Happy New Year!

Does your Mother know where you are? Or do You know where your kids are? :P I don't know why I think that's funny but I do :D Doesn't seem like I'll be growing up anytime soon I guess :)
I have been thinking quite a lot lately though..
I felt one night when I was lying in bed a very strong sadness at the thought of maybe being alone for a long time, maybe not finding the right one in time to have kids and so on.. I really really want to have kids one day, my own.. I don't even think I'd want to adopt.. I'm not sure.. I'll take that question if it ever arises. But I do want a big family.. :) a huge one! with dogs and cats too :)
I've been thinking more than that, this whole autumn has been a long meditation. And I'm not finished yet. I still haven't been able to decide on what I want to do when I grow up/the rest of my life ;) yes, I know, I don't have to do the same thing the rest of my life, but at least for a couple of years!
I have so many ideas and alternatives.. I looove numbers, it's a bit crazy but I do :) you can do so much with numbers, finding meanings, creating meanings and so on.. I just don't know exactly how I could implement this love.. statistics? how and where? economics? accountancy? Usually need to have some sort of training to get a job in any of those anyway..
Then there's the whole creative field.. :) textiles in almost every imaginable way, some fields of art, photography, crafts.. And then there's the food, mostly baking, bit. Which in my world belongs to the creative field :) I seldom follow a recipe to the letter, and especially when making cakes I quite often make them completely from an idea I've got :) I get inspiration easily, getting the things done is a little bit harder.. :P
That's the major interests.. well, let's add interior decorating and architecture as I am very interested in them too. If I've forgotten anything I'll let you know :P I love greenery and gardens and flowers and so on too, but I actually don't think that love is enough for a job, except if it is a part of a larger concept.. :) like having a restaurant in a big old house with a huge garden :P and of course an art&craft shop in one of the old buildings ;) I've read way too many country life (interior) magazines ;)

With these thoughts in my head I'm ready to enter a new year and try to be open to whatever it brings me! :)
Happy New Year once again!

More crafting ;)

A Christmas tree ornament I made late one night before going to bed.. :) just had to try it at least once.. :) it's just 13 stripes held together by string, easy! :)
Yesterday I had a day almost free from crafting, I just read instead.. :) "Hand i hand" (Hand in hand, duh) by Irmelin Sandman-Lillius and Heddi Böckman. About their childhood.. nicely written as it was sometimes the same happening told from both sisters different viewpoints :) I've read books by Irmelin Sandman-Lillius before and I love them :) and I loved this one too, it was more real of course but it was the same homely feeling.. a little bit like reading Moomin-books.. it feels so homely to me :) actually the two sisters knew Tove Jansson, Moomins creator :) and they're all Swedish-speaking Finns, just like me, and grew up more or less at the same time as my parents, and in the same city too :) so it's not such a wonder really if their writings feel homely :)

Crafting with company

might look like this:

I was going to continue on the flower-ball I had started in the morning and Tufs (the bigger one) decided she wanted to help! well, sleep would be a better word.. ;) Trollis was already lying on that white-gray cloth by the window but when big sister came and flopped down on all my papers she wanted to do that too! Yey! ;) Luckily I didn't need anything that was under the cats nor very much space on the table.. and as the next pic will show you I managed to finish two small flower-balls :)

Perfect size for my Christmas tree :) I did some creative work with a marker, just to see how it would look :) I like the one on the left more, it has just got an orange border.. the red one might be better with just the middle piece red, I'll try that on a later one :P This is a really fun crafting, as it's mostly just fold, fold, cut, cut, glue, glue.. as I've said before it takes time, but it turns out really nice too :) and can of course be varied in a thousand different ways.. how about inserting small led-lamps in the middle of each flower.. :) I tried taking a pic with one flower-ball on each cat but Trollis woke up when I placed one on her so I had to change plans and use Tufs as base ;)

Looks nice, doesn't it? :)
I'm still debating with myself whether to do a round ball out of paper stripes today or some other day.. :) There's an instruction in one of my Christmas craft books how to do it, but they use just rectangular strips and I think they should be tapering.. so I need to find out if my idea looks better :) and also if it's possible to overlap them in a certain way, don't know how to describe my thoughts there.. ah well, you'll see when I've made one :)

Ugh..

My stomach still isn't exactly up to normal.. and now Mom has got it too.. I just hope it won't decide to take a second round! I want to eat normal, good food :) For some reason I have a higher craving for salt again so I've been planning tomorrows lunch really long :P I'm going to make chicken with blue cheese and some creamy sauce and with french fries.. :) it's something you can get at quite a lot of places at least here and I just want to have that now.. I dreamed of it already when I had just had dinner :P now it's just one night and breakfast to get through first ;)
hopefully a night better than last.. took me ages to get to sleep! Today I've stayed up longer so at least that should shorten the toss-and-turn period a bit I hope.. and yesterday I had dinner quite late so I think my stomach was working hard when I went to bed..

Chocolate and stomach flu..

