Bien changing

" You don't need the things to see
The things need you to be seen"

I started to work in Leeuwarden at a school library. And every day when I go to work I see this text on the school wall. It needed me to be seen. I love this phrase and like to think about it. It's been quite a change. My new job starts really early I,m taking the 7.30 train to Leeuwarden then I hop on my old bike to the school. Being at school again sure brings back some memories.

Done some celebrating

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of our wee one. Not so wee anymore actually, she turned twelve and is growing up so fast. Any day now I will be abled to look her straight in the eye, litterally.

I remember feeling so complete en fulfilled twelve years ago. When I first saw her I immediately recognized her and thought " oh it's you" and felt overwhelmed by the feeling of being reunited. My second thought was " oh shit now I'll spend the rest of my life being terrified of losing you"

Bien hiding

A few days ago I got the key to my new hide out. It has been an absolute delight to be away from all the hustle and just enjoy my new house. Offcourse a new house has some hustle of it's own. What curtains should I choose? Should I use my old ones and be all "make do and mend" sustainable recycle and green? Talking about green: what colour do I choose? How about no curtains at all?

I know I'm loosing it completely but it is kind of comforting to replace big problems with small ones. Hooray for small problems.

Sometimes small problems become bigger like this sock I'm not able to finish. God knows my brain could use some firm knitting but this sock keeps hiding in my bag.

Today I almost turned the heel. Almost.

One of the best things about the new house is the view, it overlooks the harbour where Sinterklaas will arrive in november. ( a Dutch thing) I'm really looking forward to the winter the perfect season for hiding.

Done some thinking

This is such a weird time for me, I've been very lucky in so many ways but today I also received some very sad news. My dad is not going to get better, his cancer can not be cured. He got this news one day before his 69th birthday. This makes me so sad. It's such a strange feeling to be in the midst of all these great changes that are happening in my life and be so sad at the same time.

How can you be happy and sad at the same time?

How can you think of what curtains to choose for the new house and worry about how your mom will cope on her own?

I can't...

Bien lucky

Yes we have been incredibly lucky! This is the back of our new house. It's in Harlingen, Friesland near our beloved island Terschelling.

We will miss our family and friends because it's a two hour drive or three an a half hours by train when you don't have a drivers license. I never needed to drive before but now I wish I learned.

It is a long way from where we live now but more luck came my way and yesterday I found a job in Leeuwarden. I still can't believe it after so many plans that went wrong the last couple of years this plan is really coming together. 

A very pretty house and a great job too!

I do hope my luck continues, without sounding greedy, because we still need to sell our old house. I just tought of a small downside: ther are NO yarnstores in Harlingen. Do you think I'm pushing my luck if I'm thinking of opening one? I know that there are plenty of knitters in the north of the Netherlands.

bien elsewhere

I have absolutely nothing to complain about. I'm at the most perfect island doing some simple zen knitting and try to get my toes to tan at the same time. I even have some time to catch up on my blog because my appartment has an internet connection. Oh and did I mention I am now the proud owner of a crispy white macbook? I feel so hip when I,m knitting at the endless beach of Terschelling while listening to Cast On or my new discovery More hip than hippie. 

I also bought myself a drop spindle at Storm op Zolder/Storm in the Attic especially for this holiday. I haven't tried it yet but I hope to learn how to spin soon. Since I now have easy internet acces I might try it this week with a little help from You Tube.

Our holiday on Terschelling has been really exciting so far, filled with doing nothing, doing some shopping, doing some pony hugging an doing some laundry. (I am so happy this wonderfull appartment also has a washingmachine.) Next week

 I'm planning a trip to the LYS Tante Lies and some more knitting at the beach. As I said: nothing to complain about.

Done lots of things

Ten days ago I managed to get the whole family and one guest into our van. That would only make sense if we actually drove of and so we did... to Tilburg. We visited the Knitted worlds exhibition in the Textielmuseum. They have a nice blog http://knittedworlds.blogspot.com/ and an amazing museum. The knitted worlds exhibition was a bit smaller than I thought but quite interesting and very different. We saw more bodyparts than can be expected to find in a textile museum! It was unforunately not allowed to take any pictures in the exhibition part of the museum.

We could take pictures in the other parts of the museum where we knitted on a project wich wil turn out to be a knitted "videogame". Ronja friend Myrthe learnt how to knit on the spot in about five minutes! Both eleven year old girls really enjoyed our visit to knitted worlds. The became really inspired by everything the saw, especially in the museumshop.

I have also been knitting in the allotment and at the footbal (soccer) field . I will be knitting at the conference in Delft tomorrow http://www.ugame-ulearn.com/nl/index.asp .
If I'm not knitting I might be reading Twilight by Stephenie Myers and afterwards I could be making Edward http://www.ravelry.com/projects/deadcraft/twilight---edward-cullen-doll.

Bien green

This is it my first "harvest" from my allotment! And I have absolutely no idea what it is. There are some bushes that have been growing too much and I had cut them , then I thought why not put them in a vase? I hope the UB's ( Unidentified Bushes) turn out to be some sort of berries. But Im not yet green enough, just the fact that there's allready something growing in the allotment is very exciting.

I have been looking into a natural wool dying book to see what plants I need. I dream of spinning my own yarn and then make my own dye.

