outdoors

Silver-Studded Blue

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Hello! I hope you’re doing okay and have had a good week so far. It’s heather season here, and as it’s been too hot to even think about knitting this week, I thought I’d just chat a bit about a felt butterfly I’ve made and take you along for a stroll to enjoy the purple gorgeousness.

In some places the heather carpets the entire ground, in other places it grows in tussocks.

Most of the heather here is common heather, or ling, but there is some erica as well.

Even though it’s still morning, the  highland cattle that have been hired to keep the heather free from encroaching trees and purple moor grass have retreated to a shady spot.

The sheep with the same job description can stand the heat better but they, too, prefer to laze about in the shade today.

The bees love the heat, though, and the entire heath is abuzz with them. The butterflies fluttering about are mainly cabbage whites. It would be great to see a silver-studded blue, known as heideblauwtje (heather blue) in Dutch. As it’s a red list species chances are slim, but hold on, what’s that blue speck?

Yes, it really is a silver-studded blue,

only it’s made of felt, with embroidery and beads.

Designer Marianne of Lindelicht has captured its essence really well. My stitches are not as neat as those on the shop sample, and I had to replace the tiny blue beads with slightly larger ones because I dropped the original ones in the garden and was unable to retrieve them all, but still my butterfly is also clearly recognizable.

This is the fourth of her butterflies I’ve made so far – lovely little summer projects.

Writing this reminds me that I also have several hanks of Marianne’s beautiful hand-dyed yarn in my stash. Maybe it’s time to knit some of those up into a shawl or scarf. But first I’ll finish the socks and the cardigan that are still on my needles. Perhaps there’ll be something to tell you about one of those next week. Hope to see you again then!

Sidetracked

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Hello there! Last Sunday morning we went for a walk in a small out-of-the-way nature reserve. In fact, it’s such an out-of-the-way place that we’ve only ever met two other people there, which is very unusual in this overpopulated little country. It’s an open patch of heathland, with dry and sandy soil, various kinds of heather, grasses and some trees. With thunderstorms forecast for the afternoon and evening, the atmosphere was oppressive.

I was feeling a bit meh. Actually more than just a bit meh – tired and uninspired. I was struggling with the last details on the cardigan for our daughter. The ribbings along the pocket tops, which I would otherwise just have got on with, seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

And there was literally nothing else on my needles. I did have some new knitting projects lined up, but didn’t feel excited about any of them. In short, I’d lost my knitting mojo and also felt like I had nothing left to say. While in the distance sheep were grazing and dozing, and a highland cow was playing hide-and-seek, I was ruminating.

Maybe it was the summer weather, never conducive to knitting. Or maybe it was only to be expected after all the knitting and sewing of the past few months, no matter how much I’ve loved it. One of the things I made that I haven’t shared here yet is this little cardi. I think it’s very sweet, but the pattern could have been a little more detailed.

Walking there, I was thinking, ‘Maybe I should abandon all attempts at making things for a while and take a break from blogging for the rest of July and August.’

And then my husband veered off from the main path to follow a side track, I followed him, and… oh, look!

Thyme!

This is a rare kind of thyme called kleine tijm (small thyme) in Dutch (Thymus serpyllum; Breckland thyme or creeping thyme in English). It’s tiny (about 3 cm/1¼” tall), fragrant and covered in pink flowers at this time of year. So beautiful!

Looking closely, I saw some bees on it with very hairy legs.

The Plant Atlas of the Botanical Society of Britain & Ireland says about this thyme that it grows, ‘…especially in areas disturbed by rabbits or sheep.’ Exactly.

Within seconds the thyme shakes me out of my slump and I begin to notice other small and beautiful things. Like lovely little tufts of lacy lichens.

And small blue butterflies fluttering around the heather. ‘How about making one of those?’ a voice inside of me whispers.

Since our walk, I’ve been hearing more whisperings. It isn’t always clear what they’re telling me, but I feel quite sure I need to listen to them. One of them was very specific, though, and made me cast on a pair of simple socks in a yarn that looks like a water colour painting of a Dutch landscape.

Two takeaways from this walk:

  1. It’s okay to allow yourself to be sidetracked from time to time – it may lead to rabbit or sheep poo, but also to beautiful discoveries.
  2. Small things can bring great happiness.

I can’t say that my knitting mojo has miraculously returned, but I’m feeling more positive. I’d miss chatting with you here on my blog too much, so won’t be taking that break. Only, until my knitting mojo decides to put in an appearance I expect to be writing about side tracks with very little idea of where they’ll be taking us. I hope you don’t mind, hope you’re doing well and hope to see you again next week!

