I can do heaps of stuff in one weekend!

 We had a wedding - the third wedding  - the only one we had in Australia after we had two back home.

My mum helping with flower decorations

Purty with lace

Watching sporty people in the morning at Southbank before getting ready

The wedding was a very fun wash out! The weather was terrible. I spent most day in my hotel slippers. Who am I to wear my slippery heels when I can wear warm shlippery hotel slippers? We also had a final before-bed drink with our friends in a terrible Irish  pub at Southbank - I remember dancing to "Love Shack" in my dress and slippers and someone poured beer over me and I thought, that's the end of this dress then.

Stylish Wedding Shoes

The wedding excitement squeals are nothing compared to the amount of shrieking I did when I got my patterns back graded this morning. How pretty - how exciting - I love looking at them. I made them! Oh my goodness how exciting. I'm sure you won't think these photos of brown paper are that exciting but I do.

Yesterday I hungoverly popped into the Markit market at fed square to visit the lovely Ink and Spindle and lovely Harvest to have a wee chat. I forgot to take pictures but it was a nice and busy market.
And now I need to eat leftover chocolate wedding cake and enjoy the last days with my mum before she heads back home!

TA-DAAAA

I will be there! SELLING STUFF. Looking awkward. Bits of loo roll on my shoe. Chocolate on my face. No doubt about that.

I will be at a stall for past students organised by the Harvest ladies. I am sorry to go on about this but how enormously nice is that??? It's SO good for me because it means I can dip my 9.5 toes into the market water and see if I can handle it. Oh and if anyone likes my things. I do. Like it.

Harvest are the great givers backers. And what a year they've had too. I can't believe it. It's very inspirational *round of applause*. I will also be in charge of the student market. Obviously this thrills me. Because I do love a clip board and biro pens and crossing things and making lists. If you perchance happen to be available on the 18th of December please do come. It looks like an amazing line up of peeps. And food! And things for children! The full details are here!

I have been blind

EZ Knitting Patterns via Ravelry

via Ravelry

via Ravelry

via Ravelry

I have never heard about Elizabeth Zimmermann until yesterday. HOW? Years of pain and crying could have been avoided. Elizabeth Zimmermann, or EZ as she is know on amongst knitty types, was the only knitter to ever receive a full page obituary in the New York Times. And she totally deserved it because she pretty much revolutionized knitting. This woman could knit while riding on the back of her husbands motorcycle. She made knitting a whole heap easier and came up with clever ways to take the pain out of complicated patterns.

Her patterns are gorgeous. And all this time I had no idea. I don't know how that's even possible. And most of her designs are SEAMLESS. Do you know how much I hate joining pieces? I can't begin to explain how much I hate it. I once ran some sweater pieces through my overlocker because I couldn't bring myself to join them. That's how bad my aversion to joining seams is. I ordered the Knitter's Almanac today. I don't care it's summer I have some flexible, pain-free knitting to catch up on!

My Creative Space

Supposed to pick fabric colours. Scared.

So decided to make something from old wooly jumpers instead. 

Displacement activity of the crafty kind! 

More spaces chez Mrs K

Hej Pippi Langstrumpf

 

I love Astrid Lindgren. I may even be a bit obsessed with her. I love all her books and I know my favourites by heart. I read and reread them all the time when I was little. My top favourite is The Brothers Lionheart closely followed by Six Bullerby Children. I last read Brothers Lionheart a few years ago with a friend of mine at the Lake Garda in Italy. It was really fun, and easy to read after a few glasses of vino. I was convinced I was going to marry a Swedish boy named Lasse and move to a little red house when I first read Bullerby. I also wanted very badly to have long brown hair so I could braid it and I tried to convince my friends to call me Lisa too.

One of my favourite things about the books is the food. There are all these delicious sounding things on the table - cinnamon buns and meat parcels and meatballs and pickled herring and fresh yabbies and pineapple pudding.  There are also scary things like rolled sausages and blood pudding.

This year I've decided to host a Pippi Longstocking dinner with all those delicacies. Did you know that Pippi had a special pea that prevented people from growing up? All you had to do is eat this pea and say the magical word "Krumulus". I tried this but it didn't work. Maybe it did. I will serve special Krumulus peas for dinner for sure.

Here's a beautiful Swedish cooking blog, with amazing illustrations. Look how beautiful these are!

Here's a recipe for Kannelbullar, or cinnamon rolls Swedish-style!

Here's a recipe for Swedish meatballs! And Swedish Pineapple Cake!

Woo Hoo

I had a not so good day yesterday. Wonky seams, mishappen designs, ripped up patterns, no one to talk to, holed up in the sewing room, all in all not good. But the mail came and I love getting mail. A christmas pressie for my sister arrived from America via Etsy and my CUT arrived. God I love that magazine.  It's in German so it's only available there. It's FANTASTIC. This one has a whole lot of articles on knitting. There is a knitting bar in Berlin! Shall we start one in Melbourne?  It also has a pattern by Swedish designer sisters Minimarket which I shall make in the first available free time slot.

I have tried hiring someone to do a little bit of Wordpress coding via a new website called Freelancer.
I was very disheartened by the process. I felt like an evil corporation outsourcing something and I didn't get any bids on my job from Australia.  I think I'm not a good business woman. If you know anyone who can do Wordpress coding and lives in Aussieland please let me know!

Music On Toast

What a great video.

