winter ... ?

No, winter hasn't been around here (yet)

Still hoping for a bit of snow

or ice

...

( though not everybody will agree to that )

No, nature isn't expecting much "winter" anymore as it seems

one would say, looking at this !

( but I might be totally wrong .... )

 *

I do love the colours of this new self-striping Regia sock yarn !

The top one are socks for me, knitted by my daughter,

the bottom one is the just finished pair

for the little birthday boy

I can hardly believe it myself :

but I started the second sock this morning

( I'm not an early riser in the weekend )

and it was finished by 6 pm ... !

A sock a day ???

Never did thát before !

Yes, I know

these socks are not as big as mine :

I cast on 60 for mine
and only cast on 52 stitches for these

nevertheless

.....

Though I don't think my hands will like it very much

if I do this kind of thing every week

So now I really can go back to felting and stitching

pffffft !

a new year ...

Oooooh wow,

a whole week of the new year is already gone !

where was I ?

Taking it reeeeeal easy :

fun with the grandchildren,

a bit of sale - shopping

in my favourite Cora Kemperman shop,

a bit of knitting

.....

just  s l o w l y  starting again

Within two weeks there will be two happy, I hope, birthday boys !

( one big, one small ) 

*

Today I took some time to play

with my beautiful Karisma colour pencils

and made two little mandalas

In the second one there appeared some jungle animals

... I hadn't plánned that ... 

but it might be because I saw a picture of a leopard

earlier in this morning's newspaper ...

( he, or she, was found in a North - Indian city,

attacking people,

these big cats start to come out of the jungle

because their habitat is getting smaller and smaller ) 

Two other little mandalas are waiting to be send away

but I'm still missing one address

( so please Fiona ..... and yes Yvette it is the mail )

so for now only some details

*

And my plan is ( although I didn't make any resolutions )

to start again making some felt-fabrics

......

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