Tuesday, December 28, 2010

365 things - week 5

Warning: If you don't knit or crochet, you might want to skip this post.

The seven things I want to give away this week are all yarn.
I raided my stash and found a lot of yarn that is not my color, not my material, or just doesn't work for me out of whatever reason. Most of these don't have a ballband anymore, so I can't give you exact details, but I'll try to describe them as accurately as possible.
It would be great if you could share this post with yarn-ey friends, because I really don't know what to do with the yarn other than give it to people who knit or crochet. I mean, it's not like you can (*shudder*) ... throw it away.



This is a very thin, lacey yarn with a mohair halo (needles 2-2.5 I'd say) and a very nice, dark brown color.

Cotton sock yarn from Aldi, two full skeins with detail info available in a dark pink/yellow stranded colorway.

The same yarn in a dark berry pink tone.

This little ball of yarn is made from some shiny, glossy but very smooth and soft material, also quite thin, 2mm needles app.



Lang yarn graffiti in two colorways, two balls of the dark tone, one ball of the light. It's a very sturdy and plain textured cotton two-ply.


A good friend once gave me this and much as I appreciate it; I have been knitting and knitting on it and it just doesn't seem to get smaller, so if you have a big project in mind, maybe this comes in handy. It's around 400g of soft, sportweight yarn that will knit up fast with 4.5-5mm needles.

Seen anything you like? Want the whole lot? Or know sb who would be grateful for it? Don't be shy, tell me, I'd be really glad to be able to send these off to a good new home.

Monday, December 27, 2010

A Christmas tale

Hello everybody, how was your Christmas? Or Hanukah or Jule or winter solstice or Quanzaa or whatever you celebrate! It doesn't matter so much, does it?
My family celebrates very much in Christian tradition, with tree and charols and everything, although as far as I know none of us perceives themselves as christian. But the tradition holds things that are important for us, we are having a lot of fun, and this makes it work as a ritual, regardless of what philosophy is behind it.

First is the yearly quarrell of who gets to choose the tree. Officially, we all get turns to choose, but we don't keep track of it, so there's always somebody who claims it't their turn and somebody who says they're wrong. It is much fun and we like to have huge discussions about it. This year my dad got to choose and as always he wanted a really small tree. When we were kids we always managed to outnumber him with our pleas for a big tree, but now we are grown up and much more easy going. ;o)
It was the first year the three of us girls went to get a Christmastree all by themselves. We briefly discussed getting one in a pot, but then Picoletta fell in love with this one and we had to take him home.
In the afternoon we started decorating him. It is a very important part of the celebrating to decorate the tree together, since the 'Christkind' does not do it anymore. Picoletta and Trev got to work, whilst my mom surveilled them from the sofa.



And my dad got busy in the kitchen, his favourite part being the cooking:


I think decorating trees is a very cool invention. It brings light and joy and creativity and common activities into the dark days of winter. Doesn't that sound like anti-depressiva to you? It certainly is for me!


After dinner we all sang Christmas carols. We get to choose our favourite ones and we sing until we've sung everything we know. It is accompanied by much laughter whenever we get to the line "Owi lacht" because we still don't know who Owi is supposed to be, and much discussions when we quarrel about what goes together, 'Mehl und Salz" and "Brot und Schmalz" or the other way round, and much embarassement, when we realise we don't get past the first verse anymore. We'd often start the second one with much optimism and then everybody ends up going "hmmmm hmm hm" and trying to look as though they were singing actual lyrics.
It is a celebration of the common memories that we have of all the Christmasses we've celebrated together, an acknoledgement of each member of the family as we get to choose 'our' songs, and honouring our ancestors as we sing the songs that they've handed on and taught us. A ritual that makes the bonds of our family stronger and makes sure our history continues.




(Caramel still has to learn the lyrics, but she sings beautifully! )

Then it is everybody's favourite time: Presents! Everybody gets crazy!



All the presents I got this year were on my wishlist, so no big surprises, but since I had been looking forward to them very much, and they were all things that I know I will use a lot I was very! happy about them!
In the picture above you can see me going crazy about a mill that presses wheat into Müesli flakes, sth that Trev and me wanted to get ever since we got to use one in the yurt workshop and realised how awesome they are.

Then I got these adoooooraaaable houseshoes, and Trev has to threaten me with choccolate withdrawal to make me take them off for sleeping. ^^


That's the slippers I made for my dad:


Caramel got a bit scared and found a great place to hide!


Kisses were thrown around


Oh, wait, I forgot there was one surprise, and a great one! Trev made me these mufflers:


Aren't they cool? I've wanted such ever since last Christmas I think (don't ask me why), and he went and made them for me!!
I was so happy I grew an additional pair of eyes!


