sunburst flower granny blanket

 Hey guys,

guess what - today I'm writing a post about crochet! Because I actually wanted to make a blog to post about all my crochet adventures. Well, there hasn't been that much crochet lately, so I took some time everyday to finally be able to show you something.

About a year ago I made this baby blanket for my lovely niece. After finishing it, I had a lot of colorful Baby Merino Yarn left, so I decided to start a Sunburst Flower Granny Square Baby Blanket. Wow. What a name!
(If you don't know how to crochet the SFGS - I used this pattern - it's in German though, but there are hundreds of good patterns to be found on the internet)
I tried to chose the colors random. I hat 8 colors and tried to even the use of it. After 16 squares I repeated the color sequences in the hope, that the blanket would not be tooo crazy and unruly. 

the first squares

I started in early January, when a big bad cold tied me to my couch and I had a lot of time to crochet. I put the project aside from time to time to pick it up again a few days or weeks later.
Today I finished the 48th square. I played around with it for a while, before deciding on the final layout.

48 squares done!

For the next step I'll crochet the squares together. I decided to use green yarn for that, as I am slowly running out of the white one. It's a colorful baby blanket. There can't be too much color in it.

trying out different ways to arrange them

Let's see how long this will take me. I'm hoping for a rainy and cold weekend so there will be a lot of crochet time for me.

first row is joined!

Looking for a name

Hey guys, 

During the Christmas holidays, we visited my sister in law and her amazing family in Salzburg. She is married and has three children, two boys, aged 7 and 8 and a little baby girl, who's just a little over seven months right now. 

One evening, we sat together after the kids went to bed and we talked about my crochet work. As I told you before, I'd like to make a little extra money with my crochet work. So I showed my sil the lalylala dolls that I made so far. She was thrilled by the looks of it and asked me, if I would make one for my little niece. 

When we talked about whether I should crochet the cute kangaroo or the even cuter little lamb, her husband interfered. He said, that all the dolls and puppets are way too cute and wasn't there something more masculin? Like...a dragon? 

Well thank god that I bought the pattern for Dirk the Dragon a while ago but never got around to try it out. And when I asked about the colors, my sister in law immediatly said: PINK! 

I guess, finally having a little girl after living with a husband and two sons for ten years makes you really girly. 

So I bought the yarn. 

And started to crochet. 

A few days later I had all parts ready. 

And when it snowed really bad this Saturday, and we decided to stay in and have a lazy day on the couch I started to sew all the parts together. 

Whenever I make a doll for a baby, I rather stitch the eyes on, than use plastic eyes so that there is no choking hazars. And with every doll I'm getting better and better. 

I'm nearly finished now and I can't wakt to visit my sister in law again to give little Lea her little dragon. 

Probably not the kind of dragon my brohter in law had in mind, but I hope, my lovely niece will like it as much as I do and she'll play with it and treasure it for a very long time. 

Now all I need is a new name. "Dirk" isn't really fitting for my little pink baby. So I need your help. If you would have any suggestion for my nameless dragon please let me know. I'm thankul for your help! 

Lush Cosmetics - A Random Act of Kindness

Do you know Lush Cosmetics? There are two Lush shops in Austria and I used to walk by one of them on my way to the university, when I was living in Vienna, some years ago. The smell that came out of the store was always very intense and though I liked the displays in their windows, I never went inside. My best friend gave me a Lush handcream some years ago for my birthday. I liked it and loved to use it but still - I never went into a Lush store.

Fast forward a few years. The same friend who gave me the handcream and I were talking about our hair and shampoo and soap and haircare. Typical girl talk. She said, that she uses the shampoo bars from Lush and that her hair is absolutely gorgeous since then. So I walked into a Lush store. And that's where a new addiction began.

It all started with a Shampoo Bar. The image of a solid shampoo made me curious and so I bought one. What I like about it, is that it last a veeery long time. Much longer than the shampoo that I bought in the drugstore. And it has all natural ingredience. The older I get, the more important it is for me to use cosmetics that has natural ingrediences and ideally no chemicals in it. And that's the whole concept of Lush! Aside from the shampoo (I just bought my second one) I already tried two different hair conditioners (I have really long hair so I need products to care for it and make it look shiny and healthy!), a body conditioner (kind of like a body lotion, but richer. perfect for me, as I have really dry skin), a body soap, lip balm and a hand and cuticle cream as my skin around my nails is always extremely dry. And I was amazed by every single one of these products.

