Summer Lovin'

picture taken in June 2010 for Kara's 'Summer of Love' e-course.

We've had a couple of beautiful summer days - heat, lots of sunshine and of course ice cream. I started my job on Monday and we're lucky to have an office on the 1st floor - no direct sunshine = it's always fairly cold in the office. And yes, I still wear woolen sweaters daily because it's freezing in the office in the morning. My job is really great so far; my coworkers are really nice, both my supervisors are really nice and fun and the work itself is very interesting. I work for an insurance company in the health care section and it's my job to migrate the client's pre-existing conditions into the new IT system.

 In other news, my apartment is allllmost ready! Yay. I finally found a super nice roommate and I dream about home decor ideas already. Hah. Can't wait for my first paycheck next month so I can actually buy some stuff for the apartment (like a microwave... which is like one of the most important appliances in a kitchen... beside a KitchenAid and an oven of course!). Anyways, just here to check in to say that I'm still alive but busy with work and I've had at least a dozen 'potential roommate interviews' in the past days.

I'll be back soon with some crafty stuff that I've wanted to share for weeks! :)

One happy cat (+mama)

It's not a secret that cats love boxes. My cat is no exception. Usually he tries to fit into the smallest box. Yesterday we got a couple of biiig boxes and he managed to find the smallest of all. After some chewing, scratching and playing he fell asleep.

As some of you might have guessed, the boxes are from my mom's longarm sewing machine. It was delivered yesterday on a pallet. We had to unpack all the boxes from the frame because they were huge and heavy. The cat welcomed the pile of boxes that took over our entire kitchen. I'm sure he's gonna love the machine even more once it's assembled and doubles as an almost 4m(/13 feet) long bed for him.

on IKEA

Before I start, let me say one sentence: I LOVE IKEA!
Now you'll probably ask why? Although the company tries to promote sustainability, there are certainly many downsides to buying ikea stuff(many controversies about where they get their wood from, about the bad working conditions in the factories etc.). I'm not saying that it's a 'good' company but if we were to start that discussion we shouldn't be buying at a regular supermarket, nor shop at H&M/Forever21/... (basically any 'big, bad company).

So why do I love ikea so much?



1. Food. We all love food and the food at ikea is simply amazing. Free coffee(+refills!) for ikea family members is amazing. It has saved us literally hundreds of dollars! Oh and did I mention that the coffee at French ikeas is  a-m-a-z-i-n-g ? Seriously, if you're in France and see an ikea, go there just for the coffee. It's delicious and free!
Also, they have pretty good organic pasta and it's only 1€! Okay, it's officially a kid's meal but the servings are big and they never refused to serve me a children's dish :)
Oh and some of their seasonal dishes are amazing... like asparagus. Sooo yummy and cheap! :)

2. Expedit. Hands down, it's the best bookcase in the world. The range of sizes is amazing, the price is great and it's perfect for everything. Your fabric stash needs a new home? Go get an expedit. You don't know where to store your 12x12 scrapbook papers? Expedit fits perfectly! You love reading books but some of your books are too big for a regular book case? Expedit is your solution.
I've seen expedits in nearly all rooms and they're always perfect! Whether it's in the bathroom, kitchen, basement, hallway, craft room, office, living room, bedroom, ... it's so versatile I could furnish my entire apartment with it and I'd be happy :)

3. Free workout. Now, is it just my family or does a visit at ikea always take at least two hours? Two hours of constant walking, lifting heavy packages and millions of new decorating ideas streaming through your head. Comfy shoes, an ikea family membership card for free drinks and some good music in the car for a relaxed ride home are a must!

4. People watching. Have you ever sat down on a comfy couch at ikea and watched the people around you? Ikea does something funny to people; they start arguing about the most ridiculous things in the world, their body language often says more than 1000 words and seeing people 'test' furniture is very entertaining! I also recommend sitting down in the restaurant with a view over the parking lot, watching how people attempt to fit huge packages into tiny cars.

