Wheat harvest

Last week-end was very busy. We should have been in 2 places at the same time. First there was the yearly antique tractor show in Drayton. Since we lacked the time, only this J.D A got to go. If you have a good look you can see the roses behind the tractor. They have been blooming for over a month now.
We did go to a wedding in Algonquin Park, a 41/2 hour drive up north from here.
The weather was beautiful and still is.
Once home again we had to get to work. The wheat was ready, so was the c0mbine.
After the dew was gone on Monday morning, Laurence started to combine.By now, Wednesday, he is almost finished at home. He usually does some custom work for neighbours next.
This year the yield and the price is good. Most years it is one or the other.
But that was not all the harvesting that got done.
It must be about 25 years ago ,that I saw a small decoration made out of straw. When an evening course was offered at the local High School I took it. I wanted to know more, but could not find any more information. I knew that it was an old English craft, so I send a letter to the Women's Institute in England. They got me into contact with Janet Brewin, a teacher /judge. She has been a very good friend ever since. And so the journey started. She kept me up to date and send me books. I even managed to go to England twice. Once I made it to the Wheat Gathering of England. Then about 1o years ago I developed more problems with my back and shoulders and it got harder to do. Slowly quilting took over.
But I never totally forgot about wheat weaving( in North America) or corn dollies (England)
I usually gather at least a few handfulls of grain. Here you can see this years crop.
There are 2 different kinds of wheat. Winter wheat is planted in the fall, stays in the ground over the winter and is harvested the next summer. Springwheat is planted in the spring and harvested also during the summer, usually a week or so later.
There are also a lot of varieties. Most noticable are the long "hairs" on some. These are called beards.

So starting from the left we have:
winter wheat, beardless
red winter wheat, bearded
winter wheat, bearded
barley, very long beards ( taken from a neighbour's field. Promised them to make something)
spring wheat, bearded. I cut this before it was ripe. It will keep a soft green tinge.
spring wheat, bearded.
This coming week-end I will be at Jenny's and I have everthing ready to make at least one weaving out of each variety. I hope to show you some results next week.

Apples

This week I was able to work some more on the farm. It is all done by hand, so it is slow going. The applique is done and now I will have to start the embroidery. It is hard to do it from only one picture and my memory. This farm was build on clay and over the years the front part sank down in the clay. This type of farm is called the "body,neck and head" farm In the late 50s, early 60s the neck and head were torn down and a new house was build in the same place. I have lots of pictures of this house, but not of the old. Growing up we did not have a camera, so there are not many pictures. And since I was quite young when this all happened, I really have a tough time remembering. But I do know, that my 90 year old mother in Friesland will keep an eye on me and correct me if necessary. She recently moved to a nursing home and found out that there are volunteers available, who can help her get on the Internet.

We had some more rain in the last week. Enough to be unable to combine the wheat. It does not stop the apples on our harvest apple tree from ripening. The big tree stands between the house and barn and is loaded with apples. I do not like to eat them. For me they are not sweet enough , but they make excellent apple sause, so that will be one off my jobs this week.

We will need only a small part of the apples, so a call will go out to the neighbours. It is" Come and pick your own"

Back to work

A few months ago I had started this landscape of my home farm in Holland. Once I got to the roof I had no idea how to continue, so I put it away. This week it was time to give it another try and up to now everything has worked. To get the idea of the clay roof tiles I sewed with the machine narrow rows of blanket stitch. The piece I used was small, but by cutting very carefull I can get all the pieces out. The next step will be the rest of the barn. Around the farm there will be a lot of trees. The foreground will be grass with a small ditch at the front. And I will have to do a lot of embroidery in the windows and doors to make it come more to life.



I finished the second orchid on my other quilt. The result looks o.k., but I think that to applique 6 more orchids around the center will be too busy. Maybe 2 more in the top corners would do it.
Now I have to start looking for orchids, where the flowers hang down in sprays. Smaller flowers might look better. It is a quiet time around here. Laurence is getting the combine ready and by next week we might be able to do a field of wheat.
We did get the rain, mixed with hail. We were lucky to miss the baseball size stones that fell one concession over. There was a lot of damage with windows breaking and dints in cars.
But things are looking green again and I have to get ready to mow the grass.

