twenty12

1 loved am I (which is not an accomplishment, just an realisation)

2 created many things with craft paper

3 finishing speech therapy

4 finally bought myself a real new bike, whoho

5 biking from riga to talinn 

6 spending many days in capital, as a result of

8 being asked and voted for being on board of an ngo

9 which is again a thing of overcoming my fears

10 resulting also in me figuring it´s well possible to go by train somewhere for 6 hours, work 6 hours there and go by train back for 6 hours in one day

11 supported my mom walking her way

12 media: "polizeiruf 110 rostock" + "heute-show" = favourites

13 dOKUMENTA 13 in kassel, I was there, ha 

14 food: the combination of fried small paprika, oregano and mozzarella has been addictive

15 fresh and raw ginger honey lemon tea, all the time

16 schneeschuhwandern for the first time

17 finally installed something like a closet into my room

18 invested in real linen, such a good sleeper

19 helped (a little) building a house using straw 

20 still living in a WG since 10 years!

post noel 2

christmas is
when we are full of gluttony
and hardly can move after we´ve eaten so much
then we sleep all pain away

christmas is
having to spend hours with the tribe
being exposed to stupid, racist and negative talking
and no room to escape

christmas is
when our gifts show
how little we know each other

christmas is
the overvisible gender gap
females working in kitchens
male dominant talking

christmas is
children being overexposed towards
too many, too loud, too plastic, too expensive, too blinky
fu**ing annoying toys

christmas is also
loving mum
cool ever growing kiddos
meeting with friends
soul balsam

christmas is also
seeing the herrnhut star in my region
outside the houses
like the star of bethlehem
like a symbol: every house can be a barn

christmas is also
when we
suddenly
in our conversations
find words for the violence in our families
start to draw healthy boundaries
and hear stories of reconciliation

post noel

having too much stuff is one thing I don´t like

buying so much stuff is also something I don´t like

but I still like giving gifts and also getting thoughtful gifts

to not totally get overwhelmed with this whole crazy christmas thing I gave myself some rules to work with:

1. no clutter: a gift needs to be consumable/used in daily life (food, creative supplies, massage ...)

2. wrap with things I have on hand

3. it has to be beautiful (of course in my personal view)

For some friends I made small gifts this year buying some sticky notes and note books.

Developed some patterns and stitched directly on the notebook or on cardbord which I fixed with a textile glue band onto the sticky notes.

Wrapping:
paper bag from zara (inside brown, outside dark blue) and some filling paper from an online-order

Floral stamps and a triangle potato stamp for decoration

no glue,  just sew

paper stripe rings with simple writing and stiching thread for fixing

made some paper stars and clay ornaments for decoration

clay name tags: clay cut into pieces, and names stamped into the clay. after drying, some black color was painted onto the tags and washed off again, so the colour just stays in the stamped letters.

crocheted clock

In my office the clock was broken. Not the actual mechanics, just the outside. I thought of creating something clockface my own. From my grandma I inherited this crocheting patterns from the "Verlag für die Frau", made in GDR. There was this 12 -corner-doily-pattern. Perfect. It took me quite some time. Mine is not perfect. I sew it onto a piece of cardboard. It functions. juhu.

oven+winter+salad

ha!

pumkin in pieces, grapes, cherry-tomatoes
==> drizzled with olive oil, herbs and sea salt
==> baked in the oven
served with potato crisps, rapunzel and ricotta.

autumn food

One of my favourite autumn food is hokaido-gnocci.
This recipe needs a little love and has been developed at home.

Need:
1 hokaido-pumpkin
flour
3 eggs
salted butter
salt
pepper
salvia leaves
parmesan cheese

Make:
1. Wash pumpkin, cut  in half and take out seeds with a spoon.
2. Make holes in outer side of pumkin with fork and put the whole pumpkin into the microwave until soft.
    (really, saves energy and time)
3. Put soft pumpkin in a blender or similar and mash.
4. Add flour, eggs, salt and pepper to pumpkin mash. The dough should be so soft you can form it easily, but not too liqid. Add flour or water if consistency is not right.
5. Let dough sit for a while and heat salt water in a big pot.
6. Form small gnocci with two teaspoons and put in boiling water immediately. Wait until gnocci float on surface and boil for two more minutes. Then get gnocci out of the water and put in a buttered pan.
I recommend to do this procedure in a few portions as it takes a while.
7. Heat the buttered pan (a lot of salty butter) and fry gnocci until they are slighty crispy. Before finishing add a few salvia leaves and parmesan cheese.
8. EAT

chairs were found

 People complined about no seating in my room. I did not want to have a couch or anyting large and heavy. At the fleamarket these chairs were found. perfect. light. geometric. just the floral pattern was a little to much for the room me.

This old embroidered sheet was left over.

Traced the existing pillows and sew new covers.
They do have a simple closing which is just an overlap, finishing with the embroidered seam.
Easy peasy on off wash. Can still use florals. But:
White, grey, black, linen, wood still rules.

estonian inspiration

In Tallinn, I had this really good and simple "rhubarb and cream cheese cake with black bread" in the aed- restaurant. It was so good. and not very sweet.

