... when I would shop like crazy, I bought this great pendant that arrived today along with two others. They are from Littleput Books and are too cute. They come in little unique tins and I think they will make wonderful (Christmas) gifts.
You should definately check out the Littleput Books Etsy Shop and while you're at it also the blog. (You'll find lots of great informations there on how to promote yourself at Etsy and other great things.)
My sewing machine will be gone until next Tuesday. I can't believe it. Why now?
I started to knit my first socks with the yarn from Fauveline. It's going really slowly. I don't know why. Maybe I'm not so happy with the color I chose after all, but "blackberry" sounded great and it looked good while on the skein. Maybe it's because I have to get used to knitting with four strands or maybe it's because right now I would much rather sew! There are so many things on my list. A very good friend of mine will have her baby soon and I promised to sew a "Nappy Bag". A friend of a friend asked me to sew a pillow for her little boy that he can take to kindergarden and I want to sew something for my "Vegan Pal".
Right, that's the good news. The matches for Vegan Pal 2 were made and I'm pretty sure I got two great pals. The one I'm sending my magic yarn ball to has a very nice blog and I believe we have a lot in common. I already have lots of ideas on what to choose for her. Too bad I can't say any more. My other pal, the one who will send me something, is obviously secret, but I got contacted by her and she seems so very thoughtful. It's gonna be great!
Today my beloved sewing machine decided that it needs a break - like it didn't have one for the last three weeks! I'm really angry with it now. I actually thought about replacing it with my cheapo-machine, but the two seemed to have made a deal. Perfect! Now that I would have some time I can't sew. I think I should give my machine the whole spa treatment while it's away from home and I wonder how much all of this will cost... Bye, bye I miss you already!
(And yes, I will knit instead, stupid you!)
When I was studying for my exams I bought a lot of things to reward myself. First of all some yarn in the most wonderful colors! (This is Debbie Bliss: Pure Cotton!)
And then some more yarn (Rowan: Bamboo Soft). I started to knit something with this right away. I figured that knitting would be much easier during my studying days because it doesn't mean as big of a mess as sewing usually does in our tiny house and it can be done while sitting on the couch without having to move an inch. Lazy me! 
I'm really much more into small projects when knitting. I once knit a pullover for myself. It took forever and I wasn't even happy with the result. This one experience was all I needed. No more of that. Gimme socks, scarfs, mittens, hats... or dish cloths!
Anyway, this time I fell for a pattern for a baby hat in this book (another reward-yourself-for-being-so-hard-working):
Lucinda Guy - "Originelle Strickideen" (ISBN 978-3332017960). The English title is "Handknits for Kids: 25 Original Designs for Boys and Girls (ISBN 978-1570763106). There are really lots of nice patterns in this book! I don't know why they changed the cover for the German version, because I think the English one looks a lot better and the pullover on the cover is one of the very few things I don't like, but hey, who cares.
Oh yeah! I must not forget: I bought even more yarn. This was definately a great purchase, because it's sock yarn. I finally found some vegan sock yarn. I really spent a lot of time looking for that over here and it's almost impossible, especially when you want nice colors and/or variegated yarn. I bought this on Ebay from Fauveline. It's a cotton/acrylics/viscose fiber-blend. I just started with the first pair, so I can't really say how good it actually is, but I have high hopes! (Btw: The pictured colorway is called "Rumtopf".)
Last but not least I bought this pendant along with three others from Madison Craft Studios after seeing one here at creative little daisy. There were so many beautiful designs to choose from I could hardly decide which ones to buy.
I can't show the other ones that I ended up buying, because they are supposed to be gifts.
Now comes the really strange part: My English exam was a text commentary and the title of the newspaper article was "Lessons in human buy-ology" by Vicki Haddock. The article was mainly saying that we buy too many things and we use shopping as sort of a very questionable "therapy". Can you tell that this is very true for me? Shopping does make me happy and I use it for lots of different reasons. It's definately time for me to think about the reasons why I buy things more often. So thank you Vicki, I learned my lessons. Oh, but I already bought some other things that I didn't receive yet (BEFORE I read the article!), so they don't count, right?
Guess what else I got and what was totally for free! The wonderful Riccarda nominated me! I am now officially a 
We all saw that coming, right? I mean it was just a matter of time...
