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Last chance!

last chance!

Hi guys! I promise this blog will return to it’s former glory once I get to Canada, but for now my days consist of getting ready and a lot of last chances. And I’m just passing it on to you, to make sure you don’t miss your last chance.

  • Last chance to purchase any of my scarves from the sample sale, including the beauty above. This is actually your final chance to get these prints on this fabric, because they won’t be returning to the shop when I re-open in a couple of weeks.
  • Last chance to enter my giveaway for a crochet cupcake keychain of your choice! These cupcakes are so cute and Evelien can make them in many colors.

I’ll be back soon. Have a great weekend!

xo

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posted in moments on May 25, 2013 tags , , , , , Leave a Comment

Giveaway: crochet cupcake keychains!

crochet cupcakes

cupcake keychain

Hello friends! I thought it’d be nice to do a little giveaway before I leave for Canada! The cupcakes above are made by my crochet-master and friend Evelien. Evelien can crochet just about anything, from beautiful scarves, to cute little apples and from garlands to complete dolls.

These cupcakes are super cute, measuring around 3.5cm (1.3inch). They come in a variety of flavours, of which the strawberry with whipped cream and the mint with sprinkles are my favorite. But she also has orange, raspberry, chocolate, banana, cherry and lavender. There’s a flavour for everyone.

Evelien has generously offered two of my readers the chance to win a cupcake keychain of their choice. All you have to do is visit Evelien’s shop and leave a comment telling me which crochet creation is your favorite. For an extra entry, follow Evelien on twitter and leave a comment here telling me you’ve done so. I’ll pick two winners on Monday May 27.

Good luck!

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posted in handmade on May 21, 2013 tags , , , , , , 3 Comments

Lately / crazy

butterfly

bell peppers

strawberry mint

blueberry cake

A while ago, when the sun was shining and the blossoms were blossoming, there were quite a few butterflies in the garden. I was lucky enough to find this one sitting there when I went to take a photo of our blossoms. I just love their scent. I also love the scent of my mint plant, which smells like strawberries! It’s the weirdest thing ever. I’m pretty sure this must be a genetically modified plant, which of course I’m not a fan of, but the taste is just wonderful. It tastes like strawberries and mint, so yeah. I’ve made a delicious salad with it, just chopping a few leaves and combining it with tomatoes, cucumber, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The herb makes the whole salad taste like melon, it’s crazy.

I’m almost entering my last week in the Netherlands. In ten days I’ll be in Canada! It’s crazy. The weeks are very strange. Like Lauren said so accurately in her comment, I’m in “that odd paused moment between the end and the start”. I’m happy that I have a graphic design project to work on to keep me busy and that really helps with the restlessness I felt earlier.

The time of (temporary) goodbyes has begun as well. On Monday I was supposed to see a good friend for the last time before we go, but at the end of the evening I felt that it was really silly to say goodbye while I’d still be in the country for two weeks. So there will be another last time! I’m not good at goodbyes, so I’m happy when that’s over, and I’ll make sure to enjoy this (temporary) last week with friends and family.

xo!

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posted in moments on May 18, 2013 tags , , , , , 3 Comments

Sample sale!

Sample sale

In two weeks I’ll be closing up shop for a while as we get ready for our temporary move to Canada. I can’t take all my scarves along for the ride and that’s why I’m having a sample sale!

The FOREST, SEA and SPRING print infinity scarves that were used for the photo shoot are now only €39.00! I also have a one of kind version of the SEA scarf that is printed with the waves print on both sides for double the fun and a one of a kind version of the MOUNTAIN scarf, which is extra wide (29 cm) for extra warmth and hand printed with the mountain print on one side.

This sample sale is only happening in my Etsy shop, so go there if you’d like to get your hands on one of these limited edition scarves.

Have a great weekend!

xo!

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posted in handmade on May 10, 2013 tags , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Belgian Ardennes and friends

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Every year for the past five years, my friends and I go on a weekend getaway together. We always go to the Belgian Ardennes, apart from that one year we went to Germany, which is a beautiful and quaint area not too far from where we live. Even though it’s only a 2 hour drive, the landscape is quite different because of all the hills. We went there again last weekend, instead of the usual September weekend, so Joop and I could go along. We had a wonderful, active and relaxing time, mountainbiking on Saturday and canoeing on Sunday, with dog walks in the woods sprinkled in between. I don’t have any photos of those activities, though there is a video of our canoeing adventure which I will try to get my hands on.

And now for part two of this post:

Oscar’s Weekend Getaway, or how one dog learns to play football (kind of).

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes

Belgian Ardennes
“I’m outta here.”

(Oscar is the sweetest dog in all the land. He belongs to my friend Evelien.)

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posted in travel on May 10, 2013 tags , , , , , 2 Comments

On hold

blossom

While I’m writing this, I’m sitting outside, with my feet in the sun and my head in the shade. Spring has finally arrived around here and I’m enjoying the warm days and smell of blossoms in the air. Still, I’m very restless, as is Joop, and walking around aimlessly. In three weeks we’ll be in Canada, but in the meantime, everything is on hold.

The time has finally come, where everything we can or have to do that has nothing to do with our upcoming trip, feels rather pointless. I think the weekend getaway we had with friends finally did us in, by getting us out of our rut. Now we can’t get back in and, for once, that is not such a good thing.

I have so many plans for Windward Wearables, but making too many things would be rather pointless, for I would have to leave it all behind (I only have so much luggage space). In a bigger way, this applies to all aspects of life. We’ve been planning to live abroad for a long time, not knowing which way we’ll go after, that we haven’t done much of building a life here. Things like making a real home, maintaining a garden, brewing beer, making new friends, investing in good pans or getting a pet all seemed, again, rather pointless.

