BeColourful on Social Media

Jacqueline is taking a few days off. She was so extremely busy sewing and quilting and designing, she deserves a little vacation. And there she goes.. with a friend to Disneyland Paris. I told her to take a photo camera with her and make some great pics of herself doing nothing and enjoying herself! I hope she does and when she’s back, I’ll ask her to write her adventures here with some pictures :) Wouldn’t that be great!

The good thing is I’ve the opportunity to introduce myself to you :) Some of you already know who I am, because I’m the one who’s doing all of the Social Media for BeColourful. And that’s quite a lot of work, I can tell you that.

Let’s start at the beginning. My name is Bridget Snijder, in Dutch my name is Bregida, which is the same as Bridget. And I’m Jacqueline’s sister.

I’m a librarian at a public library and I’m a school librarian as well. I’ve two busy jobs, working 38 hours a week. And I love both of my jobs!

What I don’t like is quilting :( . Oh yes, I love the results and looking to the work of everyone, specially Jacqueline’s designs, but I really don’t like to do it myself..

At the start of BeColourful, Jacqueline was the only one involved with BeColourful. Ten years ago, Social Media was not that hot and happening, but within the years we noticed it became more and more important. And about 2 years ago, we decided it will be a good thing for BeColourful to start Pinterest and Facebook. And so we did. 

I love to be busy with it. Although it’s very time consuming it’s also great to do. What I do is, making the pictures and post them at Facebook. I do most of the answering of the questions. Sometimes I’ve to ask Jacqueline for advice, because I’m not a quilter at all ;) 

Because there’s more Social Media besides Facebook, we started our own BeColourful You Tube channel, made an account on Tumblr, started with Instagram and came up with this blog. 

I think it’s great to have all these things for BeColourful. It’s just so great to share Jacqueline’s talent on so many different levels.

We hope you enjoy it too!

Love, Bridget

The finishing touches of "Wheel of Fortune"

A few days ago, I picked up the Island Batik quilt at Elly Prins at Zoetermeer. I thought a quick drive to her place .... well..no. There was a lot of traffic with a lot of maniacs ..... and no, I'm not one of them, I really like the speed limit ;) Yet I find myself at times driving 150 km p/h with my new car ..... and that goes quite nice and fast, I can tell you that!

Okay, the quilt. Back home at 19.00, I immediately make some coffee and then return to the centimeter, ruler and rotary cutter to work and measure the quilt. I love the final process to finish the quilt. Amy, my greyhound is on her blanket in the room, the radio on and only sewing.... What do you want more in life.

The quilt is almost ready for the photoshoot, in Driebergen at Pieter Bas. There is no pressure on my shoulders, oh no…

Unfortunately, it's a big quilt and it always takes more time than you expect. At the start you’re thinking: mmm, just a few hours, at 22.30 I’m probably ready. But in the end, the figures of the clock crawl to the early hours, when I’m finally finished and ready to hang the quilt. With risking my own life, I balance on a way to small ladder to hang the quilt at the wall and then you see it ... the big picture.. or the quilt ...

To my dismay, the quilt does not hang flat or like a royal banner on the wall, noooo, this quilt hangs like a sea storm with huge waves, like a potato chippie, on the wall! Full of bumps and lumps. She laughs mean and false at me, and believe me 1:00 at night I cannot smile back. I turned out the lights just not to look. But each time I woke up at night, I saw the quilt with strange bumps, full of dark shadows hanging on the wall.

After a sleepless night in a fetal position, I woke up at 7.00, and the first thing that I do, is ripping the quilt from the wall. What has gone wrong ? When I sewn the several parts of the quilt and when I stitched them together the quilt was pretty tight on my work tables . No bump or bulge was there to see.... And now? The Alps were little hills compared to my quilt....

First we measure again. The measurements were good, the borders were paperpieced, so they were the correct size. The last borders were cut on the base of a pattern part. Then the sleeves and bindings have to go and undergo the fate of the little grim scissors. 6 Hours of work. Each stitch was cut and torned out.

Then re-measured and put the bindings and sleeves again to the back of the quilt. Arghhh, what a #@*”#^# job.  Now back to the wall and the too tiny ladder, stretched as far as possible on the little stairs and now try again to hang the quilt on the wall. It seems to fit better. It is not perfect, but it's a little better.

In the sleeve at the bottom, I slide a metal rod (read 20 pounds ) and yessss, now the quilt hangs tight :) The suspension hooks are trembling in the concrete wall, under the enormous weight of the quilt and the rods, but... it’s hanging....

Strange things were happening with this “Wheel of Fortune”. 

Love, Jacqueline

Saturday was the day of... the interview :)

The interview in the magazine: "Crafts Without Borders"! 10 years BeColourful obviously can't pass unnoticed.

What is "Crafts Without Borders"?  "Crafts Without Borders" is a magazine* with a circulation of  9,000 copies and appears 6 times a year with articles on craft techniques where the textile predominates. The subjects can be from the Netherlands, the countries around us, but also worldwide. Tradition and history are the key. Objects and practices of earlier times can be very interesting sources for creating new contemporary textile crafts.

At 11.00 the interviewer Monique came to my house and started the two and a half hour conversation about 10 years BeColourful.

In those 10 years, a lot happened with BeColourful. In 2004, I was an unknown designer who placed her very hesitant steps into the quilting industry. I turned out to be the well-known quilter who I am now, teaching worldwide, belong in the top 5 of quilt designers in the world, had exhibitions around the world. I've had some great interviews and featured the covers of international magazines with my contemporary and colorful quilts.

