Crafty goes Arty

As of late my crafty studio has turned into an arty junk room with all surfaces and even the floor being cluttered. The only place where I could paint was this here:

Clara said the other day, that we need to build an extra little house for me where I can paint or that I could use the garage. Hubby, practical as he is, suggested clearing this desk:

Said, done.

I wouldn't have thought how much fun the girls had rearranging all my materials - paints, papers, brushes, inks, washi-tape. So it didn't take long before this inviting space appeared:

Like a breath of fresh spring air.

Pink Moment of the Week

... how I decluttered my pink clothes here.

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.

Home 2012

Instead of spring cleaning...



Spring packing!
While I could part with my sewing books for a while, I still need my knitting/crochet books near to me, just like an extension of self.

Silence before the Storm

All is very quiet around here, just in case you were wondering.



I am going to my sewing class to make some more dresses for the girlies.



... trying to destash (or more correctly to reorganize and restash), but couldn't throw any yarn away - is that a sign of approaching labour?

... trying not to start any new knitting projects, but stick to the Babette Blanket and the Traveling Companions (I have the idea that any too exciting new projects might get in the way of labour and distract me too much or just imagine making a mistake and having to rip it out shortly before birth, too unsettling)



... but allowing inspiration



... and dreaming of flowers and butterflies for a little change and distraction from endless rows of garter stitch and weaving in ends



... couching, resting and nesting

Vintage Weekend

Lots of family fun and loads of fabrics this weekend.
(This is going to be a long post.)

To make space for all the new stuff that was about to come into our house I eventually found the time to do something that had been on my list for a while - declutter our wardrobes in Clara's room. I took radical measures - empty all the contents of the closet.



So much more fun with the help of two lovely ladies.




And my parents' she-dog.
(the men were watching sports in the living room)

Before:





And after:





Very proud.

The thrifting could start!



Clothes from a church sale on Saturday (remind me of Clara's Clothes...).

A couple of weeks ago in my chatter from the sewing box I kind of asked the blogging universum for a knitting basket. I got an answer from a basket that had been in an attic for twenty years (my parents').



A knitting bag full of vintage fabrics from the Eighties from the East (Soviet Union, bought by my mama) and the West (Western Germany,
I had a grandaunt who was a textile designer, the basket is also a one of her gifts).

And then my grandaunt Ilse, who was also very well-traveled, went to the Soviet Union and bought these tunics (the left one is hand embroidered with cross stitch).



Those tunics were only available in hard currency shops called "Beryoska"("little birch").

Filled with these fabulous fabrics I thought I was pretty immune to the big Dutch fabric market (more about it in this post) that comes to Oldenburg twice a year.










Pretty immune.

PS: A new entrant to the Doll Couch. For weeks and weeks I have been hearing a certain b-word over and over from Clara. So I said: if Barbie, then thrifted.


befitting her rank on the vintage chaise longue

Knit or Clean

I knit less since I clean more...

Back to Reality

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." William Morris (British designer)

The stuff is sorted out (so proud, and I even enjoyed it, I think you can train your decluttering and cleaning muscles) and just in time a new book arrived yesterday with the "amazon man" (that is what my husband calls him, he suspects us to have an affair, considering how often he stops by with presents for me...):



Organized Simplicity - The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living
(I seem to need a book or two for everything that interests me at a given moment - this blog already starts looking like a review...) by Tsh Oxenreider. I just discovered her blog simplemom a couple of days ago and started browsing the book last night. Having been a chaos-cat for most of my life this is new and very surprising direction for me.

Together with the challenges of back-to-the-yoga-mat-teaching,
a four-year-old who recently doesn't want to go kindergarten at all and my intention to remain sane, the prescription for tonight is - my own personal Knit Night! Results coming soon.

PS: Now I understand why yesterday was such a powerful and unusual day (if you are not a kundalini yogi don't be estranged by the turban and the mantras in the beginning, this woman really knows her numerology)!

PPS: I don't usually wear a turban.

Organisational Freak

This:


(stuff from my desk, from actually under my desk and all my daughter's drawings and artwork from the last months)

needs to get into this:



or it will eventually land here:

The Hanging on the Wall

New Year's resolution number one is a (relatively) clean home with less clutter. As it is written in the book Simplify your life (it is a German book with an English title, I have never read it but a friend told me about it), the best place to start with is your desk. Or above your desk, in my case.
Last year I made those wall pockets, inspired by the wall pockets in here and in here.



This weekend we finally got around to drill the holes in the wall for the hooks to hold the bamboo stick. I am very much pleased with the result!

I bought the linen on a special market this fall - Stoffmarkt Holland. It it is a Dutch open air fabric market touring through Germany offering loads of fabrics and lots of bargains.

What I especially like - the Japanese look of it, with the Japanese girls and flowers on the ribbon.





So after all this cleaning and organising, let's sit back and relax with a well-deserved cup of delicious japanese genmaicha tea and some japanese yarn for knitting and - just enjoy Sunday afternoon.



Today is the last day of my holiday - tomorrow I am back on the yoga mat teaching.

A Clean Start

New Year resolutions... if any,
(1) I would like my house to be in more or less order. Always a challenge with a crafty and self-employed mama and an also very crafty, energetic and lovely four-year-old, who likes to draw, paint and play with glue ALL THE TIME (mama, why do we have to clean at all, we can play all day?). BIG thanks to the down-to-earth man in the house, who keeps things real and is the best and efficient cleaner ever. Nice & clean New Year!

Last year brought a lot of new and exciting things into our house.

a sewing machine



lots and lots of wonderful books about knitting, crochet, sewing and embroidery

knitting tools galore





a serger, which was my christmas gift to myself

and a lot of wool and fabric in the chest of drawers underneath



These gadgets are fantastic and I am so happy to have and use them, but I want to get rid of all the clutter in the house, nobody will miss when it is gone. Less is more (craft books not included..), how true is that.

I have this picture of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi in my house. I bought it in Rishikesh / Northern India during my Kundalini Yoga Teacher Training in 2008. Lakshmi is known as the goddess of prosperity. But not the sheer abundance of only money, but the divine power within that gives you contentment no matter how the circumstances are. And from that inner feeling happiness, satisfaction and success can radiate into the world and come into your life. Very beautiful.



Money must flow and to remind me of that and a lot of other benefits,
resolution (2): drink a lot of water

Magic number (3): finish my longest sitting UFO - the babette meditation blanket

PS: My Kundalini Yoga Guru Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa from L.A. wears what looks like a hand knitted sweater in her New Year's Message - that surely is a good sign.