autumn

Scarf for an October Birthday

by

Hello! Last week, one of the owners of a flower shop in a nearby town was busy decorating their shop with snowy artificial Christmas trees when I popped in. He was probably late compared to the big garden centres, but for me far too early. Let’s please enjoy autumn first. I was at the flower shop to buy some tiny ornamental gourds for an autumn bowl for our table and also one to give away. The rest, I found in our garden and around the village.

One of my best friends celebrates her birthday in October. We’ve been friends for about 50 years. Or now that I come to think of it, maybe exactly 50 years this autumn. Should we be celebrating our Golden Friendship Anniversary? Well, anyway, I’ve knit her a scarf for a birthday present, using five shades of Drops Kid-Silk – Moonlight, Ash Grey, Ruby Wine, Mauve, and Pink Pearl, a lovely pale pinkish-beigeish shade.

The pattern I’ve used is the Color Play Mohair Scarf from the Churchmouse design team. It’s a very simple pattern that also has instructions for a larger wrap version. The pattern uses only four colours for the scarf – I’ve added a fifth for a little more length.

The scarf is knit holding two colours together in varying combinations, resulting in a marled fabric. It’s a project that’s hard to put down, because you can’t wait to see how the next colour combo will look knit up together.

The colours are not exactly autumnal…

… they’d have to be brighter for that…

… and more brown, bright red and orange (one soggy and ragged fly agaric looked just like a little sunflower)…

… but I think they’ll look good on her and I hope she’ll enjoy wearing the scarf.

Well, that’s all for today. The computer shop rang me with happy news that my new computer has arrived (they seem to be like gold dust these days) and I hope to have it up and running in time to write next week’s post. Hope to see you again then. Meanwhile, take care!

Cycling in the Achterhoek

by

Hello! Last Saturday, my husband was going to study mosses in de Achterhoek. (That’s right, mosses – with our many, varied and sometimes slightly nerdy interests, we’re neither of us ever bored). I decided to tag along – at least to the parking place where he was meeting a group of other moss lovers. There, we split up (only for the day – no worries) and I hopped on my bicycle. I’d brought a map, snacks, lunch and my camera, too, because I thought you might like to join me virtually.

For those of you not familiar with the Achterhoek – it’s a mainly rural region in the east of the Netherlands, bordering Germany. Starting in The Hague, drive 180  kilometres straight to the east and that’s where you’ll end up. It was a grey and chilly morning, and I wished I’d thought of bringing mittens and a hat.

After a little over an hour’s cycling through fields and woods, and passing some lovely homes and gardens along the way…

… I arrived in the town of Borculo.

Two (bronze) women were doing their laundry in the Berkel river, next to the Washuisbrug (Washing-house bridge).

Borculo’s historic centre is really lovely, with an old watermill…

… cobbled streets…

… and – well, well, what have we here?

A yarn shop! What a surprise! (Not really – it was totally planned.) Let’s take a look inside. Lots of swatches to get a good idea of the yarns, that’s always nice.

A cupboard dedicated to baby yarns, with some wee garments for inspiration.

And a good selection of other yarns – sock yarns, a merino DK in many colours, thicker yarns, thinner yarns, cotton, wool, acrylic, alpaca. Something for everyone. What strikes me in this shop is that there are lots of multi-coloured and especially gradient yarns.

Is it just this yarn shop or is it a trend? There was one yarn that was unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It is called Lopapeysa, comes in 400 gram skeins, and will knit up into a complete sweater with a built-in colourwork round yoke and coloured ribbing on sleeves and body. Sort of like self-striping sock yarn, but then for a sweater. I don’t know if I’d ever use it, but I think it’s amazing.

It isn’t just yarns here, but also fabric and haberdashery. The shop is called Stof & Stuff after all (stof being the Dutch word for fabric).

A friendly shop, where even the door knobs both inside and out are covered in knitting.

I left with in some gifts in my bicycle bag. A length of gingham check ribbon with the cutest fox faces on it, that I gave away before photographing it. And a skein of multi-coloured sock yarn for my knitting student’s Birthday. She’s making tremendous progress and has really caught the sock knitting bug.

Well, time to cycle back. De Achterhoek has some of the most beautiful stretches of bicycle track I’ve ever cycled on.

