Farmer girl in the city sequel!

Now the weather is great over here in Holland I continued the planting. Everything is growing very well and I even started a second run in the small glass(plastic) house in front of my window.
Yesterday I got four plants as a gift, luckily I still have room for them! Thank you! There are two tomato plants and two peppers although we are not sure what kind of peppers, I guess we just wait and see. Before going to work today I have planted them in my humble city garden. Two in the m2 garden and two in my new pots.
Grow little plants grow!

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Farmer girl in the city

It has been a while that I have been writing. But here I am again! In the meantime I have been doing a lot of things, many reasons for my absence. Work (!!) nice things, less nice things, gardening, organizing, baking and crafting. See, those last few will be shown over here soon.
Let’s start with the gardening. Many blogs are filled these days with great gardens and successful gardening. Funny enough I live in the city centre and I can write about this topic too. I have been posting about my square metre garden and lately it got really successful. I have been eating home grown salad with home grown radish! Very yummy and very satisfying!

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This I a picture of a couple of weeks ago when I first harvested some green stuff.

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But it won’t stop growing! I think it looks really exploded in this photo? I am really enjoying the fresh mint, radish and salad.

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Even the herbs are growing great, I am still figuring out what the best way is to dry them, but for now I have cut it to hang it in the kitchen.

I really feel like a farmer girl in the city!

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Grease lightning!

Last week I have made a cake for a bachelorette party, the theme was Grease (the movie)! We went -while eating the cake and other american sweets- driving a boat through the canals of Amsterdam, followed by a lesson of Grease dancing (pretty hard with my fixed back, but a lot of fun and lucky me I could rely on my 15 years of ballet experience) and of course more drinking and eating. The Pink Ladies enjoyed the cake, it was vanilla filled with raspberry jam….yum.

Grease cake

Grease cake

Raspberry-vanilla cake

Raspberry-vanilla cake

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Mini garden

Wow, building your own garden is one thing, growing your own herbs another…but I must say: it’s a lot of fun! The salad is going great and the basil thought it was too cold outside.

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A little bit of everything

It’s been a while that I posted, but I was ill last week (together with a lot of people in Holland I guess) and over Easter I was visiting my love :-) .
We had a lovely weekend, and of course we did some baking again.
Easter cake pops this time!

Sheep

Sheep cakepop

Egg in the grass

Egg in the grass

Yellow cakepops

Yellow cakepops

Easter cakepops!

Easter cakepops!

A whole bunch of cakepops

A whole bunch of cakepops

 

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Herb garden

To fill up my herb garden we’ve planted some seeds in a small glass house (to be honest it’s plastic actually) inside. When it was full I realized that sage was not in there. The sage got a private glass house: a cookie jar!

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Home sweet home Spring garden!

Two weeks ago I started a herbgarden. My love build my mini garden for my terrace and we ran to the shops to get some herb plants and seeds. It was awfully clear that my love has the gardening talent and I don’t…haha lots to learn here!

Thyme, mint and marjoram are the ones we bought as a plant, together with two types of salads. Some herb seeds are planted in a glass house inside the house but the radish and chives could go outside (according to the package) so we gave them a spot to live in the garden. Grow little plants grow!

One square metre garden

One square metre garden

Chives and radish

Chives and radish

Radish is seeing sunlight!

Radish is seeing sunlight!

Radish is growing mental!

Radish is growing mental!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Home sweet home is initiated by Barbaramama, more participants you can find on her blog.

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Crocheted baby blanket

With another baby born it was time for a crochet project again! The mother knew she was having a boy and she knew her wishes for the look of the blanket as well: stylish.

Well that is easy! I chose to make a huge granny sqaure. The result was 70×85 cm so the blanket can be used for in the pram. Because the granny square is not really a compact stitch I decided to make a detachable layer out of fleece. To secure this six buttons were placed to keep it in place. And the color….see for yourself!

Baby blanket

Baby blanket

HEMA buttons

HEMA buttons

Two layers- detachable

Two layers- detachable

Crocheted baby blanket!

Crocheted baby blanket!

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Home sweet home!

Goodmorning to all of you! The sun is shining over here :-) .
I am very proud of the project that I’ve made on my sewing machine, so a long home sweet home post with a lot of photos to show you! A very little bit experience, check it here and here and my sewingmachine is just a very simple one from that swedish giant furniture store ;-) but taken this all for granted I came up with a plan and worked it out! One of the little members of my love his family turned two this weekend. Over christmas she got a cool type of doll’s house: a farm house! Beautiful wood with even more beautiful little animals to live in it. My love and I got inspired by that (perhaps an unknown wish? Or simply jealous of that cool playhouse?!…;-)) and made a playing rug to go with it. Mmm well, he designed it and I made it.

