See you soon!

A Full Basket - Weekending

Today I am joing Amanda from "the habit of being" for weekending

A full weekend is coming to its ends right now, boy in bed, man on the couch, me at the computer. A weekend I will remember, a full basket.

It all started with a wonderful package in the mail, from Barbara of 60°Nord. Inside a special little lavender filled pillow, made from the same fabric she used for the ring pillow for her own wedding! So, so special and sweet! I will treasure this gift Barbara, thank you so much! (I noticed the pillow shows the wrong way in the picture but it was too dark now to take a new one. The letter "G" for Gesche is embroidered!)

Barbara just moved to Sweden with her husband so she sent this postcard from Stockholm that you see in the background.

All of Saturday was spent with good friends of ours (Aarons godfather and his wife) who had invited us for a special day-off. We had a lovely afternoon at their place. Aaron loves his godfather, because he owns a rather scary pink bunny that can dance and sing a rock'n'roll song when you press its foot. Each time again a special highlight. Thank god we are not allowed to take it home...

In the evening we went for a wonderful Afghanish dinner, very yummy!

Oh, yes, it is cherry season! Kirschenzeit! My season. And finally, this weekend there was this bright yellow thing in the sky again people told me it is called sun. I had almost forgotten... 

So after helping a friend of ours shifting in the morning (some helped more, some less) we spent the rest  of Sunday in the park, refueling on Vitamin D and summer feeling in general.

Last but not least I want to announce the winner of my small give-away from last week:

Congratulations Enim Sou! :-)

(I will contact you for your adress)

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Thank you!

Today I recieved a wonderful package from Canada. I had won a give-away over at Pin and Purl and could choose any two items of Christines Etsy shop, which wasn't easy... In the end I decided for the embroidered spring flowers and the printed vegetable greeting cards. And that was a great choice. Isn't it all so, so pretty? And I love the peacock feather printing bookmark so much! 

Thank you Christine, I feel so lucky!

Since I experienced again how much fun it is to win a give-away, I was also inspired in my last post, to host one myself, I hid it a little so see if you can find it ;-) I will leave the comments open until next Weekend (22.7.)
It is fun to find places for my little crocheted blossoms. And it makes me very happy to use my handspun yarn as much as possible, even as strings for this little linen project bag that I made for my crotchet stuff.

Weekending in the rain

Today I am joing Amanda from "the habit of being" for weekending

Somewhere I read today is the 15th of July. I had to read it twice and still can't believe it. It is raining and raining and raining and the temperatures stay around 15°C/ 60°F. So coats, wellies and the like are in daily use. Aaron has not complained about it yet, he doesn't mind if he plays in a puddle or a pool. So I guess I am the only one being unflexible here...

I adjusted by starting to crochet. Little blossoms agains the disaster in my little outside garden (even the mint has drowned!) Finally I know how to use up all my bits and pieces of handspun yarn. Both yarns are made from the fibre I dyed at the workshop the other weekend (yellow with onion skin, red with madder). If you like I can send you a handfull, just let me know in the comment which color you'd like or if you want a mix of both. (I will choose a winner randomly if more of you are interested ;-) )

One of the blossoms I used for another project of this rainy weekend, the birthday crown of my friends daughter Lola (the one you see playing with Aaron in the first picture) Aarons crown is also in the making, his birthday is coming up end of August... My idea is, to keep the crowns rather simple this year and add a little extra detail to it each birthday so by the time they are grown up they have a fully decorated crown with lots of memories of every single birthday. That should be a lovely family tradition I hope.

Besides the usual playground outing we did a little extra trip yesterday and went for a visit to Cologne Airport. A great activity on rainy days! Some half hour train ride, long indoor corridors to run in freely, lots of cafés and a terrace to watch the planes landing and starting. I can really recommend this outing!

I already mentioned the playground visits, but did you ever see a playground with kids paintings pinned to the trees? Isn't that a wonderful thing! How generous and creative, just what I needed to complete this wet but somehow perfect weekend.

