I love Ouddorp - wonderful summer holidays in the Netherlands

We are back home - home after three wonderful weeks of holidays at the Sea. It's been a peaceful and relaxing family time. We all enjoyed it very, very much.

 My parents have a holiday house in the Netherlands, so it is quite comfortable and inexpensive for us to spend time there. The house is in Ouddorp, a small village next to the North Sea, approximately 50 km south of Rotterdam. It is quiet a trip from us to get there (about 600 km) but I just love being there.

My earliest childhood holiday memories are connected with the Netherlands. We often drove there just for the weekend. Bathing, walking at the coastline, building sandcastles, eating Kibbelinge (small pieces of fried fish), Poffertjes (tiny pancakes) or Stroopwafels (syrup waffles), all this was and still is heaven for me. Almost 17 years ago when my parents decided to buy a holiday home in Ouddorp I had been more than happy, hoping that this could become a second home of mine. And that's what it is today - my safe haven. A place where I am able to breathe again when life is trying to overrun me.

When you are spending your holiday in a place you know so well there is just no obligation to do any sightseeing because you have already seen everything. But there are things we all want to do or see every time we go there. A bicycle ride to Goedereede, the neighbour village with the best bakery by far,  But our most favourite place is the beach, of course. 

This wide and sandy beach with endless skies where you can leave all your cares behind... 

 

We always love to find a sheltered place to stay near the dunes.

The blue of the sky is just gorgeous.

There is no good walk at the beach without finding wonderful shells or crabs.

 And I love the seagulls so much! Their cries just make a day at the beach perfect.

 

  

And our quite old dog Pepples turns young again when we reach the beach. She even loves to swim with us.

 

Flying kites is very popular there and that's what we did as well, of course.

 Sometimes the weather was not that fine but nevertheless we went to the beach. There was almost nobody.

 

   My family heading towards a nice coup of drink...

... at 'Paal 10', one of the wonderful beach restaurants with a grand sun terrace where you can sit and have a nice cup of tea or coffee when it's cold or a delicious glass of wine while watching the sunset (the left house in the picture is the 'Reddingsbrigade', the lifeguard station).

 One of our favourite towns nearby is Zierikzee. A going there is a must-do for us. We love to stroll around the old narrow streets, visiting our favourite shops.

 

 

And this house was new to us, what a great painting!

 And in the evenings we were lucky to enjoy gorgeous shining skies and sunsets.

 Three beautiful weeks are over now, next week the new school term will start again, J is already back to work, I will start on Friday. There is a lot to do in the house and in the garden but I told myself to stay relaxed at least for a little while longer. Life can be so abundantly beautiful, I am so grateful for all the good things in life. 

I will soon come back to show you my summer crochet makes, nothing big, just something light but beautiful. 

I hope you had a wonderful summer time, as well.

Viola

And the winner is ....

Helen from Woollybluebells!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Helen, this lovely book is going to be yours!

 

Please send me an email (viola_weiss@yahoo.de) with your address and I'll get the parcel in the post to you as quickly as I can.

This will be my last post for the next three weeks as we are going on holiday! Tomorrow we'll leave for the Netherlands, three week of beach and sand and waves and lazy times. Hopefully the weather is getting better soon. But I'll take enough yarn and books as well, so that the weather won't spoil our recreation. 

If I use up all the yarn I'm going to take with me, I will have a lot of things to sharewith you afterwards but who knows how much hooky time I will actually have!   

I hope you will also have a lovely time, enjoy happy August days and take care!

Viola

Flowers, Flowers, flowers... My Granny Madelief flower cushion

My first cushion tadah!

Lately quite a few blogger write about their UFOs (unfinished objects) that are lying around in their baskets, on shelves or hidden in a cupboard. I always read these blogposts carefully, looking at all these beautiful works which would be finished if someone just spend a few hours working on them. I have to admit that I can happily join this club. 

I am a starter, not a finisher. I love to let the inspiration get me. I see something in a book, on pinterest (oh, how many hours can you possibly spend there looking at all these gorgeous works...) on a blog or in a shop and I know that I have to start immediately with it. And if I have the right yarn at home, nothing can stop me to start something new. I don't know how many UFO's are spread all over the house. As I don't have a special craft room, I tend to put my works just everywhere. 

It would be a LOT of work to collect all my UFOs and write a blog post about them. I really don't feel like it at all, it's summer time, isn't it? Though it is raining again, sigh...

Napoleon is alleged to have said: 

'Die Deutschen haben 6 Monate Winter und 6 Monate keinen Sommer.'  (The Germans have 6 months of winter and 6 months no summer). I hope that this summer wants to refute this assertion soon!

 But back to my UFOs. I promised myself to finish at least one UFO before I start something new. 

BIG PROMISE!!!

And the beginning is easy, of course. I am quite enthusiastic about this promise. So I started with a cushion cover that I began already last year. It worked up quite quickly and I enjoyed making it because the pattern was so easy and very nice to work. You can find the free (!) pattern on the wonderful Dutch blog of Stephanie from handwerkjuffie.

