Lucy's quilt #2

Now that we are home again, and things are back to normal, I thougt it was about time to start working on Lucy's quilt with the little embroidered birdies, remember them?
This is only a small piece of it, I want to use them in a nine patch block, not sure how it will turn out.
More to come soon!

A crafting holiday

No, it was not all laziness in Burgundy, I managed to finish this knitted top for my daughter Lucy...

...and a lot of squares for my granny blanket!

French flea market finds

You can always find cheap, lovely things in France, when you go to a vintage sale on the 14th or 15th of July.

Like these embroidered tablecloth and little sachets.




Or these buttons and ribbons!

Cute duckies!

More moleskine

The Sampigny pottery

In the village next to ours, we discovered this beautiful pottery. The people who live and work there, were in Santa Fe to exhibit their ceramics. We were welcomed by a very nice lady (the mother of Sylvie Fresnais, she does the painting on all the objects) and this beauty of a cat.

I bought a lot of stuff there, and now I am the proud owner of all these wonderful things:




Every time I drink coffee out of my green mug, I can dream about that perfect place!

Moleskine

Already a few of my holiday sketches!

Chateau de la Rochepot

My holiday was the laziest one ever, and we visited only one castle: Rochepot, a castle that was restored to its medieval glory.
It came right out of a fairy tale, a pity you had to take a guided tour, I would have loved to see it without other tourists in it (a bit selfish, I know...).




When I go to a romantic castle like this one, I try to imagine how it would have been like to live in the Middle Ages. It's nice to think it was like in this paintings of J.W. Waterhouse.

New crafting books

Look at the goodies I bought during my holiday: an embroidery book "Les napperons d'Hélène" and "Ma petite mercerie", a book with old sewing accessories, like pincushions and sewing boxes, but with all the patterns to make them in a new version!
These books are a real source of inspiration to me, they are quite different as the books you find in english and japanese.
Not better, but different.




Les napperons d'Hélène, edited by Carpentier, Paris



Ma petite mercerie, edited by mango pratique

Back from Burgundy, France

This is were I stayed the last two weeks: Cheilly les Maranges in Burgundy. We rented a house with a few friends in this little village. We had a great time, visiting nice towns like Autun, Dijon, Beaunes,..., eating (too much), drinking wine, reading, crafting (not enough), and just being lazy.


Nice houses in Autun

...and in Chalon-sur-Saône.

We also visited Dijon, a town with lovely medieval houses and a cosy atmosphere.

Always a bit creepy: a gargoyle on the tower of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.

A time for rest

(painting by Carlton Alfred Smith)
Time for a short blogging pause.
I'll be back with (I hope) a lot of pictures, drawings, and crafty things!

Dear old friends

These are our oldest cats, almost sixteen and fourteen. Aren't they sweet? I had to stop knitting, because they were sitting on my knitting instructions!

And this picture of Ward was taken by our daughter.