HOT HOT HEAT

Today, is my fantabulous friend Miriam's birthday and this is my birthday-surprise-post!

HAPPY 31st MIR!
;-)

We've been friends now for 13 years and in that time we've been through loads and loads of good and bad stuff together, she's my stepping stone, my roots and my anchor (and much, much more) We've had a break, found each other again by total coincidence, or maybe a higher force, and have been the closest of friends ever since. Now, before I get al teary-eyed and mushy, I'll explain the birthday-surprise-post.

Miriam's thing with birthdays and presents in general is that she really really really wants to know what the present is before she gets it, but at the same time she really doesn't. So every year we play basically the same typical sketch:

On the phone
---------------
Sas: 'Guess what I have in my haaahaaaands??'
Mir: 'What???'
Sas: 'Your preseeeeeeeeent!!'
Mir: 'OW, OW, OW, what is it, what is it?
Sas: 'weeeel....'
Mir: 'Oh no... wait...wait... I don't want to know!
Sas: 'Ok, I'm not telling you anyway.'
Mir: 'But I'm so curious, what is it, what is it?
Sas: 'Not tellin' ya!'
Mir: 'No, no-don't tell me.'

Mir: '....but....what is it?'

This morning though, a milder version was acted out, age?? .... perhaps... hehehe!
I thought, this year, I will let her know what her present is. But in a different kind of way, through my blog. So today, on her actual birthday, she'll get a semi-present, and tomorrow at the party she'll get the real deal. And I've still got some other pressies (yeah Mir, more, more!!) so the surprise isn't all gone.

I started browsing the web for interesting, pretty and/or practicall designs. And came up with this, the HOT HOT HEAT ovenmitt. (I renamed it...) Miriam is a creative and great cook and I realized I hardly ever get her cooking stuff.
I love fast learning, and I decided I had to make her something using techniques I've never used before. It's my first hand-felted project and my first dyeing project and I must say, I'm rather proud of the finished results. (As I usually am, I'm always pleasantly surprised when my projects don't go horribly wrong...)

1. I made a first swatch, felted it by hand and found out that the yarn was treated so it can be washed in the machine... bummer... it wouldn't felt, obviously.

2. I bought some natural, 100% wool, untreated, in a skein and spent a fair bit of one afternoon winding balls by hand.

3. I made two swatches and tossed one in the washingmachine and the other I felted by hand. Offcourse the one in the washingmachine ended up as my first felting project; looking like cat puke, in a ball, felted in some parts, not felted in other parts.

4. So I knitted the mitten and used my bare hands and muscular power to turn the yarn into a fireproof mitten.

5. I bought some dylon fabric dye. I wanted to use Kool-Aid but wasn't able to find out where to get it here in Rotterdam (any ideas anyone?) so I got the stuff I used to make tie&dye T-shirts with in highschool. Boy, I used to really go nuts with this stuff, making all kinds of fashion 'no-no's'

6. The piece of yarn I had leftover from knitting the mitten, I soaked in HOT HOT dye on the gas, let it dry,rinsedd it and let it dry again (see: collage on dyeing below)

7. I put some of the dye in a pot and let the HOT HOT HEAT ovenmitt soak it up. Pretty cool look huh?!

8.Rinsedd it.

9. Dried it.

10. Added my personal label and ... all done!

The finished product:

Happy Birthday Mir, the

HOT HOT HEAT

ovenmitt

is yours!

I made these labels printing them on an 'iron-on-T-shirt-print-sheet' and.... well... ironed it on a piece of cotton. It's make-do, I already found out they won't survive the washing machine. I did some research on having real labels made, but that was way to expensive.

My dyeing whish fulfilledd!

On Bags

how NOT to do it:

This is what was supposed to be my Giant Ice Cream Colored Tote.

I was going to take it to the park, uptown, and maybe... in a corageous mood, to the beach.

I was going to use it as a 'schlepping' device, stuffing it with books, WIP's, make-up, notebooks, snacks & drinks and we were going to be the best of friends, my summer love...

But...

it looks like a condom...

The idea was to design while knitting it, but I think it's safe to say that I'm not a designer quite yet. I'll stick to patterns for a while to come.

(any pattern ideas for big totes are very welcome)

Have to say though, that I'm not completely put off by the way the bottom turned out... and the colours go well together too.

It's a nicely coloured condom with a good bottom...

HOW to do it:

How cool is this bag?

It's

way

WAY

WAY

Cool

!

It was made for me as a farewell present by my majestic intern Kim.

(from when I was still at Nighttown)

She's great and very creative. She makes lots of super cool stuff under the name

Hibkip & Kimbo.