You're right, they don't go together.. which sometimes can be a really good thing! :) The stomach flu of course made a pause in my chocolate eating, and that was exactly what I needed but couldn't make myself to do. So for once I've gone a Christmas without gorging myself with chocolate! On Christmas eve I didn't even gorge myself on food, still having a feeling I want to be just a little bit careful with my stomach.. Although today I've eaten almost normally, just had some lovely potatoes and meat that wasn't Christmassy in any way! Apparently the gorging on Christmas foods I've done over the years is enough to make me feel like it's a blessing to eat "normal" food again ;)
This year I've had a lot of thoughts about Christmas and traditions.. I'm not sure I want to follow all of the ones from my childhood but I'm definitely not sure which ones to change or let go of. And as long as I spend Christmas eve with my parents that will probably be quite traditional anyway. I don't do almost any of the Christmas food just for me, Christmas baking on the other hand.. :P

Paper flying!

Literally! I've been folding, cutting, gluing and what not! :) There's so much fun out there to do and try out and learn :) I just finished a ball of stars/flowers using my lovely coloured origami paper and a tutorial I found on metacafe :)

Crappy quality as the battery in my camera died and I had to photo it with my laptops inbuilt camera..

In the video they use a stapler instead of glue, luckily I was out of staples so I had to use glue (no visible staples to disturb the eye) :D
I also found a video of a guy who made houses out of one paper just by cutting! First round it looked just amazing, now I'm starting to get ready to try for myself :P But I think that will have to be tomorrows project.. :) Making the flower ball above isn't very hard, but it does take some time to fold, cut and then glue 12 pieces together.. :) especially when I started out trying to make one of 6-pointed flowers instead of 5-pointed.. Snowflakes has given me a fascination with 'multiples of 6'-pointed things.. instead of the usual multiples of 4 or 5.. folding paper easily gives you the ones of 4 and I guess 5 is just from the basic 5-pointed stars and flowers :)

aaaand Christmas continues.. :)

Luckily today is a day for relaxing and not doing anything more than I have to.. :) I slept until 12 and then I slowly got up and had breakfast and dressed and so.. then I've been reading and looking through some craft-books I got for Christmas :) which finally got my inspiration level so high that I had to get off the couch and do some crafting! ;) It's especially a book about plaited hearts/ornaments that gets my inspiration soaring ;) plaited hearts is an old Nordic Christmas tradition, originally from Germany I believe. Although I think it has lost it's footing in Germany and mostly exists in the Scandinavian countries with a small foothold in Finland too (well, at least I still do them :P)

The book I got for Christmas and the four first tries :) The one on the top is supposed to be a butterfly ;) and the two green-purple ones are just playing with perceptions :) I think the heart within a heart turned out quite well! :)

 We made these hearts when I was a kid and my parents has some old ones left that they made for their first Christmas together :) but those are ones with just the regular plaiting :)

I took some pics of my tree today too, but the only thing showing is the lights in it.. I need to hang more stuff on it so that it will show! :P
Another of the books I got had a cut out bird, just an easy peasy thing but it looked very nice :) I've been thinking of cutting similar birds of nice papers for my tree, some light-coloured paper that will show up against the dark tree :) It's such a lovely Christmas tree this year, just so dense that everything get's lost in it :P

Christmas it is :D

Merry Christmas :)

What more needs to be said :) I had a nice dinner with my parents, although a bit more relaxed than earlier.. but then again we've all been more or less sick this week.. and I'm growing up and having Christmas my own way in my house so I can more easily let them do whatever and however they want the one day/dinner I'm there :)
I realized this year for the first time that Christmas eve is just one part of Christmas, the first big day of Christmas.. Then there's a lot more Christmas still after that! I want to bake gingerbread cookies, just need to find someone to eat them as I'm not really that much into eating them too :) or maybe I'll make some other kind of cookies but with my Christmas cutters :) we'll see.. tomorrow it's another family dinner, but at my Sis' place :)
Tomorrow I might take some pics of all the nice gifts I got today as well :) although more gifts coming tomorrow :P not so much more though..
Then the rest of Christmas is unplanned! But I hope to meet some friends and I got 3 lovely books on (Christmas) crafting so I won't have time to get bored anyway :P
Now it's bed, still get tired rather easily :)

24h bug

Yes, managed to get a 24h stomach bug.. but now I'm mostly well again :) just not very much appetite yet though.. but I guess it will return, at Christmas dinner if not earlier :P
I did manage yesterday evening, even while being half dead from bug and fever, to put the lights in my Christmas tree! And today I've been slowly decorating it, far from ready though :)
The worst part of having the bug yesterday was that I had planned to do a lot of cooking and baking! Well, some I could still do today luckily.. so now I have some sour dough rising and salmon with spices in the fridge and dinner is ready in a minute or two! :)
After dinner and a rest I'm going to start wrapping gifts! yey :D

I've got a Christmas tree! :D

It's thawing and drying in the bathroom because it's snowing again today.. :) But it smells wonderfully greeeeen! :) just like it should :) the cats are so interested, they've both been several times looking and sniffing at the tree :) and Tufs tasted the water it stands in to see that it was good enough :P
Still packed into it's plastic it doesn't look so nice.. but just wait 'til this evening when I unpack it :)

Update: Now the tree looks this nice!