Spring 2025

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Hello! Today, spring has officially sprung and it really feels like spring here, too. Our crocuses that have done so well this year have finished flowering. Now the scillas and miniature irises are in bloom, and the grape hyacinths are poking their heads above the ground as well. The daffodils in our garden are still in bud, but I saw some blaring their trumpets in Zwolle the other day.

They literally brightened up a dark and cloudy day.

The daffodils grew next door to the bookshop I was visiting for some gifts. In the fantasy novel section, I leafed through a fantastic knitting book – The Fellowship of the Knits: The Unofficial Lord of the Rings Knitting Book. It contains 27 amazing patterns by many different designers. I would not particularly want to knit a Gollum softie or a pair of mittens with Sauron’s scary watchful eye on them, but I find the Elven Armor Pullover absolutely stunning.

After that dark day in Zwolle, the sun began to break through the clouds.

And now it is gloriously warm and sunshiny weather. Perfect for some gardening. I’ve been pruning and weeding, and have sown some edible flower seeds.

I have also started on a fresh springtime knitting project – another sweater for our grandson. It is a bit like a blue sky with puffs of white cloud.

The pattern is Nordsjøgenser from Sandnes Collection 73 Norwegian Icons for Kids.

There isn’t a single sweater in this pattern collection that I wouldn’t like to knit. Besides looking adorable on the models, the pullovers and cardigans also look interesting to make – some with round colourwork yokes, some with all-over patterning and some steeked.

The yarn I’m using is Babyull Lanett, a 100% wool yarn, but so fine and lightweight that it’s ideal for springtime knits. Ah, spring, lovely spring. I’m fine with winter and don’t mind dark and cloudy days, but basking in the light and warmth of springtime sunshine is truly wonderful and relaxing.

Wishing you a wonderful and relaxing weekend, whether spring has sprung where you live, too, or not.

Large Copper

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Hello, hello, it’s good to see you! You’ve arrived right on time to join me for a walk. I’d also like to thank you, but we’re coming to that later. We’re in de Wieden again, part of the wetland nature reserve I’ve taken you to before. The path is a bit muddy but still walkable.

The landscape here has a limited colour palette at this time of year. There is the green of the grass and the blue of the sky (at least today).

But mainly it is, uhm, well, what would you call the colour of reed in winter? Tan, buff, sand, wheaten?

Yellow, golden, camel or brown? It depends very much on the light.

Here and there a spot of white is floating by…

… or standing still. It’s very quiet and peaceful, with just the honking of geese in the distance.

The only bright pops of colour come from the mosses and lichens.

And from the large copper.

Not a real one, obviously. It’s a felt large copper butterfly that travelled here in my inside jacket pocket. There are no real butterflies here in winter. Unfortunately, the large copper can’t be seen here in summer anymore either. It is still fluttering around in two nearby nature reserves, though, and my husband was able to take a few photos of it there last summer. It’s a vivid red-orange on top,

with white on the underside of its wings.

Beautiful, isn’t it? This particular species (Lycaena dispar batavus) doesn’t live anywhere else in the world anymore but in these two nature reserves. A precarious existence. It would be great if its habitat could be extended to the Wieden. Nature conservation organisation Natuurmonumenten is working hard to create the right circumstances for that to happen, protecting host plants and creating corridors for the large copper to fly along towards de Wieden.

By purchasing my Seventh Heaven scarf pattern, many of you have become supporters of their good work. I have now donated all of the proceeds from the pattern so far to Natuurmonumenten. On behalf of the large copper and Natuurmonumenten thank you so, so much for your contribution!

Links:

Does It Itch?

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The weather has been a mixed bag here lately – something in between autumn and winter, with quite a bit of rain and wind, but some sunnier days as well. On a chilly day with rain showers interspersed with sunny spells we went for a walk in the nearby wetland area.

It’s quiet at this time of year, and the colours are subtly beautiful.

I never really noticed before that water lily leaves have autumn colours, too, just like the leaves on trees.

Small metal windmills are used for managing the water levels. The land needs to be wet enough for reed and other plants to grow, but not too wet for reed mowing and haymaking.