Now the reason why I write this post:
Last week I went into a lush store again. I actually just wanted to buy a new bar of shampoo, though I already knew that I probably would buy some more. It's really hard to go into that kind of store and buy just the thing that you came for. A nice young lady came up to me and we talked a lot about my hair and my skin and she recommended some products for me. Aside from the shampoo I bought a new conditioner (I already used it in the shower. My hair smells amazing and it's really strong and shiny!), a lip balm and a body soap that's supposed to replace my shower gel. At the checkout, they always ask you if you want a sample of something. They give you that sample in a little black box. It's usually something liquid - a face mask or a body lotion or something like that.
I'm having some problems with my skin lately. It's oily, greasy and shiny and I have the occasional pimple and I have the feeling that it's getting worse. Before I went to the shop I had a look at the lush homepage and saw a facial soap called Coalface. It seemed perfect for my problematic skin. But I already spend more money than I wanted to, so I asked the girl if she could give me a piece of that soap as a sample. She said, she couldn't do that. But then she told me, that once a week, they were allowed to make a "Random Act of Kindness". If they like a customer, they can give them something for free. And that's what she did to me. She gave me a whole piece of the Coalface soap. It would normally cost around 10 euros. 

Now I don't get any money from Lush for typing this post. I'm sharing this with you because I love the philosophy of that company. No animal testing. No chemicals. Just natural ingrediences. Handmade. And best of all: No useless plastic packaging. Everything I bought today was just wrapped into a piece of paper. They try to use as little packaging as possible. If you buy a face mask or a shower gel, thr packaging is recycled and you can bring them back to the shops. I've been using Lush products for over a year now. My husband doesn't and I see how much plastic packaging and garbage he produces with his shampoo and shower gel. And it feels good, to help spare some useless plastic litter and do something good for the enviroment. Even if that means, that you have to spend a little more money. Believe me - it's worth it.

Now if you'll excuse me - I have to get back in the shower!

I finished something

It has been ages since I blogged the last time. Austria has suffered from a heatwave this past few weeks and my man and I have been on holiday. I've typed up the blogpost from our tour through the West of Austria, just need to add some pictures. I really plan to do this on the weekend to get back into the blogging world.

As for now I want to show you some pics that I snapped this morning before I left for work. I made myself a vest from dropsdesign. It's called Leona and I made it from Drops Paris yarn. Lovely yarn, lovely pattern. Not very complicated though I altered it a little bit. 

It was my third drops pattern and as the other two before I don't think it's suitable for crochet beginners, but if you have a little experience it's really quick and easy to manage.

I already began with my next vest, again a Drops Pattern. I'll keep you posted.

The Mario blanket - TA DAH!

Guys, you won't believe it, I actually FINISHED a piece of crochet! And not just any piece of crochet but by far the BIGGEST piece that I've ever made!
If you read this blog semi-regulary, you might have read about the Mario blanket once or twice. I started this blanket sometime in the summer, thinking (haha, how delusional!) that it might make a nice christmas present for my man, as he is a huge Super Mario Fan. So I only crocheted it, when he wasn't around. That lasted for about one or two weeks, then I realized, that I would never finish it that way. So I told him about it.

I saw a similar blanket somewhere on the internet, so the idea isn't clever or new at all. But I still liked it. So I ordered the yarn and started to crochet simple, dense, 5-round Granny Squares. Nothing special about them. Then I found the pattern for a crochet top, so I put the (rather dull, I have to admit) Granny Squares aside to make this. Then I started working on the blanket again. Then my mum saw my finished crochet top and demanded one for herself. So I put the work on the blanket aside, to make my mum her top. Then I worked on the blanket again. Then I started to work on snowflakes for the christmas market. Then I went back to the blanket. Then I...well, you see the pattern.

After New Year I told myself that I'm not allowed to work on anything else until I've finished that blanket. To be honest, it was rather tiring for me, to crochet all those same, simple squares in all those same, simple colors. But I gave up on one Granny Square blanket right when I started to crochet and I didn't want to fail again. So I worked and I worked and I worked.

