Oh, the Places Knitters Go!

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Hello! It’s good to be back here. Maybe you haven’t even noticed I’ve been away, but we’ve been on a late summer holiday to Germany. We spent the first half in the Mosel region, and the second half in the Eifel. Above a photo of the view on the river Mosel from our balcony, and below our first holiday home from the outside:

In my dreams, that is. In real life this is Reichsburg Cochem. And in real life we stayed in a far humbler (but lovely) abode. In real life, this was what I looked out on when I sat knitting outside our cottage.

I didn’t knit all that much during our holiday, though. Partly because we were out walking and visiting places most of the time, and partly because it was so hot that the yarn almost felted in my hands. A few rows on a scarf here and there, and half a sock was all I knit.

Halfway through the holiday, I celebrated my birthday. We had some of the famous and delicious German Kuchen, of course. (The Germans are so much better at baking cakes than we Dutch are.) And I also got to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I chose a visit to another castle and… a yarn shop (what else?). This is Schloss Bürresheim.

The castle is entered through a kind of tunnel that leads to a courtyard with an outdoor summer kitchen. It’s very special, like being in a film.

Actually it is in a film. In an edited form, it is the castle where Indiana Jones’ father is held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, let’s drive on to the yarn shop. It’s Die Kleine Wollfabrik in Kaisersesch. My guess is that tourists are a rarity in this town. It’s 30 ˚ C/86 ˚ F, with glaring sunlight and noise and dust from building activities in a colourless street. Oh, the places we knitters go! For a moment I wonder ‘what on earth am I doing here?’, and then step inside a world of colour.

There is yarn everywhere. In overflowing baskets…

… in cubbyholes, on shelves, on the floor…

… on top of storage units and in front of the windows. These skeins were dyed by the shop owner herself:

And there is also quite a bit of spinning fibre.

So, is this yarn shop worth a detour? If you’re looking for yarn for a sweater – frankly no. There is very little of that kind of yarn here. But if you’d like some yarn for socks or a shawl – absolutely. Be prepared for a kind of yarn jungle expedition, though. You’d be wise to have some kind of idea of what you’re looking for beforehand.

From all of the very colourful yarns, I chose several rather quiet ones for three pairs of socks to give away, and a variegated yarn for a pair for me. All of them yarns I haven’t knit with before – I’ll tell you more about them when I get round to knitting them up.

After all of the beautiful places we’ve been to, it’s good to be back home. In a sense, I’m a cow. Not the nicest thing to say of oneself perhaps, but what I mean is: I need time to chew things over. After ingesting lots of grass/impressions, both cows and I need some quiet time to digest everything. Sifting through my photographs and writing about my experiences helps me do that.

Thank you for reading. I hope to digest/write about a visit to another textiles-related place next week before getting back to my ordinary knitting chat. Hope to see you then!

Many Hands Make Light Work

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Hello! As you may know, in addition to my various personal knitting projects, I’m also involved in a community project: Aula in Blauw. It’s about a funeral space in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden that has a beautiful view, but looks and feels terribly bleak inside. The plan is to make it into a more comfortable and comforting place using local wool and dye stuff.

The garbage bags leaning against the benches are filled with wool from a local flock of sheep. This is only a fraction of the total amount of wool needed. I took 2 batts home, weighing 564 grams together.

After spinning and plying, I ended up with five-and-a-half skeins of aran weight yarn, with a total weight of 540 grams. (The missing 24 grams were vegetable matter and unspinnable bits of wool).

It isn’t a lot, 540 grams, if you think of all the wall panels, furniture coverings and cushions that will be needed for the entire space. And a carpet, too. But I’m only one of the volunteers and many hands make light work.

Many hands make light work is one of the maxims of non-profit organization Pleed (a Dutch word for blanket, pronounced more or less as played) and this is one of their projects. From the waste product it now is, Pleed wants to make wool from local traditional sheep breeds into a valuable resource again. It feels good to be making a small contribution to that.

These are two pages from the Wool Rescue Handbook they’ve published. We were given a new edition at the kick-off of Aula in Blauw.

The bilingual booklet (Dutch & English) contains lots of information and tips for would-be wool rescuers that can be applied anywhere in the world. If you’d like a copy, don’t hesitate to contact Pleed here.

I put my hand spun wool in a box, added a nice card with the details of my skeins and sent it off.

