ya r/w n

Not as boring as it sounds... Or maybe you think it is, in which case I strongly suggest you skip this post altogether. As you clever cookies may have figured out by now, the more hectic life gets, the more yarn this gal needs. So you can guess how much of it I have been going through these past months. Quite a bit, my friends. Quite a bit.

I have been knitting so much that I haven't even been taking pictures of all the things I've made. Luckily I do have some snaps of a couple of recent projects that I am reasonably proud of. Pride is a sin, you say? YOU try successfully completing a knitting pattern full of abbreviations like k2tog, slst, psso, wyib, pfb and k2tbl, without a feeling of pride in your accomplishment, and then we'll talk.

While still in Holland I finished a pair of cotton baby booties + mittens for a pregnant friend who has since given birth to a healthy baby boy. She emailed me to let me know my booties were the first things to go on his tiny little hands and feet - and they fit perfectly. Things like that make me all mushy inside. I only managed to get a picture of the booties:

Because we were a little low on funds for our Christmas presents last year, I decided to knit something for all four of my little nieces and nephews. I made warm hats with big fuzzy pompoms on top for the boys (they call them their snowball hats :). Sassy Kylee got 2 different hats: a black and hot pink striped one with a knit bow sewn to the side, and a purple hat with green hearts worked into the pattern and smaller pompom on top. Cute Ella got a similarcolor work hat to Kylee's, only in baby pink with light green hearts and a green/pink pompom. To go with Ella's hat I made her pink and green mittens in the style of Bella's mittens from the first Twilight movie. I promise I'm not a Twi-Mom, I just really like those mittens (see also my next project). This time we only managed a shot of Ella and Benson with their new winter accessories.

And last, but not least, I finally finished my own pair of mittens, after having given away the previous 4 pairs (with love!). I need them here all the time, especially to keep my fingers from freezing to the steering weel of the car until the heater kicks in. And it's not even a cold winter for Utah standards!

Ah, I love them. I'm currently making the exact same ones for my amazing cousin Courtney who recently entered the Provo Missionary Training Centre to get ready for her mission in Texas. Apparently it snows in Texas - who knew?

The final project is the one I am most proud of. It was the one of the hardest patterns I've ever followed and a lot of time and swearing love has gone into making it. It's a little sweater to keep a little baby warm on a cold day - and not just any baby. This sweater was my special present to tiny Karsten Joseph May, born to my sister Marissa on January 19th of this year. He was a month early so I doubt he'll fit into it before April. I'm a little in love with the wide range of craft supplies available around here... this button for instance, too cute!

In other news: Max just woke up from his nap and scared the crap out of me by sneaking up behind me and loudly declaring 'I need to poop.', after which he spray-sneezed all over me. Gotta go.

read all about it - updates galore

I have so much to blog about that I dont even know where to begin. Actually, I do know. How can I not start with the most important thing? Sander turned 32 yesterday! He came home from work a little earlier than usual so we could have cake and sing to him. The amazing Shaila joined us for the fun part, and then we left her with the hard part: feeding the kids and getting them to sleep. 

We happily ran off to Scheveningen where we ate Mexican food (mmm, chimichanga!), played Glow-in-the-Dark Miniature Golf Halloween style, and watched the new All-Stars movie - Sander's choice of course. We had such a great time that is was impossible to not feel bad for Shaila when we came home around midnight and found the lights on throughout the house, and her cradling a verrrry sleepy Elliot. Poor thing had a rough night, but she kept telling us she enjoyed it a lot even though it had been tiring. We agreed that that sums up parenthood right there: it's immensely tiring, but equally as enjoyable.

The next blogworthy topic is our house. The house is officially for sale. The signs are out, the pictures have been taken, and it's listed online. Click this sentence to take a look at it! We could really do with a fast sell so that Sander doesn't have to be seperated from the rest of us for too long when we move....  so anybody you know who might possibly be interested, please direct them to us or the realtor's website.

Then there is always the subject of knitting. I've started quite a few projects over the last couple of months. Some I couldn't share because they were gifts and I didn't want to spoil the surprise, some because there were gifts and I accidentally gave them away before getting pictures of them, and some because I simply hadn't entirely finished them yet.But I fixed most of that now so here are some reveals!

1. Hugo, the Couch Potato Monster

2. A Slouchy hat for sister Perry

When she told me she lost her hat last year to a strong gust of wind that blew it into a ditch, I knew what I had to do. Then I couldnt leave her sweet companion, sister Ence, behind, so I knit her one too. That one I still need to get a picture of though....