Although the leaves on the trees are still green, it smells like autumn. The weather is cooling down and I’m knitting, knitting and knitting. Swatches and gifts, gifts and more gifts. I hope to talk about some of those soon. Bye for now!

Comfort Knitting

by

Hello! Sitting down at my computer to write this, it occurs to me that every story can be told from different angles. I could choose to make today’s post into a blood-curdling story, with ghost rows (boo!), yarn the colour of blood, a ripped-off limb and nightmare-inducing toadstools. But I think the world is scary enough as it is without me adding to it, so I’m choosing to write a comforting tale instead.

Once upon a time, in a small low-lying country, there was a woman who was feeling miserable on a personal level and filled with worries about the world. Blue was her favourite colour, followed by green and pink, but now she was suddenly longing for something red.

Well, yes, that’s lovely, but not exactly what she meant.

Very nice, too, but that wasn’t what she meant either.

What she was longing for was red yarn for something simple and comforting to knit. Fortunately she knew that if she climbed the stairs in her very own home, turned right and then left at the top, she’d come to a portal leading to a secret hoard of yarny treasures. And lo and behold, she found exactly what she wanted – six 100-gram skeins of worsted-weight red wool. With a little techno-wizardry, the perfect pattern landed in her in-box and she could start knitting.

The pattern designer said this top-down and seamless cardigan could be knit in 4 days, but the woman in our story didn’t have magic flying needles and it took her a couple of weeks longer. Partly because after she’d knit the first sleeve she realized it was far too tight, had to rip it out and re-knit it using a larger needle. Would she never learn that she always needed to go up a needle size for sleeves knit in the round? Still, fairly quickly it was finished.

But, oh, how disappointing. It didn’t look nearly as nice as the designer’s cardi and the front bands seemed far too short. Maybe it needed a good soak and some blocking magic?

Ah, yes, much better. Now the wave pattern along the fronts looked lovely, and the front bands were the right length, too.

The cardigan is designed to be worn open, with quite a large gap between the fronts. The woman in our story wanted a little more coverage and made hers one size larger than recommended. She also lengthened the cardi by approx. 5 cm/2.5” and gave it long sleeves instead of ¾-length ones. Even though she didn’t feel in the least like a fairy-tale princess, she thought it would be useful to have her picture taken to show you what it looks like when worn:

Unable to get the correct row gauge (instead of 24, she got 27 rows to 10 cm/4”), the woman inserted several extra rows without increases (called ‘ghost rows’ by the designer) into the raglan, because otherwise it would be too tight. She was afraid these rows would spoil the nice and regular raglan slant, but they didn’t show at all.

Blue would always remain the woman’s favourite colour, but red was just right for this cardi – and for this time of the year, too.

Knitting the red cardigan had not magicked all the woes and worries of the world away, but at least it had been peaceful and its gentle magic had made the woman feel better inside.

In case you could use some of this kind of magic, too, here are some links:

A Trip to Limburg

by

Hello and thank you so much for your condolences. I really appreciate your warm words of comfort. I’ve been away from here for longer than expected, because apart from dealing with a loss, we also had to deal with Covid for the first time. In medical terms we had a mild case, but still it was no joke. Not the happiest of times, but I’m well on the mend now, back to knitting and ready to pick up the thread of my blog. More about knitting over the coming weeks. Today, I first have something else for you.

Before my life ground to a halt we spent a weekend in Limburg, the southernmost region of the Netherlands, visiting friends and doing some sightseeing along the way. For me it’s like being in a different country and I thought you might enjoy some pictures.

For the last lap of our journey, we left the motorway and stopped off in Elsloo, a village with a very picturesque old centre.

As you can see in the two photos above, it’s quite hilly here (at least by Dutch standards). It’s not just the landscape that is different from where we live, but the architecture, too. Some of the lovely old houses along the cobbled streets are built around a square courtyard – something you don’t see in our part of the country at all.

Steps lead up to the catholic Augustinus church.

And to the left of the steps stands the most spectacular house of the village – the Schippershuis. Skipper and stone trader Jan Conincx had it built in the early 17th century. He must have been an extremely wealthy person. Creative and imaginative, too, judging by the patchwork of stones and bricks on the tall front of his house.

Just imagine living in a house with such a long history. Interesting and lovely, but also rather dark inside, I expect. It has a basement with two tiny red doors. What would you do with a windowless basement like that?