Now it’ll go to another batch of volunteers – the dyers. They’ll dye everything beautiful shades of blue using woad.

Well, actually using woad leaves not flowers, but the flowers are more photogenic.

When it’s all been dyed, it’s my turn (and that of many others) again. Later this year, I get to knit a cushion cover. Or perhaps several – I don’t know yet. What I don’t know either is whether I’ll get my own yarn back or someone else’s. I’ll wait and see…

To close off today’s post, here’s a lovely quote from the Wool Rescue Handbook:

Enjoy

Working with your hands is relaxing. It frees your mind.
The quiet harmony of spinning a yarn,
the rhythm of a weaver’s loom,
the rubbing movement of felting,
or the sound of knitting needles:
all these activities are very enjoyable and relaxing.
Handling soft natural fabric is enjoyable.
The joy of making something passes on to the person receiving it.
A jumper made with love is so much nicer to wear.
What is made with love lasts longest.

Late Summer Knitting

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It’s the first day of September today and it won’t be long before the summer is over. The hedgerows are speckled red, orange and purple with elderberries, rosehips and blackberries.

It’s that in-between time, when on the whole it still feels like summer, but with dewy early-morning spiders’ webs and clumps of fungi letting us know that autumn is on its way.

It’ll soon be time to start knitting warm and cosy sweaters or perhaps even a blanket. But for now, I’m still knitting on my small summer projects. Another cardi for our grandson, this time with a diamond pattern, is well underway.

I’ve also started another pair of socks from the 52 Weeks of Socks book. This time it’s Lempi, designed by Rachel Coopey. My first attempt became far too wide, with a very loose and open fabric.

I never swatch for socks – do you? I just start and try them on, and if I’m not happy with what I’m getting I rip them out and start anew. That’s what I did with the first Lempi sock. I went down from the suggested 2.5 mm/US 1½ to 2.0 mm/US 0. Now the fabric and fit look right.

These socks have a knit-and-purl pattern on the feet, some colourwork on the legs, and long cuffs in p2, k2 alternating with narrow bands of k2, p2. A simple but very nice rib pattern. Just a few rows to go and I can start on the colourwork section.

The yarn I’m using is Lang Jawoll in three colours. It comes in 50 gram skeins instead of the usual 100 grams, which is handy for sock patterns using multiple colours. Each skein hides a small spool of thinner yarn inside for reinforcing heels and toes.

Both the Lempi socks and the little cardi need quite a bit of attention. The cardigan isn’t very difficult, but I’m making the pattern up as I go which makes it a little more complicated. So, in need of a mindless project alongside, I’ve also swatched for another Polka Dot Scarf. I gave the first one I knit away and may (or may not) keep this one myself. I’m using a different colour for the actual scarf – dark denim instead of grey.

With these three projects on my needles, I’ll have enough to do over the coming weeks. Meanwhile I’ll be composing a to-knit-list for when the days really start getting colder. Are you still knitting summery projects, too, or do you already have larger and warmer things on your lap?

It isn’t warm enough for our cherry tomatoes to ripen on the plants anymore, this late in the summer. So some of them are ripening on a glass plate in our window sill. They’re so pretty, and very tasty, too.

Hope to see you again next week. Byeeee! xxx

The Story of the Drowned Village

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Hello! Today, I’m going to tell you a story. A story about a lake that wasn’t always a lake, a path that leads nowhere, and a drowned village.

‘Show, don’t tell,’ isn’t that what aspiring writers are always taught? Well, I’ll do better than that – I’ll show AND tell. Look, this is where we start – a narrow brick path, with old reed-roofed cottages on one side…

… and a flower garden and more tiny cottages on the other.

One of the cottages is now a tearoom. Maybe we can have a cuppa there later.

This used to be the path to the village of Beulake, but now it leads nowhere. Well, not quite nowhere – it ends at the water’s edge and brings us to the boat I’ve rented especially for us today. Please hop in. To get to the lake we need to negotiate a narrow canal first.

And here we are, on the Beulakerwijde – the lake that wasn’t always a lake. We’re not the only ones enjoying a lovely day out on the water.

It’s hot and sunny today, with a gentle breeze. Very different from that fateful day in November 1776, when rain and wind lashed the countryside.

