After the last hat I made, I wasn’t at all finished knitting hats. I had seen a lovely – crocheted - pompon hat in the Marie Claire Idées and I decided to knit one instead. It’s quite cute, don’t you think? I was thinking a cold Sunday morning in Paris crossing the Seine to have a café, mmm. If you want to mind travel to Paris with me, this is the pattern:

You need:
- About 150-200 meter of thick wool
[I chose Laïka Bo Bouton d’Or (color cristallin 337461)]
- needles 5,5 mm
- a big sewing needle

Cast on 76 stitches. From here you knit one row and purl one row. Repeat this for five times (so you knitted ten rows). Then start knitting one knit stitch and one purl stitch. The next row, purl the knit stitches and knit the purl stitches. Continue until you have knitted about 15 cm like this. Then knit together two stitches in one (or decrease another way) for as many row until you have one or two stitches left. Cut the thread off, leaving a thread of about 50 cm for sewing up. Take a big needle and pull the thread through the remaining stitch(es). Pull the and handsew the sides together, using the thread from top to bottom. Weave all your cut ends into your hat. Make one pompon with a diameter of 5 cm and one of 3 cm. Adjust them on one side (or wherever you like). Add your own label and go outside to show it! 

Lately I am very much into cozy warm things like children’s books, hot chocolate, warm baths… and chunky knitwear. I always wanted a big rasta like funky hat and now I made one. If you’re interested, this is the (easy!) pattern.

You need:
- 50 gram mohair in the two colors you want to use (so 100 gram in total). You could do with a little less but since this is weight of a ball... [I chose Schachenmayr Nomotta Hair (color 98) 50 gram and Gedifra Belisana Color (color 7306) 50 gram]
- needles 9 mm
- a sewing needle

Cast on 64 stitches with the two colors, loosely. From here you knit two knit stitches and two purl stitches, starting with the knit stitches and ending with the purl stitches for each row. Continue until you have knitted about 26 cm. Then, knit together two knit stitches and two purl stitches for one row so you will have 32 stitches left. Cut the thread off, leaving a thread of about 50 cm. Take a big needle and pull the thread through the 32 stitches. Pull the thread so you close the top. Handsew the sides together, using the thread from top to bottom. Let the winter come! 

Some time ago, Trudi posted about one of her favorite bookmaking tools: her Japanese screw punch. Me, being a total nerd for new tools, was very much interested and Trudi was so kind to include one in a swap! Together with two lovely magazines you cannot get over here: Blueprint and Domino. I made her a suprise package with nice things from Paris and a Japanese book on artists' workspaces.

Thank you, Trudi, for this wonderful trade!

* Plate "Bonheur" by Le petit atelier de Paris 

Hi there blogger friends -

It's been a busy week with bigger (I got my "stageverklaring" which means I no longer any formal restrictions in my attorney work - and I got a lot of presents and flowers for it too!) and smaller (some minor schoolwork motivation setbacks) events. I did find energy to make a new work the last two weeks (see above). It was sort of an experiment, with the line drawings I am making recently combined with photography. It has a story to it actually. When I was shooting in the big park of Amsterdam, the Vondelpark, last week, I was confronted with an old fashioned flasher! No kidding! When I was shooting this picture, I noticed some rotating flesh colored object in the corner of my eye. Eeuw, very gross it was. I am still not quite over it in fact.

Different subject quickly! I quite like the result of Gocco'ing on a high gloss picture. I made this one for my supervisors in the lawfim but if anyone's interested - please email me. I made some extra ones that I am planning to sell for a small price.

Hope you will all have a lovely Friday.

-- Marieke 

[I cannot seem to post large landscape shape pictures in Blogger - the bottom part seems to fall off. Has anyone encountered this problem too? Any help would be appreciated]

 

 

 

 

[My new favorite - heavily stamped - shirt]

 

I haven't been posting my assignments too much lately. I did mention them in my journal so I should post about the fun part too! The assignment was to make a A2 sized poster of one character. No other elements allowed. I chose the ampersand of Caslon 540. A very elegant character that very much stands on its own, in my opinion.

My poster has three layers. A greyish high gloss base, details of the character in matte chalk, and a white high gloss top layer of the complete character.

* The thing in this picture I am so excited about is the easel from my mother that now stands in my work place. It's such a beautiful piece that I have wonderful memories of. I will make sure to keep it in excellent condition, that is use it a lot like it should. 

 

 

 

 

 

Delay! I am so behind posting - and I did not even tell the reason for it. My cousin got married this weekend in Lewes, England. So here a quick note with some shots of the lovely country wedding... Look at the lovely church and beautiful surroundings over there. [I included my own portrait for the accessories I have been posting about - my beret and my etole. Although you can't see either of them very well (no more pictures unfortunately) you have to trust me they were quite cute together]

And did anyone ever tell you how convenient stiletto's are on grassy occasions? Perfect grip in fact :-)

Happy monday to you x