Cat Toys!

I've been making some toys for the cat shelter. Once I have enough to fill up a post satchel, I'll send them off. First, I crocheted some fish toys. The first two have embroidered faces, the third a ruffled tail:

I loved working up this pattern. I can see myself churning out many more of these!
Next is a pair of toys made from some samples of Cro-hook technique. It's a bit like Tunisian crochet, with the long hook, but the hook is double-ended and you push the work to the other end of the hook every second row. Interesting.

As you can see, the fabric is very stretchy and quite open. I stuffed these loosely with plastic bags. I cut them into short strips first so the cats can't get into too much trouble. They have a satisfying crinkly sound when they're squeezed.
Finally, there is a knitted ball. I normally find knitting small pieces with double-pointed needles to be incredibly annoying, and this was no exception. I didn't really understand the instructions for the first couple of rows, and kinda fudged it. It's pink and it has a nipple.

See what I mean? Cat toy that doesn't look like an intimate body part? - FAIL!
So I added some surface crochet and now it looks immensely better:

I'm having visions now of adapting the fish pattern to make a string of Christmas lights. Fun!

[ Reverb10 : Day 3 : Moment ]

Day 3. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year.

There's a strange sense of symmetry as I write this as, in many ways, I feel the same right now that I did on the day that I'm writing about. I say this because I only had two hours of sleep last night and still have a long day at work ahead of me. On that day I'd had no sleep at all and had even more challenges ahead. It's curious to think that I can be in the same physical state, yet the circumstances I'm in produce such a different feeling. So here I go....

I arrived in Paris - in Europe - for the first time at 7am on a Sunday morning. I was exhausted, hot, sweaty, grumpy, confused and probably delirious. I can't sleep at all on planes, so I'd been awake for the last 33 hours. Despite that (or possibly because of it) everything seemed like a marvel - the airport that looked like a particularly ugly football stadium, the posters advertising perfume and department stores (French department stores!), even the man who stamped my passport and waved me through rudely without looking at me. As my life partner / travelling companion and I rode the travelator through a dimly-lit, stuccoed tunnel, it seemed like a magical cave full of wonder. I stared at the grimy yellow walls and imagined what fairyland would be at the far end. We waited a long time at the dirty-smelling baggage carousel, but that was perfectly fine - because I was in Paris! Finally Georgina tumbled down the chute and onto the carousel. Twice now my suitcase had arrived overseas with me problem-free. It may be because I named and tagged it like a pet, or it may be merely because reputable airlines are actually quite competent. Regardless, I took possession and wheeled it out of Charles de Gaulle Airport in a daze.

We stood on the threshold - the beginning of our holiday, our adventure in Europe - in other words, the kerbside passenger pick-up area at the airport. After we made a quick call at a phone booth (a French one!), a man in a mini-bus came to pick us up and take us to our hotel. We thanked him in our limited French and he drove out into the early morning sunlight.

No longer clutching onto Georgina's handle, knowing it was safe on the bus, I gazed through the window, allowing myself to become mesmerised. We shot past fields bordered with fluffy trees, the same ones from the paintings I've studied. Slowly they gave way to industrial buildings, furniture stores and sports stadiums. In turn, these became quaint apartment buildings, exactly the same as the one Amelie had lived in. It didn't matter whether it was a tree or a billboard, a cow or a wrought-iron balcony. Everything was lit with that soft, golden sunlight, oozing lazily like honey, making everything seem so much more special. The streets were deserted as we glided through them; they passed in a blur of beauty and history, every tiny detail steeped in meaning. I gasped in delight at every corner we turned, every vignette that unfolded in front of me. How long did it take to get to the hotel? I don't remember and I don't care. This was the experience I'd always dreamed of.

This was a special moment that I'll always treasure - seeing the Paris I'd always imagined. I managed to grasp it in for few fleeting minutes, before the real Paris crashed into my senses - the city with the heat and the dust, the hawkers and the pickpockets, the crowds and the lack of public toilets. Because the most romantic city in the world is still a city, after all.

Dutch Christmas Biscuit Recipe : Pepernoten

I'm participating in a recipe swap on the Gingerbread Snowflakes blog, so welcome to everyone who's linked from there!

