Hooked...

I was going to tell you how I have been busy talking to builders, electricians, placing final orders for kitchen and bathrooms... You know, all that exciting and terrifying stuff; decisions that need to be made and that you hope you will not regret.
I was going to tell you how I have missed you, missed visiting your blogs and knowing what you have been up to.
I was going to tell you it snowed in Nicosia 2 days ago: thick fluffy cotton-balls dancing outside our windows. I was hoping to put into words the excitement we all felt: from grandparents all the way down to the 5 year olds...
:)

I wanted to confess to you that I have fallen into temptation,  and have not been able to put down my crochet hook... (once again: Thanks Nadine!)

So in the past few weeks those 'in between/otherwise lost moments' have turned from this...

into this...

Now I am on a forced break waiting for some silvery grey to tie is all together...
:)

and just in case you feel like getting hooked yourself, this is the fabulous Tutorial I have been following, Thanks Sols(tr)ikke !

I wanted to tell you how happy I have been to be back working on my little Farmer's Wife blocks---

Oh, how I have missed these little cuties... and how I have added 4 more to my growing stack...












Alas---
I was left utterly speechless this morning...
Arriving home after yet another whirlwind morning running, errands to find this on my front step-






and everything stopped.

Thanks Tineke of Quilt & Zo for the lovely article.

I had no idea she would be a Cover girl!
oh my...

:)

I hope to translate some of the article for my non dutch speaking friends, but give me a little time to settle down a bit, okay? I am still in a state of disbelief! :)

"Mama, did you win, that's why your quilt is in the front?"
:)

Look! It's Mama! Hurray for Mama!
:)

It's that special time of year!

And of course I mean Amy's Bloggers' Quilt Festival! For us in Cyprus it's a long weekend and I intend to make the best out of all the wonderful quilts, quilters and their stories.
I am also looking forward to the inevitable inspiration overload :)
Thank you, Amy, for your generosity in organizing this wonderful week-long event.

I was so looking forward to sharing this quilt with you.
This is my Scrappy Dresden and it has been a long time in the finishing!
Let me tell you about it.

I started it about 10 years ago and my Dresden Plates have 22 petals each. I hand-appliqued them to their backgrounds and assembled the quilt top quite quickly, considering all the work involved. It's because I had been looking forward to hand-quilting it so much. I had brought batting with me from Canada and  I soon had the quilt on my hoop. I quilted and quilted. And had a wonderful time. My cat Cleo would join me, crawling under the hoop, and purring as I quilted. Heaven! She had been a mature cat when she adopted us, and had moved with us from Canada to Cyprus.

Then, when she got sick, we continued quilting together. It was a long and difficult illness and quilting became a very special time for both of us. As you can imagine, my quilt became covered in cat hair. But I didn't mind and patiently cleaned it, considering how much comfort this quilt was already providing us both. However, to my absolute horror, I soon realized that that wasn't all cat hair; could this be what they meant by BEARDING!?! ---that awful thing described in quilt books : HORROR!
Were the polyester fibers from the batting truly traveling through the cotton fibers and showing up like long stringy 'hairs'... I didn't know what to do... and continued hand-quilting...
Eventually the sad day arrived, and these where the last stitches I did by hand on this quilt.

The quilt was put away until I could decide what do do with that bearding. It took me a long time to muster the courage to take my seam-ripper and start undoing my hand-quilting. I had managed to quilt over 3/4 of the quilt. And un-picking gave me a new respect to the strength of hand-quilted stitches. It took for ever, but it was eventually done. And I never used polyester batting again! It took another few years until one day, late spring, as I was swapping quilt-stories with a dear blog-friend, out came the Dresden top. An avid hand-quilter herself, she encouraged me to get it machine-quilted. If the problem had been the quality of the quilt-top materials, then cotton batting with scrim would do the trick. So I asked my trusted friend Irene, who does machine quilting, and she lovingly took it on.

Isn't she a beauty? And she is done!

And Cleo would love snuggling under it, of this I am sure! :)

This week we had another quilt story at home. My littlest asked me: " Ma-maaaah, can we make a quilt for my friend? It's her birthday and she is ALWAYS my friend... So all other projects got shoved to the side and out came the "36-patch" scraps. Within a few days he was the proudest boy bringing her a big wrapped gift to her birthday party...  so cute! I'll never forget that grin... :)

And these are my Farmer's Wife blocks for this week: #39 Friendship and #40 Friendship Block- How appropriate, wouldn't you agree? Because without you this wouldn't be as much fun!

