It is the season - December 2022

Four months later from the last post.

Time to get Advent decoration out from the basement

and make some baking - well this will be eaten with friends together

at a "coffee and cake meeting"


Linzer Torte - Austrian  recipe

Ann Wood provides her followers with decoration

for every season. Small owl living with sisters in our 

Christmas tree. Find the link

here

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Those little baskets - a youtube tutorial - are made entirely by hand 

absolutely sweet and not holding much - maybe three chocolates - 

The beginnings are tricky

More work: Scraps in a box - inspiration by Augusthimmel

at Pinterest.de - my squares are 9 x 9 cm.




Paperbeads fascination

What "oldies" get for Christmas from the community 

when they reach a certain age - lets say over 80.

One candle burning ... 1. Advent

Four weeks before Christmas our wreath with homemade

cookies by DH

Mysterystitchalong goes on

Week #3 - Nowaki or blowing grass in English

My trick is to sew on gridded tissue paper 

the circles are drawn by means of a compass

I love to see this drop of water on a rose leaf in this so dry

summer

Dream catcher with pendants with feathers

The End

Summer 2022 -

Bird‘s-eye view - family dinner



View from the terrace

In the evening

300 m higher in the village Brusje

Mystery Sewing - Zenstitchalong  - Clue #1 is the paving block,

the lines of the trickmarker are still to be seen and will probably

never disappear



Below
Clue #2 - Higaki -Cypress fence - suggested colour is brown,

red back or gray,

Sachet for our kind neighbor who watered the Geraniums 

during our stay-away for 3 weeks






I will catch bad dreams with this very old

ancestors‘-made doily - it is knitted - I marvel at the tiny

stitches - she must have used 1 mm needles





Another sewalong - scrapsinabox

9 cm squares . I will diminish my scraps collection a tiny little bit 

The End

Guestbook

We started the guestbook nearly exactly 10 years ago

to remember the visitors in the French farmhouse

I made the cover as a copy of a small part of the fence in front 

of the barn. Stitched by hand and machine.

The first entry was made by family members - brother and 

sister in law. 

Then daughter, son in law, grand-children Leon and Mila.

We owned the house for 5 years when we thought that the 

distance from of our German home was too far -  we could

sell it to a married  couple from the village.

Nice memories - nice souvenir.

Large quilt -

I started to quilt this 4 square meters large quilt by hand -

in a hoop which DS made forme 40 years ago.

Today finally I decided not to go on with hand quilting. 

So I forced this enormous piece of fabric into my Bernina

and did some final quilting - I am free again

and a double bed will be covered

The first layout 

Sewn together with a broad border and in the hoop

the hoop is really large - 60 cm diameter

And then the first hopeful stitches - I was already working 

for at least 4 weeks.

But then I did the rest with my wonderful Bernina - ok 

it was not very easy to pull and push it through - never mind -

The quilting looks ok - the quilt as such is a piece of non-art.

Maybe I show it at a later date.

A diary - it is March 2022

1. 

It is time again for the bear leek (Allium ursinum) - Bärlauch, wich is a perfect herb for salads, soups and more. It is growing in our region as early as this -  in March.

My inspiration for little charming things made of fabric is Ann Wood. These are mushrooms - quite a crafting and it takes some time. You need patience, cardboard, different fabrics, filling material, copper wire for the stems, needle and thread.

My knitting experiment

The yarn is beautiful, natural, linen, silk and cotton. I was however not satisfied with the pattern, I changed my mind, three times, undid, knitted backwards. Started new. 

This time I will pull through with 134 stitches on the round needle for the back of the summer vest, instead of nearly 300 front and back together - when I  could never see the end of one row.

The Chinese bowl is perfect for the yarn ball.

TextileArt.org offered a free workshop - the Stitch Camp! We needed  fabric, three different fabric colors, many different devices to spread the color - paint brushes, bank cards, I used also a fork. The painted „art“-work is being cut into small rectangles, sewn together and embellished with hand stitches.

Below my first try - the colors are quite ok, but the fabric! Actually very fine - but impossible to stitch through with an embroidery needle which would have been essential for this piece. So

I decided to do machine embroidery.  Open the photo and you will see the lines.

I love to do free machine stitching - it is effective and fast. I use Madeira viscose threads, made for machine sewing. They have a lovely sheen.

So much for today. Corona is not over - we still take care with masks and distance. Occasional  meetings with friends and FaceTime with family and children who are living abroad.

As time runs

Our new holiday home in the Black Forest offers a fantastic

view - below it is autumn

 and here after the first snow fall

in the other direction families are using the slope for sleighing - 

photo taken by the webcam on the tower in Dobel 




But then on a workday in the late afternoon like this

I am knitting, unravelling and knitting again

finally made up my mind for the pattern

Sewing by hand and giving away - those mushrooms went

to Vermont, I saw one hanging on DD‘s  christmas tree -

the pattern is by „AnnWood handmade“






I love tatting and made several samples for earrings

But then a sad event and loss of a friend - dear Dirk W.

we won‘t forget you. You were multitalented and 

interested in many crafts - an artist, creating paintings,

earthenware and probably much more….. 







Our weather down in the plain is like this - no biking but

short walks.



I wish you all a happy healthy new year.