She's in the process of launching a website, but if you're interested in a vinyl bag or some great T-shirts, let me know and I'll hook you up.

Thanks Kim, I truly and utterly love it.

You were my intern, but bagwize I can learn a lot from you.

;-)

Once Upon A Time...

Once upon a time, not so long ago, prince Urban and princess City decided it was time for them to leave their fort, take their iron stallion (volvo) and go for a picnics in the country.

It had been some time since the prince and princess took off to leave the hustle and bustle of their settlement behind, so they were very excited to go.

The went for a picnics, watching (and hearing) the sheep in the distance. One of the sheep had some sort of issue it seemed... he/she might have been head-sheep, that would've given him/her reason to make that much noise.

prince Urban was enjoying his salmon sandwiches and fresh juice as princess City took her knitting and worked on her Clapotis . She'd started it a few days earlier and was already hooked on the pattern and the yarn (Jamaica by Katia). The stallion meter was running so prince Urban urged her to finish her row so they could get going again. The princess sighed, but knew there was no point in arguing.

Through the trees prince Urban and princess City could see a glimpse of their country house, it was pretty as ever and both of them were anxious to get there.

And there it was, finally, in all it's splendor. The prince had to fight numerous wars and had slayed many a dragon and the princess had knitted heaps of clothes for the royal family, knitting until her fingers bled. All those wages finally bought them this 'fixerupper'.

After the prince and princess did their usual inspection tour around the castle they visited the falconer. He brought his new owl, a very small and cute stone-owl. The princess was smitten and had to be dragged away by the prince, again!

Princess City & prince Urban

(her knight in shining armor)

Tempting Indeed

SAS Knits It Again Studio's

proudly presents:

Tempting,

A true story of how a black cotton yarn got tangled and unraveled into a luscious and lovely sweater. Starring:
Scheepjes Isis 100% cotton in black

and featuring

the lovely Sassy as 'the woman who filled the garment'.

In the role of ever curious and supporting lover: Boyfriend Dear.

Produced by the award wanting Saskia de Feijter

and sponsored by her own bankaccount.

Catering by: Sasfridgeandcupboard.

To be seen in Rotterdam and surroundings

and later this summer

in Sweden near lakes and woods.

My first ever piece of clothing, home knit, by me! It was realy fun to knit too, easy but not boring because I knew where I was going and wanted to get there fast. It was exciting to the last stitch because I really dreaded trying it on and finding out it was too small or too big or too whatever. But no, it fitted fine!
I started knitting in may, so it took me two months to finish. Not the fastest knit ever, but hey, I got things going on in my life, stuff that needed attention you know... Tempting will go into history as 'the-sweater-I-made-when-I-worked-extremely,- even-too,-hard-and-lost-my-job-anyway'. That's so great about music, knitting, smells and tattoos (and quite a bunch of other stuff too, come to think of it), it gets connected to certain periods in your life and everytime you see/ hear/ smell/ feel them, you get sucked back there for a brief moment. I like it when that happens, even when it's not necessarily a good period or thing you get reminded of.

The pattern was written up in different sizes but I had to take the largest one in the pattern and make it one size larger, just to be sure. Hey, I fell of the plenty tree, full of curves and squishy parts... Hell, I'm curvier than that road in San Francisco. Imagine the amount of yarn I used, I actually had to go back to the LYS to get more and the lady there had, the first time 'round, already gently told me to get one more skein than I planned on taking, which was a lot... I don't want to calculate the costs of all that yarn, I don't care, I'm proud. It fits, it even looks kinda good on me and hey, it's my firstborn, it's special no matter what.




Yesterday I knitted this head band, I found through Linster's blog on this Norwegian site where they have heaps and heaps of great free patterns (in English and Norwegian!).

Oh, I just wanted to show our new 'pimped' flowery balcony.
We've got a purple theme going on here.
That's all I have to say about that.
How in-te-res-ting...

Yesterday the Netherlands played Argentina which was interesting for a bunch of reasons. One of them being that our King-to-be Willem-Alexander Claus George Ferdinand van Oranje-Nassau is married to Má¡xima Zorreguieta who is Argentineann. It must have been a very interesting evening for those two. Wim-Lex: 'Orange is definitely better dear, what do you know about soccer anyway, you're a blond princess...' Maxima: 'I lived next door to Diego Maradonna, I know plenty and we are going to kick your orange asses you dutch cheesehead!'

