Today was the last day to finish the testknit of Marias latest shawl a-MAZE-ing.

And I managed to finish it just in time - eight o'clock this morning..

It's now being blocked on my bed!

 

Today is also the first day of TDF and I'm soon of to spend my weekend with Dineke in her studio in den Haag.

There we will be spinning, knitting and dyeing sockwool all weekend long.

 

 

 

The gravleborder, which is situated where the former parkingplace was, is now in full bloom.

One of my favourite plants in the gravleborder is Eryngium giganteum.

Eryngium is a tistle like plant, this variety has a silverwhite foliage as and lightblue flowers.

It's a plant that stands firm and tough it's apperance has an edge to it, it really lights up to border. 

Placed with perennials with darker foliage it gives that something extra that a plain, white flower never could manage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I spent my sunday in a rainy Utrecht.

We went to the Botanical Garden, but the weather was so bad so we only visited the greenhouses.

One of the rooms contained butterflies, small, big, colorfull, beautiful butterflies!

 

I whished to have spent many hours there, and that I had brought my camerastand.

Well, I can always go back!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the upcoming ravelry event TDF 2012 I felt the need to get some new wool!

I wanted loads of colors, maby some new wool I hadn't tried before, and who to ask for help if not Mia. The brain behind the etsy shop VickeVira where you can get wonderfully handdyed wool, handspun yarn, no-tangle-headphones and Mias own patterns.

 

And since being a creative person my self, I know it's always more nice to test your creativity then just get an order of what something should look like.

So I thought it would be nice to make a game out of my order from Mia.

I gave her four names, or feelings, of a color and then it was up to her to interpret that feeling colorwise.

 

The names/feelings were:

The wool was delivered to me saturday afternoon and I'm so pleased with Mias interpretations.

She really is a dyepot queen!

 

 

Yesterday me and my eminent visitor took a trip to Amstedam.

On our to-do-list was a visit to the Anne Frank museum, van Gogh museum and ofcourse to Penelope.

Well, we kind of went to Penelope twice, before and after Anne Frank museum. In the time in between we managed to follow Prinzengracht in the wrong direction, which meant that we had to walk a walk that would normally take 40 minutes in 10 minutes since we had a pre-booing at Anne Frank.

But all that was forgotten when we went to Penelope the second time. While I'm standing looking at some yarn (ofcourse, what else do you do in a yarnshop) a man walks in and takes a seat. Another visitor in the shop speaks to him in English and says she's a big fan. My ears got bigger as I heard him talking about his books and upcoming designs. I had my suspissions but I just had to ask who this smiling, redhaired man was.

He said very shy that he was a designer, and that his name was Stephen..

OH MY GOOD, not Stephen West I asked, I shy smile and a "Yes".

 

Okey, so one of my favourite designer was just there in front of me and I was starstrucked, and probably acted like a starstrucked fool..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yesterday evening, after sometime of research and mature consideration, I booked a a trip to volunteer in Sri Lanka.

Now I'm awaiting the confirmation and then I will also book the flight.

The plan is to spend four weeks at an organisation that takes care of elephants whos former owners couldn't afford to take care of them anymore and then have two weeks of holiday on Sri Lanka.

I'm looking forward to get to know alot of new people and to be of good use to people who aren't born as fornutaned as I!

 

I made some more etsy-shopping while I was at it, three weeks ago.

What I needed was buttons, which I've already shown you, but what I also needed were stitch markers with bigger loops than the ones I had, for my needles, size 4.5 mm and above.

 

I looked around for a long time before I found the right ones.

Cute stitch markers, with the right size, lightweight and absolutley to die for!

 

 

 

 

One of our bestselling Scabiosa is this one - Scabiosa caucasica 'Stäfa'.
A rather lowgrowing variety with really big, blue-purple flowers. Yet another plant that is really nice to take a closer look out!







I hope that the sun is shining on you just as it's shining on me!