Extensive peat extraction had made the area around Beulake vulnerable and a year earlier a heavy storm had broken the sea dykes in several places, flooded the land and driven away most of the inhabitants of the village. This time the storm was even worse. Fearing for their lives, the remaining 50 villagers fled to the church. They experienced the worst 36 hours of their lives, but survived to tell the tale. The village was drowned, however, and the entire area became a lake – the lake we’re on today.

The church disappeared in another storm, fifty years later, and… But wait, what’s that there in the distance?

It looks like, no, it can’t be, yes it is a… church tower???

A church tower complete with a bell and clockwork!

Well, actually it’s an artwork approximately in the spot where the original church of Beulake was. The small, uninhabited island behind it is called Kerkhof (church yard). It’s not hard to guess why.

The story of the drowned village of Beulake is the story behind one of the two versions of my Story Lines shawl.

The photographs were taken here, and I’ve been wanting to tell you the story behind it for a long time, but somehow never got round to it.

There is also a red version with ruffles along the edge, but the watery blue version ends with a row of droplets.

Well, it’s time to head back, along the reedbeds and water lilies.

We’re lucky – the tearoom is still open. Do you have time to stay a little longer? What would you like? Coffee, fresh mint tea, an alcohol-free beer? And carrot cake, a brownie or a slice of Dutch apple pie to go with it?

The Story Lines pattern can be found here on Ravelry and the blog post about both versions of the shawl here.

Our boat trip started from Natuurmonumenten visitor centre De Wieden. (Natuurmonumenten is the nature conservation organisation that protects and manages the beautiful and vulnerable wetland area of today’s story.)

A Monkey in the Forest

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Hello! Last week, besides needing some quiet time to myself, I was too busy finishing a monkey to write a blog post. Before he was to move in with our grandson, I took him to the forest at the end of our street for a photo shoot. First we walked through the part with the big old beeches, where we got a good shot of the way his tail peeks out from his dungarees.

But on the whole it was too dark under the trees, so we walked on to a sunnier spot. It’s one of my favourite places in the whole wide world – a tiny, perfectly round pool.

It’s probably an ancient cattle watering-hole and it is surrounded by a small patch of heathland.

The heather is in bloom at the moment. It’s mainly ling, but there is also some bell heather.

So, here he is, the monkey I knit for our grandson:

He was knit entirely in one piece, starting from the top of his head. It isn’t an easy knit, but the pattern is very clear and has photo tutorials for literally every detail. The only part that gave me some problems was the ‘frown’ – the vertical line between his eyes that needed exactly the right increases to get a neat result. It’s a very clever construction and I particularly like the shaping of the monkey’s back and bum that allow him to sit up straight on every surface.

I knit the monkey a pair of dungarees with buttons on the back, that you’ve already seen from behind. This is the front:

And a jacket that also leaves the tail free.

Even though it’s the middle of the Summer Holiday Season and there are many, many tourists in the region, nobody comes up to me here, asking what on earth I am doing. It’s quiet. Dragon flies are flitting across the pond, too fast for me to capture. A viviparous lizard is also faster than my camera. Fortunately the carnivorous sundew stays in place, allowing me all the time I need to photograph its treacherous sticky droplets.

We enjoyed a lovely couple of hours in the forest, the monkey and I. He has now moved in with our grandson and they are getting along very well. The monkey has already been dressed and undressed countless times, and also been thrown about quite a bit, but he keeps smiling and doesn’t seem to mind.

For the knitters among you, here are a few details:

  • Yarn: Sandness ‘Tynn Merinoull’ (monkey, 20 MC, 8 g CC); Dalegarn ‘Baby Ull’ (jacket and dungarees 17 g each, mouth small remnant); I used a fingering-weight yarn, but the monkey can be knit in any yarn weight
  • Height of monkey: 18 cm/7” from top of head to bum; 27 cm/10½” including legs
  • Knitting needles: 2,25 mm/US 1 for monkey; 3,0 mm/US 2½ for clothes
  • The designer’s website (in Dutch) with patterns and supplies for this monkey and other softies can be found here

The Dutch paper pattern booklet includes the jacket. There is a separate booklet for the dungarees and some more clothes. Designer Anita mostly uses colourful yarns like Schoppel Zauberball for her creations.

The digital pattern for the monkey in Dutch, English, German and French can be found here on Ravelry; the dungarees in Dutch and English here; and a dress here.

