Hubby cooks vegan

Hubby's weekly vegan cooking has lost its pace recently,

but he has cooked this lentil stew twice in May:

It's the thick lentil soup from "Peace Food".

(German recipe here)

The soup is one of Clara's favourites,

she eats bowl after bowl of it.

To fire up Hubby's vegan cooking again,

he wished for this book for his birthday:

The German edition of the Forks over Knives resipe book

The documentary about the positive impact of a plant-based diet is well worth watching, and now I am looking forward to all those new meals that will come out of this book (browsing through it was appetizing, and cooking without oils sounds adventurous too).

Little Pleasures

this week: 

sunshine

flowers

(and chocolate!)

from yoga students

knitting

and the Yarnharlot's long-awaited new book

Hubby cooks vegan

I got a totally unexpected Christmas gift from Hubby - a voucher for a vegan meal once a week for the whole year of 2014, cooked by him. Fittingly he not only got a sweater from me, but also wished for this cookbook here. I expected him to choose the receipts and me to do the cooking, what a surprise. All of his own accord he read Eating Animals, Peace Food and Anständig essen last year (I have never read these books). The man of spaghetti-and-pesto (and recently a very good vegan pizza) started the new year with a self-proclaimed 30 day vegan challenge. And I can benefit from it culinarily. Like last weekend - just imagine, the kitchen taken by Hubby, me in the living room resting and just occasional questions coming from the kitchen, where the vegetable broth or cumin are. Ta-dah!

Red lentil-coconut-curry

(German recipe here)

It looked really good and it also tasted very good. Subtle and sublime. Clara ate it, Carolina ate the rice and the rest of the four servings were finished off by Hubby and me. Just one thing I would change in the recipe -  I would take reduced-fat coconut milk, as I have noticed a certain intolerance lately to the full-fat version. But maybe it's just me.

As you can see, a new series on this blog is born. Stay tuned for more of Hubby's vegan culinary creations.

1.1. 2014

 2014 - I love that number!

And I also love New Year resolutions.

You might have already noticed in the top right corner of this blog, I am starting another 365 days project today - a year of daily decluttering. I have tried before in 2011 (here) and I am a lot better now at cleaning and house-keeping, but there is still too much stuff. We moved into our house 1,5 years ago and decluttered then and we did a flea market last year (here), but still stuff accumulates. Stuff, you have forgotten about, stuff you don't need and stuff that doesn't make you happy. This year I am serious and what helps me more to keep decluttering than blogging about it? Just the good feeling it gives me. So if you are interested in how decluttering is coming along, you are kindly invited to visit my blog:

http://365declutter.blogspot.com

Maybe you would even like to join me in this project and we can share experiences and be happy with less stuff in our lives.

Less clutter means also more space for creativity and fresh ideas. My inspirational book stack for things I would like to try in 2014 looks like this:

The other day I found this yarn graffiti at the door to a local bookstore:

 (Read again)

And of course!!!, there will be knitting and sewing. Last year I wanted to make socks and I managed to knit three pairs (here, here and here), each pair trying new techniques. 2014 I want to knit a pair of green socks, toe-up, on one long circular needle. I also will finish a green knitted spring dress from 2011 and and a white summer sweater from 2010.

The rest will be a surprise. I already love it.

Afternoon Drawing

With no school, no scheduled afternoon activities or play dates, it all comes down to books and pen and paper for Clara (who cares about the Christmas presents?). And when Carolina takes her afternoon nap, I am more than happy to join her.

We took this wonderful book for inspiration and started copying apples, trees, stars, owls, butterflies and feathers. Clara was quick in her sketching and looked over to my meticulous copying and said: "Yours is so beautiful. I like it more than mine." And I looked over to her drawings and said: "I like yours better." And I really do. She grasps the essence of a thing and draws her version. I just try to copy as exactly as I can. Honestly, I would like to draw like her.

That reminds of something that Pablo Picasso said: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

Vegan Progress

I was really amazed when I went to Oldenburg's main bookstore the other day. Just there to get a present (a pumpkin cookbook) for a friend's birthday, an unexpected vegan section caught my eye. No, catching my eye is too soft an expression... totally hit me... in a very pleasant way.

