How 'bout those Good Intentions?

I cannot believe how much time has passed since I wrote on this here blog about my good intentions.  Surely, you have all given up on me. Still, I thought I’d pop ‘round to tell you a bit of what I’ve been doing, and a bit more about my plans for the future. And about those good intentions, and how those intentions are turning out better than I could ever have hoped and dreamed (well, apart from the ‘blogging regularly’ thing. That bit I still have to work on)(obviously). (I mean, if it’s July (which it is) and your blog header is a picture of a thick woolly blanket on a sled in the snow, then maybe it’s time to reconsider the whole blogging thing) (but more of that later).

It won’t  come as a surprise that I haven’t done any stitching. Well, I still work on the Blue Lady every now and then, but that’s it. What will surprise you, ,though, is that I’ve made a bit of a career change. For nigh-on fourteen years I’ve worked as a translator of children’s books, novels and romance novels (yay for Harlequin!), but I just couldn’t cope anymore. Although Pelle is a dear boy, taking care of him requires an enormous amount of energy. Kathy Lette wrote a book about the care for her autistic son, and she described it perfectly. As the parent of a ‘special needs child’, you need to be specialised in just about everything. You have to fight all day, every day, to get what’s best for your child. And of course, there’s the care for the child itself, which can be a terrible drain, especially when he’s going through a rough time. Anyway, with everything going on, I couldn’t get any sensible words on the page at all, and my heart really hadn’t been in my work for years. In the meantime the good doctors have discovered what syndrom Pelle suffers from (behind every developmental delay is some form of brain damage, after all): it’s the very rare Coffin-Siris syndrom.  I’m relieved to know that it actually has a name, but it’s all still very vague. Pelle lacks a good number of the main characteristics of the syndrom  (and thank goodness for that), but his behavioral  problems are still mostly unexplained. We’ll just have to wait and see how this all develops…

Whilst making decisions and re-arranging my life, I happened upon a blog by Dutch designer Wieke van Keulen. I loved her designs, admired her blog, and one day last year, Wieke mentioned in her blog that she was looking for someone to translate her crochet and knitting patterns into English. ‘Well’, thought I, ‘I haven’t got a chance in hell, but I’m going to reply anyway’. And so I did. And Wieke picked me! Since then, I’ve been very busy translating Wieke’s patterns AND making shop models for the local yarn shop. And now that I’m working for the yarn shop, the owner of said shop has asked me to do any number of little things for her (making blankets and shawls of my own ‘design’ for the shop, showing off the gorgeous yarn they sell there) (although when I say ‘design’ you should take that with a grain or twelve of salt, because really, all I ever do are granny squares or just plain garter stitch knitting, but that’s just my thing. It’s the colours and the yarn I’m mostly interested in. You can do SO MUCH with the right colour. You don’t need a fancy design to make something gorgeous). 

Now that I’m part of the Dutch knitting and crocheting elite (brouhahahahaha) and I meet all these fantastically sweet and gifted people, I’m learning new things every day. Spinning, dyeing, new techniques. And when the new season starts, in September, I will be giving workshops as well. I know it sounds like a lot, and I have the feeling I hardly ever sleep anymore, but I’m bursting with energy and joy, and I haven’t been so happy in quite a while.

And now we come to the part – the only part of this new life that I’m still uncertain about: this blog. I’m going to leave it as it is for now, but I’m starting a new blog in Dutch, which will focus on my extracurricular crafting acticivities, such as crocheting and knitting and making for the shop. If and when I do get the urge to stitch, or actually DO any stitching, you will be the first to know. I’m not saying goodbye to you, because this isn’t goodbye.  Meanwhile, if you’d like to keep up (at least with pictures of Pelle and the terrorist monkeys known as Pantoef and Pipien), go visit ’t Atelier van Tante An.

Much love,

Annemarie.

Good intentions

Ooph, I’ve been away for a bit, haven’t I? Truth is, it took me this long to get over the Christmas hols, and I’m not even kidding. Is it too late to wish you all a happy new year? Well, I’m going to anyway.  I hope 2013 will bring you much joy, health, peacefulness and lots of crafty fun. I always make my new year’s resolutions around the time of my birthday (which is in November) and I tend to stick to them.

