on wings ...

Christmas over, so now I can show

what I was up to last week

The idea was born out of the fact

that some of my dearly loved ones could use 

some heavenly support.

But making the first one brought me back to reality quickly :

it takes quite some time to make an angel !!!

As a start I cut up some embroidered linen shirt

( I'm so lucky to have these little tweezers

to turn those tiny arms and legs ... )

( that was the pair of socks ... )

......

And a day or two later

the second one was finished

two little guardian angels

......

Well ofcourse there had to come a third one.

All of them easily found their new homes

......

and they will be taking care of things

for a looooooooong time !

*

For now, all I have to do is enjoy the last few days

of this year

2011

and then ...

 HAPPY NEW YEAR

to you all

making again .....

Yes ..... I started making things again

but sorry to say :

I can't show it yet !

( ssssshh christmas present .... )

I finished a pair of socks, started a new pair

and am still working on the purple green striped pair

that matches the baktus skarf

( so it's kind of sock-time )

Although my christmas cards weren't

as funny as the home-made ones like last year's

( I just bought them in the store )

the thought of colour pencils was só demanding

I had to make a special

christmas drawing

To all my blogging friends all over the world :

I wish you a happy and peaceful Christmas

*
( or whatever you call the holidays you're celebrating )

slow

Things are still very slow around here.

I'm happy to tell our loved-one is improving every day !

But all of this has kind of taken it's toll on all of us.

In the last few days we have been busy with a .... puzzle !

Our all-time favourites are the ones of

MORDILLO

(this one was our recent "Sinterklaas" present)

We have been enjoying Mordillo's work since the seventies :

his cartoons are funny, colourful, and there are

always soooooo  many details to see and enjoy in his work

... this puzzling is kind of soothing,

 ánd addictive ...

( there's only peace when the last piece is fitted in )

And as it seems :

this puzzle-urge runs in the family

a friend .... and a friend

Today I had a lovely day with a dear old friend.

She faced a long car journey with her man

 in rainy and stormy weather to meet me in Rotterdam,

and it was fun together

like it always was.

She brought me a wonderful piece

of Kaffe Fasset "Megamendung"

and some pieces of lace.

She provided me earlier with some old odds and ends

so I took the finished pieces with me, to show her what became of it.

(We first met thirty years ago in textile-art classes)

*

The other friend I made only recently,

through the internet

I most likely will never ever meet her in real life :

she lives in Australia !

We talked about felting and making little "Waldorf"dolls

and visited each other's blog and talked some more

and I sent her something for her seasonal table ...

Last Saturday a big envelope arrived through the mail :

... ? ...

did I order something that I totally forgot about ??? 

.....

until I discovered the name on the back

Ronnie !

Thank you my dear, for your lovely early christmas presents !

a magazine about felting, some wonderful variegated threads

(of which I surely will make good use in some stitching projects)

and three little angels and a tiny baby Jesus

( I put up the christmas tree this afternoon and they are in it !!! )

BETTER !

These last two weeks have been very, very busy ...

but the best part is :

our dearest loved-one is on the way to recovery,

getting better by the day

a true miracle

We were very happy that we could celibrate

"Sinterklaas" as we would normally have done :

presents for the children

and a present with a funny poem

for the grown-ups 

(just like it should be)

(there's a great explanation about Sinterklaas here) 

All this, left no time (or desire) for blogging

just reading a bit ... 

and no big stitching, felting or knitting projects either.

Though the funny knitting book I got as a present

on the 5th of December gave enough little things to try !

An acorn, a fly fungus and .... yèk :  a slug ... (on granddaughter's request)

I don't like one as big as this in my garden

(wouldn't pick it up either !!!)

But the book is really fun

*

There's still a pair of socks with the same yarn as the Baktus skarf,

but also little progress on those :

still the first one ...

(we plan to visit the last Stitch'n Bitch for this year

on Saturday : knitting time then !)

*

Hopefully things will be getting back to normal soon,

but it left us all very much aware how precious life is, so

celibrate every day !

And for those of you who will be in the right place :

enjoy the lunar eclipse on Saturday

fabulous felting ... and then ...

Last weekend daughter and I had a fabulous felting class with

Marjolein Dallinga

( we had looked forward to it for over 3/4 of a year ! )

And YES !

it was all we hoped for and so much more

It was three days of working very hard

on three projects

and we learned sooo much

A lot of new techniques and inspiration to start working on !

THANK YOU,  MARJOLEIN !

*

And then

...

the whole world came to a standstill :

our dearest loved-one

got caught up in a terrible hit-and-run car crash

and thank heavens came out of it with, as it seems now, only "minor" problems

when you see the wreckage of what once was a car .....

there must have been a big pair of angel wings around them !!!!  

 But after this nothing else seems important

and I think it will stay like that

at least for a while now 

baktus

A bit later than I thought this weekend

I finally finished the special "Baktus" shawl,

the one with the lacy side.

 I got the pattern at one of my favourite yarnshops

"de Schapekop" in Nieuwpoort.

