Top 2000 Party - day 1

Every year there’s a Top 2000 on our Dutch radio. This year I’m participating in Marit’s Top 2000 Party, so I try to make a few spreads in my altered book inspired by songs in the list. These are my pages for today. If you click the photo you can hear the song at YouTube.

1968 Uno Paloma Blanca - George Baker Selection 

1891 I close my eyes (and count to ten) - Dusty Springfield

Merry Christmas

I want to wish you all

Christmas cards

This year I participated in the Christmas card swap at Fibre Fever again. I made a CQ card for Maureen and used TAST stitches on the seams. Stacked half Chevron stitch in cotton a broder and Kreinik fine braids 8, woven crossed buttonhole stitch in perle 5, feather stitch in perle 5 and barred chain stitch in perle 5. Click the photo to have a closer look.

And this is the pretty card Janny made for me. Thanks, Janny.

Het is leuker met de juiste Scheve constructie op je hoofd

A new spread in my altered book Rooie. The text is in Dutch and says:

It’s more fun with the correct Slanting construction on your head.

Bracelet

My youngest daughter is living in Cape Town for 5 months and of course I wanted to give her something special before she left last August. I bought this bracelet at Atelier Soed Idee and embroidered it in African colours.

Mandala for my uncle

Another mandala, this time I turned it into a birthday card for my uncle.

Be proud

The peacock in this spread is a transfer, I took the photo a few years ago. 

The peacock is mounted on a piece of cardstock and has some hidden journaling at the backside.

Niks moet niksen mag

A new spread in my altered book Rooie.

Mixed Emotions folder

It took me some time, but here it is. The folder to store all the pages I made in the Mixed Emotions workshop.

The outside, just painted and a title in a bold marker.

There’s an extra pocket on the inside . . .

. . . perfect for the small Courage page and some notes. The other pages all fit nicely at the right side.

The closed folder. I bought elastic cord in purple and black, but couldn’t decide which one to use. So I just used them both!

And just for fun, a photo of all pages I made in this workshop. It’s great to see them all together, I learned so many new things, thanks Marit and Michelle!

Mandala for Caatje

I’m on Caatje’s snailmail list, so from time to time she sends me a pretty card. It’s fun to get a surprise every now and then! This mandala was my surprise for her.

Teesha Moore inspired patches from Carol

I received these pretty patches from Carol in 3 different swaps. They are a great addition to my collection!

Birthday card for Marja

There was another birthday girl at Fibre Fever. This is the card I made for her.

Teesha Moore inspired patches from Joyce

In my last 2 posts with Teesha Moore inspired patches I only shared the patches I made for swaps, but of course I received  patches too. I have a lot of them to photograph and I started with the patches from Joyce. They are a great addition to my growing collection!

Mandala for my daughter

My daughter is in South-Africa for 5 months and I thought it would be fun to sent her some snailmail every now and then. I enjoyed drawing the mandala for the 7th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop so much, that I just had to make one for her too!

Mixed Emotions workshop - Confidence

This is my page for the 10^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Byzantine stitch

Months ago I added Byzantine stitch to my Phoenix, but I still had to add it to my pink 28 count linen needlepoint sampler. I need to start working on my Phoenix, I promised my daughter it will be finished when she returns from South-Africa in the first week of February!

Dragon patch for Joyce

I stitched a dragon on the Teesha Moore inspired patch for Joyce in backstitch and French knots. The border is running stitch and straight stitch.

Added October 1:
I forgot to add the link to the pattern, I found it here.

Mixed Emotions workshop - Anger

This is my journal page for the 9^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Dotee patch for Jenny

In the last months I participated in a series of Teesha Moore inspired patched, I just sent the last patch to Australia a few days ago. I hope to share them all in the coming weeks. Jenny likes dotee dolls, a great excuse to appliqué one on a patch. She liked it!

Mixed Emotions workshop - Inspiration

This is my journal page for the 8^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Mixed Emotions workshop - Sadness

This is my journal page for the 7^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Birthday card for Margreet

For this card I used the same design from my studio journal as the one I made for Janny. This time I tinted it with coloured pencils and embroidered the outlines in stem stitches.

I don’t like shopping for shoes

This is my journal page for the 6^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop. The theme of this lesson is hate, but that’s an emotion I don't know, it's more that I don't like things. This week I noticed I had to buy new shoes soon and I don't like that. The background is made of origamipaper in grey and silver with different patterns, not easy to photograph!

Mixed Emotions workshop - Love

This is my journal page for the 5^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Mixed Emotions workshop - Fear

This is my journal page for the 4^th lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Birthday card for Masha

Mixed Emotions workshop - Joy

This is my journal page for the third lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Puzzling Patches

Some time ago I was in a Teesha Moore inspired patch swap. We had to make a patch with puzzle pieces on it. I trapped 3 puzzle pieces between the fabric and organza with chain stitches and decorated it with beads.

And this is the pretty patch I receive in this swap. It’s a big patch (7 x 5½ inch), made by Lois.

Mixed Emotions workshop - Loneliness

This is my journal page for the second lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop.

Mixed Emotions workshop - Courage

This is my journal page for the first lesson of the Mixed Emotions workshop. 

Newspaper ATC’s

I participated in an ATC swap where you had to use a piece of newspaper. For the background I used acrylic paint and stamps. I used a local newspaper to fold my cranes and coloured them with a felt tip pen.

And this is the pretty ATC I received in this swap. It’s made by Anne-Marie from New Zealand.

Birthday card for Maureen

A birthday card with borders for Maureen. The monogram came from the same pattern as TAST on the spine of my TAST 2012 fabric book. Of course the borders are patterns of Randje per week. I used a new to me floss for this card in Maureen’s favourite colours: Cosmo Multi Works, a 2 stranded floss on a spool.

Joyfull Embellishment 86 & 104 & 105

Months ago I joined the facebook group Joyful Embellishment, where Valerie Bothell shares a new seam from Monday till Friday. The TAST rerun was a great excuse to stitch 3 of them. Seam 86 is a cute seam with hearts in perle 5. It’s made of Chevron and fly stitches. Seam 104 is a nice Chevron variation. It’s a double row of Chevron stitches in 2 threads of stranded floss. The second photo shows how it looked when I finished the first row. Seam 105 is Chevron stitch tied with running stitches. The threads are perle 5 and 8.

I stitched these seams on 14 count Aida. It’s the first page of a fabric book with CQ seams, which I started in March 2013!

Quirky Dutch Summer week 10

QDS #10 is called Love Mandala and is a guest post by Tammy Garcia. Tammy made a video when she drew her mandala. First I watched it and then I made a trial drawing on paper. I’m glad I did, because I made a mistake in the lettering. Then I drew a second mandala in my red altered book. I changed the straight lines radiating from the centre into wavy lines. Of course I had to use another word too. There’s a big change in my live right now (no children at home for the next 5 months and one child in Cape Town for the same period), so CHANGE is my word for this spread. I painted this spread in acrylic paint. It wasn’t easy, next time I need a decent brush! To make it look better, I marked the drawing lines with a Sakura Micron pen. I like my first mandala!

You can see what others did for this week at Marit’s Paper World or the Quirky Dutch Summer facebookgroup.

Owl from Ritva

This cute owl arrived weeks ago, but I had no time to blog about it. Ritva made it for me for the fabric book page swap at Fibre Fever. She told me this owl was the symbol of Finnish MTV3, the commercial TV at the 60’s and 70’s. I found a photo of the original owl here.