Letter I

I is for Inspiration

I think I was talking about trying to make some smaller projects to feel more accomplished? So now I'm dreaming of big quilts with big shapes....Women can change her mind, right?

I'm dreaming making lot of big triangles and then just play with them. This would however demand a lot of fabric so why not think big and then make a small version of it? Inspriration from here and here and some other places that I can't remember anymore. I think this would be easier with an ruler, but maybe I can just make a template? I still have some template plastic from my first quilt course that I took in 2010. Still haven't finished that quilt.

I'm also thinking about to make something very minimalistic and then add a very dense and busy free motion quilting. Inspiration came from here.

Sugar Block Club January - Intention

I is for Intention

To make this happen, or even to make some of it happen I really need to be more intentional with my time -which was the team of first Sugar Block Club block. I'm so glad that I participated. I made my blog at the beginning of the month and it does give me an accomplished feeling to know that at least I did that.

My plan for the Sugar Blocks is to use a lot of yellow with some orange and green accents. I have wanted to make a yellowish quilt with traditional blocks for the longes time and it is finally happening, yay!

I'm starting to think that key to planning is not only to decide what you do but also what you don't do. I really look forward to working with my "old fabric quilt" (I need a catchier name for that) but have been very strict with myself - that project is for february. This keeps me from feeling too busy and using less time wondering "what shall I do" when I actually have time to do something. 

Good Things in Life that Begin with Letter S

S is for Socks. 

Woolen socks that is. I don't have any strong feelings about other kind of socks. I asked from Santa sock yarn and look what I got! Will keep my hands busy for a while. I finally decoded the heel and have put together my own sock pattern that I like. I'm testing it now with the purple one and will post it here when I know for sure that it works. It is nothign special, just a easy to remember formula so that I don't have to look for a pattern every time I want to make socks.

We got finally Netflix here in the Netherlands in September and that is now how I spent my evenings when I should be folding laundry  - watch Netflix and knit. Makes for guilt-free TV watching because I'm actually doing something at the same time. 

S is for the Signature of All Things

Love love love loved it! There is so many things in this book that resonated with me. I don't know even where to start. I won't put any spoilers here but I must say that I was happy not to have read anything about the book before I read it myself. So this is not a book review and maybe not about the book at all. It is more a list of thoughts that the book evoke in me and you probably learn more about me than the book.

I loved the book because it reminded me how I loved nature programs on TV, visiting botanical gardens and dreamed of traveling to remote places, to live on an remote island and study whales, explore the world and of course being dissapointed that there where no white spots on the map anymore in 1980s. 

It also reminded me why I stopped dreaming about those things. I got older and realised the horrors of the white mans explorations, stopped believing in the importans of science and felt that nature does not need us to study it and that I certanly did not have the need to do it. I was just looking for an excuse to sit on a boat and watch whales all day. 

And then it reminded me why I don't really want to be on that remote island, how I in the end dreamed "..to live withing humanity's most recent moment, at the cusp of invention and progress". 

And finally I loved the Dutch connection and the fact that in less that an hour I can visit some of the places she talks about in the book.

In Elizabeth's own words the mega success of Eat Pray and Love paid for this book. If you ever get your hands on big amounts of money I could not think of a better way to spend it! 

Linking wiht yarn along

2014

I'm back from the Christmas holiday that was very relaxing even though some of it was wasted on a nasty cold. I was very exited to get back home and make plans for the coming year. I have also chosen a word for the year, and this time it is:

CONNECTION

At first I thought of making some kind of recap of the previous words, but then this one just came to my mind and felt perfect. I will however incorporate the previous words to this one. Connection guided by trust, joy and confidence. 

To more concrete plans for this year I signed up for Follow your arrow mystery kal and that will be my knitting challenge for this year. Otherwise I will continue making socks. I finally tackled the heel ;) More about that on another post. 

What it comes to quilting my first goal is to continue with a quilt that I started in September made of all kind of old fabrics from my childhood home. Can't wait! Secondly I got very inspired by all the hand made gifts during December and I'm hoping to make some small projects like table runners and quilted tote bags. I'm finally able to free motion quilt thanks to my husband who build my machine an extension table and with little projects I can start to play rigth away and don't have to wait for a whole quilt top to be finished. 

I would also like to feel a bit more accomplished this year which makes little projects perfect. Accomplished rather than productive even though I'm always envious to really productive people. What I do not want is to feel busy, so it is a fine balance. Will see how it goes. 

Maybe a bit belated, but Happy New Year! 

Time for an Update

I'm sure that you are all wondering what ever happen to the socks? And what about the garden? Anything going on there?

But first I want to share my reading. I read....War and Peace! All the 1440 pages, although my e-version did of course not have any pages and without it I could have never done it because I physically could not have carried it around with me like I do my e-reader. That said it was an easy read, it really was. Again Goodreads has a great review of the book, although unlike the reviewer I did like the first epilogue, but would also skip the second one (although I did read it just to be able to say that I read all of it).

I did enjoy the book although not nearly as much as Anna Karenina. I did realise reading the book, that when I was younger and reading books like crazy, the stories where about people older than me and what the characters where experiencing was something that might happen to me in the future. Now my life is at that point where the characters will end up at the end of the book. When did that happen?

