vintage

I love vintage, retro, old fashioned or whatever you call it. I love browsing second-hand shops. Maybe it's something i inhereted from my mother and grandmother, my mom also likes secondhand shops, and my grandmother loved auctions. And i admit both my girls really like going to second hand shops. And well you never know what you're going to find.
A few years back i found a woolwinder for 2 euros, in the kitchen equipment area, cleary they didn't know what it was.

And i just found a great television program with Kirstie Allsopp.
A British program called, Kirstie's fill your house for free.

Each episode they try to give someone new furniture for free, using websites or house clearances, or they make it from left over material.
It really is inspiring to see what people can make with some imagination! And intresting to see how much people throw away! I wish i could watch those great shows (kirstie has a lot off great programs) , but channel 4 is only for british viewers i'm afraid.

It sure makes one look different at all that ''old stuff''. And how i would love to try and make something if i had more space and more tools.
Allthough i don't think my husband would agree with a couch made from a wooden pallet and cushions made from a matras.

But i wanted to show you a vintage bargain i found online... almost 3 pounds of pure wool yarn! For only ten euro's.
Wednesday i recieved the package. It was a lot!! And it's in a lovely condintion, even though it's quite old. Part of the skeins are from the dutch woolfederation, which still exist. But stopped selling yarns in the 1950's.
The other brand wis Leithen, also a dutch company. The other skeins didn't have a label. It's almost all sockyarn weight. I have a lot of ideas what it can become.

Oh and a small update on my bag, i made a new design, tuesday night  our youngest hardly slept due to an ear ache, so i loads of knitting time. And the next morning?? I frogged it, it didn't turned out how i wanted it to be. I can't say what was wrong with it... only that i didn't liked it.

So i started over...

Happiness

Remember last week.... when i thought my friends would come over for some knitting and catching up... and i realised i was a week early.
Well today they did came, it was a nice afternoon, seeing each other new projects and yarns and just talking with cups of tea and coffee.

Almost 5 years ago we met for the first time, and since then meet very reguarly.
Lieke was very enthusiastic about the cookies we were serving, she put them on a plate and handed them out.... all those colors of the macarons are very appealing offcourse, we had salted caramel, vanilla, passionfruit and strawberry.
And french lemon cookies we buy at a local store with only French products.

One of my friends went on a trip to Washington, and visited a yarnshop. And she bought us an amazing skein of MadelineTosh.
Tosh Sock in the colorway Modern Fair isle, it has all kind off flecks of color. It's sooo soft. I'm definitely not knitting socks from it, such great yarn i don't want to use for socks so i'm looking for a shawl pattern for these 360 meters of merino yarn.

I do wonder how they did dye this yarn, it looks quite festive!!


Last week i got mail from the USA, that's something which not happens very often. It turned out to be my prize!
In december and january there was a challenge at the spindle mania group on ravelry, we had to pick a book and choose a fiber (batt, roving, rolags) which represented the book. And then offcourse spin it.

I spun this BFL fiber on my Enid Ashcroft Midge spindle, a match to this book

And knitting this shawl from it...

And even won a prize, how amazing is that!  i didn't know what my prize would be until it arrived.... tadadadadaa
4 handmade stitchmarkers! From this shop. Inspired on Lord of the rings it seems :)

Oh and last but not least i made a start with my fair isle bag... i made up a pattern and decided on the colors... but that can change during knitting..
I wanted to make a pattern for 18 stitches, and couldn't find anything.

well that's all folks... i'm going to spend this evening knitting...

snow!!

Yesterday it was a beautifull day, cold and foggy...

We got on a train to visit my parents, beautifull to watch the frozen fields and trees pass by. My mom missed the girls so we planned to stay the night. The next morning we would visit a yarnshop, and after that we would catch the train back home.

 

 

 







I even got the chance to work on a new pair of socks for myself, i got this lovely regia yarn (astrocolor fische) from Sinterklaas, and for me socks are perfect train projects, and we travel a lot by train since we sold our car about 2 years ago. And socks are easy to take a long. And well it's also entertaining for other travellers it seems, people watch, point, talk and sometimes even ask what i'm doing??

 

We had a lovely afternoon, the girls playing with cousins and a lot of catching up with the family! A quiet evening, the girls tucked up in bed, and  we watched an new episode of midsommer murders.

When we woke up this morning we had a fun surprise, it had snowed!!! Actually it was still snowing.

 

 



 After a breakfast the girls hurried outside to make a snowman and have a snowball fight!!

 

 

 







Later that morning we went to Driebergen, i loved the drive. There is something magical about a snowy forest! It's so beautifull, and everytime i'm there it reminds me of how much i miss those woods is a yarnshop called  Trollenwol, it specialised in scandinavian yarns. My birthday was in december, and my mom suggested it could pick out my own present in that shop.  It's a very nice shop, lots of yarn and fiber, idea's and patterns.



