For Madelon

In november the daughter of G. did let me know, in her own subtle way, that she is fond of my crocheted blankets, and especially the one made from almost white wool and many colors. So I checked my rather huge stash of Riihivilla yarn, wool from Leena Riihela, a finnish woman. In the spring she collects fleeces from Finnsheep, an old landrace from Finland. Wool from finnsheep is soft, and it contains lots of lanolin which makes it warm. She takes the fleeces to the mill where they are spinned into yarns, and they are processed as little as possible. She used to have her own flock of sheep, but didn't have the time anymore.
She dies her yarn with natural sources, plants, mushrooms, barks, and even insects, like cochineal.  I remember the days, over 30 years ago, I died this way too. Many of her colors come from historically proven natural dyes, reds from madder and cochineal, and blues from indigo bearing plants. She also uses lots of mushrooms, which was new to me.
Leena has a weblog where she often describes the dying proces of the yarn. It's very interesting to read.
I think the colors she dies are amazing, and I do like the touch of the yarn.
Over 8 years ago I started to collect her yarns, I stopped about 2 years ago, because our income decreased a lot.

This is the blanket I crocheted for Madelon, I will give it to her on her birthday next month. (she doesn't read my blog) . I used so many colors. I had called Madelons mother if she knew how big Madelon would like to have her blanket, and it measures 2x2 mtr. The biggest one I made.

Unexpected snow

Last night when I was working in a city nearby  it started to snow. For me it was completely unexpected, though when I had payed more attention to the weather forecast I should have known. The hospital where I was working is located in a quiet place, and it is so magical seeing the snow fall, all white and not touched. In the morning one could see some tracks of bicycles, and some foot prints, that was all. I was glad it was a sunday morning, everybody staying at home and keeping the snow untouched.
I chose to ride home through the countryside, taking small roads. It was beautiful, peaceful and quiet. I was a liitle bit afraid of slippery roads, but everything went well.
When I got home I was longing for my bed, so tired, but first I went out to take some photo's of our house and nearby places.

I'm a lucky girl, my neighbourhood is beautiful!! Being so tired I made a 5 minutes walk.
I was regretting it not having my camera with me on the drive home.

The backside of our house. I should like to have a larger garden, but hey, never mind.

Kerstmis

Het is bijna kerst, eerst nog even de verjaardag van oudste vieren die 21 jaar geleden op kerstavond werd geboren, ons geliefde kerstkindje. 3 weken te vroeg, en perfectionistisch als ik toen zeker nog was (als je kinderen hebt leer je sommige dingen los laten) stond ik weeen hebbend kerstkleden te strijken en de kerstboom op te tuigen. Want lange tijd heb ik het vol gehouden de boom pas op kerstavond op te zetten, zoals traditie was hier in Holland. Toen had ik ook altijd een wit met zilveren boom zoals mijn ouders en schoonouders nog steeds hebben. Maar tijden veranderen...

Mijn kroonluchter in de gang, groen en met heel veel hartjes. Veel liefde stuur ik ieders kant op, fijne kerstdagen met jullie geliefden.

Wel heb ik nog steeds de traditie in ere gehouden om echte kaarsjes te branden, hiervoor zoek ik dan ook altijd een goede kerstboom. Tegenwoordig vul ik het wel met kunstlichtjes aan, voor de rest van de dag, aangezien de kerstboomkaarsjes maar 1 1/2 uur branden.

Wel, de rijsttafel voor vanavond is gereed, we zijn met 15 man. Het wordt vast gezellig. Straks nog een paar boodschapjes halen, en maar hopen dat de kapper vandaag nog open is. En dan, veel plezier!!

Intruder

Last week we had a rather unpleasant surprise, an intruder payed us a visit. It was about 22.00 in the evening, G., youngest and me were sitting in the living room, talking and looking at the television.  Youngest had just cleaned the " cats toilet" "( a literal translation of the dutch word poezenbak, I haven't got a clue what the english word would be), and after some time he noticed that the kitchen door at the back of our house was open. And it isn't supposed to, to cold.  He called, G went to him, and they came to the conclusion someone had entered our home!! We were sitting there, just around the corner!! This is what catched their eye...

The stairs to the first floor  in our hallway. Normally 2 of my bags are hanging here. So this was stolen. Youngest was very frightened, a little bit shaking. What if this person was still in our house??  

In short, we called the police to report this, and they came immediately, to my surprise. And they took the time to write everything and one of them went outside with a flashlight to look if he could find something.

After 2 days they called us to tell my bags had been found with luckily enough my passport, drivers licence and so in it. But we still had to make arrangements for other things like new locks and keys, and car key.