I've also been knitting quite a lot, still two Christmas gifts to finish :) My sisters fluffy muffler might look like it was finished in the picture, but she wants it HUGE so it needs to go twice round her neck, it's just one round yet :) But it is sooo warm and soft and oooh! :) maybe I'll have to knit something similar for myself :)

 And the fluffy muffler in it's whole beauty :) so far almost 2 balls of yarn, will need at least one more possibly closer to 2 more... Luckily I have in my stash already :)

I'll just continue knitting and waiting for the tree to thaw :) some baking on my mind too, I'm thinking of a saffron bun baked as a plait and with marzipan in it too... mmmm :D

Gingerbread "village"

I've forgotten to post the pics of my gingerbread houses! Three small ones, start of a village :) I'm going to add lights too, even street lights if I just get it to work and find the right stuff I need.. I just have to wait until dad is free, he know electronics so much better than me :)

Aren't they cute? ;)

 I went to yet a Christmas art&craft market on Wednesday and decided to buy a necklace, I don't wear jewelry, never have.. But lately I've found a bit of an interest in it anyway.. especially when going to the Opera or some party it's nice to really make an effort :) one of the reasons I don't like jewelry is because I don't like metal.. especially not against my skin.. *shiver* But now there's a lot of lovely stuff with no traces of metal :) and I've matured some more ;) This one I call my sunshine as it's such a happy yellow colour :) I'm going to change the string to a brown one, probably a bit thicker too.. :) I also got another one, a red one, similar but a little bit smaller.. :)

The colour isn't perfect in the picture, it's such a lovely yellow-orange-brown mix :)

I've had quite a productive morning today :) Finished the Christmas cards (except some that I'm going to give when I meet them.. gives me a bit more time ;) and then I've been washing and doing dishes and stuff :) soon I'm going to make candy! Mmmmmmmmm! :D

Christmas crafting 24/7 ;)

Almost.. I'm almost done with the Christmas cards, luckily because I think they have to be posted tomorrow to have any chance of getting to their destinations before Christmas.. :) It's a lot of fun at least :D I'm planning to make gift tags too.. and then I want to make really nice parcels.. will just have to see have far my energy goes :)
Tomorrow I'm going to make a lot of different candy with a friend :) and on Saturday I'm going to a flea-market with another friend.. and then on Sunday it's the big Tree Hunting Day! We usually go every year with mom and dad to our cottage and get trees :) one for them, one for me and sometimes one for my sister too :) quite often my parents have decided on a tree already during summer (no snow to wade through) but not this year.. and we have a lot of snow this year too.. So we'll probably look like snowmen before we're done :P We're also going to a Christmas market at Mörby Gård on Sunday, it's close to our cottage so it works :) mostly they sell stuff from the farm (they have a lot of ecologically produced flour etc) and then some more or less locally made craft/knitting and so on.. It's a nice tradition :)

I still have some unfinished gifts, especially knitting.. the fluffy muffler had to wait for a while as there where other, more pressing, gifts to finish.. I think I'm more than halfway through anyway.. but of course my sister wants to be able to wrap it twice around her neck so it has to be really long.. sigh ;)
And then there's some other things I can't mention here ;) One of the best things about Christmas is all the secrets in the corners :D

A good monday :)

Although it was a bit slow in the morning.. I had problems getting myself out of bed.. :)
But then I got a lot of things done! Some Christmas gifts and Christmas cards mailed, walked to the post office, store and library :) Then I glued my gingerbread houses :) pictures of that coming tomorrow or sometime.. ;) Aaaand then! I started to knit cables! I've never done it before but of course I wanted to try :) I still have one knitted Christmas gift unstarted and I've been thinking of using cables on it.. but for that I'd have to learn how to do it first :) I've thought knitting cables would be one of the hardest things to do but it turned out to be quite easy :) not fast, a lot to keep track of, but not really so hard :) Especially a lot to keep track of the way I did it, just look at the picture ;)

Crisscrossing here, there and everywhere ;)

I had a glove with a similar, but neater and clearer, pattern in mind when I did this.. :) I think I'll do one more training piece before starting on the "real" one :) I want to try it exactly as I want to do it :)

Otherwise today has just been cold, cold and cold! Although I got lucky when I was out and saw the sun and blue sky! I was so happy walking home, I walked quite slowly and just looked at all the wintery beauty around me :)

Tomorrow it's time to decorate the gingerbread house(s)! At least the one mom and I made, uhm, mom made.. Then I also have three small ones of my own but I'm not sure if I'm going to decorate them tomorrow or the day after.. :)

Snow day

Yes, it's snowing again.. quite a lot too :) perfect timing, I have to use the car today, now I get some extra exercise when I dig it out :P
I also cut a snowflake of the new paper I got, only 70g per square meter.. the usual printer paper is 80g so this one is a tad thinner.. it's the thinnest I've found without resorting to tissue paper.. :)

Trollis was just about to step before the camera so I'm telling her to keep away, hence the look on my face.