3 shelves of books about veganism and vegan cookbooks (one raw).

Shudder, shudder, and that's meat.

Not Bali, not Thailand, but...

In the Raw

May has seen me dabbling my culinary hands in the fresh waters of raw cuisine. So most of my creative energy went into learning the art of un-cooking - cutting and spiralizing vegetables, soaking nuts, blending smoothies and pestos. The results were diverse, from plain and filling to downright scrumptious (oh, the desserts!). But what I can say because I feel it: it gives you such a beautiful energy.

Read Knit Blog

This was a book given to me to read from a yoga student of mine. I had heard about the book (I have seen the German edition  lying around in the birthing home - of all places!-where I teach prenatal yoga classes) and had come across the regrets online. Australian songwriter and now-new mother Bronnie Ware interweaves the "regret chapters" with her personal story of breaking free. Reading the book I found it very positive and life-affirming and I think that the author's personal meditation and yoga background shines through in a lot of passages. And did I say that I love books written by vegans?

She doesn't knit or crochet in the book, but is already in the second sentence of the book "having a yarn" with a friend. And this is not the last aussie slang time in the book where she talks to a friend in this fiber-related way.

But I found one knitting grannie in the book, also right in the beginning. The first client in the book, an elderly English lady, would love her weekly routine where one appointment per day (doctor's, bingo, grocery shopping) would be enough "or it would ruin afternoon routine of rest and knitting".

I would love that afternoon routine... and sometimes manage a couple of minutes of it. So hopefully, those pink socks will come to their natural knitting end soon. No regrets. Just toes left.

Crochet & Rock 'n' Roll

After the rock star wife, the supergroupie, it was now time for Miss O'Dell, assistant and friend to the rock 'n' roll stars. Between jobs as an assistant working for the Beatles' Apple Corps in London and touring with the Rolling Stones across the US, while house sitting Eric Clapton's place Chris O'Dell "took up crocheting to pass the time".

A couple of months later in LA, with her new friend cocaine she would do this: "I spent hours sitting in the living room, listening to music, snorting a line, and crocheting. Crocheting! Is was an obsession - I snorted coke, crocheted, snorted more coke, crocheted a little faster. What started off as a scarf that I was making for my father for Christmas became a twin bedspead, and then a double bedspread, and finally a king-size bedspread. I just couldn't stop." That was back in 1971. But if you ask me, I know this "I just can't stop"-obsession very well, and it doesn't take any illegal substances to come this high/far.

2013 - I am not experiencing this obsession lately while (still) knitting those socks...

Pink Moments of the Week

... still with the groupies. Supergroupie Pamela Des Barres this week. I am especially interested in her chapters on motherhood, where I also found the occasional "weensy booties knitted like a pair of cowboy boots" at the baby shower and her "embroidering Tinker Bell on a tooth-fairy pillowcase" when she was pregnant. Motherhood changes everything, a lot at least. Like buying home magazines.

Speaking of baby booties:

A good friend from school has just had her third baby, a girl, and a pair of baby booties went via mail to them. Those purple-pink ones in the middle, they were actually the last survivors of the baby bootie party.

Current knitting involved picking up the pink 2-at-once-socks again, just to realize that I had to rip back a couple of holiday-made rounds. Never mind. And quite a challenge when you work with two long circular needles at 11pm. Frog 'n' Roll.

Knitting and Rock 'n' Roll

Not much knitting recently, but reading. Like Pattie Boyd's autobiography. The sixties model and former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton tells the story of her life and in-between all those exciting and heartbreaking tales, I also found two little passages about knitting:

"... and George gave me a knitting machine so I took knitting lessons. I had been inspired by Twiggy, who had also had one and could run off wonderful sweaters. I found it terribly difficult. I knitted George a Fair Isle one and that was it."

"Then Eric decreed that wives and girlfriends were banned from touring. We used private planes most of the time, and Jamie, the drummer's wife, got on one day and started knitting. Eric flipped. Knitting didn't go with rock 'n' roll..."

