Stitches and Thrills

One of my knitting friends asked our help for giving some ❤️ to healthcare workers. During the first wave of Covid there was applause. Today the people are faced with impatience and verbal and physical abuse. Below I will describe in Dutch our mission to give some love and appreciation to the people working in health care, at homes for the elderly, in public transport and other front lines during the 2nd wave of Covid in the Netherlands. Via Inge : Deze Corona tijd is eenzaam, vervelend, angstig en frustrerend. Samen houden we vol, maar de zwaarste lasten liggen bij de zorgverleners. En juist zij hebben de laatste tijd te maken met agressie en bedreiging. Velen voelen zich in de steek gelaten en ervaren geen waardering meer voor hun grote inzet. In plaats daarvan moeten ze langs bewaking naar hun werk en verzoeken ze hun patiënten via het keuzemenu op de telefoon of met posters om vriendelijkheid en geduld. Laten we de zorgverleners Hartverwarmers sturen, als teken van onze ...

"I am just here for the knitting." "Does everything have to be about politics?" These remarks often pop up in conversations in the yarn and knitting community. I am sure other communities will have the same comments from their members. Maybe you feel the same sometimes. Weary of the news on internet and television. You just want to clock out and relax with your knitting. You can do that. It is good for your mental health to switch off all the information input. But it is also a privilege of able bodied White women to be able to do so. Awareness is key here. Be grateful that you can, and strive for a world where this is an opportunity for everyone. When you step outside that bubble of 'yarn&you' into the community, then you can and should expect politics. Because whether you step into a yarn shop, follow a dyer on Instagram, or comment on a forum: everyone's experience is grounded in politics. The personal is political.  Maybe you think you are non-p...

I treasure my interchangeable circular needles. They are easy for adding needle length when knitting large shawls. And you always have all needle size/length combinations at hand. My circular needle set is from KnitPro , but there are other brands who carry them, like HiyaHiya. The only size that didn't work for me was 3mm. The wooden tips kept breaking. Steel points are better for me when thin needles are required. But for everything 3.5mm and up I am very content with Knit Pro. Keeping the needles loose in a basket was not an ideal storage solution. I needed to keep them out of reach from our cat Dita as she has been caught stealing wooden crochet hooks and sock needles before. But searching for a pair of the same size in the basket became a bit of a nuisance. Google brought me to the blog Life According to Missus Vonkysmeed . She posted a sewing pattern for a needle case. I read the whole pattern description twice to make sure I understood all the steps to take. For ...

As a self-confessed workshopaholic I have often met them. The non-creatives. Or at least that is who they think they are. They usually are at a workshop as a gift or in a group activity (like a baby-shower or a birthday). With slight panic in their eyes they enter the craft studio. Apologising beforehand that they are incapable of making anything nice, because they "are not creative at all". Well here's the news: there is no such thing as a non-creative! "Oh, but I am not creative at all!" The first misconception: "I have no imagination." Really? In childhood you made dozens of drawings, paper planes and clay models. Your imagination does not disappear. You are just using it in a different way now. Maybe you are fantasising about your travel plans, home décor, diner or a revolution. When you cherish and challenge your imagination your ideas will become fresher and bolder. Clear your mind and something will appear in your head. Ask people...

At my place of work (the Dutch branch of Holland and Barrett) we are having a fundraiser for Make-A-Wish . The Make-A-Wish foundation grants wishes of seriously ill children. So that, for one day, the kids and their family can forget about the illness and enjoy themselves. My contribution to raising the money is selling these 6 crossstitch DIY sets I put together. My design is a pretzel with a heart. It was a design I started on for my friend, a big Pretzel lover. But her gift eventually became a bigger pretzel. ;-) I sold already a few, but there are still kits available! You will get black crossstitch fabric, embroidery thread, a needle, a 11cm hoop (that's about 4 1/4"), a design and a tutorial in both Dutch and English. How do you get your hands on a Pretzel Love crossstitch kit? A DIY set costs €12 (is about 13.40 USD or 10.25 GBP). The shipping's on me, so FREE SHIPPING! If you would like to order a kit give me a shout via the comment section, or ...

