Yes, done!

Christmas can come.

Pink Moment of the Week

... from my yoga students.

Thank you all.

For coming to my classes, also.

7

Seven girls, seventh birthday.

I think Clara had a fun one.

Angel Wings

Yesterday I showed you the paper angel wings

 made by a super-nice yoga student of mine.

She gave them to everybody in the class 

at our Christmas yoga party.

I could fly home on pink wings.

I am not the only one who likes them.

I have a sneaky little angel in the house.

Let's go flying!

Signs of Christmas coming

Clara paints a Christmas tree.

A little Christmas fairy dances around the house,

listening to "Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer" nonstop.

(those fairies seem to be a common sight this time of year,

see also last year here)

Hubby makes his first marzipan chocolates.

Christmas decoration.

Stars by Clara.

Tea-light holders and Angel Wings are gifts from my nice yoga students.

Pink Moment of the Week

... fabric on the floor in my studio.

But no time for cutting (yet).

Window Sewing

It is traditionally more Christmas-window-decoration-time in December, and I enjoy the zillions of lights at night a lot. But one storefront puts a special smile on my face, every time I walk by.

It is a tailor shop and even though the old sewing machines are permanent decoration, they look even more nostalgic in December twilight.

There are old Pfaff machines and Veritas and Singer.

But have you heard of Gritzner, Kayser or Phoenix?

Clara Knits a Hat

Now it is time to show you the first knitted hat Clara has ever made. She tried good old knitting before (easy!) and that knitted piece still looks kind of the same as in March. But Clara also comes to her school's afternoon craft class, where the children work with knitting looms (here) this season. She often seemed tired and bored and asked when class would be over, and would start a project here and there without too much interest. But yesterday:

A finished hat, yes!

And why not another pompom?

Yarn Graffiti

It is not a time when yarn graffiti grows around town right now, but still I found one little creature at the weekend.

Yes, I have seen flowers before here, here or here. And I have also seen mushrooms before here. But I haven't seen them together in one yarn graffiti and I haven't seen this name tag either:

Interesting, interesting ...

I have stopped counting, but over the course of the last 2,5 years I must have witnessed about six or seven different yarn graffiti styles around Oldenburg. What will grow next?

Pink Moment of the Week

How could I resist?

Potholders bought at a X-mas charity bazaar

Yes, Chocolate, please!

I am not a very big chocolate lover. But once in a while I do indulge. Especially in winter, when it is cold and dark outside, or stormy like yesterday afternoon. During my raw food experiments in summer I came across the idea of making your own chocolate (based on coconut oil), that didn't seem very complicated. When I recently discovered cocoa butter at an organic supermarket, I bought it for "later" (keeps in the fridge). Also for "later", I bought these silicon moulds for making chocolate:

(you can obviously also use baking paper on a tray as a substitute)

"Later"(after the cupcake party basically) had arrived yesterday. A quick search online for a basic vegan recipe (I liked this German site here) later, I got started. You only need 4 -5 ingredients:

- 60-70g cocoa butter

- 3 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder (or carob)

- 2 tablespoons sweetener of your choice (agave, maple syrup, confectioner's sugar)

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla pulp

- 1 pinch of salt

- optional: nuts of your choice

Take the cocoa butter ...

... and melt it at a low temperature in a pan. My first shock: chocolate consists mainly of fat! Where that soft melting sensation would come from otherwise, I had never thought about. Once over the shock, I made a cocoa-carob-mixture:

and mixed it with some maple syrup and vanilla drops:

Here comes the fat again!

Pour melted cocoa butter into chocolate-carob-mixture.

Mix again and pour into chocolate moulds.

After following all these steps - surprise, surprise, my chocolate mixture didn't look smooth and creamy, but crumbly and curdled:

The cocoa butter disintegrated and I was about to throw this first attempt in the bin, but decided to put in the fridge anyway. I don't know, what had caused the curdling, the carob, maple sirup, the vanilla drops or the combination of them. I made another mixture only with cocoa, agave instead of maple, and vanilla pulp instead of the drops.

All smooth now.

After 2-3 hours in the fridge the chocolate has hardened.

Let's taste it!

To our utter surprise we (Clara and me) liked the disintegrated chocolate more!

True artisan chocolate.

 chocolate-cocoa-buttery and melting-tasty, with some carob caramel-ness

Carolina asked for "meh' 'lade" (mo' 'late) and Hubby found it "addictive".

PS: Addictive? I am glad nobody saw me at 4.30 am on my way to the fridge ...

Windstorm, Chocolate and Knitting

While a windstorm is blowing outside, I'll keep things cozy by trying to make our own chocolate (more about it hopefully tomorrow) and cuddling up with some grey monster knitting on the couch (you know, I promised this here for Christmas). After last week's storm of events, a little slowing down of things is quite balancing. And I really need to catch up on that sweater.

Hot Needle

When you say in German, that "something was knitted with a hot needle", you mean that something was hastily cobbled together, be it a text, a law, or in my case -  how I sew lately. With only little sewing time (that I have to make time for by ignoring nearly everything and everyone around me) stitches need do come together fast.

I am a-dress-in-summer-and-a-tunic-and-leggings-in-winter-kind-of-gal. That's what works best for me and it makes transitioning between being a mama and a yoga teacher easy. While I have enough dresses in summer (really?), I found out recently (on my bike on the way to a yoga class) that I was short of tunics. In the search of comfortable and stylish patterns I discovered mamu-design online.

I ordered the pattern for tunic Carmen,  a multi-size paper pattern with basic sewing written instructions in German, English and Dutch.

"a feminine and romantic model, yet very comfortable..." it says on the website, it can be sewn with different neck openings, sleeve lenghts and front and back lengths.

I liked the variation with a shorter front ...

... and a longer back.

 More photos of this fun photo shooting with Hubby:

It was really a fassssssst and easy sew with a result I am proud of. When I wore it at Carolina's birthday party, my mother and a friend-in-sew even thought it was store-bought. The fabric is a pleasant lightweight knit. There is just one thing about the tunic:

Don't look at the stitches to closely - hot needle.

Pink Moment of the Week

You know that your husband is pinkified ...

... when he comes home and says:

"Darling, I bought us some nice towels."