Pif

When M and L were newborns they wore this very cute hat in a beautiful green color. A former colleague did crochet it. Kristel of Vlijtig is another former colleague. She paid this hat at least 20 times (!) forward to several aftercoming babies.
Making a crochet piece of work myself was probably more than 25 years ago! But I wanted to pay it so much forward to one of my nowadays colleagues, who's becoming a father of a little girl. The other one will be given to some other sweet newborn in the future. The blue yarn appeared to be a very fine crochet yarn, but really every yarn will suit you. For today I like to posit following thesis: everybody older than 8 can make a hat like this. So if you like to pay it forward too, get started with an average crochet hook like 4,5 mm. Find a similar pattern via this link.

Catching up

It's quiet on my blog, I know. I'm quite busy both professionally as privately. M and L are into a lot of activities: yesterday we all attended M's circus performance, this morning she was playing her violin in a childrens orchestra. It was the first time for M feeling nervously. Furthermore I'm organising with a group of parents the so-called Springmarket, a feast in school on a Saturday in May. We made a design for the schoolyard, but to get it realised we need a lot of hands... I'll get you posted about the result in a few weeks.
A few weeks ago I got an invitation to contribute to a German family magazine called Nido. It's my first time this is happening through my blog. This week I took a quiet day off to get the work done. Of course it's still top secret ;), but in a few weeks I'll get you posted about that too.

Ordering

Our kitchen has a high ceiling. While sitting here behind the computer, you can look into the kitchen, smell the cooking and ask for a coffee easily :). It's a great spot to make pictures during birthday parties too.
Actually this furniture consists of three parts: a cabinet you see in front, a tabletop and a floating cabinet above the tabletop. Because our house is our own design we made the opening in the wall as wide as the tabletop we had already. This week we mounted the floating cabinet again. For years it was standing on the ground, filled with Lego. As our girls are no Lego lovers, we decided to use the cabinet again where it was designed for in our former house.

Furthermore I made new labels for the folders to make them a bit more attractive. Covered each paper label with adhensive foil, slightly bigger than the label itself and sticked them to the folder. I'm happy, because it took some time to administrate and order the folders. Now it's up to date again, pfff. The view on the folders will hopefully stimulate to do the administration on a more regular base.
Btw 1, do you see that hole in the side of the cabinet? It's made for the printer, which is housing together with the hard disk inside the cabinet. And btw 2, do you see that little hole in the corner of ceiling and wall? I'll write about that later...

Well done!

Here I met some family members of the stick horse:

1. Betje on the Jip & Janneke forum
2. Under the pecan tree
3. Ik heb een bep
4. Practically perfect Polly
5. Vanmarieke.

Well done, isn't it?

Keep on trying

Yesterday evening I was exhausted from work. Once I had decided to make a bag for my birthday neighbour I got soon in a better mood! I loved to combine different fabric samples for the front. The small stripes are Paul Smith's. The bag was almost finished, I thought.
Today only the zipper had to be added. Do you recognize this: party started at 1 p.m, would last till 5 p.m. I, again, 'only' had to add the zipper. But actually I didn't know how to. And, as a like-to-be-autodidact, just started and tried out. Due to timepressure it didn't work out. In the end I searched for a how-to on internet. Still, at 3 p.m. I sadly declared this bag for failed. And quickly went for a cold glass of white wine in our common garden. Dear Cariene, please be patient. There will be an improved one soon. Wine and food were delicious.