Howling at the Moon

Don't you love it when birds visit your garden? I do!  At our former house we had a very small garden, but lots of birds, bats and bees, but although we have a much larger garden at our new house now, there isn't a single tree in it. Lots of bushes that attract bees and other insects, but not one tree for birds to take shelter. A couple of weeks ago I asked a landscaper to design a garden for us and when she asked me about must haves, I asked for a couple of trees: a couple of fruit trees for a small orchard, two or tree pollard willows (my favorite tree!) and a couple of trees to effectuate more privacy.  Last week the landscaper came with her design and I absolutely love it. It's green and lush, it gives a lot of privacy, it has enough places for relaxing alone and with friends, and the best: I think it has lots of possibilities for birds, insects and small animals like hedgehogs to find food and shelter. I think we will start building the garden in springtime, so for now...

  Stash Buster 4   While searching for small Valentine's Day crochet projects to reduce my yarn stash with, I came along these cute cup cozies. Excellent to use on my favorite drink (latte). I love the tiny hearts!   Pattern : Tiny Hearts Cup Cozies by Janet Pippin on Ravelry Yarn : various colors by Katia    ~*~   My Old Fashion Granny Squares Pillow is featured by Creative Jewish Mom , JENnerally Informed , White Arrows Home and The Ponds Farmhouse !      The Horse Shawl that I made for my daughter was featured by Ginx Craft ! 

 Here in The Netherlands we're in the middle of our second lock down since corona entered the world's stage. My daughters follow online classes and my husband worked at home since march anyway, so it's busy in our house. Fortunately everyone has his and her own workspace and own laptop, so no problems for that matter. The problem is boredom (a luxury, first world problem of course), so every now and then I have to come up with 'something to do'. This week I ordered beads, memory wire, charms and such, so we could make bracelets. I made this one, for Valentine's Day.    ~*~   My Valentine Hot Chocolate Bombs were featured by Ginger Snap Crafts , My Girlish Whims , My Thrift Store Addiction , Simply Sweet Home , The House on Silverado and Life and Linda !  

  Stash Buster 3 Stash buster again (although not as much as would like). I have a lot cotton yarn in about every color, a mountain that seems to grow every year. Some weeks ago I found a couple of Delfts Blue tiles in an unpacked moving box. I inherited them from my grandmother and because I really love the tiles I want to hang them somewhere in my living room. Matching with the tiles I made the Canal House Cushions, but after finding another small cushion I thought of making another cushion in old fashioned granny squares, in the same colors. Yarn enough, so after some digging in the stash I found the right colors.   This is the result. Matches perfectly with my other cushions. The mountain of yarn hasn't dwindled very much after this project, but it's a start.    Pattern: Granny Square Yarn: different shades of blue by Katia     ~*~   The Horse Shawl that I made for my daughter's Birthday was featured by Annemaries Haakblog , Creative Jewish Mom ,...

  Both of my daughters (11 and 13) are fervent followers of TikTok and I have to say: sometimes they come up with really great ideas, that they found on this app. One of this ideas is the Chocolate Bomb. And just when they told me about the chocolate bombs I saw them pop up everywhere in blog land. The bombs look so beautiful, that I wanted it try them out for Valentines Day, together with my daughters of course. We used Red Velvet Chocolate for a pink color and filled the bombs with little marshmallows, sprinkles and sugar confetti and of course cocoa.

Stash Buster 2 Another stashbuster: this Horse Shawl. This week my youngest has her 11th Birthday. As I told you before, she is totally into horses lately, so when I found two skeins of this grey wool in my stash I wanted to make something horsy from it, but I didn't really knew what. I looked around on Pinterest and after a blanket (too little skeins), a cushion (she already has about 100) and a stuffed animal (I already made one as a Christmas present) went through my mind, I thought about a shawl with horse embroidery on it. And that's what these two skeins became: The Horse Shawl!   Pattern: chain 35, then crochet sc's in every stitch, ch1 and turn Repeat until you think your shawl is long enough (or until you're left out of yarn, like I did, as is the whole purpose of this stash buster project; don't forget to keep some yarn for the fringe) The horse head pattern is from Kandi Patterns Yarn: Royal Grey by Zeeman     ~*~ My Dish Towels were featured by Oomba...

A friend of mine wore a black sweater once that was totally to my like. It had a big red flock N on the front, because the brand starts with an N. I liked it even better would it have an M on the front, the first letter of my own name. After searching for months I came to the conclusion that black sweaters with a red M on the front were nowhere to be found, so I left the idea of having that great sweater. Apparently the idea stayed in the back of my head, because while I ordered a custom made sweater for my daughter last week, I thought about the black sweater and the red M again. Unfortunately, even the web shop that produces custom made sweaters, shirts, cups and more of such didn't have what I want, but another shop popped into my mind. Years ago I ordered iron ons for shirts of my daughters that had stains or had to be embellished otherwise and there I found the flock red M!  The only thing I had to do now was ordering a plain black sweater. I ordered two, so I c...

Stash Buster 1  What's your resolution for the new year, if you have any?   I didn't make much plans for 2021, because no one knows when we will go back to somewhat normal around here, but I set myself a goal: using up as much stash of yarn as possible. The irony will that using up stash lead to buying more yarn, because with just two skeins of yarn of some kind, I can't make anything of the projects on my list. So I'm awaiting skeins to make a cowl and I'm awaiting skeins to make another blanket, only so I can use the ones that I already have haha! For the Dish Towels below I had enough yarn after untangling three skeins of white cotton.    Pattern: Made up myself (chain 75, then triple crochet in every stitch for 30 rows) Yarn: Cotton Light White by Drops Design    ~*~   My PomPons Blanket was featured by: Pieced Pastimes Annemaries Haakblog A Labour of Life Creative Jewish Mom A Pinch of Joy LouLou Girls My Girlish Whims   Grandma'...

Do you recognize this? You see something to your like in the Craft Store and although you don't really know what to use it for, you need to have it. You buy it and when you get home you put it away and don't think about it for months. Then one day you're searching for something else and you find your purchase back and right that moment you know what to make with it.  Exactly this happened when I saw these little pompons. The same week I found them back I had spotted a nice crochet stitch, that I also didn't really have a purpose for, but after finding the pompons again it all came together. However, making this blanket wasn't easy. Because of hitch after hitch (lost hooks, not enough yarn and temporarily unavailable, too, and also because the blanket was getting wider and wider for some reason, so I had to pull out half of the blanket three or four of times) it took me a couple of months to finish it.   After starting anew time after time, the fun of making it was l...