I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and lots of inspiration in 2008!

Christmas classics

When my children were younger, we had our classics in the Christmas holidays. I used to read them books like "Peter and the wolf"

and "A Christmas Carol".

And we had our movie classics of course: "The Snowman", "The wizard of Oz", old Disney movies like "Pinocchio"...

Watching "The Snowman" is soo nice, try it if you don't know it already!

Christmas embroidery

For the third block of Lucy's quilt, I'm going to embroider cute winter girls. Not my own design, it's from my Japanese embroidery book.

Block#2

A winter walk

When King Winter passes by...

All work and no play...

I have a lot of work to finish, drawing and also working on the computer.

But that didn't stop me from decorating the christmas tree. I have another week to get a bit in the mood... It seems like Christmas is arriving earlier every year!

Snowy white

I guess it will be another Christmas without snow here, so this will have to do! In case you want to make your own mosaic, you have to join Flickr, and then you start collecting your favorites. When you go here, you can start making mosaics. It's fun!

1. Sakura Chan went to her new home, 2. Last night..., 3. One place, two photos, 4. sleepyhead, 5. Alisha models the back, very patiently, 6. new year weekend house, 7. 奶茶_01, 8. pink bear close-up, 9. I'm Not Looking!, 10. sunshine, 11. Last night..., 12. Chick, 13. View from the front door II, 14. Winter Night, 15. Virkad snöstjärneflinga!, 16. Winter Cottage

This morning...

...at breakfast.
Chocolate and clementines for the children, to celebrate St. Nicholas.

A day in Bruges

Last Friday, I could drive to Bruges with a friend , because she had to work there. A nice opportunity to spend a day in this beautiful, medieval town.


It was a very gloomy, dark day, but the lack of sunshine gave everything a mysterious atmosphere.

A golden knight to lighten up the Basilica of the Holy Blood.




Windowshopping. Chocolate everywhere. And lace of course, but I forgot to take pictures of that! (I think that's because almost everybody in my husbands family has a lace-shop!)

On my wishlist

This makes me dreamy, but not sad... Great voice!

Books I liked in 2007

It's a bit early for a list like this, but as I have no time at the moment to read, this list will have to do.

1. The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud
2.Lost Nation by Jeffrey Lent
3. On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
4. Baker Towers by Jennifer Haigh
5. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
And not necessarily in this order!
And talking of books, I just discovered Cornflowers' blog, which is all about reading and crafting!

Works in progress

Although I have a very busy week, I am trying to work a bit on my various projects. I wish my days were twice as long!

This is a knitted cape I started last week.

Not much help from the cat, but always good for a laugh!
And block#2 of Lucy's quilt is almost finished, I didn't work on it for ages...

But Lucy doesn't mind...at this tempo, her quilt will be finished when she's twenty!

Girls & dolls

It's almost St. Nicholas, a feast for the children (and their parents). Now that my children are growing up very fast, this day always makes me very nostalgic. It feels like yesterday that I was sewing clothes for my daughters dolls and hiding sweets and toys until the night of 5 December came!
So this mosaic is a tribute to those days long gone now...
Sorry boys, this is a girls' thing!

1. 109708, 2. Blue-eyed Buddies, 3. yoko01, 4. ..., 5. so does the doll, 6. at the window, 7. Moño enorme, 8. Pearl as Frieda, 9. Violet, 10. oh so cute, 11. Ruby, 12. Leala, Kerala India, 13. Untitled, 14. Untitled, 15. Untitled, 16. Feverish Cate
And for all of you, who wants to make a mosaic: you have to join Flickr (a simple procedure) and then go here.

The two talking cats

No time to blog. Enjoy this little clip!

British vision

Yesterday, we went to Ghent for the "British vision" exposition. Not possible to take pictures in there, but here you can catch a glimpse of the book I bought about Alma-Tadema, a Dutch painter, who lived in London during his successful career.
I was very happy to see a few watercolours by Turner, one of my favourite painters.

Cute fabrics

Now that the dollar is so cheap for us Europeans, I couldn't resist to order some fabrics here at superbuzzy.
The fabrics arrived in less than a week, great service! And now I can start thinking what to do with them...

Textures

Lovely crochet and (mainly) knit textures, inspiration for my dishcloths.

1. baby sweater, 2. washcloths, 3. knitwear, 4. blue crochet, 5. Knitted Cable Purse Close-Up, 6. washcloth, 7. Pattern: Crocheted hat with ribbing, 8. Tricot, 9. Green jumper on the needles, 10. A scarf., 11. embossed leaves close up, 12. Log Cabin Socks, 13. swapb, 14. cable knit purse detail, 15. detail from the collar, 16. baby fern dishcloth

The noble art of making dishcloths

I was always wondering what people were talking about on their blogs, when I saw the word "dishcloth". So I decided to find out, and look: I managed to make four of them in a few days! The green one is my favourite to use.
You can find free patterns here, here and here.


To make the little picot border (as you can see on the blue and pink dishcloth), you do the following:

1. Chain 3

2.Sc. (single crochet)in the 3d chain from hook.

3. Skip next chain, sl. st. (slip stitch) in next chain to attach picot.
I've seen other ways to make a picot, you can always experiment a bit and then see what gives the nicest effect.

At the breakfast table

This morning, begging for milk... I know it's not good for cats to drink milk, but how to resist these sweet beggars?

A walk with Milan

After a day's work at the computer, it felt so good to go on a walk with Milan and Danielle.

A rare sight: Milan sitting quietly. He is such an enthusiastic, crazy young dog!

It was already late in the afternoon, and you could feel a chill in the air, winter is approaching.

A blurry picture of migrating birds.

Pay it forward

While reading a few blogs, I saw this "Pay it forward"post on Scrappy's blog. I decided to participate and so can you!
Anyone can play, but the rules are:

I will send a handmade gift to the first three people who leave a comment here requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

I thought this was a good idea, as the time of giving presents is approaching fast (St. Nicholas, Christmas).


This nice heart wasn't made by me, I found it in this book.

Knitting with a cat

Another finished pair of socks! Mmm, I like to finish something.

This afternoon, I tried to work a bit on this long neglected project: a knitted top for myself. I have to count all the stitches, and it is going to take me ages! But I want to finish it before I start other and more rewarding things, like embroidery.

Yes, boring indeed...

Tablecloth

With the evenings getting longer, I'm already getting a bit in the winter mood, and red is the perfect winter colour to me. So I bought a cheap tablecloth to exercise my embroidery a bit.
For the eyes of the rabbit I tried my first french knots. If you want to try this, use this tutorial, it's great. It took me a bit of cursing and trying again and again, but here is the result. Not that bad for a first time.

And Ward was watching my progress with a lot of interest.
This afternoon, my dear husband found these wooden spools in an old cupboard in the garage. I think this box belonged to my grandmother.