 I was keeping my lovely snowflake book open on my lap while cutting, to get some inspiration :) you can see the book in an earlier post, definitely worth getting :)
I'm going to cut lots more snowflakes, it's so fun :) and you can do such a lot different ones! :)

Just an ordinary day

I seem to be a bit slow on updating my blog.. I will try to write more often.. :) Otherwise I've been getting better at "updating" my life, i.e. doing stuff that needs to be done.. :)
I returned library books today (2 days late but no fee) and I actually walked there and back! It's not very far, but I've been sooo lazy for so many years that I've almost forgotten how to walk :P
The weather is nice, the sun is actually shining right now! That happens so seldom in Finland during the long, cold winters. The sun was out on Tuesday too and I even went out with my camera and took a couple pictures :)

Today it's been blowing so hard that some of the snow from the trees has fallen down, but not much.. :) it's still as beautiful :) luckily at least it hasn't snowed in the past two days.. we've got quite enough already :) 

I'm getting on with my Christmas knitting, another present is soon finished :) luckily as it has to be posted on Monday! I need to finish the Christmas cards that I need to send on Monday too.. 

I've been making cards with cutouts, I can probably post a pic later on and you'll see what and how I mean.. :)

It keeps on snowing..

And I started cutting out snowflakes ;) I just have to buy some thinner paper, normal printer paper is a bit tick.. as it needs to be folded so many times. Being the way I am, of course I make my snowflakes 6-sided, as natural snowflakes are :) or at least multiples of 6.. I found some nice snowflakes in an e-mail from Habitat and that got me started.

They do look like they were cut out of paper don't they? :) I've cut snowflakes most winters, but when I was a kid I did like everyone else and cut them with 4 sides/points.. but after reading this book:

The Snowflake, Winter's Secret Beauty by Kenneth Libbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen

I can't go back :) my snowflake-virginity is lost ;) but it was worth it, that book is awesome! Soo gorgeous pictures and a lot of facts about snow and snowflakes too :)

But yes, it's snowing here again, it snowed most of yesterday and the day before.. and we had quite enough snow before that :) yesterday I had to dig to get my car into the parking space! Today I moved it to a space that was already cleared.. :) luckily they seem to be quite active with their snow-ploughs here :)

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm chocolate! ;)

My favorite! All the time! Fffffffffazer :D

I don't have that much to say right now.. mostly I'm just sleepy :) should go to bed.. Been crafting with mom today, started making Christmas cards (nope, no pics, you don't want to see your Christmas card in advance do you?) and then I made an experiment and baked bread using sea-buckthorn juice..

it turned out quite edible :) could've been a bit sweeter though.. But I'll be making more experiments :)
I've also been crocheting today, finished one snowflake, started on a new one and then I got the bright idea to try and get the Mary Jane slippers done so I could wear them tomorrow! uhm, I don't think that's going to happen.. but at least I've started on them :) and then they'll be finished for the next party! :) I think they'll be my number 1 accessory this Christmas :) oh, I have to figure out what to wear tomorrow too..
Well, off to bed it is! To dream sweet sweet dreams of chocolate! :P

Merry start of Christmas! :)

Welcome to my home! :)

One star in my bedroom window :) there's one in every room, all different of course :) but I haven't taken photos of them all yet :)

And the best.. A small amaryllis just breaking into full bloom with some lights behind it, reflected over and over again in the windows.. :) Sometimes me and my camera get lucky :)
Happy time waiting for the Christmas! I loooove this time :D

This and that

I've been doing lots of stuff lately, still I've had trouble sleeping because of all the ideas running around in my head! So today I just had to get my sewing machine out, ages since I sewed anything.. well, going to polish up those skills now :) I started easy with a very simple neck-warmer.. sort of to be worn as is or under a very nice (but perhaps not warm enough) scarf :) this is just the first prototype, although I'll be giving it away tomorrow as a pre-Christmas gift :)

Then I wanted to show you all my cake cutters :) mostly for Christmas.. Used them today for the first time this season, mmmm there's a smell of gingerbread cookies in the air :D

More crafting, a ball of yarn :) this first try is pink because that's what I had closest when I made it. It's just yarn rolled around a water balloon and then dipped in a solution of glue and water.. :) it's quite cool and I'm going to make more of these, but in white and some in brown.. and some bigger too :)

Monday, but what a monday! :)