It's true that I did buy a few times on-line,

but with yarn I like it best when I can feel what I'm buying

and also colour wise I think it's much safer

Mmmmmmmm

I love these self striping yarns

( Drops Delight )

( and something different about colours : here )

The pattern was easy

and I especially like the edge of the strait side of the shawl !

*

Now I will have time for my "big cloth", I think,

however ...

aren't there any other things to do ...

with Sint Nicolaas and Christmas coming up ?

11 - 11 - 11

Isn't that a beautiful date ?

( well : not everybody in the world is having this same funny date ...)

Eleven

... some say : it's the number of fools,

some say : it's the number of wisdom ...

 Foolish things can be said by "wise people"

however... wise things can be said by "fools"

( I think it depends a lot

what's your own point of view considering

what's being said )

*

This week was mandala-week again

both for Man and me

( sorry, bad light )

enough ?

When I'm knitting I like to use

fingering weight yarn :

a lot of stitches on a fine needle.

( Don't make thick sweaters anymore nowadays :

with central heating you don't need them

and outside the ever present wind blows through ! )

I've used different brands of "sock yarn" for the socks I knitted,

a 100 gram skein is enough for a pair of socks

up till quite big !

For my size I mostly use up about 60 (+) gram

so that always leaves me with "one sock" leftover yarn ...

The blue socks of my favourite Regia yarn

( two 50 gram skeins )

were finished and I had about 20 g left of each skein

.....

What to do with thát ?

Since winter is coming I had a good idea :

for fingerless gloves ( mitts ) it should be just enough ( I hoped )

And .......

pffffft, ... glad I was right

( when you see what was left ! )

Which only leaves me with a little bit more knitting to do 

to finish the second one !

( Won't do any cables in this kind of self striping yarn anymore

it's hardly to be seen )



a finished project

The autumn colours in the garden

are fading away all to quickly.

But even on the ground the display is still beautiful

almost magical ...

magical ???

The one Dahlia I had this year, I planted in a pot,

to prevent an early death by slugs and snails.

But probably the spot wasn't sunny enough,

ánd ...

I pinched out the top to make it grow a bit broader.

Thát it didn't like :

it didn't want to grow at all

in the beginning.

But now, finally :

one gorgeous flower

worthwhile waiting for !

( a promess for next year : and no pinching thén ! )

( in fact she's even darker than here on the photo )

*

Last year on the Handwerkbeurs ( crafts fair )

daughter saw someone in one of the yarn stalls wearing a lovely vest

She complimented the lady and had a good look at it ... 

and started after she found the right sort of yarn.

Well, sometimes things take a bit longer

than you think they will

especially when there's no pattern at all, just that memory

of something beautiful .....

There was a lot of discussion, and making those horrible

( but necessary ) gauge samples,

a lot of doing and on-doing

( like cutting a part of the bottom of the too long sleeves )

.....

But finally today

the whole project was finished  !

Crochet and knitting, and crochet again ...

the front

and the back

( the true colours lie somewhere in between because of the flash light )

A very proud and happy daughter !

dye

Last Saturday daughter and I visited the "Handwerkbeurs" in Rotterdam

(a crafts fair)

Daughter bought some lovely yarns for new knitting projects,

I, a book with patterns for tiny "Waldorf " dolls,

some beautiful variegated DMC,

some fat quarters of quilt fabric

and I collected a bag with stuff for Procion dyeing

that I had ordered in advance.

Today I had ( another ) fun day dyeing

with my friend W

( long ago she learned me a few bits and tricks about quilting )

On the first day we mixed the procion dye

with the thick gel, prepared screens with it

and let them dry for a couple of weeks.

Today came the second part : the actual printing on fabric

... on a well protected table !

The "break down" printing was fun !

The fresh gel dissolves by and by the dried dye on the screens

and gives prints that become gradually weaker as you go  

 After the screens were totally "worn out" we cleaned them

and also tried

printing with paper resists. 

Later on we have to steam iron the fabric

and wash out the excess dye.

( first mission accomplished ! ! )

a bit of this, a bit of that

We're enjoying lovely autumn days

quiet sunny weather, no storm in sight ( yet ! )

Otherwise these beautiful colours

would be gone in a day

*

The new box with colourpencils is coming to good use by Man !

 They work really nice on the heavy paper

( I checked them out too .....  ;-)  ! )

*

I took some bits and pieces of an old UFO

and added some more :

among others, a piece of a silk man's tie

( from the thrift store )

and this will become part of one of the new inhabitants

on the big ikat cloth

Although I have only a vague idea of what will come next .....

a wonderful day !

The 26th of October

was a wonderful sunny day

44 years ago

just as sunny as it was today !

Well ... how would I know that so accurately ?

that's easy :

we had a wonderful sunny wedding day !

.....

And today :

a bit older, a bit wiser (sometimes) and still lots of sunshine !

Sunshine

(inside or out)

brightens up your life !

 May you all have lots of days with sunshine

*

Earlier today, when man was away to his Italian class,

I was knitting on my last (so far) pair of socks

with my favourite Kaffe Fassett yarn from Regia.

Ofcourse I finished them later today !

The other pair of a more turquoise KF colour ( and slightly too big )

went to a dear friend who visited us in spring and had terribly cold feet ...

However : these are definately not too big !