It's been a while...

A long while, to be honest. Blogging takes a lot of time and I have Facebook and Instagram to post. Instagram is quick, only a picture and a little bit of chatting. No excuse, I know.
Finally my Call of the Raven is back from the framers. I chose a simple frame and no pass partout. The stitching part is huge, so I didn't want it to get bigger.
Until this afternoon I didn't know where to hang it. Not in my living room, that was for sure. Too big, drawing too much attention. Guess where it is now? In my living room LOL
Here it is!

And as you may know I also am a knitter. I have a few finished garments to show.

Fingerless mittens

As a little in between knit I finished this week a pair of fingerless mittens, Choco Latte. The yarn is a hand dyed yarn and it shows off very pretty. I have enough left to knit another pair for me. This pair went to my eldest daughter. She told me the dog leash slips through her fingers when wearing mittens of gloves. Walking the dog was a constant fight with leashe and gloves.
So when she saw these fingerless mittens, she was very happy!

This month I have some progress on Call of the Raven too. There are 'only'six pages to go, so it will be a finish next year!

Officially Autumn

Summer was already over, but temperatures stayed summerish. Until yesterday I could sit outside on my terrace and knit. But as we all know it 's just a matter of time until we need warmer jackets and sweaters so I decided some time ago to start knitting a cardigan, Indigopie, designed by Mari Chiba and published in Knitty, Deep Fall 2016.

I hope I am ending up with a lovely cardigan, but I'm not sure yet. As I don't like bulky yarn because it simply is too warm for me to wear, I chose a sport weight instead of a bulky yarn. And that means a different gauge and lots of calculations. Until now it looks okay to me.

The sunny weather allows me to wear my knitted sweater, Westbourne, a design by Isabell Kraemer. I knitted this from a laceweight yarn, so it's wearable in spring and autumn. 

Some weeks ago we were in Paris. And of course I visited a local yarn shop. Lil'Weasel. It is siruated in a lovely passage, worth visiting!

I bought some beautiful yarn and rosewood needles. And after a day of walking, DH cooled my burning feet with water from the fountain. How sweet is that!

Quite an update

Due to a weekend of lovely weather and a weekend in which I didn't want to go out, I have quite an update.
I stitched, I spun (both on my wheel and with my spindle), And I knitted on two different projects.
To start with my stitching. Last week I was stitching all evenings on one project, Call of the Raven. You haven't seen this for quite some time,Tthe latest update on this masterpiece was done on 2015, Februari 8(!).
This is how she looked by then.

Now she looks like this. At first sight you might not see the differende, but there are almost two full pages done!

I know, still a lot of work to be done, but hey, I also knit!

On my knitting projects I can also show some progress. There is Je Vole. I am now doing the transition rows, so after that I can knit the boreder. I'm knitting the large version.

Maybachufer is growing steady. It's a fun knit, quick and easy, so I can also knit when we are on the way.

And last but not least I spun a rainbow. The weather has been horrible. Lost of rain and stormy days. So a rainbow it has to be!

Apnning on my spindle is quite relaxing. I spun a rusty thread, lots of autumn colours.

Last finishes of last year

First of all I want to wish you a happy 2016! Stay healthy and creative!
I ended 2015 with a couple of small finishes and some hand spun yarn. These small projects are perfect to knit when you are travelling. You don't need a lot of space and yarn.
The last day of 2015 we went on a couple of smalle day trips, so I took my needles and yarn and did my first little project double knitting. A small canal house, as we know in my birth town Groningen, and, of course, in Amsterdam. Pattern from Daphne Ruben and you can find it on Ravelry.
Grachtenpandje.

 

The last two days of the year I knitted these pair of fingerless gloves. This pattern is from An de Vries, Zazie. You can find it on Ravelry or on Knitty.com.

And last but not least, I finished my hand spun yarn, Red Velvet. A few weeks ago I bought two nice batts and during the holidays I found myself totally in trance. Spinning. 

A special finish!

Yes, I have a special finish. Look at My Sarie Marais! Pattern by Kieran Foley, knitted with handdyed lace by Loret Karman.

Spring arrived!

Every year I am happy when winter is over and spring arrives. This year we didn't have much snow and cold, but we did have dark days and I hate getting up when it is still dark. Since december last year I follow a course in Utrecht (once a week) and I have to travel there by train. At 06.00 a.m. I get up and I just hated it, being dark and cold. Yesterday it was't dark anymore and looking out of the window I saw the sun over the frozen fields.
In our garden our little tree is showing signs of spring too :)

I knitted not as much as I wanted, because I was away the whole weekend. But Idunn and And It Wasn't Even My Birthday are showing some progress. I didn't take a picture of the first one, but here is And It Wasn't ...

And I couldn't help myself starting a new project. Shadow. Here are the first needles. They look a bit messy, but it will be okay in the end.

Iðunn

After finishing Baltimore Bliss I felt the need to start something new. And so I casted on two shawls. Yes, two! First is Iðunn. I bought the yarn not long ago, it was love at first sight. The combination with the pattern that was shown was perfect, so I decieded to knit the same.

The second one is And it Wasn't Even My Birthday ... The yarn, pure silk, was given to me by a dear friend and I think the pattern I choose is perfect for the yarn. It will make a beautiful shawl. Meet the start of And it Wasn't Even My Birthday ... 

Quilting again ...

In one of the groups I am involved in (I find the the most precious friends in that group) we are running an UFO project. We picked an UnFinished Object and commited ourselves to work on that object until it is finished. We post an update every 10th of every month. Of course, sometimes life gets in the way, but we all try to have an update each month.

I am working on my big quilt, the one that is going to be on my bed, once... You already might know I am talking about Baltimore Bliss. There are 25 blocks and today I finished block 17. Eight to go. It might be a finish next year!

As you can see, every block is repeated in a white block.

And of course I have been knitting. My newest shawl is now like this. This picture doesn't show its colour, it's more blue instead of grey.