With good lighting and perhaps a trompe-l’oeil window painted on a wall it might make a great crafts room with lots of space for storing yarn (one can but dream). It is close to the river Meuse but will never be flooded, because it is situated far above it. The sign on the wall tells us the street is called Op de berg (On the mountain).

From the top of the ‘mountain’, at the end of the road, we can look out over the river Meuse. It is narrower than I expected. On the other side a village with lots of white houses, wind turbines, a motorway.

We ate our sandwich lunch in the castle grounds (the castle is now a hotel.)…

… and then drove on to the village of Simpelveld, to visit De Schat van Simpelveld (the Simpelveld Treasure), a convent museum with an amazing embroidery collection. Even for someone who isn’t particularly interested in ecclesiastical embroidery (me) or any embroidery (my husband) it was fascinating. The embroidery was extremely fine and beautiful. I didn’t take any pictures but will give a couple of links at the end of this post so that you can see for yourself.

Upon arrival at our friends’ place we talked, talked and talked enjoying each other’s company and a delicious home-cooked dinner, but before that we went for a walk, enjoying the late afternoon sun on trees in their early autumn finery,

passing an old watermill…

… and finding a plant we didn’t know yet – the yellow-flowered teasel (NL: Slanke kaardebol).

The larger wild teasel is also called fuller’s teasel and was used in the wool industry in the past. Maybe this smaller one was, too, who knows?

It’s so good to be back here on my blog, choosing photographs and words to share with you. I’m easing in with some light-hearted travel talk today and hope to be back with some ‘serious’ knitting and other woolly posts next week, the week after next, the week after that, and… Thank you for reading!

Oh, and here are the promised links:

  • Do take a look at this wonderful blog post about the embroidery at the convent in Simpelveld with lots of great photographs. Looking at the close-up photos you’ll understand why the nuns’ embroidery is called needle painting.
  • The museum website De Schat van Simpelveld can be found here.

A Foggy Walk

by

Hello! Today, I’m taking you for a walk in De Wieden, a wetland area south-west of our home. We’ve had a lot of rain lately and also a smattering of snow, but on the day of our walk it’s foggy. The fog muffles all sound and blocks out most of the view. It’s dark, wet and grey.

How different this exact same spot looked on a sunny day in June.

De Wieden is part of the Wieden-Weerribben National Park, the largest lowland bog in north-west Europe. In spring and summer it’s so very beautiful here, with many different kinds of butterflies, damselflies and dragonflies, romantic waterlilies and cheerful orchids.

Now, the orchids have gone underground and only the leaves of the waterlilies are visible.

No damselflies are resting on reed stalks, no dragonflies are flitting across the water.

At this time of year, it’s beautiful here in a more subtle way. It’s a symphony of greens and browns.

There are some small pops of other colours – an orange fungus, a single red clover and the last of the marsh marigolds (click on images to enlarge).

But greens and browns predominate, with pale yellow-green marsh ferns among the greenest-of-green rushes.

Most of the reeds have already gone from green to sandy brown. Behind them, the blurry silhouette of a great white egret.

At the foot of the reeds, there’s a tunnel. Who made it? It’s far too wide for a mouse. Maybe the otters did. They hunt at the night and sleep in their hiding places on the reed banks during the day. Maybe there is one snoring away here right now.

In front of the reeds, there is the orangey, pinkish and blackish brown of the alder branches and their dripping wet male and female catkins.

It’s incredibly wet here today and I’m so glad I’m wearing wellies. It’s a good thing that it’s wet, though, because De Wieden has suffered from the recent hot and dry summers. Now the soil and the plants can drink their fill. Towards the end of our walk, the egret takes off.

It’s time for me to be off, too. Bye!

Oh, before I go, here is a clue to what I’ll be writing about next week if I can find the time. I wasn’t just here to take photographs, but also to be photographed… (Hint: Can you see what I’m wearing around my neck?)

Knitting and Walking

by

Driving home through the dark from yet another get-together, with the windscreen wipers working furiously and strong gusts of wind buffeting the car, I suddenly thought, Enough! The past couple of weeks have been such fun, but now I need some rest and time alone. For me, knitting and walking are the best ways to rest and recharge. Sleeping helps too, obviously, but sleep can be elusive.

So, I’ve been knitting…

…knitting until a long scarf in a fine yarn was finished. Now it only needs blocking…

…casting on and making good progress on a pair of socks for a friend…

…and knitting on a simple stocking stitch poncho until it’s the size of a nice and warm lap blanket. It’s almost ready to be seamed and then I can knit on the cowl.

