A crafty corner makeover, more knitted hats, a bit of colour and an amazing find

Hello my dear blogfriends!

Thanks for your patience, it's been a bit longer between posts this time. Firstly, my daughter came to stay for a second time! So we've been out and about a fair bit and generally things have been rather busy. In addition to that, I'm still suffering from a horrible cold that refuses to go away, this morning I woke up with a nasty sore throat that feels like I swallowed a cheese grater!!!

Let me say another thanks and welcome to all my new followers, it is lovely to have you all here!
Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post!

A crafty corner makeover

This time I want to show you the result of my tidying, clearing up and re-organising my little crafty corner. Unfortunately I did not take a photo of the towering inferno that was piling up on top of my craft cabinet, so I can only show you the 'after' photos. Let me assure you that this is a huge improvement and it pleases me much more to look at it now! It took me an entire afternoon, so be warned if you start something like this! But of course, you could sort out just a small corner to start with! I know I got a lot more to do!

My craft cabinet after the makeover!

Displaying some favourite little things

My vintage Spool holder

More treasures!

I love buttons!!!

My various drawers that I painted about 2 years ago

A couple of summers ago, I was really into painting my various wooden drawers, some of which I had for years, plus I managed to find some more here in charity shops! Finally I can access these drawers better! And now they house lots of crafty bits and pieces! When ordering your materials, you can be totally creative - lots of glass jars, liquid washing tabs containers, even food containers, biscuits tins etc can all be used. I find it works best for me when I can see the contents such as the buttons in the jars, but other things are best out of sight (in drawers or trays).

The printers tray, and the children's sewing box were also charity shop finds previously!

Do you have any useful storage ideas that work well for you?


Some finished projects

The following 2 projects have been finished meanwhile the week before. Here are some in progress pictures.

This is my second Alpaca Shawl - meanwhile finished!

21.01.15 Finished this hat for a friend

More knitted hats

When my daughter came back, I knitted her a headband and another hat, plus a new hat for myself, all within 2 days!!!

The knitted headband before it was sewn together

Left hat for me, Right hat and headband for my daughter

And here once more, all my recent knits made from Rico yarn

A bit of colour

Well, by now you probably come to expect quite a bit of colour when you come to visit this blog, right? This is a little bit different! Yes, I'm doing colouring in for adults and it is great fun. I tend to buy a weekly notebook/magazine called flow weekly which I use for making notes, drawing charts and more! This is a page that was for colouring in! But I also bought a big colouring in book! Have any of you tried it? I'd be interested to find out!

An amazing find!

Look at this! I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it! A handknitted tunic in Autumn colours (sorry, the colours do not come out so well in this picture which I took in the charity shop when I saw it!)

I tried it on and it fitted me fine, so I had to have it! My daughter agreed that it suits me! In fact, I am wearing it today. What is more, I totally appreciate that someone has handmade it (I can imagine how much hard work went into it, not to mention the amount of colourful yarn and how much it must have cost!) Needless to say I only paid a snip for it! Plus I found a lovely grey jumper with mohair and silk (not handmade), that also gives me a favourite comfy jumper feel!

However, all this has not put me off wanting to knit my own jumpers!

I want to wish you all a happy weekend, what are your plans? Have you scheduled in some crochet or knitting time?

As always, I love reading your comments, so feel free to leave me yours!

A knitted hat, cowl and fingerless gloves plus a walk along the river Dijle

Hello my friends,

Hope you had a good week? I've been very busy, my oldest daughter is still visiting and we are often out and about!

I also like to welcome my latest readers, thanks for joining and following my blog, I hope you like it here! :)

First some new makes. My daughter asked me for some handmade winter woollies to keep her warm. I was only too happy to oblige!

My latest knits (all made with Rico yarns): a fitted hat, a cosy cowl and some wristwarmers/fingerless gloves!

Fingerless gloves/Wristwarmers - finished late December 2014
 

09.01.15 Finished Knitted hat!

Knitted hat from above

The cowl before sewing together

11.01.15 The finished Cowl

A long family walk

On Sunday we went for a very long walk along the river Dijle which meanders and is also surrounded by wetlands. There are some very small villages and farms. The initial plan was to walk 8.5km, however we probably did about 10km since one of the planned paths was flooded! There was no way we could have passed through on foot. As it was, the ground was very soggy and muddy in the majority of our route, so we ended up with very muddy shoes and trousers!

Here are some highlights from our long walk!

Wrapped up warm against the cold!

 Forest Trees against the sky

Coming out of the woods we walked along country paths

I was surprised to see some young lambs in January!

Sheep grazing at an organic fruit farm

We walked along the road past some farms

Sun breaking through the clouds

This cute little farm cat was very friendly

Nature Reserve Doode Bemde

River Dijle meandering across the land

We walked through this waterlogged and muddy field!!

Our path was meant to go right through there!!!

Waterlogged land

Dramatic clouds

It was impossible to walk ON the path, we had to cling to the edges!

Another little castle

A lucky escape

After our long walk we were glad to return to the car once more! We drove to the next village and went to have some food in a small inn. I had some salad with my main meal and suddenly I was choking on my food! It was the most terrifying thing that happened to me in a long time, some of the salad leaves got stuck in my throat and cut off my airpipe! Luckily my youngest daughter patted me on the back, quite a few times, before the food got dislogded again and I could breathe! I spent the whole next day thinking how much I was glad to be alive! I was pretty shaken up by this!