I just started Elizabeth Gilbert's the Signature of All Things and my first thought only after one page was "she has had some much fun writing this!" and then I got a link somewhere to this interview and about the first thing she says is how much she enjoyed writing it! And then I stopped watching and will watch the rest after I have read the book. 

So that is all on the book department. Moving on to the socks. 

I did manage to finish them with dozen little errors. I already started a second pair with the different set of instructions, but the heel remains a mystery for me. I do not get it how I'm suppose to pick the amount of stitches from the sides the pattern calls for, so, again, I must do something wrong. I'm thinking of unraveling these and start again with yet another instruction. I want to be able to make socks with little effort watching TV at the same time (in fact that is what I'm doing now as well which might be part of the problem). I love woolen sock and wear them all the time and everybody I know likes them too, so it would be great to be able to do these and give as gifts.

The garden has been a disaster this year, nothing wants to grow except the jerusalem artichoke, which is a pretty plant I must say with is yellow flowers. We harvested it this Sunday. With child labor so readily available it was a piece of cake. 

Now I have to cook, puree and freeze them. But I want to grow other things as well. I thing I need to replace the soil entirely to get there. Better luck next year and I'm truly greatful that my family is in no way depending on my gardening skills for food.

Linking with Yarn along


And Keep Calm Craft on

Baby Quilts and Strawberry Pirates

The cake dilemma - do you go for a taste or the looks? My oldest son turned 5 and has been for the past six months tormented with the question: pirate cake or strawberry cake? Luckily I could find fresh strawberries and a giant marsipain strawberry and this is how I solved the dilemma:

This one was so tastey that I did not have time to take more pictures before it was eaten. I made a standard cake with this recipe: 6 eggs, weihgt them, add 0.7 x the weight of the eggs sugar, beat until very firm, gently add the same amount of flour as you added sugar. Let bake in 175 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

For the filling I let frozen strawberries and raspberries to soften in the roomtemperature just so that I could puree them and mixed with 200ml suger. I filled the cake with the berry puree and whipped cream and let it stay in the fridge for a night. Whipped cream and strawberries to decorate and done! So simple and so tasty!

In September I did a last minute decision to make a baby quilt for my friends baby. Last minute because I started on the day the baby was born. I was inspired by Rachel's Pixie Churns quilt but after making five Churn Dash blocks I had no desire or time to make more of those. So the rest of the blocks are improve blocks made around scraps that I had from the Anna Maria Horner sleep sack. The are voile and I think it might be quite nice for the little baby fingers to feel the difference of textur.

Attempt to free motion quilt. It was fun but I do need some kind of quilting table from my machine. 

From Gold to Gray

In October I spent a week in Finland visiting family. I can't remember the last time I have been there in October and I was so glad to enjoy the last faces of the autumn foliage. All the red had already fallen but the golden still stayed. Combined with the October afternoon sun it was magical. Between running after kids and spending time in shopping malls I sneak out to the forest one afternoon and tried to catch some of the magic with my not so great phone camera. The results are quite bad but after some tweaking I still want to share them. The sun was so bright but the pictures are so hazy. Finnish artist Anna Emilia has some great picture from about the same time on her blog.

On the other side of the world Ara Jane has made a beautiful blog post of October that looks like the fall here in the Netherlands. What a lovely month it is! After the cold spring I wasn't expecting it at all. I thought that we would go straight back to the grey after summer so this has been a really lovely suprise! Now if I only could be able to find the beauty in November...

When I was dragging my children to a walk in the forest my oldest asked me why I always want to go there. I told her that I'm actually a troll that went to live with humans when I was a baby. She didn't believe me. But if that had been the case I would have lived around the big stone seen in the last picture.

My Space

I'm of course talking about my sewing space. Because I'm lucky that way and actually have my own table in a small attic room that I share with my husband.

For some time I have been avoiding that space. As I share it with my husband, I was conveniently blaming him for it. Like he keeps the space so messy that I don't enjoy being there and that kind of stuff (very mature, I know). After visiting a friend who just had created the same for herself - her own space - and being really exited about it I realised how lucky I am to have that space and it is up to me to make something of it. Laura's post at little and lots was also very inspirational. Celebrate what you have!

I'm a complete coward and do not have before pictures. All I can say it was messy, unorganized and ugly.

The thing most bothering me was the desk being so unattractive. Now it is covered with Anna Maria Horner's laminate and I feel so much better! I want to cover the desk with it properly but that is a bigger project since the desk is attached to the wall. This works however surprisingly well.

I also put my little precious stash on display so I can see it and enjoy it. All the unfinished projects and fabrics that I rarely use went to the storage under the roof.

The most surprising realisation for reorganising my creative space was that I feel more peaceful if non-sewing related administrative stuff is easily accessible. Before I had all binders tuck away on the lowest shelve and if I needed them it became an instant mess because I had to go through a pile of unfinished projects that were piled on the same shelve. It is so much better now when I can just pick up a binder, do what needs to be done, put it back and continue with the fun stuff.