I hope your weekend was less rainy and equally fun! I would love to hear about it!

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo clip, capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Last night Aaron was up late and instead of getting stressed over it we had a little pj-party. They showed the musical "Mamma Mia" on tv. Aaron loves music and he really enjoyed every single ABBA Song of this show. It was a joy to watch him dance. At one of the last songs, at the wedding scene, a lady started to dance on the table. Aaron toke my hand, pulled me over to the tv-board and wanted to stand on it to dance with me. I don't recall the last time I lived in the very moment as much as I did right there and then.

It's done...

Ok it didn't get much bigger from when I showed it to you yesterday, but it is done! I feel like this is just the right size for a wall hanger. Sorry, the picture didn't turn out very well but I only had two nails in a rather dark spot and didn't want to add any new once since I will give this quilt to my granddad. 

One apron was left, it didn't fit too well with the other but I used it as the backing. If I had to choose the colors for my own quilt I wouldn't match those fabrics, but since I wanted to use my grandmothers aprons that's what came out of it... And I love it and can't wait to give it to my granddad.

Gut Ding will Weile haben

"Gut Ding will Weile habe" we say in German for things, that have taken a long time but somehow turn out well in the end. Leo translates it to "Haste makes waste". The plan to make a quilt from my late grandmothers aprons (I showed them here) has been in my mind for a good while now, supported by the wonderful Barbara, who sent me a copy of an american quilting magazin for beginners. I must say that this really kicked me to keep it up, but also knocked me down a bit after I found out that some utensiles are really helpful and nessecary to start quilting. I had none of that. But, with financial support (indirectly also from my grandmom, because my granddad had shared some of her money with us) I ordered the missing pieces (mat and cutter) and yesterday night I did it! Well, I am not finished yet, but for some reason, this is one of the few projects I don't mind about how long it might talk. It just feels sooooo good to worship something my grandmother used to wear on a daily basis and upcycle it into something else.

I am even using some old thread I have found in my grandmothers sewing basket. I was so happy when I thought about it in time for the project. What else would it be better to use it for.
Acctually I am not quite sure yet, what the quilt will end up as, a wall hanging, a small blanket or a pillow cover. I am doing it step by step, holding fabric pieces, choosing carefully what piece to place where. There is no plan, no exact aim. I am floating and savoring every moment of working at this project.

That is how I decided to use the button lines as well, and some part of a pocket. It just happend, it just felt right.
To not overwhelm the pattern I added some plain linen (from Ikea). I think it matches the vintage style. Into the centre of the quilt I printed my very favourite picture of my grandparents, riding a camel in Tunisia on one of their many trips around the world.

My plan is to give the finished quilt to my grandfather for his birthday in August. I am just not sure if he can take it, we'll have to see.

I never expected quilting to be so much fun, if there wasn't all that spinning, knitting, gardening, blogging, playing, baking, loving to do (and a wee bit of working too) I would do it all day long ;-)

{this moment}

Joining Soulemama today for (this moment): A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

That spirit!

Women, yarn, fiber, herbs, kettles, wheels, needles, food, a very old farm and summer, the recipe for a truely magical afternoon like my sister and me spent it on Sunday. Such a special day. We had signed up for a class on how to dye with natural colors at a fiber-festival at an old farm house an hours drive from Cologne run by a family who reminded me a lot of the Soule family. If you speak German you can find out more about them and there wonderful lifestyle here. (For example they have a basket weaving weekend coming up in November!)

Here you see some wool we dyed with onion skin and walnut. Vibrant, honest colors. 

Our teachers have dyed the whole palette in years of experiementing. Isn't it just amazing! 

Of course there was lots and lots of spinning too and good food and, yes there was this spirit. The spirit of wonderful women (and a few men) who know and tender the old crafts of their anchestors. It is hard to describe but maybe you have had the chance to feel that spirit somewhere before. It is pure!