Hello!

Hello fellow Fat Quarterly Retreaters! I'm very much looking forward to meeting you all in London in a couple of weeks time. My name is Nicole & I look like this (on a good day):

I live in Rotterdam (the Netherlands) with my husband, 2 daughters and 2 cats. Come say hi if you see me at the Retreat, I am very shy but love to talk to fellow crafters. I'm hoping to have some time between classes to sit down with a little embroidery project or something and chat about fabric and floss or books (find me on Goodreads!) It's possible I have met quite a few of you at last year's retreat but for some reason I am not very good at remembering names and faces. Or sometimes I know your blog's name or Twitter alias but not your real name etc etc. I apologize in advance!


During school hours and in the evening I make and sell embroideries and embroidery and craft patterns under the name 'Follow the White Bunny'.  I especially like to stitch furry (mostly woodland) creatures like this Tiny Sailor Fox.

Or this Tap dancing Polar Bear:

Feel free to ask me about my embroidery techniques or something if you this is something that interests you!

Besides embroidering I also like to sew (clothes, bags, pillows etc) and quilt. I started sewing 6 years ago and although my sewing, piecing and quilting skills have dramatically improved over the years I still consider myself a 'beginner'.

At the Retreat I will be attending Kerry's 'PJ pants' class. Apparently it's a class about making your own PJ pants, not sitting around in your PJ pants (something I'm very good at!) Still need to buy fabric for that class.

For Brioni's Cathedral windows class I selected these fabrics:

I will also be carving stamps with Tacha and hopefully improving my EPP skills in Katy's Triangle City class!

Last year I had such a great time at the retreat and I'm very excited to be there again this year. :)

This almost ok bag went to a meeting....

A very long time ago I bought this pattern for a 'Market bag'. I thought it would be a perfect bag to take with me to the Fat Quarterly Retreat next month so I decided to grab some (IKEA) fabric from my stash and try the pattern. I'm glad I didn't use some fancy Echino fabric (like this one for example) on my first try because the finishing on the inside is not uhm... perfect. Officially it's a reversible bag but I'm happy with just showing the happy orange side to the general public. ;)  It's not a complicated bag at all, I just had some trouble understanding the directions. In the pattern an interfacing was used which I left that out as the outer fabric was a sturdy, canvas-like material. I also left out the pockets. All in all I"m quite pleased with the overall look and I'm sure I will make another market bag soon one day.

I took my newly made bag with me to an informal meeting of Dutch Modern Quilting group 'Double Dutch' in Leiden yesterday. There were 7 ladies and there was lots of chatting, a bit of show and tell, eating cakes and (in my case) very little sewing. There was an ugly fabric swap too, except the fabrics weren't ugly at all. Look at my loot!

The really ugly fabrics were in the small 'Scrap Vomit' starter packs I handed out to the other ladies. ;) I also showed my Scrap Vomit Quilt top to give an idea of how lovely 'ugly' fabrics can be.

There were more accomplished quilting efforts on show too, like this beautiful quilt made by Muriel. And Linda managed to finish a fabulous pillow (it was already half finished, but still), which gave me serious pillow-envy. Linda has an Etsy shop too, full of beautifully stylish hand made zipper pouches, pincushions and more.

Thank you ladies of 'Double Dutch' for making me feel welcome in your group!

Garden Path Embroidery Sampler-along

In the past few months we had some great themes on the &Stitches blog. We have been looking at backsides of embroideries and we explored the Satin Stitch. This month we are looking at inspiring (modern) samplers and stitches and (quite spontaneously) started the Garden Path Embroidery Sampler-along!

First Carina tackled the Granito Stitch, last week Julie showed the Sheaf Filling Stitch and today I posted a tutorial for one of my favourite stitches: the Wheat Ear Stitch. Coincidentally these are 'grain' related stitches. :)  I already learned lots filling these three garden 'plots' even though I already knew the stitches. It's fun to practice and experiment and make your sampler look quite pretty at the same time as well. So do yourself a favour: download the free Garden Path Sampler and Sampler-along with us!

I do like to be beside the Seaside

This week I spent a several very relaxing days on the Dutch island of Texel. Unfortunately I forgot my proper camera so the photos are taken with my phone. And if you follow me on Instagram (I'm @followbunny) you will probably already have seen most. ;)

I love to be on the seaside. Not when it's very hot (and crowded) but at all other times of year it's probably my favourite place to be. So obviously we did some walks on the beach.

