Howling at the Moon

As told last week my daughter will have her birthday in a couple of weeks and she asked me to make a piñata, like every year. She's really into cacti for some reason, so the piñata also had to be a cactus. It didn't matter which cactus, so I made my own favorite: the Saguaro. ~*~ My Blooming Cactus was featured by Queen Bee Baker ! Thank you very much, Michele!

My  almost eleven year old daughter is showing signs of teenagership more  and more by the day and this week that meant I had to make a Bandana Top. And it had to be cropped. She goes on holiday with her two best friends (and, don't worry, the mom of one of them) and she's busy deciding what to bring with her from the clothes she already has, what she absolutely has to buy and what I must make. So far it's only the Bandana Top. That was only ten minutes of sewing, so it's a quiet year for me, sew wise. I cheated a bit on the amount of cropping, of course.

In a couple of weeks my daughter will have her eleventh birthday. As every year her age comes as a total surprise as I count her years. Unbelievable how fast time flies. Last week she was still a baby and look at her now! Usually my oldest doesn't really have a 'theme' for her birthday, because she never knows anything she likes enough to see here whole party decorated around. That is until her birthday has passed by. But this year she was on time. Cacti it had to be. So I started this week by crocheting a cactus.   Be prepared to see lots of cacti the upcoming weeks on this blog.

Do you know Gretchen Hirsch? She is a internation sewing starlet, as her blog says. She has written several books about vintage sewing, with lots of tips and trick in it about sewing and about adjusting patterns for a perfect fit. About a month ago she started a sew along. I didn't sew anything for a long time, but after reading about this sew along, I suddenly had some appetite to get my sewing machine from underneath the dust and sew along. This weekend I finished the dress and I'm quite happy about it. There are some improvements that I need to remember for the next dress I will be making, but overall I'm quite content.  Want to make your own? Sew along, too! Gertie's Dress Sew Along ~*~ My French Knitted Flamingo as well as my Market Bag were featured by Creative Jewish Mom this week! Thank you very much, Sara!

I've been looking for fresh rhubarb for a couple of weeks now to make the Rhubarb Upside Down Cake recipe , but I gave up.  I only found it once this year and that was it. For some reason, maybe too expensive, maybe nobody else but me buys rhubarb nowadays, but no supermarket in this town sells it. So  in the end I made you an alternative recipe that I used on my other  blog a couple of weeks ago. Instead of fresh rhubarb I used rhubarb compote from a jar. The compote doesn't give the beautiful pink color like the fresh rhubarb does, but the taste was excellent! * * * Next week I would like to make Pesto Pasta . Seems like a rather simple and really  fast prepared meal.

It's the end of the year again and that means Teacher's Day here in The Netherlands. Kids bring little presents to school for their teachers (and some don't) and they're playing games all day long.  This year both my kids have teachers from the sporty and healthy type, so I baked banana breads without sugar in it (added the recipe) and bought coffee/tea mugs.

My husband had to go to Cambridge, UK, this week to do some talking on a researchers congress and asked me to go with him. It was a while ago we went on a trip with just the two of us, so after changing some shifts at work I could go with him and booked a flight.  Cambridge, as you may know, is a university town and mainly consists of colleges. It's the place where professor Stephen Hawking spend his last years, where Darwin and Newton studied (among lots of other famous scientists) and where Crick and Watson came up with the idea of the helix molecule structure of DNA.  Cambridge isn't very large and I think most of the residents aren't students, but tourists. It's very crowded in the streets, sidewalks are full of slow walking people and to pass them you have to watch out very carefully, since cars drive on the left side of the road instead of right. Nonetheless, Cambridge is a friendly town with a lot of history and a lot of things to see. On the first

Maybe you remember that I gave a sort of crochet workshop for mothers of children from the same class as my daughter. We made market bags. After a year mine is totally worn out, so I made a new one this week. ~*~ Both my Mango/Cocos/Lime Ice Pops and Wooden Stars were featured by City of Creative Dreams this week! The Stars were also featured by Creative Jewish Mom ! Thanks, Shanice! My Felt Toucan was featured by Tatertots and Jello , by Sew Can Do , by  and by Creative Jewish Mom !! Thank you so much, Jen, Cheryl and Sara!

After knitting two names last week, I'm in a French/spool knitting flow and made this Flamingo!