Garden improvements

Jeanette and Tony decided a few months ago, that the yard at the back of their house could stand some improvements. One would be to put big rough cut blocks along the outside, fill the space with soil and plant a variety of plants, shrubs and small trees.
Since they live in the Niagara region it was easy for them to go to a local quary and select the limestone blocks. On Tuesday over 13 tonnes were delivered and dumped on the front yard.
Since this is not a one man's job, Laurence was asked to come for the day and run the' rented' Bobcat. I had to come along for the extra jobs, that might pop up and do the driving
Since the way in and out of the yard was 48 inches wide and the Bobcat over 42, it was tough to get the , somethimes,even wider blocks in place.
For a while there was extra help.
But it all worked out and by 6 in the afternoon most of the blocks were in place. The left overs were piled neatly along the front to be used in the future.
Now it is up to the younger generation to do the rest of the work.
After a 15 hour day we were home again.
And we were told ,that in 3 weeks the favor will be returned. I have this bare spot, that needs plants and we need to do a lot of mulching.
Today it is back to normal. I hope to finish some of the orchids I'm appliqueing.

Go West

This is the time of year, when it is quiet on our farm. Time to visit our son in Alberta. We found a beautifull country with the Alberta flower, the wild rose, blooming along the fence rows.

A lot of fields looked very wet and while we were there, thunder storms added more water to the saturated soil. That while at home it stayed dry.
We tried to go a different direction each day.So from a drive to the west to see the mountains it was to the museum in Wetaskiwin with all kinds of old cars ( here is the oldest numbered Chevrolet known to be in excistence) to planes to old tractors.
This was very much to Laurence's liking, but the next day I was in for a treat. We had tickets for the rodeo and chuck wagon races in Ponoka.
Lots of horses and lots of fun. This is a lot different than the English style riding I grew up with.
The next day it was to the south to visit the Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller. It was packed, but the dinasaurs are so big that even with that many people there we could see most of the exhibits.



And each evening we would be greeted by little Abner, one of the friendliest puppies I know.
Now it is back to work. From a very wet part of the country we came home to a very dry farm. The once promising looking crops are starting to look stressed. We do hope for some rain soon.
And yes, quilting was not totally forgotten . I managed to visit 3 quilt stores while away and came home with some nice pieces of fabric. But no time for applique right now. It is strawberry time, so this morning I bought my yearly supply to make jam. Whatever is left will go in the freezer.

Yellow rose

I'm not much for roses. They are too much work and I have trouble keeping them over the cold winter here in our area
But I do have a few shrub roses and they seem to thrive under my lack of attention. Even with all the dry weather we are having they bloom in profusion. I do have one rose and I would not do without that one.
In 1996 my family came over to Canada from Holland to celebrate my parent's 50th wedding anniversary. It was a very hectic time. We were still in the dairy business and a week before they all arrived my husband had back surgery. But it all worked out very well.
Lois, a very good friend of mine opened her beautifull garden for a party.Everybody who

had met my parents over in Canada was invited.
Afterwards my parents wanted to give Lois a token of appreciation. When my dad went to the nursery to find a rose bush he stumbled across one with the name of "Friesland" Even with his lack of English, he could understand that word. My whole family has lived there for a long as we can remember. So my dad had to get this yellow rose.
The next day he went back and got one for me.I can still see him planting it, wearing his wooden shoes. He always kept a pair of wooden shoes here and they had to stand, ready for use in the garage.
This rose has survived the cold winters and my (at times)lack of care for 11 years now. This spring it looked like it had not survived, but I was wrong.
Right now it is in full bloom. Each time I pass and see the roses it remembers me of my father, who passed away over 2 years ago.
Lots of things going on right now, so applique sits on the back burner
I made some more orchids. This kind has a frilly lip. At first I had no clue how to approach it, but finally I decided to use shaded wired ribbon and that did the trick.

