Find your colors

Your rainbow is strongly shaded violet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is says about you: You are a creative person. You appreciate beauty and craftsmanship. You are patient and will keep trying to understand something until you've mastered it.

Find the colors of your rainbow at spacefem.com.

SP13

This morning my neighbour was at the door with a package. It was delivered a few days ago she said, but she was too busy to give it to me. It was a package from Italy, from my secret pal.

Oh my goddess what a great package it is..

A beautiful neckwarmer, Lana Grossa with silk and cashmere, chocolate to eat and to drink! Thank you soo much, I really like it!

Oh and uhm.. Italy huh? did you know I'm a coffee and pasta addict? *lol*

20 years.. I know her.. 20 years!!!

so we decided to celebrate :D

And what is the best way to celebtrate 20 years of friendship with your best friend? Correct, with chocolate! We went to a chocolate workshop...

You can see more pictures @ MyPictures.

Knitting!

It seems I've been bitten by the knitting-bug again. After months off cross stitching I finaly started knitting again.

On of the first things to do is finish a pair of socks for a friend (I'm halfway some very large men's socks), get on with my Hoody and start to unravel my magic ball. Yesterday I casted on the Hedera by Cookie A.

Yay! I'm back in the knitting-business :D

SP13 answers to the questions..

1. What is/are your favorite yarn/s to knit with? What fibers do you absolutely *not* like?
Soft, luxery, silky yarns. No thick, itchy yarn. I don't like angora and mohair, the fluffy ones, either. I’m in love with Wollmeise, Opal and Koigu, I do not like acrylics or synthetics.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
I have one needle case given by my best friend. It containes no knitting needles though. My needles are stored in plastic ice coupe glasses and a lemonade can with a knitted cosy around it. I still havn't found a good way to store my circ's. Except my Denise interchangeble Knitting needles.. but they came in their own case.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I'm a intermediate beginner. I started knitting in december 2006. I did do some knitting in the nineteen-seventees, but not much.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Yes I have an Amazon wishlist: http://tinyurl.com/yvpqhz

5. What's your favorite scent?
Lavender, sage, mint, lemon and cinnamon. I'm addicted to sage. I burn dried sage leaves on a piece of charcoal in a small couldron I burn also my incense in. The smoke that comes free is the best scent ever. Except for lavender, lavender is my absolute favorite.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favorite candy?
No, I don't like sweets except for one thing: very, very, very dark chocalate. No any other chocolate, just the very, very, very dark one. 71% and higher. Preferably with nuts.


7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I love cross stitching, embroidery, sewing, needlebinding (an ancient Viking fiber craft) and I’m learning to spin on both the drop spindle and the wheel. I like dying yarn and on my wishlist is learning how to weave, do card weave and sprang. I have a flickr album with pictures of my crafts and my craftroom.: http://flickr.com/photos/marretje/ I’m also a Viking re-enacter.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
My computer and my stereo play MP3s and I have an iPod.I am a huge metal/rock/punk fan. But I also like irish/keltic music. Enya, Clannad, Lorreena McKennet, The John o’Gods, Danny Guinan, Mark Gilligan. I also love the spiritual/pagan/wiccan sounds from Omnia and the Mediaval baebes. Some gothic, I found Seduced by Suicide on MySpace and love it. I still like the sounds of the 70's and 80's, am still a big Abba fan, love James Marsters. No opera, jazz, dutch or french singers please...

9. What's your favorite color(s)? Any colors you just can't stand?
Lavender, all kinds of purples in combination with whites, off white, creamy whites. Greens, Blues, silvery grey. I absolutely cannot stand orange, and "baby pink"or "babyblue". I realy like the 'cold' colors. Although Autumn is my favorite season, I love those colors in nautre very much.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
I am a happy single, no kids and I'm a well trained employee/servant for my female cat Ayla.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Yes!, yes!, yes!, uhm.. no, no poncho's

12. What is/are your favorite item/s to knit?
Socks! I’m addicted to socks. I have started the Rogue hoody, and I have Cat Bordhís book A second treasury of magical knitting and I'm still looking for time to start to knit something from that book. Her other books are on my wishlist ;-)

13. What are you knitting right now?
I’m knitting socks: Firestarters for me, 2 socks on 1 circ toe up for me, I've started the Hedera from Cookie A for me and I'm knitting a pair for my best friends husband. European size 46... Oh and lets not forget the Rogue hoody...

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes, very much

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminum, plastic?
I love my bamboo dpn’s 2.5 mm can’t have enough of those. I knit socks on 5 dpns by the way.
No metal, i get cold hands very fast and I loose grip on those needles

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
I have a swift and I’m still looking for a second hand pretty priced yarn winder.