During these walks the exercise keeps me warm. But at home, working at my computer, I often get chilled to the bone. In other words, I could do with a warmer sweater than the ones I usually knit, like Sundborn – the cardigan on the front cover of the Swedish cardigan book I brought home from the Handwerkbeurs:

It is knit from Léttlopi, just like several other cardigans in the book. Léttlopi is an Aran-weight Icelandic yarn I’ve had my eye on for ages. It is warm, affordable and comes in a large range of beautiful colours. But it feels so rough and scratchy on the skein that I thought I’d never be able to wear it.

I’m very sensitive to itchy yarn. Clothing labels can drive me crazy, synthetic fibres bring out patches of eczema, and I’ve had to part with several hand-knit sweaters because they itched so much I just couldn’t wear them.

I’ve heard good stories about Léttlopi, though, and oh, those gorgeous heathered colours! So, I prudently bought one skein and knit a few swatches to get to know it better.

The swatches felt a little softer after a Eucalan bath, but still pretty rustic (can you see the hairs?). I decided to ‘wear’ one of them for a day and first pinned it to the inside neck of my red cardigan.

No itching in my neck or between my shoulder blades after an entire morning. Then I wore it on the inside of my elbow (a very sensitive spot), between my cardi and my shirt sleeve for several hours. Still no itching. Finally I wore it inside my shirt sleeve, on my bare(!) skin, for several more hours. And strangely it didn’t itch at all! Yay! Now, what colours to choose? Subtle ones, like those of our countryside in autumn and winter? Or brighter ones reminiscent of summer skies and flowers?

I’d also love to make a cardigan from Maja Karlsson’s cardigan book for my daughter, knit from the same yarn – this one:

I’ve given her a Léttlopi swatch, so that she can try it out and for herself answer the ultimate question about knitting yarn – does it itch?

Unsettled

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Hello! After many weeks of warm summer days, the weather is unsettled now and I love it! Wind, fresh air, alternately rain and sunshine, and wild skies.

It’s not just the weather that’s unsettled, though, but me, too. I think it has something to do with my birthday last Monday. I celebrated it during the weekend with my nearest and dearest. There were gifts, phone calls, letters, cards and other messages, and a lovely walk on the day itself. The walk partly followed an old, old road hollowed out by people, cattle and carts passing along it during many centuries.

I feel truly grateful and blessed. And yet…

I am 62 now. My mum died at 66. Although there is no reason whatsoever to assume that I will not live longer, there is an inner voice that says, ‘You’d better get a move on!’ Oh, okay, but… with what and how? I think I need to have a chat with this voice someday soon to get clarity.

In one area of my life I do know exactly how to get a move on. At present, I have 6 projects on the go that are almost finished: a child’s pullover, a cardigan, a scarf, a shawl, a big spinning project and a small felt project.

Usually, I’m fine with working on multiple projects simultaneously and taking a long time over them, but now I feel the urge to finish them. More about them (in as far as they are interesting enough) over the coming weeks, I hope.

For now, there is one more thing I’d like to share with you. I was given the sweetest little box as a birthday present. It contains 36 ‘Trust Cards’ with illustrations and affirmations by Dutch artist Esther Bennink.

Technology isn’t advanced enough yet to let you pick one for yourself, so let me pick one for you – this is the picture on the front:

On the back it says:

I choose
to enjoy
the little things

I wish you a week with many little things to enjoy. To start with, here is one from our garden.

Slow August – Heather Cycling Tour

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Hello! The heather is in bloom. It is cloudy, but with no rain forecast and just a light breeze it’s an ideal day for a cycling tour. Would you like to come along?

Ah, I see you’ve brought your own lunch, thermos and snacks. Perfect! I have a bicycle exactly the right size for you so hop on! I hope you don’t mind that I’m not very talkative today.

Lunchtime!

Rested? Let’s get back on our bikes for the second half.

Back home!

Wel, it isn’t my home or yours, but it’s somebody’s home. Wouldn’t you love to be able to time-travel back to 1813 and spend a day here when the house was new?

We covered 35 kilometres today. I hope you enjoyed the ride and hope to see you again soon!

Slow August – Welly Path

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Hello! Come and walk the Welly Path with me today. For most of the year wellies are essential, but in high summer other sturdy shoes are fine, too. As I promised last week, I’ll keep quiet so that you can hear the wind whispering in the reeds, the reed warblers warbling and the insects humming. Be prepared to ferry yourself across several waterways and enjoy the walk!

The Welly Path starts and ends at this visitor centre:

What Insect are You?

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We have been photographing lots of insects lately. Well, let’s be honest, ‘we’ mainly means my husband – he is much better at it. But sometimes I’m lucky and get a good shot, too.

