Sinterklaas

Sinterklaas Kapoentje,
Leg wat in mijn schoentje,
Leg wat in mijn laarsje,
Dank je Sinterklaasje!

Sinterklaas visited yesterday! He left us chocolate letters in our shoes (sorta!).

 who doesn't love chocolate?

A milk chocolate for Ludi, and a milk chocolate with hazelnuts for me. How does Sint know? How does he know our favorites? It's magic, isn't it?

Sint (aka Ludi) also left these in my shoe

left it small - too extreme close up - yikes

Magnifying glasses. So I can crochet little tiny snowflakes. Yay! It's my dream to make this:

photo courtesy Martha Stewart.com

a garland of crocheted snowflakes. I want it to be in that tiny fine thread, but it was so hard to make them, with my aging eyes. These glasses will help immensely with that! So I love them, even if they do make me feel/look like Granny.

Did Sint leave anything in your schoentje?


xxx

Mother's Day 2011

Happy Mother's Day everyone!


xxx

It feels like Friday.

But it's Wednesday!

I suppose it is because I am now on vacation. yay! Well, just a little one. The company I work for is on The Netherlands' version of Spring Break now. Normally the office people (I am one of the Office People) would stay there and continue working while the students are off. But this time the big boss said we were all off.

YES SIR! He didn't need to tell us twice!

Well, actually he did, because we weren't sure we understood correctly. But we did, and we're now off. For a week and a half. About. My next day back is March 15th. NICE.

I'm going to enjoy it, I think! I have plans. I am going to do some spring cleaning. The kitchen and bathroom really need a deep cleaning. Wouldn't it be great if the weather would cooperate and it would get a little bit warm, so I could open the windows and get some fresh air in? I'm pretty sure I won't be quite that lucky. Just some sun will be enough!

I also plan to do some hooking. Of course. Oh, and I have a new hobby/addiction:

my first knitting stitches 

I've been wanting to learn how to knit for a while now, ever since I started hooking. I decided this was the year to learn it. I've started my first project too! I'll take some photos when the sun comes out and show you.

It was only a matter of time, right? Before I made the jump from crochet to knitting? And then the jump to a yarn stash so big I could open my own shop.

hee hee, just kidding, Ludi.



or am I??????


xxx

Rough week

I'm having a rough week at work. Well, more than a week really. 2010 was a very difficult year, and it's not looking like this year will be much better. There were more staff changes this week. The last ones made (in the first half of the year) didn't bother me as much as these. Going to work is now depressing.

I'm very happy that I am still employed. But I can't help but wonder for how much longer?  Time will tell.

Anyways, I was working on a new hooking project over the weekend. Looky!

new slippers!

I found a pattern for crocheted adult slippers online (most of them out there are kids sizes) that looked fairly easy. I had some extra yarn laying around (well, actually, I recycled it from The Legwarmer Fiasco), so I gave it a shot. These were done with three strands of yarn for extra warmth. And they are great! I was easily able to size them to fit my huge boat-like feet too. +1 to patterns with easy adaptations! They are actually big enough to wear extra socks with them, for those extra cold nights. NICE!

How's the weather where you are? Ours is improving. It's gotten warmer and is raining, so now the snow is gone. The ice underneath the snow is taking much longer to melt though. Hopefully by this weekend it will all be gone and I won't have to walk like a penguin anymore! And even more hope that we don't have much more snow for the rest of the winter. Just a flake here and there is ok, but no storms. We've had enough, thanks!


Did I just jinx us? eeks...



xxx

Hooky ta-da!

Hello there all!

Are you guys having a Monday like we're having here? Ugh, it hasn't been pretty.

But what IS pretty (in my opinion) is my latest crochet project. I had taken a little break from hooking for a while. A few weeks. It wasn't intentional, I guess I just had a lot of other things going on taking up my time. But I'm back on the wagon now, and this is what I made this weekend.

is it a crown??!