I got some new yarn deliverd this week. Two packages: one contains fluffy Drops Baby Merino which will turned into a lovely baby blanket for my yet unborn niece/nephew. And the other package contains Drops Silk Alpaca Yarn. Probably the softest and most luxurious yarn that I ever bought. I'm going to turn this into a shawl to wear with my wedding dress on my wedding day which is less than two months away! So I had a really good motivation to finish the blanket.

And as you always have to see the bright side of life: Thank god I got knocked down by a nasty stomach flu this weekend, so I spend three days on my couch with the big blanket on my lap, darning in the ends (because I left them ALL until the end. Very clever, huh? That way I was so far along that I HAD to do them, no matter what. Whereas I would have probably thrown the pile of Grannies out of the window, if I did all those ends square by square. I guess I'm a tad masochistic in that way) and crocheted four loooooong rounds of edging onto the blanket.

But all the work paid off because....TA DAAAAH!

It's finished!

252 Granny Squares
Measures approximately 1,80 m x 1,40 m so it's very nice and cosy and big and snuggly

I don't know how much yarn I used, but I used an acrylic yarn (as the blanket would otherwise have been too expensive and probably also too heavy). One skein (50g) of that yarn made about 20 Granny Squares, so that should give you an idea.
I used a 3,5 mm hook.

Sorry for the bad photos but I finished it yesterday in the evening. And I'm never home in daylight (thanks to my work schedule) and I cannot wait until next weekend to take proper picture. I might take some additional proper pictures then to show the blanket in all its glory. But for now, these have to suffice.

Oh and just for the record:

NEVER AGAIN!

Drops love!

Do you know Drops Design? When I first started to crochet, I stumbled upon that site and decided to crochet myself a handbag. It went horribly wrong, as I chose the wrong yarn and made some other mistakes, but I learned a lot through that experience.

Anyway, every now and then I click on their page to see if they've got anything new. I made my first ever garment from a Drops Design.

Today I clicked on the drops page because I wanted to look for a nice shawl or shoulder piece that I could make myself for my wedding dress. And I was really pleasantly surprised when I saw, that they've got new designs online. I already bookmarked some of them, as I really fell in love with them and really NEED to have these items! ;) Have a look:

crochet top
 
This top was the first to catch my eye. I've been looking for a nice pattern for a while now! Isn't it gorgeous? I see myself wearing this over a bikini on our honeymoon in Mallorca...It's sooo pretty!

jacket
 
Perfect jacket for colder summer evenings. Everything looks so pretty in white though I might make every item in a different color.

crochet top with fan pattern
 
Again - a top. But one can't have too many of those in the summer!

top with lace pattern
 
Imagine sun tanned skin and nice little jeans shorts.

shoulder piece 
 
This might be nice for my wedding. Though I'm not sure about the back side...

crochet skirt 
 
interesting. At first sight I thought "no way" but it might again be a piece which looks good on the beach!

lace jacket 
 
pretty, pretty, pretty. No need to say more.

So in order to make all of these I just have to finish my Mario blanket, finish the Baby blanket for my sister in law, finish the lalylala doll that I promised my sister in law, finish all of my wedding preparations and probably resign from my job to have nearly enough time. But hey, you have to be ambitious!

What do you think about these new Drops design? Have you made something of a Drops pattern yourself? How did you like it? Do you use the Drops yarn?

handmade: Advent wreath

Hello lovely ladies and thanks for the nice comments about the christmas stall! 

The first weekend has been a success. At least that's what I'm told. As this stall is my man's project I'm actually not really involved with it. I just provided the decoration! ;) 

While he stood in the booth in the cold, I spend the weekend at home with my parents. Only 25 days until the premiere of our play this year!!! That's really soon! So we had two rehearsals on the weekend. Other than practicing my role as an arrogant carreer-driven fashion journalist (this is the opposite of me in SO many ways but that's what makes it all the more fun!) I used the time with my mum to make an advent wreath.

I always helped my mum making it and when I moved in with my man more than one year ago, I started to make my own. So this is the second wreath that I made all by myself and all for myself. It's now standing on the kitchen table, taking up the little space we have and making my home more christmassy and cosy.

I really love it, it makes me happy, everytime I look at it! 