I'm mostly shocked by the impertence of ths person, just to walk in our house while we were sitting there.

And now some other photo's, I love colours and candle light...

And so does my cat Loesje...

And these are some things I made inspired by Blogland...

These glass covers are very easy to make, just improvise.

In the meantime I'm crocheting a blanket for G's daughter, and this will be a big one, 2 x 2 meter.

Oh, and I do have to share this, my cat Zorro, while sleeping.  Due to the flashlight he opened his eyes a little....

And thanks for your nice comments, I appreciate it a lot. Groetjes, Gerda

Wool

After a very busy weekend in which I celebrated my 55th birthday I will share some things I made in the last months. I like to create all kind of things, and these are of the woolen kind. In the summer I dyed some merino wool, and in the last months I spinned it into yarn.

The middle one was a light grey merino before I dyed it, so the colours are rather dark. The 3 skeins exist of a 3 ply yarn, which in this case means I Navajo plied the yarn I spinned, to hold the colours together. The thickness will be for knitting on needles 3 1/2 or 4, (European size) I think . I don't know yet what I will make of it.
The skeins weight about 150 grams.

And than, underneath the skeins lies the blanket I crocheted in october. Boy, I did crochet a lot!!

I used a design  made by Drops, which I already used for making shawls with their sockwool Delight, which comes in nice colours. But this time I didn't want to think, just crochet, and I made this from a rather thin wool which I bought some years ago in England. It measures 1.80 x 1.30, a nice blanket to crawl in on the bench when it's cold outside. I used crochet needle 3.

And this is my spinning wheel, a majacraft with double threadle. A pleasure to spin on. On the moment I'm spinning with this colour...

 Very summery colours, and I think I will navajo ply it again, I like to ply this way and I like the result.
Have a nice week.

Two days

I've been away from this bog for a long time, didn't plan this. It's mostly due to the fact that oldest has been very ill, which even resulted in an admission to the hospital for over 2 weeks. I stayed a lot in Amsterdam. Anyway, everything is allright now.

Last weekend we had 2 very different days, with respect to the weather.

First saturday, a dreary and rainy day....

But we went out for a walk in the woods of Velhorst, an estate which is owned by Natuurmonumenten since 1972. This is a wellknown foundation here in Holland, since 1905,  which goal is to preserve nature in the Netherlands, in a sustainable way. Nature in Holland is too small and fragmented, which makes it difficult for plants and animals to survive. 

But it still is beautiful...

And I was looking for this house..........

 Oh no, the other one, in this one very lucky people already live...

The house above, I took a photo of the front and back, in the midst of the rain, is for rent. The house and surroundings are beautiful; if you walk one direction you enter the woods, and at the other side there are meadows. Stunning vieuws.  If only............

And sunday the sun was shining, the colours were bright and autumn was so much in the air, so we went for a walk on another estate, owned by Natuurmonumenten, nearby, Huis Verwolde. This house is very familiar to me, I often went there when I was camping with my children, in bygone summers. It was a good bike ride from the camping  for little legs.

The house itself was closed, a surprise, but we walked for some hours...

We were looking for one of the most famous trees of Holland, the large oak tree about which our beloved Annie M.G Schmidt made a nursery rhyme; about a family which lives in that tree. The large oak tree of Laren, which is supposed to bee the oldest tree, and the biggest one, in Holland.

We ended our walk with these vieuws, these stunning colours...

Groetjes, Gerda

Sallandse heuvelrug

It's been a while since my last post. I was so busy, and I avoided the computer, otherwise it should take to much time. Some 2 weeks ago I sat reading in our patio, with my reading classes, and something catched my eye. So I went to inspect the wooden parts of our house (reading glasses on my nose), the frames and doors, and I was shocked by the state of it. So we took our brushes and paint, and we painted, and painted......I don't like this work at all. We have made quite a progress, and so tomorrow we can take some days off to go to a  house near the Biesbosch.

Last week we took 1 day off, eldest was at home too, and we went to the Sallandse heuvelrug, the most hilly part of Holland nearby. This moraine originated some 150.000 thousand years ago, in the second last glacial peroid. This is the only place in Holland were moor games live. We didn't see any...

There's one place you have a beautiful vista,  far far away..

The moorland was gorgeous, when I see those purple colours I think of autumn. And autumn is in the air, allthough the weather is surprisingly good, warm. But you can feel it in the evening, and the light is different than in summer.

We walked around, not such a long time because we were rather late...

It's striking how often my boys walk in front of me, (I think it's because I take the pictures) ......

We ended the day having dinner in a nice restaurant, and it was delicious.......

Have a nice week you all, groetjes, Gerda