not a station: October 2008

Friday, October 31, 2008

Wintertime :: cozy inside

I love being outside during summer, but in the colder seasons I like the feel of being inside. The warmth and light in the house is a shelter from the cold and dark outside.
Peeking in through my own kitchen window, standing in the cold to take the picture I had in mind, made me appreciate it even more….

Wintertime :: dressing warm

The good thing about chilly weather is that you can dress yourself to keep warm, while it’s impossible to undress enough to keep cool during a heatwave.
I took out, washed and sorted all the hats, scarfs and gloves. I like how many stuff is knit by me in that big pile.

In summer the coat rack is usually kind of empty, and we store our bath towels on top of it (to use when we take a swim to battle that heatwave). Now it looks full and cozy.

(Yeah, I know, all fake fur. It seems kind of hard to buy a coat without it.)

Speaking of wearing things I knit myself: I finished the pullover. Sadly it’s a bit to tight. I knew I had to pick a slightly bigger size, but I was afraid I would run out of yarn. So now I have a tight sweater and five balls left. Anyway, I do like it. It is kind of hard to see in the picture, but it is a rather simple v-neck sweater. The only special thing about it are the sleeves, they are knit sideways in k2, p2 ribbing.

(I do not like taking pictures of myself. I do not like any pictures of myself. But it will have to do…)

Wintertime :: comfortfood

Colder weather brings a different appetite. I’m slowly changing from salads and stir-frying to old-fashioned dutch dishes like this “boerenkool met worst” (kale with smoked sausage - we cook the sausage on top of the potatoes and the kale, and eat the kale mashed together with the potatoes).

And for lunch: tosti (ham and cheese on white bread, toasted together in a special iron – no idea if this is something typical dutch, but I can’t find a translation for the word).

The tablecloth is the one I was soaking a month ago . The stains got out, so it’s back on the table!

Wintertime :: warm feet

(I had no idea this was going to be a series, until I started coming up with ideas for more warm and cozy pictures. I like it, it keeps me more positive about loosing the light and knowing that there will be lots of wet, cold, dark and dreary times before the days lengthen again. So now it’s a series for the rest of the week.)

Hot water bottles… We had them for the babies of course, but I gave them away when the kids grew up. We lived in warm, modern houses for years. But now we have this lovely but old and drafty house.
Temperatures are dropping and the beds are chilly at bedtime. I was looking for some extra blankets at the thriftshop, but found these. Perfect!
There was only one cozy though, so I’d better start knitting.

Wintertime :: candlelight

We switched to wintertime this weekend. Or, as the weatherman said, we switched back to time, since this is our original status,without daylight saving (GMT+1). I am going to miss the light, the long evenings of summer, but there is one good thing about these dark days around Solstice: burning candles.

There is something about that glow that makes me feel so cozy, warm and safe…

Pumpkin try-out

I tried some of the things in the comments of last post. I cooked half the pumpkin in a roastpan, with a bit of water. That worked great, it was soft in no time! I mashed the flesh with some butter and cinnamon. The other half I chopped, sprinkled it with olive oil, salt and pepper and than put it in the oven at 175 degr (Celsius) and for about 30 minutes.
Great recipes! But… we discovered we don’t really like the taste of pumpkin. Ahem… Yeah, I feel kind of stupid to confess that. But than again, how many not-dutch-people like the taste of liquorice (we love it, the salter the better!)? We didn’t really hate the pumpkin, but we just didn’t think it was something we wanted to try again. For us the taste was something in between the tastes of potatoes and carrot (the big ones we use for “hutspot”). Not sweet, not neutral. I don’t know. It must have something to do with regional taste. Anyway, it was nice to try it and I finally managed to cook it right.
Thanks for the help!
Oh, almost forgot! I roasted the seeds. The kids love them. They want me to buy pumpkins just for the seeds now…

I need your help

Today I’m asking for your help. Look at the pumpkin I bought today. It isn’t feeling quite right, between my oh so dutch collection of vintage kitchen stuff. And that’s just the thing I need help with. We do get pumpkins (edible ones - the very little cute ones for decoration are much more common) here since a few years and I’d love to cook something with it like pumpkins soup, or pumpkin pie.
I tried cooking with a pumpkin before and it ended up… well…quite a disaster. I know now that you use the stuff close to the outside, and throw the seedy inside away like you would with a melon.
But now I still don’t know what to do with it. There are so many recipes around, but I get overwhelmed by them, since these are all based on some knowledge of how-to-cook-a-pumpkin. Also, I’m not sure about the difference between squash and pumpkins.

