{this moment}

Some time back, Soulemama came up with this wonderful tradition:

{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. -

Yarn Along - color freaking me...

Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!

Somehow color just seams to happen to me, it comes and goes in turns. Right now color is boosting! My newest sock yarn is kind of crazy but its such fun to knit. The yarn is a single Zauberball from Schoppel. I hope the unplied yarn will be strong enough...

This is my third pair of socks since I conquered my fear of kntting socks and I must say, it is becoming fun! But, there has to be a good colorfull yarn. The second pair I made for a college who gives me a ride in his car from time to time. The color was rather boring, some sprinkled almost plain blue, but his choice. This one will be for me!

Do you know the book I have been reading to Aaron lately? Its the same one my mum used to read to us and I am still in love with it. The good thing, I know it by heart and can "read" it even when Aaron turns the pages too fast or flips the book (which he does often). And, are you surprised, there is a page about colors in it :). The story is about a mice family who work very hard to gather food for the coming winter. One of them doesn't help out though. Fredericks excuse is that he gathers sun shine, colors and words, for the long, cold and gray days of winter. A wonderful story! 

Amongst all those colors, did you discover the green smoothie? I am totally into green smoothies these days. Not just because of the color. They are (can be) so delicious when made with the right simple choices: Spinach, apple, banana and some salad leaves work great, even Aaron likes it and he is not into vegetables at all...

The baby bunting from last week was finished this weekend and passed over to sweet three month old Liana. What a cutie pie she is! 

The dandelion syrup from last week got me started on the syrup, and what else could I be making, than rhubarb syrup? I only had enough rhubarb for one bottle though which I toke to my friends birthday, added by some bottles of sparkling water so mix a great soda. Soooo yummy! There is more rhubarb syrup to come these days! :)

Of course there is not only color in my life, work has been stressfull the last days, Aaron and me are still sick with some exhausting cold and money is as short as it has never been before. Enough to freak me out...  That makes it even more important to me to enjoy the exploding nature, spinning, music, knitting and all the colors around me as much as I can.

Here is a song I want to share with you that lifts up my spirits so much, not just this song, all the music by the wonderful Senegalese artist Habib Koite. Enjoy!

Happy Knitting!

First harvest of the year

This weekend had us occpuied with running noses and sore throats. There were two friends birthdays to attend too, so the energy level at the end of the day was rather low. Still I wanted to tell you about our first harvest this year which happend last week. Aaron and me went on a small outing with my sister, his favourite "Tante Auto" ("Auntie Car"), because she has a car and Aaron loves it, sorry, her, very much ;-) . The only aim we had was to find a sweet lonely meadow with lots of dandelions. A meadow far from polluted streets and peeing dogs...
We didn't even have to search for very long and found this wonderful place at a hillside, near Altenberg.
For city people like us there is sooo much to do in a meadow: picnic, knit, play, pick flowers, watch busy bumble bees, doze, take pictures, breath... we did all that!

Aaron was the best helper when it came to picking dandelion heads. He toke his task very serious. So when we came home we had enough flowers for some syrup. I used this recipe and it worked out very, very well. 

That's how the heads looked like by the time I started. They have to be soaked over night before you boil the syrup.

Preparing the jars is the part of preserving I like least. 

Filling them is the best part. Look at that color, isn't it yummy?!

Done! Some bottles in the fridge, ready to enjoy, some jars prepared as gifts for some more up coming birthdays. The syrup is best to be served on toast, pancakes or ice cream. Mmmmhhhh... 

There is some crazy stuff you can do with dandelion. You can use every part of it. I even found a recipe for dandelion ice cream on pinterest, are you interested? And from the leaves you can make salad or dandelion pesto. I really wanted to do that but somehow the leaves were still very small and I guess I can wait a little longer... The roots can be roasted and turned into coffee. Has anyone tried that yet and knows if its worth the effort?

If you have some more recipes including dandelion, please share. I would be delighted!

{this moment}

Some time back, Soulemama came up with this wonderful tradition:

{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. -

Yarn long - A Baby Bunting

Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!

Oops, is it Wednesday again? I almost missed it! But, no Wednesday without knitting and reading, right?! Since I started spinning I am on the lookout for small projects to knit with the spun yarn which still is rather individuel to put it nicely... Not so many things can be made with it. Especially nothing to wear, the yarn is still too thick and a bit itchy. But, I am positive I will solve that issue in the near future. Until I am able to spin my own fine sock yarn I will just have to be creative with my projects... and there comes in the baby bunting. I am going to meet my friends baby Liana for the first time next Sunday and I want to welcome her with a little bunting, possibly with her name stitch or sewed on with some fabric, I don't know yet, any ideas?
A bunting is a great project for hand spun yarn because you only need very small amounts of yarn and can show off with all colors and mix them wildly if desired. I found helpful instructions for buntings with hand spun yarn here. Only I cast on with 20 sts and finished a few rows earlier. Some more colors to go now... Btw, did you see Loris buntings she knitted for different seasons, for example the summer bunting? Soooo fantastic!
Well, besides the knitting there is still lots and lots of spinning and dyeing, lots of purple, lilac, lavender shades lately, with a special person on mind... ;-)
Which brings me to the reading... what else could it be, spinning books of course! The lady who sold me the wheel had sent her old spinning books too. They are not on the market any more, so lucky me...
And I also found some interesting books in our library. So much input..
Now I can't wait to check out what you have been up to last week, yarn wise. See you at Ginny's!

Happy Knitting!

Sunday of Plenty

Some days just feel so much larger than others, larger as in so much more stuff fits into that day than into an average one. I really don't know how that happens. If it all depends on the way you start your day? Possibly starting the day with freshly bakes scones helps? What do you think?

A walk after breakfast with some brought in lilacs (?) might also do the trick...

A day like that certainly needs a lot of yarn, yummy colors, maybe some dyeing even, no harm in that!

Definately giving some extra special moment to your enlarged day will be having a good chat with your Papa under a blanket without Mama to see you. Papa needs lots and lots of soccer on telly on a day like that and some running during Aarons nap time.

Mama needs this:

Yes! Enjoying my new spinning wheel, at the balcony, so much! With a cute little boy discovering his toes showing out of his new summer shoes, how weird...

And anyway, sunday living at the balcony, never to be underestimated! Ooops, there's been a road accident... (no hurt feelings here, we have done the chalk drawings way earlier, I don' think he even recognized that stickmann, so it just looks a bit evil in the picture).

Some late spring seeding of Physalis... (late, since I forgot the seeds in the freezer. Because on the package it said to give them two weeks of frost, it might have been a few more, I hope they survived...)

Of course a day like that needs good, fresh food. We had some asparagus-potato salat with chives, olive oil and a little salt. Sooooo yummy!

Knitting? Sure there has been a wee bit of that too. (Never mind my toe nails need some up doing...)

But even a day full of plenty like that comes to an end. Too bad I can't take my wheel to bed with me, so here it is once more. I am so in love :-)

How has been your weekend? I hope to see you over at Amandas for Weekending!

Edit: happyly joing in Woolly Wednesday this month too. 

{this moment}

Some time back, Soulemama came up with this wonderful tradition:

{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. -