No, for real: Thank you so much Riccarda. I feel very honored and I discovered my nomination at exactly the time when I needed it.
Edit: I just found Vicki Haddock's article here if you want to read it.
We were in Paris! As I said before it was amazing. Of course we had to "climb" the Eiffel Tower, but after three days of walking, walking and walking there was no way I would actually use the stairway.
Lots and lots of wonderful impressions. I already regret not taking even more pictures. Everything is so pretty! Three days were not nearly enough. The only thing I didn't like about Paris is that it is really hard to find restaurants that will have something vegan on the menu. Luckily we found a great vegetarian Indian restaurant the very first day and also some very nice falafel places.
Can you believe I didn't buy anything except for one skein of cotton/SeaCell? Me neither! No time for shopping at all, but I was more than fine with that.
Can you tell where we went by this picture? All I'll say right now is that it was great. We had a splendid time. When I got told where we'd go, I wasn't THAT exited. There would have been lots of places I would have rather gone, but now I must say Carsten chose the perfect city.
It's over! Both of the writtens exams are over. I'm really relieved. I believe the second one was better than the first, but of course I can't be sure. Now just six (!) more oral exams... but hey, those won't start before October. I am not going to worry about them right now, because Carsten is taking me on a little surprise trip over the weekend! He's really keeping it top secret so far. I have absolutely no clue. All I know is that it's going to be great - except maybe for the time of travelling: we'll leave tomorrow morning at 5:30 and return at a similar time. Grrr. He's says it can't be any other way.
A huge thank you goes out to Cass, Ellie, Johanna, Karin, Riccarda and Sofia. Your comments really made my day and since I've been very lucky with my two exams I thought I should share with you. I decided to change the rules of my giveway:
First of all the pick-out-of-a-bowl method was changed into the pick-out-of-a-teeny-tiny-cup-method. The result of the official drawing... made Ellie the winner of the named goods! Second change: the rest of you will also receive a heart in the mail as soon as you e-mail me your address (nicole[at]suessstoffmacher[dot]de)! Thanks again, you are the best!
Here's the deal: I have my final written exams coming up. I should be studying like crazy, but I'm not. Instead I spend way too much time on the internet checking out all those great crafting blogs, thinking about stuff I would like to make, thinking about what my next post could be about, worrying about the fact that I didn't do anything creative. So I decided that I need a blogging brake until the exams are over. That way I won't feel any pressure and will have way more time to study.
Since this here is my 50th post, I thought I could do a blog giveaway. It will contain one of my (cloves + cedar chips filled) little hearts, the most wonderful lip balm there is: Brew - tea time for your lips (Ginger Peach Tea Balm) from Crazy Rumors and a secret little something.
All you have to do to enter the drawing is leaving a comment and wishing me luck (I'm really desperate!!!). Once the second and final written exam is over I'll let my mom pick a winner by the pick-out-of-a-bowl-method. I'll let you know right away who the winner is. So check again on the 1st of September. See you then.
All of the time I wanted to take part in a swap and all of the time I was too late to sign up. Not anymore! This time I was there in time and I think that this swap is even more than perfect. I always worry if being a vegan will maybe make it too complicated for a swap partner. In this case the whole swap will be vegan! Crafting and veganism together - could it be any greater than this?!
There's still time to sign up for this swap and you don't have to be vegan to take part, so hurry over to Vegan Pal 2 and check it out!
Part of Vegan Pal 2 is a questionnaire. Here's mine:
Nothing much going on around here. I finished the wash cloth. I like it, but am not so pleased with the edges. Next one will be better.
Btw: I saw some very nice wash clothes over at the scent of water (a great blog I just discovered). They are made of an organic and FairTrade cotton. Someday I really need to check out if there is something similar available around here.
Last night I started another dish rag - except this time I think it's going to be a wash cloth. Instead of crocheting I felt more like knitting something. I think I could have used a smaller size of needles. For my feeling it's a bit loose, but therefore it's also very soft. The yarn is ONline, Linie 86, JUMP (color 35 - it doesn't really look like in the picture) - a cotton and synthetics mix.
The pattern is from this magazine:
Anna extra: Strickmuster (E805). I bought it in 2004 and I'm not sure if it is still available. It cost only € 3,50 and there are really lots and lots of patterns in it - about 210! A good investment I'd say.