I was invited by sweet Liset from StudioSOIL to dive into her vintage fabric collection, boy o boy what a diamonds she has there! By that time I was so excited about this project that I was also getting nervous about the result….other people were waiting for the result! The blue borders I have made out of old curtain that I still had from my student dorm room, the grass in the middle is green corduroy that I once bought at a market.

I had a deadline so I started:

With a pond and some mushrooms

With a pond and some mushrooms

A small flowergarden

A small flowergarden

And even a water lily and pond side grass

And even a water lily and pond side grass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did so you see all the great fabrics, thanks again Liset! It was quite hard sometimes to handle the large piece under the light sewing machine. It got stuck many times and there is definitely room for improvement if there is a next time for such a project. I did not iron the flowers on, I directly sew them on the light green corduroy. To get some dept in the picture I’ve made felt leaves and only sew them half on so they stand up a little bit. That same thing I did with the reed, the pont side grass bits.

In the meantime the big thinking part of the process continued…. I wanted to make the rug compact and useful besides the fun-part. At Ikea’s I found a type of plastic fabric, perfect for the foundation. Two fleece blanket were sewn together to get the filling done. Not too easy that fleece….very light but so hard to handle! I thought about it right in time to also sew them together to prevent them from sliding inside the rug or roll up over time… pfff!

Cut them all the right size

Cut them all the right size

Fight with the sewing machine ;-)

Fight with the sewing machine ;-)

Handle to carry the rug

Handle to carry the rug

Roll it up with the straps

Roll it up with the straps

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some straps and a handle to carry the rug outside were made as well. And after all this fun (with sometimes a little struggle) I came to the final stage of assembling the rug. The right sides together and sew a border around it…..flip it inside out to get the good side up again….and tadaaaaaaa!

Playing rug - with farm house!

Playing rug - with farm house!

 

 

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Welcome Noud!

This weekend, the 3rd of the third, my dear friend gave birth to a baby boy. His name is Noud!
Today was filled with joy for me, I got to meet the little boy. He is gorgeous and she is doing much better again, and I am fulfilled with pride.

Besides a gift I have made a cake to welcome him. Luckily he let us taste it ;) . Dear new family: I wish you a funny, healthy and lovely life together!!

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Home sweet home- baking

The last few weeks I have been baking a lot. A really nice way to spend your time in and around the house. I do believe that you have to have an audience afterwards…or at least some people to help you eat, otherwise it’s horrible for your diet. The last weeks there were a few of these events where there were plenty of volunteers! For some cakes you can have a look here I’ve made a cool birthday cake (huge, a bit over the top ;-) ).

For the baby-shower that I mentioned last week, I’ve used a recipe from www.culy.nl . A great, really great, food website (in Dutch). You can browse it endlessly….so I am warning you, do not have a look when you actually need to go to bed! Before you know it, it’s an hour later!

This time I chose chocolate fudge, easy choice for a group of women right?! Last year I have tried the recipe of Nigella Lawson which is great as well, but this one……WOW it is even better!

A combination with fudge and oreo cookies….very dangerous, go over here for the recipe.

Trust me, it is really yummie, make sure you have people to it share with, otherwise it’s gonna be death by chocolate….;-)

The girls at the baby-shower were happy with my choice. By the end of the party it was all gone!

Oreo fudge

Oreo fudge

A jar full

A jar full

For the girls who organized the event

For the girls who organized the event

It makes a great gift!

It makes a great gift!

 

 

 

 

 

Home sweet home is initiated by Barbaramama, more participants you can find on her blog.

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Home sweet Home boat

I have to admit that my sewing machine is making sure that I stay home to rest a lot…so yet another Home sweet home post! This time for the same baby as the last blanket (isn’t he lucky ;-) ). I went to a babyshower for my friend and us visitors were asked to bring a small gift. Recycling more old fabrics, keeping it small, cute and Creationwest over the top, I chose to make a boat!

One side of the boat

One side of the boat

Other side of the boat

Other side of the boat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The link with tutorial I’ve found via here (dutch), and this (english) is direct to the explanation if you want to make a boat as well!

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