Magical lights!

It's been a bit quiet on my blog but I have been really busy lately.  I'm using all my free time to crochet these lights.  I think they are perfect for my christmas gifts this year.  These purple ones are a gift for my mom.  She adores purple.  So these will probably match perfect with most of her outfits. It's not my favourite colour but I must admit they turned out all right.

More candle holders

 

I have made some more candle holders.  This time I used a nice ochre colour.  Although it's more of an autumn colour, I love to use this colour also in winter time.  It adds an even warmer and cozy touch to the candle light.

 

I don't know if you can tell, but for the right one I've used just simple granny squares.

Because I'm enjoying myself so much crocheting, the other day I bought some more really nice colours.  So I'll be making lots more of these.

Celebration!

 Today, I made this cake for my family.  I was inspired by a dutch magazine I bought this week.  There was a picture of a beautiful pie in it with these words written on the pie : WE ARE SO GOOD TOGETHER.  And indeed this is how I feel when I think of my kids and husband. 
Lately we've been a very busy family, even during the weekends.  And today, we were all at home so I decided to treat them well and I wanted to celebrate us just because we are a family. 

Of course my cake didn't look as pretty as the one in the magazine.  But they didn't care!!  We really enjoyed our little celebration today.

I hope you had a lovely weekend too!!

Fair at the waldorf school

We had a very busy weekend.  It was the anual fair at the children's school.
With a bunch of lovely and very talented women we come together once a week to sow for this fair.  These are some of the things we made this year.

 

Of course we don't earn anything by selling this because the profit all goes to the school.  But we gain so much more.   Every week while we are working, we drink cappuccino, eat cake and have loads of fun.  There is always lots of laughter but also room for tears. It is so nice to be part of this amazing group!!

Ladies, thanks for being you every week again!  I think we did really well this year!

Crochet light

Yesterday I had the most perfect day. Over here it was a holiday.  Finally a day off without any obligations!!  So I slept in, had my favourite drink, a cappuccino with cinnamon, and did some crocheting. I'm trying out some new things.
Every year when the days get shorter and the nights longer, I have the urge of lighting my house just by using lots of candles.  It's so cozy!  So this year I'm crocheting around glass tealight holders or glass jars. 

These are the ones I made yesterday.  I still have to practise a lot more and I'm trying out different patterns.  But I really love how the light shines through it.  So I will be making a lot more of these lights, I'm totally hooked. 

I hope you are all having a great weekend too!!

Felt dog

                                    Isn't he cute?

For a while now my kids keep asking for a dog.  I really love dogs, especially this one, but I already have enough work with my children.  Everybody is trained over here and I'm not yet ready to start over again with a puppy.  So for now, I made them this dog!!  He doesn't need a lot of care, only a bit of dusting.  

I don't know if you can tell but it's a beagle.  Of course it is not the same as the real thing, but he definitely stole my heart!!

Little frog

While we were looking for chestnuts this weekend, we suddenly noticed this little fellow hiding.  Of course it's not hard to hide if you look like this. 

Our youngest one couldn't resist him and followed him around until he could pick him up.  He was really gentle with him and the frog didn't move at all while he was holding him.  He was probably scared to death.  But luckily he was freed again after taking this picture!

Quince jam : recipe

We had a lot of quinces again this year.  And I always make jam with them.  I try a different recipe every year.  This year I found some recipes and I mixed them together and then made my own.  A lot of recipes tell you to just use the juice and throw away the pulp, but I always have a hard time throwing away edible things.  So I decided to use everything and just mix it all up.  I made two batches as you can tell by the different colours.  The yellow one didn't cook as long as the reddish one.  I prefer the red colour though.  So I just let them simmer for one extra hour.

Here is my recipe :

You don’t have to peel the fruits, just rub them vigorously to remove the velvet on the skin. Cut them in quarters, and remove the core. You should remove the seeds from the core and put the seeds in a piece of cheesecloth that you add to the pan because the seeds contain a high amount of pectine.
Put the quarters in a large pan and add some water. For 1 kilo of quinces I use one litre of water.
Bring to the boil and let it simmer for at least one to one and a half hour, with the lid on the pan. The longer you leave them simmering, the more reddish they become.
Remove the seeds, and just mix everything else with a blender. For every kilo of this pulp I use one package of jam sugar.  Nowadays you can find different brands in the store.  I always use 500 gr of sugar for 1 kilo of fruit.  Bring this pulp with the sugar again to the boil and keep stirring for about 3 minutes without the lid on.
When a drop of the jam thickens on a cold plate, you can fill the jars, close the lids and let them cool upside down.

Et voilà, we're finally done!! If you have a great recipe for quinces too, I'm always interested.  Next year I will probably have to be creative again with all the quinces.

Another sunrise

My eldest son took this picture early in the morning, this weekend.  I was still enjoying my bed at that time.  But he thought it would be nice for my blog.  So here it is ...  Although throughout that day, it was cold and gray, the sun did a great job to paint the sky in such a nice warm colour in the morning.