I've been having fun :) started the morning with getting the test results from the what-should-you-be-working-with-test, and happily it agreed with what I've already figured out myself since taking the test :) creative, creative, creative.. :)
So then I celebrated with going to the nearest fabric store and get some fabrics ;) mostly I dug through their left-over boxes :) as yet I haven't taken any photos of my newest acquisitions :) I did take some pictures of my collection of cookie cutters, but they're still in the camera ;)
I made the first batch of gingerbread cookie dough yesterday and will be baking them tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to getting the house filled with the smell of gingerbread cookies! I like baking them much more than I like eating them :P
Among other pottering today I finally got the hobby room tidied enough to actually be able to do some real work there! I at once started with sawing and drilling and screwing the outer box for the kitties sandbox. They always manage to get the sand everywhere so I've already changed to a sandbox with much higher sides and now this. Let's hope it will be enough :)
Now I just want to put some kind of shelf and/or hooks over the sandbox, it's in the hallway and it's a good place to put my bag when I get home :) (Off the floor so no-one pees on it...)
It's fun to have cats, you get to use your imagination a lot to think of new things to do so they won't do any of their stupid stuff :P although then they will use their imagination to think of how to get my attention.. Tufs has had this way of scratching at things on the floor, she usually scratches before peeing so she knows this will definitely get my attention ;) but now as I've been keeping my apartment much cleaner she has instead started to scratch stuff off the coffee table! She's so smart :)

I also got some more cable stuff for my Christmas lights/stars.. but now I need the lamps :P didn't think of that when I was at the store.. it's max 25W and I don't have any at home.. oh well, one more day doesn't matter :) and it's not too late to go to the store again today, just too cold :)
I've been knitting and crocheting a bit, but neither is good for my fingers.. although my hands have been much better today :) at least until I just knitted a couple rows ;)
I just want to get the stuff ready! Especially the stuff that needs to go by post somewhere... patience, patience..

Still not done anything on my homepage.. I'll get around to it one day ;) now I'll just enjoy having a hobby room to do stuff in! Might get the sewing machine out tomorrow! :)

Crochet has hooked me too!

My first ever crochet heart! Wow! It's quite uneven and so on, but still wow! ;)
I got great help from this nice blog: Art of Crochet
I'm going to make a lot of these :P went quite fast too, but I do recommend not talking on the phone while trying to count to 9 and 18 and so on ;)

My first hyacinth for this season, it now stands in the hall and I get a lovely sniff of it every time I go by :) I've bought for more but they're still very much in bud still.. :) they're pink though.. I prefer white ones but I got the pink cheaper :P cheapskate! ;)

Hyacinths and birdcages, what? ;)

Mmmmmmmmm, that first whiff of hyacinth for the season... mmmmmmm! I'm in heaven! :) Maybe if I dig out my car from the snow tomorrow I could go and buy some more.. ;) I usually have a couple in each room :) permeate the house with the smell :) 

My new idea for a cat safe candle holder :) it's just a very small birdcage that H&M Home sells :)

It seems to hold well the heat from a tea light :)

 

I tried to find a picture of it on H&M's page but I couldn't find it at all! Oh well, I have two at least and maybe they still have it in the shop, just not online.. :) it's very cute too, and very practical :) Although both Tufs and Trollis seem to be a bit careful around candles now.. I've never seen Trollis burn herself but I know Tufs has burned her fur twice! Well, she's got such a long fur that it almost touches candles from across the room :P the thought with the candle cage is also so that a mindlessly walking cat doesn't burn her fur by accident either.. :)

"Competition" coming up :)

Or whatever you want to call it.. I thought I'd make a couple different logos for Pingevin and then you could vote for which one you like the best :) I'll host it here but of course link from facebook :)
So, I'll just start working.. :)
Oh yes, of course, the "winner" will get a t-shirt with the logo printed on it :) I guess I'll just have to pick names out of a hat or something.. still thinking about how to do this the best :)

This is how pingevin looked in the beginning.. needs a little updating :)

No.

Sorry, you didn't get the job... *Sigh* I hate getting no's.. And I did cry a little.. but then I started looking for more ads about jobs even before the tears had dried ;) and I still have two places where I've sent applications that might work out to a yes.. you never know :) actually a third that I sent in a couple minutes ago ;)
But, this means I need to get my homepage up and running as soon as possible! And get on with the drawing.. patterns and stuff.. I could hardly sleep yesterday with all that I wanted to do, and now I've just spent a lot of time on facebook again..

GET UP AND DO STUFF! NOW!

Sorry, just had to shout it so that maybe I'd hear it too...
Knitting is good, but it's not enough with just that.. textile stuff will be much easier and faster to do and maybe sell! and maybe that way get some money... :)

Christmas is coming :)

And I'm knitting Christmas gifts as fast as I can! :) almost finished with the flower socks, although I still have to frog the foot of the first one and re-knit it.. it's way too big/loose :) but there's some other projects that have to be done first :)
like getting through today's interview... ugh.. I realized I was trying to numb myself by telling me that I don't really want this job.. luckily I saw that so now I'm just trying to tell myself I can do it :)
after the interview I can come home and immerse myself in my knitting :P
more later when I'm not a bundle of nerves ;)

LATER.

