Finished Friday

Earlier this week I got this idea that will hopefull motivate me a little to finish my bigger works in progress. Finished Friday. Every friday I will have finished one big (ish) project, take a good picture of it, play with editing a little and write about it on my blog. I have lots of project bags lying around, so there should be enough for me to choose from. And otherwise.. well.. I can always start new projects and finish them in time.

For this week it's not going to be anything craftsy though.
Today we harvested our patatoes! That's sort of like finishing a project, right?

We dreamed of a tower filled with potatoes, but that didn't really work out as good as we had hoped, we only had one layer of the tower filled with potatoes.. We still got a lot though, for a little garden experiment. We don't eat them very often, so this should get us pretty far untill harvest time 2014.

I can't wait to make "Stamppot", mashed purple potatoes with orange carrots, how's that for fun food?

Fotography: +1xp

Oh, excuse me the geeky title.

Just like my friend One Badass Mother, I decided to work on my photography skills. We seem to have a way of motivating eachother to try out new things and work harder on things we were already doing. I suppose about 22 years of friendship can do that, even though our lives got in the way and we're not joined at the hip anymore, like we were in pre-school. Whatsapp rocks :)

So. Photography. I think I've always taken decent pictures, just not mind blowing you know? I didn't really know how some of my settings work, and editing on the computer? Err.. Click some buttons, and tadah!? No, usually more of "ta...meh." I decided to get Lightroom and to start shooting in RAW. Something that has been scary for a while, but just like so many things, I should have done it a long time ago. I also decided to try using some more buttons on my camera, and, well, it helped! These are some pictures I took this week. I especially like the pidgeon picture. I love birds, so maybe I'm a little biased. Long way to go, but learning things is fun, and I hope to see some improvement over the next months.

PS: the sheep was super scary to photograph. He got a little pissed off at me and my camera, he was threating me like an angry bull. Stomping is hoof and all, I basicly risked my life! But look, he's so pretty..

Cozy crochet jar candle cozies

I had seen these cute little jar cozies on Pinterest, but never managed to find nice patterns for them. All I could find were simple granny paterns, and that was just not really what I liked. I set the idea aside for a while, until I stumbled on crochet stitch diagrams and realised I don't need a pattern specifically for jar cozies, any crochet pattern would do. So I created these three. They are small babyfood jars I got from a friend, perfect size for a little tea light. I will make more over the next week, to bring to an autumn/winter fair. My first time on a fair with a stand, eek, scary!

I used these two diagrams this time:

An other little project that was quick and fun to do, with a great result. Look how cozy they make my evening work and craftsy time look. All that's missing is the tea. And maybe some bonbons. :)

Look what I found in our table plant

I guess autumn is truly here :)

I found the pattern here.

My kind of evening

A warm house, candles, crochet, and a nice hot cup of tea with honey.

Autumn is coming

 And it makes me happy!

Don't get me wrong, I do love warm summer days, and especially loved the evenings we spent at the nearby lake past summer. Swimming with our dogs, enjoying the evening sun. I loved having dinner in the garden, and playing with the little pool. I loved making little camp fires in our garden, of those of friends, and just talk and have a good time. Picking berries with my man, and the blue skies. Summer is good. 

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But autumn is better :)

I prefer colder temperatures, I love how good everything smells when it has rained, the sound of rain pouring down, the wind in the trees. I love the red and orange colours the leaves turn into, and kicking them up when I walk down the street. You never get too old for that. Curling up on the couch with a blanket, a cup of steaming hot tea and a home made muffin. Lighting some candles, a little incense and listening to some music, or reading a book. Or listening to a book while crocheting, a perfect combination. Back to crocheting blankets, and this winter I am going to learn how to knit. For real.

Although everything is still green, the little forest we like to visit is definitely showing signs of autumn.

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Work in Progress

I've not been posting a lot, things are a bit chaotic at home and in my head, and I have been having a hard time finding motivation for crafting and especially blogging. I'm sure things will get more quiet soon, and there will be more wool dyeing, crocheting and photographing. We're also planning to build a bigger run for our bunnies, and then finding a new addition to our bunny family, real actual wool bunnies. Aren't they pretty? I'll make sure to spam them until you can't see them anymore ;)  I'm hoping to find one or two angora bunnies from a shelter, two males to have "helped" and then match with my two girl bunnies.
But first we need to finish their house. This posts' first WiP.

Picture by Catherine Ledner

Works in progress is all I can show you at the moment really. Last week I took the time to take pictures of most of my wips for my Ravelry pages, I don't like having projects without pictures on my projects page, somehow it's very motivating to see the progress shots of my work.

My last ever 100% acryl project. Ever. It's funny how my ideas about wool quality have changed over the past year. I always figured: why spend 5, 6,10, or even more euros on yarn when there are also one or two euro yarns. I'd buy €2.20 cotton, but that was about the most I'd spend on yarn. Untill I did buy prettier yarns, I was spoiled forever, a proper yarn snob. I will have to finish this project though, it will be fine for picknicks, and for the bed in the guestroom, to make it a little less of a boring place. 

Extra fine baby merino. One of the spoilers. So, so, so pretty. And so soft, oh my.. And as if that wasn't enough, it has another great quality: when I dye it, the colours become so very vibrant! Just look at those colours, the golden yellow is dyed with onion peels, the orange with madder. Just gorgeous, I was thrilled when I took them out of the dyeing pot and washed them out. The african flowers will become a little pony, another Heidi Bears pattern, still obsessed ;)

So bad even, that I currently having four Heidi Bears animal WiP and one more project planned, woops! An other pony, in the team colours of my Roller Derby league, see below. This pony is becoming a pegasus, as we're the 'Arnhem Fallen Angels', I just had to.. She's almost done, I will probably show her later this week. 

This is crazy. I know. Fully aware. But I just love a crafty challenge. These teeny tiny flowers are going to become a teeny tiny hippo. Not making very quick progress, I can only work on it with good (day)light. So much fun to make though, and I can't wait for it to be finished, in all it's cuteness.  

 This stuff people, baby alpaca wool. With silk. So. Very. Soft. I just have to pet it, and hold it against my face to feel the softness of it. I'm making a baby blanket out of it.

I'm a bit of a Drops/Garnstudio girl at the moment. The red and blue pony is being done with Drops Safran, a very soft cotton, although a little splitty, and the baby merino is from Drops as well. Most of my former projects were made with Drops yarns too, now I think of it. Their yarn is affordable but at the same time of a good quality, very good stuff for those prices.

That was it for now. I'm off to my bed. Night night lovelies x