12 weeks till Christmas

Do you want to pimp up your bedroom or are you looking for a nice present for a friend, your mother/daughter. These pillowcases are easy to make and the result is great.

Here you can find the tutorial.

Another stylish idea are these placemats.

I like the fabric combination, maybe I'll use this idea for a bag....

Tomorrow I'll announce my blog anniversary GIVEAWAY.

My garden

There are still roses in bloom.  This is my favorite rose: Rose de Rescht, a very old rose that has flowers till frost!

Aloha, a modern rose with very nice colors.

Some lovely rose-hips

13 weeks till Christmas

Some craft ideas for Christmas presents .

On the whip-up site I found these rings, very original.

If you like to crochet I found tis colorful bag for you. On her blog  you also can find some crochet tutorials.

 

Blog award

Here I told you that Ann gave me a blog award.

The rules for receiving this award are:

1--- Thank the person that passe it to you. Thanks a lot Ann, I always love your blog and you are such a kind person....

2---Copy the award to your blog. I don't succeed to copy it at the moment.

3---List three things that you love about yourself: I am a very creative person, I love sewing, knitting, gardening.

4---Post a picture that you love .

I love the bright colors of the picture, I made it some years ago, I cultivated the pumpkins myself.

5---Pass the award to 5 other bloggers. Not an easy choise , there are so many lovely blogs. 

 Here they are. I pass the award to Cheryl, Dorien, Jonneke, Tijm and Lizzie. 

sockpuppet

I have sent this sockpuppet to Portugal.

There is a campaign for the children's cancer hospital in Lisbon. They are collecting suckpuppets to donate them to this hospital.  Here you could read more about this campaign.

14 Weeks till Christmas.

Here it's still Indian summer but fall is coming, you can feel it and smell it.

On Deb's blog 'Work in progress' I found the idea to make a Christmas present every week till Christmas. Yes I know Christmas is still far away but  you could never start too early to make your handmade Christmas presents, so I 'll give you each week some ideas for handmade presents.

Today some tutorials from the same blog.
First  these friendship necklaces.

You also could make this pom-pom garland .

 

Carolus and his friends

Wheather is so nice, it should be a pity to stay inside. Although I have some orders for bags, I sit outside and knit more Carolus bears. The pattern is such a pleasure to knit and the bear is so cute.  You can find the pattern here in Dutch and in English, it's free.

Staphorst

In Holland I visited my blog friend Rolinda, she lives in Rouveen, a small village near Staphorst. In these villages there are still woman who wear the costume of the region.
Rolinda's aunt makes the buttons for the costume, wooden buttons covered with yarn, very exclusive.

Buttons in the Staphorster colors.

Rolinda's mother is the only one in the village who makes and repairs the lace bonnets , which the women  wear on sunday.

Made by hand!

Even the old farmhouses are beautiful....

And of course I bought some fabric, I'll show you this next week because the fabric is still in Holland, to heavy to take by train.......

When you have a look on Rolinda's site you could see what she made with the costume fabric....

Back home

There were three packages waiting for me.....
The first one was my Giveaway present which from Ann. I love everything in the box, it was like a Christmas present. There were small crocheted flowers, so cute!
Thanks a lot Ann for this special gift.

The two others were fabric that I commended. Lovely owl fabric that i bought here and gorgeous horse and matryoshka fabric that i bought here.