But when I almost finished the front I didn't know how to do the back. Should I take fabric? But then I would have to sew the back... With a zipper (oh no, I'm such a bad sewer...)? 

  I went to Ikea and bought some nice fabric but I just could make up my mind. Did I like the blue and white check pattern? Or should I better take the light blue one with the red dots? Or should I put the fabric in the cupboard and take up my hook and yarn?
But how? Stripes, grannies... Oh dear, all these questions demanded too much of me and I put the whole project aside.  

But now everything was settled very quickly. I started crocheting the back, simple stripes using the colours of the front.

  Everything worked up very quickly and today  I finished all by sewing 4 buttons to the side. 

Tadah!

While I was writing this the sun came back again and I happily moved outside to take a rest and make some nice photos of my new cushion. 

 As it is sunny by now my son is taking the opportunity to go swimming with friends and my daughter is back from the stable and playing horses with a friend in the garden. So I will take my time for a cup of tea, a rasperry muffin and some happy crocheting.

See you soon and don't forget to  to enter my Giveaway by saying hello in the comments below. 

Have a great week everyone. 

Viola 

"Häkelblüten" by Nicky Epstein and a Giveaway!

This is the first days of the school summer holidays and we are enjoying it a lot. My daughter is having a great time at her riding stable this week, she is a happy, happy girl.

My son is also very happy, his best friend who is living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at the moment is back for summer holidays. The two boys are having the time of their life, chatting, playing football, swimming and doing all the things twelve year old boys love to do. 

I am in a much slower mood now. I start the day with my mug of tea sitting outside and enjoying the quiet peace of the summer garden. It is such a good feeling to slow down, to get rid of the hectic rush and strict time schedules.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a book blog that reviewed quite a lot of books received by the publishing group Random House. I got curious how this works and visited the bloggerportal of Random House. It was very easy to sign up and as soon as I had filled in a registration sheet I was able to have a look for crochet books. I found several interesting books and asked if I would be allowed to review some of them. First I didn't get an answer and soon I forgot all about it but then one day I received a parcel filled with four books! 

 I couldn't believe my eyes!

So here I go! The first book I want to write about is a crochet book by Nicky Epstein called "Häkelblüten". It was published by Bassermann Inspirations in 2014 and the original American edition "Nicky Epstein's Crocheted Flowers" was published in 2007.

 The book includes more that 40 different crochet flower patterns and additional patterns for garments with floral embellishments. Every flower is wonderfully photographed and staged. The whole book is a pleasure for the eye.

 The book is divided into 5 chapters. The first chapter "Mehrlagige Blumen mit Blütenblättern" (multilayered flowers with petals) contains eight different patterns, there is a pattern of a sunflower I will definitely try. 

The second chapter "Blumen in einem Stück gehäkelt" (flowers made in one piece) includes patterns for a pansy or a poinsettia and there is a wonderful stole that I would start immediately if I had the right yarn for it in my baskets. Just have a look...

Isn't this a beauty? I will make such a wonderful stole for my self one day. Oh, my list of future projects is growing from day to day. 

The third chapter is called "Blumen in Drehtechnik" (cord flowers), it includes several different rose patterns and an inspiration for embellishing a bridal gown:

 I would love to wear this but as I am already married I just can't imagine any other occasion that is appropriate for such a dress.

The forth chapter deals with "Filzblumen" (felted flowers) which I have never tried before. But there are some pretty patterns and I could imagine to give it a shot one day.
 

The last chapter is called "Blätter, Kugeln und Kettenstich" (Leaves, balls and chain stitch) and includes several leaf and flower patterns. 

I tried out two of the patterns of this book and it was fun to make them. The instructions are very clear and there is not only the written form you can follow, every pattern also consists of a diagram, here is an example:

 Therefore it is not too difficult to follow the patterns even if you are not able to read German.

The first pattern I tried is called "Barockblüte" (Baroque flower). My version looks totally different from the picture in the book, mainly because Nicky Epstein often favours luxurious yarn with silk or other materials that shine or sparkle. I just used a simple cotton yarn but nevertheless I am quite happy with my flower.

Do you want to see how the "Barockblüte" looks like in the book? Here it is:

Same pattern, different yarn, different effect.

The second pattern I tried is a simple poppy. I used Stylecraft Special DK in lipstick:

 Here is the picture from the book:

 To sum up, I really enjoyed looking at this book. There are  a few patterns in this book that are quite simple and I guess that you can find similar patterns for free somewhere in the net. But the presentation of the book is very inspiring and once in a while I love to take a book from my shelf to dive into someone elses creative work and feel inspired.

Because this is my first review of a book and because I am so glad that there are so many people out there who read my posts and leave such pleasant and encouraging comments I want to take this book as a Giveaway for all my readers.  

 And all you have to do to enter is leave me a little comment  here on my blog!

 

Definitely anybody can enter, I will happily post anywhere in the world.

 

If you haven't left a comment before, please don't hesitate to do it... One of my reasons for doing this Giveaway is to meet lots more of you and discover much more wonderful blogs to visit.

The winner will be picked on Friday, 31h July.

I hope to hear from you.

Viola