Because I wanted the monkey to be washable, I’ve filled it with synthetic filling. For weighting the hands, feet and bum I used plastic pellets encased in cotton tubular bandage.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to ‘our’ forest with the monkey and me. Thank you for joining us! xxx

Small Summer Pleasures

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Hello! I know that some of you are on holiday, while others are off enjoying a fabulous weekend at a Fiber Fest. So maybe you’re reading this in front of your tent, on the veranda of your summer cottage, or in your hotel room. Or during your coffee break at home or at work. I like imagining all these different surroundings and look forward to reading about them on your blogs, Ravelry or elsewhere.

Nothing much is happening here at the moment. We’re at home, doing some work and just living our lives, and I thought this week I’d write about several of my small summer pleasures. First of all: rain.

We’ve had so much rain this week! Is that a pleasure? Yes, for me it is. After the hot and dry start to the summer, I love the muted light, the freshness and the wetness of it all. And our soil, plants and trees really need it.

The garden is perking up and another of my small summer pleasures is strolling through it, looking at the flowers, butterflies and insects. I’ve picked a few sprays of miniature roses for a small glass vase (top). We also have a tiny fuchsia bush, with flowers like elfin ballerinas.

In a recent episode of BBC’s Gardener’s World, there was an elderly couple who had dedicated their lives to growing miniature fuchsias. On the one hand, incredibly twee. What a thing to dedicate your life to! But on the other, so peaceful – there are far worse things to do with one’s life.

Speaking of peaceful, how can I ever swat a fly again, now that I’ve looked at this one from up close? With its veined glassy wings, its huge red eyes and its checkerboard-pattered backside it’s a beautiful creature.

My small summer knitting projects are also giving me a lot of pleasure. I just finished a pair of Welted Fingerless Gloves for our daughter, to replace a pair that was worn to shreds. They took 34 grams of Fonty’s ‘Tartan 3’, a yarn dyed using a more sustainable method than usual.

On my needles now is a small monkey for our grandson. More about that soon, when it’s finished.

We do not have a vegetable garden anymore, but we do have some vegetables in our garden. Rocket and spinach on last year’s compost heap. Rhubarb plants here and there. And one tomato and one cucumber plant against our tool shed.

The tomatoes are not ripe yet, but we’ve already harvested three wonderfully fresh and crunchy cucumbers – another small summer pleasure.

The other day we ate slices of cucumber with an Indonesian-style meal. (We have a large Indonesian community and their food culture has been an important influence on Dutch cuisine.) While I was cooking and laying the table, I thought you might like my recipe for Nasi Goreng and took some pictures. It’s an easy weekday meal and I’ve made it countless times over the years.

I don’t usually measure the quantities and sometimes vary with the ingredients, but I’ve done my best to write up a cookable recipe. My version is only slightly spicy. My husband likes it hot and adds lots of sambal.

Nasi Goreng

Serves 2

Ingredients

  • 125 g white rice
  • 1 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 150 g chicken breast, cut into cubes, or a vegetarian alternative
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 tsp ground coriander seeds
  • ½ tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp sambal brandal (a mild, fried sambal)
  • 1 medium carrot, finely diced
  • 150 g finely shredded pointy cabbage
  • ½ tbsp ketjap asin (salty soy sauce)
  • ½ tbsp ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)
  • Salt

Method

The day before:

  • Cook the rice, leave to cool and store in the fridge (It is essential to do this ahead of time or you’ll get a very sticky Nasi Goreng)

On the day:

  • Heat the oil in a wok and fry the chicken cubes on high heat until lightly browned
  • Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion and fry until slightly transparent
  • Add the sambal brandal, ground coriander and cumin and stir for 2 mins
  • Turn up the heat, add in the carrot and cabbage and stir fry for about 3 mins
  • Reduce the heat to low, mix in the cooked rice and the two kinds of ketjap, and heat through
  • Add salt to taste

To serve:

  • This time we ate the Nasi Goreng with sliced cucumber, prawn crackers, serundeng (seasoned roasted coconut with peanuts) and fried egg.
  • Sometimes I also serve it with stir-fried bean sprouts, atjar tjampoer (sweet-and-sour pickles) and/or satay (peanut) sauce

Enjoy!

Spinning for a Community Project

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Hello! A slightly grubby street sign tells us that we’ve arrived at Schapendijkje (Sheep Lane). An apt name in view of why we’re here. So, where am I taking you today and why?

