Trying So Hard To Be Good

Our furry boy is trying so hard to be good and not touch the pompom on this snowman's hat.

I'm trying to get Snowbound assembled before Christmas (yeah, well I can only try...) and Kruimel loves it!

Can you see the cheeky look on his face? If you notice a nasty scratch on his nose when you click on this picture, it wasn't a stitching accident, honestly! He was somewhat in the wars with his 'friend' Elvis, who doesn't appreciate his cuddly nature. Elvis was dumped and found in the street when he was only a tiny kitten and he never really got to grips with normal social cat behaviour. Kruimel having been born in the safe and good care of his breeders and his mum, is a very social cat who is very affectionate towards Elvis and Luna.

Not much else I can show you, because the other project I'm working on is a Christmas present for my Mum and the project I worked on last week was a present for my friend. It is now winging its way over the big pond. I promise I will show them all once the recipients have seen them. I did take pictures!

In the mean time we're racking our brains to come up with the perfect solution for some Christmas decorations that Kruimel cannot break or eat. Last year when we put our Christmas tree up, he straight away started to chew the lights and there were tiny pieces of glass everywhere (probably also in his gut) so we took the Christmas tree down asap.

You can imagine that I just had to smile when I read that his little niece Poeka (Kruimel's sister Kira's daughter) proceeded to do the exact same thing when her new mum and dad tried to get the Christmas tree up. Needless to say, they have had to take it down again. Honestly, that picture could have been our furry boy exactly one year ago. Here is his picture:

We never got past this stage of the tree (no baubles or other decorations and certainly no garlands!)

He just seemed to have claimed the tree as his property, becoming the Tree Master for several days. The lovely tree skirt was made by my Mum, by the way.

And our little girl was our biggest present of the year 2009, and here she is posing with last year's presents.

My Garden 5

A few days back I finished block 5 of My Garden (by Lynette Anderson):

This pretty block is called Butterfly Garden.

In the mean time I'm working on my Snowbound top and also on a Christmas present, which of course is top secret :o)

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my Snow Angel.

Snow Angel

Now that Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs has published part 12 of Snowbound, I can finally show you my Snow Angel, which I finished on 8th November:

This is the final block in the series and I'm in the process of trying to assemble all the blocks. I will not be using the layout which came with this design, but I'm doing something similar to A Tisket A Tasket, a previous free design by Anne Sutton.

My Garden

Postie finally brought a little package from Australia containing block 6 of My Garden by Lynette Anderson.

This reminded me that I had almost completed block 4, The Birdbath. It only needed the bird's wing attaching and also the wooden birdie.

Block 6 is very cute with a very pretty ladybird. But block 5 still needs doing, so I guess I just have to ignore this little ladybird for now.

Three little newborn baby hats are now waiting to be assembled. On Saturday I received some really pretty and colourful wool in the post, three different colours from the "Baby Wool Color" range from Schachenmayr/Nomotta. The 25 gram balls that this wool comes in are ample to knit the baby hats that Save the Children asks for. Very cute!

Scandinavian Christmas Progress

My Scandinavian Christmas project is coming along nicely. Here is part 1, more or less completed:


The perfectionist in me couldn't live with the 'untidy' cross stitches I ended up with in the stitched border, so I went with this trim instead. Some work needs doing to tidy the trim up a bit, but I do like the overall look of this block. I couldn't iron it, because the blue tracing lines haven't entirely faded.

Block 2 is coming along nicely too. It has four churn dash blocks, of which I have one completed and two cut and prepared, but not yet pieced. It also has one stitched snow flake block similar to the two in block 1.

The fabric looks grey in these photos, but it is a taupe-coloured linen-look fabric.

Of course the Ort Master helped me.....

...but not for very long this time. He got utterly bored with all those pieces of fabric which I was cutting, only to put them back together again.

Two Charities

Isn't it lovely when charities and stitching/knitting are somehow related?!

The first charity I would like to draw your attention to is a Dutch one: Save the Children is asking knitters to knit hats for newborn babies in India.




The second one is Quilt Aid 2010:
The chosen charity of Quilt Aid USA this year is very close to my heart. They are supporting a hospital in Ethiopia, a country where I lived as a child.

There are many quilting and stitchery blocks to choose from.
The theme is Heart & Home.

My choice was this block designed by Anne Sutton of Bunny Hill Designs.



I'm still eyeing the other gorgeous blocks ;o)

o-o-o-o

Please, if you are a knitter and have some spare wool (it needs to be pure wool, for safety reasons) and a bit of time on your hands: a little hat only takes a few hours to knit. You can download the pattern from the special website. The project runs till end of February 2011.

Thank you.

Quiet? This is the reason why!

You don't really think I can do anything at all when the Ort Master is in charge?