Hi! I'm Julia

Hi everyone, I'm Julia Vanwijnsberghe-Bolt and I live in the Netherlands, together with my lovely husband. That's also where the name of this small handmade business comes from, De Vlaamse Reus (in Dutch) or The Flemish Giant, refers to my big love, my tall husband from Belgium. One of my other big loves is, of course, knitting and crocheting. I started my first knitting project when I was 9 years old and my mother was pregnant with my little brother (who is now taller than me). It was a yellow baby scarf, completely crooked, but made with love. I never stopped knitting and later on also started crocheting and I hope to share some of the joy. I think it is important to appreciate the slowness, if you know what I mean. We should take the time and have attention for what we do and for each other. In a world filled with stress and loneliness, I hope to be a small light of peace, inspiration and connection.

What I want to do

I'm still figuring out what to do exactly, how to be this small light of peace, inspiration and connection with my small handmade business. Of course creating things is something that I will be doing, but if there's people interested, I'd like to also give workshops or host some sort of knitting/crocheting-café (Crafts & Tea). But there are other options too that I would be interested in:
- Testing (proof knit/crochet new patterns to give feedback to the designer)
- Tech editing (for writing patterns, I'm very detail oriented!)
- Translating (from English US/UK to Dutch)

You can find me on Instagram for now, but possibly in the future other platforms too.