craft supplies storage

I never considered the content of my closet as 'weird' or 'not normal' until a friend of mine saw it the other day and couldn't believe a woman can own a big closet and not fill it to the brim with clothes. Well, I guess most crafters could think of a much better use for a closet than storing clothes: storing craft supplies!
Of course I have to put my clothes somewhere so I had to make some space for them but I'd say about half the space in my closet was taken over by craft supplies.

My (ikea) closet has sliding doors so it's kind of split into two parts. This half is closer to my crafting table so naturally it holds most of my crafting supplies. I was surprised to see that I have ended up with a huge fabric stash whereas my yarn stash is rather decreasing. Probably because I usually buy yarn for a project and use all of it or return the remaining skeins or give them away to friends whereas I always end up miscalculating how much fabric I need for a project so I always have tons of it left.
Last week I looked through my clothes to donate some to make more space for my fabrics. I managed to empty one entire shelf so now my echino fabrics(my all time favorite fabrics!) have their own shelf - with lots of space the expand my little collection :)

The second half of my closet is rather boring (as in mostly clothes). But there's a second box of yarn and a big box of WIPs. As you can see it's almost empty - time to start some new projects!!
The doors of my closet are kind of my memo board; I use washi tape to stick all my to do lists and project ideas and bills etc. on there.

Last but not least, Lina loves sleeping in my closet. Which also means I can't close the doors often because she either sleeps inside or she sleeps somewhere else but the minute I close the doors she gets up and sits in front of my closet and meows until I open them again. She's pretty possessive...

oh hey

Just checking in to say hey. Life has been pretty crazy lately with tons of assignments to do and finals to prepare for... only two weeks till my first final! I'm officially back to my '6 hours of sleep and lots of coffee' finals mode. But hey, only six more weeks until the term is over and I'll have two months off. Yay!!
Lina looks pretty much as exhausted as I feel right now. Not to mention that I had a crazy idea of sewing a quilt in between this whole study madness - you know, after finishing my dress I needed a new big project to work on. So I have a finished quilt top laying around that still needs a border but it seems to be impossible to find a matching white fabric. How difficult can it be to buy a solid white fabric? Apparently pretty difficult considering there only seems to exist 'white white' or 'yellowish white' fabric in Germany. Sigh. But I have two more local fabric stores to check before I start buying random white solids online hoping at least one of them matches my quilt.

In other news, I have a new roomie!!
Her name is Julia and she is the cutest. I have the feeling that we'll be getting into lots of mischief together. I'll introduce her proper on le blog when a) I have taken a picture of her and b) I have confessed that I'm one of those crazy bloggers who reveals some parts of her life online. So far she's handled my craziness (as in crazy cat lady, sewing addict AND funny knitter who regularly meets up with people twice my age and thinks it's normal to call them friends) just fine and even mentioned she'd love to learn how to knit. She's seriously awesome!

52 craft projects // endless light dress

Guess what??
I finished my still light tunic!!!
After what feels like an eternity(hence the name), I finally got the dress off the needles. I couldn't be happier with the result!

You can find all the useful information on the ravelry project page. Thank you for all the encouraging words over the past two months. I don't think I would've finished it without your support!

Please excuse the pictures. I took the pictures in my roomie's empty room (my new roomie Julia will move in on Monday. Yay!) and I had a cat constantly walk through the pictures and giving me the look. As in 'what is this crazy human up to now?'. She wasn't very happy to be in the picture. Oh well, that's what you get for judging other people.

(Have I mentioned that my neighbor was watching me, too? He was standing by his window with a cup in his hand and probably had the best timer ever. What a delightful Sunday morning.)

Last but not least, here are the outtakes:


Outfit details: dress: still light tunic pattern // belt: thrifted // teacup earrings: made by me // tights: h&m // clogs: sanita // book necklace: nicopapergoods
This is project #16 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013.
You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.

Hanstein castle

Last weekend, the weather was awesome and a family friend from Canada is currently in my hometown so we decided to go on a day trip to Hanstein castle, a ruined castle in Thuringia.
The view from the parking lot is stunning! We went on a short hike (45mins each way) to the 'Teufelskanzel' where we found this cute restaurant:

Of course we couldn't resist getting some ice cream on such a gorgeous day and after hiking up a hill ;)

It was my dad's first hike after his hip replacement surgery but he was doing great and we were much faster than the average weekend hiker. After we finished our hike (and switched back to flip flops because it was way too hot for hiking boots!) we went to visit the castle.

