Recycle maniac (and a winner)

Normally I make all these little papers with names on it, put them in a bowl and pick a winner for the give away. But writing down 58 names was to much.. Yeah I know, I'm lazy. Or efficient, like you wanna call it. Because now I copied all the reactions to a new document, closed my eyes, went up and down with the cursor and where I stopped, their was the winner!

And the winner is Mia, from Min Inspiration! So Mia, give me your adress and the bracelet is comming to Sweden!

Meanwhile I'm recycling two clothing items. And I'm soooooo happy with my new vest! I bought this one in the thriftstore as a XL men sweater. I felted it in the washingmachine, cut a vest out of it and decorated it with needle felted flowers.

The other one (the fabric below) is originally a round tablecloth, also found in the thriftstore. I love the color, the motif and the way the pattern goes. Perfect to make a skirt out of it.. Although it's not working quit well.. So I'm going to put it beside me and work on it later.

And now.. Now I'm going to make some dinner and then catch a couch with my new collection magazines! Found this great offer on the Internet. 30 craft and interior magazines (101 woonideeen 08/09 en ariadne at home) for just 10 euro including sending!!! Happy, happy!

Flying over and in

3 ORIGINAL babyblankets flew over to Australia last week so it's a bit blanket-less here! haha.. Which isn't completly true because I have lots of wool blankets which I recycle for the PURE line. So I have a lot of these blankets to work with and yesterday I found one, I'm not going to use. It's too beautiful! The color green (back is white!!) is perfect and the retro flowers in the middle are so funky (sorry, bad pictures). And it's in perfect, perfect shape. I guess it was lying on someones attic, never been used. So blankets flew out and in, this week..

This weekend I'll pick a winner from the give away!

'Color me'

After different experiments/designs with the felted balls and wooden beads this is what turned out. I named it 'Color me' because it really colors you! As simple as it is.. I already have put one in the shop but this time... I made one for myself too! I wear a lot of dark colors but like to funk it up with something colorful. Like a scarf, colored shoes or legwarmers. So this necklace is perfect. Weird, how happy one can be with a gift to herself.. hihi..

We got balls!

First, thanks for the massive respons on my two years anniversary give away! Love your response. And there is still time to leave your name and get in!
Yesterday was a busy day and it was until late I could sit and do some crafting. I still had the energy and it was also the 1500 meters ice skating for the Olympics.. So I stayed up till the first break. Really I'm getting old! haha.
I finished some new felted balls during the game (I switch between watching and hearing). For new bracelets, a necklace, lots of things in my mind. And I want to add and combine, wooden beads, crochet and probably some embroidery.
I'm now trying some ideas with adding beads and that's working out perfect. I'll show you the whole result when I can! Oh, and the result with the Olympics when I woke up this morning.. We got our golden medal on the 1500 meter!! Sorry US readers, that Davis lost his gold, this time.. But we are glad we have this one back!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Give away

February 23, two years ago I started this blog. I said it last year with my 'first year anniversary', but here again.. I couldn't imagine love blogging so much! I love to make pictures, make texts, read and learn from your responses. I couldn't imagine a blog being a mirror sometimes because I notice patterns in being busy, being 'negative' or happy and that keeps me alert. I couldn't imagine a blog being more then an interactive world and it would give me nice contacts and 'live' friends.

Anyhow after two years, I'm still pretty happy with my blog and that's something to celibrate. So I'm having a give away! Nothing crochet, nothing knitted or sewed or something out of the 'pure' line but something felted. I started felting because I have ideas to combine this technique with crochet. But I'm not that far already! I started to 'feel' working with the material by wet felting. Did, and am doing some experiments with it. But I wanted to try needle felting too so I did and I love to do that too. I gues I have more 'feeling' with the wool, and the way to work with needle felting then with wet felting. But maybe that changes along the way..

So I made a colorful, felted bracelet. Okay, it's not very original but I like it anyway. The color combination is good! There is a elastic string in it so everybody fits it. And as an extra I made a earring set. Wanna have it? Leave a reply before the end of the month (Sunday 28 febr).

Everything

I asked my mom to help me knit away this yarn I have for a while now. It's beautiful wool that has changes between real big pieces wool and small threads yarn. It has to be knitted on 15 mm needles and you need it with the big pieces but going on the small threads feels so weired. My mom is a great knitter and she started this scarf project. So now I only have to finish it and then it's done.

Meanwhile I'm working on several projects at the same time, as usual. Still experimenting with felt, working on a big crochet project and I'm going pretty good on etsy! I sold my first vintage and probably three crocheted blankets so I'm really happy (and proud!).




And I'm nominated two times for a 'Beautiful Blogger' Award! By the lovely Madam Hert and Severien. So thank you very much, you both! You both wrote such nice 'interesting facts' on yourself! And I'm thinking and thinking and don't come at seven interesting facts but at this methaphoric story. So I tried a 'little story on me'.

I intent to have my feet on the foot pedal. That comes with adhd but I didn't knew that until three years ago. Because I had my foot to long on the peddle the machine did falter. That didn't go at ones but took some time. On the stitch I could see the irregularities but if you weren't looking good enough, you would miss it. So with a sewing machine that's faltering more and more I kept my foot on the pedal until the machine got broken. At first it needed to a repair shop so there is nothing I could do. Just wait, have my foot on the floor instead of the pedal.
When the machine is back from repair, I tried to work on it but it's like the repairman made a mistake. The stitch is going backwards, in reverse... It's getting worse.. But my foot is too heavy to put on the pedal, I don't have the energy to complain, I leave it and leave the machine.