I’ve also been out for a walk every day. Taking my usual walks through our village, walks with our grandson, a walk in a foggy wetland, and a walk around the nearby village of Havelte. The real reason for my visit to Havelte was a tiny Advent market. There were only six stalls, but really nice ones with good quality toys…

…handmade purses and bags, hand carved wooden spoons, watercolour greeting cards, sustainable clothes for children and adults, and semiprecious stones and fossils.

I found several lovely gifts for our December celebrations and then went for a walk. Tourist websites call Havelte ‘The Pearl’ of our part of the country. To me, it’s an ordinary village for the most part, but it does have some lovely spots and beautiful old houses.

According to the weather forecast it was going to be dry and sunny. Only they forgot to mention the sudden downpours in between the dry and sunny spells. Oh my, such beautiful golden light against the threatening skies! I didn’t do anything to enhance this photo – this is exactly the way it was:

And here is a photograph that’s almost embarrassing. A windmill with a rainbow – can it get any cheesier? But again, this is exactly the way it was:

There were hardly any people about, but I did have eye contact with two four-legged villagers. A group of Drenthe Heath sheep crowding around a feeding rack had their backs turned to me.

But two sheep had finished eating and one of them was looking straight at me. Hello there, lovely creature.

And towards the end of my walk, a cat briefly looked up to see if I was to be trusted and then, apparently satisfied that I was, continued lapping up water from a puddle.

I’ll tell you more about the patterns, techniques and yarns used for the above knitting projects soon, when they are finished. I also have some more gift knitting planned, as well as a new pattern (or two) of my own. All in all, I hope to keep you provided with inspiration for the rest of the year and beyond, and also with a place to rest and recharge. Kalm an, hè?

Focusing on Finishing

by

Hello! Feeling sad, angry and worried about the terrible conflict that is causing so much suffering, I thought I wouldn’t publish a blogpost this week. But I changed my mind, realizing it’s important to keep paying attention to good, beautiful, gentle things, too. No matter how seemingly insignificant they are. So here are some words and pictures from my small corner of the world after all.

On the knitting front, I’m focusing on finishing my WIPs one by one. An 18-month-size cardigan is drying on my blocking mats. I’m not blocking it the way you’d block a lace shawl, but just laying the pieces out – not stretching them at all, only using pins in a few places and for the rest patting them flat.

I can’t sit around twiddling my thumbs while the cardi is drying of course, so alongside finishing WIPs, I’m knitting a few simple gifts. Quite a few actually, but I’ll also focus on them one by one.

This way, I’m making good progress and that feels great, I have to say. The weather is also conducive to knitting. With cooler temperatures and some dark and rainy days it’s beginning to feel a little like autumn. The wild violets are still flowering and most trees are still green, but the bracken is turning coppery brown…

… the forest floor is littered with chestnuts and acorns, and fungi in many different colours and shapes are popping up everywhere.

We’ve harvested our last tomatoes, and the last of the farmers’ markets of the year is also behind us. It was windy and rainy and very quiet. We had a chat with some of the stall holders and then it was, ‘Goodbye, see you next year!’ Only one of them said, ‘Let’s hope we’ll meet here again next year.’ He is in his eighties. Yes, let’s hope so.

We left with some groceries in our shopping bag, tea/coffee and cake in our stomachs, and a bunch of branches with tiny rosehips wrapped in a newspaper. Just imagine how many teeny tiny roses there must have been on them.

It’s been good sitting here selecting photos and quietly tapping away at my computer. Thank you for visiting and see you again next week!

Witches’ Butter

by

Hello, and welcome to an autumnal post filled with fungi (and some yarn). 

Autumn is a magical time in the forest. It’s the time of rustling leaves underfoot. The time of warm reds, oranges, yellows and browns. The time of golden light on some days, and a fog that shrinks the world and muffles all sound on others. It is also the time of mysterious mushrooms and treacherous toadstools.

On our walks we marvel at the masses of fabulous fungi popping up this year, and some of them seem to stare back at us open-mouthed.

Beware of the poisonous panther cap – some say that it can make you fly, but I wouldn’t like to give it a try:

I’m not sure I’d like to try these babies either, although they are edible:

They don’t look too bad when young, but all grown up they look vile, dripping their viscous black ink.

