It's Too Friggin' Hot Dude!

Gosh, It's so hot that I woke up with curls in my hair.

The day after Miriam's birthday, she treated her friends and mum to a special city walk. We stopped by a bunch of her fav adresses and buildings and hotspots and with the help of a lot of water and shadow stops, it was very cool!
Of course at a certain point knitting entered the conversation (as it always does) and after the compulsary 'no, it's not just for grannies' and 'you cán make modern and cool stuff' and 'ok, you've got me... I'm a nerd', someone told me about a farm in the city.

A farm in the city? No way! Yes way! Apparently it's at the edge of the city and behind the dyke of the bank of the river Maas. She told me she was there on a open door day and she saw hand spinned and dyed yarn hanging from the bannisters.

My jaw dropped.
Hére?
In Rotterdam? Hanspun and handdyed?
On a farm?

(Ok,we get it, you were surprised...)

Time to go on an adventure. And who better ask along for the ride than my SIL who likes knitting, but would like to learn felting and spinning even more. So off we went. On our bikes, in the burning sun. It took us about a good 15/20 minutes to get there. To our surprise there were indeed a couple of farms... but which one could it be?

Beeeeeeeh, Beeeeeeeeeeeh.... duh... maybe the one with the trazillion sheep to each side of it?? We walked down the dyke and onto the path and noticed the farm was also the office for an organisation that preserves the natural landscape around here. So we entered the office and asked at the desk. 'Ehm, rather silly question we have... do you by any chance know anything about handspun yarn?' We got a glazed look at first but then someone came in and said. 'Hmm, I think you might want to ask the sheep herder, he's right outside I believe.

A friggin'g sheep herder... in Rotterdam... Crazy *ss sh*t!

A little shy and apprehensive we told the herder our story. His face turned into a big questionmark and then, like any good man would do, he said: 'You might want to ask the wife over there.' A few meters on, in the field, handnursing tree lams, was 'the missus'. I kid you not. It was like a picture from a schoolbook.
Even more shy now and slightly embarrassed we told the story again, while she screamed out loud because of little hooves trampeling her toes. We found out that spinning and dyeing was just a hobby for her and the stuff wasn't officially for sale. (although her eyes sparkeled for a second by the thought of it...).

And guess what? She offered to teach us how to spin!! Private lessons in the farm!! Yeah dude! I'll keep you posted on that one. Seems like SIL has already lost her phonenumber, but I'm sure we'll be able to get it again, adventurours as we are.

This here, is my first Fair Isle project. Using my first hand-dyed yarn. I have to say I think I'm missing a few braincells to do this techinique right. Oh my gosh, it's like first driving a car, you have to think of everything at the same time... crazy! Try doing this while it's 35 degrees (celcius) and your hands are sweaty. So, as you can see, it's not completely flat and there's a few mistakes in the pattern. (I partly made it up myself!! ;-) I'm felting it into this needlecase so I can take some extra needles with me on holiday. Hoping the loose threads in the back will felt well too. And hoping the mistakes will 'felt away'...

Fingers crossed!