Saturday 29 January 2011

Lots of stuff! :)

My life has really started moving now :) I got acceptance mail to a course on Economics on Thursday so now I've got the book and read the first chapter, it's sooo interesting! :) the course is only quite a short one but it's definitely better than nothing.. so far I haven't got a job.. Although I write a couple new applications every week :) sooner or later something will come.. in the meantime I'll continue with sewing and knitting and some other crafting :) I've started on a new mitten, the very first one got a bit too big so I had to draw a new, smaller, pattern for it.. goes a bit slow though as I try not to get sore fingers again.. so now the shawl is going even slower.. The mittens got higher priority again as they're going to Belgium and I'm meeting my friend who lives there in about 2 weeks.. hoping to be finished by then :) and then I've also promised to make her a skirt.. of a fabric we/she bought perhaps 4 years ago :P it's that Just-do-it.. :)
Anyone got a better idea for a name for go-get-it or just-do-it? I don't especially like using Nike's slogan and go-get-it doesn't feel exactly right ;)
I was swimming again yesterday, on my own :) swimming feels so very nice! And I feel so very good for doing something that is good for me too ;) So far I've been swimming 4 times in January, should be a 5th on Monday :) Then I'm planning to go twice a week in February, we'll see how that goes :) depends of course on my employment situation, it won't be as easy to go swimming if I work 8h a day.. but I might be enthusiastic enough by now to do it anyway :)

What else? Well, I realized yesterday that at some point I will be able to stop going to therapy! Might not be this year or the next, I don't know.. but I am really alive again! I get stuff done! I do stuff I like! I don't eat chocolate ALL the time! :P I'm planning to start plan dinners ahead.. sort of make a menu for the week and then (more or less) follow it :) that way I don't need to think about what to eat all the time and I can buy the weeks food in one go :) this week has otherwise been assigned to tasting different kinds of beans :) I haven't been such a big bean eater, mostly chick peas, so I thought I'd start. So far I've tried big white beans, borlotti beans, black beans and black-eyed peas :) still have some brown beans to try.. and then soy beans in their real bean form or mung beans are still to be bought.. kidney beans I already know and am not especially impressed by.. :)

Wednesday 26 January 2011

I just did it! :D

I just started today with cleaning, and cooking a lovely lunch and sewing and knitting and oh my! :) I'm actually a bit tired now from all running around :) vacuuming this place is quite the exercise!
Then I knitted some, the shawl looks something like this now:
Unblocked of course so it doesn't resemble the pattern very much :P and the colours are a bit off too.. but it's growing :)
I also finished my "first" curtain! wohoo! :) I usually just hang the fabric up without any sewing :P so getting this done was a huge step :) and it's looking great :) and I'm just proud of myself for 1. starting on it and 2. finishing it! :D
Yesterday evening the inspiration became too strong for me again so I made a heart, I love hearts of fabric :) or knitted/crocheted/whatever :) I'm not that much into hearts, but they're so easy to make in a lot of different colours.. :)
I need to make the next one with a bit more attention to detail.. but I was in a hurry before heading for bed :)

Tuesday 25 January 2011

Mostly knitting..

I've lost some of my GO somewhere.. but I've still managed to sit on the couch knitting :) so now the shawl I'm knitting for a friend is half of it's length (154st of 309), but still a lot left of the width (row 50something of 160).. :)
This is what I'm striving to do, photo courtesy of mwaa
It will be interesting to see how mine will look when ready.. :) and it's going to be three colours, dark brown, sky blue, light brown and sky blue :) I'm not sure if this shawl really will be at it's best as multicoloured.. but that's the way I want to do it :)

Thursday 20 January 2011

More sewing :)

I seem to have developed a passionate relationship with my sewing machine this week ;) another purse done for my sis and finally finished the embroidery on my nieces fleece muffler :) I did the embroidery by hand, not the easiest thing to do.. but so fun! :)
She ordered green or brownish so what better then to do a green with brown decoration :) I need to get more ribbons, so nice and easy to use them for decorating :) This one is closed with velcro and has a lining of simple white..

