Hopfaldera

No losers

It is time to announce the winner of my 100 Post Give-Away...

And the Friendship Bag goes to... Mare (Mariana) from Chile! Congratulations!

Thank you to everyone who commented and said such nice things about the bag and my blog! I love to receive comments. That is why I think there shouldn't be any losers in this Give-Away. Here is a coupon:

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As a  runner-up prize everyone that entered my 100 Post Give-Away will get a discount of 30% in my Etsy shop. You can use this discount once, but it can be applied to multiple items. The discount will be taken of the total amount including shipping and will be returned after you have paid, via Paypal. The offer stands until January 1, 2010. Please remind me in the Message to Seller that you were a commenter.

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My creative space 04

I am working on a patchwork tote bag. The pattern is heavily based on the beach bag in the most recent issue of Sew Hip magazine. I am making it slightly smaller (it's still quite big), because I believe that if your bag is smaller, you will take less stuff with you and your back and shoulders won't hurt as much. Maybe that philosophy doesn't always work. At least I try...

Anyway, the fabric is Mendocino by Heather Ross. Perfect for a beach bag! But the bag will start out as a shopping bag because our beach season just ended. That doesn't mean we will not go to the beach any more. We will just not be bringing towels and bathing suits, but will be dressed in boots and raincoats. I can't wait for a nice stormy day, when we'll first have a walk on the beach (we always go to Noordwijk) and then have a warm drink in a café on the boulevard. Every season has it's pleasures!

If you want, you can visit my give-away. There is still some time to enter. You can win a patchwork Friendship Bag. It is quite a bit smaller than this beach/shopping bag, but it is filled with goodies!

More creative spaces on Kootoyoo!

Post 100 Give-Away

This is the 100th post on my blog! It took me more than one and a half year but I got there. And that means it is time to celebrate! With music and with me giving away something to one of you.

First some music (from the days when shaving your arm pits was not necessary before a tv appearance), this is Nena, my teenage idol (with a great skirt on!) (Sorry, the video is quite blurry):

And now for the Give-Away!

This is what you can win: A Friendship Bag (an extra I made for the swap) filled with goodies. The goodies include fabric and Stroopwafels (Dutch cookies; the song was German but I am actually from the Netherlands), and some surprises.

This is what you need to do to enter the Give-Away: Leave a comment on this post. The Give-Away is open to anyone, from all countries. I will leave comments open for a week. Then, on Monday 31st of August in the morning, I will draw the winner from all commenters.

Good luck everyone!!

I should add that I made the bags following this tutorial!

**commenting is now closed; the winner will be announced soon**

Pieces

As promised, a finished quilt!

 

While surfing from blog to blog I found an intriguing way of making a quilt top. A perfect way to use and feature tiny leftover pieces of favorite fabrics, with a great result. The idea stayed on my mind so I had to try it. First I dug in my box of leftovers and cut all kinds of rectangles and squares.

 

Then I started to make blocks that would be made into the quilt top.

 

 

 

One thing that really helped was an idea I read in the book Denise Schmidt Quilts. She uses a pin to remember the right-side-up of a particular quilt block. Each time before walking to the sewing machine I stuck in a pin in my fabric pointing in the direction of the top left corner of my 'block'. That way I did not loose track of my plan for the design.

 

I quilted the blanket by making running stitches around every color patch with white embroidery thread. This was fun to do in front of the TV. I actually started to like hand sewing! I love the effect it gave the quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

Now the only thing left to do, is wash and dry the quilt. But I doubt I will ever dare to do this...

 

Quilt plans

Recently I joined a online community of quilting bloggers, the Quilting Gallery. Because I do a little bit of quilting and because I want to do a lot more quilting. I actually have plans (and fabric) for about three quilts.

One is the Spider Web Quilt that is in the latest issue of Sew Hip! magazine. I´m planning to use the fat quarter collection put together by Hillary Lang for Sew Mama Sew, that I was lucky enough to buy when there were only seven sets left in the store (I missed the collection by Alicia Paulson because of the time differences on this earth).

Another quilt that I would like to find the courage for is from a pattern from the Amy Butler site. It is called Nora´s Mid Mod 2 Quilt. I have put together a pile of fabric for it from my stash. The only thing I need is fabric for the back that will also be the background fabric in the quilt top. I would like something in a solid color which is surprisingly hard to find.

Then I still have a little pile of gauzy fabrics. One of them is from the Far Far Away collection by Heather Ross. The other three are all the same little flowers but in three different colorways. I would like to bring them together in a quilt too. I think it would make a very soft quilt.

A while ago I actually finished a quilt, my second. I showed some of it already here. I´ll show you the finished quilt soon.

A fun thing that I found through the Quilting Gallery is the Friendship Bag Swap. I joined! The bag is easy to make from the great tutorial by Rachel (who has a give-away on her blog, visit before August 23!). And there is plenty of time before the bag needs to be finished (October 6). You need to register for the swap before August 25 though!

 

These are two Friendship Bags in progress.

Do you want to see our pictures?

We're back! From Italy. We were near Venice and we had a great time. We spent our vacation with my husband's brother's family. They live in China, so it was a rare opportunity to spend a lot of time together and share lots of meals, sight seeing trips and play time together.

Do you want to see our pictures? Here is a selection (of 61 photos...).

On the last day Damaris and I made a drop for the Toy Society. It turns out that it was the first drop in Italy and Toy Drop # 555, nice number! We had a great time sneaking around and dropping the toy, and we even spotted the finders.