When Hubby saw the book lying on the couch the other day, he asked me: "Are you a groupie now?" Sure enough - but I am a fan of the yarnharlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Her blog and books are music to my ears. Or like Interweave Magazine (The Rolling Stone of Knitters) put it: "She has become something of an unwitting rock star in the world of knitting." Times have changed.

The Last of the Long Beanies

So far. So I think.

I made this beanie in my favourite colours. This time I had a choice. For the first beanies I just grabbed what was close to my colour preferences. Whatever was kind of pink and purple.

Like you see on the left, a beanie crocheted with myboshi yarn (I added two more light purple rows to the original version) and on the right the recent hat. Not the only difference - myboshi yarn is 70% plastic and 30% wool, the other yarn is Lana Grossa Superbingo - 100% wool. So much nicer to touch and to wear.

The new hat was also good training for crocheting the "right way". It took some concentration not to slip into my 30-year-old-wrong-way. See the difference?

Right way. Half double crochet stitches stand on 2 legs.

"Wrong" (???) way. One leg overlaps the other.

Shall I tell you the truth? I think, my old way looks better. In any case, I now know two ways to make slightly different looking crochet stitches. And on closer inspection of the myboshi book I found out that they crochet in both styles, too. See here:

I am in good company.

Carolina's Birthday Book

On Carolina's birthday table was one present "made my mama" - she probably couldn't care less right now, but it was important to me.

Making her book has kept me busy most of my November spare time, but it was a labour of love, enjoying stitching away when Carolina was having her afternoon naps and the daylight was still good.

It is a lot of felt appliqué on vintage fabric, with templates from the book Sew Liberated.

I used more pink than the original version in the book.

And designed a little free butterfly instead of the original aquarium fish.

Enjoy!

Mallorca Pants

Carolina's pants for catching the sun, feeling the waves and picking flowers are ready.

This is the front.

This is the back, with the addition of a cute yoke. The turquoise fabric is baby corduroy and the yellow is vintage cotton.

They are the Quick Change Trousers from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings, and they have been on my inner sewing list since I got the book (which is before I was even pregnant with Carolina). The pants came together quite smoothly over the course of three days, whenever I had some sewing time to spare (or just TOOK it). Carolina even played in the studio at some stages of the sewing process - which must have been an incentive for her, because she took her three first little steps in a row, when she tried to reach the bookshelf (which book did she pick? - Yoga for children).

So chances are high, that Carolina will make a couple more steps in her Mallorca Pants - we will take them on vacation with us and I hope to come back with beautiful photos of Carolina wearing them against the beautiful backdrop of the beautiful Mediterranean island.

Good for reducing luggage - the pants are reversible. What a star!

Carolina's Butterflies

Once I start sewing, I can't stop. Especially if it is easy, quick, useful and for the girls. Clara got her gym sack yesterday and as Carolina caught a little cold in this cooler weather now, she was in for some Mama-sewing today.



A baby hat and a baby bandana from Lotta Jansdotter's book Simple Sewing for Baby to keep Carolina warm (and the fluids at bay that come out of her nose and mouth at the moment). Carolina got a similar hat as a gift from Mama K. in January (blogged here) and wore this cute thing all through winter and spring and got a lot of tips of the hat for it. Her new mama version is a tad bigger, but also pink (of course).



And it has little butterflies.

Just a Bag

The beginning of school for Clara offers sewing opportunities for useful things. Sure, you could buy it, but what is better than sewing something that is really required.



Like a gym sack.
Matching her school bag. Yes, horses, fabric picked by the school girl herself. It is just a simple, easy-to-sew drawstring bag, I found an instruction in soulemama's book The Rhythm of Family. But it is something mama-made. In this new school world.

Yoga Fan

A Kundalini Yoga student of mine is moving with her family to Norway for the coming three years. For nearly the last three years she has come to first my prenatal classes, then Mama & baby yoga classes and has been one my most dedicated regular students. As I don't know what the Kundalini yoga scene in Stavanger looks like, I wanted to make her a little yoga gift. With some sewing involved.



