Christmas stress

This is the kind of Christmas I had in mind:



This is how my house looked about a week ago:


And this is how it looked yesterday night. Yes, we got a tree! And no, my walls aren't painted yet... the plaster needs to dry till February.

But that doesn't stop me from wishing all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas sampler

This is a cross stitch sampler I started when I was pregnant of my son, about twenty years ago... I completely forgot about its existence. And now I really have the intention of finishing it.

Pay it forward

Remember this "Pay it forward" post? It's a little bit longer than a year ago, and I finally managed to send the second gift to Angelique in New Caledonia!
It's a crocheted dishcloth and an embroidered kitchentowel.
Now I have one more present to go.

7 things

I was tagged by Mia to tell 7 random things about myself. Okay, here we go:
1. I went to Art School. There I met my husband.
Now, both my children go to art school as well. I guess it's in the genes.
2. I am the opposite of an early bird. I don't like to go to bed, and I hate to get up in the morning.
3. It's very hard for me to throw things away. I still have all my toys, books, a lot of my school things, you name it!

(This is my first dinner plate, very sixties)
4. I live in the house of my grandparents. I used to come here on holiday when I was little. I hope I willl live here for the rest of my life, because I hate moving. And the reason for that: as a child of divorced parents, I had to travel a lot, and I really didn't like it.
5. My only real frustration: I can't play an instrument or sing, and I know I have no talent for it.
6. I know it's silly, and I try to fight it, but I am very, very much afraid of spiders. But I don't kill them, I put them outside. When they're too big, my husband has to do this....
7. I have enough notebooks, fabrics, drawing materials, etc... for the rest of my life, but I can't stop buying new things. Help!

I pass the tag on to:
1. Lucas
2. Koen
3. Eli
4. Jenny
5. Emily
6. Leslie
7. Katarina

Some rules that come with the tag:


1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Mystery projects

Will be revealed in due time...

First snow

...in Antwerp, this afternoon. Such a pity snow doesn't stay for long in Belgium!

Aqua blue, sky blue, ...

1. Untitled, 2. living room, 3. Blue, 4. butterflykiss, 5. Oh So Pretty!, 6. Edward Cucuel , 7. Camille Soulayrol, 8. Beatrice sitting, 9. B l u D r e a m, 10. ATC - outmoded cafe, 11. Minty's Bday Blouse - sleeve detail, 12. myphoto-083, 13. "Stab my heart" pincushion, 14. MermaidGloves2, 15. Log Cabin Socks, 16. Untitled
Go check this out: you can search Flickr by colour. It's fun!
And have you ever seen a cat as funny as in number 1?

Capelet

I made this capelet for myself, but Lucy was so kind to model it for this post.

Blue

Blue things in my bedroom...

Autumn scarf

The colours of our garden inspired me to make an autumn scarf, crocheted in shell stitch.


I used my yarn stash, and did not buy anything new to make this scarf.


I found the instructions for the shell stitch in an old crochet book, but there are a lot of variations on this stitch: here, here and here.
It's quite addictive, I am warning you all!

A bit of blue

...despite the lack of sunlight to make proper pictures!

Dark blue

1. Pictures 293, 2. Mamluke Socks, 3. wallpaper, 4. and she closed her eyes, 5. Blue Berries, 6. really truly, 7. Needlebook and Old Buttons from Lori-FQS, 8. Zokni!, 9. serenity, 10. collecting, 11. Ladies Home Journal, 1910, 12. Blue Roses Teacup & Teapot, 13. Japanese Children's Books, 14. 6//52, 15. Spools of vintage thread: blues, 16. Toile
I absolutely love blue, so I will do a week of dark blues and next week I'll take a closer look at aqua blue, baby blue, sky blue, and so on, and so on...
(Click on the links to see more work on Flickr, an endless source of inspiration).

Made by Oswald

A little movie made by my son for school.

Purple wardrobe

A little bit of purple

Finished ripple blanket

Finito, finished, done! This blanket can move to my son's student house.

Purple

Purple: a rich and mysterious colour. I have a love/hate relation with this colour, it's difficult to use, both in drawings and in crafts. But used well, it can be stunning.

1. plums, 2. camile's shedir top, 3. purple, 4. Evening Stockings, 5. The Purple Monogram, 6. ~maive~, 7. Ophelia Drowns, 8. Fog Veil, 9. Normandie46, 10. A Child's Garden of Verses, 11. granny square pile, 12. Untitled, 13. inspiration, 14. Pansies Pink-2, 15. hexagons, 16. Elissa's Baby doll beach set (blouse) Summer 2007

In good company

...while cleaning up the bedroom!

Pink in my garden

Autumn is not the best time to take flower pictures in my garden.
But I have a lot of sedum blooming right now, it gives very nice colour accents in my borders.

And lovely hydrangeas of course, you can't have enough of them.

And more pink

Ribbons, and powder puffs, and lipstick, pink is a very girlish colour to me.

In my wardrobe, you can't find a lot of pink, only very soft tones of it. I don't want to look like Paris Hilton or Barbie...


But this little cutie likes her ribbon...

And I did find quite some pink in my bathroom.