The one with way too many tulip pictures

 I enjoyed my day at Keukenhof, the famous Dutch show garden which is full of dazzling displays of tulips and other spring flowers. It's only open for six weeks or so every year, and it's a bit of a roulette spin timing your visit so that you see flowers and not just buds or withered stems.  In my case, the peak flowering time was actually while I was in Paducah, so by the time I got there this week the surrounding flower fields had all been deadheaded and some of the displays within the garden were starting to go over.  There were still plenty of stunning things to see though.  The park is like multiple mini gardens all overlapping, and every way you look is another charming or glorious vista - everything from classical large bed displays to forest vignettes and everywhere canals, rivulets, fountains, sculpture, garden buildings....and of course a windmill.

You could go inside and climb to the observation deck

The variety in tulips was just astonishing, I had no idea there were so many different shapes, sizes and colours.  Some were taller than above my waist, some were like lush paeonies at ankle height, and everything in between.  The day was overcast but fairly bright, resulting in the colours of the flowers appearing to glow from within.  I tried to capture the glowing colour with my phone camera but it's still not like the real thing. The colour combinations in planting were so striking as well, to a quilter's eye there were so many design possibilities.

The whole place is designed as a pleasure garden so there are plenty of cafes, souvenir shops, toilets, a few restaurants, places you can bulk order bulbs etc.  There are also some flower display pavilions.  It was an easy trip being only an hour's flight from Luton airport, and with a direct bus from the airport to the gardens - just the usual waiting around for ages for security etc.. I stayed at an airport hotel for two nights so I could spend the whole day at my leisure in the park.  I would definitely go again another year, and try to time it so that the surrounding bulb fields are still full of colour.

I took my Aldi mint green boucle t-shirt as my plane knitting project again.  I'm almost finished the front, then just the sleeves to do.  I shall likely turn it into a caravan knitting project going forward.  We fetched the caravan back from its annual service today, which it passed with flying colours, and we are now ferrying carloads of camping goods back to the storage yard to re-install into the van.  Eventually it will be all ready to go away in at some point this summer when DH gets some holiday from work. 

I finished off the binding on the ByAnnie Zip it Up! pouch that I started on the course in Paducah.  The result is a useful pouch with one outside pocket, a handle,  and two inside pockets: one mesh and one vinyl.  In the class samples, the teacher showed that you could add a second outside pocket, or split up the interior pockets into multiple smaller pockets.  I don't know what I will use it for, I tend to prefer to be able to see all my stuff so I actually tend to use plastic or metal trays sometimes. But I feel like I learned some useful things in the class. Obviously you could use more attractive fabric - I didn't want to take anything precious to a workshop because you never know how it will go down.

This week I also started work on the Edyta Sitar Tannenbaum Christmas Tree quilt.  My big machine is having a time out and is about to go off to Janome UK for a spa date, because it has decided that it doesn't want to sew a quarter inch seam any more.  So I've had to break out the Singer Featherweight to sew this quilt. I hadn't used the Singer for well over a year so first I had to apply oil and grease at the appropriate points and fiddle with the tension.  It seems to be working fairly well now although still being a bit of a tension diva.  This is a scrappy quilt but I am cutting from stash yardage, so cutting is a bit of a lengthy process: cutting 10 squares from this green and 10 squares from that green etc.  The background fabric is what I bought at Hancock's of Paducah. I worked on blocks two and three while listening to the Australians chatting on Chookyblue's Zoom call last night.  It's more of a wallhanging than a quilt, being only c.46"x65" which is good because I shall display it at Christmastime.

I'm starting to feel more and more like the time is coming soon to break out the machine quilting frame and get it set up in the dining room.  DH is resigned, although he has demanded a sign on the dining room door  to remind him it's blocked by the frame and can't be opened  He made an attempt to persuade me to set  up in DS's refurbished room, but the light isn't as good in there, there is a bunch of furniture which would have to be moved or stowed, and I don't want to muck up the new carpet with thread lint and possible oil drips (the dining room has old floorboards).  Looking back in the blog, it appears that I last had the frame set up in 2017, so about 5 years ago.  Hopefully the Pfaff Grand Hobbiquilter that sits on the frame is still functional, it's not been used in the meantime.  I don't think I have enough wadding for all the waiting quilts either, so I will have to acquire more.  You used to be able to order a whole roll of wadding - I used to do that for the quilting group I ran for several years.  It was a lot cheaper and then they would just pay by the yard for what they wanted as a non-profit group benefit.  

Sumo has started again so I am happily watching the highlights of the summer basho every night on NHK while I work on month 12 of the Australian BOM.  I saw a Japanese woman 'talking to camera' at Keukenhof - perhaps she was a Youtuber?  When she was finished, I remarked 'Amazing isn't it?' in Japanese as I passed, to which I received a surprised 'Konnichiwa'.  Actually I enjoyed hearing the multitude of languages from people at the park, it attracts an international audience and the staff seemed all to be polyglots and could serve you in your own language then switch effortlessly to a different one for the next customer.  Highly recommended to visit if you have never been, but do read up online in advance about when to go as apparently the park can get madly crowded especially on weekends.