This time......tractors

According to Laurence you should do things at least once, so on Saturday we went on an "all day, all colored antique tractor run"
This meant ,that we saw other colored tractors than green and yellow. Chores were done by 7 and soon after Laurence left on his J.D 50. A friend drove the J.D 70. I decided to pass and take one of the wagons. My driving skills are not up to par. For my birthday I received a Nikon D40 camera and this was the time to try it out. 88 tractors and 5 wagons left the J.D. dealership in Elmira at 10.30 for a drive through the country side.
Permission had been asked of 17 farmers, most of them Old Order Mennonite to travel through their properties. On most farms we were greeted by the families, some sitting on the front porch to see the parade go by. We travelled along narrow lanes, went through barn yards and even had to drive through a barn, all cleaned up for the occasion.
I had a lot of fun taking pictures, over 200 in total. I would hop from a wagon, take pictures and take the next one.
Laurence was not so lucky. With all these old tractors the speed was too slow for him. To sit on a hot tractor on a hot day was a little too much. 2 police cruisers kept everybody safe on the roads. It was a long day and we did not get back to the dealership till after 6. By 8 we were home where the chores were still waiting. Will we do it again? We have to wait, because the organizers decided that they had enough. To get all the approvals from county and townships had been tough
What about all the pictures? Here are a few of them I'm still working on getting it all organized.

Potlucks, shaped notes and more

Another week with lots of hot, sunny weather. The shrub roses are in full bloom.All during the summer we will see a few roses, but right now they are at their peak. I started with one and I keep getting little shoots, so I keep planting them as I find room. My favorite peony is this pale pink one with a heavenly scent. I think it is a "Sarah Bernhardt" I received a small piece from my mother in law years ago and it has done well. Grandma had a bad fall just over a week ago. She did not break anything, but she had a lot of bruising and is in a lot of pain. On my last visit I took a few of these peonies along to cheer her up.

It has been a busy week-end. On Saturday I taught a workshop, pansies, to a group at Greenwood Quiltery. On my way home I had to stop at the party/potluck for the 15th anniversary of the Two Cylinder Club. As I have written before, my husband is a avid collector of anything John Deere. Just like other times the food was great. I did observe, that it seems that recipes only come family size, so needless to say that there was an over abundance of food.
On Sunday morning we attended a "shaped note" singing in the oldest stone Mennonite church in the area, build in 1840 and recently restored. We sang out of "Harmonica Sacra", a song book first published over 150 years ago. Each note has a shape, that's why the name. We sang in four part harmony with a song leader up front. As usual there were a lot of very good singers and I enjoyed it tremendously. We had to leave during the lunch hour (yes it was a whole day affair) to attend another potluck, this one a family reunion. And this one also had great food, so neatless to say that I better get walking.
With all this going on I did manage to finish my orchid, except for the roots. Still have not found the right color for the roots. I think I have changed my mind. I have 8 orchids drawn around the center, but this will be too busy, so I will do the one in the right hand corner and maybe stop then.

New look

Both Melissa, my friend who looks after this web site, and I decided that it was due for an update. So from highlighting a Waterloo County Farm we are going to a Japanese crane standing a sashiko water. I'm not able to do all this myself ,so I'm just doing what I'm told. Certain parts still have to have some changes, but as time allows, that will come.
I keep on plodding away with my orchids. The sashiko leaves on this one are done. I have to do the roots yet, but have not found the right color thread, a real light grey/green.
After looking all over on the Internet I found green overdyed cotton thread in the thickness and colors I needed. They arrived in 2 days, so no delay there.
The orchid flowers are kind of fiddly, but I hope to get one done a day. There are 8 different orchids, so....if I can get one done every 2 weeks, it should take me about 4 months.
The weather has been changeable the last few days, from hot to very cold. Last night there was even talk about frost, but that did not happen. I did not cover any of my plants. There are just too many.
What really seems to grow fast in this cooler weather is the grass. I will have to start mowing today again or hire some goats or sheep. So....on the machine we go

