project reStyle, week 3

Woohoo, this week I'm early. I've been so good all day, running errands and paying my bills and doing all the paperwork, I even managed to take a picture of my newest refashion:

I didn't actually do any sewing on these trousers. They were a pale lilac before and got really dirty whilst scrambling through the woods, so I threw them in the dyepot with last week's skirt and now they're as good as new!

I'll add a 'before'-picture another time. At the moment I can't access my external harddisk (where all my data is, since I have a tiny netbook and don't want to clutter it too much), because Trev is setting up our shiny new wireless one! Yay!

This week I'm grateful for: Space!

Ever since I gave away our armchair

on fleedoo (which is a great site, like freecycle but with a nice online interface and it's local), I have been admiring the empty space it left behind. It just makes everything in here so much more airy. I liked the chair, but once it was gone, I would never have taken it back (it worked like this with all things so far!)

And it dawned to me that even in our tiny flat, there are spaces that are just filled out with stuff that pretends to fulfill a purpose but actually just takes up room. As a result, I went to work today and radically decluttered my altary. The goal was to have it streamlined, simplified, clean and in the tradition of Terry Pratchett's Witchery: Use what you have, don't bother with shiny gadgets.

So we went from this:

to this:

to this:

After the work I lit a candle and did some yoga using the newly-gained space. :o)

I ha

ve so many projects going on here at the bubble, and others are floating around in my head, glinting and begging me to open the windows so they can fly out into the sunshine of realisation. It's a wonderful, invigorating feeling, but as I mentioned, it also brings mental problems sometimes. I was on one of these 'maniac' highs last Wednesday, and I couldn't sleep that night because of the Merry-go-round in my head and also because at the same time I was freaking scared about how I would feel in the morning. I did feel awful. But I knew it was because of the down and lack of sleep, so I pulled all the energy I had left together and went to work. It just didn't fade away as it does most times. I kept feeling dizzy and nauseous, and finally my co-workers (bless their souls!) sent me home, assuring me that I looked very sick and should get some rest. I spent thursday in bed, and it was very much what I needed. I still felt very down and gloomy, but also still felt sick. Long story short, it was a bit better on Friday and I had to go because of a parents meeting in the evening, but when I arrived, half the school was in bed with a stomach bug.

Just an unlucky coincidence? Or did I catch the bug because my defense was down because of my moodyness? Or did my mind and body trick me because they just couldn't bear going to work? I am never quite sure...

But it surely is aweseome to have some space for that in my life, too, since it seems I can't fully avoid it (yet). I am off on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I only had to fight through two days to get to a three-day weekend that I needed badly and that I am enjoying as much as I can right now.

I am also really glad Trev is as understanding and patient as can be with me these days. He told me on Thursday night that there was nothing he could do to make Friday easier for me, but he promised to look after me all weekend, and boy, is he doing that! I am handed tea whenever my cup is empty, eat wonderfull things, scheduled baths and cuddles - and I get to wear his jumper! ;o)

Hm, yesterday I said I didn't really like whining blogs, but now I realise I still told you the whole story... I guess I just had to write it down to get over it for good, forgive me! And now, back to my totally boring, totally amazing weekend! ;o)

What's better than a pompon?

Why, two pompons of course!!

Fresh off the needles, I already love these legwarmers to pieces! This yarn is really hard to knit with and not the most pleasant to touch which makes the work tiresome, but it is sturdy and warm.

Ravelled here.

a better person

I remember sometime at the beginning of 2010 I told my family about my newest projects and resolutions. I enthousiastically explained the yurt course and that I'd signed up for further education in nature paedagogics, that I wanted to take the CPE exams sometime that year, find a way to polish up my french, and... and... and...

"... and just generally be a better person!", my godmother added with a lot of sarcasm. I know she wanted to make a joke and get me back to the ground.

But

yes.

Yes, yes yes. I want to become a better person. I want to do anything that's possible to develop into what great human I hope I can be one day. I think this is exactly what life is for, to push yourself to slowly grow into being the You that you dream of.

And that doesn't mean I don't like my present self. I love it for the achievements it has made already.
I am about to finish that further education course. We have an almost finished yurt out there and a lot of experience and adventures behind us. And I just passed my CPE with a B.

And I love it for the prospect of further development that lies in it. I know I can achieve anything if I just do it right.
Don't let anybody who grew too comfortable in their life tell you to settle with anything short of the best you can envision for yourself. Even if it drives me crazy, I will never stop working on realising my dreams.