Anyway, I think my american blogfriends know much more about pumpkins, so I thought I’d ask you guys. What’s your favorite (easy) recipe with a little pumpkin? This one is 1,8 kilo’s/ 4 pounds. Will that be enough (there are five of us) or do I need to go and look for a bigger one?

Thanks in advance!

An even bigger mess

The reality of “making things” in a small home…
Um yeah, I should be using my sparse sewing time to finish more of those zippered pouches, but I got distracted by my half-finished quilt.
(that and the fact that putting in zippers does not combine with handling bickering teenagers).
I had to push all the furniture aside to lay it out, it is bigger than I intended. That does happen to me, it shows that I’m not good with measurements, doesn’t it?
I’m going to tie this one, it seems right for those simple squares. Also it just doesn’t fit through my simple machine.
Someday I’m going to buy myself a quilting hoop though and try to hand quilt.

New bag and sewing for Sinterklaas

It felt like ages since I last sat down to sew. No inspiration. But I was still using the bag I made myself last spring and I really needed something else. Of course I still had this one (the very first bag I made!) and this one (first with zipper), but I really liked the elastic pocket. That pocket was everything I hoped it to be. So easy when I’m working (I’m a freelance reporter) to be able to just pull out my notebook and pen, instead of having to open zippers or dig around in a big tote.
This bag has the same big elastic frontpocket, with small pockets for pens and my cellphone in it. Inside the main bag there are two zippered pockets and it closes with a zipper. I think I finally get the hang of putting in zippers!

That’s why I went ahead and used up some of my bigger scraps to make these zippered pouches. I think I will make more, fill them with something appropriate for each family member and use them as gifts for Sinterklaas. (Um…I hope there are no family members who read this blog instead of or next to my dutch blog!) Oh yes, only six weeks left! I really need to start making and buying. Such fun!

Look at the mess I make when sewing! It started out in nice little piles, but it always ends up like this…

Meanwhile outside...

our cherry tree is quickly loosing all his leaves.

this bush (I forgot it’s name) is still going strong and it is becoming more red every day. Such beautiful deep colors!

I found this little surprise in my garden. Let’s hope there will be enough sun this week to help them turn red…

Computer free

Last week was full of computer related work and projects. Add that to my normal internet addiction and you get a severe case of “square eyes”. So I decided it was time for a computer free weekend.
I have to admit, I did have some symptoms of withdrawal, but I managed to keep my promise.
It’s a bit shameful to realize how much more time I had for other things now!
I did a lot of knitting:
I finished the second sock

the back of my pullover and half the front

I also suddenly had the energy to start rearranging things in the house. That little table I mentioned last week? I liked what was on top of it, but the look of that table against that wall was just not it.
Also I felt I needed a little place to sit and work. Not having the computer next to me on the couch would really help me to be more mindful about what I do online and how long I do it.
So I got Theo to help me get this little closet down from our bedroom, where it was just sitting, overly stuffed, but not used as the cute little writing space it can be. The table is upstairs now, holding all our photo albums.
Look, my very own workspace!

I also rearranged some closets. This summer my grandmothers cupboard had to be removed from the living room to the hallway. We were going to buy a wood burner and put it right where that plant is, but it’s too expensive for this year’s budget. Still, we think the cupboard is too big. It used to be my crafting storage, but I thought I wouldn’t like having my stuff in the hallway, so I took a little space in the other cupboard. The largest part of my stash was in our bedroom, in plastic bins on top of our cloths closet. It wasn’t working out. So I reclaimed my grandmother’s cupboard. I’m so happy about it! It feels like my stuff just belongs there. I’m now looking for a small or foldable table, so I can do (some of) my sewing there.

Oh, almost forgot. I also made a new pillowcase for two old head pillows (when they need to be replaced on the bed, I use them on the couch) from the little crocheted blanket I made this year. I was just looking at the uncovered pillows, thinking I really needed to do something with it and than suddenly this idea came up. I really had no use for this blanket, but now it looks like this was what I wanted to do with it from the start!

Well……I think next weekend will be computerfree too!

Yellow in and out

I like the “Year of Color” group on Flickr. It’s challenging to take pictures of a given color inside and outside every two weeks.
I made the challenge even bigger today. I love taking pictures of flowers and nature (ha! Who would have known?), but I have very little experience with urban material. So that’s what I went for outside.

I was in a part of our village that has had the streets broken up for years now (sewer problems, poor drainage). It seems they are getting ready to finish it. It’s about time.

For my inside picture I had a bit of trouble finding something yellow. I have some tins that are yellow, but that’s about it. So I turned to my bookcase.