My trusty bear modeling my niece's muffler, it's a tad too big on him :P it's probably quite big on L too, but it's got velcro in the back for fastening and it's sewn in a way so it should be usable for quite a long time :) that little red dot is the apple I embroidered on it :) could've been bigger, but that's for another time.. :)
So, what next? I've been knitting on the mittens and they're coming along nicely :) And tomorrow I'll be going to one of those lovely yarn stores and get some yarn to use for a Christmas present! Yes, Christmas present ;) I was smart enough to give a gift certificate to my friend A for a home-knitted shawl :) and now it's time to start on it. I've been looking through ravelry for patterns and I found a whole lot that I like ;) I've chosen one, that I just hope isn't going to be too hard for my beginner-skills.. I'll report when I've started and know how it's going :)
I also want to do something of all the lovely fabrics I've got and that I already have, maybe some bags coming next.. and then I'm going to order name-tags, that you can sew onto clothes, although I'm going to have a penguin and of course "Pingevin" on them and use them on my products :) just have to decide if they should be any special colour.. hmmmmm :D
That's about it for today, tomorrow is another lovely day! :)

Wednesday 19 January 2011

more purses!

I finished a purse for a friend today :) turned out quite ok, although I'm going to do some things a little different next time.. now I had to do a little bit more sewing by hand than I'd like to..
Done! I had to sew the whole ribbon on by hand.. next time I'm going to sew it on before I sew the whole thing closed :)
Two compartments so you can find stuff a little bit more easily :)


A small flower.. with a handmade button of polymer clay :)
I've been doing some knitting too, started on my first pair of mittens :) Green and gray ones with the selbu pattern, for a friend :) so far it's going surprisingly well!
Perhaps 1/3 done.. of the first mitten :P

Monday 17 January 2011

slooooow

I've been feeling kind of slow the last days.. or week(s).. I guess life just feels slower sometimes..
I sewed a kind of purse for my sister, started yesterday and finished today, yey! :) she needs more of them so I have stuff I can do :P I'm just slow in getting my ass dragged anywhere..
I know it's blurry, but I couldn't get it sharp.. no daylight to talk of today.. just grey and foggy.
Saturday was cold, but wonderful, sun all day! :) And I was awake when the sun rose and showed all it's beauty in a lovely sunrise :) It doesn't rise until after 9am so it's not much of a feat, but still :)
Just looking at the sky it looks like it could be spring or something! :)

The sky is on fire :)

Thursday 13 January 2011

Book sale :)


I went to the book sale and found a couple of nice books :) surprisingly I bought only 6! And apparently all in English :)
- A huge book about Castles, I have to get inspiration for the one I'm going to live in when I've become a millionaire or married one :P Castles just fascinate me.
- Two books on knitting: the Sock Knitter's workshop and the Knitter's Stitch collection, both will be very useful to find information in.. how to turn a heel or different toes and then all the million different stitches there are! :) As I usually let my creativity fly on it's own it's good to have a bit more knowledge of how to do different things :)
- A book on Origami with both some history, basic folding and a lot of models :) I've already tried out two, pic later in the post :)
- An Old Captivity by Nevile Shute. I've been looking for this book for many many years, I read it as a teenager but for some reason the title never registered and I wasn't even 100% sure about the author! Looking forward to reading it again :)
- In Defence of Food by Michael Pollan. I can't say very much about it yet as I haven't read it :) But the author seems to be against diets and fads and that's enough for me to want to read it :)

First butterfly and (peace) dove :) I'm thinking of maybe hanging peace doves in my tree next Christmas.. :) I prefer it to angels..