(Admittedly, I had planned on writing a post about how having these sentiments about life hurts sometimes, how it lets me get all fired up with projects and running around like a mad dog chasing its tail, already afraid of what I know will come next: the fall into the dark abyss of an energy down, feeling like life is too big for me and not being able to perform even simple tasks like groceries.
But I know most people get that sometimes and I don't like crying blogs, so the positive side of the thing is more important.)

Self portrait thursday W4/11

roundabout

365 things - week 9

I can't believe it's week 9 of 365 things already!
It means I am actually going to be up to 3digits in a few weeks! In between things, mostly after finishing a decluttering project, I doubt if anything will be left after this year... but then I turn my back to the room and when I look back around there are a million things that are just not necessary to have! It's so much about changing perspective and realising how much stuff you have that you never think of and hardly ever use.

So, what went out this week?

hats:

bags:

and a roll of paper

Short and sweet, wishing you all a nice finishing run of the week! (nicer than mine is easy to do, I had to go back home from work today because I felt so sick. And yes, I've heard the joke about being pregnant thank you so much >.<)

Die verstrickte Dienstagsfrage 4-11

Das Wollschaf fragt:


Was sind eigentlich eure Strickvorlieben? Strickt ihr lieber Kleinteile und Accessoires (also Socken, Handschuhe, Muetzen oder Schals) oder darf es was groesseres sein (z.b. Pullis, Jacken, vielleicht sogar Maentel)? Und warum? Wollt ihr mit euren Strickstuecken schnell fertig sein, oder das stricken dran so richtig geniessen?
Und wie sieht es mit eurer Vorliebe fuer Muster aus? Moegt ihr am liebsten li-re Muster (Rippen oder Perlmuster), oder Zoepfe und Aran-Muster? Oder hat es euch die Loecher-strickerei angetan?

Ganz eindeutig Kleinteile. Socken und Mützen sind dabei meine Favoriten, weil ich die einfach immer gebrauchen kann. Ich nehme Stricksachen auch gerne überall hin mit, also habe ich meist ein 'auswendig-Projekt' auf den Nadeln, das ist dann meistens eine Socke oder etwas ähnlich simples, wie Pulswärmer oder so. Ich liebe Mützen und Hüte und kann deswegen bestimmt nicht genug davon kriegen.
Ein weiterer Grund dafür ist auch, dass ich es mir nicht leisten kann, Wolle für einen ganzen Pullover zu kaufen, ohne zu wissen ob der dann wirklich was wird. Also bevorzuge ich die 1-2 Knäuel-Projekte.
Ehrlich gesagt habe ich bis jetzt erst ein Babyjäckchen gestrickt, und einen Pullover (für mich) angefangen. (Ich glaube, dass war vor ca. 3 Jahren...)

ReFashion week 2: circle skirt from old bedsheet

I've had this tutorial on cut out + keep bookmarked for a long time, and when I came across this old and ugly sheet in the back of my closet, I knew tha moment had come.

For this skirt a full circle of fabric is cut, which makes it very swirly - just as I love it! Adding a waistband was all that was left to make it a skirt.
Apart from the color, which - you must admit - is not exactly charming. There were also a few stains, so I decided to dye it with some dark fabric color.
Le voila after dying and finishing the hem.

The color is great, but sadly the stains still show through, and there's quite a lot of them. So I still need an idea of how to cover them up before I can wear it.
Any ideas?

you can find the tutorial here:

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/circle-skirt-from-an-old-sheet

What's in your bag?

It seems like the holiday burnout has worn off in blogland and everybody is coming up with fun ideas again. Here's one to play along with Foxs Lane.


Whats in my bag:

From top, clockwise: Keys, bycicle lights, handcream, knitting, purse, painkillers, sanitary pad, flyer, diary, two letters, phone, camera cable, necklace.

I was actually surprised I didn't find more useless stuff in there, it always seems like it builds up so fast. Wanna play along? Enter your link at Foxs Lane linky list. Have a good Monday evening everyone!

squiggly sundays - bedside tables

This is my bedside "table", it's actually a little shelf on my side of the bed. Since I love my bed and it is the one place I spend most of my time in/on when I'm at home, I need all the space to get a little order in all the stuff I need to have close at hand.

As you can see, there's lots of stuff like handcream, water, a candle, diary.... and Pinkerton. ;o)

What's on your bedside table?

activities 101

Free and easy activities for kids. It's good I found Squiggly's bloghop, because it really matches the theme. 

Paper. Simple as that. Loads and loads of paper from the recycling, old newspaper, or the best: Big paper rolls (you get those at thriftstores sometimes, or ask your local newspaper. Sometimes they have rolls with flaws that they will give away for free. Always worked for schoolprojects so far.).