Fascinated as I’m sure you would be to read the more personal plans I have for this year, I’m sure you’re even more interested in my stitchy, hooky and knitty plans. Or possibly not, but I’m going to bore you with them anyway. On the stitchy front, my plans are pretty straightforward: just DO it. STITCH something. Anything. Just plain x-es on linen. I’ve done it before, surely I can do it again and get some enjoyment out of it.

On the hooky front, my plans are basically the same as they have been for two years: make blankets and shawls. I’d like to finish two blankets this year. One of them was inspired by the film Nanny McPhee, wherein one of the children has a blanket that just BEGS to be made by me. For Pelle.  A very old-fashioned, very simple but extraordinarily super fantastic granny square blanket. Here it is, on the sled, in all its old-time glory.

The other blanket is just something I shamelessly stole from Kristen at Cozy Things, who promises peacefulness and balance whilst hooking, and as the words peacefulness and balance always lure me into starting anything associated with them, I couldn’t help it:

The colours aren’t particularly restful to the eye, but It’s to be a summer blanket, lined with the flowery fabric you see in the picture. The fabric used to be a curtain for a day and a half, before I decided it looked atrocious next to the petite antique-looking samplers on my walls. So it was either take down the curtain or the samplers. The curtain went. I’m not that far gone yet!

Now my knitty plans fort his year are … ambitious, to say the least. Especially because I’m still, despite my very best efforts, a hooky person more than a knitty person. But I will do it. I will, I will, I will. My plans (which I shall disclose in my next post) require me to learn the two-handed fair isle technique, which looks very meditative and, dare I say, easy when you see someone doing it in those deceptive videos over on YouTube. Of course, as soon as I take knitting needles and yarn in hands, I tense up and cling to the needles as if I’m in mortal peril. I just need to learn to relax when I see a knitting needle. So that is another one of my knitty new year’s resolutions: to relax whilst knitting. And here is the proof that I’m learning.

Yours resolutionary,

Annemarie.

The cats and the bench and the pic that wasn't

No Blue Lady progress. Because I needed to make a wedding present. Why anyone would want to get married in this day and age – especially to my ex – is a complete mystery to me (she said slightly bitterly), but I’m sure you all agree that a wedding calls for a present. And since we will also be spending part of Christmas with said ex and new wife, it needed to be a quick gift and a good one. So I took out my barge poles and some rope and started knitting a blanket. 

I thought I’d take a Bench Monday pic of the blanket in progress, but that turned out to be quite a bit more cumbersome than expected. Behold the Bench Monday pic-taking experience

Sigh…

The other blanket you see there is for my lovely neighbour who helped me paint my house over the summer. Also a Christmas present. Also not in cross stitch. Still. I’m having a grand old time pottering around with my yarn and thread and needles and camera and cats and kid. Hope you are too!

Yours joyfully,

Annemarie.

Stitching Around the Christmas Tree

Well hello there, honeybuns. I have fully recovered from my allergy attack (doubtlessly because of your kind well-wishes) and so it's back to stitching! Yes, I know, I can hardly believe it myself, but I'm still stitching. Having a project that you are so utterly in love with helps, of course. So this is how I spend my days recovering from my munch-fest:

Stitching around the Christmas tree, how cozy is that! Can you see how much progress I've made? A couple of more days and that little tree will be finished, I'm sure. Also notice the props I use for stitching. Aren't they fab? I bought a pair at my local DIY store for very very little money. I suspect they cost very very little money because once you start using them, you will soon notice that much of the wood ends up in your skin. Honestly. Splinters the size of sock knitting needles.

What to do? I thought. Now every time a thought like that crosses my mind, I find myself going through my house and looking for things that could possibly be of use - it didn't take long, because I happened upon my fabric stash and eureka! Cut a whole bunch of fabric into long, 5 centimeter (2") ribbons and proceeded to wrap the ribbons around the props. Bit of glue in strategic places and voila. Useful and fun, and nice to look at, even when they're not being used.

Very difficult to get a decent picture of them, though, so you will just have to take my word for it that they're glorious :o)

Oooookay, off to the supermarket. On foot. Because I need to lose weight pronto. Not that I'm keen on dieting or anything, but the last couple of months I've been complaining about my mattress being so lumpy, only to discover some nights ago that it wasn't in fact the mattress that was lumpy, but rather... Well. Me.

Maybe I'll take some pictures on the way to the village, to give you some idea of where I live next time I blog.

