Corners of our home

* Time for a little housewarming. It takes time to make a house a home, no? Looking through the pictures of our first days and weeks here: We’ve come quite some way already.
* Our new cheese loving housemate is from Lola Murals. We named him Harold.
* I had been trying to come up with the best way to display Kaya’s artwork. After discarding a trail of thoughts about clips and wires and frames it came to me: washi tape. Perfect.
* If you walk past outside, you might see me waving down with a cup of coffee from my comfy little chair by the kitchen window. Those quiet moments are rare, but cherished.

All tucked away

I never got round to sharing with you how my pre-move clearing out went.
Because of the rather big cull I did last year, clearing most of the house was a quick and rather painless affair.
But last time, I never cleared out our office space, so I tackled that one first.

In our new home, our ‘office’ room has been reduced to my bureau desk in a corner of the living room. So cutting down on stuff was crucial. Also my husband now doesn’t have his own desk anymore and instead has to share with me, poor soul.
We got rid of an incredible amount of paper and things we just didn’t need, and then set about organising the rest.

Most of the contents of this desk are craft materials of all sorts. Like the little box with a big tangle of embroidery thread, other spools of thread and minuscule felt offcuts.
A few bits of cardboard did wonders to that box!

My yarn, that was forever tumbling off the shelves, is now contained in a box (with lid. Safe from little hands). I used the stash feature on my ravelry profile for the first time, to catalogue the contents of that box.
Now I don’t have to take everything out to see what’s hiding at the bottom.

I got a few little boxes for different sorts of smaller fabric leftovers and folded the bigger pieces to stack them up together.
There is also a box with odd ends of yarn, and that box with the thread and ribbons. And sweet little labels on each box so everything looks happy and is easy to find.

In a drawer I keep all our letter writing utensils. I am quite fond of postcards of all kinds, and to get a grip on the pile I sorted them by occasion and loosely held them together with a rubber band. Now I know where to find a birthday card, a thank you card, or a card-just-to-say-hello when I need one.

I am quite happy to get to use my desk, which holds the sewing machine as well as all the craft materials, and stationery and other officy bits, in the living room. It’s a lot more social, and I can get a bit of sewing done while Kaya goes about his busy business, and the baby rolls around the floor.
So far, it’s been working well, and luckily the desk folds up and the doors close on smaller project process messes. We’ll see how it goes the next time I start working on a quilt!

 

Weekending

This weekend was all knocked over vases and permanent marker on the dining room table. If you’ve spoken to me, I’ll have mentioned testosterone surges in four-year-olds. Umm, yeah, like that.

Somehow, amidst the mayhem, there were the other moments. The sweet kind.
Story time at the local bookshop. Kaya feeding his little brother (we nicknamed him lion baby. He positively roars if you’re not fast enough with the next spoonful!).
And new booties for the baby: these ones, in bigger. He still has some growing room in them lengthwise, but not so much around the chubby parts that hide his ankles. Hmm.

Weekending with Amanda.
How has yours been?

 

This Moment

A Friday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment to pause, savour and remember.

A happy and productive weekend to all of you..

Tagging along

A while ago, I had a batch of little tag blankets in the shop (that all sold out).
Now that I have another little tag lover at my hands, it was high time for a new batch of them.
I had forgotten what a pain that bamboo velour is to work with though. I mean honestly, why can’t fabric just stay where you put it? The remedy is: thousands of pins. I think putting in pins and pulling out pens took longest of all here!
But it is worth it all for the velour’s cuddly softness.
On the other side of the little blankets I put some of my favourite cotton prints. There are four different ones available at the moment.

Batu, my chief test person, gave his taggie a thorough inspection and chewed approved.

Find them all here.

 

Yarn Along

A long Yarn Along break, but not much to show for it, except buttons sewn onto the Shalom.

One evening during those moving days, I picked up my Game of Thrones knit-along project and started the lace section.
Halfway through I realised I had the wrong stitch count.
I was too exhausted to figure out what I was doing wrong. I was too much in need of some therapeutic knitting to stop.
Can anyone relate? Please, say yes.
Two weeks on, and I’m just about ready to rip back and try again.
(By the way, the mystery is solved and the pattern for the Water Dancer Cowl available for free: here.)

The only books I seem to be picking up these days are bedtime stories.
Kaya is just starting to enjoy listening to books with less pictures and more words, which is exciting. The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark turned up during the move, and we’ve been reading a chapter every evening. I didn’t know the story yet either, so it’s a nice read for me too!

Shalom Too

Finally, finally I managed to finish my second Shalom cardigan.
And I’ve been wearing it every day since. After that little warm spell it feels like February all over again, so that was good timing.
The colour, gunmetal, a lovely greyish brown that goes with absolutely everything.

The perfect buttons are from Eljo. (Lucky me, I moved back around the corner from where my favourite button lady has her stall twice a week!)

Ravelry notes here.