34

I turned 34 this month. On my birthday we went to Rotterdam and after visit to (the playground) of Maritiem Museum we had coffee at the Bijenkorf, a fancy Dutch department store. I do have a thing for fancy department stores, they remind me of my grandmother. There was however another reason to go there - Jean Paul Gaultier was celebrating the opening of his exhibition in Kunsthal by signing books there. I read about it a day before in a Dutch textile blog that usually talks about embroidery and history of textile, and since we were anyhow going to Rotterdam I thought why not. I did not stand in line to get a book signed but I did get a glance of him. It was fun.

On Tuesday I headed back to Rotterdam to see the exhibition. I do not follow fashion or read fashion magazines, but Jean-Paul Gaultier is one designer who definitely has influenced me. I was eleven when Madonna had the Blond Ambition tour and I think I still could dance the Vogue. Jean Paul Gaultier was of course the designer who designed those corsets. The movie Fifth Element  is one of my favourites, I think it is just entertaining. Jean Paul designed the costumes for it.

I notice that lot of the audience were women that would have been my age around the time of the Blond Ambition tour. I'm very curious about what their connection to Jean Paul is. Do they just follow fashion and art in general, or do they also have memories from the back in the day? And in 20 years, is there anything that would stick with me from this time? I have really hard time to think of anything, I have no particular interest to any of the popstars and celebrities that are IT now.

Some of the work reminded me of what I have seen in blogs and got me thinking what a revolution this is. In 1989 Madonna sent Jean Paul a letter describing what she wanted. In the 1990 we only could get our inspiration from TV and magazines and only from people who got their work on TV and magazines. Now everybody can express themselves and share it with the rest. How amazing and wonderful! So maybe I don't know the latest hits but I do follow the grassroots and love it.

Double Dutch

I have had really slow start of the year what it comes to sewing, expect for one very exiting news: I'm part of a real life sewing group! And I kind of started it as well, although I must say I just really took the first step by contacting lovely Muriël from Hopfaldera and after that it has been a complete team effort. The group is called Double Dutch and you can find us on Flickr. We have met once and are planning our second meeting. 

The night before our meeting I kind of panicked about what would I do and came up with design using yellow, orange and pink. I have noticed that I don't like to work with too detailed plans, so below is my "pattern"

And here are some blocks I made during our meeting. So easy and fun to make, now I just should keep on going with this. And finish my blanket and couple of other things. Oh well, I will get there. At least I finally got around to blog and that makes me always feel better! 

2012 2013

2012

When I first started to think how 2012 has been nothing special came to my mind, only a big stack of unfinished projects. It felt like nothing worth mentioning had happened the whole year. After few days I luckily started to see everything more clearly. 

Going backwards the last six months or so has been a bit of a blur. As the baby got mobile and started to wake up during the nights it has been kind of hard. The whole house is a mess all the time and I'm constantly having too little sleep. Sometimes during the last six months it felt like everything is falling apart even though in reality it was only the laundry basket. This being my third time I knew what was coming and I know it is just a phase, but I still didn't manage it very well. Many people find the baby year the hardest but for me it is the age between 10 to 18 months. Nature is very wise though, at this very age they are also so damn cute! 

For two years now I have chosen a word of the year. For 2011 it was trust and for 2012 joy. At the beginning of the year I thought that I still was not done with trust and maybe not quite ready for joy, but it turn out to be exactly the right word for 2012. Noticing and feeling the little sparkles of joy scattered around the everyday mess.

2012:
* I started to read novels again

* I participated in a quilt show

* It was the last year for us having a baby in the house and the last time I ever be nurturing one

* I finished 4 quilts and one quilt top

* started some other projects that I love but are not quite finished yet and failed miserably with most of my knitting projects 

2013

My word for 2013 is confidence. I'm hope the year will be filled with creating, making, sharing and connecting. 

Happy New Year!

Thankful Ramblings

Since we are copying American holidays like Halloween, why not Thanksgiving? Sounds like such a positive holiday and it involves food - perfect! Here are some random thoughts I have been thinking about lately. Its the little things, right?