Months later I tried again and damn, it's going in the right direction again. The stitch line is going straight! Sometimes if I push the pedal too hard the machine makes a zig-zag or it misses a stitch. But more and more I get the 'feeling' on how to work with machine, take care of it.
At the moment, for a while now I have a straight line and I like that. Sometimes a zig-zag but then I take my foot of the pedal or, on time, take care for the machine. So that's good! I have the balance I gues. What I need to solve now is that my machine is going in a complete other direction then I was planning on going. I don't know were it's going but I notice to be the follower instead of the leader. You know if I think right, it's going left.. Pretty scary but then again it's real nice to work without a 'pattern' for once in life.

.. So that's for me! Thanks for the award. I'm giving it to al my readers! Take the award because you deserve it. It's my (late) valentine gift to you!

And for some new vintage and handmade items, check the etsy shop.

Love you all

Valentine's day is not my thing.. I think we should always tell the people we love, that we love them. But on the other hand it's good that there's a day to be aware, or get that sign, that we should tell it to others. Like Christmas.. We always have to make peace with eachother but Christmas is that reminder (in my vision).

So, my dear, dear friends, mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law.. I love you all! You are the best and make my world complete. Little, lovely Olivia, you are the best thing that happened last year. Your smile is the best and makes my heart jump over. And I love you when I talk to you about crafting/knutselen and you go smiling.
All my blog and crafting friends.. Thanks for being here! I love you for inspiring me and for leaving such sweet responses. Thank you!

Original, Natural, Pure and Vintage on etsy

As promised, it's done! I opened a etsy shop, as you could see yesterday. Now there's a safe way to pay and visitors from outside the Netherlands and Belgium can buy too, if wanted. My own website is becoming a long term thing so this is a perfect solution for a while. Better then the original-blog-shop. I'll be closing that soon! but I'm still working on the etsy site but the start is made.

I've worked out four lines I want to work with.

ORIGINAL; only bright colorful, crocheted cotton items

NATURAL; handknitted and crocheted naturel items, felted or embroidered from different materials

PURE; items made out of recycled, vintage 100% wool blankets

VINTAGE; beautiful vintage fabrics, fine tableware, tin cans and other items that have stories on them, great motifs or are perfect shaped.

See for yourself! Every feedback is welcome. And for Dutch or Belgium buyers, as said on etsy, the national sending rates are much lower off course.

'Original'

'Natural'

'Pure'

'Vintage'

Experimenting with wet felting

I love fibers, yarn and all textiles. I knit, crochet, embroider a bit, sew with different materials but never felted before. So I had to experiment with felting and now did.

I bought some small balls wool, watched a lot of youtube tutorials, read information on different sites and started! The first project is the purple pink 'rose cord' on the picture above. I wanted it to be a felted cord to combine with crochet, to make a necklace or bracelet from. But the cord is 'spliting'. So for this one I enlarged the spliting on the end because it looks like a rose...

So I tried that another time with another technique. That didn't work at all!! The result is the pink, purple cloth. I was to far in the felting proces to make a rope/cord. I have to say I really love the pattern and the colorcombination of this felted cloth but I don't know yet what to do with it.





Stopped with trying to make a cord and experimented with making a smooth/egal cloth. And you would think it worked out but no, no... See below what happened... I have thin spots, even holes in it!! I know what I did wrong, like using too less wool, and I can work it away with needle felting but that's for later.


I needed to experiment with the wool because I want to learn how to work with the felt. So I tried a smaller project and worked on felting a ring. And that's working out fine!!! I have more feeling with the material now and see what the effect of the different treatments is.
So the rings are going great and I really love to make these. And the size is (almost) perfect, they are perfect shaped with no spliting and I found out to work with two colours.

The first one is with orange and pink. The second one is a blue one, with fuchsia and a dott old pink. And I made one with dark red and fuchsia (the middle one on the top picture).

And these balls... The are really tiny and I felted them on a little string. Hope these will turn out to be a ring too! Love experimenting!!!!!!

Little brown bag

Had two balls thick, brown wool left over. They were starring at me for a while now so I turned them into a 'little brown bag'. Not a 'little green bag' but brown... A sturdy, small, handy bag for just your wallet, phone, keys and some small things. And for tonight, nothing! It was a good, busy week and I'm gonna crash on the couch! Relax! Enjoy your evening/weekend too!

New vase covers

And finally after more then two weeks I'm feeling better! Still sneezing and couching but that's all! I'm so glad that, that's over.
I made some new flowervase covers for the shop. Besides the earlier 'Yummie Tummy' in pink, blue and soft tones, here are two multicolored ones. Non of my vases will be ever the same. Because of the colour but also because of the shape. I have figured out a basic pattern and then go while making. I love too shape while working and make all different models. With big or just small tummies, a classic model, high or short neck, one or maybe two roundings in the vase, I'll create by working.





I feel very flattered and honoured to receive emails, and get messages from people outside the Netherlands and Belgium who want to buy my items. As I'm saying for months I'm working on a website/shop but because of circumstances it's taking longer then expected. To be able to sell with paying possibilities I'm setting up an etsy store. Hope to have that worked out at the end of the week.

although it's cold outside, inside spring is coming...