Well, we’re at a rather unusual place and I hope you won’t click away as soon as you know. We’re at the Noorderbegraafplaats – a large cemetery in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden.

The reason we’re here is that it has a modern funeral space that urgently needs help from us, wool workers. (I’m using the word space instead of chapel because it is non-denominational.)

Come and take a look inside and you’ll understand why. With its white walls and wood-and-steel furniture, the interior is fresh, modern and spacious.

But the acoustics are terrible, sitting on the wooden benches for longer than five minutes is torture, and the atmosphere is rather bleak. The creative forces behind wool-rescuers’ organisation Pleed immediately saw possibilities and started the community project Aula in Blauw. In their words, the aim of the project is

‘to have a funeral space where people can feel embraced by
soft local woad-dyed blue wool.’

The plan is to improve the acoustics and atmosphere with felted wall panels, a hooked rug on the floor, long woven coverings for the backs and seats of the benches, and knitted and crocheted cushions.

Around sixty enthusiastic people showed up for the kick-off, and many more names are on the list of volunteers. I don’t feel comfortable placing pictures of their faces on the internet, but I think I can safely show their legs and feet.

For those of us volunteering as spinners, wool from the flock of sheep grazing the public green spaces in Leeuwarden was available.

I came home with two batts of washed (but still slightly greasy) and carded wool – 564 grams in total. The flock consists of Drenthe Heath Sheep, Schoonebekers and mixed breeds. I was told that ‘my’ wool is Drenthe Heath Sheep.

We’re asked to spin a fairly thick yarn and were given a length of blue-grey hand-spun wool as a guideline. My first two tries were too thin, but I think what I’m getting now is about right.

The 2-ply yarn I’m spinning is 10 wpi (wraps per inch), which amounts to a worsted-weight yarn. This is my wpi tool with its sunny smile:

The spinning needs to be finished by September, when the yarn will go to the next stage: the dyers.

Below, you can see my spinning set-up. My Louët S10 spinning wheel and an old kitchen chair. To the right a small basket for catching vegetable matter and unspinnable bits of wool. To the left a big basket of unspun wool. I’m spinning with a black tea towel on my lap, to protect my clothes and to better see what I’m doing with the white wool.

I’ve had some questions from another volunteer, so for anyone who’s interested, this is how I spin this yarn. I’m not saying this is the only way or the best way – it’s just how I do it.

I’m using a short forward draft, for a denser hard-wearing yarn. For spinning I’m using the largest ratio of my wheel (the largest disc). This will give the yarn the least amount of twist, which is most suitable for a thicker yarn. While I’m spinning, my wheel is turning to the right and I’m counting with every time I treadle: 1, 2, 3, let go.

I still get more twist than needed, though, because my hands aren’t fast enough feeding in the yarn. This is why I’m using the middle disc for plying. That will take enough of the twist out to make a stable, not overly twisted yarn. While I’m plying, my wheel is turning to the left and I’m counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, let go.

This isn’t the easiest wool I’ve ever worked with if I’m honest, and I was struggling a bit at first. But after I decided not to fight the wool anymore and accept its character we’ve been getting along fine together, the wool and I. I’m no longer trying to spin a perfectly smooth thread but aiming for a rustic yarn. Sounds good, doesn’t it, rustic? It’s a great lesson in embracing imperfection.

If you’ve discovered my blog only recently, here are a few related posts you may enjoy reading:

Thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you again next week!

A Yarn Shop and Sock Blockers

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Hello! As I said at the end of last week’s post, we added a couple of kilometres to the flax trail to visit a yarn shop. It is called Selden Sá! and is situated in Eastrum, a village of under 200 inhabitants.

For Selden Sá! to stay in business, either the people in Eastrum must be hugely prolific knitters eating up miles of yarn or there must be something about this out-of-the-way shop that makes people travel to it from far and wide. Let’s take a look around to find out.

Focused on flax, I spotted several linen yarns (e.g. Borgo de Pazzi Lino in photo at top). Lovely cool and summery. I also saw and fondled an extremely soft wool-and-cotton blend that would be perfect for a sweater for our grandson (photo below, to left of mannequins, third row from the top).

I’m hopeless at choosing things on the spot and regrettably didn’t buy any.