3. A Winter Hat for Elliot

The poor kid doesn't ask for much, so I figure making sure his noggin stays warm during the coming winter is the least I can do. Mostly I just felt like a fun, quick project... and baby hats are the funnest, and the quickest!

4. A huge purple Scarf for ME!

Ugh, sorry for the awful picture quality on these. Ever since I took that photo of the sparkler my lens has been messed up :( Anyway... my old scarf was exactly that: very very old. As in, falling apart. So I decided it was time to be a little selfish and make something for myself for a change.

That concludes todays festivities. I wish you all a super serial spooky Halloween weekend! Booooo

knot so knitzophrenic

Tell me when the 'funny' knitting post titles start being too much, k? I've not been knitting as much as I should have. Do I feel bad about this? Of course not! I've been crazy busy running a busy family, keeping Child Protective Services happy (Max ran away a while ago and was found by the police... don't ask), adapting to the new school year and Sander's new job, and getting ready to emigrate. Hellooooo, I dont have TIME for guilt! This weekend however, my stress levels pretty much maxxed out, and I picked up the ol' knitting again. The following picture really just says it all.

source 

It's the truth. I'm working on a beast of a gift project right now and it saved me last night. I know the person I'm making it for reads this blog, so I can only give you a little sneak peak... but I promise you that when this monstrocity is finished, there will be a big reveal here on the blog!

julia's purple tunic

I finished it. It took me 4 days and I knit everywhere (in the park, on the couch, at the computer, on the roof terrace, in the car, at school) and at all hours of the day (or night, like the time I couldn't get back to sleep at 5AM). Of course we had a major heatwave right when I was knitting my daughter a wool tunic - knitting with sweaty hands: not good. 

Luckily the weather shifted and it was cool enough for her to wear it to school over a t-shirt. Her first words to her teacher that morning: "My mother made this, isn't it PRETTY?!". Bless her adorable little heart.

bazaar bizarre

It goes against all that is right to spend a Saturday at school, but we make an exception for the annual school bazaar. I read there would be pancakes, unicycles, face painting, live music, a vintage market and a gnome forrest. Really, they had me at 'pancakes'.

In Lara's classroom some of the parents donated handmade items to be sold to financially aid the school. Naturally I donated some of my knitting/crocheting. Not exactly sure how much of it was sold because we had to leave a bit early, but I just found out we made nearly 120 Euro's. I know that's not a lot in the scheme of things, but I'm still a little bit proud. I donated the two little purses on the bottom, the two grey knit baby hats, and the white shawl.

That was the bazaar part of this post. Things started getting bizarre when we got in the car to go home and heard a news anchor on the radio talk about a shooting at a mall in Alphen a/d Rijn. A 25-year-old man with an automatic weapon killed 6 people, wounded many, many more, and then shot himself. Alphen a/d Rijn is a mere 10km away from here, and I remember staying in one of the appartments that overlooks that mall. This man had permits for all of the weapons he owned. I just don't know what to say. My heart aches for everyone who has suffered loss because of this useless act of violence. As I am typing this I hear an ambulance driving past somewhere closeby. The sound of the siren fades and Sander tells me that a Dutch person has tweeted that he is going to one-up today's shooter's number of kills. 

I won't be watching the news for a while, I fear the bizarre.

the knitty gritty (ha ha)

I've been talking about how I'm still knitting and crocheting quite a bit and today I figured I'd add some walk to that talk. Of course I've been crocheting for years now, but the knitting is pretty new. I learned the basics as a child from my grandmother but it recently began with the ravelry website and hundreds of seemingly incredibly simple youtube how-to's. I cast on my first project, a seemingly simple vintage pattern for a baby pixie hat, and from then on I have not been able to get knitting off my brain.

 In the first place literally because the pixie hat went horribly wrong and turned out so big I have to wear it (Lara uses it as a play hat now). In the second place because I'm brainwashed. I wake up in the morning and literally the first thing I think about is all the things I could knit. Did you know you can knit on circular needles? Or on 5 double pointed needles at the same time? It's very intense. I've been trying my hand at all of it:

Cables.

Little infant beanies.

This last one is my top secret project on my beautiful new bamboo douple points. I know it makes it slightly less secret, revealing the yarn I'm using, but it could still be anything. When I'm done with this project, I'm making the exact same thing for myself, I like it so much! 

I've also been combining my knitting these past few days with episodes of Mad Men. Good golly that show is beautiful isn't it? And the dialogue is priceless! For instance: 'Try not to be intimidated by all this technology (pointing at a typewriter). It looks complicated, but the men who designed it made it simple enough for a woman to use.' I also love it because the decorating looks like my grandparents appartment and I miss that place, and them, a lot.

Alright, I haven't knit in 30 minutes, gotta go.