It’s easy to believe in fairy tales, walking through the forest in autumn. I mean, who doesn’t think of gnomes seeing something like this?

And the fungus below certainly has fairy tale-like qualities (of the creepy kind). It can move, sort of like a slug, even leaving a slime trail. In Dutch it is called heksenboter (witches’ butter).

In the picture above it is cream coloured, like real butter, but more often it is bright yellow.

The yellow colour explains its English name – scrambled egg slime. It also goes by another name. (Please skip the next line if you’re squeamish):

Dog vomit slime mold

Well, we certainly aren’t scraping that off the branches to spread on our baguettes! No, I really prefer making my own herby ‘witches’ butter’. There are two things that always go into it: garlic and parsley. For the rest I vary with the herbs I use.

Parsley doesn’t do well in our garden, so that is shop-bought. Until the first night frosts our herb patch provides us with chives. And on the left there’s a herb that I discovered and planted a couple of years ago – salad burnet (kleine pimpernel in het NL). It is an evergreen that gives fresh cucumbery-tasting leaves all year round.

Here is my very simple recipe:

Herby Witches’ Butter

Ingredients:

  • 150 grams unsalted butter
  • 1 clove of garlic, pressed or finely grated
  • Small bunch of parsley
  • Some chives and salad burnet (or other fresh herbs)
  • Coarse sea salt
  • Black pepper

Method:

  • Leave the butter to soften at room temperature for a while
  • Mix in the garlic with a fork
  • Chop up the chives. Strip the leaves of the other herbs from their stalks and chop up as well
  • Combine the herbs with the garlicky butter
  • Season with freshly ground black pepper and sea salt

Delicious with some crusty bread, salad, and a bowl of soup. Pumpkin soup would be great, or my Simple Mushroom Soup (recipe in blogpost Soup and Socks).

The butter jar was photographed on one of the dish cloths I knit a couple of years back and wrote about here. I also wrote a post about the organic yarns I used for them here. So how are these yarns holding up after two years of frequent use?

First of all, I need to tell you that I’ve ignored the yarn manufacturers’ washing instructions, washed the dish cloths at 60˚C/140˚F and put them in the dryer on rainy days. Despite the rough treatment they’ve had, none of the dish cloths show any holes. For the rest, from worst to best, here are the results:

3) Rosários4 ‘Bio Love’: Alas, alas. This was the yarn I loved best, but it is the yarn that has faded most and looks the shabbiest now. I still think it is a great yarn for things that do not need to be washed quite as often, though.

2) Lang Yarns ‘Baby Cotton’: This has kept its colour and looks good when dry, but when wet stretches a lot and feels rather thin. So, not great for dish cloths, but fine for baby or other garments.

1) Surprisingly, the winner is Anna & Clara ‘100% cotton 8/4’. This was the least expensive yarn and has performed the best by far. Actually, these dish cloths still look as good as new.

Well, that’s all for today. Bye for now, and if you go mushrooming – be careful!!!

Two Klømpelømpe Hats

by

Hello!

Our grandson is 6 months old now. He cries from time to time to indicate that he needs something, of course, but on the whole he is a cheerful little chap. He is growing fast and it will not be long before he has outgrown his pram.

He lives in a quiet neighbourhood with lots of green space. The bicycle tracks meandering through it are perfect for pram walks.

Often he falls asleep as soon as we set off, but when he lies awake, I can see him looking at the sky, and listening to the singing of birds and the rustling of leaves.

I wonder if he is also aware of that special scent of autumn in the air.

How fortunate we are to be able to enjoy our strolls in this peaceful part of the world.

He has suddenly outgrown all of the hats I knit for him, too. So I quickly knit up two new ones, both from patterns in the first Klømpelømpe book.

The first baby cardigan I knit from this book was not a success – the instructions were unclear, the stitch pattern didn’t match up around the raglan armholes, and it turned out far too small. So, I ripped it out and put the book aside disappointed and frustrated.

A visit to a dear cousin of mine made me pick it up again, though. She is mother to 7 and grandmother to the same number, and the proud owner of a stack of Klømpelømpe books. She has knit many items from them for her grandchildren and is very enthusiastic about them.

Her enthusiasm was infectious, so I got the book out again, dug up the yarn left over from a jacket I knit for our grandson, and made the Henry hat.