Busy Making Stuff

Wow I have been busy! Whenever I get a quiet moment I feel like blogging so I can recall the few productive moments I've had. I am getting a bit overwhelmed with the business side of things but trying to stay calm. I'm very excited - I will be at this market selling some things! Wow! There will no doubt be an extra special post about it before it happens.

Luckily there has been some time for a bit of this

And I made this - I haven't sewn anything for myself in ages so it felt nice! 

I been enjoying my new rug. And wearing my Birkies in the sun. 

Made some christmassy decorations with the hook! I crocheted this glued to the West Wing and half asleep but looking at it I think I can retrace my steps and work out what I did.

And working on a dress pattern - very exciting.

And we went to Bar Idda which I love and I really love their lemonade bottles too so I took it.

I always love reading what peeps have been up to on the weekend so if you'll excuse me I'll go sniff around my blog reader now before heading off to dinner!

Everyone's a winner!

Hey I got an award. Dee gave it to me!  It's pretty exciting for me - I never win anything. Not the lotto. And when I was 9 I wanted to win this bike at the local fair really badly and my best friend Julia won it instead.
Since then I have not won much. This may be connected to the fact that I just cannot be bothered to try very hard either. Also there is a German saying "win at love lose at gambling" and since I won the best husband in the lotto I suppose fair enough about the bike. But it was nice to be awarded a beautiful blogger award.

In keeping with the rules I hereby award the following 10 blogs with the Beautiful Blogger Award :

http://harvesttextilestudio.blogspot.com/
 - I'm a devoted fan. Where's my fan badge ladies. -
http://clutterpunk.blogspot.com/
- I love Gina! -
http://schorlemaedchen.blogspot.com/
- A lovely fellow expat -
http://ann-meer.blogspot.com/
- Full of inspiration -
http://rachelredlips.blogspot.com/
- Full of style -
http://lenacorwin-weetextile.blogspot.com/
- Full of small people textile design loveliness-
http://soozs.blogspot.com/
- So much advice. I read her entire blog in one afternoon and felt better about everything afterwards -
http://www.nicolekellmann.de/ 
- This is my favourite German blog -
http://blog.paperama.de/ 
- Paper! -
http://milchzentrale.blogspot.com/ 
- I like the images on here heaps -



I also need to tell you 10 things about me:

1. I don't like to drink milk
2. My favourite food is pasta
3. I am scared of horses
4. I am the only crafter in my immediate family so they all think I'm strange
5. My favourite craft is sewing. Or printing. And knitting.
6. I used to ride my unicycle to school when I was little
7. I also used to tap dance and was on a TV show once where I tapdanced and looked angry
8. I am clumsy and frequently visit the hospital with my injuries
9. My home town is Munich, Germany
10. I am a fan of vegemite and milo.

Tribe Home

I took my mum and auntie to Healesville today to look at some Koalabaeren. We stopped at the Harvest Cafe and also at Morris Brown, where I usually just touch everything and um and ah and then leave, but today I found a lovely screenprinted cotton rug in there that I had to buy. Isn't it lovely? It is so lovely. It was 55 shmollars. That's not bad right? Even for a brokeass lady. It's made by a company called Tribe Home. It was the last one available at Morris Brown but it's also available online here.

PS: We also stopped at the Healesville Sanctuary giftshop to purchase a platypus earring for my mum's friend. We have been looking all over Melbourne for such a platypus earring. It had to be a sterling silver dangling platypus. My mum finally found one in said gift shop, then lost the Platypus earring somewhere between the giftshop and the coffee shop. They are circa 10 metres apart. After carefully scanning the space, we couldn't find it. So I left my number with the Sanctuary staff. They rang just as we turned into Balaclava Road to tell us that they had found the Platypus earring. I guess I will be driving to Healesville tomorrow to pick it up. Amen. Also I need a drink. I hate gift shops. Except for the one at the Botanical Gardens in Melbourne.

cards

I made these collage cards from old scraps of paper - three in total - and I really love them.  I looked into having them printed but it seems that unless I go for the "chemical toxic cheap paper printed in China" option I can't get it done. So I tried to print one of the designs on the Gocco - and I have mixed feelings about the result. Not sure the collage translates properly when printed in black on white. And some of the print is clearly too small for the screen and gets messy when printed.  But maybe I like them a little bit? I printed these on "green" bamboo cardstock, which is actually quite lovely to print on. I am so in love with printing and I would do it all day long if I could.

I am also in love with this apartment.

Finally

I have been knitting this Debbie Bliss baby shrug for almost a year now. I can say with all honesty that this is the most confusing knitting pattern I've ever come across. I developed some deranged stubbornness about this one so I knitted and unravelled, knitted and unravelled, until I finally googled the pattern and came across many blog posts about it - most of the cries for help (satisfying to read that I'm not alone) and one that actually explained it in more detail. I'm not even sure I love the result that much. But I do love that hand dyed wool, it reminds me of the smurf ice-cream and blood orange ice-cream I used to eat as a child.

Enjoy your weekend!

What an exellently named Cafe

http://tinawesaluteyou.com

http://tinawesaluteyou.com

and I love the decor too. Sadly it's back in Dalston, England.

Been eyeing it for a while

... caved in today and bought it.

Wrapped Fox Tshirt by Dandyrions on Etsy

Listening to: Mr. Tabu Ley - he sounds like summer
Eating: Lindt Sea Salt chocolate... so very good!
Making: a cute christmas card project!
Learning: joining seams on my knitted baby shrug