I sort of lost my brain after the interview.. probably when I let go of the nervousness :) luckily I could knit and read and facebook :) the last until fb decided it was time for me to do something else and told me my profile was unavailable! gosh, how horrible that feels.. being out of touch with the world! ;)
anyway, I got the flower sock finished and started on the next project :) but that's one of the secret ones, schhh... ;)

Here's at least a pic of the finished flower sock :) although that one still need to get the foot part frogged and re-knitted... ;)
Oh yes, what I'm reading? Dewey, the library cat :)

Lazy Sunday :)

It feels like lazy even though I've already put a cover on a chair and changed the canopy over my bed :) now for some knitting and going through old magazines :) it feels quite therapeutic to rip out pictures and stuff from old magazines :P
Soon I need to come up with some nice food to cook too... maybe something with tzatziki? :P

Winter came..

..but how long will it stay? And will it be another cold and rich in snow? Or will it be a warm and slushy one.. or something in between the two :) I'm hoping for one neither too cold nor too slushy.. I hate freezing and I hate moving through slush.. ugh!
On a happier note, I'm almost done with the flower sock and I'll get to try it on my friends foot tomorrow! I'll take a pic of it then :) The it's just the second one.. and the fluffy muffler and everything else from my knitting list.. ;) I think it's 2 socks, 1 wrist-warmer.. and then probably some new ideas :) but if you remember I already have 2 things done, this sock will be the 2,5th :D

Four days to the second interview.. we played at being interviewed and at interviewing today at the course, it is the only way to really learn.. :) gosh I was unprepared for the first interview last Tuesday! But they still asked me to the second! :) Now with all the tips I should be able to really shine :P
I have to think about what to wear though.. something that is both me and neat.. well, I already knew I can't go in what I like to wear the most.. sweat shirt and pants ;)

Oopsie, I lost myself for a while there.. started looking at Lana Pura.. yaaaaarns! :) always makes me drool :) oh well, I have a little stash at home already... :)
Just had to show two of my favorites, they are sooooo gorgeous! click on the pic and you'll get to it's page on Lana Pura :) The red-orange one might even be the right colour for a fire shawl, might need something yellower too.. one can always dream :)

 

Good night!

Still knitting

I haven't just been applying for jobs, I've still been knitting :) I got quite a lot done on the fluffy muffler on the bus to the interview on Monday ;) and today I finally got an acceptable heel done on the flower sock :) I knitted one heel on the weekend but (as usual) I lost my place so I had to do some frogging.. this time round I gave in and used pen and paper to keep count of where I was! But it was worth it :)

If anyone wonders, this is a short row heel with no yo or such.. just an extra stitch easily picked up after knitting 2tog :)

I almost forgot! I tried it on my friend on the weekend to and it was a good size too! Life is smiling at me right now ;) My friend also wants the foot part just in brown, no flowers.. guess how much work that will save me :D

Then, after the interview on Monday, I also went fabric shopping.. and I found some loooooooovely ones :) lots more than I actually bought :P but I guess I can't buy the whole store.. *sigh*

The two in the middle I'm thinking of using for my niece, there is more than is needed for her though so I have to see what I can come up with :) the striped one is tricot and the purple is velour :) the two outer ones are just plain cotton.. well ok, not so plain ;)

Job seeking progress

So far I've sent in 3 applications.. been on 1 interview (and just recently got called to a second interview for that same job) and got 1 thank you for your application e-mail.. not bad :) then I've also sent 2 emails asking for more information :) we'll see what that comes to..
Now I really need to get my ass working  on that homepage.. I don't know why I postpone it all the time and just talk about it! I did embellish one of my applications with a picture, seen on the right :)
Anyway, time to take out the drawing board and get started! ok, first I'll empty the coffee table so I have somewhere to work.. or maybe I should clean up the table in my hobbyroom.. although that might mean I'll get started on actual design work sometime next week :P
Please keep everything you've got to spare crossed for luck! :)

Interesting day..

Just so that everyone certainly knows, the interview went ok, I had all qualifications for the job and they'll let me know by the end of the week.. The interview could have gone better.. I need to train on being more assertive, like "Yes, I am good at that!" ;) oh well, if not this one then another one.. sooner or later anyway :)
This evening I was at a PartyLite-"party" at a friends sisters place :) it was nice, and I already knew I like PartyLite's candles :) especially their candles with fragrance :) I just ordered 3 different smells, and of course realized when I came home that I already had one of them :P this summer I got a bag full of PartyLite candles when I helped a friend move, she works there as an accountant and has quite a hoard ;)

I've been feeling strangely hungry today.. like I could eat all the time.. maybe it's because the butterflies in my stomach has eaten half of everything ;) luckily they've moved out again, at least most of them.. there might be one or two left waiting for the phone call about the job :)

I bought some nice fabrics too today, colourfull of course! :) too lazy to take pics straight away though ;)

Interview tomorrow, gulp!

