Sorry everyone for not updating lately, I've been a bit ill and just haven't found the time or the energy to blog about my Damson shawl or my Reading in bed shrug, or the things I'll be making for Ravelympics, or my stitch markers, but it's all coming. Just give me a few days to get back on my feet!

EDIT: See, the stitch markers are already up! Enjoy :)

My dear readers, tomorrow morning me and Nick are heading to Paris for a well-deserved little break, and will then continue on to spend Christmas at Nick's parents. That means I'll be offline and back to blogging no sooner than the 28th December!

I wish you all happy holidays and merry Christmas!

PS: I finished my Owls! But I'll tell you more after Christmas :)

I just watched this great animation called "Breakfast" by Kris(tina) Hofmann, a UK designer. It's about losing the connection with the food we eat, and made really well! Please watch it at Vimeo, it's only three minutes long bu really powerful!

Last week a few of regular Essen knitting group "members" met at one knitter's home for some knitting (obviously), chatting and ball winding! One of us has a swift and a ball winder and she was kind enough to bring them with her. I brought half my skeins with me and wound them all to pretty center-pull balls!

Here's a little film I took from the process. Just German audio, but you'll get the point just by looking (and notice the interested cat!)

Happy World Vegan Day! It starts the World Vegan Month, a perfect time to critically look at our eating habits and their effects on our health, our fellow earthlings as well as the environment. I will be cooking a great, vegan pumpkin soup tonight. Here's the recepie if you'd like to join me:

I've actually been one of the biggest fans of Green Day - about 15 years ago. I would say one of the worst things that happened to me in 1995 was that I couldn't go see their concert in Helsinki (Finland). But I was only 12, so I guess my Mum had a point. However, after the album Insomniac I didn't much follow them anymore, anyway. Until this year, when I realised I live in Germany now, a land where big bands come play gigs, and that Green Day is a really big band now.

Nick's (hand printed) shirt shop Shirtsofberlin went organic this week! Plus, there are now generously-sized lovely hoodies for sale as well. Take a look at the knitting line, marvellous yet simple designs (and the prints are limited in number, so really unique too!).

Some impressions from Finland this September.

My mother's flower garden.

A sunny day in the garden swing, looking through the oak leaves.

My second home - my mother's house.

As part of my 101 in 1001 goals I had taken the goal to start sponsoring a child or an animal. Well, at the end of July I had then finally decided to start sponsoring a girl in Sierra Leone, the poorest country on Earth through Plan International. Very soon after I had contacted Plan though the Internet, I received the details of my sponsired child, the 5-year-old Kadiatu. She looks like a happy child in the photo I received and I'm really happy to be supporting her and her community.

I wrote a long text about the "long night of the museums" in Düsseldorf, which we attended a few weeks ago, but it mysteriously (ok, ok, I admit, I messed up) disappeared. So instead of writing it all again, I'm just going to show you the pictures.

For info, during the long night of museums many museums, churches, galleries and exhibitions are open until 2am and there are many special happenings throughout the night.

We saw some modern art, Chinese ink drawings, short films about cinema, a remake of an old video art work "Il Nuotatore (va troppo spesso ad Heidelberg)" by Studio Azzurro and a very lovely Iranian golden peacock (see picture below).