Tear, squash, form, make a paper bath, hide under paper, draw a livesize horse, run through it, fix it between two chairs and then jump onto it, wrap yourself in it....

Grateful

Grateful for fights, adventures, secret languages, insider jokes, and many many giggles.
Sisters.

What are you grateful for?

365 things - week 8

This week's giveaway post took a bit longer, but I'm still on it. Actually, since we reorganised the attic today, I am way ahead with my list now. But here's the things of this week:

A bag full of cotton which I took to school. The kids have to learn how to crochet now. ^^

A bag full of stuff that was broken and unusable which - big exception - went straight to the trash.

My beloved skateboard... but I never actually learned to use it, so it's just lying around looking cool, whilst somebody else could have fun with it. Do you want it?

Trev's pullup-bar sadly doesn't fit in my dooframes, so he's giving it away to whoever wants it. You?

An old leather coat of Trev that went to texaid.

My Couchsurfing-foldout-matress. With the two of us living here now I don't feel like hosting and once we move house there will be another solution. I have been told by many surfers that it is very comfortable and it folds up neatly and can be used as a cushion to sit on. It's still here, so tell me if you'd like it.

Trev's sleeping bag. It's been with him for many years and got a bit thin, so it went into the texaid bag.

Do you think it's cheating to count Trev's stuff in as well? I thought, since it is getting out of *my* flat, I might as well count it. ^^

So, I'm putting all the available stuff on fleedoo now (great website!), but if you want something, you will have a bonus, of course. ;o)

The plastic project

Any idea what this is?

No, it's not art, for a change.
It's plastic. This is all the plastic waste we had during the past week. I wanted to do this as an experiment and to see where we are still using plastic. There are:

3 Milkbottles
2 juice Pet bottles
2 bags from pasta and such
1 container for olives
1 envelope with plastic pouch glued on
1 broken USB cable
wrappings from tofu, fabric color and choccolate
bits and pieces like bottletops, winecorks, plastic-covered paper from the back of stickers.
plastic parcel filling

I think for a one week entire plastic waste of two people this is not too bad. But I'm quite sure we can do better. For example, next time we need a new motherboard, we're gonna pick it up at the store instead of having it sent.

This mini project was a great way to see where our regular plastic waste comes from. It is mainly bottles for orange juice and milk, and some packaging for stuff like cheese, tofu, pasta and such.
Since we stopped using plastic bags to put our vegetables and fruits in we have cut down our waste by a significant amount.

But why should we avoid plastic waste?

Plastic is made from non-renewable resources. This means, making plastic hollows out the substance of our planet.
Plastic in the garbage in addition to the usual problems is bad because it contains many additives that are toxic. They drain into the environment or escape as fumes when burned.
(And yes, some of these can actually get into your food that you keep wrapped in plastic/store/heat in plastic containers!)
Plastic is not really recyclable. Even though most plastic has the arrow-logo printed on, this is only used to indicate the type of plastic and how to depose it. IT IS NOT SAYING THAT THIS ITEM IS RECYCLABLE.
If you recycle plastic containers, most of it will be downcycled, that means, used to make items that cannot be recycled anymore. This means it only takes longer until it goes to the dump. Only a minimal percentage is used to actually make new containers. So every time you buy plastic, you encourage plastic making.

The most cruel thing: Most kinds of plastic are forever. They are not bio-degradable. A plastic bag takes up to a 1000 years to break down, and evern then it just turns into plastic dust, but it is still there, and no being on this earth can digest it, however small the pieces are. This is why tons of animals in our oceans suffocate or die from absorbing the plastic that is toxic for them.
The plastic ends up in the oceans where, driven into one place by the currents, it forms an area called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Gods. We are doing this! Let's stop it!

If you got interested in the topic and wanna read some more, there's lots of pages out there that give detailed information (remember to check who the author is - it is a much fought-over topic and not all sources are reliable or objective). One site I quite like for inspiratin is My plastic-free Life.

We're currently rethinking our shopping habits here at the bubble, and plactic will certainly be a point in these considerations. Stay tuned!

My creative space

I haven't done anything creative for myself this week, but the reason for this is simply that it was my job to be creative. I spent the week at the kindergarden group of my school, helping for a few days that were all focused on dragons and paper. It was truly wonderful.
As you can see.

"My creative space" is a project by kootoyoo

Self portrait thursday W3/11

Trying to be big. 

A fresh start

This weekend we started building again. We didn't have too much time since a lot of other stuff was happening too, but we managed to squeeze in a few hours of painting and glueing.

The lightring is now basically finished, and with it the last piece of the yurt - only theoretically speaking of course. Because now there are still a million minor things to do that we didn't count as work in our plans because it would just have been too depressing to list them all.