A neck warmer! Like a scarf, but much shorter and connected. You slip it on over your head.

folded over

It's made with really thick and warm yarn meant for felting, but if I'm careful with it, I won't have to worry about that, right? I used a Catherine's Wheel stitch for it. I finished it in a day and a half, too! LOVE that, since most of my projects have been taking months. If it wasn't necessary to restart the thing 3 times due to pattern issues and size, it would have been done even sooner.

unfolded, for REALLY cold days

Now I can't wait for winter!!!



Yes. Really.



xxx

Labor Day Trip

No, we don't have Labor Day here, but it was a trip on Monday September 6th, so I'll call it the Labor Day Trip.

We were having some more computer problems, so we had to take a drive to the company that sold us the computer for some repairs. That's a 2 1/2 hour drive from here, so we decided to make a day of it (since we'd be in the car all day anyways). Ok, so maybe I decided to make a day of it when I realized that the online shop that I order yarn from has an actual store in a town just half an hour from where we had to take the computer. What luck!

And I talked Ludi into it, which was even more luck!

I am so glad I talked him into it. It was an awesome store. Everything they had online, they had in stock! That sometimes doesn't happen, you know? There were so many yarns to choose from. And it was so great to be able to see them in real life, their actual color, rather than picking from a photo online and hoping that the real thing was somewhat close to what is on my screen! And also be able to feel them, to know if they're too scratchy or whatever. It was great!

This is what I bought.

the haul from the Hall

I got a lot, huh? There is enough for 5 different projects, I think. Unless I combine the gray and green yarns on the side (in the plastic bags). I haven't really decided what I'm doing with those yarns yet. These, I know what I'm doing with already.

first project

I'll share a Ta-Da! post when it's ready.

It was a great day for a driving trip too. Sunny, not too hot. There wasn't a whole lot of traffic either. There was only one traffic jam that we got caught in on the way home. It was rush-hour time, afterall, so it was bound to happen. But we still enjoyed it.

Ludi too, since his computer got fixed. yay! Let's hope it stays this way.


 And since it's Friday, September 10 today I have to say

to Aunt Val! I hope that she has a fantabulous birthday today, and celebrates over the entire weekend. That's what you're supposed to do when your birthday lands on a Friday. The whole weekend is then your birthday. 72-hours worth of b-day.


Have a great weekend, everyone! Talk to you soon...


xxx

Slow Sunday

Hello again everyone!

I wish I had a really cool opening phrase. A catchy greeting of some sort. I suppose if I said the same thing at the beginning of every post, it would be really boring. It wouldn't be "a cool greeting" anymore, it would just be an "overlooked opening phrase".

Still wish I had one, though.

How has the weekend been going for everyone? Has anyone done anything fun lately? It's Back-To-School time in the States, right? If classes don't start next week, then they will soon. Mom, have you been thumbing your nose at your fellow teachers who aren't retired yet? Sleeping in when they are getting up early to get their rooms ready for students? Do you miss it yet?

Ha!!  Silly question!

For those of you who are new to my world, Mom was a 4th grade teacher for ... what... some 30-odd years. She's retired now, and loving every August that she doesn't have to go back to school. Loving every wintery morning that she doesn't have to wait and see if there's a school delay. Loving every lunch time that she doesn't have playground duty.

At least I'm pretty sure she's loving it.

Another lazy weekend here. Today it's been raining all day, and it might rain all night too, so the weather man says. Since it hasn't rained much all summer, I don't mind. It has to rain a lot (a week or more) for me to start minding it, though. It's cooler too. It really feels like fall already! We haven't had much of a summer here. We had, what, two weeks of hot weather, and the rest has been fairly mild, or even cold (as far as summer temps go). I guess that's how it goes here!

I finished another crochet project a while ago. Do you want to see it?

Yes?

Well, ok, if you insist...

soft and cozy

It's a scarf of flowers connected by little leaves.

close up

and it goes perfectly with my blue coat, don't you think?

cheerful colors

A good way to pretty-up a gray and rainy day! So far it hasn't been cool enough to wear a scarf. I'm patiently waiting for those days. It's more of a spring colored scarf, but I'll wear it this fall a few times anyways, I think. Though I am working on another scarf. That has more fall colors. Would you like to see pictures of that? If you do, then let me know!