• I have finally found something to watch on TV! Since Gilmore Girls stopped, Grey's Anatomy got too dramatical for my taste and Oprah stopped (such a house wife cliché, isn't it:), I have not found anything to watch on TV and I have really missed having my own party for one in front of the TV. I do watch some series with my husband, which is nice, but I was longing for something for me. And now I found Parenthood and I like it, so yay! I have my weekly TV moment. 
• A big upside of adopting Halloween are the pumpkins. I love the look, the taste and the Dutch word for it - pompoen. Doesn't it sound funny? Our local store sells organic pumpkins which are super delicious and not too big. Yesterday I roasted a whole pumpkin in a oven and made pumpkin bread. Yummy!
• Thinking of pumpkin recipes, the first time I prepared pumpkin was when I lived in Sweden (I studied there) and Tina made it on her show. She is my favourite TV chef ever! 
• After experimenting with Twitter some years back and quickly visiting Pinterest, both mediums that did not work for me, I really like Instagram! I'm piecesoffab there. It is visual and delightfully imperfect full of shots of peoples everyday life. Celebration of the little things in life I would say:) 
• I found myself yelling to the kids (not that I would never yell to my kids...) "if you don't have anything nice to say then say nothing" when one of them was criticising other ones drawing. What a great advice for me too! Like something? Enjoy it. Don't like? Move on. This is a practice for me since I feel we are taught to think that being critical is being clever. Complaining and criticising is oh so very easy, but it does not really brighten up my day I must say.
• So I will try to focus on what I like and am thankful for, take some picture of it to remind myself and share them. Here is one  your:
• 

Have a lovely day!

This and That

Even though it still feels that I have not got anything done this autumn, there is some small progress. I almost done with a scarf for my son. It is the most basic thing that you can knit, just straight knit stitch. I have some more advanced projects in making but it has been hard to find time to work on those because I need to think when knitting unlike with this scarf. Also on both of my other projects I have made some mistakes and really dislike the idea that I have to unravel and correct them. I have a long history of not finishing knitting projects...

There it is in my little do-to-box

I have also been working on a Alabama Chanin skirt. It has been a very interesting process and I'm just so fascinated by Natalie's work. It is so simple but due to the level of detail also kind of complex. In her books she describes every single tool they use and it really does matter. For example I did not have the right kind of thread and now I finally found something similar that she uses and it really makes a difference. She does sell all materials and tools on her website which I think really is great concept. On it best the process has been almost a meditative experience and at its worst very frustrating, but the frustration usually kicks in when I try to rush things.

I also want to introduce you lazy gardeners two best friends, Jerusalem artichoke and mangold. The first one was gifted to me at the beginning of the summer. You can just pull them out at the beginning of the growing season and plant somewhere else. I had put them in a bucket of water, forget about them for a whole week, and finally in a hurry planted them in the corner of my kitchen garden. I was sure they will die, but no, they survived, had beautiful yellow flowers and produced enough for a big pan of soup! The mangold is a old favourite of mine, you just plant it and you can cut from it the whole summer (I just learned from wikipedia that when the tempature hits 85 F / 30 C the season is over. Lucky me, it didn't get even close to that here this summer).

Yellow Roses to Brighten up Your Day

Few weeks ago I got these amazing roses from my son who had bought them for me with little help from his father. Photographing is still not my strongest point so I did not quite catch on camera how amazing they where. Blogging really teach me new things about myself. I clearly have a thing for roses. Never though myself as a rose person but I keep on photographing them... They are amazing though. 

I'm sorry to say I have nothing else to show. Me and some portion of the kids have been sick the last weeks with only a little break in between. Nothing serious, just the usual stuff, but oh so exhausting and boring! I feel however super motivated to finish my voile quilt, would have been lovely to cuddle under it during the sick days. 

Getting Ready for the Cozy Season

Bright colours, dark evenings, knitting, drinking tea under a self made quilt. Autumn is here and I love it. On the top right corner is a collection of fabrics that I'm using to make a quilt for me. I already have started cutting and sewing and I'm a bit nervous about the whole project to tell the truth. One of the fabrics I use is missing from the picture but you can tell already that the colours don't match. One minute I'm convinced that it still works and then I'm second guessing again. I want to keep this quilt on our sofa, so I will be looking at it every day. Well, I will just keep calm and carry on and trust that I will love it in the end.

I also started knitting. First I got frustrated for not having the right kind of needles and yarn and then finally decided to get started with something super easy I could do now without having to hunt for new supplies. It will be a scarf for my almost 4-year old.

I have also been reading and finally added a new page to my blog with book recommendations. Always fun to see what people are reading, isn't it? I'm getting all commercial here and use affiliate links to Amazon, but I do love my Kindle... It was the easiest way to make it work so why not. Not really expecting to make any money out of it. And what about you, what are you reading? I would love to know!