Spinning has to wait because I am on a really thight budget these days and spinning lessons don't come cheap! But the good news is that there is someone not too far from my house giving spinning lessons. All I need to do is find me some money!

I do count my blessings when I'm knitting at the allotment or working on it listening to a Lime&Violet podcast. The spinning will wait for me I'm sure.

Done some knitting

I've done so much knitting and not so much blogging so here's a update. I finally became a very proud sock knitter. A few years ago I started a pair of socks on 5 dpns but got stuck on the cuff of the second sock. So I shoved this pair in the back of a closet with al the paperwork to do my taxes. You might understand that this closet is very seldom used.

Then I visited http://www.woool.nl/ my favorite lys and spotted some great sockyarn then I knew I had to try a magic loop. I did. I'm addicted. I'm a sock knitter.

They fit me perfectly and I love the frantic stripey pattern. The only problem is that now I want to remove my shoes everywhere and put my socks on display.

Another thing I did was teaching a couple of knittinglessons for children in my library. It was great fun and many adults joined in to help. Now I'm trying to get all the public libraries of The Hague to join the KnitInPublic day.

http://www.wwkipday.com/ In the picture you see me instructing Luuk,one of the boys. Luuk told me he wants to be a farmer and knit his own clothes!

I have no doubts he will succeed since he is allready wearing cloggs! I'd better learn to spin soon so I can have a carreerchange and work on Luuk's farm.

Bien there- Carnaval

This week it was Carnaval which is not one of my favorite festivities but...

I LOVE THOSE WHITE BOOTS

Ever since I was a little girl I longed for these boots, but my mom wouldn't let me join the "majoretten".

Done that magic loop

Finally I'm doing the Magic Loop! Offcourse when you are doing it it is really easy. I started a very simple pattern and thanks to the frantically striped yarn it's not too boring. I'm already queing new socks in my ravelry there's at least enough yarn in my stash for 2 more pair. But let's not get too excited before doing the heel.

Life socks.

Done time

Time 's up! The cock cover is done and I am so pleased.

I like the clock so much, I didn't even try to test it. It should run on a battery but I didn't try, it might be broken but that doesn't matter. It's "quit time"for the clock I'll let it rest in the comfy cozy I knitted for him (her?)

Maybe the clock in the cover stands for hibernating I've been doing that too. Curl up in our enormous couch surrounded by wool, patterns an my knitting daghter.

Recently I have become addicted to anoyther hibernating aid: the podcast. I absolutely worship Lime&Violet http://limenviolet.blogspot.com/ hilarious. So far I listened to them while cooking dinner, riding my bike, at my doctors waitingroom , in bed and while knitting.

The knitting my precious shuffle rests on is a ufo (unfinished object) that was lying in my knitting suitcase for a long while. I frogged it ands started over. The wool is beautifully coloured and is very dear to me since I bought it at Terschelling http://www.tante-lies.nl/ the one and only lys(local yarn store) of the island. We will go to Terschelling in the end of April but hope to make a surprise trip earlier. I can't tell you becaus it wouldn't be a surprise now would it?

We do suffer from some serious island homesickness and started this day looking up some footage of our favorite ponies at http://deprairie.wordpress.com/blog/ and on you tube (thank you Yfke)

Bien cold

I've been really cold when I got the key to my new garden. Yes I'm the proud tennant of an allotment.
I know I don't have time to do any gardening but that's allright because my garden is meant to read and knit in. I trust that the plants that are in the garden know how to grow by themselves.
I might add some plants like mint so I can enjoy a cup of tea while reading and knitting and hope that the old plants will teach the new plants the ropes.
With the key came a complete set of rules, an allotment is serious business, it was a great relieve that knitting and reading is allowed as long as I paint my chair green or brown!
I have found a really great website to help me http://www.allotmentgirls.co.uk/ they have have a shop with the absolute best tops and t-shirts to wear while pretending to work your soil.
For now it's too cold to do anything in the garden so I'll just dream about it and maybe knit a plant. And maybe order that slug-top.

Done that

I'm now knitting something quite strange but irresistable: a clock cover! Somehow this ugly clock appeared in my house and I could get anyone else to take it so I decided to do a cover up. While I knit this cover I'm thinking this might be a trendsetting thing. I can see this appearing in glossy magazines and one day some celebrity asks me if she can please buy the clock for a huge amount because it would fit her swiss chalet so well.

Why not.

Ok I'll finish it first so you can have look.

It's always time to knit!

Bien there

to take pictures of Ronja skating. It's been almost 15 years since I lput on some skates!

It's probably safer anyway to watch but my Ronja would really like to see me skating.

What's the worst thing that could happen to me if I do try?

I could fall, break my leg... and have lots of time to knit and read. hmm

For now I'll stick to watch and be proud.

Maybe people will think she takes after her mom when they see her skate so gracefully. Let them think.

The winter is also inspiring me to do some winterknitting. I finished my first pair of selbu mittens.

I used a pattern from http://www.garnstudio.com/.

The have some pretty patterns and a very clever website. The best thing, obvously being dutch, is it's free.

I did make some mistakes but maybe that is to bexpected when one is used to knitting while watching tv.

These mittens are to small for me, I made them for Ronja but as soon as I can lay my hands on some new yarn I'll make myself a pair.

Don't you hate summer?