Frisian Frillies

The latest request from the brood was hats and scarves. The hats were a definite yes, as Batman had outgrown his hat and Mermaid had been wearing one of mine, but with regard to the scarves, I said no to Mermaid. She still has about 5 hanging in the hallway! Of which one, the mini Annis , was quite haggard looking... and on closer inspection showed signs of rabbit damage (sigh...). So, instead of knitting a winter scarf, I promised I'd 'fix' her Annis... First up are the hat and scarf for Batman, knit from a similar yarn as his idiot mittens, Lana Grossa Paddy (no idea why they decide to call it Paddy instead of Teddy though...), and they are super soft... It took ages to sew in all the ends for the scarf though... I again realize why people like selfstriping yarn so much... Hereby: dear Lana Grossa, can you make self-striping Paddy with a long and nicely varied rapport? Thank you! Then Mermaids hat. Same principe, but two more increase rows before the k1p1. And yes, of...

I'm a member of the SwapLicious group on Ravelry, where we organize yarn and knitting- related swaps, but also Secret Santa swaps. The last swap was the Fairytale swap, where you had to choose a fairytale and then buy and make little presents to send to your 'swappie'. I had very early on decided I was going to go for the Vrouw Holle fairytale, and had great fun trying to find things in the store to go with the fairytale and make some items as well... My swap partner, Tineke , received some tea (apple and liquorice), a apple-shaped notice board, popcorn, snowy Christmas cards and bread mix (if you know the fairytale, you might know where in the story they fit) and I also made some stuff... First up, some sock blockers with flowers (the Dutch name of the fairytale is 'Vlijtig Liesje', which is also a type of flower). A never-ending spindle... which I had painted, stamped, and which was then ruined because the paint just wouldn't dry... Luckily, I could get a...

Sometimes yarn buying is just like a box of Pringles: once you pop, you can't stop... Over the last few weeks, I've bought a lot of yarn. And have been gifted lots too, like during our SnB party. So, a quick run-down of the new yarnsies living at Chez Amy: Bought during the National Spinning Convention, 3 cakes of merino/tencel roving, called Damiane, 300 grams in total, bought from the love Dutch Wool Diva . This will be spun up and knit into a sweater or something else swish. Then four balls of Lana Grossa Paddy, to knit a hat (done) and scarf to fit the idiot mittens for Batman, and a skein of some unknown yarn from the Sale bin. It was pink, it was fluffy, I liked it, so I bought it (if only all things were so simple). These five come from Het Zwarte Schaap (no website) in Burgum, where we were because we had a voucher ánd because we (me and Marieke from  Wereldwol ) had paid a visit to Monique from  Kantwerk , who celebrated her birthday last week. Yes, 21 again! Five...

It's been a while already, but with birthdays, lots of work and some nice and extremely bad weather to boot (which meant we were either outside walking or inside cleaning up), it's taken a bit longer than usual to get to posting.. But I still wanted to write a wee blog about the Spinning Day. In a few words: it was soooo cool! It was almost like coming out, so hilariously thrilling and exciting, scary and fun all at the same time. I had already been broken into spinning meetings a bit with our new spinning group, which meets up every month, but to be honest, 10 spinners or 200; there is a bit of a difference... So when we walked into the room with all those chairs, I first wondered how on earth they would all be filled... But they were (well, nearly)! Over 200 spinners from all over the country had converged on Mennorode. Some for the entire weekend, some (like me) for just the one day. And nearly all of them had a companion. Photo courtesy of Passepartout Look at all o...

Remember when I cut up my old winter coat and wanted to turn it into a new winter coat for Mermaid? And it wouldn't work? A solution has been found! With some help from my wallet, a helpful blogless Judith from SnB and lots of stalls at the Stoffenspektakel, I finally collected all the necessary fabric and notions to sew up one kick-ass winter coat for Mermaid. I had been given specific instructions about this coat. It was supposed to be red and have a fake-fur collar. So I came home with grey/pink fabrics and shiny dark pink buttons. Of course. Mermaid was elated however, and said that I had actually bought fabric which was way cooler than she could have imagined. Now the only thing left for me is to make it. I still have the minor thing of my own dress to sort out and then I hope I can get started next week. Should be fun!

Not quite... but last week it certainly did feel very Christmassy - despite the fact that we were (and are still) able to sunbathe outside in our bikinis... The reason? A night of bauble knitting with an insane number of enthusiastic women. I couldn't even get everyone in the picture! Siem 's hubby took one from the other angle... And the reason for us being here, on the top floor of a book shop, knitting Christmas baubles, was the publication and promotion of one weird knitting book, which has taken the Dutch knitting world by storm: Kerstballen breien met Arne en Carlos . Many of our SnB group had already purchased the book and had started knitting some balls weeks ago, which meant that when we were invited to give a workshop and just have one cool, crazy evening with lots of short needles, giggling women and coffee and cookies/chocolates, we had a nicely decorated Christmas tree: A nicely decorated Tijm : Lots of big and small balls on the table: Resulting in the utmo...