Today is St. Nicholas' Eve, also known as Sinte in the Netherlands, and it's the most important date in the Dutch Christmas calendar. Sinteklaas and his assistant Zwarte Piet arrive in a boat from Spain on this day. They visit all the houses and leave gifts for the children - but only ones who've left out a glass of brandy and some biscuits, and some hay or carrots for St. Nicholas' horse. Today I baked Pepernoten, from a recipe that my Oma told me when I was a kid. So here it is, straight from her brain to you!

Ingredients:
2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground aniseed
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/8 teaspoon orange essence
2 tablespoons milk

What to Do:
1. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F. Sift the flour, baking powder and spices together.

2. Add the sugar and stir.

3. Crack the eggs into a separate (small) bowl. Add the orange essence and beat lightly.

4. Add the eggs to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly. The dough will still be very dry and flaky. Gradually add the milk and keep stirring until a soft dough has formed.

5. With damp hands, roll the dough into balls about the size of golf balls. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper (greased paper). It's OK to put them close together because they won't spread.

6. Bake until lightly browned, approximately 20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Wait until cool to eat. The biscuits will be slightly hard and crunchy on the exterior. This is why they're called "peppercorns"! Makes approximately 24.

Notes:
* If you smell the raw dough, the spicy, orangey smell is just amazing, I think. This is truly what Christmas smells like to me. I guess we made them a lot when I was a kid!
* The four spices in this recipe are very common in Dutch cooking. You can buy them already mixed in Dutch supermarkets, where they're known as 'Speculaas Spice'.
* The original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of finely chopped candied orange rind instead of orange essence. I don't like bits in my pepernoten, but you can certainly give that a try.
* The original pepernoten are half the size of these ones, but I normally can't be bothered rolling that many. If you do make them the traditional size, this recipe should make about 60 and they should be about 2cm / 3/4inch across.
* Yum!

[ Reverb10 : Day 2 : Writing ]

Day 2. Today's theme is:
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?

Well ... just about everything comes before writing, I'm sorry to say. 24 hours in a day is just not enough. By the time I've gone to work, worked all day, stood for 45 minutes on the tram home, exercised, done laundry, dishes etc, checked my email and read some blogs, fed the cat, fed myself ... phew, I'm tired! I can't possibly think about writing today. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe on the weekend. Maybe next weekend when I don't have so much planned. Writing rarely makes its way from the bottom of my priority list. It's down there with re-arranging my shoes and matching up all the plastic containers with their lids. Sometimes I wonder if it's any more satisfying than those sorts of tasks. I think one reason for that is the uncertainty of it. There's a slight chance I could write something really worthwhile. There's also a chance (much more likely!) that I could write something merely adequate, fill up a page or two with some words that may or may not be used in a more permanent context one day. Most likely I'll open up my personal journal and write some adolescent rubbish about how much my life sucks, with the delusion that perhaps I can use some of it in a fiction work one day. But its also quite likely that I'll stare out the window for a while and then give up, ending up with nothing. I will have wasted my time. And that's something I hate doing. If I spend my time tidying up the flat, at least the place will look neater. If I spend my time working on a scarf or a baby blanket, at least I'll have something to show for it. But if i spend my time sitting in front of paper with a pen, will anything be achieved? What are the chances? Negative Nancy says, don't even bother.

I knew I'd come to that sooner or later. The real reason why I procrastinate - self-doubt. I wrote quite a bit about that yesterday, so I don't want to dwell on it. I'd rather dwell on how to arrange my life and my mindset so that I do write more, even if at first it's just adolescent ramblings. At least its something. Every word is practice. Every blog post cobbled together during breaks at work is a link in the chain. I have a weekly exercise schedule, I eat at (approximately) the same time every day, so why not a writing schedule? I've heard it said so many times - don't wait for inspiration to come, don't wait for the right conditions - just write! I'm going to pick a time each week, take my journal and write.

[ Reverb10 : Day 1 : One Word ]

In a ridiculously impulsive mood, I decided to jump on board with a project called Reverb10, even though I'm 4 days late. Participants write a blog post each day in December on a prompt that is meant to make you reflect on 2010 and prepare for 2011. It's just the kind of hippy crap that I've become increasingly drawn to lately. I'll probably regret this - it's December ... Christmas is coming ... I'm so busy ... every single day?! ... am I completely nuts?! On the other hand, it will give me an impetus to write regularly, making writing a priority despite everything else that I've got going on in my life at the moment. So here we go.........

