Amelia

Started a New sweater on X-mas day, with Felted Tweed yarn from Rowan. A pleasure to knit with!

This is a free pattern, found on the Rowan website.

Back

Holidays are over, children back to school, trying to make another start with my blog... We have two new chickens, and I hope this time their coop will be fox proof.

A sad day

Tuesday was a terrible day, we had to go to the veterinary with our oldest cat. And we had to put him to sleep...
After a long and happy life of almost 20 years.
I know this is exceptionally old for a cat, but still...
This is the last picture I took of him, resting in the shade.

And this one was taken when he was still very fit and strong. At the end, he wasn't able to jump anymore, and almost blind.

An afternoon in the garden

My idea of heaven.



But I'm afraid that this way of spending my day will be over for quite a long time. I have two new urgent projects (work-related, no crafting projects, alas). When I have a lot of boring things to do, I have the tendency to procrastinate.
So, back to the old computer and get to work!

Blossom

I made an important decision (together with our doctor): I will have one day in the week all for myself! No work at the computer, no telephones. Because I kept feeling tired and stressed at the same time... So there will be more blog posts from now on (I hope).
Little by little, I started working in the house and the garden. And my energy is slowly coming back.
Last year, we planted this Prunus subhirtella 'Autumnalis', and now we can adore its blossoms.

This is a great woodblock print by the Japanese artist Itō Shinsui, two girls walking under a blossom tree.

And of course, Van Gogh's blossoms.

And this brings me back to the disaster in Japan. I got a comment from a fellow blogger, about an "Embroidered Veggie Market Quilt for Japan". This is such a sweet idea to raise funds, so I decided to give it a try!
Here is already a little detail of what I'm embroidering.

You can find all the details about the quilt on Mom Wald's Place blog.

And while I'm busy embroidering, someone is getting very sleepy...

At last...

...I've restarted to work on Lucy's quilt. I finished the last of a series of spring girls, here with an umbrella in the rain.
And I made a new block, with little embroidered trees, here still in progress.
I'll post the two blocks when finished and ironed. For now only a few details.


My work has been absorbing me the past three months, and I really want to try to work more concentrated, and only 5 to 6 hours a day. That will give me more time to do things I really like to do, like crafting and reading. Life's too short!
In the meanwhile, I bought myself a new pair of shoes and red stockings.

And there's nothing quite like sitting by the fireplace with this boy at my side.

August/September update

Slooowly....very slowly, I will get there and make this cross-stitched cat into a little cushion!

Sad news

My son came home for the weekend and I had to tell him about our missing cat. He went looking for him and he found him fifteen minutes ago, under a rhododendron, not very far from our house. He walked straight at him, very strange... my husband and I walked past that very spot...

But Punt was always my son's cat, in a way.
It's very sad, but we comfort ourselves with the thought that he had a very good and long life. And he had been ill for quite some time.


I will miss his cute pink nose and his silly face.


Thanks a lot for all your sweet comments on my previous post. It's the first time that my children have to say goodbye to a pet.

I'm worried

...about Punt, our black and white cat. He's been gone since yesterday night, and he never, never has done that before.
He's old (17 years) and has been ill for 3 years, so now we wonder: did he go away to die somewhere in our garden? Because I've been told that cats do that sometimes.
I looked for him everywhere today...
And this is his latest picture, I took it last week.
I hope I will be back with good news, but I really have a bad feeling about this.

Knitting sleeves

Another unfinished project: a cabled sweater I started last year (winter 2008). I still need to knit the sleeves (shown here, I always knit them together on the same needles) and the collar. So I guess it will be finished next week and I will be able to wear it in the last cold weeks before spring.
Today, it started to rain, and now all the snow has melted. My garden has never looked so dull and grey before, but I heard some birds singing, oh joy!

Detail of a sleeve.

My knitting companion!

Emily

And here she is, the beautiful cat Emily!

She came with a velvet ball...

...in an bag with her name embroidered on.

It didn't take long before she got company.

I want to make her a beautiful dress, and a sweater, and a scarf...

Day#18

The sweet face of a cat!

Golden days

September glow on the pond,

the company of a lovely cat,

autumn flowers,

...and working on my sampler!
It has been a hectic week, lots and lots of work, but I tried to enjoy my garden as much as possible (a lot of coffee-breaks).

Curious cat

This is something I started last summer on holiday, a cross-stitched cat. I want to make a pillow out of it, when finished.
And of course, the minute I'm gone, there is Pooh, inspecting what I'm doing!

The funny thing is, she looks a lot like the embroidered cat...

A bit of spring

Today is a very, very gloomy day and I feel a bad cold coming up. Yugh...
But yesterday was a day full of promises.
I finished my yellow socks, it's still cold enough to wear woollen socks.

I discovered the first flowers of 2009 in my garden.

And this picture makes me happy, just by looking at it. You can almost feel the warmth of the sun!

Self binding

For my little cat's quilt, I decided not to use bias binding, but the system of self binding instead. Quilt back must be at least 2,5 cm/1 inch wider at each edge than quilt top to use this system. First of all, you have to trim quilt top and padding evenly.

On the wrong side of quilt back, mark a line 2,5cm/1 inch away from trimmed quilt top all around, then cut along line.

At each corner, fold quilt back so corner point of back touches corner point of quilt top and padding. Cut off corner as shown.

Fold trimmed corner onto quilt top diagonally.

Now fold raw edges of quilt back 6mm/o,25inch in to wrong side. Fold quilt back onto quilt top along one side, pin to secure. Fold adjacent corner onto quilt top, forming a diagonal mitre at the corner.
Now sew folded edge of binding to quilt top using a matching thread. Remove pins as you go along. Slipstitch mitred edges together at corners (2).



And this is the result: a happy cat. I took this photo a few minutes after I finished the quilt.

Tutorial was taken from this book.