Farmer's Wife Blocks 39 and 40

Wishing you a lovely weekend, full of inspiration!

Valentina
:)

And here a close-up of the back of  Cleo's Quilt.
The quilting is a loose overall feather...
Can't wait to wash it and see it crinkle!
:)

sixty-four teeny pieces

and 4 days later... I hope you agree it was worth it  :)

The basket, on the other hand, only took yesterday afternoon- but oh, how I like it!
So, yes, my little pile of hand-stitched Farmer's Wife blocks is growing and I am so loving the colours.

36 blocks, that makes it a third of the grand total!
:)

I finally managed a picture of my Basics quilt. I hope to have in the mail for New York City on monday

It really has an autumn feel to it, and the machine-quilting wasn't too bad with the walking foot. I liked it so much I would like to make one for myself. (and I believe I still have a Dahlia lying around somewhere... You'd be surprised what I have lying around! LOL)

I really like the texture and colour of this aubergine.

This week had some quilter's therapy. Yep. I needed a pep-talk and a kick in the pants and some blog-friends gave me just that. Kathinca said to me: what applique phobia?! And Danielle told me: just do it! and Tineke said 'get cracking' and Terry said 'Don't be precious about it...' and Shirley reminded me how every little helps, Una told me she loved me and Nadine showered me in XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX's
Thanks Friends, and it goes without saying: thanks to all of you that always leave me the loveliest, most encouraging comments-

So out came the 1 1/2" half-square triangles for Camelot

And today I took the time to get over my... well, what ever was stopping me for enjoying this!

:)
Life is too short!

sending you my love,
Valentina
:)

Hello All!

Friday came and went, and I haven't really stopped long enough since to post my Farmer's Wife progress for week 9. It was a lovely and busy weekend and we spend most of it outside. Me, dreaming up new gardens and gathering seeds, and the boys getting lots of fresh air chasing red dragonflies. I can totally imagine a rocky hillside covered in Creeping Thyme... :)

It was so hard to take a picture, but I managed to 'hang it' from my wardrobe!
But if you press on the picture you can get a much better close-up.
Turned out nice, huh?
:)

This morning I put the last stitches in my gigantic 36-patch quilt top. And I can honestly say that I am itching to start hand-quilting it. However, it will have to wait its turn, because my Klosjes-quilt is finally getting quilted in these cooler evenings. 

Farmer's Wife Blocks 28 and 30

Farmer's Wife Blocks 32 and 31

Farmer's Wife Blocks 33 and 34

Farmer's Wife Blocks 35 and 36

I am still enjoying stitching these little blocks. They are so portable! And if I take a bit to mark and cut out the pieces, then I can take them along with me and stitch when ever an opportunity presents itself.

I hope you all have such unexpected moments of stitching bliss in the coming week,

Valentina

:)

despite...

 having a nasty stomach bug visit my whole family this week

a little sneak peak...
:)

Some things got done.
:)

This morning we are all at home, eating crackers and watching cartoons.


Earlier this week I finished machine quilting the Dahlia and started the binding. I really liked overall the effect and might just need to make one for myself. I think I have another 'practice' Dahlia hiding some place... :)

I still have one side to go.
It has been very slow and sweet progress, as sometimes,
I have had to stitch with someone crawled up on my lap
 and watching or 'helping' with the stitches... 

Tuesday morning I had a break from my nursing duties and used my time to start turning this pile of 36 patch blocks

 into 5 strips of 8 blocks each. These are the ones I enjoyed working on last August. Still 4 strips to go, but so far, I really like how it's looking. I am so looking forward to hand-quilting it, this winter :)

The bug caught up with me by wednesday, and this morning I also have to contend with a runny rose... sneeze!
However, last night I was well enough to be able to put the finishing touches on these two: Farmer's Wife block 29 and 27.

Hoping you are doing better! Boy, for being sick, these kids sure are hungry!!!
:)
See you soon,
V&co.

