Cat nap continued...

putting the cat nip into a bigger planter also results in a cat nap..
maybe it needs more shadow in stead of full sun.

Anyway.. Ayla does like the sun, and some planter with warm, dry soil in it.. Maybe she's a country girl after all. :D

Almost done

On the left the old, on the right the new

All I need to do now is sew the hems and finsh of the seams to prevent them from fraying.
I'l do that by hand, to give it some kind of authentic touch. *grin*
I'm afraid the 'almost' is a bit of an understatement. I don't sew that fast :D

nip or nap? & Fiber

I'm growing a new herb on my balcony, it's called Cat nip:

But is has the tendency to get into a Cat nap:

So.. I'm stil pondering on how to get it right :D

Meanwhile things happen on the fiber front.
Danny came by last night and we had a nice evening of Spinning and Bitching. Not to be confused with Stitching and Bitching, thats toninght. :)

Anyway, see Danny spin:

The flying bobbin:

The result: on the left the Artis camel, on the right the unknuwn black sheep.

This was my spinning. I have some light blue roving and as long as I was spinning, it went ok, but as soon as the thread broke, I had a hell of a time trying to get spinning again. But for a first real attempt, it doesn't look too bad. This is my practice bobbin:


Well.. I'm looking forward to see this lady shed her hairs again:

Just a few more weeks, and I'll be looking for the zoo keepers to ask if they will save the fiber for me.

Water fun

This blog entry is especially for Sjouwke who misses reading about my cats :D

Here's Donna, who loves to play with the drops that fall out the water-tap

This picture is a bit fuzzy, because she just went for the killer-snap when I took it.

Donna hangs almost upside down under the tap and snaps her teeth on every drop she can catch, holding her balance with one paw (nails out) on the tap. Thanks to my beloved cat's favorite game, I have several nail marks on my tap ;D

HoE Pinkeep received.

Thank you sooooo much Jennifer!

I really , really like the words you stitched for me, they are so funny and so my kind of wicked sense of humor. Thank you so much, for everything. I can see you did visit my blog and read it thoroughly.

She also added some lavender couloured 1/2in Martha Stewart crafts ribbon (I love Martha!) ; Cresent Coulours Hand dyed Floss Purple Aster; another skein of silk floss in a pruple/pink colour and a bag of Lavender & Mint bath tea..

Jennifer wrote to me that she saw some punk themed books in my library. "... that reminded me of a phrase I had seen on a cross stitch piece on Flickr, one that I had been wanting to do for some time."

"I picked out the motif and border from a Better Homes & Gardens book and I used Cresent Colour Belle Soie silk in Sweet Lavender."

Thanks again Jennifer, You did read my blog and therefor my mind. I love it very much.

Make a wish..

and it may come true.
We had a sort of RAK at my dutch xxx-stitch yahoogroup Borduurhoekje. You stated something you wanted, and anybody could make your wish come true.

I wished for some Anchor floss for Nova and Simone got me those.

I wished me a lavender or lime biscornu.
And Jeanine granted my wish, look:

I love it!

I sent some felt, ribbons and lace to Willeke.

The 'make a wish fair' is closed for now, but I'm sure we will open it again some day. It's great fun to get little presents and not knowing who sent them, at first. We told later. But sending anonymous gifts is alsoa lot of fun.

For kees

Kees, this is for you if you need a new shaving experience. Although I do think some 'cuts' are a bit difficult for you to grow and trim :D

I found this here.

Spring on the North Pole

Yesterday was a very beautiful day, for me the first real day of Spring. It reminded me of a brilliant hoax - I just love a good hoax - that is going on lately.

It all started with this picture:

The first time someone got this in his mail was in 2005, with these words:

"This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. And you also see the sun below the moon. An amazing photo and not easily duplicated. You may want to save this and pass it on to others."

On Hoax-slayer - a very, very useful site - is the whole story with some more links. Here you can read: "The image is in fact a work by artist Inga Nielsen. The image, called "Hideaway" can be viewed on the artist's website.

This is the complete picture btw:


On the bottem right is her name. (if you click on the 'viewed-link' you can see it better.)

She makes beautiful scenes with the softwareprogramme Terragen. Terragen™ is a scenery generator for Windows and the Mac OS. It's used in films, games, books and magazines. If you're into fantasy you can use it to create beautiful desktop images, or you could go to Inga's gallery and download one yourself.