Chocolate pie

 
















It was so cold and grey this weekend that it almost felt like winter.  We lit the fireplace for the first time this autumn.  It felt so cozy.  And because we have so many walnuts this year and I had a craving for chocolate I decided to make a chocolate pie with nuts.  I have a great easy recipe for it and we ate it lukewarm with of course a great cup of cappuccino for me and my husband and some hot chocolate for the kids.  It was the perfect weather for this rich pie!

 

To make this pie, you need 350 grams (12 ounces) of milk chocolate, 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of butter, 5 eggs, 100 grams of chopped walnuts and 225 grams (7.9 ounces) of cane sugar, 1 tablespoon of coffee and 3 tablespoons of cacao powder. First melt the chocolate with the butter over low heat, whisking constantly until smooth.  Mix the eggs with the sugar, coffee and cacao powder, add the walnuts and the melted chocolate.  Grease and flour a pie plate, pour batter into it and bake it for about 40 minutes on 180 degrees (350 degrees fahrenheit).  It's done when it is still a bit moist on the inside.  You can eat it cold or lukewarm. 

 

I hope this will get you through all the grey days that we'll probably be having some more this autumn.  Try it and enjoy!!

Sunrise!

 










On a sunny day, this is the first view I see in the morning when I leave my house.  I can't get enough of this sight.  It always makes me smile and I feel so lucky to be alive.
With this beautiful weather last week, I could enjoy this view every day. I took this picture just in time, because I'm afraid our Indian summer is over. 

Now I can keep on smiling just by looking at my blog!!  Hope you enjoy this too!!

Indian Summer

As you can see by my four seasons scene, I had to change it to autumn.  But last week we really had an Indian summer over here and it is still so nice and warm.  It feels like summer has finally arrived!

On the other hand, if I look at all the nice golden colours of the leaves I must admit it's definitely autumn.  So I will not change it back to summer.  Maybe I should add a fifth season ...
Although indian summer is not really an official season, it's my favourite one : lovely colours in nature, beautiful sunrises in foggy weather, warm sun during the day and not too hot to fall asleep at night.   I hope everyone is enjoying this great indian summer!

DIY : felted lamp

I always have a hard time shopping for a nice lamp.  And if I do like one, it's always so expensive.  So I made one myself.  I used really nice natural wool mixed with silk.  I also added some curls and a bit of green fine wool.  It took me a good part of the day to felt it because the fabric needed to be see through without creating holes.  So I had to felt it really gently.

Once I finished my fabric, I still had to make a lamp shade out of it.  Nowadays it's easy to find the material for it in specialized stores.  For this lamp I needed two large iron circles and some kind of self adhesive lamp foil.  Then it still took me about a day of putting all of this nicely together and finally ... there was light!!

Abundance!

Look what happens if you're too busy crocheting and it's actually harvesting time.  The zucchinis were huge and I gathered tons of tomatoes.  Luckily these tomatoes were just perfect for making sun dried, or in my case, oven dried tomatoes.

So I sprinkled some sea salt on them and let them bake in the oven for 8 hours on very low temperature and with the door a little bit open.

And finally I poured some very good olive oil over them.  So now I can enjoy the taste of summer whenever I feel like it!!

Still crocheting ...

I'm doing a lot of crocheting lately. These are some items I've made so far.  But I'm still in the experimental phase and having fun crocheting!!  I'm really curious what I will be using this for.

Beautiful morning!

I saw so many beautiful spider's webs this morning in the orchard.  But grasping them on a photo was harder than I expected. Sometimes you can see so much more through your lens than with your own eyes.  But the webs just kept disappearing when I looked through my camera.  At last I took one picture I liked.
I really need to learn a bit more about photography and practice a whole lot more. If any of you have some tips, they are always welcome!!

Paris!!

Yep, we went to Paris with the kids.  They were dying to go all the way up to the top of the Eiffel tower.  And although me and Sara are afraid of heights, we did it!!!!  The elevators were a little scary but once on top we had a beautiful view over Paris.  It's so nice that the kids finally reached that age where we can visit big cities and don't have to be afraid that one of them just disappears or touches things they shouldn't.  We could even have a decent meal in a restaurant : no spilling, no fighting, ...  Well we all enjoyed it and for us it was a great way to end the summer.  The 1st of September they will go back to school and we'll all have to get back in our routine, unfortunately.

I hope every one of you had a great summer too!

City trip

       Guess where we went this weekend??

Simple beauty!

I was so happy I could still spot some nice flowers on my walk this morning.  

Weatherwise summer has not been very nice in this part of the world, but it's so nice to see that these ordinary flowers just don't care.

A gift!

My friend Dana gave this letter to me for my birthday.  It's made out of really old wood that she found in her old family farm in France.  She made it herself using an electric sawing machine.  I'm really glad she didn't hurt herself because I'm too afraid to use machinery like that. They are just too noisy and scary for me.

I'm really impressed Dana! You are so talented!
Thanks a lot!

Apples everywhere!

I think the apples are almost ready.  A lot of them always fall from the tree before they are actually ready to eat but I try to gather them and make apple sauce, jams and lots of apple muffins.  By the looks of it, it is definitely time to get to work (again)!

I mixed the apples with some pears.