Let’s zoom in – bzzzz – and wow, look at that huge eye!

Because of the size and shape of its eyes alone, it must see the world totally differently from us. Looking at insects through the lens of my camera made me stop and think. We share our world with so many creatures we don’t even know exist. Of course I know that there are bees and bugs, midges and mosquitoes, but when you begin looking at them properly a whole new universe opens up. These creatures also have (love) lives…

They are busy gathering food, caring for their offspring, developing and going through different stages in their lives.

Different life stages of a six-spot burnet (above)

I wonder, if I were and insect, what insect would I be? To find the answer, I took a test. Turns out I’m a bee. Hmmm, yes, I’m always busy as a bee. But living in a big colony? Everything in the service of the Queen Bee? That’s not really me.

But wait, not all bees are honey bees. There are also bumblebees. Me, bumbling around? Not really. No, come to think of it, I’m more like a wild solitary bee. And then my husband came up with the answer: I’m a wool carder bee! (Thank you for the wool carder bee photos and info, sweetheart.)

In our garden they visit the hairy lamb’s ear plants…

… to scrape ‘wool’ from the leaves, roll it up and use it for making their nests. Here is a close-up of a wool carder bee with a ball of ‘wool’:

A wool carder bee, that’s me to a tee. How about you? What insect are you? Are you a grasshopper?

Or a butterfly? (Are butterflies even insects? There is so much I don’t know yet.)

A bee like me, or a different insect altogether? The British Natural History Museum has developed a fun quiz to help you find out.

Well, I’m buzzing off to add some woolly things to our nest. I’d love to hear what insect you are!

Between the Showers

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Hello! While some of you have been melting in a heatwave, we have had extremely variable weather with strong winds, sunshine, rain, thunderstorms. One moment the sky was bright blue…

… and the next dark clouds gathered and the rain pelted down.

In other parts of the country, the storms uprooted trees and caused other havoc. Here, the wind only tore off some pears in our back garden.

On the whole, it’s been great knitting weather. Between the showers I’ve taken my knitting outside for some pictures. I’ve started on a Norwegian cardigan.

The pattern is in Kofteboken 2, by Lene Holme Samsøe and Liv Sandvik Jakobsen. This beautiful and inspiring, partly linen-bound book contains patterns for 27 sweaters, mostly cardigans with a few pullovers thrown in. There are patterns for adults and children as well as some background stories about designers, motifs, yarns and history. One of the great things about the book is that many of the sweaters are shown in several sizes, colours and different yarns.

It is in Norwegian, but as a knitter you’ll probably understand most terms and the photography is so clear that the sweaters can almost be knit by looking at the pictures alone. The authors’ website can be visited here, and the book can be found here on Ravelry.

The cardigan I’m making is called Lang Yndlingskofte, it is knit from the top down and has a yoke with bands of motifs in two colours. This is what it looks like in the book:

Question marks:

  • Knit a 5-stitch or a 7-stitch steek? – Answer: 5-stitch steek as per pattern
  • Shorten cardigan (considerably)?
  • Add pockets?
  • Buttons on entire front as in pattern or just on yoke?
  • Knit on facing to cover steek stitches or cover them with ribbon?

The yarn I’m using is CaMaRose ‘Økologisk Hverdagsuld’ (100% organic wool, 150m/164yds/50g).

The pattern gauge for the Yndlingskofte is 22 sts to 10cm/4”. My swatches gave: 22 sts on 3mm/US 2,5 needles and 20 sts on 3,5mm/US 4 needles. The 22-stitch swatch was spot-on, but it felt stiff and I decided to go with the looser 20-stitch gauge. This means that I’ll knit a smaller size that will hopefully turn out the right size for me at this gauge.

I’ve also washed and blocked the socks I wrote about in last week’s post. The yarn used for them is Lana Grossa ‘Landlust Die Sockenwolle’ (420m/460yds/100g) in shade 119, neutrals with bands in the rosy red of our ‘Lipstick’ roses.

The yarn doesn’t have a special starter thread to ensure that both socks turn out the same. Getting them exactly the same is a fun game.

The soundtrack to today’s post is Between the Showers – Irish harp music played by Gráinne Hambley. You can listen to some fragments here. I once attended a workshop led by her, and she told us her name is pronounced something like Gron-yuh (stress on first syllable).

Well, that’s all for today. I hope the weather (and life in general) is kind to you, and hope to see you again next week.