summer

August Days

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Hello! It’s good to see you! August is almost at an end and I hope it’s been a good month for you. I wanted it to be a slow, quiet month, but how to slow down in your everyday environment when life just sort of goes on? What I basically did differently from the rest of the year was that I didn’t go anywhere in the evenings (easy when everyone is away), stayed at or close to home most of the time, lowered the bar (quite a bit) and spent as little time as possible online (not so easy). This gave me the breathing space I craved.

There is very little to show you of my uneventful days. One of the simple things I enjoyed was picking a bunch of sweet peas every other day.

There were several days that stood out between all the quiet ones, like the days we looked after our grandson, and the day a friend’s 12-year-old daughter came to learn how to bake sourdough bread and pizza.

And then there was the day we visited our niece who is a student in Nijmegen, a big city on the river Waal.

Well, Nijmegen fits about five times into Amsterdam, but it’s a big city to me. Large parts of the inner city were bombed in 1944, so most of the buildings are relatively new.

But there are some lovely old parts left, too.

We had lunch at a Swedish lunchroom, visited a fabulous bookshop, did some more shopping…

… and almost bumped into this fascinating dress (or is it a separate crocheted top and knit skirt?):

Oh, a yarn shop! I didn’t know there was one here. I took a quick look round and can tell you that it’s worth a visit if you’re ever in Nijmegen. The right kind of tools and notions, plus the most exquisite wool, cotton, hand-dyed, silk, paper, yak and alpaca yarns.

I have been knitting, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. On the whole, August weather is not really knitting weather. I did finish my Land Yndlingskofte, though. That is, I finished the knitting. Now I need to pluck up the courage to cut the steek.

I also knit a pair of men’s socks size huge. The brief was: as simple as possible in a dark colour. Boring? Not at all – to me it’s been meditative and very enjoyable.

For a sweater for our grandson I knit some swatches. When I chose the yarn, I thought I’d simply improvise something, but it’s not all that simple. There are so many decisions to make. Top-down or bottom-up? Knit flat or in the round? What stitch pattern(s)? How to distribute the two colours? Neckline? Set-in sleeves, raglan, yoke? Etc. etc. etc.

Summer is my least favourite season and I’m longing for cooler days with softer light. It’s still warm while I’m writing this, but the first signs of autumn are here.

After this slow month of August, I feel energized and am full of plans for things to do, make, read and write about. This is what I hope to share with you next week:

How has August been for you? Did you go anywhere? Or did you stay at home? Has it been very hot where you live? Or perhaps you live in the southern hemisphere and it’s been wet and chilly? Have you been knitting, sewing or otherwise making things? I’d love to hear from you and hope to see you again next week!

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:

Slowing down for August

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Hello! Almost August. All schools are closed. Many people are away on holiday or will be going soon. And even more people have come to spend their summer holidays here, cycling and canoeing, sailing and sightseeing. We’re not going anywhere (having already had a holiday in May), but I do feel the need to slow down a bit. Usually I’m buzzing about like a bee, but in August, I’d like to be more like a snail, taking things slow and withdrawing into my shell from time to time.

That doesn’t mean I won’t be here, on my blog, but it does mean that my posts will take on a different shape. Maybe I’ll send you a few ‘postcards’. Maybe I’ll take you along on an outing. Maybe I’ll have some knitting or other crafts inspiration to share. I don’t know yet, but I’m fairly sure my August posts will involve fewer words. Today’s post will still be an ordinary chatty one,  though, with some knitting, two books and a few other small things.

My Lang Yndlingskofte is growing nicely.

Only the yoke has colourwork in it – the rest is just plain stocking stitch. So there’s room for some more Norwegian colourwork alongside. I already have the idea and yarn for that and can start swatching.

Speaking of swatching, I’ve knit a couple of swatches using Ístex Léttlopi. I’ve never used it before because it feels rather, ehm, rustic on the skein. I very much want to like it, though, because it comes in so many beautiful colours, is an ideal weight for warm winter sweaters and because it comes from Iceland. But won’t it be terribly scratchy? Will I be able to wear it at all?

After knitting and washing the swatches, it feels considerably softer. Not supersoft, but maybe just about soft enough to wear. Should I give it a try and use it for a sweater? Have you ever used it? What do you think?

The pink sweet peas next to the swatches were a thank-you gift from my knitting student’s garden. Aren’t they gorgeous? In our last lesson before the summer break, she finished the wedding ring cushion she’s been knitting for her sister’s upcoming wedding. For the scalloped edges she also had to learn to crochet – a steep learning curve, but she did it! Before the ceremony, the wedding rings will be fastened to the cushion with the ribbon tied in a bow.