Other than that I enjoy my evenings at home. The man works in the christmas stall so when I come home from work the appartment is empty. And can I be honest? I LOVE IT! Of course I miss my man and yes, I am happy to see him when he gets home, but I really cherish those two or three hours that I have every evening to myself! I come home and usually enjoy a long shower before I cuddle up on the couch with a crochet wip (currently the top for my mom. I REALLY need to finish that!), a cup of tea and some chocolate and watch ALL seasons of the Gilmore Girls again. I really love that series. My man isn't really a fan and IF he watches them he wants to watch in German as his english isn't that good. And I hate to watch the translated version. So I can watch it the way I want it, without anyone nagging next to me. Got to enjoy the little things in life! 

Christmas preparation

Ho ho ho, lovely readers.

Just one more month until Christmas! Time flies, actually, doesn't it? It has gotten quite calm around here, as I had a lot of work to do at my work. I had really long hours every day and wasn't really keen on sitting in front of the computer in the evenings when I've already been sitting in front of the screen for the last 10 hours at work.
But now everything is back to normal. The book fair is over. It was really great, to get a look behind the scene of such a fair. It's amazing how much work goes into organizing it. We have just two women at my company who are doing this. But they did an amazing job, it was the most successful Vienna book fair in its entire 7 year history and while I spend my days there, I just thought over and over again: what a great way, to earn a living! 

Now that I don't come home totally exhausted late in the evening, I also managed to get some things done! First of all, I started running again. I was really sloppy with it in the last few weeks. But now I'm back on track. Though I feel a little cold coming up on me, so again I have to take a step back. But I'm feeling better now and will hopefully be able to have my two weekly runs this week.

We started rehearsals for our amateur acting season. The premier will be on the 27th of December and we just received our final text this weekend. So in the next few weeks there will be a lot of rehearsals (we can only do those on weekends) and lots of text-learning. But it really is a very funny and great play and I'm SO looking forward to all those rehearsals as they always mean a lot of fun and laughter! 

And I managed to get some crafty stuff done as well! 
My man will have a christmas stall in December. I wont be there, as I have my normal 40 hour work, but I did some crochet and origami stuff for him. It will be a beautiful decoration for the stall (I will show you a picture, once it's done) and we also plan to sell the things. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get as much done as I wanted to. But I made a lot of crocheted snowflakes. I really like those! I made them just in plain white, but I also played with some colors. Red, purple, blue, green...everything that can be seen as "traditional" christmas colors.

these are my snowflakes - before and after blocking

And I made tons of origami stars for him. A while ago, I bought some beautiful Origami paper, but didn't exactly know what to make out of them. When I was searching for some inspiration on Pinterest I came across these lovely stars. They're fairly easy to make and I think they look really nice. You could make a garland out of it (that's what I plan to do for my home), or put them onto christmas cards, decorate your gifts with it, hang them on your christmas tree...there are endless possibilities! 

I wonder if the principle of the thousand origami cranes also works with stars??

I honestly have no idea, if anyone will actually buy any of this stuff. But I plan to donate everything I make from selling it to the Austrian Parkinson society. A member of my family was diagnosed with it this year and I think that people are more likely to buy something if they know that the profits of it will be donated for a good cause! 

These are all the handmae christmassy things that I made so far. A rather small list. I hope to get some more done in the next few weeks as I actually wanted to give my family handmade gifts this year. REALLY need to focus on that, there isn't that much time left. We'll see if my plan works out or if I'm going to get in a shopping panic shortly before christmas to get all my gifts in time! ;-)

What about you? Do you buy your gifts or do you make them yourselves? And If you give handmade things: what are you making for your beloved ones? I really need some inspiration! 

Have a nice week, everyone! 

Time is running

Oh boy, where did October go? Only 6 days left in this month. I can't believe how fast the time is running. A little too fast for my taste...

Work is crazy, as usual and therefore I didn't get as much things done this week as I hoped, but here's a quick, rather random update for you. 

First a little explanation: the company where I work is organizing the Vienna book fair. It starts in three week and that's the reason for the long hours. But it's really fun and I'm excited to be part of this huuuge and interesting project. 

I'm thinking about getting a book tattoo in my inner left upper arm (this will hurt so badly!!). It's still just a thought. I already have three tattoos and I always wanted to have a tattoo of my biggest passion! I will keep you posted on that. 

Last weekend we had the most gorgeous weather! It was sunny and warm and felt much like summer. When my man came home from work, he wanted to put his motorcycle helmet on the shelf in the hallway. The shelf came crashing down and we spent the weekend redesigning the hallway. We bought new furniture, built it, put it in the hallway, put all our things back in. It was a lot of work but we really like it now. It's cleaner and more organized and all those new drawers that we have now are really handy. I tried to make a picture for you but the hallway has no window so it's really dark. And it barely fits two people so it's really small and it was impossible. Sorry. 