There are lots of sites where you can find information about this picture being false and to be honest: anybody can see this is a fake, right? Nobody in his/her right state of mind would believe that this is really possible.

So isn't it just hilarious that there are still people who claim this to be a real picture, sent by a dear friend. And isn't is just very funny that those people are in total denial when told this is a hoax. How stupid of them, because everybody knows this picture is fake, why keep insisting it's real?

Well.. If you're feeling down and out and just want to have a great laugh, Google 'spring' and 'North Pole' in the images section.. and you'll get lots of sites with this image. Have fun!

Birdhouse exchange

Yesterday I received a package from Pascale for the birdhouse exchange organized by the Dutch xxx-stitch group Borduurhoekje.

Look what she sent me:

Am I spoiled or what?
Thanx Pascale, I like it very much.

Artis

I was at the zoo today.

This is Demi:

And here is Pimky.

Why walk on wood if you can walk on the rope:

to go to your girlfriend:

I have more pictures from today's visit in my Flickr album.

Bags and yarn

Yesterday I went to the Tassenmuseum Hendrikje Museum of Bags and Purses with Katja. I was not allowed to take pictures from the collection, but I did buy some nice postcards. So Have a look:

A beaded bag 'Remember the poor 1630'

Eveningbag with silver frame. 1929

Working bag in silk. Circa 1800

Embroidered silk letter case. France circa 1800.

A leather bag with metal frame, 16th century

These are just a few of the many beautiful bags we saw. It was very, very nice and I will visit this beatiful museum again some day.

Katja and I had a very nice cup of tea and coffee at the Museum Café, with a great view on the garden:

When we got home I had another nice surprise. My package of the Dutch sock yarn club came.

Just look at this yummie yarn:

Gerda also put in a nice project bag

and a lavender couloured candle and a green silk covered lipstick holder.

I fixed it.. :D

This evening when I got home from work I gave my cats their diner and then I started wondering about by computer. What could have happened?!?

So I opened it up, wiggled and pushed a little on the cables and other loose ends inside, put the powercable back in, pushed the on/off button and it works!!!

My PC is not dead, nor is it sick.. it just needed some gentle touch :)

btw: I found the cartoon here.

fingers x-ed...

This morning my computer went 'puf' and switched off.. I tried the on/off button but it did not turn my computer back on. :(

I'm taking my pc to the shop tomorrow morning to see if they can fix my little Asus.... Keep your fingers x-ed please. :)

I'm at work now, so I'll keep this short, but I will try to keep you posted.

Cats!

You have met my cats Ayla & Donna, Ayla is 9 years old and Donna will be 6 in june.


I have another cat. She's my step-cat and she lives with Katja
I'd like you to meet Ronja:

We are not sure how old she is, but we think around 12 years.
She's mine whenever Katja and her husband are away on a vacation. In May, after I return from Ribe, Ronja is mine for a week and a half :) We are going to have so much fun :)

Yarn!

or not.... :)

It has frames!

I just visited Kees' blog. We both got a new camera, but it's stil his fault :D

And look at this feature.. Frames!!!

FUNNY!!!

Old & New

Old:

New

I went shopping with Kees today, so it's his fault. :)

Dressing a Viking

So.. I'm going to be very busy the next couple of weeks. I'm going to Ribe in 4 weeks. So I need to really get working on Kees tunic.

Yes, it's the dark brown fabric down there, that's going to be his new tunic.

Yesterday evening at my Stitch and Bitch meeting, I was not knitting, I was knotting. Needlebinding my socks. Danny helped me with the heel part. I've got a heelstrap now, need to work the yellow yarn till the end, which will be the ankle part and next week, she helps me with the heel, which will be green again. There are some faults in it, but they are my first and I love these socks ;-)

Also on my to-stitch-list is a head cover. My hair is short and dyed in a non-vikingcolour (it's a eggplant kind of a purple)

I'm sewing the hems by hand and I want to embroider some nice edge decoration on it. (Isn't Donna the cutest, all curled up and pretending to be sleeping? :D)

And, last but not least, I have this basket full of linen and wool fabric. I'm planning on making myself a new underdress and a overdress, a brown fish-bone wollen coat with a dark grey woolen lining, and a gugle, a hood with shoulder parts.

So.. I've got lots to do, the next 4 weeks :)