We are a week into Plastic-Free July: a challenge to deplastify your life. I got into it through The Story Of Stuff on Facebook: So here's my first update on how it goes so far. I'll focus in this post on the food and drinks sections. In the Netherlands we do have a special plastic recycle program ( or actually: downcycling ) , so it is very easy to track how much plastic our household collects as we keep it in a separate bin. I divided my experiences in 3 sections. * Easy life change: the why didn't I do this before? ** Needs some adaptation in lifestyle: doable, but takes more planning. *** The struggles: Hm, difficult: How am I going to make this work? * Easy life change - Shop local Preferably I'd be baking biscuits myself any way, because of the sugar. But in events that I will buy cookies, the ones at the bakery come in a paper sachet or I can bring my own container. While supermarket cookies are wrapped in 2 (sometimes even 3!) layers of plas...

Four knitters on a train. All the way up north to Leeuwarden. The exhibition Breien! / Knitting! in the Fries Museum is all about knitting. Finally I could see my Flamingo hat among the other 14 nominees for the Animal Hat contest 'Beestenboel'. It's really fun to see how each knitter has a different approach to the animal hat theme! In the same room as the 'hat-tree' there were little boxes with miniature knits about the history of knitting. We really enjoyed our museum tour. There was work from knitters we were familiar with and new discoveries. Westknits shawls at @friesmuseum . I wore my own #dottedrays 😊 @westknits #breien #friesmuseum #museum #knitting #exhibit #leeuwarden #shawl #westknits #westknitsshawl #knit Een foto die is geplaatst door Ama (@missminoes) op 21 Mei 2016 om 11:40 PDT Nice surprise was there were knitting patterns available. For instance of the skirt in the top right picture below. If you understand Dutc...

Our cat Dita turns out to be an avid plant and flower eater. So we did not have any bouquets in our house for a while now. And as spring is only crawling in with baby steps some floral decoration would be nice to brighten up our home. From a flower guide book I took these beautiful illustrations and gave them a decorative edge. Hello floral bunting! Hello spring! Bring the springtime in your home too! Book & Button Buntings available at AllFairness .

When the Breien! (Knitting!) exhibit at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden opened I immediately wanted to jump on a train to the far north. But..hold it... They announced there would be a competition for knitted animal hats! Entries before February 29th 2016, and a selection will be on display for 2 months from April. So I will go later this year, when the hats are in the museum, hoping mine will be among them. :-) (Dutch readers: so you can still enter the Beestenboel competition!) In 2003, when I got back into knitting after decades of non-knitting it all started by making kitty hats as Miss Minoes on Etsy to raise money for the Stevenshage animal shelter in Leiden. Some other animals have popped up in that parade: a bunny , a donkey, a mouse and even a cow. So, having made so many hats with ears already, I really wanted to approach this from another angle. I made a secret Pinterest board (now public) to find the elements I wanted in my design. Follow Ama's...

"Usually I am not that affected by a celebrity's death" is a phrase that came up in some responses to David Bowie passing away. When it hit the news on Monday, it left me lost for words for a while as well. As one does nowadays it is comforting to have so many friends so close at hand through social media and to share our emotions. And my mum and brother send me text-massages, so sweet. It became evident that for a lot of people this was also so much more than a famous person dying. There have been other singers that truly touched my heart who've passed away. And usually I thought "ah, that is very sad" and played some songs. But this time it was different. For family and friends a death leaves a giant hole. No more moments to talk with someone, to hold someone. But why are we so affected by losing someone we never even met in real life? Since the release of The Next Day and seeing the "David Bowie Is" exhibit in London Bowie had been mor...

Introduced in 2014 it became quite the trend in 2015: Arm knitting. Here's the most used video tutorial. Things to keep in mind: - The first time you arm knit you might take 1 or 2 hours to make a scarf. Once you get the hang of it, it goes a lot quicker. - Take a bathroom break before you cast on. Not very handy to bring all that knitting to the toilet!

Having been at a Twin Peaks party a couple of weeks ago I realized that my life was missing a log pillow. (The hostess of the party had one!) So I was thrilled to find the free log crochet pattern on the Club Geluk website ! The pattern is in Dutch, but I will explain some adaptation I made, and as a bonus: how to make it into a pillow. I used 100 grams of light brown yarn (it was actually a variation yarn, but that worked well). 50 grams of beige and 50 grams of dark brown yarn. All yarn DK / light worsted (usual advice would be needle size 4). I used a crochet needle 3.5 mm to get a close firm stitch. The recommended 43 chain stitches (light brown yarn) cast on gave me a circle of 9 1/2 cm diameter. I closed the circle and knitted 55 rows to get a 39 cm tube. I did make a small change to the pattern in the 2 end circles of the log (beige yarn). As recommended I did cast on 8 stitches in a magic circle. And then increasing each round following in the pattern. However: I did...

