Stitches and Thrills

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...

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...

At Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden there is a very special exhibition about the Geisha culture in Kyoto (these Geisha's in Kyoto are called Geiko's). There was so much to see I had to go twice (luckily I have a Museum card that gives free entrance to a lot of Dutch museums.) The Geisha exhibit is only on till Monday May 25th, so if you are in the neighbourhood do go and visit! Last week there was a contest on the Facebook page of the museum and I won a surprise package!   The package contained 2 fans, a pair of miniature geta (shoes), a gorgeous calender with vintage Japanese photo's and a 'Noren': a decorative curtain to keep out sun and dust. The envelope with the lady turned out to contain the cutest little gift bags. Lucky me :-)  Here is a photo impression of the Museum Volkenkunde. Two more Japan related tips for the coming week: Sunday 24th May: Japanmarkt, Leiden and until Sunday 31st May: Zijden Pracht in Sieboldhuis (S...

As European enamelware goes the Cathrineholm factory in Norway is very famous. But The Netherlands has it's own legendary enamel and cast iron producers : DRU (Diepenbrock en Reigers te Ulft). You might know them from the DRU Holland pastel coloured enamelware with the tulip logo, but my favourite series is this one:   When I started going to flee markets about 25 years ago it must have been one of the first items I picked up: a battered black enamel bowl with tiny yellow and red dots. There just was something so adorable about it. In the years following more of these bowls did pop up on my thrift store trips every now and then, and I was always drawn to them. Mostly they were as battered as the first one I picked up, but I started to be more selective: occasionally there was a bowl and lid in very good condition! Research learned that these enamel bowls were actually a Dutch design classic. The Confetti series was designed by Willem Gilles in 1953/1954 for DRU (Diepe...

A must see this summer are the 3 exhibitions at the Textielmuseum in Tilburg. It's where I spend this lovely Sunday afternoon! A major attraction is the overview of 20th-century textile designs from famous artists like Miro, Picasso, Warhol. The historic background is very interesting, the textile designs by painters and other artists were often created to make art more accessible ("Art by the yard"). But the real stars of the exhibit are of course the fabrics themselves. It is a good thing they put a lot of notes around saying: Don't touch! because some fabrics look so inviting.  (3:Estelle Laverne | 4:Nevill Johnson | 5:Eduardo Poalozzi | 6:Steinberg | 7:Andy Warhol) ARTIST TEXTILES, Picasso to Warhol (- till September 14, 2014) - - - x x x - - - On the first floor of the museum I felt like stepping into wonderland. There are 2 intriguing and surprising exhibits. The first one is the 8 fascinating tapestries based on the subconscious hallucin...

DAY 1: On the first full day we went to see the fabulous exhibition "David Bowie Is" in the Victoria & Albert Museum. Every aspect in the career of this talented artist was displayed (costumes, painting, lyric sheets, where he gets his inspiration etcetera). I love how the exhibition was put together. Tip 1 : If you travel by Eurostar train to London, you'll get a 2 for 1 discount at the Bowie exhibit, when showing your train ticket. Tip 2 : We were in line for 45 minutes, you then can buy a ticket for a later timeslot. But there is also a possibility to book your tickets on line in advance via the V&A website. Tip 3 : The V&A is free (but for special exhibitions), and would be perfect to spend a rainy day in London. While waiting for our timeslot we walked to the top floors to see the variety/entertainment/theatre costumes. Among other I saw Adam Ant's Prince Charming, but also well known costumes from cabaret and musicals. For Tuesday evening we h...

A museum visit I was really looking froward to: The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk Still to visit at museum De Kunsthal (Rotterdam) until 12 May 2013. What an impressive collection. There were more as 130 designs, representing Gaultiers fashion of over 35 years. It was truly inspiring to see all the beautiful details from up close. The accompanying leaflet had for some dresses the information of how many hours it had taken to make them. Considering the amount of embroidered sequins and beads, I'd have expected some would have taken even longer. The layout of the exhibition was marvellous. The different collections were in rooms with a specific atmosphere (boudoir, catwalk etc), which presented them very well. Some of the mannequins had filmed faces projected on them which was both fascinating and a little estranging. The only minus for me is the use of fur (but I knew before that he uses that). As far as I am concerned: rather not....

Today I had a perfect day in Nijmegen. I went there with my friend to visit the exhibition Pop Art In Europe at Museum Het Valkhof . The exhibition goes into its last weekend, if you still want to see it! = outside the museum =  = some urban knitting going on = The exhibition was really impressive and divers. Artists that stood out for me were: * Shinkichi Tajiri : I loved his machine sculptures. There is also a photo exhibit in the museum (which is on till Februari 3rd).  * Pauline Boty : Her work "My Colouring Book" had the deepest emotional impact that day.    The words on the artwork are: These are the eyes that watched him as he walked away   Colour them grey This is the heart that thought he would always be true   Colour it blue These are the arms that held him and touched him, lost him somehow   Colour them empty now These are the beads I wore until she came between   Colour them green This is the room t...

  SOUND AND VISION BARBIE (Ama de Jong, 2012) This is my entry for the design contest by the Groninger Museum . The contest was to design a dress for Barbie, that was inspired by either Iris van Herpen or Azzedine Alaïa. Work of both designers is shown in the Groninger Museum at this moment. My main inspiration was the collection Synestesia (2010) by Iris van Herpen which focusses on mixing the senses. While I was getting inspired by those designs David Bowie was singing in my head ...blue, blue, electric blue ...: "Sound And Vision". I used the cassette tape in 3 manners: 1: I wove the bodice. It took about 20 efforts before that worked: the tape kept breaking. 2: Controlled chaos for the shoulder piece. 3: Laminated tape for head piece and hip piece. Invisible detail: one of the tapes used contained the Singles Collection of Bowie.  Shoulder object: Fan guard (thanks to my boyfriends computer supply box)  Shoes: safety pin & tiewrap. ...