The cushion measures approximately 14 x 14 cm/5½ x 5½ in. We substituted a mercerized cotton for the silk yarn used in the pattern, and an improvised scalloped edging for the pattern’s simple one.

The pattern is from Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders: 101 Small Indulgences (Storey Publishing 2008, Ed. Judith Durant). The book can be found here on Ravelry. There is a whole series of these One-Skein Wonders books (Designer, Lace, Sock-yarn One-Skein Wonders etc.) and each one is filled with great ideas for small gifts.

While knitting on the Norwegian Lang Yndlingskofte I’ve also been reading a Norwegian novel – The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas (NO: Is-slottet; NL: Het ijspaleis). It is about two young girls: outgoing and popular Siss and quiet and withdrawn Unn. Shortly after they become fast friends, Unn disappears and Siss more or less freezes. It is a story of loss, grief and healing in which a frozen waterfall (the ice palace of the title) plays an important part.

It’s a beautifully written and poetic story that couldn’t be anything else but Norwegian. Here is a quote (Penguin Modern Classics edition, p. 91):

“The pine needles stretch their tongues and sing an unfamiliar nocturnal song. Each tongue is so small that it cannot be heard; together the sound is so deep and powerful that it could level the hills if it wished.”

What I found particularly moving was how the girls’ classmates gather round and support Siss. In that sense The Ice Palace is the antithesis of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies with its children turning into little savages. The Ice Palace is a true gem – thank you for the tip E.!

I hope to read another Norwegian book in August, and also hope to have lots of quiet spinning time.

Before closing off, here is one last thing – the second of my embroidered cross stitch bees. (This one was a great exercise in French knots.) On the whole I don’t like tiles, artwork or crafts projects with “Be Happy” on them. To me, it feels like a brusque command to do something I’m afraid I’ll fail miserably at. Happiness is such a fleeting thing.

But this time I’m taking it to mean:

May you be happy, may you be well, may you be peaceful and at ease for many moments every day.

A far less catchy and embroiderable phrase, I know, but I prefer this kind of nuance and gentleness. Whether you’re staying at home or going away on holiday, this is my wish for all of you.

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.

Halfway

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Hello! I hope this finds you all well. Here, after a very wet spring, we’re suddenly having a week of hot and dry weather. Personally, I prefer cool and rainy days, but it is summer after all. We’re halfway through the year, and I’m halfway through my current take-along project – my third Polka Dot Scarf.

I’ve given the other two away. This time I’ve chosen a colour nobody I know likes, so that I can keep it for myself.

I’m also halfway through a simple pair of socks and halfway through a bee-themed embroidery kit.

All enjoyable and relaxing projects, but I’m beginning to feel restless. I really need something more interesting and challenging alongside, but what? My problem is never a lack of ideas. I often have so many ideas that I feel overwhelmed and paralysed. Where do I go from here? Do you know that feeling?

So I do what I always do when I don’t know what to do – write about it. My thinking process is also helped by tea.

After making a long list of the things I’d like to make and considering the pros and cons of each, I have a lightbulb moment. Didn’t I have some kind of plan for 2024? Of course! Halfway through January I made a short list that was meant as a kind of map for the year.

One of the things on it that I haven’t done much about yet is Norwegian knitting. How could I forget about that? Some of you even gave me great ideas for Norwegian books to read, too! Never mind the hot weather, that’s just what I need. It feels good to know where I’m going again.

Last week I wrote that I’m trying to make my posts shorter, and I really won’t ramble on any longer, but I just have to show you where the pictures of the Polka Dot Scarf were taken. It was in a lovely out-of-the-way place, with a hidden, disused lock from the time peat was extracted here and transported to other parts of the country by boat.

Just follow the grassy path below and enjoy a moment of calm in this special place. Xxx

Oh, the Places Knitters Go!

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Hello! It’s good to be back here. Maybe you haven’t even noticed I’ve been away, but we’ve been on a late summer holiday to Germany. We spent the first half in the Mosel region, and the second half in the Eifel. Above a photo of the view on the river Mosel from our balcony, and below our first holiday home from the outside:

In my dreams, that is. In real life this is Reichsburg Cochem. And in real life we stayed in a far humbler (but lovely) abode. In real life, this was what I looked out on when I sat knitting outside our cottage.

I didn’t knit all that much during our holiday, though. Partly because we were out walking and visiting places most of the time, and partly because it was so hot that the yarn almost felted in my hands. A few rows on a scarf here and there, and half a sock was all I knit.

