Stitches and Thrills

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 ...

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

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...

I'm ba-a-ack! Back on the blogtrain, that is. Last months I have been busy, and so often thought: oh, this is something I'd like to blog about. But somehow just the thought of sitting at the PC made me tired. So, maybe one day I will tell you about the trip to Terschelling, the sewing lessons, the Westknits KAL (knit-along). But not today. This month I will share on a daily base lovely DIY ideas, kits, patterns, recipes and inspirations that will make you want to jump out of your chair and get creative. Last weekend I started to hang up some Christmas decorations. Since we are a cat household already for many years I have mainly unbreakable ornaments. But I realized that our 2 new enthousiastic furry felines, Dita and Moogie, would most likely even tear those down. So,here is a video I found on making a Christmas tree that is not only cat safe, but actual cat fun! How To Make a Cat Proof Christmas Tree! How do you make a cat proof Christmas tree? … Here'...

Jersey used to be my "Fabric Enemy No.1". On the floor of my wardrobe there was an ever growing pile of t-shirts that needed revamping, but all previous attempts to sew knitted fabrics had failed miserably. Some people told me I would need an overlocker to sew jersey. So I when I came across Tilly And The Buttons' online workshop " Learn to sew jersey tops on a regular sewing machine " I decided to give it a go. In the additional video's Tilly explains all techniques in detail. (Thank you, Tilly!) And all questions in the forum are answered quickly. It was also nice to see everyone's shared results. The Agnes top pattern is so versatile: you just want to make more and more tops! A few tips I took from the course:   - A running foot might be very handy for my sewing machine if I want to sew more jersey. - The moment I was thinking: "yes yes, I know, Tilly, I have to check that my seam allowances are not folded" I noticed the ne...

When on vacation in beautiful Florence (Italy) last week, I was inspired of sharing the holiday snaps in a fun way with my friends through Instagram and Facebook. The photos were tied together creatively by making a series of drawings and then cutting out the main shape. That way the background would become the pattern of the drawing. The cat theme popped up because we knew we were going to adopt 2 cats the day after we'd come back from Florence. =^x^= Unprepared as I was, we had to go paper shopping on our first day for some more sturdy paper. The 80grams I had with me was wind swept to easy. As one of the IG-comments suggests: it is also a very nice activity to do with children on vacation. Are you inspired? Share a link to your creative paper cutting holiday snaps in the comments section! #catwithaview from the Boboli Gardens. Een foto die is geplaatst door Ama (@missminoes) op 17 Jul 2015 om 4:55 PDT Not a cloud in the sky. Een foto die is geplaa...

Beard Oil is an important part of beard maintenance. And it is easy to make your own mixture at home. One advantage is that you can create a blend which you like the best in terms of smell and that suits your skin (beard) hair. The beard oil consists of 2 parts: The carrier oil: The carrier oil is the basis for the additional essential oils, but also has a nurturing function itself. You can choose 1 carrier oil, or blend 2 or 3. The most commonly used carrier oil is jojoba oil. This is a light and dry oil. Almond oil is slightly fatter. It might help to prevent ingrown hairs. In case of a nut allergy you can replace almond oil with grapeseed oil! Sometimes castor oil is added to the mixture used for a thicker fuller beard. Argan oil is rich in vitamin E. It is recommended for a very dry beard. The essential oils: Commonly used oils Cedar and tea tree: Cedar has a woody scent. It can also be used well with your acne prone skin. Eucalyptus and pe...