and quilts, they really like them
Een paar dagen niets van me laten horen en deze week wordt ook moeilijk. Ik heb aanstaande vrijdag examen en ik wil het halen dus ik moet even hard aan de slag anders kost het me nog meer tijd. Ik zal het goed maken met een heleboel foto’s want tussen de bedrijven door werk ik nog wel :-) Vrijdag zijn we bij Sandra geweest, Annette, Laura, Corryna, Willy en ik. Emmy zou ook komen maar was niet zo lekker, jammer hoor. We hebben gebatikt. Hier is een deel van het werk, sommige lapjes heb ik gespoten, andere zijn geverfd met proxion. Het was heel erg gezellig en Sandra was een fantastische gastvrouw, ze heeft ons heel erg verwend. Deze dag is zeker voor herhaling vatbaar. In de tussentijd ben ik ook nog aan het schilderen, donderdag heb ik samen met mijn zus en Evi de eerste opzet gemaakt en iedere dag een laagje erbij. Ik ben nog aan het quilten, aan het leren en aan het ontwerpen. Genoeg te doen dus.
You didn’t hear from me the past days and this week is also very quiet. A have an exam this Friday and I want to succeed so I have to put a lot of time in it. If I don’t this costs me more time. I shall make it up to you by giving you a lot of pictures, because between all this I do work. Last Friday we went to Sandra, Annette, Laura, Corryna, Willy and me. Emmy would also come but wasn’t feeling well, which is really a pity. We did some batik work. This is some of it, some fabric I have spray painted, some is dyed in the proxion. It was really a nice day and Sandra was a great host, she really spoiled us. This day is really worth for repetition. In the mean while I am painting, Thursday my sister , Evi and I started with the painting and every day I add a new layer. I am also busy with quilting, learning and designing. A lot of work though….
woensdag 2 september 2009
New site
Wat mij betreft mag het echt nog een poosje zomer blijven hoor.
The days are getting shorter again; nowadays it is dark again when I wake up. That’s why I was delighted to visit as one of the first visitors the new jewellery website from my friend Lucy. What a great colours!!!! So cheerful!!!!Well, look for it yourself:-) www.che-sieraden.nl As for me, I hope it will stay summer for a while.
dinsdag 1 september 2009
Diversion


Ik ben nu weer helemaal bij en ga proberen het iets beter bij te houden. Nu nog wat meer discipline zien te vinden ha, ha…
I can’t find the right work rhythm at the moment. I am easily distracted, which is very normal when you see the pictures LOL….In the evening it is so lovely outside and I can get myself to go upstairs to my study. Do I have a summer ? It is not that I don’t feel like it, the time just flies too quick. My computer starts to act strange again; probably there is something else wrong with it. So I was very behind reading blogs. If there are so many posts to read that I can’t comment on all, sorry, but I want to get even with it…..I am now starting with a fresh list, and I will try to keep it that way. If I only could find more discipline.
maandag 31 augustus 2009
Quilts


Gisteren ben ik bezig geweest met een stapel quilt sandwiches voor te bereiden zodat ik straks aan een stuk kan doorwerken. De laatste jaren gebruikte ik hiervoor veiligheidspelden maar doordat ik steeds dunnere achtergrondstof ben gaan gebruiken verschuift dit wel eens een beetje. Dus ben ik nu maar terug naar het “ouderwetse” rijgen gegaan. Omdat ik ongeveer een stuk of vijf quilts heb voorbereid is dat nog een aardig karweitje; maar lekker met de radio aan, poes op schoot, valt het best te doen. Ik moet nu nog een schema maken hoe iedere quilt gequilt moet worden en bijpassend garen zoeken.
Yesterday I was busy preparing a couple of quilt sandwiches so that I can work constantly later on. The past years I used safety pins for that job but because I am using smoother fabric for the backing now and this moves a bit. So I am back to the “old fashion” basting. Because I have prepared about five quilts, it is quiet a job; but with the radio on, cat on my lap, it is not so boring. I have to make a schedule now for the quilting and have to search for the right colour yarn.
zondag 30 augustus 2009
quilting



It is been a very busy weekend, I had to do some housekeeping sometimes. Last weekend I couldn’t do anything either. I had given myself free from blogging, sometimes I put too much pressure on myself by wanting to write everyday. I am trying to calm down a bit without feeling guilty when I don’t have time to write. Between the ironing and the vacuum cleaner I worked on this piece. At first I made a mistake with the quilting, because I don’t felt like unpicking it I went on this way, only know I am intensive quilting it….








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