Roses and orchids

Again a week later. Quilt Festival is over for another year. Last Saturday I went to the Mennonite Relief Sale and had a great day. Even a few sprinkles could not dampen the enthousiasm. The top quilt, an embroidered quilt, went for $11.000.The daughter of the maker bought it. This year there were less quilts, mainly because knotted baby quilts and knitted afghans were sold in the craft tent. And I had my yearly fill of herring on a bun. Nobody wanted to join me, except Jenny's friend Margaret. She had her first taste on a visit to Holland. Good girl!!!
Sunday we had a good rain so now with the heat , everything seems to grow in leaps and bounds. This morning I saw the first roses. I'm not a rose person, too much work, but quite a few years ago I bought a shrub rose in the Explorer series. Very winter hardy and every year new little ones appear around the older bushes, so now I have a whole row along the driving shed. This morning I also spotted the first peonie.
It is back to the triangle and hexagon quilt. I ran into problems with the roof on the farm house, so I have to let that perculate in my head till I come up with a good idea. In the meantime I did get an idea of how to continue with this one. There will be 8 different orchids around the pieced centre. 7 have been drawn up on freezer paper. From there I copy the pattern on the dark blue fabric using a light table and a Clover white pencil. This is the one where you cannot see the line till a few seconds later. I'm planning to do all the leaves in sashiko and applique the different orchids. Now I realize, that my supply of over dyed sashiko thread is almost non existing, so I will have to try and find more.
Seeding and planting are done. Not the yearly chore of "stone picking"
Every time the soil is tilled we have stones from the ice age coming up. The small ones we leave, but anything bigger than a soccer ball has to be removed from the fields. If ever one of that size finds its way into the combine, we would have a big and expensive mess. So with the kids gone it is left to Laurence and me.I have the easy job, driving the tractor, but by the time I figure out how the loader works, most of the stones are picked. Coming from the farm in the Netherlands I did not believe Laurence when he talked about picking stones. I do now and so do the dozen or so European agricultural exchange students we have had over the years.

Quilt Show

It has been a busy week so far. On Monday the quilts for the Ontario Juried Quilt Show were judged and in the evening I got a call, telling me that I had won 2 awards. The official opening was the next day, but I could not attend. At the same time I gave a lecture/trunkshow at the Church Theatre in St. Jacobs. Here you can see me in action. Yes, I did piece a few quilts, but it is not my favorite activity. Afterwards I drove to the RIM Centre and got there in time to hear, that I had also won the Judge's Choice of Bonny Browning. Longevity, or as I call it"The Crane Quilt" received best hand quilting. Since I'm not able to quilt because of back and shoulder problems (I was diagnozed with scholiosis at 4 and have had problems my whole life) I made a choice. I can only spend a small amount of time each day stitching, so I decided to make applique my priority and get the hand quilting done. I do some machine quilting, but only in very short bursts.Back to the quilt.This quilt was different. Part of the quilting is "normal", part is done sashiko style. I asked Florence Moncur from my guild and she was willing to tackle this. She has over 60 years of quilting experience and was up for the challenge. A few times I would get a call, but it all worked out. So this award will go to Florence, here on the right.
My other entry, Winter Breakfast received the award for best small quilt and the judge's choice.
Tuesday evening I did not see much of the show. All I did was talk to all the people I knew. So after my talk in St. Jacobs yesterday I went back and had a good look around. I liked what I saw, lots of quilts from all over.
On my way home I stopped again in St. Jacobs and saw the quilts at the Mennonite Church. Some will go to the Relief Sale on Saturday.
There was also a very good selection of quilts made a by group of 10 friends, who meet weekly.

Now no more quilts till Saturday, when we will be going to the Mennonite Relief Sale in New Hamburg .I cannot miss, because I have to get my yearly fix of herring on a bun!! I think Laurence might come along this year. The weather has been great and all the soybeans have been planted.
My job today will be to mow the lawn.With this warm weather it grows with leaps and bounds and the dandelions are doing very well.

Frisian Farm

It has been a warm, cold and at times wet week. Not good to get the soybeans in the ground, but very good for the lawn. I mowed it at the end of last week and in a few days it looked again like a hay field. But that has been taken care of. Hubby still has problems with is ribs, so I have had to help here and there, more than usual. But I did get some quilt work done. I started on the wall hanging I want to make of our old farm in Friesland. This picture is the only one I have to work with, beside a small colored drawing. The brochure is for cleaning supplies. Nobody knows when it was taken and it was just by coincidence that we found a copy. The farm can be divided in 3 parts, the body where the animals and feed are kept ( in our case it also had the summer and regular kitchens), the"neck" with a hall and the"good" room. The "head" had one small bedroom and a huge room upstairs with the milk cellar below. In my time we used that for the apples out our orchard.
I don't know how old these buildings were, but it was clear in the 50th that the living quarters were slowly sinking in the clay. So in the 60th a new house was build. I have lots of pictures of the new house, but that's not what I want to use.
My first try was very crooked, even worse than the house was. This second try is better. This is only the applique, I will have to do the rest with embroidery.
The coming week will be very busy. The Waterloo Quilt Festival will be all week long. I think I could go to an opening most evenings. I will also give 2 trunkshows at the Church Theatre in St. Jacobs, one Tuesday evening and the other Wednesday afternoon.