We did manage to put our rollerskates on and make a trip to the lake, though. Would have been a shame not to enjoy the nice weather. 

With rearranging the hall we had a shoecase left over. And I immediately thought that this would be a nice yarn and craft supply storage. See, we have a really small appartment and until last week my yarn was put into tote bags and they were all over the place, which drove my man crazy! So, I now have my own little craft corner and I absolutely love it! 

I also baked Toffiffee muffins. Just little muffins with a Toffiffee (I hope you know these - little chocolate/caramel/hazelnut-treats. Those are so yummy!) centre. The chocolate and caramel melts when you put it in the oven ans it just tastes soooo good! Would you like the recipe for these? Really easy and quick to make and people always love them. 

And I managed to get a little crochet done. I made a few more christmas ornaments and experienced with different colors. But these will be put in another post. 

And I worked on Paul the toadstool! You can't see it in this picture, but he got hands! He's nearly finished and I feel that my first, proper ta-dah post will be coming soon! 

Isn't he lovely? My man already claimed him for himself and as soon as my mum saw him she ordered herself one lovely lalylala doll. 

Well, I have to go now. I'm invited to my aunts 50th birthday party today which means a family gathering (I love those, especially since my cousins are having babies which means I can cuddle those little boys all das long!) and lots and lots and LOTS of food! 

We'll be heading to London on Wednesday. As ir was a cheap flight we don't start in Vienna but in Salzburg. Which isn't that bad since my man's sister lives there with her husband and two sons (more children. Yay!) and we're going to visit her too. So there will be a lot to talk about and LOTS of pictures!

Have a nice weekend, lovelies! What are your plans? I'd love to hear!!

getting ready for Christmas

Wow. It's October, the weather is finally getting a little nicer and warmer again (we had 25 degrees yesterday. twenty-five!) and what did I do in this fine weather? Right, I came home from work, turned my laptop on and started to browse for patterns for crocheted snowflakes. Of course.

See, I will have the opportunity to sell some of my stuff at a christmas stall - without having to stand there everyday! I just have to make it and another person will sell it for my. Quite nice, isn't it? But the stall will open up in December and I just heard about it yesterday. So I racked my brain and hundreds of blogs for ideas and started to try out some stuff.

The crocheted owl keyring is my favorite, unfortunately it takes ages to make. The pattern isn't as easy as it looks. And I suck at sewing on the eyes. So I glued them. Pretty sad, actually. But no one will know. Hopefully.

The second is my first crocheted snowflake and I LOVE IT! It will look great hanging from the branch of a christmas tree and I bought tons of glitter (yay, glitter, one of the things that I love most about christmas time - that there is so much glitter!!) to sprinkle over them. AND they're pretty quick and easy to make. It took me about 15 minutes and I will get faster once I've memorised the pattern, which shouldn't take long as it's not that complicated.

And the last one should be a bauble. It turned out a little small and not as round as I had expected it but I will probably make more of them as they're also quick and easy and I think that they look very nice. And there are tons of possibilities with colors and different yarns.

BUT for now I stop making those christmas things. I bought a pattern. The very first pattern that I bought but I've been toying around with the idea of buying it for a while now! For some time I drool over the images of lalylala and the gorgeous amigurumi figures she makes. So when there was a sale at dawanda (which is something like the german etsy) I decided to buy three of her patterns. I chose Paul the toadstool, Lupo the lamb and Dirk the dragon. I will start with Paul.

And so I'm off to my local yarn store to buy all the supplies that I need for Paul. I probably won't sell him because I find him so cute that I will keep him. Or rather give it to my man as he demanded that he wants to have that lovely little mushroom. Do you understand now why I marry this guy? 


P.S.: The owl design is from here, the snowflake is from here and the bauble I found here.

Say hi to the granny square machine!

Hi, Hello, it's me, the woman who doesn't crochet anything but granny squares anymore! 

Honestly, I really like those squares. They are quick, they are versatile, you can make nearly ANYTHING out of them, they're easy to transport and you can make them without having to think. 

But boy, do they get annoying when there's nothing else! 