What's also very interesting, is our little shrine on the TV, with tangerines in the right color to suck up to the Soccer God and wuppies just because they're cute and in the right colors. This girl at the supermarket where they give away the wuppies, told us they were on the news. Apparently people are going mad over them, and especially the large ones, they break into cars to get them and they are offering serious amounts of money on E-bay. One search on news site www.nu.nl got me 12 hits on wuppie-news... Soccer-craze... I'm tellin' ya!
In action you see, If I'm not mistaken, Robin van Persie.

Roller Coaster Life

The weather has been like my moods, like all things happening; crazy, like a roller coaster ride!

Three days ago, it was so hot I had to use dusting powder to stop my hands from sweating too much so I couldn't knit. (the knitting smells great now!)
And now it has been raining for a day and a half and it doesn't look like it's getting better anytime soon.

Still in orange spirits... Lush great smelling dusting powder, my Branching Out, tangerines for sick Boyfriend Dear and orange
wuppies.

I'm definitely getting used to the color...

So there have been things goin on:

1. (the major one)
I've been told that my contract is not going to be extended. I didn't believe my ears. At the last official meeting I had with the boss he told me I was doing great, considering the lack of resources (personnel, time, money!!) and that they were very happy with my work. And now this, no warning, no real explanation, no nothing, totally out of the blue.
I'm really mad and disappointed and sad because I did nothing but work my freakin' pants of for this club. I actually worked so hard that I got sick and had to stay home and rest for two weeks. After that I decided some things had to change and I quit my voluntary work for a
local music site, which I loved doing... I made sacrifices to do my job even better, without risking my health, and now they're stabbing me in the back.

I won't go into details, because all this is not over yet. There's unions and lawyers and doctors involved and it simply depresses me too much to talk about it.

But wait, behold the silver lining!

I'm taking this as some sort of cosmic kick in the arse. I've been toying with the idea for some time now and this is it... I'm starting my own business! I've already got a great plan but I'll keep that a secret for now. It involves me freelancing, doing PR and publicity work in the arts & cultural world, but that's just a small part of it, the part I'll start with.
I might have to find a parttime job to pay the bills at first, but if my plan works it will be fantastic. I'm scared shitless but extremely excited at the same time (more rollercoastering...)

2.
It was Boyfriend Dear's birthday the 13th, and our 3rd anniversary at the same time. Poor guy was sick so I made him tea, decorated the balcony with flags, made him a daybed outside, bought him a cake, made him some sandwiches, made him some more tea and knitted beside him.

3.
The fist Dutch world cup soccermatch has been played, last Sunday. I saw it with some friends at Nighttown (that ratchet place). Although it was definitely weird being there, I had a great time. We won 1-0 against Servië-Montenegro!! Go Team!

This is me at the soccer match (1-0 for our team!!) I didn't actually knit, but wasn't planning on wearing orange ('cept for the bracelets...) so I thought I'd show my support another way... On my lap is Chanel, oh so cool daughter of the oh so cool
Nico. (pict. courtesy of Nico. )

4.
WIP's:
- green thick socks pour moi.
- Ice Cream colored Tote
- Orange Branching Out
- Tempting

The socks... let's not even go there, they're waiting for next winter.

The Ice Cream Colored Tote I made up myself and I'm designing it as I go along. As I'm not an accomplished designer yet it's extremely simple and BORING THE HELL OUT OF ME!
So that's that, I'm not really motivated to finish it at this point.

The orange Branching Out is kicking my arse (as so many things are lately) Because you (I) can't frog a few rows of a lace pattern, it's just too chaotic, I knitted backwards more than forward to try to undo the mistakes I made. I got really sick of doing that and frogged the whole thing and started again. And then again. I finally realized, that it wasn't my incapability so much as the fact that I choose to knit it at the wrong times. It really needs some sort of tranquil yoga-like quietness, it's sensitive like that. So I decided to only knit it when I'm alone without radio or TV and nothing else to distract me. Which is... hardly ever...

Tempting is great, modelling below, sexy on the bed. I didn't get enough time to finish it yet but the sleeves are on the body and I'm getting there. Problem is that I'm short of yarn. So I have to drive for an hour to go get some more and all the while promise myself to not buy anything else while I'm there. I have to do it soon because the nice lady there is closing for holidays next week.

All Things Orange

I distinctly remember going through an orange phase when I was a wee Sassy. I coloured everything in one bright orange colour. Why? God knows...

I don't know what came over me, or what happened since, I might have overdosed on orange... but I really, really do not like (read: HATE) the colour now. I just don't. You know how you like certain colours but only for clothing or only for interior design stuff or maybe both but definately not on cars? I don't like orange -at all- ! I can't imagine anything or anyone (except for maybe an orange) to look good in that colour.

Great... I'm a Dutch girl, guess what our national colour is....?



