daily felt

That would be me...utterly insane. Mitsy made a Babette blanket and she refused to hand it over to me so I had to make one myself. The one here below is by Mitsy and has inspired me to start my own. I so love the geometric colorful pattern. I put the balls of cotton in a bag and when switching colors just randomly grab a thread...a geometric rainbow can only add happiness on the gloomiest of days

I hope it will not take me too long or there will be total chaos in this house...even worse than the usual chaos

As you can see my squares  are crocheted open as I want it to be a summer blankie, for when I hang out in the garden and the evenings are a bit chilly. The one Mitsy has made has only little holes at the diagonal.

Well ok no pictures of actual skiing going on as I was...welll...skiing

But the first picture is of where we didst ski, with great delight and pleasure.  No waiting lines for the lift, no crowds on the slopes and only 10 minutes drive from home...

The views on the drive down home alone are worth driving up here for. Fortunately one of the boys has a friend who lives up here so I get to drive this beautiful road up and down often when they play together. This time I was not driving so I could take some pictures.

A while ago I thought up a little game to play with the EST group, just for fun. It is called the sales faery game. The sales were low, the winter cold and bleak some cheering up was needed. So I set free the very first little faery and she flew round the group faster than lightning. Every new owner made her own version to be set free for a very small sum for the next one to catch. Since I set the first one free and there can only be one flying free I would have to wait till the very end to close the circle, but there are still those out thew\re wanting to catch one. So no fary for me

Frances thought this was a little sad for me so she sent me one, and a super cute one it is too! Now just hope she is a hard worker and brings me many sales

A while ago I had bought beautiful yarn and started knitting a jumper, this was super thin yarn. So knitting took for ever and I kind of lost heart after a one day stint of knitting for hours on end. After that I managed to finish the main body but the arms....well...sigh...

Then in the mean time I knit an other jumper with selfstriping noro yarn, which was much more fun as the stripes kind of push you along to get to the next color.

Leaving the first jumper half knit is not my style however so I started on the arms and after having done a little bit discovered I had not picke up the same number of stitches on both sides, frustrated I unraveled them again and had a sudden luminous idea. Sew on the sleeves! And a collar and hoody! Now there is something which is much more fun!

Yarn I love spinning too but then have a problem of what to do with the yarn, knitting is a bit of a bore, though they knit up beautifully. So this time I made a fun felted scarf with some yarn I made.

Today we drove to the other side of the valley where we live, down our hill up the other hill. In winter the sun does not touch our side from November till beginning of March. We do have a stunning view of sunny slopes  however

On top of the mountain there is a big flat expanse with stunning views and on the drive back down we saw something that is quite common here but never ceases to amaze me...frozen waterfalls..

The Etsy community is one where I feel very much at home, EST especially. I have found many like minded friends there with whom I trade, chat and exchange ideas.

A few weeks ago one of these friends made something that stole my heart immediately, a beautiful bonnet.

I wrote her and asked would she make me one too of felted fabric I was to make and send her. Well she was tickled pink by the idea and I at once made a felted panel and sent it off to her.

Today it arrived! I am so happy with it! It fits perfectly and is so well made. Thank you a milion times sweet P8 for making me this fantastic bonnet Not only did she send me a bonnet, within the package was also enclosed a so called 'kraplap' decorated with the remainder of my fabric cut into leaves.

I am such a lucky girl with such creative friends!

I am of course a very proud mom as are all moms Comes with the territory of being a mom.

I am proud because our boys have managed to adapt to their new life in a very short period of time and are now after a mere 11 months of Norwegian schooling at the same level using the same books as their class mates. Their english is even way above standard, keep in mind they did not have a single class of english in Holland. They have learned it from playing computer games and watching english spoken tv. Which goes to show computer games and tv watching are not a bad thing at all all be it in moderation of course.

The kids receive a fairly free upbringing, everything is open for discussion, as long as good arguments are used and they are always taught to question whatever I tell them. I am quite known for my tall tales....

At times this gets them into trouble at school as they do not demurely sit and accept whatever is told them, very contrary to local ways. It also means they can have very original thoughts.

This morning after having brought us coffe and a piece of bread they asked us what they could do, hoping of course we would relent and let them turn on the computer. No such luck. We told them to go build a bridge using paper hollow tubes they had to go make fiirst. After a bit they came to show us  lots of tubes, but not the right kind for bridge building. Short and not enough overlap, up they went again and we heard nothing more of them for quite a long time. So we assumed they had followed our instructions and were paper tube making, far from it! They had used the original tubes to make a marble run on the wall of their room. Follow instructions...you must be kidding! Very proud I am of the original thinking displayed here

Temperatures are up to a balmy -5 cecius and it has been snowing for quite a bit.  Over the weekend a huge bucketload of snow came down on us and just as we wanted to go out shoveling at the top of our drive a big tractor appeared. Within where three gleefully grinning boys. Our youngest son with his friend and his dad. Frank had been staying over the night there and decided to drive him home with the big tractor he uses as a snow plow, in 3 minutes he did what would take us at least 45 minutes by hand, grinning all the way. 

Since then more snow has been falling, the fluffiest,lightest,downiest snow I have ever seen!

While it was snowing I have been knitting like a maniac and finished my jumper. I will be wearing it for the rest of the winter.....

1. TwoTreesBelgium 2. AureliaLT

3.Jealousydesign 4.LoveandKnit

5.potglasshande 6.silkstory

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For the 5th week in stretch temperatured have not risen above -20 celcius. No birds flitting about, the cats refuse to go out, my eyelids freeze if I stay out too long, and yesterday we had the first slight mishap due to the cold. In the basement the washing machine is housed, next to it is a little heater so the waterpump will not freeze. By no design of mine I had placed it such that the pipe leading away from the washing machine kept frost free too. Then Martien placed it a little bit differently to keep the wine warm and instantly the pipe froze. So no washing for a few hours, luckily placing the heater back unfroze the pipe very fast too

The trees are covered by ice and are gone all brittle, outside is absolute total silence....the hut the boys built this summer stands awaiting warmer times..

Fortunately there is always fresh warm bread