how to keep yourself busy without sewingmachine

I tried to keep me busy all week last week and even though my much treasured sewing-machine broke down and prevented me from loosing myself in sewing, I think I managed well.
In reversed order, these are the days of last week;

Yesterday we had a family day. We went with all of our family to a place called BERINGEN ( NED ) and we had a “wonderful” trip with strange looking bike-like things. I will place pictures as soon as my sister emails them to me. Afterwards we had a buffet with good tasting food. I had my first beer ever and it wasn’t a normal beer at all. I had a Wieckse Rose, which is so much as a red colored fruity-tasting kind of beer. I made a picture of it, will be posting it together with the other pictures.

Saturday we went to my brother to visit the newest member of the family: Femke. And what a little cutie she is! she is so darling, she kept on sleeping in my arms, no intention of waking up! I think she was happy to be in my arms and felt safe enough to sleep. LOL. The playpen-baby-quilt-thingy I made her had lots of oooooooooohs and aaaaaaaaaaaaaahs from her mommy and daddy and was immediately placed in the playpenn for her to lay on. I must say it feels good to make something that people like.
As a family ( all my brothers/sisters and their children etc etc ) we went to the Year mass for my mom. Last Saturday it was 1 year ago that she died. I was fighting my tears the whole day and almost broke down when the pastor said that the mass was for my mom. After church we went back to my parents home and we had a little family get together. I showed my bag to my sister and she told me she likes the bag  and immediately hinted that she has her birthday in November, but I do have to think about that. If I make her a bag for her birthday, and along comes something else that she likes also or likes even more than the bag I made her…. Well, November is a long way away and maybe I just should let it cook for a while…. Who knows what may happen, lol.

Last Friday we went to visit my mothers eldest sister – auntie Phemia – and we had a great time. We talked about mom and more important, we seem to have a connection almost like the connection I had  with my mom but different. We talked about all sorts of things, even made pancakes together, lol.
My aunt has asked me to make her a quilt for her bed, one with paper-pieced stars/ mariners-compasses. The colors are tricky though, she likes muted colors and me? I like bright batiks and colorful fabrics…. so I have to be careful wen picking the fabrics. Those fabrics will be ordered at “Hancocks of Paducah” which has so much more choice and is so much more cheaper than over here in the quilt-shops in the Netherlands.
I also showed her my newly made Chelsea bag ( you know, the one that broke 5 needles and in the end my whole machine ) and told her I wanted to make them in different fabrics too. I also told her – for a joke – that if anyone wanted to have such a bag made by ME, they had to pay me 25 euros. The first thing she did was: pull her money-purse, the second thing was to give me 25 euros and ordering a black Chelsea bag…. So this does mean I have a bag to make as soon as my machine is back from the sewingmachinehospital.

On Thursday my books arrived. The books which my DH had bought for me online at bol.com . They are both English and about paper-piecing. One is from Linda Causee and is called 365 Foundation Quilt Blocks, and I am in love with it already! The other one is from Caroll Doak and had 24 PP mariners compasses in it. It is also a great book! I am so thankful to have a husband who knows what I want and goes in search to get it for me! lol.

On Tuesday I brought my machine to the sewingmachinehospital and first thing the “makemysewingmachineorelse…” person told me was that the machine wasn’t made for so much sewing and that i needed to look for something else…… all he wants to do is make me buy another sewing-machine and pref. in his shop…..I told him I didn’t have the money for a new machine and that I really needed this one up and running again…. all he thinks about is making money I guess… However being in the shopping city of Beverwijk (NLD) I thought it would be fun for my little girl to visit a huge C&A clothing store, so off we went. I had told girly to stay with me but well she is a regular 3 y.o. and she didn’t stay put. It took me almost all my nerves finding her again. All I did was turn around and putting a shirt back onto his rightful place and when I turned back poof she was gone!!!! Me calling her name didn’t help so I started to walk trough the shop calling out her name. When I finally found her she was sitting in front of a really big flatscreen mounted on the wall with… Spongebobsquarepants and Patrick on it…. I hate SPONGEBOBSQUAREPANTS & PATRICK…..lol. Anyway I got my little girl back and nothing happened to her lucky me….

Till next time around

  (*ü*)