I was still a bit puzzled by the instructions, but was able to work things out. Based on my earlier experience I made the size for 1-2 years and it fits perfectly.

I also had lots of yarn left over from the Pyrus Blanket I designed myself.

Some of that became the dots in the Henry hat and I had more than enough left for the Knot hat. The Knot hat has two weird antennae knit on to the top that are transformed into an adorable set of knots.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of the Klømpelømpe books yet, they are a series of knitting books from Norway that have been translated into many languages. According to the website Booksfromnorway ‘Klømpelømpe is a Norwegian dialect word from the Western region where the authors come from, and simply is an expression for describing a sweet, little child – a sweetheart.’

The book I’ve knit the hats from has ‘knitting for babies and children’ as its subtitle, and most of the patterns in it are for this age group. But it also contains a few simple accessories for adults as well.

I’m glad these hats turned out well, because everything in the Klømpelømpe books looks incredibly attractive and I’d like to make more from them.

Useful info:

  • The authors’ website can be found here in Norwegian. And a complete list of all the books in Norwegian here. (There is an English website, too, but it’s very limited.)
  • If you’re looking for translations of the books in your own language – the English translations all have ‘Knitting for Little Sweethearts’ in their titles, while most other translations retain the word Klømpelømpe or Klompelompe somewhere in the title.
  • The yarn I used is Drops Merino Extra Fine in colours 01 and 07.
  • The Pyrus Blanket can be found here on Ravelry.

A Week in November

by

Hello again!

Publishing a knitting pattern is a small/totally insignificant step for mankind, but a big step for me. It makes me feel vulnerable to be so visible, and I’m very grateful for all of your kind words here and elsewhere. Thanks!

This week, no matter how hard I try, I feel unable to put together a coherent story. So here are a few unrelated items from this past November week.

Market

On Saturday I visited a small market in a neighbouring village. It was all about sustainable and hand made products, and there were some six or seven stalls in all.

It was organized by a local shop selling organic clothes for adults, children and babies.

It was a joy to look at the lovely colours, fabrics and yarns used. The prices were staggering, but I think that they reflect what we should really be paying if clothes are to be produced with respect for the environment and the people making them.

There was also a rack of second-hand clothes, or pre-loved as some would call them.

I don’t think it was the purpose of the market, but I felt really inspired to make even more myself than I already do. I’ll always be knitting, of course, but I’m also thinking of taking up sewing again.

Even more than the wares on display, I enjoyed the lovely arrangements with hydrangea flowers everywhere around. Like this cheerful combination with red enamelware…

… and this beautiful wreath in faded shades.

I also stood gazing out towards the neighbours’ beautifully restored farm buildings.

Ah, lovely! Still, in spite of all that gazing around, I didn’t go home empty-handed. As well as some paper for folding stars, these two wooden roe deer came home with me.

On my needles

I’m knitting another Story Lines shawl. This time in a combination of two Rowan yarns: their all-time favourite Kidsilk Haze and their new Felted Tweed Colour. I’m not entirely sure about it – the yarns work well together, I think, but did I choose the right colours?

Sunday morning walk

As we usually do, we went for a walk on Sunday morning.

The sky was overcast, but now and then the sun came out, bathing everything in very bright light.

We saw a group of roe deer in a field. The horses in the meadow next to it were watching them too.

Towards the end of our walk there was a faint rainbow in the sky.

Struggling to stay positive from time to time, I drink in any symbol, sign or ray of hope, no matter how faint.

Visitors

The sparrowhawk visiting our garden last year is back (or at least I think it is the same one). We haven’t seen him for a long time, but there he suddenly was – now in his full adult colours. Just look at those fierce eyes!

And we’ve had another visitor, too, new to our garden – a red squirrel. Here it is, snacking on a hazel nut:

Over the past couple of weeks it’s become a frequent visitor, busily running to and fro burying nuts everywhere.

Up early

I often wake up very early and have given up trying to go back to sleep. Instead I tiptoe down the stairs and spend a quiet hour (or two, or sometimes three) before breakfast drinking many cups of tea, knitting and reading by lamplight.

My big linen stitch wrap is almost finished. All I need to do is knit on I-cord along both long edges and finish the fringe. I want to finish a few other items before the end of the year, but my hands are also itching to start all kinds of new things, big and small.

Well, that’s all for today. Enjoy your weekend and see you again next week! xxx