I discovered the Kundalini Yoga Fan at the Yoga Festival in June. It is a great tool for putting together your own yoga practice, with dozens of wonderful yoga sets and meditations like Creative Energy Kriya, Meditation for Strong Nerves, Your Infinite Energy or Balancing the Depository System (which I taught in class last night). And it includes a mini-CD with mantra music. All arranged in a ready-to-take-anywhere-with-you-fan. I am a fan of the fan already - I got my own one too.



The fan is wrapped in a tea towel - that is, in a Fold and Tie Case, an idea by Maya Donenfeld (from maya*made) from her new book Reinvention, which I first saw on Betz White's blog (here) in May and wanted to try ever since. So easy (no cutting), yet so clever and practical.

Alt Godt, Sharon!

Lotta Rice, Lotta! Door. Stop.

You can argue, that you don't REALLY need a couch doll or yet another bag. Also, the Oldenburg phone book does its job in keeping that living room door open and protected from being slammed shut.



Yes, it does the job... BUT how does this look like? I got itchy fingers saying: doorstop, sew, doorstop. I even had a book with a doorstop pattern I liked already in my library - Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing. With just very little sewing time at hand, it was around midnight when everything was done and sleeping (girls, yoga, house, hubby) and I could cut the fabric and get started. I stopped halfway sewing the top to the sides, because it took some concentration to get the edges lined up and there also seemed to be some mistake with the seem allowance in my German edition of the book, which made it even more fiddly. Plus a baby waking up at 5.30 am.

And I needed rice. A lot of rice. To fill the doorstop. It said 5 pounds of rice or beans in the book. I got 6 pounds the other day. Figured out the edges. Filled the sack. And, guess what? The doorstop was nowhere near fullness (no picture to show that, too frustrated). OK, the pattern was right, the book clearly stated 5 pounds... I went online, and found out that I am not the only one who tried to feed this hungry doorstop with rice that could feed a family of five for a week. It was late, I had no more rice, but I didn't want a doorstep weighing 10 pounds anyway, it would stop the door for sure, but who could lift it day in and out? Maybe it would be easier to fill it with beans, with more volume weighing less (and costing more...).

So it was nearing midnight again, the girls were finally asleep and I opened the doorstop again, poured all its 6 pounds of rice out and remembered the leftover stuffing stuff from the couch doll. That stuffing went in first and took up nearly half of the space. And then in went the rice again.

It worked out.



Baby Carolina tested the stuffing this morning. 5.30 am.

This fabric seems to be prone to stones and other heavy weights, I made my Mama's Bag of Stones also from it last summer (blogged here).



If hard times ever strike, I know where I can find an emergency ration of rice. 12/21/2012 can come.

Book Stack

What I am currently reading :



"Homespun Style" by Selina Lake - for dreaming up our new home

"Expressive Photography by the Shutter Sisters" - for seeing and capturing pictures from the heart

"Yoga for Real Life" by Maya Fiennes - Star Kundalini Yoga teacher shares her life and gives some yoga advice amidst many beautiful pictures

"Alle sind erleuchtet" (All are enlightened) by Kristin Ruebesamen - well-written insights into the yoga scene by a German journalist and yoga teacher in New York, London, Berlin and India

"Kids" by Meredith F. Small - How biology and culture shape the way we raise young children - not as interesting as her book "Our babies, ourselves", but still makes you think and reflect

Geburt (Birth) by Birgit Baader - for empowering pregnant women in my prenatal yoga classes

"Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" and "Spiritual Midwifery" by Ina May Gaskin - known as the"world's most famous midwife" and laureate of the Right Livelihood Award 2011, she really knows something about natural birth. The black-and-white-hippy-photography and lifestyle on "The Farm" commune in the 70s just makes my day! And while I was not overly interested in reading books about pregnancy and birth while I was pregnant myself (except for Hypno-Birthing), I can't read enough of it now.

And oh wonder, still no knitting book... even though "Homespun Style" focuses a lot on handmade.

When we packed all my books for moving, my dear husband was kind of shocked at how many books I have acquired during the last two years... and remarked that the main part of moving is him getting my books from one place to the other. Thank you!
Even my Clara asked me yesterday, why do liked books so much? Soon she will know, I hope, school is starting in fall for her.