Enjoy the rest of your day, friends.



xxx

edit: hmm...I was a little slow on the typing there, wasn't I? The title of the post is "Slow Sunday", but blogger put the date on as Monday, because I'm 35 minutes past Sunday. oops!! 

Happy Christmas in July!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...

Hello everyone!

It is 154 days until Christmas. woohoo! Normally I don't count them until December, but since it's Christmas in July I thought it'd be nice to know!

I've been watching QVC online today. For the whole weekend they are doing Christmas items. It really puts me in the mood! I want to put my tree up while listening to holiday tunes, and then watch A Christmas Story. It's not too early, is it? I'm just getting a jump start on the season!

Remember a few weeks ago I made the post about the new stash? I figured out what I wanted to make with it. I did a little Christmas in July package for home.

And I finally finished Lisa's gift from last Christmas. Terrible, huh? But it gave me a great excuse to send a Christmas in July package to her! This is what I made for her...

scarf for Lisa

I hope that she likes it. I hope she got it already too. Guess I should say "spoiler alert!" I had made one for my sister and myself too, in different colors though. After I finished this last one, I decided to not make this pattern again. Got a little burnt out on it! But I do like how they turned out. This is the yarn I used for them:

Shimmer™ yarns by Knit Picks®

It's 70% Baby Alpaca, and 30% Silk. Very nice stuff! The purple is called Galaxy, the very light green is Eucalyptus, and the gray is Cumulus. I love the names they assigned to them! Knit Picks has great yarn, if you ask me.

I also did a package for Mom and Pam.

awww....cute, huh?

I did a little mitten garland (remember my mitten post?) and also did some old fashioned light bulbs. Those great big ones, the C7s? They turned out pretty cool! It was a little tricky at first, getting them to look right. I think it took me 4 tries before I liked them. But I really liked how they turned out. I'm going to have to make some for myself too, I think!

These were also included in both packages.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I didn't have time to make all 4 for each of them. They each got one. These are definitely going to be made for myself too! Just love them.

I hope that you all have a great Christmas in July if you celebrated it. I know I did!

Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It's the best time of the year...


xxx

Finally Friday

This felt like a really long week to me. Maybe because I was not very busy at work (for a switch!). Maybe because we have an appointment next Monday that I'm really excited about. Maybe because I knew it was going to get hot again at the end of the week. Whatever the reason, Friday took forever to get here. I'm very much looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Too bad it's going to be really hot again, and so it won't be a very comfortable sleep. But sleeping in is always good, no matter what.

Also something else to look forward to this weekend is the World Cup finals on Sunday (20:30 here, but check your local listings!). The Dutch team is in it! I was a little surprised that they won the last one, so if they win THIS one, then I'll be surprised again. I am wondering how much partying there will be if they win, too.  Wishing we had a garage to park the car in... On Wednesday, after the Spain-Germany game someone nearby set of a whole bunch of fireworks. It must have been someone from Spain, since they won! Will you be watching, and rooting for my adopted country's team?

Another thing this weekend is Ludi's sister's birthday. Everyone wish her a happy birthday!!!

Sounds like I'm really busy, doesn't it?

It feels strange to not have a picture in a post, so I'll show this one.

new stash

I ordered some yarn online from a Dutch hobby shop a while ago. It's been kind of too hot to do any hooking though, so I'm not sure when I'll finish this project and get to show you. I'll try to do it soon, though!


Enjoy your weekend, everyone! Stay cool!


xxx

Germany Trip: Part 2

Hello again! How have you all been doing? I hope everyone is well! We're good here. I'm enjoying another one of MY Days. Yesterday, May 13th, was a holiday here for most folks. It's called Hemelvaart here, and in English it's Ascension. And it's a national holiday here. Go figure! Since it's always on a Thursday, we (well, some of us) get the Friday after it off too. That sounds okay to me!

I've been putzing around, doing a little cleaning, a little hooking (crochet, folks! Crochet!!!),  and a little websurfing. I'm looking for yarns for my Next Big Project. I can't find exactly what I'm looking for but I'm sure whatever I do find will work well enough. All in all I'm just enjoying my MY Day. This might be the last one for a while. Work has approved me to do some more hours. Yippee! I was enjoying my free time, but I can't do that forever, right? Reality has to come around sooner or later.

