not much time to blog

more than a month without entries - where have the days gone? I have the intention of putting something up and woosh, the day is over again....

I haven't been lazy, I did finish my christmas -sal and added to my house-sal. I spun and dyed and knitted... but not everything can be shown in photos! just in case people read my blog without me knowing - it's closer to christmas now and presents are "growing" in every corner of the house....

this is the middle of my house-sal, it's so large that I can't show details and all the houses....I still have to add more detail here and there, but with christmas coming closer, I had to pack it away to get going with the more pressing things... I'll grab it  again after the holidays!

4 close-ups, some my own designs, others changed from charts I found in my stash. as you can see the proportions aren't correct, but they aren't in the houses either - unless they make gigantic toys etc.:) I just made sure not to add winter impressions on one side of the town, when there are cherry blossoms on the trees in the churchyard:) my favourite are the three dogs (our three dogs, two of which we lost). one pees on the lantern, one chases a cat - and the last one, which looks a bit odd, is Timmy, our sheep dog....

the next thing I finished, or rather nearly finished, is the christmas -sal from the same designer. I changed a few things, mainly due to the fact that I miscalculated my yarn requirements and had ordered only one skein each. in fact I just made it with the red, only a few cm left. I changed the colour of the writing, and Renate, the designer was kind enough to change the german title into an english carol - thanks for that, Renate! (she also made one for french embroiderers.....what a service!) I added mohair and wool embroidery threads for the coat, beard and angel's wings. and I added beads and put beads instead of thread in for the showflakes... at the bottom I tried a multicolour yarn from OT, which worked rather well, too. all that's missing now are loops for hanging and wadding plus fabric as background and frame.

 the angel in detail - I think the fluffy wings are just about visible. I used the madeira lana yarn again, which can be brushed to show fluffy fur coats - or angel wings:)) the small snowflakes are done with mill hill sead beads, but the few larger ones are silver-lined rocailles - not enough of the white ones ordered...

 same for santa - a mohair beard and the coat is fur lined as well - it's so cold where he lives!

I did some more dyeing, when I saw that the rhamnus berries had ripened, apparently without the birds noticing. I picked as many as I could and dyed on wool, after I left them to "pickle" in vinegar for a few days. the yellow is from another dye...

I also spun up all my purple logwood dyed fibres, so that now I have a heap of them, ready to knit into a shawl - rectangular I think. and I made a few inserts for christmas cards, some ornaments for secret santa exchanges - and started on a knitted pin cushion, another giveaway.  but in this weather and season photos can be difficult to take - it's either grey or wet or windy or dark - or everything together. and in those rare few sunny dry hours we get - there are many other things to take care of! well, maybe in the next entry:))