Today's theme is One Word.

The word that first came to mind when summing up 2010 so far for me is:

I baulked at first, because I've always hated that word. When I was in high school, a friend had a habit of saying, "there's no such word as 'try', you either do it or you don't do it". That used to drive me bonkers, because I've never been one for seeing things in black and white like that. You have to practice before you can be perfect, you have to start something before you can finish it. And you don't always succeed - the first time. (Or even the second or third time.)

This year I've really been trying hard. Anyone who's been reading my blog for a while knows that I have yearly goals that I try to achieve. I don't always achieve them, but I do try. Whether I succeed or (gasp!) fail, it's always a learning experience. I look back and reflect and try to do better next year. The last few years I've given myself some real whoppers - like selling my zines in a shop, for example. Even at the time I wrote them, I wondered how on earth I'd be brave enough to go through with them. But some part of me must have believed in myself enough, hoped enough, because I wrote them down anyway.

Even though I'm not succeeding yet with those big, life changing goals, I've really been trying hard this year. Trying in all senses of the word, actually. Every time that I thought about doing something brave, the voice popped up in my head: "you can't do that!" "it's/you're not good enough!" "no-one's going to like that!" "why can't I look like her?" "why can't my house look like hers?" And on, and on. It really gets quite trying after a while. I'm sure I've tested the patience of everyone around me at times. I get very exasperated with myself, too! It's a constant struggle to monitor and change that self-talk. I think of myself as basically a positive person. This stream of negativity that runs through my life - well, yes, it's part of me - a part that's deeply ingrained - but it's not all of me. It's like the skin on a custard that forms when you're not paying attention to stirring it properly. This is a very thin skin, yet it's very hard to get rid of! Enough of the metaphors and back to my original meaning for the word Trying.

I think that trying - real, true trying that spirals closer into succeeding every time it circles around - needs to be given the credit that all that struggle and persistence deserves. Because one day, trying transforms into succeeding, into completing, into satisfaction.

And I'm supposed to think of one word that I'd like to be able to use this time next year to sum up 2011. I've already used that word in this blog post. The word is:

Brave.

Grrrrr!

What I Wore - quite some time ago

Here is a drawing I did about two weeks ago, which I only got around to scanning today.

I used the new watercolour set that Boy bought me, with 36 lovely colours. The drawing is only half the size of the ones I've done previously, so there's less detail. I think I'll go back to using a whole page. Also, I had a bit of a problem with bleeding around the face. And I cheated and gave myself Barbie-doll-hands. I haven't drawn for a while, it's true. I'm trying to accept the wonky bits. Just like in real life, really!

I did look pretty cute that day, though!

Embarrassing Rambling/Ranting

Just a quick update to let you-all know that I've re-opened my Etsy shop. It's been closed since I went overseas. I've been back for almost two months now - that's just the kind of girl I am. I was hoping to have a spiffy re-opening with a new zine, but I haven't felt like working on writing lately. It might be done by the end of this year ... if I can find some motivation. When I first got back from Europe, I felt fantastic. I had a new perspective on things. I felt happier and more confident. Lately though, Negative Nancy has been sticking her big nose into things again. She stops me from writing, stops me from finishing anything. She tells me I'm too tired and it's not worth the bother, that no-one cares. Isn't that crazy? She's even the reason why I can be so slow to reply to the lovely comments that I've been receiving. I am truly sorry about that.

To be honest, the main reason why I re-opened my shop was not to reach out to people, to share my writing or to promote myself. It was to stop those annoying automated messages saying that it's closed. All the other stuff just doesn't bear thinking about. Also - I was under the impression that the fees I pay to list my items would be suspended during that time, but they weren't. I was rather disappointed. But it's OK. In the future I'm going to be more careful and business-like (gak!) about what I offer in the shop. I'm going to be more organised and finish the postage station I was setting up. I'm going to be brave and face any negative things that might come along. I'm going to be good to myself and accept any positive things that come along, too! I'm probably over-sharing, but I don't care.

I'm sick of being at 90% on everything, of being disappointed in myself and worried that other people are disappointed in me. I want to wear the top-knot and be fabulous!