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
I don't have a knitting UFO. I am a slow knitter, so it does take some tiome to finish my projects, especially in a time off startitis.. But..lets not talk about my cross stitch UFO's, ok? :)

18. What is your favorite holiday?
I don't have a special holiday in mind. I've been to Egypt twice, will go there once again, but I don't know when. I like to stay at home, discover new nice places in my own town or country and finally have the time to cross stitch or knit all day long. Read the books I've wanted to read for so long or just visit some friends and enjoy their company. I think my favourite place would be my livingroom in winter with candles, incense and the curtaines closed or my balcony filled with herbs and plants in spring/summer. Add a glass of red whine or Iirish whisky to it, some nice cheese (not the blue ones or the brie's) a book, or my cross stich or knitting work and I'm perfectly happy. On the other hand, I also like to spend my evenings in my stamcafé, the Irish pub Mulligan's with friends, live music and good whisky :D But I also like spending time behind my computer, living my Second Life.
As for the celebrating the years-around holidays. I'm a pagan, so I do not celebtrate the Christian holidays.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Besides WIP's, cross stitch patterns, knitting patterns and all the things I love to make once, some day, when I find the time? No, I don't think so. Books maybe. I love books.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
I have a lot of books on my wish list, the Cat Bordhí books are hard to get here, so if I order them from Amazon, the shipping costst will make the books rather expensive. That's why they are highest on my wishlist. I subscribed to a dutch magazine Handwerken zonder Grenzen. I have a subscribtion on SpinnOf. I love magazines. They are small presents that fill my letterbox every month. I'm considering a subscripton to a knitting magazine, but don't know which one yet.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
I love to start on the moebius-techniques needed for Cat Bordhí’s projects, never done that before, so I’m excited to try. I also recently bought the book ‘ Viking patterns for knitting’ and that has lots and lots of cablework in it, love to try that too.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Yes, an addicted one, I have European size 36/37

23. When is your birthday?
June 3rd

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what is your ID?
Yes, I'm marretje on Ravelry

Please vote for Carin!

Its a dutch competition and we (her friends of the Dutch cross stitch list Borduurhoekje) want her to win ;-)

Please go to this page and click this picture:

Thanks!

I did it again...

I joined Secret Pal 13

I'm soo excited. I will post more info soon, and I need to update my questionaire.. But for now I just wanted to let you know :D

Knitted wannabe vikings

Danny and me in Mulligans last night at the Halloweenparty.
I stole borrowed this picture from kees' flickr. He has more pictures, so have a look. :D

Die Wikinger kommen!

This weekend we - kees, Danny, Janneke and me - went to the open-air museum in Oerlinghausen, Germany.

We had Viking Stitch and Bitch...

There was a party with food...

and drinks.

And we had the morning after..

More pictures on my flickr

That time of the year again...

Work...


and play.

Hair

With Donna gone to the Summerland, creating a 50% deduction on my cat population, one might think that also applies to the shredded hairs in my house.

One is so very wrong. kees brought me a reindeer skin that was shredding hair on his carpet. I have a wooden floor, so its easier to remove the hairs from that. It's a very nice skin, and Danny and me sure could use it in our vikingtent-to-be.

When I unpacked it and laid it on the floor I called Ayla to investigate. You can see she approves of the skin, so it wil stay on the livingroom floor. I'll just have the same amount of hairs as if Donna was still with me.. and Pepijn, Loesje, Banjer and Isis too..


Miss Ayla

posing for the camera.

Together again...

Donna & Pepijn



together again, in the Summerland..

Bella Donna June 3rd 2002 - August 20th 2008

Bye Donna, be good!

Thank you Aragog, for the lovely poem.

I am..

Marianne Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! You are impulsive, romantic, impatient, and perhaps a bit too brutally honest. You enjoy romantic poetry and novels, and play the pianoforte beautifully. To boot, your singing voice is captivating. You feel deeply, and love passionately

Take the Quiz here!

Ok.. forget about the singing and playing pianoforte, but I can live with the rest :D

About being lazy...

exchanges received

Last week I received 2 of my exchanges.

First the HoE-Summer-Quaker-Exchange from Irmeli from Finland. She stitched me a beautiful notepad holder and sent a little pattern thats also a post card, some hand dyed thread and a piece of lovely linen to stitch on:

Here is a closer look at the notepad holder:

Bianca sent me a summer needleroll. A Dutch exchange from the "Borduurhoekje Yahoo group" (Borduurhoekje is best to be translated as a little stitching corner). Look what she made me:

Isn't this georgious??? The thread is over dyed cotton and soo pretty.

Thanks a lot girls, it made my day last week, when I had to go back to work again after almost 4 weeks of holidays :D

Blijdorp Zoo

I'm still a bit lazy on the blogging-department. Kees, Danny and me went to Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam last Wednesday. Kees blogt about it and here are some of the pictures I took:

Do not spit.


Weaving


Lazy

Tania

Grey

Royalty

Ieeeuww..

Yellow

Yarn...

Red

Baby 1

Baby 2

Baby 3

Handsome

Cosey

8!!

Today Donna's blood suger was 8.4.
And yes thats very good, because she needed to get below 10.

If she's still below 10 next week, the next check up after that can be later than after a week, maybe even after 2 weeks. At the end, when she keeps on going like this, she only needs to get her blood checked every 2 months.
(and uhmm sorry for the crappy picture, she does not like it, having her picture taken, so she keeps on walking and not stand still. This is the best I could make, after taken at least 8 blurry pictures.)

More 8 today, Fair and Square #8. Thank you so much for the LHN squares Chantal! I love them.

Tapis de Bayeux in Leiden

Danny and I went to Leiden last Wednesday, to visit the Tapis de Bayeux. Well actually a darn-good copy of it. Marloes Keereweer makes replica's of the famous tapestry.

The exhibit was at the Museum het Leids Wevershuis (the weavers house). I took some pictures:

Weaving:






Natural dying ingredients:


and here are the replica's:

look at the back how it's done:

And here is some more Tapis de bayeux:

We did more that day.., we fondled yarn, shopped till we dropped and had a nice lunch at Bagels and Beans and at the end of the afternoon some tasty Australian ice cream..

Fondle...


Noro sockyarn


Shops:


New shoes:


New Troll bead: