Great woman

Last Friday I visited the very popular exhibition of Hella Jongerius in Boijmans van Beuningen, the main museum in Rotterdam. Ad, a dear friend, knew he had to take me with him. I so loved to be there! Little L too, she had to search for our vase!
Hella is fabulous with designs and colors. I couldn't resist to make these pics and to buy her corresponding book. After all it's my birthday today ;). But when you click on this link you have a very fine and much better overview of her work.

Back home I finally embroidered her Ikea vase.

Dull bag

On a second-hand market in school I bought this bag a little while ago. Because it was hanging quite unattractively on our mirror I decided to cheer it up a bit. Without any plan I just started making French knots and this is where it ended. To cover all threads on the inside I made a lining too.

I'm so glad I'm back with you again. In the meantime the stick horse flew into the world. Special thanks for featuring and visiting my blog! You came with so many via One Pretty Thing, WhipUp, Craft Gossip, Kireei, Modern Parents Messy Kids and other sites. It's not my intention to talk big, but having 4,500 pageviews a day is a new experience for me!

Today

Nothing is coming out of my fingers, but this is made by my daughter and her papa today! Their many hours of relaxed playing gave me some rest.

Sick again...

Actually I'm more or less still sick.

Let's diy!

On special request I made you a stick horse tutorial. If you like to read more about these horses, just go here, here and here.

This is what you need to make one of them:

1. (old) sock, big mensize  
2. 2 buttons in a bright color
3. 2 small (black) buttons
4. quite a lot polyether stuffing
5. strong white thread
6. strong dark thread
7. extra long needle
8. normal needle
9. thick woolen yarn for the manes
10. leftover wool to embroider
11. cotton rope to secure the sock to the stick
12. piece of (imitation) leather or about 1 meter of leather strip 2,5 cm wide
13. about 1 meter of thick natural or polyester rope for the rein
14. felt for the ears
15. punch to make holes in the leather strip
16. 2 key rings diameter 3,5 cm
17. 2 bells
18. (old) broomstick (not pictured).

Gaia

Since two years already L has a best friend, who was born three days later than L. They're such a sweet couple! For Gaia I made this bag. L added a piece of her chocolate letter, a leftover from Sinterklaas. Thanks Anja, for photographing.
This weekend I went to Ikea and bought a pile of great fabrics. So this bag might be continued in new looks...

Smaller one

I tried to crochet this pattern. Great to do, but after a while I decided to quit. In this case the pattern is too open looped and too cold in my opinion to wear on a colorful dress with short sleeves like this one. So I started again and knitted a smaller bolero version, this time with needle 5 and this yarn.
What do you think? L likes it.

Detail

For the bedroom of our youngest I made this washed woolen, uni colored curtain, matching the color of her wall perfectly. The fabric doesn't need to be finished, which I like in this case. Nevertheless I made some decoration. On that side of the curtain where we push it, I sewed a nice edge made of different kinds of fabric remnants. (Hopefully the pics are clear enough for you...)
A little secret is the aluminium strip I pushed in the edge to keep it straight.

This is M

For M's eighth anniversary I have been working on this project (yes, it was a kind of project because it took so long...). Next summer she will be ten, so I'm talking about a while ago. We have a digital camera since the birth of L. Selecting about 1500 pictures out of all our digital pics took me several months! Then some more for layouting pages in InDesign. But it was a great job to do! The books measure about 30 to 30 cm and got a hard cover, which I covered with felt. Yesterday evening we browsed through one of the books again instead of reading a book. We love to do this once in a while.
Now it's going to be L's turn. To finish it in a year I better get started soon ;).

Yes, five fingers!

One last post about L's birthday. Here she is: our five years old little princess, gracefully walking the stairs this weekend. I like to show her to you but not without a story. Little L is like all little ones still that honest (no, not ungrateful!) to let me know she liked the dress and all, but also was a bit disappointed. For in her view it was not a real present. I know now that she expected something to play with. Like the Sinterklaas presents, she explained to me. Plus, she told me when I kissed her goodnight on her birthday, she doesn't like the red color very much. Oh, this is so me! So critical, so confident about what she wants! It reminds me at the very first moment my boyfriend brought me flowers and I didn't like the color. That was long time ago. And do you know, there was a moment I wanted to change the dress, because I knew it. I know her, she's like me...
Plus dear mama -I'm talking to myself right now- for the next time keep in mind that your two daughters are not the same! Not at all.