full moons of 2021 by dorine de vos

Full moons of 2021 - illustrated by Dorine de Vos

The drawing is part of the New Years card I received from Dorine.

Dorine is co-owner and art director of Villa Augustus and my 'guru', since the first day I started working at Villa Augustus in July 2007.

Tonight as we took a walk in the enchanting light of the setting sun, the full moon came out and colored orange pink.

fritillaria

Friday morning, 26th of February

Sunshine and fritillaria in da house, an announcement of spring.

Fritillaria are my all time favorite spring bulbs!

The delicate checkered pattern of the flowers, absolutely artwork.

alles komt goed

Henk accidentally sat on his glasses recently, so we went to buy a new one at Ace & Tate in Rotterdam today.

While we waited for the glasses to be ready, we had a coffee to go at Nine Bar and made a city walk.

pittura di percolatore

My newest painting is our blown-up percolator for the kitchen, a tribute to our new ritual.

At the beginning of this year, we started drinking moka coffee in the afternoon and it soon became our daily ritual. Slow coffee at the kitchen table, a slow life moment that we both look forward to and enjoy together.

After the lemon painting I was looking for a new subject to paint for our kitchen wall. Because the lemon ended up in the daybed corner in the livingroom in the end.

I came across a percolator print on the instagram account of @picame and liked the drawing of the artist Meredith Ann a lot, cause they resemble the colors in our kitchen. The moroccan bread baskets, the golden yellow of our Zelliges tiles and our bright blue kitchen chair.

On many more 'dolce vita' coffee moments together, per favore...

loopy patchwork pillow

New loopy PATCHWORK PILLOW in the shop.

Besides the ready-made patchwork pillow, you can also download the easy-to-follow crochet pattern for this pillow in my Etsy shop.

Especially for those that would like to make a loopy patchwork pillow themselves. Choose your own color pallet, this crochet pattern is ideal for using leftover yarn. The pattern is as well easy to adapt to a different size pillow.

snowy fields

Just a fresh, clean and oh so atmospheric winter landscape, on our umpteenth winter walk this week.

On a quiet country road, near our house we came across wide snowy fields, a swan couple and even a green parrot.

We were certainly treated to a plentiful portion of winter splendor this week.

week of winter walks - part two

Wednesday 10th of February

After I removed the thick layer of snow from the car we drove to the countryside nearby. Beautiful scenery, sunny weather, less cold than Monday and a lot more steps.

We go outside every day and slowly increase the number of steps. Henk's recovery is going reasonably well and I'm happy to be his personal trainer.

Recipe for the shawl:
You start with a foundation chain and make the chain as long as you want your shawl to be.
I've made a foundation chain of 250 chain stitches (ch).
All the following rows are worked in half double crochet (hdc).
The first row of stitches is worked into the foundation chain.
Always start with 2 ch for the 1st hdc and continue the row with hdc (it's a long row!)
Second and following rows: 250 hdc, but instead of going through both the front and back loop, you insert the crochet hook ONLY through the f r o n t loop of the previous row of hdc.
After some rows you will see a textured crochet fabric that resembles a knitted rib.
My shawl is 24 rows wide, but you can make your shawl as wide as you want.
(I used a crochet 5 mm hook and about 300 grams of yarn)

week of winter walks - part one

Monday 8th of February - 2473 steps and a small snowball fight.