Yellow pocketbooks, the yellow lid on the little jar of sand that I brought home from a very special place, and the paper of vintage magazines that turned yellow over time. It’s not a very good picture, but it holds a lot of things that are dear to me.

Of course I couldn’t stay away from the flowers. Surprisingly the flowers I bought yesterday have yellow inside and outside…

Commercial break(down)

I’m not good at doing things commercially. My Etsy shop was very frustrating to me and the little business I had five years ago (selling home made bathsalts and other aroma-therapeutic products) didn’t work out either. Still, I’m always eager to try.

Here’s what I have been working on for a while now and have finished working all day on it yesterday: my very own photo calenders.

I know, Amanda Soule beat me to it, but honestly, I was already working on it! I got the inspiration from her birdproject last year, and started thinking these would be presents for my family. But since it’s so easy selling stuff through Lulu and I do get so many nice reactions to my pictures lately, I thought I’d try it. And than that post of hers came along. First I was about to drop the whole project, but than i realized that was a dumb thing to do. There are many, many more people selling calenders on lulu.com and the pictures I chose are completely different from hers. So, I’m absolutely not trying to copy her. Also, I’m completely aware of the fact that I can in no way compete with her (well-deserved) popularity. This is just me, trying something new.
First I did the flowers, the picture above is the cover of that one. And than I was browsing my pictures to see what other theme I could do. And that’s where the cats came from. Featuring four of the five cats that have lived with us, but I think other cat-lovers will like the pictures too. Just hop over to my store at lulu.com and look at the previews if you’re curious. Both calenders are available in a dutch and an american version (the difference is in language and listed holidays).

I will also be uploading some of my favorite pictures for downloading or printing Requests will be uploaded for the same price as the ones already there.
(a promise is a promise though, Elizabeth, I will still send you that file if you want me to)

On other “business” news: I sent out the manuscript last night, so it should be in the works now. I added a little synopsis to the bookpage at my website if you’re interested.

What?

I was trying to take his picture for a special project, but he was not amused…

Rose

So, it seems I’m not cut out for these give-aways. Now I have four lovely ladies who would like a hat. And I don’t want to disappoint any of them, since it means so much to me that someone even would like to have something I made.
I thought up something else and all four of you should have received an email about this by now.

The rose is totally unrelated. It’s in the neighbours garden. I love the intense red against the gray of the barn.

I do have a lot more to share, but I’m very busy. My publisher asked to send him my manuscript again, as soon as possible. But when I read through it a few weeks ago I found some mistakes. Which I (of course) didn’t bother to correct, since I thought it was already being processed by an editor.
You get the drift. I don’t want to send it off like this, so I have to read through it again tonight, find those mistakes, correct them and send out the manuscript before midnight (if possible)…

Phew, and here I was thinking it was so very easy to publish a simple novel…

Ten things I'm loving right now

:: having enjoyed a lazy weekend: sitting, knitting, resting

:: this new Flickr group, making me feel like I could really sit with those other mama’s, sip some tea and chat.
:: my hair being long enough to braid it like this (yes, I know, need to practise a little bit more…)

:: drinking tea. My favorites: greentea with lemon in the morning, Lipton Morocco in the afternoon and a cup of chamomile tea just before bedtime. I also love my newest thrifed teapot. Don’t you love that quirky looking lid?

:: watching our cherry tree change over the seasons (I put the pictures I have made since March in a Flickr set, it will be fun to watch those pictures in a slideshow after a year or so)

:: my new camera (surprise!), making it even more fun to take pictures of everything everywhere.
:: knitting my very first sock. So now I’m a real knitter, isn’t it, Q. ?

:: having a “season table” in the house. I love how I can put my flowers on there, without having to worry about moving it around (from the diningroomtable where the kids want to make homework, to the coffeetable where it’s blocking the view to the tv, back to the diningroomtable until it’s time to eat etc.

:: the way our cat makes the most out of the little sun we have these days

:: finally being able to list ten things I love in one post. I’ve been loving Amanda’s ten-things-posts, found them really inspiring, but needed a lot of practise in “gratitude” before I could make it up to ten at once.

What are you loving today?

Again

So do I need to link to the pattern or do you know it by now? I'm still enjoying knitting these hats.
I have to admit I tried to knit something else with this yarn but nothing worked. so that's why I turned to my favorite pattern. Twice.

An autumn walk

To get a feeling for my new camera I took a little walk. Well, actually I drove to the forest to take some pictures and in my enthousiasm I walked and walked until I was lost. It took me half an hour to find my car. But it was fun.
Sorry for the overdose of pictures. I couldn't choose.