Some things to show

As I am sure she must have unpacked it by now I want to show you a little something I made this week to send along with Chantals birthday present. She loves blue and tea so I thought this would be just right for her:

"Tea with Jane" freebie by The Sampler Girl, done on off-white 28 count jobelan in GAST threads.

Yesterday the mailman surprised me with a package from Chantal in our Dutch Borduurhoekje group's summer needleroll exchange, and this is what was in it:


Besides the beautiful needleroll there were some fabrics in yummy yellow colors, fun buttons, satin ribbons in various widths and colors, and a Jeannette Douglas design called "Summer at the Ocean". Thanks Chantal for the great package!

Last Sunday we returned from our summer vacation, which this year we spent at a camping in the Belgian town of Virton. It was a nice vacation, the weather was nice, and I got a lot of stitching done. Allmost all of it are present so I will have to wait showing them until they are received...

Today I am going to start a new project, an RR with 5 other ladies from the Borduurhoekje group. For my subject I have chosen LHN patterns with a coffee/tea theme. The RR is supposed to be finished on my birthday next year. First sending date is Sept. 1, I am very looking forward to receiving the RR packages every time!

I've been spoilt

Yesterday was my birthday and boy have I been spoilt... I got a Zen, Jamie Olivers latest book, gift certificates, tapas bowls and a book called "Sleeping Arrangements" which seems perfect for taking on vacation!
Also, there were some stunning gifts in the mail, first of all I got a gift from Saskia, she was making something for me in the birthday exchange of our Dutch Borduurhoekje mail group. I was stunned when I opened it, she has kept in mind what I like so well! She had made me this beautiful needlebook with a lovely LHN design on it, AND the matching scissor fob (which was stitched over one thread and so neatly done!):

But there was even more, an Isabelle Vautier pattern I have seen on her blog once, with the necessary threads AND frame, and last but not least two beautiful summery LHN fruit thread packs:

I'll just have to find three matching pieces of fabric, they will definitely all go in my stitching bag for vacation!

Then there was this package from my dear friend Chantal, which contained the most beautiful bag she made:

Also in the picture are the two patterns with matching JABC buttons she sent me: January and February in the Stitch Every Day Teapot Series. I don't think I can manage to stitch on them while we're on vacation, but hey, I can try, can't I?

Saskia and Chantal, I want to thank you both so much for these precious gifts, they made me very happy!

this is nice!

I saw this at one of the blogs I regularly visit, and loved the idea so I decided to do it on my blog also...



The Concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.


The Questions:

1. What is your first name? Willeke

2. What is your favorite food? Italian

3. What high school did you go to? 't Stedelijk

4. What is your favorite color? indigo

5. Who is your celebrity crush? Ben Affleck

6. Favorite drink? Nespresso

7. Dream vacation? Ireland

8. Favorite dessert? tiramisu

9. What you want to be when you grow up? mama

10. What do you love most in life? family

11. One word to describe you. caring

12. Your flickr name. none

1. Willeke, 2. Sunday's supper ~ rotini w/ Italian sausage & simple tomato sauce, 3. Wall of characters/calligraphy - Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 4. An Appointment with Indigo, 5. Ben Affleck, 6. Nespresso, 7. DREAMSCAPE IRELAND, 8. tiramisu, 9. Mama and Baby, 10. Duck Family Portrait, 11. ♥♥♥ i CaRe AboUt U ♥♥♥, 12. Time and Tide waits for none!©

Wet wet wet...

No, I don't mean the Scottish pop group from the eighties... but the weather! It's a very wet day here today:


By the way, that is our "new" garden... with the plants getting plenty of water!
We got very wet walking from school to home just now, so I put the children in dry clothes... but now it is almost time to go back to school, and it is not getting dryer outside. So there we go again! Wouldn't want to be that teacher with 30 very wet children in his class this afternoon!!!
I just hope the weather will be better when we head on our vacation in about 4 weeks... I still remember the loads of rain that fell while we were camping last year!

Beautiful day!

Here's my beautiful daughter, on her way to church yesterday to receive her first Holy Communion. It was a beautiful day, with much better weather than could be expected from the forecasts, there only were a few drops of rain while we were in church. She so enjoyed all the special attention, the gifts, the dress, everything about the whole day. And so did we!

Posing with her little sister

Partying makes hungry...

Getting ready...

We're getting ready for the big event, on Sunday. The house is slowly getting back in it's normal state (and, of course, better state than before the big works). There are still some little things to do but for now the big breaking and dust-producing works are done and we are very happy with the way things worked out.
There's still some checking things, cleaning and shopping to do and then we are ready for Sunday. Veerle is super excited, every day she asks: how many more nights, mommy?
Yesterday we dressed her up like she is supposed to on Sunday, and did her hair and everything, and made some very nice photo's in our new back yard. She was so proud of her clothes (and, of course, I was too, having it made myself). I will show you the pic when the weekend is over, as it still has to be a surpise.
But anyway, I wanted to let you know I'm still here and haven't forgotten about you all... i't's just that I am buzzing my days away, being a busy bee!!!

I'm still alive!!!

Wow! Has that been a long time or what? We have been soooooooo busy around here lately, I just didn't know where to find the time to blog. But now finally things start to calm down just a little bit so I thought I should share some pics of what we have been busy with.

There have been some major changes to our house over the last few weeks, we got a new bathroom (it still is not finished after 5 weeks but it looks a lot better than it used to, and at least we can use the bath and the toilet now. No shower or sink though yet).

Yes, that's me in the mirror! Where I am standing there should be a beautiful glass shower wall in a few weeks...


Then we had some new big windowdoors to the back yard, and new stones in the backyard:

I am very happy with the way it turned out, bring on the nice weather please...

Of course we are also preparing for the celebration of Veerles First Holy Communion in May, but that also seems to be going the right way, yesterday I sent out the invitations. I am working on the dress and now I finally know why my test dress didn't fit that is going well too.

I did find a bit of time to stitch in the meantime and thought I'd better use it well, and started the Jane Austen Sampler Stocking by Tanya Anders (aka The Sampler Girl), this is my progress so far:


I hope to keep you update on a more regular basis again from now on... I have missed you all!!!