I'm almost starting to get a little bit nervous.. :) luckily I've already decided exactly what to wear :P and the rest will just have to come naturally ;) if they don't want me for the job, I'll get one from somewhere else.. that's life :)
Anyway, life is happy :) I'm feeling quite good about most everything :) which reminds me, I'm going to go and continue to put my glass cabinet into order so that I finally can take a picture of it in the right place! :)

Fingers flashing

or not.. I'm not that fast a knitter as yet :) maybe one day :) I've made such progress that I wanted to show you all :)

The so called flower sock :) round 2 ;)

And the Fluffy Muffler :) it was my sisters idea to make it striped, my idea how to make it so ;) we've both got great ideas :)

I haven't had time to knit as much this week, due to the course.. but I guess that's been just as good for my hands :) I just have to put up speed a bit again to get all the stuff done for Christmas that I want to get done :P

A full head..

My head has been fuller than usual.. work, dreams, money, dreams, work, fantasies, dreams, reality, money? And on top of that knitting, reading, cats, interior design, Christmas.. :)
And then I also made the mistake of starting on a book that I couldn't put down.. it was just too captivating :) Kate Morton - The Forgotten Garden. It was really good, I loved how the different times got weaved together.. and she had a way of telling the reader more than the persons in the book knew at times, so that as a reader you got all the pieces of the puzzle in the end and knew exactly what happened :) I'm happy I'm a reader and not one in the book as they didn't know everything :P but I'd love to be Cassandra in the garden.. *sigh* ooh, and btw The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett is one of my favorite books too! Loved that Morton used her for one of the persons :)

As some of you probably have seen on my facebook status I applied for a job yesterday, and got an answer within 10min! Wow.. I was quite overwhelmed.. :) Especially as my thoughts when hearing about the job went something like this:
"seller? nah, not really for me"
"but maybe I should take a look at the ad anyway"
"yeah, all right, I'll apply for this, couldn't hurt"
"hey, wait, it's due tomorrow! no way I'm going to hurry like that!"
"now wait a minute, you like interior design and fabrics and you're right now taking a course in how to apply for work... so what's better than writing an application at the course tomorrow? get your ass moving!"
And so I did, lucky huh? :) Interview on Monday, I'll write an update then of course on how it went and felt :) I still don't even know exactly what shop this work is in as the ad was from a job agent... but I'll get to know on Monday :)
THANK HEAVENS there's an automatic draft saver on blogger! I had written this far and accidentally closed the window.. my heart is still racing ;)
Sorry for the pictureless posts.. but I've been more for writing :) when I've been doing anything else than dreaming ;) yes, I will tell you about my dream.. but some other time :) it needs some more mellowing time ;)
(Sorry all of you who love your English, I like to make words dance to my tune and not always according to general rules :P)
I think that's it for today.. oh, not completely. My car now has winter tires so let Winter Begin! ;)

Busy, busy, bzzzz

Yesterday was realllly busy, luckily we at least got to leave early from the course :) in the evening Mom and I went on my birthday present ;)
the double Ballet Blood wedding & Scheherazade! It was really nice! I loooove ballet and opera! :) Wish I could go and see everything.. well, at least most of the things :) it's not just the beautiful music and the wonderful singing or the lovely dancing, it's the whole atmosphere.. a lot of people dressed in their finest coming to enjoy a nice evening :)
I really liked both ballets, and they both had some interesting moves/dancing that I've never seen before.. not just new as in modern, but new as in rethinking! :) I thought they could've done a bit more with the costumes for Scheherazade, but maybe they wanted to keep some part simple :) and of course the dancers have to be able to dance in their costumes too :P
the scenery-solutions were great in both though :) And the company was as always the greatest ;) I don't mind admitting that I like to do things with Mom :) I wouldn't mind doing things with someone else either.. so if anyone wants company to the Opera I'm here! :) I don't like theater or movies so much though.. you'll have quite a job to get me to either of them ;) Classic music concerts on the other hand is nice :) but opera and ballet is better when you have something to keep your eyes busy too :)
I have been knitting quite a bit too, the muffler is coming along nicely and I've started on the real flower socks :) no pictures today, too tired :) and Tufs is trying get my attention all the time.. I think she was a bit angry with me yesterday for being away so much.. Especially Tufs likes to have me at home all the time ;) and well, I like to be home too :) especially now with soooo much fun stuff to do! :)
Oooh, I think I've forgot to tell you that I've been walking to the course every day, so that makes it about 5km each day! And I'm feeling fine! :)

Back in school..

