Howling at the Moon

I found this cute pattern for a dish cloth at Busy Fingers, Busy Life . Seeing them made me drop my other project and start right away! I made two of them, not to use them as dish cloths but as potholders. www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ Discovered some nice wild flowers that grow in our garden! After some searching I now know they are wild hyacinths. So beautiful!

I found this cross stitch pattern at  Subversive Cross Stitching  (you can buy it  here ) and the pattern just reminds me of my beloved black cat Sjakie, who could have said it himself.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net It's cotton yarn and burlap, which is great material to cross stitch. ~*~ My Crochet Flower Dress is both featured by The Cottage Market  and Go Crochet Crazy this week! Thanks,  Andrea and Mary!!  

As  you know I love baking and cooking, but somehow my things never look as nice as in the picture. After seeing nothing else than macarons in the last year and reading anywhere that they're very difficult to make and you will fail for sure the first time you make them, I finally took a dare nonetheless.  After reading about four hundred different recipes I made up something myself: - 2 egg whites - 200 grams of confectioners sugar - 200 grams of almond meal This morning I separated the egg whites from the yolks and let it rest for three hours.  First I mixed the egg whites for a couple of minutes before I added all of the sugar at once. I mixed until the egg whites were stiff enought to turn the bowl upside down without losing the egg whites. After that I folded in the almond meal, until the mix was smooth.  With a tea spoon (first note to self, but I think you can use this one, too: pipe to make perfectly round macaron shells instead of using...

Bologna Orange Polka Clogs by Maguba WANTED Love Clogs!

One of the bigger projects I worked on the last weeks is this pillow: I found the cross stitch pattern at Felicity Hall and after seeing it I knew immediately that I wanted to use it for something. I thought a while about what to make and in the end decided on a pillow, because you can never have enough of those (although my husband would probably disagree on this).  First I crocheted the pillow cover in grey and afterwards I cross stitched the letters on it. You can find a lot of other nice cross stitch patterns and complete kits on Felicity's site (especially the little clutches are great: I want the Bird Clutch!!). The pattern that I used for the pillow is a freebie.  Here you see the pillow  in between some of the other pillows I made in the last months.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ This week my Paper Cherry Blossoms were featured by The Cottage Market !! Thanks, Andrea!

Just wanted to make something cheerful for my kitchen! www.betweennapsontheporch.net

Don't you?  What I love about our saturdays: * Going to the market in the morning  with my girls to buy flowers and fresh fruit * * Making something delicious for lunch,  like Club Sandwiches * * Baking something sweet for dessert,  like a Crumble  (click here for recipe)  * * Drinking caffee latte and hot chocolate  in the afternoon at the coffee bar near by  * *  Watching movies until late in the evening * Some recommendations: Ain't Them Bodies Saints Dallas Buyers Club Nebraska Want to make Club Sandwiches, too? This is what you need for two: 6 slices of bread 2 chicken breast filets 100 grams of bacon slices mayonaise 50 grams of rucola This is what you need to do: Cut the chicken breast in thin slices and bake until done. Bake bacon until crispy. Toast slices of bread Smear mayonaise on the first slice of bread.  Cover with chicken breast. ...

Dream Way Purse by Bettie Page  WANTED Love this Bag!

Now that I can smell summer in the air I don't need the blankets for some cosy warmth on my couch anymore, but much room to put them away until needed again we don't have around our house. Just in time I saw this great idea at Alisa Burke , one of my favorite blogs: a ladder made from branches and rope.  For the branches I used wood from the elderberry in our garden that we just cut and for the rope I used pink cotton I normally use for crochet. For extra strengthening I nailed the branches at the crossings, before I wrapped the yarn around. www.betweennapsontheporch.net On top hangs a blanket I'm still busy with. Well, not that busy, because the loose pieces are laying around for quite some weeks  now, but sewing together the loose pieces to complete the blanket is something that I just don't like (or shall I say hate).  In the middle is a blanket I bought years ago in a store I don't even remember the name of. At the bottom hangs a b...

To fill up this lazy sunday I made these Easter Chickens for my girls.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net ~*~ Don't you think it's funny that the projects you made that you yourself like the most, a lot of times get a lot less attention than things you made as an 'in betweener'?  My Flower Dress that I posted last saturday for example, is a project I really love. Colors, pattern, everything. But there are not much other people that like it as much as I do, I can see in my statistics and from the amount of comments.  On the other hand, my Paper Cherry Blossom project, that I made in less than an hour and I consider as lesser project, had many, many visitors. Still has. Do you have this experience, too? That projects you think will attract a lot of enthousiasts turn out to be not that popular and vice versa?  ~*~ My Chequered Potholders (with tutorial) were featured by Creative Jewish Mom this week! Thanks a lot!

Two years ago I made a dress  just like this one for my oldest daughter, a combination of crochet and sewing. My daughter is way to big for it now and because the dress was white and she was 4 back then, the dress is more a yellow/light brownish than white nowadays. Not something my youngest daughter want to take over from her sister. So I made her a new one. www.betweennapsontheporch.net In the craft store I saw this beautiful royal blue yarn. I really wanted it, but didn't know what to make from it at first, but I think this dress is the perfect project! I used the African Flower for a lot of projects in the meantime. I wrote a tutorial for it, that you can find here (you have to scroll down a bit). This is what the original dress looked like. 

Pullover Bright Lady Marilyn by Rumble59  WAN TED Very Cute Top!

My first Easter Project of this year: www.betweennapsontheporch.net It's made from little flowers that I punched out of lila and pale pink paper and pinned to an styrofoam egg. I think the flowers look a bit like hyacinth here, a real spring flower. I used the punch before to create Cherry Blossom. ~*~ Last week my Crochet Stripey Skirt was featured by Creative Jewish Mom ! Thanks!! And my Golden Hearts were featured by Nap Time Creations ! Thanks, Emily!!

Made new potholders! Want to make them, too? Here's the recipe! * Chain 32 in color A * Chain 3 (this is your first trc), trc in every next chain. Don't cut of yarn at the end of the row. * Change to color B. Secure yarn to first stitch of the second row and chain 1. Sc in next 3 stitches. Now put your crochet needle in the next st of the first row. Pull up loop of yarn. Sc in next four stitches and pull up loop. Repeat until end of the row. Cut of the yarn. *  Chain 3 of color A (this is your first trc), trc in next three stitches, *skip one stitch (this stitch should be above the pulled up stitch), trc in next four stitches*, repeat * * until end of row. * Change to color B. Sc in next four stitches. Pull up a loop in the 'eye' of the loop you made two rows ago. Repeat until end of row. * Repeat pattern until you have fifteen rows of both colors.  www.betweennapsontheporch.net