Well, this is all for now. I hope you enjoyed the photos and got a bit of inspiration from my latest knits! Perhaps you feel like making some fingerless gloves or a hat? Of course you can crochet those as well! Let me know if you do!!

Feel free to leave your comments, I look forward to reading them!

Colourful South Bay Shawlette, knitted Moebius Cowl, Queen Anne's Lace Scarf and much more!

Hello and welcome!

Thanks for your many enthusiastic responses about my last post, I loved reading your comments!

Today I have lots of things to share! Hope you are sitting in a nice warm and dry place and have a few moments for reading this!

First, my current WIP - The colourful South Bay Shawlette

I have been working on this every day, currently on my 5th 100g Ball of the colourful Fenna yarn. Here are some progress pictures:

Cleo checks out the Shawl!

27.10.14

29.10.14

I will keep working on it for a bit more! It is still slightly smaller than the SBS that I made with the Malabrigo Silky Merino yarn this summer.

As the rows are getting longer each time, it also takes longer to crochet along the outside. The (current) last row had about 540 stitches! I must have crocheted about 4 rows yesterday!

I probably would have done more, if only I had not started a new project yesterday mid day!


Queen Anne's Lace Scarf (new WIP)

This free pattern was saved in my favourites on ravelry for a long time! Basically it is a long skinny scarf with a curly motif on both sides that gets made in a continuous way, so no awkward joining up and sewing up of pesky ends!

I managed to find a good video which I followed and tested with some Scheepjeswol Stone Washed to see if I could master this pattern.

Here is another (written) pattern link in English.

As explained in the video, the pattern could be adapted with smaller/larger loops and different yarns/hook sizes. It works a treat with variegated yarns in my opinion, if you just look through the over 3000 projects featured on Ravelry!

Have any of you ever tried this out? What did you think?

Trying out the pattern first with Scheepjeswol (left) , then with Fenna (right)

Scarf detail - made with Fenna in a different colourway than the Shawl

29.10.14 Queen Anne's Lace Scarf

Such a lovely pattern!

Yesterday I managed to make 38 motifs which is about 106 cm long so far, I will probably aim to do about 60 motifs (150cm) and then it will be finished!


My finished knitted Moebius Cowl - Ta-Dah!

Moebius Cowl finished 27.10.14

Wearing my new cowl 28.10.14

Sometimes random comments spark interesting results... On Tuesday I went to the cinema to finally see 'Gone Girl' after having devoured the book in March 2014. (You can find out about the film here!)

Well, have you ever knitted in a cinema? (That is what the random remark was about). I can say now that I have! I must have knitted the last 25-30% of the above cowl in a dark cinema whilst watching the above film! It was a dare to myself and I'm happy to say no stitches were dropped (phew!) and the result was equal to my normal knitting standard! (it was also easy enough since it was all garter stitch = knit every row).  And yes, I enjoyed the movie! ;)

When I got home that evening I cast off the stitches and sewed the cowl together in a Moebius loop. (The rectangle scarf before sewing measured about 30cm wide x 100cm long). You can see me wearing it in the above photo, but in fact the cowl is stretchy enough to be worn double and is very warm.

The colours are lighter and darker Turquoise, with some brown and golden Ochre shades for contrast. I used 3x 50g balls of Rico Creative Design Melange Chunky (34) - the same yarn I used recently for my Red Shrug! It is very warm and cosy!

I have already cast on stitches with the same yarn in another colourway for a new cowl! (No photos yet)


'T Arm Schaap Knitting Group 28.10.14

Last night I went to this Knitting Group again and I got a couple of snapshots to show you:

Lots going on at the knitting group!

Crochet Mobile Phone Cover with Mini Granny Squares (by Christine)

My friend Christine (who is very active for this Knitting Group) made this adorable crochet mobile phone cover from Mini Granny Squares! (Thanks for letting me photograph it!)

You can spot Christine on the above photo (second lady on the left, wearing a striped Top). You might also spot my Harlequin blanket on the table towards the back! (Apologies for the bad quality of the 1st photo, lighting wasn't very good!)


Happy Cats!

Here are our 3 cats on the brand new Cat Seats with Scratching posts!

Cleo and Jasper demonstrating their new multistorey appartment!

Jasper in the Penthouse Pad upstairs!

Twinkle, the Invisible Cat (Jasper's brother)

Finally...

Today I received my parcel from Woolwarehouse in England! I placed the order on Friday, it was despatched on Monday and arrived here in Belgium on Wednesday morning! Fantastic service!!!

Hooray! More Stylecraft yarn for the Harlequin Blanket!

For those of you who are interested, I picked the Attic 24 pack with 17 shades, plus an additional ball of Teal. Hopefully I will have more than enough to complete my Harlequin Blanket! (Looks like I will have to wind a lot of yarn next!)

A few more things...

I also have more ideas buzzing around in my head, things I read on other blogs, that I can't wait to try out!

I was sad to read that some people have decided to take blog breaks for personal reasons, needless to say that their contributions will be missed and that I will be thinking of them! Hopefully they will return soon again.

The weather in Belgium has gotten wet and rainy, much colder now.
Having said this, it was about 20 degrees on Monday afternoon when I came out of the cinema!

Yesterday I discovered that some of my balcony plants have begon flowering anew!
I got some small pink blossoms on the Azalea and also on the Mini Chrysanthemums.
I got Cosmos and Sweetpeas flowering (from the seeds I got of the first flowers!).
Sorry, no photos for now!

Thanks for your patience in reading this! I hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to post me your comments!
I am looking forward to find out what you got to say!