Hmm...I haven't done that second post of our Germany trip pictures, have I? Well, goodness, I'm a slacker. Let's get that taken care of right now, shall we?

On the last day of our trip, we wanted to do something a little lighter than what we had done the previous days (visiting concentration camps). So we went to visit the town of Weimer. Here are some facts about the town:

• It's a very old town. Oldest records date back to 899.
• It was the capital of Germany before WWII.
• Weimer (along with Dessau) was the center of the Bauhaus movement

We walked through the city center, mainly. We saw the palace of Karl August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. 

palace gates

Take note of the floor under the arch...

it's wood!

Bet you never woulda guessed that, huh? Me neither! From a distance, it looks like normal bricks, but up close, you can see the growth rings. I have no idea why anyone would use wood there. Can anyone enlighten me?

Behind the palace was a bridge over a little river.

you can see the palace on the left

At the end of the bridge were stairs leading down to the path beside the river. But under the bridge, in the 3rd and last arch, there was a little doorway. You can sort of see it in the above picture.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes," 

by Marcel Proust (a French novelist). 

You can see the stairs leading into the bridge. They lead into the right hand side oval cut out (seen in the picture of the whole bridge). I was feeling adventurous, so I climbed up.

the cute couple

It didn't really give me a new perspective on things (like the quote might suggest), but it did give us a cute picture. I love the view over our shoulders, the other side of the river.

Just off the palace grounds is the city park. This is where Goethe's garden house was. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but it was decorated to look almost the same as it was when he lived there.

early spring at Goethe's Garden House

It looks a little plain now, but I imagine in the summer when all the flowers are blooming it's a beautiful spot. Especially if some sort of climbing flower grows up all the sides of the house (as the lattice everywhere indicates).

anemone - ground cover throughout the park

It was a nice day in Weimer. And a good way to end the trip to Germany.


xxx

Happy Mother's Day!

some flowers for you!

To my mom,

Ludi's Mom

and to all the mothers of the world.


Heather & Ludi

xxx

Evolution of a Mitten

A crocheted decorative cutesy mitten, that is.

I started off with a pattern for a regular mitten. The pattern was written for baby size (24 months), child size, medium and large. I started with the baby size.

baby sized indeed, it's just 4inches tall!

But I thought that I wanted it a little different proportions. Wider, or shorter. So I tried the child size (with a few modifications).

child sized

That was better, but the thumb looked a little funky, and I thought I wanted it bigger. It is still just 4 inches tall. So back to the hook again, and I got this...

3rd attempt...

But that wasn't right either! Now it was too round. It looked like a balloon mitten. Still not right. The more I look at the second attempt, the more I think that was the right shape. Too bad I didn't keep the exact instructions of how I made that one. But that's ok, I'll just try again!

 Latest attempt

Here it is. Same basic proportions as the 2nd attempt, just a little bit bigger. It's almost 4 1/2 inches tall. These instructions I'll keep! Now I have to decide what I want to do with these cute little things. Gift tags at Christmas? Ornaments? I could make very tiny ones and make pins. I could string a whole bunch together as a garland! ooh, I like that idea. I could make a bunch in different sizes, a graduated garland! A wreath, I could make a wreath of little mittens...

Hmm...looks like I'll have to get more yarn.


oh darn.


***tee hee hee!***

.

SUNsational Sunday

It is a beautiful day here in Maastricht. The sun is shining brightly, and the skies are wonderfully clear. It's still cold, but it's just gorgeous. Makes me wish my windows were washed. And everything else. I am getting the itch for Spring Cleaning. Wash the outside of the windows, scrub the front stoop/walk, clean from the ceiling to the floors inside, organize things in the basement. Does anyone else get this feeling at spring?

I've also finished another crochet project! Woohoo! What a great feeling to finish a project. It takes me forever to finish anything because I have so many WIPs (works in progress). But here's the latest.