No, don't worry! I'm not asking you to go out and hunt animals. Being a vegan I would never ever do that. Well, at least not with a gun. Maybe with a camera...
Right now I'm not hunting animals with my camera, right now I'm hunting books. Most of you probably know about BookCrossing. Back in 2003 I was all into it, but never caught a book. Four years later I still haven't, but I'm now thinking about tracking down those that are left in a geocache. Geocaching sounds like so much fun! I know close to nothing about it and actually I don't have time do research now, because I really need to be studying.
Hmmh, maybe I'll try just one time with our TomTom? I already got my friend Johanna exited about the idea as well (sort of). She usually is really into hunting mushrooms, but loves books too, so there you go.
Did you know that Germany is the second largest country to release books into the wild? Right after the US and before the UK! So, if I can't go hunting I will at least release a few.
So far I only released two books. One in 2003, which seemed to have disappeared (I hope it's still alive and sitting in someones bookshelf) and one yesterday. Three more are all ready to go, I just have to find good places for their release.
Oh, crafting... I crocheted a flower, but I can't find it and it's not that pretty anyway. You know: I really need to be studying! - Boy, I suck at studying!
I received an "invitation" to an exibition of the "Association Haandarbejdets Fremme" - a Danish association that promotes artistic needlecraft. The exibition will be in the Dansk Design Galerie in Worpswede (Germany) from the 13th of August to the 2nd of September. I will definately go there! They will show highlights of Gerda Bengtsson and Ellen Marie Rodil (my two most favorite counted cross stitch designers) and others.
I got two old copies of Gerda Bengtsson booklets, which I treasure and I'm lucky enough to also own two of the three calenders Ellen Marie Rodil designed for the Haandarbejdets Fremme. Unfortunately I don't have "The Year in Cross Stitch 2001" though I think that one was mostly vegetables and if that's the case I'm not too sad, because I prefer the flower designs.
I've made quite a few things from the calender of 2003 and I'm pretty sure that I will make everything from the calender of 2007. Everything is just so beautiful!
Most of the time I end up making table runners. The one below shows the design for February 2003 - Allium. I think it's the largest table runner I've made. 
It's 11 count linen and I did a hem stitch all the way around, which seemed to take forever, but in the end I knew it was worth it. Stitching the whole thing by hand made it look perfect. I truly love it. Unfortunately it never gets to be on the table for long, because my two cats love to lay on it and so it always gets wrinkled very quickly and lots of cat's hair doesn't really make it any prettier either!
I always use Danish Flower Thread when stitching. It's the most wonderful embroidery floss. I have all of the 102 shades available and just looking at them makes me happy.
I think it started way back when I saw some crocheted flowers at Charlotta's. I thought that they would look nice on a dress or maybe make a nice accessoire on some doll's clothes I was knitting at the time (I'll show those some other time). I didn't get started on them because the sewing fever got really bad around here and I couldn't think of anything else at that time. Then I saw the beautiful things over at Moonstitches and one thing led to another. My friend got a knitted dish-cloth as a present from a friend and I was like "How can someone make something so pretty for doing the dishes?!" Obviously I was missing a trend here! Yesterday I finally ended up on Emily's Yarn Miracle where I read about the Dish Rag Tag and I got really exited. As usual I was too late to sign up, but reading all these nice ideas and looking at lots of patterns for dish-clothes, checking out lots of other blogs, I all of a sudden just had to start crocheting. And so I did. It's not the right time for big projects, because I definately should be busy studying, but a little dish-cloth? The first one is finished and I think I wanna make some more... and crochted flowers are in the center of my attention again, too!
Though I was (sort of) really disappointed with the two tops I've made so far, I'm determined to find a way of making the necessary changes to the patterns so I'll have something that will work for me. (Thank you Jana for encouraging me!)
To get started I bought this book:
"SEW U - The Built by Wendy Guide to Making Your Own Wardrobe" by Wendy Mullin with Eviana Hartman (ISBN 0-8212-5740-4).
So far I only had a quick look at it, but I think it was a very good choice - even if it's just for the the fabulous ideas and tips you can find throughout the book (like for example making a scrap chain).
We'll see what happens...
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