From people in my knitting group I’d already heard that Selden Sá! stocks many Scandinavian yarns and I recognized familiar ‘faces’ from Istex, Rauma, BC Garn and Holst Garn. There’s also a lot of Filcolana, a Danish brand I’m not familiar with but would definitely love to try.

For me, there is something so uplifting about browsing around in a yarn shop. All those colours! All those possibilities!

Don’t you just love it when a shop has lots of samples for inspiration?

A basket filled with swatches may not excite most people, but I could easily spend an entire afternoon studying them.

I wasn’t only browsing around, though, but also looking for something. What I needed was yarn for a pair of manly socks with an intricate stitch pattern in a light neutral, like solid grey or beige or something. What I left the shop with was a skein of hand-dyed variegated sock yarn in pink and taupe. Uh-oh, how unsensible! But very pretty, don’t you think?

I also bought a pair of wooden sock blockers – something I’ve been wanting to try for a long time.

I had just finished a pair of socks from a self-striping yarn and put them to soak as soon as we arrived home. To find out how much difference sock blockers make, I decided to block one sock and just hang the other sock to dry on the drying rack.

The socks fit my foot (shoe size 38) and the sock blockers were size 38-40. What I expected was that the sock would need to be stretched around the blocker. What actually happened was that the sock blocker disappeared completely inside the sock, hook and all! Upon drying, the sock shrank back a little, but still sat loosely around the blocker.

A bad buy? Well, that’s what I certainly thought at first. But when the socks were dry and I compared them, I could see a slight difference between the blocked and the unblocked sock. I don’t know if you can see it in the photo below, but the blocked sock (right) looked slightly neater, with more even stitches than the unblocked sock (left).

I expect the difference to be more marked in socks with a lace or cable pattern. I also suspect I need a pair of sock blockers in a larger size. Yes, I really think I need to pay Selden Sá another visit, for larger sock blockers, that soft wool-and-cotton yarn for our grandson and perhaps a few other things…

Do any of you have experience with sock blockers? Do you think they really make a difference? And do the blockers need to be larger than the socks or will that stretch out the knitted fabric too much?

I’d be grateful for your advice, but even if you don’t have any, I’m grateful for your visit. Bye! xxx

Follow the Blue Line

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Hello! Usually my writings are about woolly things, but today it’s all about flax and linen. My husband and I followed flax trail Follow the Blue Line last Saturday, and I thought you might like to follow it with us.

The 30-kilometre-long trail covers everything from growing flax to processing it, and spinning and weaving it into linen. Let’s follow it in the order we did, and we’ll see everything along the way. So, where are we? Well, we’re in the northernmost part of Friesland, with its open agricultural landscape.

Before we moved to where we are now, we lived in this area for 15 years and it still feels very much like home. We’re starting in the village of Blije, at textile hand-printing studio Kleine Lijn. Nynke prints all kinds of designs on cotton, silk and linen. My eye is immediately drawn to her plant prints. The top of this post shows a print of flax stalks with seedheads on linen. Here is some more of her work:

We’ve been following the trail for at least 30 minutes now, so high time for some refreshments in the adjacent tea garden, with its lovely mix of vintage furniture…

…and mismatched china.

Ready to continue the trail?

Before Nynke can print onto it, the linen she uses has a long way to go. It starts out as flax, a traditional crop in this region that is now making a come-back.

What I learnt on Saturday is that there are two kinds of flax: linen flax and oil flax. Linen flax has longer stalks to make longer fibres for spinning and weaving. And oil flax has shorter stems with more seed heads that produce more seeds for making linseed oil. There are several flax fields along the way and this is one of them:

In this field, most of the flax has finished flowering. But there are still a few of its lovely blue flowers to be seen.

Next stop: a potato farm with a high-tech farm shop. In addition to potatoes, fruit, veg and local tipples, it also has an unexpected product in its vending machine. More about that later in a separate post.

Now, let’s continue on to Mitselwier. Ah, the cool interior of the church makes a very nice change from the heat outside. There is a weaving exhibition inside, with demonstrations of weaving and flax spinning. Unlike wool, flax isn’t held on the spinner’s lap, but on a distaff. In the picture below, it is held in place with red ribbon.

The flax is pulled down from the distaff and spun into a thin linen thread.