A Taste of Cyprus with Terry

Hello everyone,
Sorry i have been so absent, but hubby has been gone on a looooong business trip and it's been challenging to keep things rolling along smoothly. But All is Well--- I did it! (yeay for me!) And the Boys had a marvelous time. Hubby will be home tomorrow morning; in time for us to start birthday celebrations for our youngest who will be turning 5! The trick in the last weeks was for me to remember stay calm, stitch like a mad-woman when things started getting hairy--not lose my cool and keep those little active (chatty!) little  (sorry, Mama, we are BIG!!!) boys engaged and to keep the routine going. Imagine, we had homework for the first time; and everything that could go wrong did! LOL What do you expect with a 4 and a 5 year old being asked to sit still and finish these tasks... oh the drama... and me just having flashbacks of homework horrors of my past and envisioning a bleak tormenting endless homework sessions in the future... It ended well. And they were so proud to take their completed work to school. And I actually finished my first of Terry's Spiral Blocks ( a.k.a. Delicious Vertigo!) If you can't beat them, Stitch- 1-2-3 Breathe 1-2-3 Stitch!

It's about 14" across
 and I need to tweak a bit with the template for the block to lay a bit more flat.
But oh so enjoyable to make!

Terry is back from Alsace this week and I have been enjoying her company and friendship again. Oh my, it sounds like Alsace was incredible and her trip to the Museum of Printed Textiles in Mulhouse France an amazing experience.

Terry will be sharing all about it on her blog soon. I was fascinated as she was explaining the process to me and all she did at the workshop. Another stop we need to plan for in our 'someday soon' quilter's european tour! :)

Today I took Terry for a "taste of Cyprus": through the Troodos mountains to Paphos and back to Nicosia via Limassol taking the scenic route.

In Paphos we visited the House of Dionysios and I got to take some pictures of the mosaic floors, I had been wanting to share with you for quite some time. Talk about Antique designs!

Isn't it amazing?

Clamshells with a twist!

Even my Farmer's Wife blocks got in on the action, :)

Blogger is being a royal pain. So (stitch 123-breathe-123...) I will try to upload these unto Flickr if you want to see my other 2 blocks for this week. And Please, forgive me if I haven't answered your comments and emails. I think I have a virus that is not letting me see my gmail. But help is arriving tomorrow!
:)
Looking forward to visiting Kathinca, Marga and Nadine and seeing for their FW blocks are progressing.

I wish you a lovely weekend, with plenty of stitching and fun times,
Valentina ( and Terry!  she's waving! :)

hello friends!

I wasn't sure I'd be able to post at all, but here is a really quick one to share this week's progress on Farmer's Wife.

 :)

It's been busy, but I look forward to slowing down this weekend. I need to recharge my batteries and look forward to a bit of hand-quiling.

Sending you my love,
Valentina

Going 'round with Terry

It has been such a delight to share these last few days with Terry: there has been sharing, there has been laughing, there certainly has been stitching, and there has been plenty of adventure.

Terry, it's so wonderful having you around!

Tomorrow she leaves for her next chapter in this long trip of hers, but we already have so many plans for her return in two weeks time.

And so before you even ask: yes, I confess. I am weak and fickle and I can't wait to start making Terry's Spiral circle block, tonight. I have been trying so hard to resist, but when I saw it yesterday, close up and personal--- swoon! You will be happy to know, that I resisted for almost 24 hours... One more Project, V?! Okay, so who needs sleep. :)

The boys have started school and Terry has been a great help with them, telling them all about Billabongs, Cockatoos, Galah, Goannas and Kangaroos, while I tried to get that breakfast into them. 

:)

Famagusta Gate in Old Nicosia

This morning we went for a walk in Old Nicosia, and we had a fabulous time. Even for me, there is always new things to discover.

A traditional door in Old Nicosia.
This building, like many in the old town, is patiently awaiting
 loving renovation.

The highlight was our visit to the House of Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios  An ethnological museum from the time of the Ottomans.

 taking a breather in the coolness of the inner courtyard

The tv room
:)

The house dates from 1793, and houses some spectacular needlework. Terry and I were in awe of the intricacy of the work. And here are some examples we would like to share.

The lady of the house would have been dressed like this

the collar

the sleeves

And these lace jasmine blossoms edging the head dress-
talk about impossibly delicate...

Laced garments part of an ancient dowry

and a quilt

It was an incredible experience, impossible to forget. Thanks Terry!

I know it is late in the day, and I hope Kathinca, Marga and Nadine don't mind, but I did manage to make another 4 Farmer's Wife blocks this week. This brings me to my first dozen, and that means only 99 more to go! :) 

I have been enjoying them so much and look forward to next week's harvest.

Have a lovely weekend, and thanks for your visits. I am so looking forward to some 'me' time next week when I am planning some serious catching up time with you, my dear blogfriends! See you soon!

:)