Luckily only for two weeks! :) and it seems to be a nice course, teacher and group :) It's a course on how to search and apply for jobs.. everything from what kind of work we want to how to best sell yourself :P I hate selling myself.. it so often feels like lying.. And I don't really know what I can or even want to work with.. something creative is my best guess.. but what if I can't find any work in that branch right now? I also did some personality test-like tests this morning, hopefully they'll give me some help :) I only get the test-answers after three weeks though.. well, it's good for my patience to have to wait a little :P
But, I did decide to build myself a homepage. It's the best place to show what I can do and a bit of who I am.. now I just have to decide on design and where to put it... :)

Fluffy muffler

Doesn't fluffy muffler sound like something you'd want to use on a cold winters day? :) I started it yesterday so there's not much to show yet, but here it is anyway :)

The stitches are now moss stitching but it will be striped with different kind of stitches :) next up is garter stitch, then I thought I'd try a moss stitch with 2+2 stitches (instead of 1+1) :)
Tomorrow I'm going to start on the real flower socks :) so then I'll have these two to switch between ;)

Living room

Just moved the couches around a bit ;) so now the living room is almost done.. :) just one display case left to move but I'm not going to do that by myself, it's a little bit too breakable ;)
It's looking much better now! I'll post pics when I get my ass up from the couch again.. I had to vacuum the floor and then vacuum the rug that I put out :) it's been rolled up in storage for at least a year..
If I have time tomorrow I'm going to Lundia to buy more shelves for my bookshelf :) it's a system that can be built together any way you like, soooo great! and it's very stable and durable, I've only had my oldest parts for about 10 years but my parents have had theirs for over 30 years :) the only drawback is of course that it's not exactly cheap.. but then again it will always fit as you can make the perfect combination :) (the only problem is if you've bought too high sides and the next place have a lower roof :P luckily I don't have that problem :) mine are only 228cm high, which means I can also stack stuff on top of the shelves ;)

This is as it looks now .) more pics some other day.. when I've cleaned away more stuff :P

Snow! yeeey! :)

Update: it's not snowing anymore.. blue skies instead :)

Except that I still have summer tires under my car... oh well.. I'll get them changed one day :P

I always think of this book when it snows :) especially when it's the first snow.. :) And yes, it's by Astrid Lindgren and the illustrations are by Ilon Wikland.

Astrid Lindgren is one of my favorite authors (childrens books) and Ilon Wikland is one of my absolute favorite illustrators :)
Other than that I've mostly just read today :) "Igelkottens elegans" by Muriel Barbery (original titel L'élégance du hérrison). I really like it :) so far I've both laughed aloud and shed a couple tears.. :) and it touches both philosophy and culture, two of my favorite subjects :)
I have done a little bit of knitting too, I'm knitting a fluffy muffler for my sister for Christmas :) yes, I can write about it openly and show it too as she asked for it and knows I'm making it :)

Bookshelf moved!

Yey, got that one done too! Now things are moving faaast ;)

Empty bookshelf at its old place..

A few books waiting to be put back

Bookshelf at the new place, I changed a 50cm piece for a 80cm piece.. but I need more shelves.

Some more books..

Tada! Done :) at least as far as I can get it with the shelves I have now..

And soon I'm off to meet the best of Sisters, the best of Mothers and the best of Nieces :) so actually that would be two of the best of Mothers ;)

Busy day :)

Yes, I've been busy for once :) I didn't want to post first thing in the morning, and it still felt like morning at 3pm when I went out :P
I've been to Ikea today, shooopppiiiing! ;) I actually didn't get that much, I was feeling rushed so I couldn't enjoy it really :)
After Ikea I went to see my mother :) we made dinner and talked and actually had time to knit a little bit together.. ;) and then I got a nice pile of knitting magazines and some loooong knitting needles :)
And that's that for today.. too tired to blog properly :P

Christmas!

well, not yet.. but soon :) and I just got a mail from Habitat with some sale or other.. and for some strange reason I ended up checking their Christmas-stuff.. I'm in love! ;) especially in Booboo! :)

This is as big as you'll get Booboo here, you have to go look at habitats page to see him in real size! :)

He's just the cutest! Especially with my love for penguins.. so if you want to make a Pingevin really happy for Christmas, you know what to get her :P

Other than that I've been knitting some more.. testing, testing.. I'm not exactly thrilled with how the "flowers" look.. might have to do something bigger.. but it's good excercise :) especially knitting with two different colours.. gosh, that's something to keep track of! :)
I'll just knit that last row so that I can show you a pic :)

I really, really want comments on what you think of this pattern! seeing it like this on photo it looks a bit better.. but not perfect.. :D

Cat fight!

My two cats are having one of their running around the house, fighting-spells.. I just hope they hurt neither themselves nor anything breakable.. it is quite the action movie ;) I'm just not sure which one is the good guy (well, girl)..

I've also painted that living room wall a second time, so the living room should be ready painted now! Yeeeeheeeyyyy!! Gosh, why does some easy things sometimes take such ages to get finished?
Anyway, it is done now, puuuuuh :) I'm so happy :) And it is soo right to have the wall the same colour as all the others (well, except the window wall, but that one isn't very much wall..).
So, the next thing is to get all the masking tape off.. and the covering papers from the floor.. and then I can start the fun thing of moving the bookshelf! I love rearranging furniture, except the part of actually physically lug stuff around.. :)

This is not a very good colour representation, but I like how the whole image turned out :)

Anyway, I also got some knitting done today, got that edging with points tried. I'm surprised at how good it looks at the first try! Does that mean it is the second try that is going to go totally boink? Hope not, this will still be frogged, it's too large for the recipient I think..