Of course, over the next eight months there will still be none of that (although I’m hoping for home brew and new friends). But there will be plenty of learning, making, exploring, connecting and growing and none of it will be pointless. And for that, I don’t mind keeping other things on hold.

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posted in moments on May 8, 2013 tags , , , , , , 2 Comments

I made a tree dress

Laurel dress

Laurel dress

Last Tuesday was Queensday in the Netherlands, the celebration of the Queen’s birthday, but this year also the crowning of the new King (this sounds mighty medieval). However, it also was the last day to enter a Laurel dress in the Laurel Sewing Contest, so I spent this national holiday inside, sewing a dress. I didn’t mind though, I really love doing it!

I’d spent the better part of Monday afternoon stamping the fabric for this dress and bought a nice linen/cotton blend, so I really wanted to make this a dress I would actually wear. I tried french seams for the first time, to finish the seams nicely and make the inside of the dress look a bit more professional. It was a bit more work, but very easy and certainly worth it. You can kind of see how it looks on the second photo. It’s more suitable for lightweight fabrics and my dress was underlined, but it still worked.

I really like the dress, even though I’ll be working on the fit to make it a bit more flattering. The Colette Patterns flickr group is very helpful. I’m learning so much! I can certainly say I found myself a new hobby! Especially now I’ve found, through needing a dress for the upcoming wedding, that I don’t like a lot of what’s out there. Except for the beautiful, handmade, too-expensive-for-me-right-now ones, of course.

xo!

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posted in handmade on May 2, 2013 tags , , , , , , 5 Comments

My first Laurel

Laurel shirt

Laurel shirt

Hi guys! I’ve been awfully quiet around here lately. I actually haven’t been online all that much at all. Sometimes you just need a break.

I have been busy, though! I’ve made two websites for my father in law, who, in his retirement, has started two businesses. But most of all I’ve been finding a love for sewing. Through making my infinity scarves, I’ve found that I really enjoy sewing. So when Colette Patterns released a new pattern for a shift dress (my favorite kind), I knew it would be perfect to try and see how I’d do after all those years. I’ve made some dresses more than 10 years ago, so luckily it wasn’t all new to me. Patterns are intimidating enough as it is.

For my first Laurel I decided to use an inexpensive fabric, because there were a lot of ways in which I could screw up. This fabric, however, proved a little too heavy and stiff to be a nice shift dress, so I decided to turn it into a shirt. This works pretty well, but the fabric still does not make this the most flattering fit. Although I must admit that also has to do with my skills! But I’ve learned a lot and am already applying that to the next Laurel.

As you can see I used my stars stamp to embellish the neckline and I love how that turned out!

Laurel pattern

Laurel pattern

Laurel pattern

Colette Patterns also has a Laurel Sewing Contest which ends tomorrow. I think I’ll enter this shirt, despite the beginners flaws. My mind is buzzing with ideas for future Laurels and my sketchbook is full of them, so I wish I’d gotten started sooner! But the reason I didn’t is in the photos above. I wanted to buy the printed pattern, but the shipping costs were too high ($13.95), so I opted for the digital pattern. But assembling the pattern wasn’t exactly something I looked forward to do on a Saturday afternoon and so it took a while before I sat down to it. Even though it was easy enough, I will not do it again. After printing, cutting and taping together 30 pages, I was quite done with it. The pattern itself, however, is really great and I do recommend it if you’d like to try your hand at sewing a simple yet tailored shift dress.

Do you sew?

xo

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posted in handmade on April 29, 2013 tags , , , , , 6 Comments

Forest walk

broccoli tree

spring tree

pine cones

blue sky

Some photos I took while on a walk through the forest this morning:

  • The whole forest is still quite bare and brown, the ground and some trees still covered in pine cones.
  • In those barren surroundings, I was happy to finally spot buds on some of the smaller trees and, when I tried really hard, on the big trees as well. Spring is really making us wait this year.
  • I spotted all these cute little broccoli buds on the trees. I didn’t know broccoli grew on trees ;)
  • Looking up at a blue sky and seeing a plane fly over always makes me want to travel. I’ll be on my way before I know it; only 5½ weeks to go!

Is is spring yet, where you are?

xo

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posted in nature on April 18, 2013 tags , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

Time for cookies

Coconut Cookies

Coconut Cookies

Coconut Cookies

For an introvert like me, spending the day with a group of people can be pretty exhausting. It can be uplifting and energizing, but also very exhausting. Especially when those people are strangers and even more so if just one of them is an extreme extrovert. Yesterday I spent the day like that and after an already exhausting week, I came home drained.

So today I’m taking it as easy as I can. I’m not very good at taking it easy and since it was raining off and on, I couldn’t go to the woods: my usual slowing down trick. But there’s another thing that kind of forces me to be in the moment as well as signal to my brain to relax. If there’s time for cookies, it’s time to relax. Making cookies, especially new recipes, makes me pay attention to what I’m doing; the precise measuring of the flours, how soft they feel when I stir the baking powder in, how much sugar I decide to use and when to add the eggs. Of course seeing if it all comes together alright and keeping an eye on them when they’re in the oven make it easy to get lost in the process. I rarely buy cookies, so the act of eating one is also tied to that slowing down. The first bite; do they taste good?

These coconut cookies from Good to the Grain definitely taste good. It was my first time baking with coconut flour, even though I’ve bought a pack some time ago and now need to use it up before we go! They were easy to make, but the batter was a bit too wet and the resulting cookies soft, almost cake-like. Still pretty tasty though.

Do you have any tricks to make you slow down?

xo

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posted in moments on April 15, 2013 tags , , , , 3 Comments
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All photographs are taken by me or Joop, unless otherwise stated. You are welcome to share the photographs found here, but please be sure to provide proper links and attribution. Thank you!