three blind mice ....

I'm working on little finger puppets

(for the fair)

O, NO

no more pictures allowed !

Something funny going on here !?!

When I was still working with the youngest children

in school, I loved to tell stories

with a hand or finger puppet

.....

the children enjoyed themselves

and had such funny reactions

talking to the puppet !

All the mice that are finished

are waiting for a new member of the family .....

No use to go on right now,

can't show my felting exchange either ... 

sorry .... !

soft stones

Right before Christmas I will experience

for the second time

what it's like to have a stand on a fair

(the first time, last year on a Spring Fair wasn't exactly a succes,

but ... why not try again)

I don't like to make things just because

I want to sell them,

it kind of hinders my free creativity.

So now I must find things to make that I like doing

ánd that are salable

This is one of my first tries :

soft stones

I took some real stones

gave them a felted jacket

and started stitching.

Because it is a Winter Fair I thought it appropriate to start with white

Simple stitches, but the combinations are fun to do

Sorry, almost forgot to give Lisa credit for her felting tutorial

which is very helpful for a lot of people.

sunny bag

When I had this friend over who felted the red bag

I didn't do much else than a bit of knitting

(and making coffee, tea and lunch)

I don't have enough space

for "more than one bag at the time"

That's okay, but I always start felting myself

right after such a day.

I planned this new bag

to fit especially to a jacket that I made for myself

out of silk / linen five years ago

(remember for wich occasion  ;-)  !)

I will make a picture of it later, with the bag ...

Sunny colours : golden yellow, pink and a bit magenta

The Ginkgo leaves are no coincidence !

I used the same template as the one for my orange bag

(last year) and the friend's red bag

There's the Ginkgo (a bit of pre-felt) 

and I used some netting in order to prevent that the design might shift

It really took a long time and repeated corrections

before the spirals stayed in place.

(the spiral is a bit more pink than here on the photo)

Now I must wait till it's completely dry so I can fix the strap

and a little magnet as a closure.

Happy

a fun day

Today a friend came over to felt a bag.

She wanted the bag to match

with her lovely new red boots.

I had ordered the wool that would go nicely

with the picture she send me,

but we took thát colour for the inside

and a slightly darker one for the outside.

Working very hard !

Late in the afternoon she went home
with some final instructions,

a little rolling mat

and still some homework to do !

*

Today it was a true autumn day :

some wonderful sunshine ...

(mmmmm, those colours)

... and some heavy downpour

( so we must have been in that pot of gold all day ! )

*

And finally :

" I want to ride my (mom's) bicycle ... "

( Ha, for the very first time !!! )

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 !