Quote of the day

In the rhythm of the needles

there is music for the soul.


Breiclub in Oostende : om de 2 weken de zaterdag van 10 u - 12.30 u in de bieb



vrijdag 21 augustus 2015

little mouse

Back in July, when I was headed for the spinning and dyeing workshop at textielwerk wol en zo I made a little detour to Arnemuiden.
There is a wonderful blogster on line, Jeanet from Blij dat ik brei, and she posts very inspirational projects.  Crochet or knitting, she always seems to find pretty things to put on her blog.  I recently discovered that she actually has her own woolshop, in Arnemuiden.


isn't it a picture ?

So I planned to visit her.
The shop is such an amazing colourful experience.  She has so many beautiful wools and many many scarves and bags and hats en mitts on display.


so many colours of unicat !
 Some of her projects are so yummy !






 Unfortunately, it must have been the hottest day of the summer when I came around.  Luckily, that also meant there was hardly anybody in the shop, and I could have a stroll and gasp at all these amazing things.
Jeannet is such a lovely lady, and so eager to help in any way she can.

I couldn't resist the lovely cuddly ragdolls she made. The pattern can be found on ravelry here.
I made the little mouse.







And I also bought some of the beautiful fabric, typically for Zeeland.
 
 

Thanks Jeanet for making this a visit to cherish and remember !

donderdag 20 augustus 2015

art quilt

At the beginning of this month, I enrolled in a quilting class at De draad van Ariadne.
The workshops are organised at the house of Dorien.  We used to live in the same street, many many suns ago.  We even went to the same school, and she will always be that girl to my mind/eyes - no matter how grey our hairs are now.  So, she hasn't changed a bit, and when we met, it immediately 'clicked' like in the old days.



3 afternoons of quilt making.  Starting with a drawing, collecting ideas, fabrics, slowly forming.  No ordinary quilt, like the beautiful throws you think of.  No.  Art quilt.  It means you can throw in anything, fibers, pictures, embroidery, any stuff.  That's easy.  Yeah, right.  Not to my mind.

the others were wonderful !






Great combination !

The difficulty in this proces is the 'letting go'.  There is no limit to what you can do, except the limits and bounderies of what you learned before.  So it took me a while to feel comfortable with this.  And if you can do anything, it is restrictive too.  The liberty can block the creative process.
I'm used to following a pattern, an outline - created by somebody else. I guess I'm a copy cat at heart.  When I see a beautiful pattern, I want to copy it.   I always add something of my own, and very often change things along the way. But start from scratch ?  Brrr....


Dorien wanted me to make something. Create ! And I'm telling you, that isn't easy. So I had come up with a basic idea.

Living in a seaside village, I wanted the quilt to reflect that.  It had to be about sea and beach.  a sunset perhaps, since that has nice colours ?
Then I remembered an evening my son and I had a stroll along the sea, we took some pictures and jumped over little waves.  He lost his mobile phone that evening, it must have fallen out of his pocket.  The sea ate it.  It is probably floating towards England now...  big crisis, I remember him being very upset about this. So maybe I could encorporate this into the quilt.

Arno at the sea


Ok.  The ideas were there.  I arranged fabrics and threads on the canvas.  I embroidered and stitched some with the machine.  Added stuff I had made on other workhops. And when I got in the flow, It was real fun and time flew by.



arranging and changing

I am now the proud owner of a hand made art quilt.  It is hanging on my wall.  And you now what ?  My son immediately recognized what it was about !

can you see the sun, the waves, and the mobile phone ?  tihihi...

Some leftover from another workshop finally found its place

silver threads arranged to symbolize the waves


Dorien has a special talent.  Her house, the workshop area and everything she showed us has a waw-effect.  She has won prizes with her wonderful art.  She is a very patient, sweet and lovely teacher - I'm going back there next year.  Can't wait !



woensdag 5 augustus 2015

fair isle headband

Just a quick knit - in summer it is too hot for big projects.



This pattern was in a Christmas Calendar by Regia knits, a few years ago.  It was love at first sight. I had to settle for another yarn though, there was no regia to be found in the nearby surroundings. Sachenmayer is just as soft, and came in these lovely colours.  Bright Fuchsia pink and creamy white.


The fair isle technique makes it double layered, and will be warm around my ears come autumn winds.

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