Trunkshow

It was early getting up this morning. I had to be in London, Ontario that is, just after nine to give a lecture/trunkshow for the Thames Valley Guild. As you can see it was a "trunk" show. I have made up a list and I tick items of as I put them in the car. This way I'm sure I have everything along
The large quilts are in the suitcase, the larger wallhangings are in a roll and the smaller wall hangings are in the blue binder I made. The smaller items like cards and framed landscapes are in the black bags. It does not take me long to get ready.The trick is to put everything back in the right place when I come home. Usually I'm tired by then and items do not always get back where they should go. Than it is trouble when I have to go away again. It was an uneventfull drive. I did not get lost and arrived more than in time( I'm not a city driver!!). I even had my own parking spot right beside the door. My friend Pat came along for the ride . I promised to take her out for her birthday afterwards. We made it back to Listowel early in the afternoon and had time to visit my mother-in-law and get some groceries. By the time I got home it had started to rain. And we need that, it is very dry here.
On Sunday Laurence and I walked to our 20 acre woodlot at the back of the farm. It was still about one week too early, because all we saw was some dark red trilliums and my favorite, this lonely Jack-in-the-pulpit. If this warm weather keeps up, the white trilliums will be out by the coming Sunday.
Things have been going slow here at Lauren Farms. Laurence had a mishap and hurt his ribs. Coughing, sneezing and laughing almost do him in. This happened just before the corn planting was finished. He did manage to do the rest. I have been helping him as much as I can, but this rain comes at the right time. This will give him some rest.
I started on my next project, the farm house. I finished one side of the house, but realized that the windows were crooked. Now I know that the house was slowly sinking down( the house was replaced in the 60th), but not quite that much. It was not bad, but could be done better, so I ripped it out. I had too, because I had only a small amount of the right fabric and I will have to re-use it. But I did discover a better and easier way of putting the windows in ,so maybe it was a blessing after all. Hope to start again tomorrow.

Sunshine

Who can be in a bad mood with these colorfull pansies looking at you. These were a big surprise. Some of the yellow ones poked up through the snow already. Last year I had a few pansies in my big pots and they must have dropped some seeds. As you can see the pots are still empty.
The weather has been great the last week, but we still can expect frost. Laurence is planting corn and so far it is going well. My job is to stay near a phone and be available in case something has to be brought to the field or some equipment has to be moved, all things I can handle. It also means that I can work on my applique or in the flowerbeds. This coming week-end I hope to go to Jenny's and cash in my gift certificates at Vermeers in Welland,my favorite plant nursery.

This little landscape was another one started during a workshop I gave. I must be doing something wrong, when I take these pictures, because the centre is square, not like it looks in the picture. The purple part has been embroidered and I quilted around the yellow flowers. I will get it quilted on a rainy day.

The hexagons and triangles piece is almost attached to the background, but it will need something more, either a border with cherry blossoms or different orchids. I have to think that one over for a while.

This morning I started on a landscape of our farm in Friesland. The house has lots of windows with very narrow sashing, so it will be a challenge. It has been looking at me for over six months and today was the day. I found fabric for the bricks and found a way to make a fabric look like tiles for the roof. More next week.

Got to go outside. With it warming up outside, the flowers grow, but so do the weeds. It seems to be a never ending job to stay ahead of the weeds, but at least we can try

Another landscape

Still working away on putting my triangles and hexagons together, but at times it is just getting too boring, so I end up doing something different. I found this small landscape in a box while cleaning. It was hand appliqued and was ready for some machine embroidery.

I used a variety of threads and did this free motion with the feed dogs of the machine down.
This morning I put the border on, so now it is back to my other project.
Once that has been stitched together I'm ready to start with the landscape I drew up of the farm in Friesland where I grew up.
I could not find the right color fabric for the bricks and tiles on the roof, but I finally found those on Saturday at the Creative Sewing Show in Toronto.
I had not been there for many years and I enjoyed seeing all the new things that are available.
Even I stocked up on some new threads, which I used for this landscape.
Now it is back to the flower beds. We have had some gorgeous weather and the daffodils are blooming. It is almost time to get the plants to put in my large pots and urns. I always like them to sit for a few weeks before I put them outside.
And Laurence is busy working up the first fields. In a few days it should be dry and warm enough to put the first corn in the ground.Than it will get busy for the next few months.
And last week I received some good news. Both my entries in the Ontario Juried Show have been accepted, so I better get busy and put the sleeves on and make up the labels, my least favorite part of making a quilt. It seems I only get it done if there is a reason to, like the quilt going to the show