Wednesday 12 January 2011

Books.. :)

Tomorrow the book sale starts here, yey! :) I'm actually planning to drive to town tomorrow :P not going to drag all the books I know I'll find home from the bus or train :)
I've been thinking for some years that I want to catalogue all the books I have.. Title, author and so on.. well, I recently told friend S about it and now suddenly I've started! :) S is one of those who gets stuff done at once and I think some of it might be rubbing off on me :P
I decided to just do an easy excel table and add books as I read them. Yes, it will take forever and a half but if I feel I'm in a hurry at some point I can do more at one go :) but I've started! :D
I'll tell you more tomorrow about what books I found :)
Just a pic of the cute penguin stuff I found when I was shopping on Monday, and some flowers to adorn my hair :)

Saturday 8 January 2011

Christmas is over..

I threw out my tree today! I realized it was felling needles a little all the time.. some of the ornaments had even started to drop out of it :P *sigh* Christmas is officially over for this time.. although I still have a lot of the lights and my little Gingerbread village :)
After throwing, yes, really throwing, the tree my apartment looked like it had been ravaged by a green haired monster, shedding hair everywhere :D I swept up most of it but will have to use the vacuum too. And I'll probably find needles until next Christmas :)
Still, I'm glad it's over.. now I don't have to decide about that anymore :) just clean everything away.. all the ornaments too.. ugh.. Until next "year", time that is :)

Hihi, I just found some needles in the pockets of my sweater :P

Wednesday 5 January 2011

FO (Finished Objects)

YES! I have finished the fluffy muffler AND dads wrist warmers! So now I'm all out of ongoing knitting projects, oh no! Although I have a couple ideas to start on next :P
It's really warm I can tell you! at least indoors :P
looks almost stylish worn like this too :) but doesn't exactly keep your neck warm.. :)
I just baked a bread too, very much an experiment.. :) I used sourdough and then I just added flour, yeast, water, salt, and syrup in what felt like appropriate quantities ;) I am a bit curious how it will taste, I think it has cooled enough sort of now :)

NEWSFLASH! The bread was absolutely fantastic! I impressed myself! And when it comes to baking that is definitely not an easy thing to do! :) I need to bake bread like this more often.. sourdough is lovely to use too :)


Monday 3 January 2011

Knitting

I have been knitting, almost every day! :) I managed to finish one wrist warmer for dad before Christmas, but it was still way too big although the thumb was much better :) so I decided to knit from the beginning, again, and smaller :) I have almost finished those, just the last bit of rib on the thumbs left to knit :) I'll see dad on Thursday so I'm going to get them ready until then :)
another UFO is the fluffy muffler.. not much left but it has to be done.. :) but tomorrow I'll be sitting in a train almost 3h so I'll have lots of time to knit :) might even finish it, that would be nice! :)
I am so much looking forward to starting on something new! I want to knit something for myself for once and then I want to knit my first sweater.. for my old Snoopy :P
Forgot to write that the camo sweat suit he's wearing was made by mom, by my "orders" :) but I don't remember how old I was then..
 I did finish one UFO today, FO now ;) the flower socks that I first finished already in November! but now they are all done and waiting to get to their owner tomorrow :)

Sunday 2 January 2011

2011

A new year, new possibilities :) actually I believe there's new possibilities every second.. :)
Today has been a tired day, but still I've got quite a lot done :) I've almost finished dads wrist warmers (Christmas gift, version 3 was finally acceptable to me) and I started to re-knit the foot on the flower socks I otherwise had finished in November :P and I got the leaking tube for the dishwasher unscrewed, but then I haven't yet found the sealing tape so it's just waiting now.. I also went for a walk this morning as I felt like I was just falling asleep on the couch all the time.. :) almost an hour and now I know how to walk to another bus stop :D if I ever need to get off or on there instead.. it's always good to know these things in advance :) especially if I have to use that stop in the dark.. I don't think there were any street lights on the way, most of it was like a broad walkway through the woods :) very beautiful though :)
Other than that I've just mostly read today, and tried to stay awake.. I really hope I'm not getting sick again, my stomach has been "rumbling" some today :P
So far though, I like this year ;)