5. Occupational therapy. Once the ikea visit is over, the fun part begins: getting all the packages into your home, unpacking all the packages and assembling the furniture. It can be pretty frustrating but I recommend buying the same article several times because there's a steep learning curve to assembling ikea furniture ;)

What's your opinion on ikea? Do you have a lot of ikea stuff? Do you love it or hate it?

Little helper

As we're waiting for the painter to finish papering and painting my apartment, we're using the time to furnish and organize my mom's new sewing studio. She'll get her longarm sewing machine next week and in the meantime we're busy organizing all her fabrics, threads, ribbons, etc. The cat helps us by always sleeping wherever we wanna put something, thus forcing us to take regular breaks to drool over his cuteness.

Phone Pictures

1. It's been a sweater summer so far. Although we've had some nice days, not a single day has passed this year where I didn't have to wear a sweater. I got the light, striped sweater at a flea market for 2 euros and I've been wearing it non-stop :)
2. The cats have been pretty 'home-y' lately, spending most nights inside instead of adventuring around the neighborhood. We blame it on the awful lot of rain and thunderstorms we've had. Also, my basil is growing bigger and bigger and it's about time for the first harvest - any good pesto recipe suggestions?
3. Lots of thrifting! I saw this couch a couple of weeks ago at our local thrift store. Of course I didn't buy it but I'm sure it has found a good new home by now :)
4. Strawberry cake! The first one I made this summer. For some reason it's pretty much impossible to find tasty and affordable strawberries around here :(
5. I've spent waaay too much time driving around this summer. I miss biking everywhere but pretty much every time I go to my new apartment I have to bring boxes, tools or bring trash to the recycling center.
6. My grandma is in rehab now and she's finally better. It's such a relief after visiting her in the hospital pretty much every day for 6 weeks to see that she's able to get out of bed again and even walk a little bit on her own!

Spontaneous Road Trip!

My mom and I went on a little road trip today to see a friend. It's astonishing to see how different the landscape is compared to Western Canada - oh I miss the ocean and the mountains so much!
It's fun to see how many solar panels, wind turbines etc have been built in the last two decades. Definitely a huge difference compared to Canada! Although the sight of the nuclear power plant in Grohnde wasn't very encouraging and I couldn't get it out of my mind while we were in the area. I definitely can't imagine living close to a NPP!

Wollmeisen Ahoi!

Well well, I'm still alive. It's been an incredibly busy week and I didn't have the time/motivation to blog lately. There are certainly enough projects I'd love to try and blog about but I'm pretty much never home anymore between 7:30am and 8pm. And after 8pm I'm either too exhausted or there's no daylight to do anything more exciting than knitting socks.
Anyway, my friend Katja from Vancouver came to visit me for a couple of days and we went drove to see a dear ravelry friend who happens to have a bunch of Wollmeise yarn that she sells from time to time. Now, I usually don't care which brand name is on the tag as long as the quality is great, but after seeing more and more friends becoming Wollmeise addicts I couldn't resist and decided to buy one skein just to give it a try.
Well, as you can see, one skein turned into two (I had a really hard time resisting the urge desire to buy more!). My excuse: I wanted to give both the 100% merino fingering weight as well as the lace weight a try. The Wollmeisen have integrated really well in our household; my mom loves them too, my dad admitted he loved the colors and my cat cuddled a skein last night :)
I'm gonna use the turquoise skein for the Georgiana shawl by Susanna IC from the Jane Austen Knits Magazine. I haven't decided yet which projects I'm gonna do with the lace yarn - probably as many shawls as possible :)



Last but not least, I finally got around to giving handwriting on photos a try using a tablet. We've had the tablet lying around for a couple years and I've used it from time to time but never dared to post something online. Well here I am, exposing my hardly readable handwriting online. Caution: there will probably be more posts in the future containing my handwriting :)