Forever Africa; a quilt for Carla

Some colleagues are special and deserve a quilt for their special occasion. Carla was involved in Europdonor Foundation from the very beginning as office manager, personal assistant for the director, and  jack-of-all-trades for the donor center, keeping an eye on the stem cell donation schedule. She kept all the historical facts in her head or in her archives. She was our living wiki with knowing all the ins and outs and who's, what's, and where's of stem cell donation. She will retire in January 2012, and we had a farewell party last Friday.

That I would make a quilt for Carla was a matter of course, but the implementation took me more time than expected. Oh, the theme for the quilt was easily found: Carla loves Africa, and has traveled their a couple of times. But how to process this theme into a quilt in an original way? Every time I was thinking about a design, I heard Carla's voice somewhere in the back of my head: 'don't forget, I am very critical'. I selected and deselected fabrics for hours.

I thought of traditional blocks, but decided for something less stringent. I asked Carla if she would like to have her own Africa pictures processed in the quilt; she gave me a CD with photo's and I choose six of them that found their destination on the map of South Africa.

Little by little, step by step, the 'Forever Africa' quilt was born and developed over the past weeks. For the borders I decided to use the colors of the South African flag, using simple solids. The evening prior to the farewell party I finished the quilt. And Carla? She seemed to be pretty content with the result!

Rainy days in Summer

It has been raining almost all July, and last night temperatures dropped so much, that it really felt if Winter has decided to return early this year. You might think that rainy days in Summer are the perfect days for quilters. But sometimes my work is too busy and I am not able to focus on my UFO's or start a new project, because there is work to finish that I brought home from the office. To avoid loosing the quilting bug (which seems to be impossible, once contaminated), I like to visit blogs of other quilters. The American Quilter Society can be followed on Facebook there they announce their 'blog-of-the-week' winner. This week Julie Letvin's http://www.quiltjewelry.blogspot.com/ is the lucky winner. I visited her blog and was so surprised with what I saw. She makes the most beautiful miniature (and I really mean 'miniature', with a size of 1-2"!) patchwork pendants and pins. I was even more surprised that she decided to give away some of her pieces. It was not difficult for me to choose from her stash (the 1 1/2" pineapple heart in pink, purple an cream batiks). To give you an idea I have copied this picture from Julie's blog.

Reading other quilters blogs gives inspiration for new ideas. But there's more blogs that I like: and one I particularly like to read is http://momentswithmotherculture.blogspot.com/. I met Karen and her husband at breakfast, when Jack and I were in Flemington on our trip from Pittsburgh to New York. We stayed in the Manor House on Main street, a very nice B&B in an old Victorian house. Karen's posts are so nice to read, about the daily things in her life, (often about her knitting or embroidery projects), but always with a lesson or advice in a very pleasant way.
If you are interested in our trips, you can visit our travel blog http://tripsandtravel.netau.net/. Our next trip will head 'down under' next Spring: yesterday we picked up some information at the local travel agency, so we can start preparing. And preparing a trip is one of the nicest things to do (besides quilting, but that's obvious!). Enjoy the rainy days in Summer!

Golden heart - the journey of a quilt

	I love to make quilts for a special occasion, in particular memory quilts, like the Europdonor quilt that I showed you before. In 2007, my parents celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary, a Golden Wedding. With the help om my daughters Sanne (colors) & Leonore (design), I made 'A Golden Heart'. It was quite a project that started with the choice for a main block: We choose to increase the 'Watercolor heart' block ( from Nancy J. Martin's perpetual calendar 365 quilt blocks a year, Feb 15) and filled the blocks with pictures and drawings of the grandchildren, printed on fabric, and other blocks that we felt were resembling my parents. After the choice for the blocks and the fabrics, the second part of the journey began: cutting pieces and fitting them together until we were all happy with the result. Our living room floor was more than once covered with blocks, pieces of blocks and one of us crawling around, trying to do some jigsawing with fabric pieces. What started with piles of fabric, started to look like a real memory quilt, and during a nice party, two of the younger grandchildren offered it to Oma & Opa. Needless to say that they were very surprised. The quilt is now covering my father's grand piano in the heart of their living room. Every time I see it, it makes me smile and brings back the memories of this nice quilting journey.

Bye bye John

The project I finished this week started just a couple of weeks ago, when I learned that my colleague John Lie, after almost 20 years, had decided to leave Europdonor. We have been working together, performing donor searches for Dutch patients in need of a stem cell transplantation, since 1997. He taught me everything about matching, and we talked about family, and food, and the assortment of our 'Sweets and Soup Shop' (a little table in a corner of our office with chocolate bars, sweet treats and noodle soup and a small cup for the payments for our Europdonor colleagues), and became friends.

Since John's roots are Chinese, I decided to make a quilt with an appliqued chinese character, meaning: See you, good bye! I have chosen for fabric from Japan, bought in the City Quilter in New York, mixed with matching fabrics from my stash.



When I was stirred up by something, John always stayed imperturbable and often said to me: 'be careful, you have too much fire'. With this quilt I have donated him some of my fire.








John loves monkeys and is concerned about their well being, see also: Stichting Aap.

The little monkey is part of John's signature: Jocco Aap. 

Next Monday, search will go on, but things in the Europdonor office will never be the same...

Bachelor becomes Master

It is less than 2 years ago, that I finished this quilt.
It was made on the occasion of the BSc of my oldest daugther Sanne and her friend Wouter. It is hanging in the living room of their apartment in Wageningen. During our trip in British Columbia (CND) in 2008, Sanne saw this quilt in a shop near Radium Hot Springs, where we stayed a couple of days, and immediately loved it. We took a picture with Leonore's telephone, and during my stay in Minneapolis later that year, I found the perfect fabric for this quilt. Only 3 weeks ago, Sanne graduated from Wageningen University and is now a Master of Science in Spatial Planning. And if that is not enough, she entered the PhD program. Needless to say that her mother is very proud!

Sow and Harvest

The Harvest Quilt is finished and now hanging in our living room. As mentioned before, I bought this fabric during our last trip to the USA in October 2010 in Intercourse (PA) in  Zook's Fabric Store (http://zandsfabrics.com/). The quilt brings back the memories of Autumn in Pennsylvania, the colors of Indian Summer and the lovely time we spent with our friends in Pittsburgh, and in the B&B's we visited in Addison, Hummelstown and Flemington.


This project was finished on the 22nd birthday of my youngest daughter. Birthdays of their children bring mothers back to the very day of their delivery: Leonore was born 2 months early, after I had spend 3 months in the hospital. Although she was so small, she did very well from the beginning:the pediatrician in charge wrote in her files: lively, lovely, smart. And she has proven to be all of it: she is 4th year medicine student, starting her intern in May! Time to celebrate!

With love from Linux

My husband Jack's favorite animal is the penguin. As software developer, the penguin is more than an animal it is also the symbol of Linux, a computer operating system. During his business trips in the USA, he always brought me some fabric, which I really appreciated. That's why I decided to make him a special quilt, to decorate his office.
"With love from Linux" started with cutting a number of triangles to make hexagons. I had never had done this before, but ordering the triangles was really fun, and ended in a sort of icy landscape, populated with penguins. The blue Star of David in the middle originated of it's own accord, obviously showing my Jewish roots (according to my Mother).
I love the quilt, and every time I see it, it makes me smile.