The spinner frequently moistens her fingers with water while she is spinning. She tells me that after spinning, the thread is too sticky to be used for weaving straightaway. It needs to be bleached first – a process that involves covering the hanks of thread with hay, sprinkling that with wood ashes and then pouring boiling water over everything. Repeat that six times and the yarn is bleached. Phew, so much work!

Below from bottom to top: unspun flax fiber, spun linen thread and bleached linen thread.

Before we continue on to our final destination, it’s time for some cool, cool drinks and flax biscuits (with linseed).

A narrow lane brings us to flax museum It Braakhok in the village of Ie – on the right, where the Dutch flag is waving.

Here volunteers demonstrate how flax is processed to spinnable fibre.

I’m impressed by the number of steps and the amount of work it takes to make linen from flax.

Finally, we visit an exhibition about yet a different aspect of linen – its use for painting canvases. The exhibition tells us about a research project looking at the linen used by 17th -Century Dutch masters like Vermeer and Rembrandt.

It’s fascinating what linen can tell us about paintings and the artists who made them when it is examined and reconstructed using a 17th-Century weaving loom, X-rays and microscopes.

Flax trail Follow the Blue Line can be followed through early August. The exhibition Ontrafeld Bewijs (about the painters’ linen canvases) can be visited to September 30th. Admission to everything along the trail is free!

Next week, I hope to tell you about a yarn shop just a couple of kilometres outside the flax trail. I couldn’t very well pass that by when we were so close to it, could I? Hope to see you again then. Bye!

Two Questions You Should Ask Yourself

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‘There are two questions you should ask yourself if you’re thinking of taking up knitting as a hobby,’ writer and comedian Paulien Cornelisse said. ‘One: Do I love maths? And two: Do I love frustration? If your answer is yes to both, go for it.’

Paulien said this as a guest in a tv-show where she talks about knitting, Ravelry and the hand-knit sweater with the ‘bla bla bla’ yoke she is wearing – her young son’s design idea.

She also tells us how in the mirror ‘bla bla bla’ is reflected back at her as ‘old old old’. She really cracks me up! (Video here on YouTube.)

Paulien and her two questions repeatedly popped up in my mind when I was knitting a cardigan for our grandson. The pattern is from the Rico Design Baby Merino 01 booklet, and the yarn I used is the same Baby Merino used for all of the patterns in it.

I love the sweet 1950s style sweaters, jackets and socks in the booklet. But knitted shorts and bare legs with all those warm woollies? Hmm, not entirely sure…

So, what’s with the maths and frustration? Let’s start with the frustration. The yarn comes in 25 gram skeins and is a really nice and soft fingering weight wool. Only, several of the skeins had multiple sections like this, split and frayed:

Very frustrating to have to cut the yarn in inconvenient places and have all those extra ends to weave in. The other skeins were fine, though, and I hope this was just an unlucky Monday morning batch.

Next, the maths. On the whole the pattern is okay, although it could have been a little more precise. It’s mainly the sleeves I had problems with. Here the pattern says: Cast on 49 sts, after the ribbing decrease 3 sts evenly, continue straight with the resulting 80 sts and bind off.

Huh? 49 – 3 = 80?!?

Nothing about increases, and nothing about sleeve length either. Fortunately I love maths (not). And fortunately on one of my granny days, I also happened to have drawn a diagram of the machine-knit sweater our grandson was wearing.

So, I started counting rows and calculating increases. If you’d been there, I swear you would have heard my old brain cogs creaking and clicking. But they proved to still be up to some maths and I’m very happy and proud about the way the sleeves turned out. Ridiculous, perhaps, to be euphoric about underarm seams, but don’t they look nice?

I’m not entirely happy with the way the bottom of the button band pulls up – I should have picked up a few more stitches for that.

In spite of the maths and frustration, I enjoyed knitting the lightweight cable fabric and I’m pleased with how the cardigan turned out. It is filled with love and I hope our grandson will feel cosy and cared-for wearing it.

The colour I used is called ‘ivy’, but that it certainly isn’t. It’s a little closer to sage, but with more blue added in. It’s hard to capture in a photograph, but this’ll give you some idea.

Finally, I asked myself two questions. One: Would I use this yarn again? And two: Would I knit more items from this pattern booklet? My answer is yes to both, because I love maths and frustration the softness and dusty colours of the yarn and the style of the designs.

Wishing you a lovely and frustration-free weekend! Bye xxx