Calendar

Some of you might have seen the passion planner. I've shared their ideas and as a thank you I was allowed to print one for myself which I now have done. From my grandma I learned how to bind books a few years ago and here is my new calendar:

frontview

I got the fabric in Barcelona in a store for japanese fabrics. Haven't found one in Sweden yet, so I might be forced to do some more holidays there.

the fabric goes all around the cover

The corners are in blue paper. I figured that the fabric might bulge a lot around the edges and that paper might be better in that case. 

Inside

I love the separation of the work and personal to do lists and the enormous work they've put into organizing your personal goals. Hopefully this helps me achieve some of my wished this year.

New year, new challenges

A happy new year to you all there. I hope you had a good start with a fun party.

For this year I decided to try and sell some of my artwork and/or clothes I sew. So I started to paint on my watercolour paper again and not in my sketchbook (not so easy to sell just one page of a book).

Koi

The first ones were some jellyfish (maybe I put up all of them later on) and now this koi carp.

So if you are interested in a painting of mine or if you got something specific that you want me to paint (like portraits of a friend for his/her birthday) just send me a mail :)

Moving in

Yesterday I finally had the housewarming party. It's been more than two months that I lived here now but working people need to know in good time. Since I've lived in Stockholm for almost two years now I know at least some parts of the city but it still feels like there's a lot more to see. So I asked all my guests to write down one of their favourite places in Stockholm. This could be anything from a café, bar, club to a nice spot in the nature or some spectacular view over the city.

my to do list for the next months

So now I have list of places to visit and probably some company as well.

Alessandro's kitchen

Last saturday I visited Alessandro. He was trying out the dinner recipe for the next day and I and some other friends got to eat the outcome. So while he was cooking and quite some others where sitting around talking in spanish and italian, I had a close look at the kitchen. It was kind of relaxing not being able to follow the conversation but still being around nice people.

not depicted: the chef and the eaters

I liked this crammed, almost messy place. It feels like it's actually used for cooking food and enjoying it. Now I don't know if I should colour it ...

Advent

In the last few weeks my creativity was mostly focused on sewing and drawing. I can't really show you my big sewing project, a sweater, just yet. The november here was super dark, no sunshine in weeks. It was actually on the news in mid november that we only had about 2 hours of sunshine in november until then. Since then we had two more days on which the sun was peeking through the clouds for some time but overall it just continued to be really dark. So no pictures!
On the drawing side I'm actually just testing something which is not yet in a state to be presented. Soon....
But something I actually can show you is the advent calendar I made for Manne.

I was shopping for most of the day on wednesday to get all the small things and sweets to fill it. I made most of the bags from Manne's old shirts. He wanted to throw them out but I saved them, because free fabric!!!
Yesterday I was sewing the bags. Normally Manne comes home around 04:20 pm. At that time I wasn't done sewing all the bags and definitely not filling them. So I was stressed and crouching in front of the cabinet under our bed, filling the bags inside the cabinet, so that I would be able to just shut the cabinet the second I hear the the door opening. In the end he didn't come home after work at all but went directly to meet a friend and I was stressed for no reason.
But well... now we have this decoration in our window and Manne is getting excited to open them.

Results

I started with my drawing challenge quite some time ago. For some two weeks or so I actually kept up with drawing every day, but then university came in between. Most of it was finished anyway but the last two or so drawings did take a little longer. So today I can finally present all the drawings.

a reminder about the themes

1. yourself

2. a monster - good or bad?

When I thought about this monster I wanted to make it so that you don't know if it's a good or a bad one. At the moment it seems quite into solving the cube, but maybe it just ate the poor child the cube belonged to.

3. a hand or two

Hands are still really difficult for me so I included this topic. I still need a model for drawing but maybe after some more in different positions....

4. what's in your bag

A classic but my bag is really big so I can fit everything in there. Those few things are just the standard which I carry around with me all the time. Still enough space for all the clothes I need for a weekend at my parents.

5. something red

6. small inanimate object coming to life

I remember sitting in a lecture drawing this. The lecture was not that interesting....

7. something new

This was actually a quite philosophical question. What is new? A prototype? A product new to the market? Something which just existed for the last 100 years? Something I will develop which might exist in a few hundred or thousand years? I went for this. It's actually a cardigan which I bought just a few days before. As I had forbidden myself to buy anything over food or stuff I need to survive until I would get my student money again this was quite a big thing for me.

8. something evolving

9. a quote you like

10. a couple

11. favourite food

12. comic strip

I've never really drawn any comics but I've always liked the style, so I had to try it now.

13. from a high angle

Tried out drawing with three vanishing points.

14. silhouette

15. close up

16. something you don't like

17. favourite animal

This was a tough decision. I love cats as well as the name of my blog suggests.

18. something from the ocean

19. any form of transport

I'll have to get one of those in the future. If I get a car then it has to be this one.

20. childhood memory

This is the cat from my grandparents' backyard again.

21. instrument

22. one line

It was hard to do, but it's actually one line.

23. logo for yourself

24. a mysterious device

25. draw someone as you really see them

This is my mom. She is always awake (not so cool when you come home as a 16-year-old when you had some beer) and she's always doing several things at the same time. I don't really get how she manages to do all the things she does.

26. infografic

27. insect

28. fantasy weapon

In case my kids in the future get scared in the darkness I'll build these weapons.

29. negative space

30. movie poster/book cover based on your life

Now that I post it here I noticed that I didn't include an author's name or something like that. But still. I still don't know if mechanical engineering is what I want to do. I like it a lot, but I like arts and music a lot as well.... I'll just have to do a bit of everything.

So which did you like best? 

Testing the husqvarna

Our first weekend together here in Sweden (since I moved here this time) we spend in Ramsjö were Manne's parents used to own a summerhouse. They had to sell it now because it is a bit too far away from Stockholm so nobody really can take care of it. It was really sad. But I'm glad I got to see the place were Manne spend his summer holidays as a child.
From there I got this old sewing machine Manne's grandma and later on his mom used. I love it. It can do so many things despite working completely on mechanics. No electronically programmed stitches or buttonholes but it can do that anyway. And it won't break. At the moment some things don't work because the grease in the bushings solidified (probably mixed with quite some dust and dirt). But some cleaning with kerosene should fix that. I might have to take it completely apart but it will work. And that's more than I can say about my singer I have at my parents. There's some sensor which is needed for sewing buttonholes. It broke after the second time I used it. And I can definitely not repair that on my own.

At the moment though I can't do backstitch or zigzag which means I'm a bit limited in what I do. Until now I just fold all the sides over twice to finish them and tie up all the loose threads by hand. It works for this nice bag which I now use for my new knitting project. A dress on the other hand might be a bit difficult.

I also found some fabric stores. I don't know what I was doing wrong before but I must have googled some weird expression because I only found a rather small fabric store on the other side of Stockholm. Now I have to check out some of the bigger ones. At the first one I checked I not only found the fabric above but also some heavier stuff which I used for a shopping bag for Manne. He was always using those plastic bags you get at the stores. 

Here he is trying to model with his new bag. I had to tell him that it was me taking the pictures and he didn't have to glare at me like to scare away someone. Like the smile a lot better. And he seems to like the bag.