On a 30k + tour by bike (a great way to explore the island) we encountered lots of cows (and sheep as well).

And how about these adorable guys? They were rescued (not sure what happened) and once they are healthy again they will be reintroduced into their natural habitat.

For the moments I wasn't looking at adorable animals, I took a crafty project with me to keep my hands busy and let my mind wander... I bought this adorable Fanciful Flutterbies Cross Stitch Cushion Kit by What Delilah Did.  Pre-printed fabric + no counting + only two colours = perfect project on the go! I didn't get very far with the cross stitching but that's o.k. I think I will just save the Fanciful Flutterbies for a next trip. :)

Ode to a book about Stuffed Animals

This is not a proper book review,  it's an ode to a wonderful handbook about sewing Stuffed Animals! Although I don't sew stuffed animals on a regular basis, as soon as I heard about Abby Glassenberg's book Stuffed Animals From Concept to Construction I (pre)ordered it immediately and I'm glad I did! This is a hugely informative hand book, a reference guide that will teach you everything you need to know to make the adorable projects in the book as well as tips on how to design your own stuffed animal (if you wish to).

From stuffed animals I made from other books and patterns in the past (including a rather wonky turtle years ago and a sweet hedgehog more recently that I will show on the blog soon) I had already noticed that sewing soft toys requires a whole different set of skills than for example sewing quilts or clothing. Luckily for us, Abby covers all the specifics of sewing and designing stuffed animals in her book. The projects come with several lessons each to teach you different things: from sewing gussets to making cupped ears, to putting a 'growler' or music box in your stuffed creature (have a peek here to see all the projects and lessons!) The projects range in difficulty from a simple fish to a classic Teddy Bear which involves using more advanced techniques. Another thing I really like about all the projects is that they are appealing to children. Which may sound obvious but sometimes it's the little things that make a stuffed animal a success (or not): the zipper-mouth of the dinosaur, the lion's lovely manes, the tiny baby Kangaroo in it's mothers pouch etc. The patterns in the back of the book are all, save one, full sized and can be downloaded from the publishers site as well (yay!).

This book is a great manual to add to your crafty library if you are interested in developing your own stuffed animal designs but also if you want to impress your family and (young) friends with some cleverly sewn stuffed animals with lots of character.

Stuffed Animals. From Concept to Construction by Abby Glassenberg was published by Lark Crafts.

p.s. I couldn't help but thinking while I was reading Abby's book that I would really love to see more 'in depth' quality craft books like these published on other subjects as well. Not merely projects and a quick 'basics' chapter but teaching news skills and techniques in great detail!

Summer sale!

Summer has finally arrived in the Netherlands and to celebrate I'm having a rather spectacular Summer Sale! If you visit my shop, buy a pattern (or more, why stop at one?) and enter code SUMMERBUNNY2013 you receive a 33% discount. Even on the new Fly me to the Moon and Blossom Tree Patterns. Discount code is only valid in my 'own' FTWB shoppe here. Sale ends this Sunday.

Birds in the Garden Quilt

Recently I received an amazing package from Sami which contained a very generous cut of very lovely Bird fabric (it's the fabric in the middle on the photo). Coincidentally I had bought some 'stash builder' fat quarter bundles a little while ago here that work brilliantly with the Bird fabric! It goes without saying that I didn't need yet another project but I couldn't resist and am now in the process of cutting 6" squares from these lovely fabrics. I intend to make a 'summer' version of my 'winter forest' quilt.  It will be just simply squares sewn together but the colours and prints will really 'make' this quilt I think. I have already named this my  'Birds in the Garden' quilt as it reminds me of freshly mown grass, reading in the garden (love texty fabrics, who doesn't!?!) and well I don't have to explain the Bird part I guess... :)

Tiny Sailor Fox for sale

I just put my Tiny Sailor Fox embroidery in my Etsy shop which is both happy and sad news. Happy because it is the first hand embroidered item I made that I'm putting up for sale and a little sad too because I spent so many hours making this piece and I'm kind of attached to him now.

Tiny Sailor Fox will be missed but I hope he will find a good new home soon!