See, I promised my man that I would use up the amounts of wool that have been accumulting in our tiny appartment! And one BIG heap of wool is the one that I use for my Mario Blanket. Now I know that it is a gargantuan task to crochet 252 5-rounds granny squares in just 5 different colors. But I wanted to tackle it and so I'm working everyday on getting these squares done. I realised that I probably have to order more yarn and so I switched from crocheting them one by one and sewing them together to crocheting ALL the squares of one color to see how much yarn I have to order. And that's exactly what I did last week, starting with the dark blue. Only 20 more to go. And then the brown ones. And the reds. And the yellows. Peanuts. 

And if this wasn't enough I crocheted up some granny squares (one can never have enough of them!) for my hot water bottle cover at the crochet along. I was a little behind but I managed to catch up over the last days. I didn't really like it when I had first finished the squares but once they got sewn together and I had crocheted the white rounds I really started to find them pretty. I always fall for blue, it's my favourite color! 

Finally

Another blog post! Last week has been CRAZY! New job, new way to get there, new colleagues, new routine. Definitely something that will take some time to adjust - hence the quiet week! I really like my new job but boy, there's looots to learn! That doesn't leave me much time to be creative! Now that I commute by train rather than by car my commute takes up another hour of my day! That leaves me pretty exhausted in the evenings. This week I came home, fixed up something quick to eat, watched an episode of the Walking Dead (after Dexter the man and I were in need of something new. Veeery disgusting but at the same time really fascinating!) and then went to sleep. Most of the days I was out before ten pm! I hope this will get better over time! 

BUT I still managed to do some crocheting. And not just the odd granny square. Oh no. I finished something that I wanted to make for quite some time now! Be prepared, readers, for this is a world premiere (at least it's one for me!). Believe it or not, I, the writing/reading/crocheting Emma have mastered the art of following complex instructions to create something that is not just pretty to look at but at the same time very handy, cosy AND warm! I'm sure, your curiosity has reached its climax by now. I can imagine you, sitting before your screen, gnawing on your fingernails, heavily breathing while you mutter to yourself: "What is it? What could it be, that this genius of a woman has made for herself? WHAT. IS. IT???"

Alright, i can't keep the suspense and my own excitement any longer! 

Ladies and Gentleman - are there any gentlemen here anyway? Does anyone of the male gender read our ramblings about wool, yarn, colors and textures? If you're out there, reveal yourself! I love the thought of having male readers too! 

Anyway, I'm rambling. So here's what you've all been waiting for. Without further delay I present to you: 

My FIRST crocheted garment!!! How cool is that? I MADE THIS! Myself! I'm wearing it right now although it's WAY too hot for it. But I can't take it off anymore! I'm so excited! 

Now most of you have been there - done that! Making your own clothes is nothing special to you, I know that many of you do this all the time. But I have never done it and I am so proud of myself to have created something that I will actually wear outside in public. People will see me on the streets and I wont be embarrased! 

Now I haven't been able to take two pictures where the colors look alike. It's not red, nor pink. I would say it's a dark fuchsia. A mixture between purple or pink. 

I made it with Schachenmayer Catania, 100% cotton. It was already in my stash (as I have promised my man to get ridd of all that wool that is lying around our home) and I think I used about 6 balls, which equals about 300 grams. Now the instructions says that you would need about 400 to maka a size S, but I used a different yarn than they suggested so 6 balls were enough. I even have some of it left. 

It's the perfect top for a slightly chilly summer evening. You obviously have to wear something underneath it, if you don't want the world to know which bra you're wearing. The cotton makes it nice and warm and it feels really good and soft on your skin. 

Now, one last picture of me wearing it (the picture has not been altered. I snapped it on my phone - as you can see - and because I actually have to get ready for a party there really is no time to apply any fancy filters or even to crop out the chaos in my hall. Which doesn't deserve to be called a 'hall' because there isn't even room for two people there. Have I already mentioned that we live in a really, really small appartment?), please focus on my pretty top (and please tell me if and how you like it! My man won't answer any questions regarding my milestone top anymore. He runs out of the room if he sees me wearing it. Men. They simply don't understand. Except you, my anonymous male reader. I bet you get my excitement) and ignore any surroundings. 

I LOVE IT! :)

(Pretty clever how I blocked out my face with my phone, isn't it? Now go and tell me how pretty it looks)

Just another manic...Tuesday

Hello everyone. 

