I Love Spring!

I took a little stroll in the garden this morning.

Hedelg-finger Riesenkirsche in the border next to the porch.

Lupins I started from seed last year.

I hope to see them flower this summer.

Forget-me-not blue.

I'd forgotten I had imported this little beauty from my oma's garden last year: a pleasant surprise!

Phlox subulata "Candy Stripes". I introduced this little beauty this year. It's really cute, so I hope it feels at home.

Aquilegia. Just another example of how it pays to look closely, before the brightness of the flower draws our eye. How prety is that?

The peonies in the front garden are coming into bud. This year I left last years dry stems in place as support for this years blooms.

Acillea millefolium "Cerise Queen", new to the front garden. I also planted Potentilla atrosanguinea. The front garden has been a bit neglected last year, so there are a lot of weeds (grass mostly) and I had to take out the box (because of the moth), so it's looking a bit sad right now.

Since a few years I keep violets in pots for a bit of winter cheer.

The tulip have done their thing.

The new leaves on the Wisteria are pretty, but every year I'm hoping for some flowers at last ... what am I doing wrong?

A pot planted with white pansies (Marieke's choice), Bellis perennis and pink forget-me-nots.

Back garden. I made the garden arch from a plan in Geoff Hamilton's "Cottage Gardens". The chicken have moved to the back garden for a while, to keep the weeds there (a lot of bindweed!) in check.

In my pajamas!

This fuchsia overwintered in the orangerie. That is just a fancy word for the attachment to the back of the house, that is mudroom, laundry room and cloak room all in one. Because the roof is transparent polycarbonate and we keep out the frost with a little heater, it is also ideal for overwintering tender plants.

In spring this room is bursting with anticipation!

Dahlia.

Iceland poppies.

Giant sunflowers, each of my four kids sowed three seeds.

More Iceland poppies, not exactly thriving in the paper pots...

Topolino sunflowers: a lovely gentle shade of yellow, and small enough to serve as cut flower.

That was my garden tour. Sometimes I get discouraged by all the work. But I love it really, especially breeding my own plants from seeds or cuttings. And now I'm going to have me a nice bowl of cereal in the back garden, with Willem.

Easter Mini Quilt

I finished my Easter mini quilt.
I had so much fun making this: selecting the cutesy fabrics, picking patterns from Happy flower Quilts, and designing my own, and going all out on the machine quilting. Let me take you on a tour:

An overview of all its pastel cuteness!

Tulip. I designed the tulip block myself. I quilted it to accent the petals and leaves, pressing the background back with very dense parallel lines.

Baby Animals.

Spring Sunshine.

Flying Geese, leaving for the North after spending winter with us.

Tulip. This yellow one has more pointy petals (in the quilting, the piecing is the same as the pink one). Frolicking Lambs. This fabric is so cute, I didn't want to cut it into tiny pieces, and simply used a small panel of it instead.

Easter Baskets, filled with tulips, buttercups, bunnies and strawberries.

Basket, filled with tulips and surrounded by butterflies.

Spring Breeze. I quilted breezy swirls in the background.

Easter Bunnies. I designed this myself. There is very little contrast between the bunnies and the background (that's the way it is in nature, too), but flattening the background with quilted clam shells helps the bunnies jump out a bit more. Find the free pattern by clicking here.

Spring Blossom. I designed this one, too, for the center dresden, I used a pattern from Happy Flower Quilts.

And this is how it is displayed on the living room wall. It's not completely flat because I bound it by folding the backing over to the front. I would have done a proper (and flatter) binding, but I really wanted to use the same fabric as the backing and simply didn't have enough left to do that, and I can live with the wonkiness just fine.

Happy Easter!

Bicycle Shorts for Willem, Lucas and Felix

My husband has been asking me to sew him some new shorts for the summer. In the past few years I have sewn him a pair every summer, but last year he lost quite a bit of weight, so now none of them fit. He chose the fabric himself at Fairy Tailors in Tervuren, and I took the only pattern for men's pants I could find, from the Knipmode of July 2011.

I'm especially proud of the detailed finishing.

I reinforced the buttonhole with cordonnet thread.

Thighten, ...

... and knot ...

... and done!

I even added some jeans nails.

Neat topstitching.

Made with love!

Top stitching on the butt pockets.

Very proud of the fully functional fly (only the second fly I made that I am really pleased with).

I lined the pockets with a leftover from a pair of summer pants that I made for myself (from a coupon, no less, how's that for frugal sewing?)

Tadaa! It's done! And it fits, too!

 I made some shorts for Lucas and Felix from the leftover fabric (I bought about 85 cm too much).

My beautiful boys, in beautiful shorts.

Tuba Shirts for Pieter and Lucas

I made my two eldest sons a tuba shirt. Actually neither of them plays the tuba, Pieter plays euphonium and Lucas baritone, but the instruments look very alike, so tuba shirts it was.

I got the fabric from Lana Lotta in Leuven, with part of a coupon.

I really like how they turned out. The boys like their shirts too, but getting them to pose is not easy!

Made with love!

Look proud!

Play something.

Hold your instruments to the side, so I can see the shirts.

Stop goofing around!

I said: stop goofing around!

They wore their shirts to a music recital, which means they do like them. Willem and I weren't at the recital, because we were in Bilbao.

Good inspiration for an abstract quilt?