Yours lumpily,
Annemarie.

v. v. sick

It was my plan to have Pantoef write this blog post. You know, a la Spinster Stitcher: “My Mum can’t come to the blog right now…” but when I suggested this to Pantoef, he just raised his left eyebrow and continued munching the Christmas tree. Pipien always steers clear of any electrical appliance (except for the modem which provides much warmth), so I guess I’m on my own.

You see, I’m ill. And its all my own fault. –ish. I gobbled up an entire ‘speculaaspop’ (a big big big ginger cookie) that I’d forgotten I had. It was gluten free. It was even wheat free and nut free, so, safe as houses I thought, before I took a bite and kept taking bites until I’d polished off the entire thing. Next day (i.e. yesterday) I woke up and found that I couldn’t open my eyes. When I did manage to pry one eye open and look in the mirror, I noticed that my head was twice its normal size and thrice its normal colour (DMC 3803 or thereabouts, which is quite a lovely colour when it’s stitched on linen but quite a bit less fetching when it’s the colour of your skin). Still feeling a bit off, so it’s another pill for me and then back to bed. Anyway, this is by no way an uncommon occurrence, so no need to feel (too) sorry, just a bit of background information as to why there’s no stitchy progress today. But if I remember correctly, I did promise to show you what I made Pelle for Sinterklaas, and here it is:

This lovely owl was inspired by the ones Little Woollie makes. There’s no pattern, but if you follow her wonderful cat pattern, you should be able to make the owl. Should you feel so inclined.

Yours off to bedly,

Annemarie.

The Blue Lady returns

When I asked you to stop me from joining the Scarlet Letter stitch-along blog, I actually meant for you to discourage me. To point out to me that me signing up for a(n?) SAL or any other form of obligatory stitching is bound to end in misery and mayhap mayhem (thank you, Andrea for understanding me so completely). Thankfully for me, the Scarlet Letter blog is so popular, that it is now quite impossible for me to sign up (no, I know it’s still possible to sign up, but please, please, don’t make me do it). I say thankfully because, when I picked up Mary Hart, fully intending to stitch my way quickly down to the good part (i.e. the cat), I found myself frowning and scratching my head in wonderment when I couldn’t see any holes in the linen, while I was quite sure they were there before. Slowly but surely, the dreadful realization dawned that quite a bit of time has passed since the last time I worked on Mary Hart, and seeing that these days I can barely see what’s on my dinner plate without my freaking reading glasses, it’s probably a bit of a stretch to expect me to see the holes in the 40 count linen that I, in my infinite wisdom, chose to stitch Mary Hart on. Over-one on 40 count linen, old woman? What were you thinking?

Well, we’ll see how I manage to work my way around that. Not without the help of a very powerful magnifying glass, I fear.

Not to worry, though, because I have a project to fall back on when all else fails (or becomes invisible)… I know you missed her as much as I did: The Blue Lady. Mrs Slocombe. The Pistols.

Stitched on linen with holes the size of Yorkshire. The tiny white circle on the left hand side of the next picture is the bit I’m (still) working on right now.

This is a picture of the size of her (taken in the days when the décor of my home was still remarkably minimalist and fluff and clutter free)

And this is where I stopped yesterday evening

Ohhhhh, honeybuns, it was utterly glorious to work on her again. After all these years of hooking and knitting and not knowing what to do with all of my inspiration and my unrest and agitation, it turns out that THIS is what I needed. Some quiet time with my lovely lady. *Sigh* and, dare I say, *sniff*.

Oh, I’ve become so teary-eyed with adoration over my stitchy project, that I completely forgot to tell you about our Saint Nicholas celebrations. Next time, perhaps.

Yours deliriously in lovely,

Annemarie.

Eagerly awaiting with wildly beating heart...

...the coming of Saint Nicholas.

Expected time of arrival is around three O'clock this afternoon. The gifts are wrapped

the food is ready, and so are we!!!

In a great number of Dutch families, including ours, Saint Nicholas is bigger than Christmas. I've been busy crafting, cooking, and wrapping, and helping Saint Nicholas and his six to eight black men to pick out those perfect gifts for my nearest and dearest.

Six to eight black men??? I hear you ask puzzlingly... Let me explain. David Sedaris, who is fabulous, in case you didn't know already, wrote a story called "Six to Eight Black Men" and it describes perfectly the Dutch Saint Nicholas tradition. Read it or listen to him reading it to you. Enoy!

Yours awaiting eagerly with wildly beating heart,

Annemarie.