Howling at the Moon

  Stash Buster 11   My daughters (11 and 13) had vacation a couple of weeks ago and before the pandemic started, my idea was to go to Finland this vacation for my dream holiday: a sledge dog tour. I'm not really into dogs, to be honest, but there's something about huskies (huskies more than malamutes, because of the shorter hair) that I really like. Maybe it's their ever smiling face or their enthusiasm, but I realize these are features lots of dog breeds have. Maybe it's because they so much look like wolves, which are my favorite animals. I'm not that spiritual, but when someone says 'totem animal', I think wolf. Anyway, due to known circumstances there was no sledge dog tour this year, but I wanted my daughters to have a nice vacation anyway, within the limits of pandemic measures. In our country that means, among some other things, no more than one visitor in your house at a time. So my oldest asked her friend to stay over for a couple of n

Stash Buster 10 The country I live in (The Netherlands) has a monarchy and the 27th of April the whole country celebrates the king's Birthday. Under normal circumstances most of the country's nationals migrate to the capital city (Amsterdam) on that day but the lockdown measures make it impossible to gather, especially in large amounts of people. The urgently advice is even not to welcome more than one person in your house.  Last year we were also in lockdown on King's Day, so we tried to make it a festive day for ourselves. And honestly, I think it was one of the better King's Day Celebrations of the last years. In the morning I made 'tompoucen' with my daughters ( a typical Dutch delicacy, that is popular year round, but especially on King's Day). In the afternoon we did Old Dutch games and watched movies and after that we had a BBQ. Perfect day.  I don't know yet what we will do this year. I bought ingredients and coloring (the colors of the flag, wh

 One of my friends asked me to crochet a little baby blanket that she wants to give as a baby present to someone else. I showed her two pictues of blankets I made recently to choose from, but she wasn't sure which one she liked the most. I offered to crochet both blankets for her so she could see them for real to make the choosing easier. The one she doesn't choose I can give to one of my expecting colleagues. Here's the first blanket.   I made this blanket two times before in mint and dusky pink (see here and here ). This one is in baby pink with an ecru edge.     Pattern : Chill & Chunky Blanket from KOEL Magazine Issue #6 Yarn : Julia Baby Pink by Zeeman    

  One of the things my youngest daughter and I love to do together is bake. This weekend we made this Spring Swiss Roll together.     What you need 5 eggs 150 grams sugar flour 110 grams cornstarch 35 grams fresh mango 4 spoons whipped crea 200 grans mascarpone 50 grams sugar vanille essence 1 mango decorations     What to do Preheat oven at 170 degrees Celsius Mix the eggs with the sugar for ten minutes Sift flour and cornstarch and mix with the eggs  Cover a baking tray (size 30x50cm) with baking paper Divide the mix over the tray Bake for 12 minutes (or until light brown and spongy) Let the cake cool off a bit  Sprinkle a bit of icing sugar over the cake and roll up with help of the baking paper Let cool down in the fridge   Mix mascarpone and cream with the sugar Cut the mango in thin slices Take the cake from the fridge and roll out Spread the mascarpone out over the cake Cover with mango slices Roll the cake up again Decorate with whatever you like.  We used mascarpone, sprinkles