Au revoir Nantes 3

Some more quilts to admire!!
This the Kaffe Fassett room, so colorful!

The Boro exposition:

Some Petra Prins quilts.

And now my favorite quilts, those from Di Ford. Some of you asked why i do not want to make a Dear Jane quilt. But I am really not inspired by all those different blocks. But the composition, the fabric use, the beautiful colors in the Di Ford quilts are for me .

And of course I bought her new book with all the patterns. For me the Phebe and Ann's legacy quilt are my favorites.

She signed it here....

Two pictures from the book.

More Di Ford in my next post.....

Au revoir Nantes 2

I already told you about the 150 anniversary of the Dear Jane quilt. If  you want to know more about the quilt  you could go to THE Dear Jane website here.
It was a great pity that the original Dear Jane was not there. Brenda Papadakis  should bring the quilt with here, she became ill and could not come so there were 113 copies .....
I already showed you Marian's quilt, there were about 10 Dutch copies.

Here is another Dutch one, a very small one. It was made bij Els Feteris (Bobbin).

Enjoy all the Dear Janes......

The three pictures above are made by Helen.

This last picture was made by Sue, I met her in Di Fords class, here is her blog.

If you want to see more Dear Jane's take a look here!!!! 

I was really impressed by all these beautiful Dear Jane quilts, but i also know, having seen them hanging in Nantes that I am not going to make one.

Au revoir Nantes....

Those 4 days in Nantes were fabulous!  When I cam home I was totally DONE.
I walked a lot, talked a lot, met a lot of people from all over the world, sat on terraces drinking white wine and of course ... I bought a lot.
I met Helen (from Helen's blog) and her friend in Di Fords workshop,  I had lunch with Will (from not so zen quilts in Paris)  together with Vera and Marlies from Holland. I talked to Linda Collins (Quilts in the Barn) and to a lot of other woman!!

Every morning when I walked from my hotel to the Salon, I visited the famous Garden in Nantes (Jardin des Plantes). And every morning I saw this.....

After about twenty minutes I arrived at the Salon and there was this....  (and a lot more, like birds hanging in trees , flowers between the bushes...), made by the knitters from Nantes.

The first thing you saw when entering the salon was  a Dear Jane and a patched cake for the 150 anniversary of Dear Jane. 

And isn't he cute? 

I suppose you want to see pictures of quilts , for today I only show you one of the Dutch Dear Janes who was hanging there between the other 110 ones.

This is Marian's quilt made with the original fabric. 

More pictures to come, I promise!

I am off to Nantes

Tomorrow morning I take the train to Nantes, to visit the craft fair :
Pour L'amour du Fil ( for the love of the thread).  There will be an exhibition of 100 Dear Jane quilts from all over the world and the original antique Dear Jane also will be there!!!

I hope to meet there a lot of other bloggers, from Holland, France and the United States.

I made myself a new purse , again with vintage kimono fabrics in the front panel.

And here is my finished shawl...

Do you see in the right corner the amelanchier in full bloom? I have about 15 of them, they are so beautiful. All the fruit trees are also in full bloom. 

Finally spring has arrived and everything is growing so quickly now, also the grass and the herbs!!! 

On the terrace are my pelargonium cuttings and the pumpkin plants. 

When I am back from Nantes there is still a lot of work in the garden....

I am working in the garden........

My knitting projects

Do know the little cotton rabbits blog? She talks on her blog about her autistic son and she shows her knitted bunny's. Her bunny's are so sweet but there is no pattern to buy. You only can buy a pattern of cute egg cosies. and then you have the head and arms of the bunny.
But I wanted to knit a whole bunny. Nelleke had the same idea and she created the body and legs and she also created a dress. I found on the www some other patterns and transformed them into cardigan and a pair of trousers. So here are my two bunny's:

Aren't they cute? 

I also started knitting a scarf.

The pattern is made by her and when you knit it with more contrasted colors the result is  also beautiful.

And there is another knitting project waiting for me. I bought this girly cardigan pattern when I was in Paris. 

I will knit it for this cute little girl in Holland.

She loves to empty your purse and when she found this , of course she wanted to try it.....

There is giveaway on this blog.

And there's another giveaway here. Do't go there please because I would love to win those FQ bundle. I am a huge fan of D S fabric....

The antique quilts I saw in Paris

No words only pictures....

Fan quilt,  beginning of the 20th century,

221 x 191, Hawaï

Baltimore Album quilt, 1847, 

314 x 314 cm

Redwork quilt, Pennsylvania 1881,

236 x 236 cm

Amish Bars quilt, Lancaster County, 1880

201 x 178 cm

Log Cabin quilt in light and dark variations, Illinois, 1875-1900

165 x 133cm

Log cabin quilt, pineapple variation, Michigan, 1870

127 x 76 cm

Cherry tree quilt, Oregon, 1925-1930

206 x 200 cm

The pictures are from the catalogue, it was strictly forbidden to take photo's!

You could visit the exposition till 19 may 20013 in the Mona Bismarck American Center in Paris.