Just got this gorgeus buttons delivered from beadfreaky, great place to buy buttons from at etsy!

I'm so looking forward to embellish two cardigans with these cuties!

I love taking a closer look at plants and flower, IRL or through my macrolens.
There is so much to bee discovered in the some what secret world of plants.

This is the secret world of Kniphofia hirsuta

This is a testknit of Eddys first own design Carnival Feather Purse!
It's a cute purse perfect to store what ever you find suiting!
I knitted it with my handdyed, handspun Pink Grapefruit yarn. A colorfull yarn that I've wanted to use for long but didn't find the right purpose for. It's spun with a bit to much twist and is therefor not so soft. But when Eddy asked me to do this testknit I knew that the yarn has found it's purpose and would make good use in this purse since it made a very "steady" knit dew to the overexcadurated twist.

When I get my hands on a sewingmachine I will wad the inside and maby make a pocket or two.
I'm planing on keeping all my "knitters must-haves" in this purse since the one I have is getting to small..










Check out Eddys own Carnival Feather Purse and keep a look out for the pattern will son be avaliable at Ravelry!

A visit at the mill de Vlijt in Wageningen is every breadbakers dream!

The mill was built in 1879 and stands in the middle of a area with houses with cute gardens.
It looks liks someone just decided to pick it up and place it there.
Every thursday, friday and saturday the mill is open to the public and you can go there to look inside it and to by ALL different sorts of flour, granes, and what nots..
I didn't know half of the things that where sold, and produced in the mill, but we got good help from clerk who explained everything to us.

I bought a bit of everything (well not really everything) and will have a try out so I know what to by next time.


Fancy that!

Last weekend I finished a cardigan which will be a gift to my friends daugthers first birthday.
This is the first childrens clothing I've ever knitted so I really hope it's a good size!

The pattern is Little Coffee Bean Cardigan av Elizabeth Smith.

I knitted size for a 1 year old and used a total of 126 grams, 76 grams pink and 50 grams blue.
The yarn is Garnstudio Drops Muscat, a shiny (and slippery) cottonyarn.








I hope this summersweet stripes will look good on the one year old wonder!

This weekend I went, together with Sabine, to nursery Jaap Duijs.
You could say that he has a very narrow sortiment - only consisting of different Rhodoxis.

Rhodoxis is a non-hardy perennial which will give you a beautiful bloom that varies from white do deep cerise.

Today has been one of those days when everythings perfect and wonderful!
The sun has been shining, I've spend some time in my kitchen garden - eating strawberries straight fromt the plant, blockning a cardigan a knitted for a friends daughters 1st birthday, working on a testknit for Maria, knitting the sleeves for my Honey Bee cardigan, drinking buckets of tea and rubarbsyrup, having some fabulous sundaydinner.

The list goes on and on!


a-MAZE-ing shawl by Maria


Svalbard handspun yarn by lillavackraanna

Just opened my computer to check my email.

What I found was a ravelry-printscreen that Maria send to me.

I guess "speachless" is all I can say..


After 1 1/2 days Inspire me has right now 827 unique downloads and 552 likes, again - speechless!

Yesterday I published my Inspire me shawl pattern on ravelry.

 

For the humble sum of 3 USD (20 kr) that pattern is yours!

 

 

It's so great to already being able to harvest some veggies from the kitchengarden every other day.
Today I got some strawberries, red unions, sugarsnaps, parsley, lettuce and fennel-dill.
Together with potatoes, a warm mustardvinegrette and some chevré this will make a fabulous firday dinner!


The strawberries will be kept for dessert!

Just finished a very nice skype-talk with my dear friend Rebecka, who is my personal luxury-underwear-supplier and untop off that she is a really great person! I admire her willpower and the belive that she has in her self, that she knows that she can accomplish anything she likes.
We started talking about maby making a trip to South America during winter, I feel really excited about it!



Photo of Dianthus gratianopolitanus 'Babylon' I took last week