Halfway through the holiday, I celebrated my birthday. We had some of the famous and delicious German Kuchen, of course. (The Germans are so much better at baking cakes than we Dutch are.) And I also got to decide what we were going to do the rest of the day. I chose a visit to another castle and… a yarn shop (what else?). This is Schloss Bürresheim.

The castle is entered through a kind of tunnel that leads to a courtyard with an outdoor summer kitchen. It’s very special, like being in a film.

Actually it is in a film. In an edited form, it is the castle where Indiana Jones’ father is held captive in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Now, let’s drive on to the yarn shop. It’s Die Kleine Wollfabrik in Kaisersesch. My guess is that tourists are a rarity in this town. It’s 30 ˚ C/86 ˚ F, with glaring sunlight and noise and dust from building activities in a colourless street. Oh, the places we knitters go! For a moment I wonder ‘what on earth am I doing here?’, and then step inside a world of colour.

There is yarn everywhere. In overflowing baskets…

… in cubbyholes, on shelves, on the floor…

… on top of storage units and in front of the windows. These skeins were dyed by the shop owner herself:

And there is also quite a bit of spinning fibre.

So, is this yarn shop worth a detour? If you’re looking for yarn for a sweater – frankly no. There is very little of that kind of yarn here. But if you’d like some yarn for socks or a shawl – absolutely. Be prepared for a kind of yarn jungle expedition, though. You’d be wise to have some kind of idea of what you’re looking for beforehand.

From all of the very colourful yarns, I chose several rather quiet ones for three pairs of socks to give away, and a variegated yarn for a pair for me. All of them yarns I haven’t knit with before – I’ll tell you more about them when I get round to knitting them up.

After all of the beautiful places we’ve been to, it’s good to be back home. In a sense, I’m a cow. Not the nicest thing to say of oneself perhaps, but what I mean is: I need time to chew things over. After ingesting lots of grass/impressions, both cows and I need some quiet time to digest everything. Sifting through my photographs and writing about my experiences helps me do that.

Thank you for reading. I hope to digest/write about a visit to another textiles-related place next week before getting back to my ordinary knitting chat. Hope to see you then!

A Monkey in the Forest

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Hello! Last week, besides needing some quiet time to myself, I was too busy finishing a monkey to write a blog post. Before he was to move in with our grandson, I took him to the forest at the end of our street for a photo shoot. First we walked through the part with the big old beeches, where we got a good shot of the way his tail peeks out from his dungarees.

But on the whole it was too dark under the trees, so we walked on to a sunnier spot. It’s one of my favourite places in the whole wide world – a tiny, perfectly round pool.

It’s probably an ancient cattle watering-hole and it is surrounded by a small patch of heathland.

The heather is in bloom at the moment. It’s mainly ling, but there is also some bell heather.

So, here he is, the monkey I knit for our grandson:

He was knit entirely in one piece, starting from the top of his head. It isn’t an easy knit, but the pattern is very clear and has photo tutorials for literally every detail. The only part that gave me some problems was the ‘frown’ – the vertical line between his eyes that needed exactly the right increases to get a neat result. It’s a very clever construction and I particularly like the shaping of the monkey’s back and bum that allow him to sit up straight on every surface.

I knit the monkey a pair of dungarees with buttons on the back, that you’ve already seen from behind. This is the front:

And a jacket that also leaves the tail free.

Even though it’s the middle of the Summer Holiday Season and there are many, many tourists in the region, nobody comes up to me here, asking what on earth I am doing. It’s quiet. Dragon flies are flitting across the pond, too fast for me to capture. A viviparous lizard is also faster than my camera. Fortunately the carnivorous sundew stays in place, allowing me all the time I need to photograph its treacherous sticky droplets.

We enjoyed a lovely couple of hours in the forest, the monkey and I. He has now moved in with our grandson and they are getting along very well. The monkey has already been dressed and undressed countless times, and also been thrown about quite a bit, but he keeps smiling and doesn’t seem to mind.

For the knitters among you, here are a few details:

  • Yarn: Sandness ‘Tynn Merinoull’ (monkey, 20 MC, 8 g CC); Dalegarn ‘Baby Ull’ (jacket and dungarees 17 g each, mouth small remnant); I used a fingering-weight yarn, but the monkey can be knit in any yarn weight
  • Height of monkey: 18 cm/7” from top of head to bum; 27 cm/10½” including legs
  • Knitting needles: 2,25 mm/US 1 for monkey; 3,0 mm/US 2½ for clothes
  • The designer’s website (in Dutch) with patterns and supplies for this monkey and other softies can be found here

The Dutch paper pattern booklet includes the jacket. There is a separate booklet for the dungarees and some more clothes. Designer Anita mostly uses colourful yarns like Schoppel Zauberball for her creations.

