Going back to Amsterdam is

like taking a warm bath and such a pleasure to be able to take four friends with me , being spoiled by Joes and Isabeau  in their quilter's heaven...

Fun began in the Thalys' fast train with a bottle of TARIQUET and the delicious sandwiches made by Monique.

While waiting for Anne Marie who arrived 1 hour later,we spend some time in the nicely restored waiting room of the railway station, the ceiling is stunning, before joining our Dutch friends.

The next day we went with Joes to town, walked and walked, and went after lunch with bitterballen to DHEW to buy fabric.

Annelies took care of us in a great way, allthough she runned the shop all alone that day, she's a real trooper.

Annelies and Joes and a pic of the fabric boxes and bundles

Five happy frenchies on the doorstep of DHEW, carrying the fabric bags

This is what i baught in Marken on saturday, more about it in my next post.

And the Windham fabrics. The red-blue borderfabric is from the JOSEPHINE collection made after a very inspiring antique Dutch quilt, that belongs to Joes'mum, a family heirloom.

If you go to Veldhoven , you will see the quilt and Joes will be there to to give you further inf ormationI also found the striped fabric matching the blocks of what i call "the other Dutch quilt.See you in the next few days ,for more about our trip.

I also have a request: can anyone explain me how to link directly to other quilters blogs?, 

I think it would enrich mine very much, hope you can help me with this...

Take care, Will in Paris, spring is here, but all of a sudden this morning, the cold and a nasty drizzle is back again.....

OOPS

The blocks for NI i  dumped only seconds ago.

And i forgot to say something about the craftshow:

I was not at all inspired about the exhibitions, sort of futuristic garments from art schools all over Europe , little for quilters but heaven for knitters and embroiderers.

I baught fabric at PETRA PRINS from the Josephine collection and the latest issue of Selvedge.

Take care and i hope to see exiting stuff in Amsterdam.

Antique costumes from the Balkan

The sleeveless vests you see here belonged to Stojan's grandparents, who wore it in their young years for special occasions.

The first one is a woman's vest, the support is from  thick wool, and in the back is covered with heavy linenthreads. The front parts have some heavy embroidery. 

The red vestwas

the men's. Allthough the color may seem pink, it's a deep deep turkeyred and the finish is black braid

A part of the waistband, made by my mother in law, and the silver buckle, it'all fragile and brittle now and stored in boxes.

The last item is a 1 meter long snake made from pearls, used around a girl's hand while dancing the kolo on sunday afternoons and weddings, sadly very brittle too and broken in two pieces.

The family comes from the village of Kuceviste, about 10 miles outside of Skopje in Macedonia, close to the Serbian border. Stojan was responsable for an enormous herd of sheep at the age of eleven, and asked his grandfather if he was allowed to go back to school.

He finished finally high school and went to Art College afterwards and came to France in the late sixties. Copared to him, i grew up in wealth, that means that my family lived under normal surcomtances......

You may ask me what i did in 5 week where i was so silent:  i did a lot of handquilting for other people and i managed to make some blocks for