The interview was also about the fabric collection that I'm designing for two leading fabric manufacturers in the USA, the fabric kits that we're offering for the BeColourful patterns and of course the success of the BeColourful pattern line which is specifically designed for the intermediate and advanced quilters all over the world. And there are some more exciting things to tell:

The BeColourful "coffee table book", which the American Quilters Society will be publishing this year and of course the request that we've got to get the Chinese quilt industry started. How great is that!

No….. 10 years BeColourful really can't pass unnoticed.....

Love, Jacqueline

* In Dutch, the magazine is called: "Handwerken zonder Grenzen" 

Amy, my lovely new companion

I have some great news that I want to share with you Sinds a month I have a new Greyhound , Galgo Espanol . That is a Spanish greyhound . I named her Amy . Why did I called her Amy? .... She looks so sad with her skinny body . The name suits her and she 's really sweet. You may be remembered that November last year my beautiful Enya , also a Spanish greyhound was unexpectedly deceased . The pain I felt inside was so intense ..... and almost unbearable , she was so special to me , that sweet lovely dog. Yet you often hear that people are not taking a new dog because the pain was so intense . That's right , the grief is unimaginable , but I just had the feeling that the legacy of Enya , her empty spot, was ment for another helpless dog. And so it is that we, after Enya’s death we are going to look for another Greyhound . On January 22, Amy flew from Spain to the Netherlands and I picked her up at the Airport in Rotterdam Zestienhoven . A huge bench was pushed inside ...... the door opened ..... and there she was ....

The most tiny Greyhound dog that you could imagine. Not a beautiful and graceful greyhound ... no it was a very tiny, shivering of fear, black lady with an adorable gray snout and eyes that looked so anxious to the ground . Her tail was under her belly .... ( as he would continue in the next days ) and she saw a sea of ​​people, all waiting for her . Oh what it must have been to her: first she was so abused and now being hailed as the first dog of dogs so maligned overwhelming it must be.
 The first days were difficult for her . I think there's an awful lot that has come off at that time for her. A different language , different people, different smells , different food, different sounds .... And she was scared ... really scared of everything! For a vacuum cleaner , a doorbell , for somebody who comes towards us when we take her out for a walk in the park, an idling engine in a car , for other dogs ....
But especially for men she is very scared .
When my father, a few days later want to take her out for a walk, she ran quickly to my studio and crawled as far away as she could, in a corner of the room , behind the curtains , in the hope that he would not see her, but and above would not hit her . My father told me that it broke his heart to see the frightness in such a defenseless dog en huge fear in her eyes. Yet it is now after a month, and she is doing very well.

We work on her confidence and give her hugs and the love she needs. She is so loved, that little snout and that crazy smile .... and that little shy smile .... we see it more and more. In the beginning it was hard to imagine, when she pulled her upper lip up with those big teeth gleaming that in the beginning you really thought she would attack you if you stroke her gently;-) She really looks scary and determined to kill you with that creepy smile;-00. But now…. she dares to come to us and to let stroke her selves and she is enjoying a snack ..... mmmm she almost climbs over you in her eagerness to get it.

Yes she is doing so very well! Dear , dear Amy .... I promise you that we will take good care of you and you will be cherish and be loved as long as you can be with us.

Love, Jacqueline

Note : For anyone who wants to know more about the terrible destiny of the Spanish greyhounds : the Galgo espanols , please Google this name on the Internet in your own language and you will see how necessary it is why just these dogs need to be rescued . Each year, 50,000 of these beautiful sweet and gentle dogs are slaughtered in the most brutal manner because the hunters in Spain don't want to take care for there dogs after the hunting season for their dogs

@work

About three weeks ago Jacqueline received the fabrics from Island Batiks. At the International Quilt Market, Jacqueline was asked to design a quilt for the Spring Market this year with the new Spring Collection. What an honor! There were such a lot of lovely fabrics to choose from...

Jacqueline choose these beautiful fabrics to make one of her awesome designs. And she's enjoying it. Although there's not much time, because the quilt must be in Pittsburgh end of this week. So you can imagine my little sister is working her heart out with this special quilt. 

Luckily there was the Craft show in Zwolle, last weekend, and there she found some time to do a lot of demonstrating her techniques with this new quilt. That was so great!

At the end of the four days, Jacqueline did a lot of sewing, and the quilt is going really great!

Well, that's for now! We'll keep you updated on this new design and everything that's going on!

Love, Bridget

There's life after the Craft show

Well, that were 4 awesome days at the Craft show. What a lovely ladies we've met. Everything was so much fun.
For the first time we had our own booth and that was great.
It was really great to show the quilts we had with us and the patterns we had for sale. And we also had a few fabrics with us.
It was quite tiring, but so worth the effort. It's always great to show the things which you're good at, don't you think so?

Yesterday we went to a fair ourselves. And what a fun day we had. We're with the four of us, Jacqueline, me and two of my daughters. It was an awesome day, and it felt good to be on the other side of a booth, I can tell you that ;)

And for now, back to work. There's a lot to do for Jacqueline. She's invited to make a quilt for #Islandbatiks. And that's a lot of work.
I'll keep you updated.
Love, Bridget

There is this show...

Well, here I'm back. Two exhausting days at the Craft Festival. And two more days to come. But it is so much fun to do this and to be here. All those lovely and enthusiastic ladies. It's all so worth it :

Jacqueline is really the most popular person at our booth, from the two of us :D Everyone wants to meet her and likes to see what she's doing. And she's doing so great with all the demonstrating. All in all we have a great time! Love, Bridget