No, Picoletta is not passing out from too much Gluhwine... ;o)


She is putting on her shiny new piercing!
(No, she had it done some time ago. She only got a new jewel for it. Jeez, guys!)


She got me this fantastic book by Sven Nordqvist I posted about here.

Oh another little surprise: Now Caramel and me are all set for round the world tour in our Volkswagen bus!!
*brrrrmmm*

Isn't it funny Trev and me got each other presents in exactly the same colors? He's wearing this scarf I made him that was a veery challenging pattern and turned out to go much smoother than I had thought. Still it was quite a lot of work and a lot of hiding and working whenever I got the chance and he wasn't around! ;o)



It is always amazing how fast this very special evening flies by. I have a hard time understanding that some people dread this 'must' event with their families and relatives since for us it is always about fun and about everybody wanting to be together, it wouldn't be a problem if somebody decided not to come. Well, it would be sad and not the same, but nobody would be angry or insulted or anything like that. Presents are the same, if we have ideas for surprises we love to get each other stuff, but if we don't it isn't a big drama, we'll just announce it and people know they have to communicate their wishes or they won't get anything significant that year.
I am very glad to be able to enjoy the holidays in this stressfree environment with happy and healthy people that I love. Several things this year made me realise how lucky I am to be able to write about Christmas so carefree and happy and proud. I don't want to show off, I am just overflowing with happiness and gratefulness that I want to share. I am aware that I am very blessed and I pray that all the people who's lives are filled with sorrow and grief can find soothing in whatever way life may present it.
Merry Christmas!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

365 things - week 4

Here we are with this week's items to give away:

It took me some heart to decide to let go of this beautiful scarf. It is really nice and can double as a headband. However, I am more the bandana type and I just don't wear it as much as I feel I should to justify its presence in my wardrobe.
So if you like it or if you know anybody who might: It would make my heart much lighter to know that I can give this away into a good home where it will be loved and appreciated!

I got this oil lamp as a present when I moved into this flat, but it never gets used and is still looking brand new and shiny. It can of course also be used as sth else, like a vase or so. Anybody like it?


I am not the type to knit from books, so I don't look at these too often. However, this one's got many nice and entertaining, quite easy patterns in a modern, light style.

A book about dividing the year into different tree-times, in German:


I really loooove Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, but not enough to own DVD's with their films...

I borrowed this one off my dad and will give it back this weekend.

That's it, I'm guiltfree for this week! :o)

365 things - week 3

It's funny, it seems that however hard I try, there is still hectic coming up in the last days before Christmas. I had all the important presents wrapped since weeks and everything I still needed to get done planned out neatly. And then it just goes all chaotic.
First I got into a knittinz frenzy and decided to whip up some more presents. I love giving presents if I have a nice idea of what the person might like. So I figured I couldn't let the opportunity pass and cast on for some things.
Then I got this feeling of guilt towards some uncompleted projects lying in my basket and I thought I'd try and finish them in the old year.
All of that led to me knitting like crazy and some pressure.
Add to that some last minute things that should get done at school and a full-programmed last day looming.
And if that weren't enough the little viruses that have been poking at my throat for weeks decided that yesterday would be the day of the big strike, and they just plain knocked me out. All I could do this morning was admitting defeat and stay in bed, feeling terribly sorry for myself.
The flat looks like some hobo's cave and I just hope that I will feel better tomorrow to get it clean because I know if I don't I will feel horrible.

Well, to give myself the feeling of doing something useful today I went through my stuff to find things to give away for the last two weeks.
It is mainly books because I raided my bookshelf:

I think this one belongs to Björn:


And this one goes back to my dad:

This might be Björn's too:

And this one should go back to my sister:


There's a follow-up post for week 4, where some things need a new home.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Early Christmas present

I know giving pets as a present is frowned upon. But isn't she cute?


Meet Caramel, the little guinea pig!


<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Monday, December 20, 2010

The pledge

I will not set deadlines anymore.
I will do what I can.
I will be happy about what I achieved.
I will take it easy.

(I will construct a doorframe.)



(I will fool around with little creatures.)




And I will thank Wicher for his great help. Thank you!!

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

New challenges

As if we didn't have enough to keep ourselves busy...



do you know what it will be? click here to see photos (and links to print your own).
26 pages of papercraft!

Things of this week will come, I just haven't been home during daylight-time in the past few days which means I can't go hunting for things in the attic, and my flat is actually pretty clear at the moment. Of course there will be finetuning, but I'm saving that for later, the big and less painful things are first.
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