France Boutis on TV !

A local TV program made a presentation on the small town of Caissargues, and France Boutis was invited to present the art of boutis to the television audience.  As well as boutis, this program showed the town and some other interesting local things.  The blog has a link to the 3 parts of the program, and you can look at them one after the other.  There are some interesting presentations and explanations by well known boutis stitchers,  as well as some up close photos of techniques.

For those of you who are not aware of France Boutis, it is a organization founded in 2007 by four passionate boutis stitchers, Annie Noual, Huguette Roux, Isabelle Thurin and Nicole Carre.  The association has as its goal the transmission of knowledge of boutis and encouraging a link between boutis stitchers, either in groups or as individuals.

Here is the link to the France Boutis blog and the first part of the program, the other two were posted afterwards and you will see them listed in the blog archive:

http://franceboutis.canalblog.com/archives/2012/01/31/23384510.html

PQs BOM 2012

For our Guild, the Procrastinating Quilters, Janet Roni and I are planning the BOM for 2012.  We decided on a medallion style quilt with an applique center, but wanted to offer options for others who prefer to piece.  The first photo shows the center cut from a very large poppy print, the second one is the center made from an "orphan" applique block I had.  I am still working on the applique block planned for the quilt, it is on a black background.  Janet is making the pieced blocks picked for the center.  I am hoping that a lot of people will participate since there are so many options to use favorite techniques.  We are splitting it up into 6 parts, and offering the patterns every second month.  At the end, the quilt will be about 58" square.  What do you think so far ?

7th Annual Meeting around the Boutis, Pierrefeu du Var

Boutis exhibition at Pierrefeu du Var, sponsored by the association Lei Roucas dou Barri
Henriette has asked me to pass on this information in English to anyone who is lucky enough to be near Pierrefeu in March:
These two days will include 2 vendors selling boutis supplies, a bookshop selling boutis books exclusively, and 22 groups or independent boutis stitchers who will be demonstrating their expertise and working to promote the exchange of ideas.
This year we proposed making a small pouch or purse to exchange as a link between stitchers.  The works will be displayed for the 2 days of the show, and then will be exchanged by pulling names out of a hat.  Each pouch will leave with a different boutis stitcher, thus creating more pleasure and exchange of ideas.
Up to now 92 boutis stitchers have signed up for this exchange.

I wish I could attend, I think this will be wonderful yet again.  Nevertheless, Janet and I will be there in spirit, as we are working hard to finish our pouches in time to send.

Christmas Impressions

This year, we did something totally different for Christmas:  we traveled as a family to Germany to spend the time there, a big change from our usual Florida Christmases.  You may think this was an odd choice - leaving here where the weather is lovely this time of year, for a cold and wet climate. 

We had a special reason too - we now have a small family house for our vacations, and I was anxious that the kids should be able to visit it with us and help us get organized - which they did, and we are especially grateful to our son who did a lot of work outside clearing bushes and even cutting down a tree (no small problem, the tree was hanging over our garden from the edge of the forest)

We did take some time off too, as you can see - these photos are from Kaysersberg in Alsace, the birthplace of Albert Schweitzer.  Kaysersberg has a beautiful and famous Christmas market, spread throughout the small town.  Although it was a cold and wet day, we still enjoyed walking around.

The house decorations are lovely and understated.  Interesting arrangements of natural things and a few touches of color with ribbons are more usual than the flashing multicolored lights seen in the US.

This was especially beautiful as it started to get dark, the nativity in the square in front of the church.  There is a concert in the church each Sunday afternoon of Advent, but it gets very crowded and was full before we got there.

Our daughter got her wish for some snow, here is the church in our new village.  The village is a very nice and lively community, with a living Advent calendar in the days leading up to Christmas Eve.  We were invited to attend and really enjoyed the warm welcome and conversations with our new neighbors.

I took this picture because it reminded me of strength and resilience in the face of adversity - something I should think about more often.

This in front of the church.

And this is a small glimpse of our house and barn.  The house was built in 1898. 

A view of the village from the mountain behind our house.

The chapel on the mountain directly above our house (well, maybe not directly, a half hour steep climb !)

No tree this year for us, we were working on getting the basics set up, but we had to have a little Christmas atmosphere.

You may remember this quilt ? 

So here is our living room in candlelight.

Our first gift for our new house from Lou thank you so much, it is beautiful and just right - there is a niche in the wall and we put this lovely cross stitch in there.

The view from my bedroom window.  I love the church tower.  The bells chime each quarter hour, and count out the number of hours on each full hour after chiming all four quarters.  I woke up at night a lot at first, but then I got used to it and found it comforting. 

Happy New Year Bonne Annee Prosit Neujahr !

Happy New Year to all.  I know I am a day late, but we have only just arrived back from our trip to Germany.  More about that later today with some pictures.
For now, I am thinking about 2012 and what it may bring.  My wish to all of you is for Peace, Health and Happiness in the coming year.