Last winter the Dutch shopping chain HEMA used a lot of knitted items in their holiday season promotions. There were knitted champagne bottles, a cat, food, yes, even a ham. All this was knitted by Club Geluk (= Club Happiness). On their website the actual items are for sale, but also Christmas NYE cards and a spicy calender. But most of all, a big hooray for the Dutch knitters, the knitting patterns are now available in a book: Club Geluk Boek I didn't get the book yet, but a friend of me bought it and confirmed it was full of patterns that were unlike anything she had seen before. On the Club Geluk website you can also find free crochet patterns (in Dutch). Among those a crochet log. The pattern suggests using a cardboard roll as filling. But I made a pillow filling for it. Which will be DIY December Day 9, otherwise I'll never catch up ;-)

More mittens to make! You just got to love these Meow Mitts by TinyOwlKnitsPatterns . I know I do =^x^= Pattern available in her Etsy shop. Pattern: Meow Mitts by TinyOwlKnitsPatterns And if you don't like cats - hey wait, what are you doing on this blog then? -  she also sells patterns with bunnies, birds and butterflies, among others.

The free pattern for these fingerless gloves is available on the blog Knitting And So On . Aren't they amazing? I have never seen anything like it. I can't wait to knit them! Free pattern on Knitting and so on

For the 5th #diydecember (I'll catch  up, I promiss!) I'll share one of my favourite recipes. And it is super easy as well! As bread and cracker spreads go I never was much of a sweet tooth. But I really wanted to cut down on my cheese consumption a couple of years ago. Now there are a lot of vegetable spreads available in the shops, but they tend to be quite expensive. So I created my own: Quick-to-make Lentil Spread Bring half a liter of water with vegetable stock to a boil.  Add 150 gram of red lentils . When the water is back to boiling lower the fire and put the lid on. Leave smothering at a low heat for about 10 to 15 minutes. Do occasionally stir and make sure if there is still enough water in the pan. Turn of the heat. If there is too much water, pour away the access. Leave the pan standing with lid on. In the meantime cut an onion in fine pieces en squish 3 parts of garlic (smoked - optional). Fry the onion. Add the garlic and spices as...

A belated Day 4, as I had no time to post yesterday. Today I am sharing 11 items from Etsy to spark your creativity. All these shops are from the Leiden area. So whether you want to stamp, crochet, bead or draw...check out our Etsy Leiden team page for materials, PDFs and kits. PDF crochet pattern for bunting by HaakmaarraakNL PDF knitting pattern for Superhero Hat by MissMinoes From Leiden. Patterns & DIY. curated by From Leiden with Love on Etsy

A couple of years ago I made a pair of armwarmers out of socks with holes. This project will be today's DIY idea. It was a busy day at work, so it's a bit of a filler tutorial. ;-) When socks start to get holes you might try out to mend them at first. But sometimes the quality of the material is just not really up to being used that intensely. As a shop assistant I am on my feet all day and the soles of my socks sometimes wear very thin. And there's simply nothing left to mend. When this happened to a few pair of knee length socks (poor quality, but I fell for the stripes) I decided to make them into armwarmers. First you cut the sock, just above the ankle. If you have an overlock machine you can sew the edge with that. I don't have an overlocker, so I decided to use a zigzag on the cutted edge. On the yellow/black pair I sew a stretchy lace ribbon along with the zigzag. On this pair the cut edge was the hand side. On the black/white pair the top of th...

At the Etsy Craft Party in June we worked with 3 origami DIYs. I had promised to share them all 3 on this blog. But after the first one I went to Italy, then we got 2 cats...and now it is December. Still: the perfect time to make a Christmassy Paper Fröbel Star ! Here's how it is done: You need 4 strips of paper, each at least 25 times as long as it is wide. Mine were 1" (2.5 cm) wide and at least 25" (62.5 cm) long. Vouw 4 stroken in elkaar. Interlocking, dus bijvoorbeeld beide gele einden door de rode heen steken. Fold the 4 strips interlocking together. So both yellow ends are weaved in the red strip. Vouw de bovenste stroken 1 voor 1 dubbel over het vierkantje heen. Fold the upper strips 1 by 1 over the square. Steek de 4e strook onder de eerste door. Stick the 4th strip under de first one. Vouw een strook in een puntje. (Maakt niet uit met welke je begint.) Fold a strip into a point. (It doesn't matter with which you start.) Kl...