Bitten by.... The LACE-BUG....

That really is a long time ago I wrote an entry....No special reason for that..but now I am back again and I am not going to promise to write every week.

Yesterday I went together with Evelien to the first Knitting and Crochet Day (the last one is not my cup of tea, I am a knitter after all)in Nieuwegein. It was really- in my opinion- a much better fair than the other craft fair. Plenty of nice stalls with gorgeous yarns, space enough, good catering and best of all: Good Company. Because I am buying my yarns only when I know what I want to knit with it I came home with some beautiful lace yarn from Madeline Tosh...and the book Victorian Knitting Today with stunning examples. And that was not all, because Knitting friend Wendel gave me a beautiful goodie-bag (design Orla Kieley) filled with gorgeous yarns, a magazine and some roving and a beautiful postcard. (Thanks Wendel, I am very touched by this beautiful gift)

Yes.... I must admit: I am seriously bitten by the LACE BUG and who would have thought that last year when I told everyone that lace wasn't for me...I hope you don't think the picture on top is an attack from lacebugs on my beautiful knitting, but lacebugs really exist...(didn't know that sofar).After finishing my first lace shawl last year and my cowl adventure for my colleagues in winter I was hooked on lace. No more Fair Isle at the moment: it is lace that counts. The funny thing is that I never wear lace, so the shawls I am knitting will be given away in the future to dear female friends. But till now I keep them becaue I like to watch the pile grow..and grow...

Knitting as mentioned before is a thing with really fits into my life at the moment. It brings joy and happiness to me and because of the World Wide Web I get in touch with many knitters all around the world. So there is Mike who is doing the Great podcast Fiberbeat who did send me a beautiful skein of natural dyed yarn -from A Verb for Keeping Warm- because I did win the price in his Competition.

Than I won 2 more prices last months in the 11 shawls in 2011 group on Ravelry, so this beautiful bleu skein from Saffron Dyeworks came through the postbox. Such a rich colour. The second prize also came from that group and it is a skein of Wolle's Yarn Creations. A beautiful cotton which goes from red to earth. Guess it is nice for a shawl.

And I got even more spoilt with 2 skeins Swedish yarn I did get from a friend who lives in Scotland. A beautifull single ply yarn from Färgkraft in 2 great colous. It is a rather strong yarn which will soften after a soak and blocked. I am knitting now with the grey one an Estonian Shawl after a pattern from the book Knitted lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush.This is just a little preview.

Estonian lace..... is really beautiful and special. It contains traditional patterns with names as Lilly of the Valley, five leave pattern and many more....and NUPPS, which are little bobbles and who give a 3 dimensional effect. Also on the needles is a shawl (also from Nancy's book) in cashmere /silk yarn (from the Belgian Boys: Bart & Francis) with those nupps and the lilly of the valley pattern. This will be a very luxury shawl, and I have someone in my head already who will get this one.

The patterns from her book are really well written. Last summer I did buy lace yarn at Jamieson & Smith and I have used it for my (till sofar) biggest project. Lace is magical. Who would have thought that out of this piece of knitting will grow this shawl after a soak and strong blocking?

So the coming months I will work on more lace....This afternoon my knittingfriend Dagmar brought me this book from De Afstap , a yarn shop in Amsterdam. It is a book full of pattern-treasures and toghether with my other book (very dificult to find but thanks to Ravelry and Liina who did find it for me in Talinn) it will be a startingpoint for more lace. I know from myself that when I am "into something, no matter what" I want to know as much as possible. For that reason I took a workshop yesterday in the True lace technique from Monique Boonstra. It is a technique which needs a lot of concentration but after you understand the pattern it is not that difficult. I managed to make a pattern-swatch in True Lace -even without a mistake- which is also in my first project from the Victorian Lace Today book. So more lace to come in the next entries.

Next to that there is always my general interest in Textiles. 9 days ago I visited together with her and Evelien the Textiel-Plus day in my town Deventer. Not sure what to expect (very difficult and unreadeable website) but it turned out to be rather intersting with traditional Chinese hats, modern sculptures from Barbara Polderman , interesting potts made of textile and dipped in rubber and beautiful porcelain vases in the shape of yarnballsand interesting videos with new ideas for jewelery

Many more things have happened ofcourse as watching the Movie: The King's Speech which was amazing with Helena Bonham Carter, Colin Firth and Guy Pearce in the leading rolls,the search for a new kitchen,the coaching job I am doing at the moment which goes well, the plans for doing more with coaching in the future, the feeling that it all comes back at work and that I am really enjoying it, the heavy talk with my class who are doing great after it.....

And ofcourse Bram's health situation which is not going well at the moment. He has the feeling that there is no more progres at the moment and that it is going down. So this afternoon we will visit a cardiologist who also works with acupuncture. Hopefully he can find out why his energy is kind of leaking and why he doesn't feel well. It is sometimes still slightly worrying. My hopes have been after the operation that it would go upwards and that we could do more things together. But that isn't the way it goes. Guess it is a learningcurve of life for the both of us. Looking at the things which are possible is better that watching it the other way round cause that is really depressing. Usually I can handle it and if not we talk about it which always helps. And writing about it also helps to calm my mind and watch it in the right perspective.

Tomorrow-night I am going together with 2 friends to a concert in Tivoli, Utrecht from Jon Grant who has the most amazing lyrics. Listen to this....Some day just chickenbones..love those words...