knitting again ...

The last day of  October  already

and although actually we are not into Halloween over here

I thought this lady is suited for this day

*

I'm knitting again !

But first I frogged a try-out with the lovely coloured

Rowan kidsilk haze stripe and some Drops alpaca,

the two didn't work well together.

I bought some new light blue Drops kidsilk to go with the Rowan.

Then I picked up the mitered vest,

that was kind of hibernating for a long time,

and started knitting ...

At least, that's what I wanted

but I had to do some serious reading

before I remembered again

how to do the pattern

I think it must be old age:

because I didn't know with how many stitches to start with,

what to do with the first and the last stitch on the row ...

and I had done already quite a bit ! 

And I have done a vest just like that before !!!

But luckily the magazine was still there  ;-)

( yes, from  looooong ago )

I remember people asking when I was wearing the blue vest

( that I did before ... but gave away to a friend ) 

if I sewed all the little parts together ?

NO

you don't have to

and this clever way to do it, was all in the magazine !

( Nowadays you can also find similar patterns

for mitered knitting on "Ravelry" )

HA ... and the fun part is

that you never have more than 25 stitches on your needle

(or 49 stitches when I make the bigger squares) 

The back and side pieces are finished so I could start on the front

*

Our two housemates

enjoyed a lot of autumn sunshine !

*

The last fun thing for today was brought by the post

a huge bag "mit Liebe verpackt" with wool I ordered in Germany

( I'll probably take part in a Christmas fair in the village

so there has to be done some serious felting ! )

Ohhh, we had a very clear sky last night

so there was still the beautiful moon

rain ! .... no moon (but still a bit of silver)

Ahhhhh .... it's a pity :

there is no full moon to be seen 

because it's raining here.

( well : you can't win them all )

But here is another bit of silver

( Although I didn't hear that my little felt-exchange piece arrived safely,

it was in the mail this weekend,

I'll show what it looks like )

For this person I had to use naturals and grays.

For me, as a very "colourful" person ,

that wasn't very easy,

so that's why (among other things)

it took me quite some time to start and finish it.

It wasn't very clever of me nót to measure the beginning ...

I started a bit to big actually,

for we agreed that the pieces would be postcard-size !

Therefore I had to keep felting to shrink it to the right size

but thát way I lost a lot of the original detail

which then caused me to do a lot of embroidery.

( not so bad, because I like to stitch )

In a drawer I found this lovely bit of silk-and-metal (silver) fabric

that seemed just right for this piece !

And then ..... lots, really  LOTS  of French knots,

with wool, silk and silver thread.

I hope she likes it

*

Man is drawing again

Mmmmm love the colours !

*

Daughter made good use of some Noro and sock yarn leftovers :

pouches for semiprecious stones

sunny autumn day

Because the two bigger grandchildren

have autumn break this week

we went on the bike and by boat

to the museum (de Kunsthal) in Rotterdam

(yes ! 7 paintings were stolen last week from this museum :

what a lousy way to celebrate your 25 anniversary !!!)

We had such a fun day :

looking at paintings (Avant Gardes)

and sculptures ( a lot of naked women by Maillol)

modeling with clay

making a viewing box

walking on a treadmill (with music and a painting in front of you)

and having a drink and some sweet pie

on a bench at the river

in the warm sunshine

(a fun painting ... ha, could have been by Kaffe Fassett ...)

And home again

(near our beloved windmills)

...

I found a very thick envelope on the doormat

containing my next felting exchange piece of Joke

sunny !

lovely people

Last sunday we had some lovely people in our house

to celebrate Man's birthday

(yeah : 17 ... sort of ...)

One of the visitors was wearing

this nice real Peru hat

CUTE !

*

The b i g piece I'm working on

will have lots and lots of pieces of fabric that have a special meaning to me,

(I think that's one of the fun parts of it)

Some of these snippets

have come from lovely people who live far away.

 A lot of them I've had for some time already

and they were "patiently waiting" till I found some good use for them :

so Sus, Connie, Jacky, Heike, Eva, Jude ...

somewhere there will be a special place for a lot of your pieces. 

I'm working on the "moon and stars"side now

(that will be the reverse of the "butterflies")

Thére was the perfect spot for some very dear

MEGAMENDUNG

It's amazing how well the dark red background of the megamendung

fits in with the ikat fabric !

Today I did some tea-dyeing to take off the "bright white"

of some pieces and I wove a few strips in them.

Now they fit in with two little "Judes"

These parts will probably became corner pieces somewhere 

The next fun part is the stitching of course

Mmmmm stitching !

a bit of a puzzle

So far I've finished the butterfly centerpiece.

It will be in the center

at one side of the b i g project

Ha, you can still see where the last section was sewn

to the bigger part :

the seams were not yet basted down ...

Here it is pinned down on the ikat fabric

I did the outline with a running stitch

in order to know where it belongs when I'm working

on the opposite side.

This side will have an ikat bórder, the other side will have an ikat cénter

.....

( Mmmmmm the cats lóve it when there is something to play with

nothing much to do when they're chasing each other )

Now my puzzle is what sequense I should take
when stitching on the ikat parts ...

So I removed the butterflies.
They will be basted, or "glue-stitched", on some very thin fabric,
then I will add a thin batting layer,
and then I can start stitching on them.

In the meantime I will start with the stars around the moon on the other side

rainbow stars as you see

a star ... and ... a ghost star

*

Yesterday evening was our mandala group together :

the second time with the theme "earth"

And a little bit of one I'm working on for a gift

rain and sunshine

Yesterday started with lots and lots of rain

real autumn weather !

I went anyway to the Stitch'nBitch group in Rotterdam

in the new location (right in the centre of town)

but, due to the lousy weather,

we were only with five

...

but

the sun came out in the afternoon

and the day ended beautifully !

Today I almost completed the middle piece

for one side of my new b i g project.

I sewed everything together on the machine

and then basted the seams down by hand

(that gives such a lovely feel to it)

A lot of butterflies

like a stained-glass window

...

and butterflies like a simple x  

*

And we ended the afternoon with a loooong walk

with daughter and kids in the autumn sunshine.

...

(O, and you know that I completely forgot I've just started my third blogging year ?)
 no:  no give-away this time

october mandala

October is the "official" month

for breast cancer awareness.

(not that you can't be aware of that any other time ...)

So I drew this mandala for all the women (and a few men)

who have fought 

who are still fighting

and some who have eventually lost their fight

against 

breast cancer 

Life can be hard, but life is beautiful