Cats, Quilts and New Friends

I’m safely back from my trip to the Netherlands. I had a fantastic time and my only regret is that I didn’t take a bigger suitcase along with some of my quilts for show and tell.

I have so many photos to show you from this trip, I’ve decided to split them up by theme. So my stories won’t be chronological…

I stayed with Joes in her very lovely apartment. Joes has now started a blog called Dutch Quilt Cat, which I’m sure will be filled with photos of her wonderful quilts, cats, and travel.

Joes and I visited the Cat Cabinet a tiny museum dedicated to paintings, advertising images, photos, and sculptures of cats. It’s housed in an Amsterdam canal house so you can also see all the period detail on the ceiling, walls and gorgeous wood floors. Joes in front of the museum:

The museum had marvelous posters for sale – I came home with the Zwicky poster of a cat holding a spool of thread.

While I was visiting Joes, an editor and photographer from the magazine Quiltmania came to take photos of her apartment and quilts. It was fun to watch them work, moving things around to get the best composition. They also visited the homes of three other Dutch quilters whom I met AND interviewed Bonnie. I am sooo buying a subscription to the magazine.

I didn’t take many photos of the apartment myself – I know the professionals did a much better job - but I did take a few.  An antique Amish quilt on the wall and on the bed a quilt that Joes made and Bonnie machine quilted:

 

A beautiful antique postage stamp quilt:

Joes has two beautiful sweet cats. This is Saartje curled up on a gorgeous antique star quilt composed of triangles:

The level of workmanship on the quilt is amazing. It’s heavily quilted and just gorgeous.

Saartje has a sister named Pluisje, which means Fluffy. She has long hair but doesn’t tolerate being brushed, so she has to get shaved twice a year. She looks like a gorgeous Dr Seuss’ lion with the big mane, skinny body, and tail with a tuft at the end:

Pluisje was especially sweet to me. She’d sleep with me sometimes at night or curl up on my legs while I was on the sofa reading, which I did a lot of – Joes has an amazing quilt book library.

This is me sitting with Saartje, an ever present cup of tea in my hand:

An amazing trip but it’s also good to be home.