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend - I sure did! And I'm glad that I had enough time to refuel my batteries. I'm in the middle of changing jobs now. I resigned last week and will start my new work in August. So right now I get up waaaay to early, commute to current work (where I'm alone right now, because my co-worker is on holiday), stay there for nine hours, commute to the new work because they have to show me certain things before I can start and after another hour I commute back home - which takes about another hour. So there's not much going on in my life except working, learning, driving and trying (and failing, by the way) to get enough sleep. Red Bull and the coffee machine are my best friends right now and while I love, love, love coffee I absolutely hate all kinds of energy drinks. Two more weeks, then it's my turn to have some holidays. Can't wait! 

Anyway, besides lying in the grass and enjoying this view: 

(Which is by the way the beautiful lake where I live. Well, not really on the lakeside, but I can go there on my bike in about 15 minutes. Pretty nice, isn't it?) I actually managed to make a little creative project. My best friend is graduating from university next week and I made her a little card. 

I like it. And though I'm a liiiittle fed up with all those owls (how and when did this start, by the way? A few months ago no one cared about owls and now these little buggers are EVERYWHERE! You can't escape them. It's like a crafty version of Hitchcoks's birds!) I chose this design because the owl stands for wisdom and since she will soon have a Master's degree she's officially smart! Clever, eh? 

Summer's here...

...finally, and just in time for the long weekend (there's a holidy on monday in Austria). I'm not much of a winter person. In fact, I hate the sight of snow. It immediately ruins my day. I don't want to see it. I don't wan't to feel it. I don't want to have it anywhere near me. Same goes for temperatures under 20 degrees. There's a reason why I have a big sun-mandala tatooed on my back!

There won't be much crocheting going on because the weather is way too warm to have wool wrapped around my fingers and my man's familiy comes for a visit which will take up most of our weekend time. The only things that I plan for the next three days are lying in the sun, enjoy some reading and eat massive amounts of food. As the temperatures are predicted to top off the 30 degrees border, there will hopefully also be some jumping in water involved. Great things to look forward to!

But as I've learned from reading what feels like thousands of blog post entries, I know that posts are more appreciated if they are accompanied with some pictures. As none of you knows, my man and I just moved into a new appartment three months ago. It was my third move in two years and as you can imagine I was more than ready to have a steady home, some place, where I won't move out of in the foreseeable future. I think we found that place. It's a lovely, rather small appartment, but more than big enough for the two of us. And for the first time in many years I finally have the opportunity to DECORATE! What a coincidence, that I was reading a lot of great blogs at that time which gave me plenty of inspiration.

One of these inspirational ideas was found here. I was able to save the curtains I bought for our last appartment and take them with me to our new home. As I didn't really want to cut them off again (I had to do this before and let me tell you - I can count the times that I operated a sewing machine on my two hands -  I want to work on that though, I got a sewing machine for Christmas which is still untouched in it's original packaging! But more on that another time) I looked for another opportunity to make them look good. I loved Gillians idea to crochet curtain tie-backs. I chose the colors green and yellow as they dominate the kitchen where the curtains hang and also because they are featured in the curtain as well. I used Schachenmayr Catania, a 100% cotton yarn which I absolutely love. It's wonderful to work with and I love the way the cotton feels and looks. I found the pattern for the squares somewhere on the interent. I tried to trace it back so I can link it here but I'm somehow unable to find it anymore.

It was a very quick and easy and therefore also a very satisfying project. As I tend to do projects (i.e. blankets) that take a loooong time to finish, it was really nice to have something whipped up in a few days. And I love them! So glad that my man doesn't care that there is so much crochet around ("look at those nice colors", he said when he saw my lovely tie-backs). He actually loves the blanket I made for him in winter and refuses to let me use it. "Nope. My blanket. Go make your own." Best man in the world.

oh boy...

Here I am, writing my first ever blog post...I've been toying with the idea of setting up my own blog for a while now. It all started about a year ago, when I was looking for some crotchet tutorials. I've learned how to crochet back in school and wanted to start again. Ambitious as I am, I wanted to start with a blanket. Last weekend I've thrown away a full bag of granny squares. Ugly, deformed granny squares, made from a very ugly and cheap acrylic yarn. Since then I've improved a lot. I made two blankets, I just started my third and somehow it now felt right, to join this wonderful online community that I've been following passively for the last few months.

So - hello everyone! I'm Emma, nice to meet you!