Granny Spiral Pillow

I made a pillow! The front is granny spirals (pattern found here), and the back is a crazy easy ripple pattern from Lion Brand (pattern here). I really love their website, by the way. It has so many great patterns! And free, at that!

the back

There's the back. I really like it too. I had to modify the pattern a little to make it fit for a pillow (I didn't do double rows of color. The pillow is too small for that, I think?). Maybe eventually I'll make a whole blanket like this though. I like it! But first finish the projects I already have going...

It matches my previously made blanket

So that's what I've got going on here. What's going on there?

Another hooking project...

Hi folks! Having a good week? No complaints here so far! Ludi’s computer is working again, which makes him happy. And that makes me happy too. We had ordered a new one for him (a used one, but new to us!) because his old one was quite slow and couldn’t be updated/upgraded anymore. It was still working though, so we weren’t in a huge hurry to replace it. But of course, as soon as we completed the transaction for a replacement, it decided to throw a temper tantrum and stop working. We tried everything we could think of doing (for days!), and nothing would get that thing to start back up correctly.  When The Replacement finally arrived, it was not what we had ordered. Fast forward a week, through an angry email, and two phone calls, the missing parts were finally delivered and we could get back on track. (Note to self: NEVER use that company again! We actually still have to make another phone call or email to them, because things STILL aren’t right. Grrrr. I hate poor customer service.) Anyways, things are going OK now on the computer front. phew!

On the crafts front, I can finally show everyone the scarf I made for Mom. It’s been delivered now, so I can’t spoil the surprise anymore.

 Mom’s scarf

It’s black really thick yarn (Lion Brand Wool-Ease) for the scarf itself, and a yellow-green wool for the flowers (she picked that one out). It was fun to make! The scarf came together really fast. I got the pattern from Lion Brand Yarn’s website (linky here). The flowers I found all over the internet. It was great to be able to make all sorts of flowers too! Hopefully I didn’t go overboard with the flowers... I hear that Old Man Winter is still tearing up the East Coast in the USA, so maybe Mom will still be able to get some wear out of it this year!

Speaking of Old Man Winter, I heard from Mom that in Coudersport they have had 68.9 inches of snow since October. Holy igloos, Batman!  The average is only 58.6 inches, and the record is ... well, I can't find the record snowfall amount for one season. But I just want it to snow about 3.2 inches more, so we can say they had over 6 feet of snow!!! Ha! How horrifying.

I'll see you again soon!

A blanket for Hannah

It's Friday afternoon here. The week went pretty fast for some reason. Maybe because I had to switch my work schedule around to accommodate the furnace repair people coming. It was time for the "yearly" checkup. I put yearly in quotes because though the card they sent in the mail with the appointment date SAID yearly, they actually come twice a year (winter and summer). Maybe they don't have a word equal to "bi-annual"? (That's twice a year, right? Not every other year?) But they've come and gone already today, so the rest of the afternoon is all mine! woohoo! What shall I do? So many choices...

I recently started to crochet. Well, not so recently. I think it was last April or May. Recent enough, though. It's turned into a real habit. I'm hooked! ha ha, terrible pun. I started off wanting to do a snowflake garland like Martha's, but I figured I should start with something a little easier first. My cousin Katie and her husband Rich were expecting a baby, so a baby blanket was my very first "big" project. Hannah Marie Vines was born November 5, 2009. The blanket has now been delivered, so I can finally post some pictures of it!

 I of course didn't measure it to give you a size.

a close up of the circles

I didn't know at the time if they were having a boy or a girl, so I picked semi-neutral colors. I didn't want to do greens and yellows, but found these great colors. They probably aren't traditional baby colors, but does that matter? The yarn is Phildar Aviso (60% cotton, 40% acrylic), an nice soft yarn that should be warm for Hannah's first few months in cold Germany! Hopefully she is enjoying it.

I have so many other crochet projects going right now too. Blankets, scarves, pillows. And I keep coming up with more ideas that I want to create. It's an addiction, that's for sure. As I finish things I'll show them to you. The project I'm working most on right now is a scarf that will be a gift, so unfortunately I can't show you pictures of it yet. Once it's been gifted, I'll show it off.

So maybe I'll fill my free afternoon with hooky goodness. I hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are!