Adventures in Disneyland Paris :)

Finally I have a short break. Yess!
Mom and dad were taking care of Amy, my lovely Greyhound and Mr. Pooky, my spoiled Siamese cat, and off we go to Disneyland Paris . It's only a 5-6 hour drive and with a lot of coffee, cookies, chocolate and sandwiches in my new car, we drove to Paris .

I wrote we, because I went to Disney with one of my best friends: Sandra. I know her for more than 24 years and we are very close friends. She is a friend who’s always there for me. She is the only one who don’t like my colorful quilts. And she said so too. She really don’t like my fabric stash at home, or the bright screen prints that I sometimes show to her in my enthusiasm. I know she want to like them ... but she really couldn’t. She loves the soft color tones and pastels, soft Moda and tiny flowers. Ahhhhh . But okay .... Not everybody has such a good taste like me ;) It 's okay with me, kind of..

At last we arrive at the hotel close to Disneyland, and we park the car in the underground parking lot of the hotel. Checked in, I buy my 2 day ticket.. Yes, only me, and this is a secret that I want to share with you; Sandra is a theme park hooligan. She has bought a ticket last December that’s valid for a year. YES, what do you think of that. She can go whenever she and her children wanted. That’s kind of awesome, right? Okay, we go on and we hop on to the bus in front of the hotel and went off to Disneyland .....

It was a sunny day and the trees in the park were really beautiful . Lots of blossom and magnolias were blooming. But, we didn’t come for the trees or the blossoms, we came to Disney for the attractions. Yes, and we did it all! The scarier the better :D Roller Coasters, The tower of terror, Buzz Lightning… we did it! But also Cinamatique :) I love that, the tea cups and “It's a small world after all...” In those 2 days we went into 25 attractions!!!! And we do have a lot of fun. At the end of the day we were so tired that we take a shower and fell asleep instantly .

The last day we spent on the shopping and outlet mall close to the hotel. Mmmm that’s an attraction  I like, actually... I love it. You always see something you need or want or what you didn’t know you want ;) At the end of the day we drove back home.
But we will be back next year ..... Oh yeah!

Love, Jacqueline

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"