Some sad news on top of that success is that we don't know if we will be able to set up the yurt at the place that we got at the moment. The proprietors are getting divorced atm and everything is very complicated, so they told us we can still work there and leave all the stuff at least until end of march (that's how long our contract goes). But they don't want us to put it up until they know what's gonna happen with the place. We're almost sure it will get rented out, so we'll be looking around for a new place I guess.
If you know anything, please do tell us!

We're not overwhelmingly sad though, we really feel like we'll just go with the flow and we are just grateful we found a place to do all the work so easily. It feels like after starting, all the rest will be ok somehow. :o)

Self portrait thursday W2/11

Some of you might remember that last year I used to make one self portrait a week and post it here. I kind of gave up on that whilst traveling, but I've been missing it and so I've made a little doodle again to start it over.

I called it 'running with scissors', although I'm sitting down with them. Silly me.

365 things - week 7

Hello again, here are the things I gave/will give away this week:

I bought this armchair when I moved into my flat a few year ago, hoping it wold make me into a decent person who knits/reads/uses her computer sitting in a chair instead of kneeling on the floor or lying in bed. It didn't help and the chair really only takes up space and is always cluttered with clothes which doesn't look nice. So if you want it, you can drop me a message and come and pick it up.

I bought this sewing machine last year because I thought I needed one of my own, but it turnes out it is way too simple for my standards, and too fiddly. I just don't get along with it. So I'm still using my mothers machine and have to share it with Picoletta. But luckily Tali wants to get into sewing and said she would like it, so I know it will be used. :o)

 This bag of Christmas decoration made it into our load from the WG, but does not actually belong to us, so after gratefully being used for this season, it is now going back to its owners.

And here's a didgeridoo I picked up from my school so I could learn. But I realised I don't really enjoy it so much, so I'm bringing it back.

I found this in a corner of my wardrobe, you know, where you tuck things that you don't really want to wear but can't give away... I've grown out of it years ago, but it is just so adorable, so I hung on to it. But I think I know somebody who might like it. ;o)

Phew, that's a few corners more not clustered with stuff. The nightie is actually item number 50 on my list, so I'm one thing ahead for next week. It's quite amazing how giving stuff away not only gets easier and easier, but also makes me happier and happier. I really like going around the flat hunting for stuff that is lurking in dusty corners. And there is a lot of that sort of stuff around here, o boy!

Die verstrickte Dienstagsfrage 2-11

Gehoert ihr zu den StrickerInnen, die immer nur an einem Projekt arbeiten, oder liegen mehrere angestrickte Projekte in eurem Strickkorb/eurer Stricktasche/eurer Strickkiste? Wenn ja, woran liegt das? Weil ihr der Wolle nicht widerstehen konntet, oder Abwechslung braucht beim Stricken? Und was sind das gerade fuer Projekte?
Vielen Dank an Connie für die heutige Frage!

Wollschaf

Jein... grundsätzlich konzentriere ich mich gerne auf jeweils ein Projekt. Meistens habe ich aber doch mehrere Sachen auf den Nadeln, und zwar weil ich gerne zu Hause ein grösseres, langfristiges Projekt bearbeite (wo man sich auch dabei konzentrieren und vielleicht Strickmuster lesen muss) und dann nebenbei jeweils noch etwas simpleres anschlage, als unterwegs- oder Fernsehprojekt (z.B. Socken oder eine Mütze.
Auswählen tue ich die Projekte meistens nach Dringlichkeit, und wenn es nichts gibt was jemand unbedingt braucht, tendiere ich dazu ungeliebte Wolle zuerst aufzubrauchen.

off the needles

Fresh off the needles, finished while watching 'The color of magic' (funny to see Sam Gamdschie as Twoflower): One burglar hat to go!

Ravelled here.

Sew I thought...

(I stole that line from her)
I think I didn't tell you that one, but I made the resolution to finally get into sewing more this year. Most of the sewing experience I have so far is with refashioning. That's not so big because you don't need to make patterns and it's very quick and doesn't need a lot of material. But I'd like to actually make some of my stuff myself, especially underwear. Well, I thought I'd start with the easiest option there and make some panties.
I took one of my favourite pair and traced around front and back, making two pieces out of some old T-shirt. Not much more to it. The first pair with the bow is a bit rough around the edges as you might see on the picture, so I read a bit about making nice seams and had a close look at some bought ones and then set to work on the second pair. They already look much nicer.

These panties are part of a project that I decided to go with to keep me motivated. It is called Project Restyle. Participators pledge to make items from damaged, unwanted or unusable stuff every week and post about it. I think it sounds like a lot of fun! :o)