The people who work there are very welcoming and helpfull!

I really wanted to get some yarn to knit a bag, i found a big kisslock frame for a bag on etsy. And in my head i had an idea to knit a fair isle bag. At the shop they had cute little cake's of yarn, their own brand of shetland wool!
I also wanted some lang mille colori, i knew they sold Lang yarns, but i could find that specific yarn. But they told me they didn't sell that anymore because the source of the merino wool in this specific yarn was from Australia. And it was unsure if the sheep were mulesed. So decided to stop selling it.
Good informed shop!!!

Picking colors, is not easy,,i had some color scheme in my head, but that didn't work... so this is what my mum and i put together..
Warm oranges and browns with teals and aqua's. The colors in the picture's are a bit off...

12 little cakes of 25 grams of trollenwol.

 

 

 

 





 

I haven't decided on a pattern yet... i probably will browse ravelry tonight for a bit.

I wish you all a very nice weekend!!



Rocks

Today it was cold overhere, with a chilly wind, but we did went for a walk, ending up in a playground closeby. Enjoying the fresh crisp air!

Returning home i found a few flat stones, for a while now i wanted to try painting some stones. I'm not very well with a brush, but i do enjoy it. And that's more important i've been told.

So when i put the girls to bed this evening i spend a little while painting, not with a proper paintbrush, it was a bit to thick, the best i could find in the girls painting stuff. And simple white waterbased hobby paint.

But i still enjoyed it! I want more rocks!! Maybe i should go looking tommorrow... no idea where yet...

I did some more painting this afternoon, my husband thinks i'm going a bit crazy.... a painted our couch! But more on that tommorrow.

Waiting

This morning my oldest went to school, the youngest to her playgroup, and i spend my morning alone..... cleaning. After the holidays and all of us being sick i was a bit behind with the household chores.
And when you're alone you get much more done! So i gave the livingroom kitchen hallway and toilet a good cleaning and clearing ;) Not something i normally do one my one morning alone each week, but it felt good! A bit like a spring cleaning crammed into one morning!

Last weekend we went to the gardencenter where we bought some material to make a spring decoration, and some bulbs... together with the girls helping we made 2 pieces. We used pieces of grape branches,  iron wire, and some hot glue to stick some moss on the branches and some dried pinecones and other little bitts.

They look so lovely!
Can't wait for all the bulbs to flower, Lieke choose a hyacinth with red flowers called Jan Bos.
It gives the room a bit of a spring feeling. 

 



Josanne really really really liked this tulips, bright and happy and colorfull. So we bought them, she carried them home and put them in the vase herself. Such a responsibility!!

 

 

But i was telling you about the cleaning, well i also did that because this afternoon my knitting friends would come for a visit. So brought the oldest to school, hurried back, made coffee. Put some delicious lemoncookies on a plate and Lieke and i waited... and waited...

 

And then somehow it dawned on me, we were meeting on the 27th.... eehm today isn't the 27th! I wrote it down on the calender on the wrong day!

So now i have an enourmous amount of coffee to drink myself! But that gives me an oppertunity to show off my new mug! I got it for my birthday from my husband. A great find at Mark & Spencers, they just opened a store close to where he works.  It has owls on it!! Colorfull owls :)

 

 

 

 

 

So now i'm writing this blog, sipping my coffee and nibbling on a cookie. I say an afternoon well spend, actually i would enjoy a visit from my friends more, but that will happen next week!

Well i guess i'm going to crochet a few rows on my rainbow blanket before we have to cycle to school....

Have a great day!!

cute as a button

Oops, i'm afraid i forgot about blogging... again. January is the time off new starts so i'll give it go. I wanted to show a project a did a while ago together with my girls. It's really simple and the result is amazing. It all started on pinterest, so many great ideas can be found there.
Well one day i came across a button tree, it was so lovely i wanted to try to make something alike.


You don't need much:

• Canvas board
• Colorfull buttons
• Simple clear all purpose glue
• Brush
• Brown acrylic paint

I started actually with out-lining the tree with pencil, just to be sure because my dyeing skills aren't that good developed. After i was pleased with the shape i painted it.

My girls enjoyed themselves sorting buttons by color, i have a big box full of buttons, some of my mom and grandmother, some bought, swapped... the girls task was to find purple,blue,green,yellow,orange,red and pink buttons.

They did a great job!

The trees i found on pinterest had all colors together, i thought it would also look good to keep the colors seperated so we made a rainbow tree.
 Each  branch got it's own color.
We just glued the buttons on the canvas
And we ended up with a colorfull family piece of art!