So ok, I’m screwed on national holidays I have to endure the whole country morphing into a bright traficlight (oh, that's a second one...).

One of those national holidays is Queens Day. I wrote a little bit about it in an earlier post. We Dutchies celebrated it on the 29th of April. We celebrate the queen's birth day, although it’s actually not really hér birthday, but her granny’s (the ex-ex-Queen). If you are interested you can read about it here. You might have to take a Dutch course
here first, nice colour in the background of that site... (I can't seem to find any English sites on the subject)

So...
Queens day...
We Dutch do weird things on Queens day. We drink beer by the keg, we get all our junk, place it on a blanket and sell it in the streets ánd... we wear - you've guessed it- ORANGE. My friend Roos and I tried to sell some of our stuff. Let's say she sold almost all of her daughter’s baby clothes and more... and me...?



Me, I thought it would be a great idea to do some quick knits, gather some FO's, print out a few price tags with my logo and go into business big time.

Ehm...
Well...
I made a staggering € 2,50.
What's my excuse?
1. We should've only sold home-made stuff and make a 'thing' out of it
2. I should've made smaller (cheaper) things
3. I shouldn't have tried to sell hats & scarfs & mittens in spring
4. Roos' junk was in the way (oh...that's cheap...)

Anyway, I could've used a marketing plan, let's leave it at that.

While we were sitting there I knitted up a phone cover for my friend Nicole who walked by. It's the only thing I sold and it doesn't even really count... she saw the I-pod cover and told me she needed a smaller one for her phone, I told her I could make her one. She said yes, but we never agreed on payment or anything. She was so surprised that by the end of the day I handed her over the finished cover, she offered to pay me. She wanted to pay full price, but I couldn't let her do that, so I made € 2,50 that whole day since I didn't sell any of my other stuff. Not one single item. I'm refusing to blame my knitting techniques or myself in general!



I'm not going into the knitting business any time soon...haha!

So... one national holiday finally back in the drawer, ready to be taken out the next year. No more orange for a considerable amount of time. Great! Love it! Let's go outside and sit in the green, I LUUUUUUUUUUUUURV GREEN!!

WRONG!!

The soccer world cup has started... And in no time at all the whole bleeding country is back in its tangerine (ok... I admit...another one) look.
And as much as I dislike orange, I love it when our National team plays. Although, every year I hesitate to wear Belgian colours when game-watching. Since I have both nationalities, am half Dutch, half Belgian I'm allowed to. But I feel profoundly more Dutch, have lived here most of my life, but the Belgians have red, black and yellow and that's so much better than friggin' orange...
But I don't wear Belgian colours because if I do I wouldn't make it out of the street alive and I love life too much... And let's not forget that they didn't qualify this year, so that would make me an even bigger moron, wearing their colours...



Here's Nighttown, the club I do PR/publicity for. It's covered in orange posters. An art project by this artist as a part of these parties that are held in Nighttown every time our team plays. My office is behind the windows on the first floor. We're bathing in orange all day. And they expect me to work like that??

When watching a game, you simply HAVE TO wear something orange, usually stupid big hat's, blow up arms, fake sideburns, poncho's or a mind altering combination of all those things. Since I wasn't about to get myself down to that level, I had to think, I had to think fast! I decided to combine the 'oh my god, no please nó' with the 'yay, let's go do it'-vibe and so I've started my first ever lace knit project. I like to do something I've never done before with every new project, that way I learn fast. So now I'm making Branching Out. Not with teeny-tiny-where-are-my-glasses-I-can't-see-it kind of yarn, but with bulky orange yarn (Phildar sport'laine) on 9 mm needles. Hey, I want to learn, fast preferably, and the first game was three days from when I started so I'm making it easy on myself.


And you know what... while being confronted with orange while concentrating profoundly on the pattern (and redoing one row after another) I'm starting to kind of like it. It's overload therapy, just get yourself in contact with the thing you dislike só much that it'll take up too much of your energy to be irritated by it all the time.

I dropped in the Hennes & Maurits today and actually picked up some orange bracelets... the therapy seems to be really working. And I also got hold of this übercool basket that screamed: PUT KNITTING IN HERE! I couldn't resist. Nor could I the other 5 garments... but that's another story that needs another kind of therapy.

GO TEAM GO!

(Didn't have time to finish this post this morning. Guess what?? WE WON THE FIRST MATCH!! 1-0!!)

My personality in one picture

No knitting pictures this time, I've gotta go buy a tent and I'm behind in the washing & dressing ritual as it is...

Tempting is coming along slow but steady, two sleeves finished and hoping to join the pieces tonight. Pictures soon!

Have a fantactic day!

:-)