Saturday, September 10, 2016

Hello from Belgium

Françoise here.
Yes, I'm still blogging... from time to time...
When the last Twelve by Twelve series ended, I must admit that it felt pretty strange. A bit unreal, a little too quiet... There was even a feeling of emptiness sometimes, although we were still in contact by email.
Anyway, at first, I decided to try and use up all the little scraps of fabrics I had dyed for our challenges.
I made lots of small art quilts. I showed some of them on my blog. Others were never finished, and of course I could never use up all those scraps.
I also decided I wanted to spend more time drawing and painting.
About 4 years ago, I had bought a new weaving loom. With the end of the Twelve by Twelve challenges, I also had more time to experiment with this beautiful toy.
Awfully time consuming, and completely different from quilting, but absolutely enjoyable!
I am still making art quilts of course, dyeing and printing my fabrics, and sewing mainly by machine as before.
Some time ago, I started a new group with a few quilting friends from Belgium. We meet every other month, and at the moment we are working with themes, making two quilts for each theme.
Here are two quilts I made for this group...

I spend lots of time playing with my grandchildren. My older granddaughter is already a very talented artist. Here she was painting with different ocres I bought in the South of France.
And I still love to take pictures, mainly of nature,
at home...
and when I travel...


And, as I'm very stubborn, I carry on studying Japanese, making rather slow progress but still enjoying it very much.

This is all for today!

I still have to meet a few of my Twelve by Twelve fellows in person.
How about organizing a meeting for our 10th anniversary?

6 comments:

Karen Rips said...

I would love a ten year reunion! Perhaps in Belgium or New Zealand?

Marianne said...

Quel beau programme, vie bien occupée!!!

Brenda said...

I am planning on attending FoQ in Birmingham in August 2017 so we could have at least a mini reunion then :-)

Linda’s Textiles said...

What a great thing to have been a part of - I always enjoy your blog posts & love your recent quilts, especially the pink one.

Gerrie said...

I just might be able to make it to FOQ next year. We are thinking of traveling to Paris and England with our cathedral choir next summer.

The Joyful Quilter said...

I can understand the feelings you mentioned experiencing when The Challenge was over. I experienced similar feelings when the Quilter's Play Group broke up after a year of monthly meetings to explore art quilting techniques.

Your drawing, painting, and weaving certainly was a change from the art quilts that you made with alongside the other Twelves. So many artistic endeavors, so little time!!