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A portrait a week.

The old mare at our barn, enjoying the quiet of a snow-blanketed world.
This challenge is so good for me.

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of baby things

Not me, no! While I’ll coo over a human baby like the next person it’s baby animals that really get me.
Burying my nose in fluffy baby fur is just as great as it gets for me. So getting to know this foal last weekend was the highlight of my week:

Her name is Lundi and there’s more photos of her over on my photo blog.
I did get some video shots in there (though she was so agile and curious that it was quite hard to keep her in the frame and focussed):

Isn’t she adorable? We were all thrilled with her 🙂

pony shots and more news

The weather continues to change at a quite literally dizzying pace. 14°C and wind yesterday, 30°C today.

On the cool days it feels like fall is already here.



(trees reflected in a trough)
On the warm ones the air is stuffy with humidity and the rich smell of overripe elderberries. A last attempt at the summer we never got this year.


But on to the news! We finally found a great apartment and will be moving in November! I didn’t want to say till we signed the papers but now everything is settled. We really love the new place which will make leaving our pretty but small flat less bittersweet. It has a huge balcony which I’m looking forward to planning a garden for and is situated in a cute little village not too far from our respective work places (my commute will still be about an hour though, which I plan to use for reading and knitting). I’m still not looking forward to moving all our stuff and furniture and cats, but I guess that part of moving is never really fun. So while we wait to pack up we’re plunging into the fun part of moving: the planning and gathering inspiration and colors and, eventually, the shopping.

glimpses of indian summer

The weather forecast promises some nice and sunny days and I hope that after a rainy summer we’ll get some beautiful fall days.

I do need a nice weekend to do some much needed gardening (all those rainy days have made me neglect my balcony so it’s in a pretty sorry state right now).

I’ve also wanted to do a little photo shoot with a friend for weeks and the weather never cooperated.

It’s been a pretty exciting week at work but after coming home exhausted a couple of nights in a row (“more dead than alive” as my boyfriend calls it) I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend with gardening, sewing, reading and taking photos.

rainy summer days

Our unusually hot spring has been followed by a cold, rainy summer. For days we’ve had fog and drizzle and heavy rains with only few bits of sunshine in between. And the forecast says much of the same is to follow in the next days and weeks.

I’m not complaining.

Living in a top floor apartment, hot summers can be hell. We had some unbearably hot weeks last year . I actually like a fresh wind and though I could do without constant rain, I don’t really mind that much. I have a good rain coat and on barn days both the pony and I are much more eager to work when it’s cool.

Other than that we’ve been lying low at the weekends, sleeping a lot and trying to catch up on emails and friends and ideas (oh, the ideas…). By the way, I got on Pinterest and now I’m hooked. And so inspired. More and more ideas.



This is the best tea I’ve had in years: Fresh peppermint leaves, fresh ginger or ginger syrup, limes, honey and candy sugar. Heaven.

I couldn’t resist another photo of the kitties. So sweet those two.

out on the pastures

Because I still haven’t gotten around to photographing all the sewing that is going on here and because I won’t have time to blog in the next few days, here’s a random collection of shots from my pony for you all.


These were taken when our pastures were still beautiful and lush and filled with flowers.

Since then we’ve had some wet and rainy days and they’re all turned to mud.


Have a good start to the week!

the official end of winter

The ponies are out on the pastures again, enjoying their freedom and the fresh, juicy grass.

bits and pieces

The hours are running away from me again this week.

I went treasure hunting (a.k.a. thrift store shopping) again yesterday and came home with the car full for about 15€ all in all! I’ll try to be faster in posting my pretty finds this time.

Murphy deciding he likes the soft flannel that came in the mail earlier in the week. I was really lucky to snag one of Jenny’s patterns a few weeks ago, it was sold out in minutes. So far I bought fabric for it and traced the pattern onto vellum paper and hopefully next weekend I will finally get to cutting and sewing and actually taking photos of it all.

Snapped at the barn on wednesday evening. Wednesdays are my hardest days of the week and I usually get to the barn tired, in the dark and the cold. But then, riding my funny little pony (not the one in the picture, that’s his stall mate) and sweeping the floors and filling water buckets I realize how much I need this quiet evening. It’s a special sort of downtime for me in the middle of my fast-paced week. I will always believe that people without animals to care for are missing out big time. It gives so much more than it takes.

fall days

I think I’ll let these pictures speak for themselves today.

lavender horses – tutorial

Inspired by this sweet horse by littlenauli on Etsy, I made this frayed-edged little lavender filled horse for my friend’s birthday.

It can be hung between clothing in a wardrobe or laid between folded clothes in a drawer.
Here’s a little how-to for this very simple and fun project:
Print out a horse shape in the size you want (you can easily find horse images through google and use whichever one you like best) and cut it out.

Get a piece of heavyweight fabric that is twice the size of your horse shape and fold it in two. I recommend home dec weight fabric at least, quilting cotton is a bit too lightweight for this project. Lay the cut out paper horse on top and copy it using tailor’s chalk. I use a special marker that fades over time and after a few hours has disappeared completely.


Now, with your fabric still folded, stitch through both layers along the marked shape with embroidery floss. I like to use a simple running stitch, because it looks identical on both sides. You could do this by machine if you really wanted to, but it is easier to handstitch all the small shapes and curves.

Leave a gap at the top and cut out the horse shape close to the stitching, leaving a little frayed edge (if you don’t like frayed edges you could finish this with a zig-zag stitch or serge the edges). I don’t mind frayed edges, so I just leave mine like this.

Fill the horse with lavender buds. I used part lavender, part rice to give the horse a little more body and also because I am not too keen on a strong lavender scent.
You can use a pencil to push the filling into the small parts like the legs and tail. Fill it as tightly as you can (else the horse will be floppy afterwards) and then stitch the opening at the back closed. Trim the fabric edge at the back and make a loop to hang the horse on.
Done!

If you don’t like lavender scent you can use a few drops of essential oil in your favourite scent on the horse and your clothes will smell heavenly!