I could not find a recipe anywhere so I  gave it a try by myself. The result was good, not as good as in AED but still maybe worth trying. Best: no bake!

1. Blend black sourdough bread (pumpernickel), butter, brown sugar and put it into a cake form.

2. Blend rhubarb jam from your mother or somewhere with cottage cheese, cream cheese and quark or ricotta. Add little brown sugar to taste. Spread on black bread in cake form.

3. Cool down in fridge for a few hours. EAT

Patterns
were everywhere. It´s actually quite simple to make your own. Checked paper- draw a pattern on it (cross checkes you want to be stiched upon).
Put fabric and above paper with pattern in an embroidery loop. Embroider with crosstich in every painted check on the paper. Finish and remove paper.

also:

Not very femme but still beautiful handmade paper and letterpressed cards. Estonian Cycle Routes

Via Baltica in Farbe

salmon with garlic baked potatoes and shrimps-sauce
tent-cooked huge amount of pasta with zucchini
small village shops which are open until 10pm
black-bread-cheese-cake
bus station houses
no need to speak
very few people
wind in the back
the sky matters
cider (siider)
eesti disain
roosi sai
patterns
the light
saunas
islands
biking

Via Baltica Schwarz Weiss

we bike
in the mornings
in the afternoons
at night
in the rain
in the sun
against the wind
driven
sleepy
with nightmares
hunted by dogs
on sand
on streets
through the woods
into the cities

we bike
away

10 years anniversary!

Around these days, 10 years ago, I moved into my first living commune.

At this time I was an intern in the hospital and had to start working at 6 in the morning. The city was badly flooded (Jahrhundertflut 2002) and it was not really possible to stay at my parents and get to work at the same time.
So I moved into the kitchen of some friends flat. I was 17 and lived in the kitchen for 3 months until a room was free. In the first week my friends came back home from securing the walls of the city against the floods when I got up for work. Friends would come by introduce people they found on the street asking if they could stay with us for a night. We had dinners where everybody would bring food they had at home and just start huge cooking sessions, eating with a sheet on the floor.

Since then I lived
- in 10 different flats
- together with over 50 different people
- in small communes (2 people)
- and larger ones (6 people)
- with just girls, mixed or just boys and me
- with German, Danish, Spanish, Israelian, Polish, Italian, Albanian, Russian, Slowakian, Dutch, British, Persian, Japanese, French, American, Turkish nationals

these are just statistics, the stories are the best.

buying clothing

Lately the discussion often appeared about fair trade/ green/ clean clothing.
People often assume it´s still very difficult to find clothing which is produced with these standards. So I always give people lists with names where they can find what is needed and thought it could be useful to have it on my blog.

So besides using you own clothing as long as possible (with pimping and refashioning stuff) or buying 2nd hand this is a selection of shops I personally like and that can offer an alternative:

Avocado store- an online market in Germany where you can find all kinds of products for the green lifestyle
ThokkThokk - a label from Munich, selling basic and printed fair trade shirts for reasonable prices
Goodtruebeautiful-  onlineshop selling e.g. shoes from terra plana (made of recycled and natural materials) and fair trade jeans from kuyichi
Wear Aware- small online shop selling femme apparel
Grüne Erde - a company original from austria sells bedding, simple clothing with good cuts and materials as well as cosmetic on eco-quality
Schuhsign- online shops for eco-shoes
Glore - small online shop: clothing and shoes for all genders
ASOS- green room- ASOS is a huge online store selling all kinds of fashion, the green room offers for example products from the people tree or FIN Oslo
Sarenza- huge online shoe store from France, selling shoes from for your earth
Armed Angels - printed shirts and so on

Collective Summer Goodness 3

Lately we were visiting some friends and helped enlarging their house.

They use strawbales to build and put clay on it. Like in former times.

It was hard work but a lot of fun.

I love good drills. 

The cool thing about the whole story is:

- straw has a very good insulation function

- it´s ecological

- it´s a left over product

- it´s cheap

- makes avery good room climate

- you can build it together with friends

Collective Summer Goodness 2

My cousin is a shepherd.
In the mornings we get up, go to the horses and ride somewhere to meet friends or to look after the sheep.
We eat salad from the garden: Mint, carrots, red spinach, anything you can find.
What a hippiesque life.

Collective Summer Goodness 1

In may a few friends from study time met for some small holidays next to the french border.
We stayed in a small house people lovely renovated.
The system functions like this: You ask them if its possible to stay in the house at a given time.
They send you the keys. You just go there and have a nice time. You leave some money you can afford in the house.
After leaving, you send the keys back to them. It functions

We had great talks, walks and awesome food.
Tomatoes, zucchini, and mushrooms filled with feta cheese cream, merguez sausages and shrimps roasted with garlic.

sprouts

quite a few few friends of mine are super pregnant right now
or about to get their first foster kids.

people are seriously building and/or enlarging their families.

so I was thinking of some greeting cards saying hi to new people.

[materials: silhouette paper, cardbord, fine liner, nail polish]

how to do a birth announcement

I´ll cut you down

Will see how many more "cut" post headlines I will be able to think of.
I got asked by a company to make paper-cut portraits from their staff.
These are some examples of the outcome. Awee, I enjoy doing these things.

organic june cuts