Pansies

Today was our guild meeting and we had a very good trunk show by Debbie Beirnes from Elmira. Lots of quilts, both large and small. On the way home I stopped at a nursery and bought my yearly box of pansies. Tomorrow they will be potted up and I will put them in my urns. A small taste of spring. The weather still will not cooperate, but there are promises for a sunny week-end.
Last week was busy with trunk shows and workshops . As usual it takes lots of time to get ready.
I find that putting things away after coming home is the biggest chore. And if I do not get it done right away, it seems it will not get done. Now I have a break for a few weeks.
I'm working hard on hand stitching my triangles and hexagons together, but it is slow process. At the same time I'm working on a small landscape. Both should be ready to show by next week.
This small quilt with daffodils I made a few years ago. It is hand appliqued and machine quilted with some trapunto in the corners. This time I wanted to see if I could quilt close together without making too many mistakes.
The flowers are made with wired ribbon and the roots are 4mm wide overdyed silk ribbon, twisted and sewn down. On Monday evening we were at the annual dinner for the New Hamburg Mennonite Relief Sale. As usual there were about 25 large quilts hanging around the hall. It promises to be another great auction. Over 210 quilts have been donated this far. This also means, that the Waterloo County Quilt Show is nearing. I will give 2 trunk shows at the Church Theatre in St. Jacobs on the evening of May 22nd and the afternoon of May 23nd.

I do hope that by this time next week I will have real daffodils blooming around the yard.Besides that the corn planter is ready to go out to the field and the tractor is fueled up. Time to get going I was told.

Mennonite Relief Sale

Each year, on the last Saturday in May, there is the Mennonite Relief Sale in New Hamburg, Ontario, Canada. The Sale includes one of the largest quilt auctions in the country. On average, around 250 small and large quilts are sold each year. But this is only a small part of the sale, and more information you can find at www.ontario-mennonite-relief-sale.org

All the proceeds of the sale go to the work of the Mennonite Central Committee.To pay for all the costs of the actual sale, there is a big dinner at Bingeman’s Park. The hall and most of the food are donated, so the ticket price (around 600 to 700 people attend) covers the sale costs.

The quilt committee hangs about 20 quilts around the hall to show what will be available at the sale. Many are large bed quilts, and most are hand quilted. These pictures show you a few of them. Since they were hanging high on the wall, it was hard to get a good picture. 

A lot of the quilts are from traditional patterns. In the last few years, there has been an increased demand for smaller wall hangings and they can bring very good prices.

This year the feature quilt is “A Bird's Eye View”. I have been the coordinator of this project. I asked Carl Hiebert, a local photographer who takes a lot of aerial pictures while flying in his ultralight plane, if we could use images from his books for this project. He graciously gave us permission. Once I had an idea of what to do, I asked members of my guild, the Waterloo County Quilter's Guild to interpret one of his pictures. With help from 2 friends, Carol and Rosemary, the quilt was put together and then hand quilted by members of my church, Listowel Mennonite Church, with members of the guild invited to help.

The quilt was finished in time to be entered last year in the Grand National Show in Kitchener. Since that time it has travelled to different churches and quilt shows. It will hang, with other quilts, for 2 weeks in May at City Hall in Kitchener and it will be sold on May 27th.

Sashiko

This has been a busy week. I was gone for a few days to give a workshop and a trunkshow and once home again we had the accountant here to go over the farm books. But that's all over for the time being. It does not look like it is Good Friday outside. We have snow again and it is cold and windy. I have to go out for my walk yet, but I will wait till Laurence goes up the road to do the chores. He can take me with him and I can walk home with the wind in my back.
This week I have finished my hexagons with sashiko. Everything has been basted unto paper and now I will have to sew it all together by hand. That will have to wait till I come back from the next set of workshops/trunkshows next week.
I ended up with 2 extra pieces of sashiko. The one was not big enough and the other I cut out on the wrong angle. So I made these 2 cards, using some Japanese looking fabric I had on hand. The cards are about 5 by 8 inches.
Next week I will be gone for 4 days, so this might not get updated till I will be back. I hope to have some pictures of warmer weather and blooming daffodils.
To everybody I wish you a wonderful time at Easter.