The digital pattern for the monkey in Dutch, English, German and French can be found here on Ravelry; the dungarees in Dutch and English here; and a dress here.

Because I wanted the monkey to be washable, I’ve filled it with synthetic filling. For weighting the hands, feet and bum I used plastic pellets encased in cotton tubular bandage.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to ‘our’ forest with the monkey and me. Thank you for joining us! xxx

Small Summer Pleasures

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Hello! I know that some of you are on holiday, while others are off enjoying a fabulous weekend at a Fiber Fest. So maybe you’re reading this in front of your tent, on the veranda of your summer cottage, or in your hotel room. Or during your coffee break at home or at work. I like imagining all these different surroundings and look forward to reading about them on your blogs, Ravelry or elsewhere.

Nothing much is happening here at the moment. We’re at home, doing some work and just living our lives, and I thought this week I’d write about several of my small summer pleasures. First of all: rain.

We’ve had so much rain this week! Is that a pleasure? Yes, for me it is. After the hot and dry start to the summer, I love the muted light, the freshness and the wetness of it all. And our soil, plants and trees really need it.

The garden is perking up and another of my small summer pleasures is strolling through it, looking at the flowers, butterflies and insects. I’ve picked a few sprays of miniature roses for a small glass vase (top). We also have a tiny fuchsia bush, with flowers like elfin ballerinas.

In a recent episode of BBC’s Gardener’s World, there was an elderly couple who had dedicated their lives to growing miniature fuchsias. On the one hand, incredibly twee. What a thing to dedicate your life to! But on the other, so peaceful – there are far worse things to do with one’s life.

Speaking of peaceful, how can I ever swat a fly again, now that I’ve looked at this one from up close? With its veined glassy wings, its huge red eyes and its checkerboard-pattered backside it’s a beautiful creature.

My small summer knitting projects are also giving me a lot of pleasure. I just finished a pair of Welted Fingerless Gloves for our daughter, to replace a pair that was worn to shreds. They took 34 grams of Fonty’s ‘Tartan 3’, a yarn dyed using a more sustainable method than usual.

On my needles now is a small monkey for our grandson. More about that soon, when it’s finished.

We do not have a vegetable garden anymore, but we do have some vegetables in our garden. Rocket and spinach on last year’s compost heap. Rhubarb plants here and there. And one tomato and one cucumber plant against our tool shed.

The tomatoes are not ripe yet, but we’ve already harvested three wonderfully fresh and crunchy cucumbers – another small summer pleasure.

The other day we ate slices of cucumber with an Indonesian-style meal. (We have a large Indonesian community and their food culture has been an important influence on Dutch cuisine.) While I was cooking and laying the table, I thought you might like my recipe for Nasi Goreng and took some pictures. It’s an easy weekday meal and I’ve made it countless times over the years.

I don’t usually measure the quantities and sometimes vary with the ingredients, but I’ve done my best to write up a cookable recipe. My version is only slightly spicy. My husband likes it hot and adds lots of sambal.

Nasi Goreng

Serves 2

Ingredients

  • 125 g white rice
  • 1 tbsp sunflower oil
  • 150 g chicken breast, cut into cubes, or a vegetarian alternative
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 tsp ground coriander seeds
  • ½ tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp sambal brandal (a mild, fried sambal)
  • 1 medium carrot, finely diced
  • 150 g finely shredded pointy cabbage
  • ½ tbsp ketjap asin (salty soy sauce)
  • ½ tbsp ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)
  • Salt

Method

The day before:

  • Cook the rice, leave to cool and store in the fridge (It is essential to do this ahead of time or you’ll get a very sticky Nasi Goreng)

On the day:

  • Heat the oil in a wok and fry the chicken cubes on high heat until lightly browned
  • Reduce the heat to medium, add the onion and fry until slightly transparent
  • Add the sambal brandal, ground coriander and cumin and stir for 2 mins
  • Turn up the heat, add in the carrot and cabbage and stir fry for about 3 mins
  • Reduce the heat to low, mix in the cooked rice and the two kinds of ketjap, and heat through
  • Add salt to taste

To serve:

  • This time we ate the Nasi Goreng with sliced cucumber, prawn crackers, serundeng (seasoned roasted coconut with peanuts) and fried egg.
  • Sometimes I also serve it with stir-fried bean sprouts, atjar tjampoer (sweet-and-sour pickles) and/or satay (peanut) sauce

Enjoy!