The view is stunning! I love the yellow flowers in the picture.
If you don't like incoherent pictures of old bricks and flowers on walls, stop reading now. Otherwise enjoy the assortment of random pictures I took that day!

building a raised bed

I've had about 50 raised beds pinned on pinterest before I even considered building one myself. I told my dad (he's a wood working genius!) about my plans to get some advice on what kind of wood to buy. He suggested recycling an old shelf that he's had in his workshop for years. It's genius - he cut all the pieces and we assembled it in my garage. It only took us about 45mins. The holes are great for drainage. I've considered painting it but I haven't found any natural paint in a bright color I liked yet.

My mom helped me fill it. We used branches for the bottom (we found them in the garden) and I bought four bags of soil. I'll add some compost on top for manuring sometime soon.

The first plants I planted were some basil and a zucchini plant that I planted in a tiny greenhouse on my windowsill.


Last week I bought a couple of tomato plants and a strawberry plant. I'll plant most of the tomato plants in containers so I can put them in my basement when it's super rainy/windy.

The raised bed is at the back of the house (facing south so there's lots of sunshine!) and it's pretty much impossible to see unless you go to the small part of the garden where the clothes lines are. Many people told me about strangers stealing their fruits/veggies so I'm really glad my little garden can't be seen from the street :)

Let's hope the great weather keeps up for a little bit longer so my plants get to make themselves at home before the rain comes back again.

Gangnam Style

My friend Hyunji organized a 'Korean evening' last week. There were tons of interesting information on the Korean culture(including a Gangnam Style tutorial), the current political situation, studying abroad and of course lots of delicious food. Hyunji wore traditional clothes and we've all had a great time.
The following day, we met at her place to cook butter rice together. Or rather my friend Alina and I watched Hyunji cook and asked her millions of random questions on Korean food. I really need to buy a Korean cookbook so I can make tasty stuff like this at home. My new roomie's mom is Korean, too - so I hope that Julia inherited some of those awesome Korean cooking genes.

ps: my student life is pretty crazy right now with an exam coming up, several assignments due next week and I'll have my finals in July, thus there isn't much time to keep up with the blog community. I'll pop in from time to time but please don't take it personal if I don't get back to you right away.

52 craft projects // lens pouches

It feels like it's been a while since I've written a 52 craft projects post. It's not like I haven't done anything crafty in the past weeks. It's just that I feel like these projects should be more personal and challenging than just one of those 'hey, I needed a last minute gift and made a quick zipper pouch' projects.

I made these two lens pouches for my dad's birthday earlier this week. He's a great photographer and he's been complaining about needing a proper solution for storing and transporting his lenses. So one rainy day(we've had lots of them recently...) I invited my mom over for a sewing day to make these two lens pouches and a tote my mom gave my dad for his birthday.

Sewing the pouches turned out much harder than expected:
- my mom brought the 'wrong' lens so I had to call my dad and casually ask him what lenses he owns so I could check their measurements online to make sure the pouches fit perfectly.
- my dad decided to drop by spontaneously. My mom hid all the stuff in random places in my room while I stalled him at the door. Luckily he didn't stay long ;)
- we had to walk to a fabric store (the sun was shining all day but about 5 minutes after we left my apartment it started to rain...) and they didn't have all the stuff we needed so we had to improvise and my mom couldn't finish her tote.
- in the afternoon we got a call that the toilet in my grandma's apartment broke so she had to go there to fix it. So I sewed the tote while my mom practiced her 'homeowner skills' ;)

We finished the lens pouches in time and my dad loves them - yay. They weren't very much fun to sew thought; cutting all the round bottoms was pretty annoying and time consuming without proper tools. Also, calculating all the measurements wasn't much fun either but I guess paying attention in math classes in middle school paid off because I got it right ;)

We used my very favorite echino camera fabric and linen as outer fabrics and two different polka dot fabrics as linings. There is a very thick interfacing between the two layers and we cut out circles from an old camping mat for the bottom. We added snap hooks to both pouches for convenience.

I love the combination of linen and echino fabrics. Kokka fabrics are my favorite!
Aren't handmade, personalized gifts the best?
This is project #15 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013.
You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.