Autumn inside the house

This week we heart Sinterklaas (the old man behind our typical Dutch childrens feast) on the radio! He said he is packing for his boattrip right now. And this week I did a lot of shopping for the 5th of December too... So our daughters are getting excited (including still believer M of 9,5!), and I started preparing.
Before we exchange it into a Sinterklaas scene, I'm showing you the autumn scene we made in our hall. Plus are we leaving tomorrow to enjoy the autumn outside the house.

Me too

The leftover thread was laying on the kitchentable and suddenly was into my good old scarf. To make it more easy I quickly handsewed the ends together with a colormatching sewing thread. The crosses are less easy to make than you would expect. To get a neat result on both sides you have to take a look on either side of your work to control where the needle is coming out. The circular scarf can be wrapped two or three times, depending the cold outside.
Now M and I are a visible set too!

Nightstands

I like to show you our nightstands, that actually hang about 10 cm above the floor... After sending the design to the furniture maker, he asked me: so you mean like a door, but it is a cabinet? Yes, that's what I mean.
The open side of the wooden cubes is against the wall (a wardrobe in our case). You can turn them for making the bed easily and for using them as storage. The outlet for charging the mobile phones is out of view.
Finally a detail for freaks like me: the direction of the wood is vertical on the sides; on top a piece of a wooden panel is used with no clear direction.

Set

My daughters both love sets. Underwear, but also this hat and scarf. M was so happy, especially with the yellow kisses! I hope she is not going to sleep with it...

This hat is really simple, so you don't need a pattern. To obtain the right size M only let me fit a few times. I prefer simple, classic patterns, but a site like Ravelry is a tip for those who don't know it yet. Go there to download thousands of amazing free patterns!

Reading

Last winter our little L finally could join her big sister at school. We loved to give her a matching present: a schoolbag with a lunchbox and her first reading book. The book was a personalised one: for every letter of the alphabet I made drawings of her dress, her softie, her bike, and so on. But also things in our house like the lamp above our kitchen table, her little wooden kitchen, etcetera.
 

Just take a look!

L loves blue

This treat L gave to the toddlers when she got four. Because she was going to leave them, we wanted to give them a little L as a souvenir. I painted each little L by hand. Presented proudly on a gigant tangerine, which we wrapped in a festive paper. Through the holes you can peep at the bright orange present.

P2 k2, p2 k2, k2 p2, k2 p2

Great wool to warm my daughter, that's a lovely thought. Just finished this scarf. Made of this soft yarn, quickly done with needle 10 and finished with a colorful thread.
Autumn can do his job!

Not yet five

I know L allready is going to be five in a few months, but I can't resist showing some pics of her anniversary last winter. We had have such great days! Especially the goodbye at the toddler daycare was so heartwarming!
Later on I'm going to show you some crafting I did and what was inside the wrapping paper...

Rewarded with an award

Now I feel I'm a real part of Blogland: I got a first award of Tante Ekster. Thank you Belinda!
The award means that the receiver should share 7 random personal things. Mmmm, that's not easy... But here they come:

• I always go to bed too late.
• I jog an hour once a week, busy chatting with my friend.
• I cycle a lot: 7 km to school, 7 km from school to work, 7 km from work to home. Children are taken with me, so especially M has expanded muscles. You'll believe it after reading this post.
• I cycle fast, I even can't go slow.
• I terribly bite my nails, now followed by my children. I'm very ashamed.
• I love to drive a car, but also try to avoid it.
• I think my observation skills are extraordinary.
• I love a shop like Koekela in Rotterdam.

Sorry, I gave you some more secrets...
After doing this I may send the award to other bloggers. Here comes the one and only Versatile Blogger Award to you, Boventonen, Vervlogen Dagen and Rare Rusk, for being starters in Blogland. Wish you all the best!

In the early morning

One of our traditions is to make a beautiful birthday table. The following elements should at least be displayed on this table: off course all presents (wrapped with love), posts, little flowers, the yellow birthday circle with little candles and in the middle the little light woman and some sweets in the same quantity of the number of years.
When my eldest turned 5 the whole table (and present!) was very pink. Off course L's table should be blue. I allways take time to make a nice composition of everything what's on the table. And to make a picture in the late evening...

Little feet

When our little girl next door was born I wanted to give her something self-made. On several places on the internet I was triggered by these little booties and this link. When you go to Flickr you see hundreds of exemplars to inspire you. So it's a piece of cake! Nevertheless I tried to be original. If you look closely you'll notice I used in color changing DMC yarn.
The joke is that for this healthy baby the booties were made to small. So I made a second pair and the first pair is now belonging to Zusje, the doll of L.

Hard to stop

I stopped doing it for too many years. It's so relaxing, lining up all stitches. I'm talking about knitting: I started again and just like former times can hardly stop again.
Last week I shortly searched the internet for sheep wool and coincidentally the same day I passed by Wernerkinck in Delft, selling beautiful woolen yarns. I prefer natural materials and colors and looking around in this shop, which actually looks like an old loft, is a feast to the eye. Sadly I can't link you to the shop because they have no site, but here you can find online the yarn I used. I even like the ball of wool as an object.
I feel like exercising for grandmotherhood, because they are going to be blankets for the sleeping dolls of my daughters. I decided the blankets should be as simple and pure as possible and off course finished before wintertime!

Collection

Since we don't hang our baby clothes on these little hooks anymore as you saw here, I use them for my collection of necklaces. The everybody-has-it shelf of Ikea we painted in the same color as our lightbluegrey wall.
On the shelf you can see the framed birth announcements of our daughters. What a happiness to design and make them!

More motherlove

Just after birth I loved to embroider these baby sheets for M and L.

Uterus

Long time ago when M was born I sewed this felt cradle for her (without a pattern...). Actually it's just a simple rectangle or cube, with a bottom of thin plywood board between the two felt layers. I used two wooden sticks and felted cord (that we attached securely through holes in the sticks) to hang it. Sizes are about 80 to 45 cm.
In my opinion a newborn baby doesn't need very much, but warm and save surroundings are important. Our house is very open and the windows are large. For little L we found a temporary solution: in a corner of our bedroom we made this nearby mini nursery by surrounding the felt cradle with quite a thick felt curtain on a circular rail. I love the properties of felt very much: I punched little holes into the curtain and cut butterflies that seemed to be flying away... so beautiful when the sun came through!

Finishing touch

Last night I wrapped a little present and finished it this way. If you like to try this yourself, just go to this link, that I found long time ago in this blogpost. Thanks again, K!

Walking the dog

Over a month ago we had a lovely 'Welcome home' festival in our neighbourhood. M spent a long enjoyable time to make her first animation movie out of her own drawing.
If you like to do something like this for a birthday party, you should check this out: Studioplus5 of Femke Hoying.

Falling in love with rope

In Rotterdam we have a quite old-fashioned, but great shop 'The Ropehouse'. Here they only sell a lot of ropes in a great variety. Natural or artificial materials, thick or very thin, black or colored, you name it. I love to go there. Last week I just fell in love with pictured rope that I noticed behind the counter. It looked like it was on that shelf for ages and yelled at me: 'Buy me!' Although there's no need for it at all, I took it home.
Today I cut it for the first time: to hang the beautiful violins of our daughters. We like the view (especially the little 1/16th) and studying violin will cost less energy from now on.

Yemen

About 15 years ago we left home to go and see the world. We travelled around for a long time and I'm so glad we did before mobile phones and internet were born. Our house is exposing little souvenirs we carried in our backpacks.
This heavy silver necklace is one is them. I loved it right away at that time, and I still do. I cherish the included memories of fairytale Yemen.