Till death do us part....

My darling Sam

On Monday the 17th at noon my beloved Sam passed away at the age of 4.

Like Sieuwke, he died peacefully. Sam passed away at home on my lap. 
I'm devestated.

Rest in peace, my darling Sam. I love you so much.

A good decision

When I moved into this modest size terrace house, the largest bedroom was an obvious choice to dedicate as a craft room. It has plenty of room for multiple tables, and I could leave my sewing machine set up permanently.
The size of the room is fine, but there's no direct sunlight ever.

When I started the wall hanging, I set up a foldaway table in Nils' room, because the natural light is so much better there, and I love the view from the window so much.
But it's a smaller room. Leaving the table in there for days in a row was quite impractical. I use that room for drying laundry, ironing and storage of craft stuff as well.
However, I knew right away that this was the room for enjoyable craft adventures. And now I've finally come up with the perfect solution: the gateleg table (or is it a drop leaf?). Anyway it's perfect for a room this size!

 
When not in use I can drop both leaves, allowing me ample space to access the storage cabinets or to do the ironing. And the room looks bigger of course.

But when I use it I have two options for size, fully extended or half extended. How brilliant is that?

Furthermore this table comes with six generous drawers. I haven't made up my mind yet on how I want to fill them. For now all my scissors and the rotary cutter are stored in the top drawer.

This is how the room looks when the table is in use with 1 leaf extended. Still plenty of room to move about.

I loved how the room turned out. It makes crafting so much more fun, when you can do it in a pleasant environment.

A new cat

This is Sam!
I collected Sam from the shelter on November 27th. He felt right at home from the minute he arrived.

Of course he was given his own room at first, separated from Muis. However, it proved too difficult to keep him there longer than a few days, ;-)).

Sam is about 4 years old. He's very placid, loves to sit in my lap for a while, but also likes his privacy in the cat room upstairs. I loved him instantly and I'm so happy to have him.

He's also hard to photograph, because when I try to take a picture of him he rushes to me to be petted.

Introducing him to Muis was no walk in the park. It's not that they're not compatible, but Muis would probably have preferred to be the only cat.
Well at his age (16) that's to be expected, but I was so unhappy after losing Nils and Sieuwke one year apart. So I let my own feelings take precedence and welcomed Sam in the full knowledge that I would be asking a lot from Muis.
Thank heavens, the cats have most of the tension between them sorted by now, and are more comfortable with each other.

It's getting chilly

Although the weather has been lovely in the daytime so far, nights are starting to get chilly.

I live in an old house opposite a wood. When I sit on my sofa and look out of the window all I see is trees, bushes and a path leading into the wood.

So this is what I see when I'm siting on my sofa

This picture was taken last Spring. It always sets off with the small trees and bushes, and gradually all the other trees follow. And it's such a thrill after looking at bare trees all Winter.  Winters always last far too long, and I hate them with a passion.

But bare trees aren't the only reason I hate winters. The house has central heating, but only the living room is relatively warm during winters, not the bedrooms upstairs. Which is unfortunate, because my sewing room is upstairs, and so is my bedroom.
Anyway, last winter I consulted the housing company about it. Turns out that the HR-boiler is set up to heat bedrooms to 15 degrees Celsius max. Apparently you can request to change that, but then I would have to worry about my energy bill. So that's not an option.

To make matters worse, we have those ventilation things (I don't know what to call them) in the windows. Well, the thing is I have to leave them open at all times. If I don't the air gets too humid, which results in an even chillier feel in whatever room you're in.
So I leave the vents open all the time, meaning I feel the wind blow over my face when I'm in bed. And with temperatures below zero that's no fun.

So I'm thinking about a quilt to put on top of my bedding for extra warmth, since my bedroom is so draughty. But will I just buy one from Ikea or make one?

At the moment it's more likely that I'm getting a bedspread/quilt from Ikea. It would serve its purpose this winter, and give me more time to make myself a nice quilt.

After all, there's the size to consider. My bed is 47.25" wide and I want a decent overlap to keep warm and for appearance.   Well now, a quilt top goes together fairly quickly, but after that you still need to quilt it. And I'm a hand quilter.
Of course I could try to machine quilt it, I suppose. Yet,  that would mean handling a sizable quilt on a domestic sewing machine.  Would that actually save time?
Still, it's tempting, I must say.