malinmaskros

I have now sent all of my swap packages for this year (except for my package to Diane, when it´s time to swap for a pair of mushroom knitting needles, and my swap with Stella in December) - my latest swapping frenzy now has time to fase out, and get a lot less frantic. Today I sent my October package to Shelley in Scotland, I sent my package to Chiara in Italy in the beginning of the week, and Elise in France recieved my package last week. Now all I have to do is to lean back and wait to recieve my packages from all of those lovely ladies - I can´t wait! And I have three months to work on Stella´s package - I´ve got a big part of it figured out already, and I already know what I´ll get Diane. It almost feels like I´m on a vacation now, very nice!

I just got this in the mail, and I´ve only flipped through it real quick (while on the bus, being motion sick...), but it looks promising! It´s got a big section on how-to for the beginning, and a bunch of very nice patterns. Even though I´m not a beginner, I´m sure I can use it, especially to improve my skills - I´m not a great seamstress (as my loved ones like to think), but good at colours and fabric. This book is just what I need to fine tune my sewing!

I managed to go to Stockholm yesterday, I finally got my money. But I felt the clock ticking all the time - I got there pretty late. I bought everything for my swap with Shelley in Scotland, and a few things for myself - some Opal sock yarn, a black/red nailpolish (my favourite colour), and some Cram Cream kids aprons. I can´t ever use the aprons, they are too small, but the prints! They are so cute! My favourite was a Hawaii style print, very pretty! So the day ended quite good, even though it started bad.

I got another package today, from Yurippe in Italy, a big package, filled with wonderful things, mostly bento related. Lovely, lovely things! There was a bento, with chopsticks, fork and spoon, a Hello Kitty oshibori (or washcloth), monkey sauce containers, pig and fish sauce bottles, lobster and fish picks, no less than 8 (eight!) muffin boxes, three Christmas and five Easter, Cram Cream trays and tote bag, Hello Kitty body lotion, sakura KitKat, Hello Kitty sweet, Winnie the Pooh cell phone sock... And there´s still more to come - Yurippe forgot to put in some sweets in the package, so that will arrive later. Thank you SO much, Yurippe, for a great package! I´m so happy I made a swapper out of you!

I had big plans for today - I had a package to send to Italy, I had stationary to pay, I was going to Stockholm for some shopping - heck, I had planned to eat today, and what happens? My pay, which was going to get payed today, hasn´t arrived in my bank account yet. So the only money I have is about 2SEK, not even 50UScents. The people I´ve talked to, says that the money will be there sometimes today, but so far (1 pm) no luck. If I don´t get it within the next half hour or so, it´ll be too late to go to Stockholm today. If I get it later this afternoon, I can at least send the package, pay the stationary, buy some food, and then go to Stockholm tomorrow. If I don´t get any money today, well, that´s not good. At all.

I got the most wonderful package today, from Jody in Singapore, it wasn´t the biggest in size, but it was so full of amazingly cute things, I don´t even know where to start. Ok, here we go: deco tape (two cram cream, one with teeth - I´m so in love with the one with teeth!), bento things (Usahana mini bento, chopsticks and chopstick case, food-, condiment- and sauce containers and strawberry bento belt), felt with cats, flower candle, Hello Kitty spoon (sooo cute), soft cat pin, stationary (one Q-Lia, one Kamio), Cinnamoroll bag, "braided" tote bag, Mamegoma purse and apple keyring from Florspace, washcloths (two kinds, both Kamio), Sanrio personalized name stickers, sticker sacks (one Mamegoma, one Q-Lia), a Poo envelope (how I love poo!), two memo pads (one Q-Lia, one with polkadots) and strawberry earrings Jody made herself. If you don´t believe it yourself, let me tell you - it´s so great! Total cute overload! Thank you so much, Jody! I think you may be the sweetest person ever!



And if that´s not all - I will recieve two more packages any day, and another two more sometimes next week, or the week after. Spoiled rotten, that´s me! But then it will calm down, no swaps in November (I thought I had one, but she doesn´t seem to do GYS anymore, the link to her blog doesn´t work), and only one on December. And one in February - I couldn´t resist doing another swap with Iris in the UK, so we decide that in the middle of the winter would be perfect - what better time for a swap pick-me-up?!

There so much people out there, saying they don´t have anything to wear, and then stand in front of a packed closet. Well, I can in all honesty say that I don´t have anything to wear, because 1) I own very little clothes (shopping when your plus size and low on cash is no fun) and 2) everything I own is worn and torne. Until now! I´ve bought some clothes, just basics in black and gray from H&M (nothing funny or fancy, but everything goes together, and works with my very colourful skirts), and threw out some stuff that were way past due. And even though I don´t have any more clothes (if anything, it´s less), I have things to wear. And I just placed a new order at H&M, for some more leggings, a cardigan which I hope fits (and looks as pretty irl), and a sweatshirt that was for free. Free stuff is the best! I hope everything fits as well as the last clothes I bought!
And, to brighten things up a bit, I´m knitting socks - bright colourful cheerful socks. Lovely!
As said before, I´m cutting down on swapping, and now I´m prioritizing my wardrobe for a while. A very good side effect, is that I usually lose weight when I´ve bought new clothes, so hopefully they won´t fit me after Christmas or so...

I just placed a bid on an online auction, for some kawaii stationary, and I won! It´s mine! I would´ve hated it, if I lost it, if there were some kawaii stationary sold in Sweden, and I couldn´t get my hands on it. It´s a good thing I did, I think, and it didn´t cost much either! It looks like this:



How I love food with faces!

for once, actually - I´m not a party girl (I think I did my share when I was younger, and now, at the grand age of 33 (my hair turning grey and all!), I feel I´ve done it). I invited my sisters, their children, and my best friend over, for some veggies and four dips, and it was rather pleasent. We had a good time, but agreed to do it again soon - without the kids. And they brought gifts (pic will come, eventually)! My sister bought it the day before, when I was shopping with her in Stockholm, a black knitted cardigan (soooo needed, and I really love it, it´s perfect!), and two skeins of sock yarn. My other sister gave me some of my favourite candy, and a gift certificate at my favourite thrift shop, and my friend gave me a little bag with cats (a bit kitschy, but cute, and hey - I´ve never turned my back on kitsch!), a fabric patch with a cat ´n bones, and some beautiful decoupage paper, with the promise that I could exchange it if I wanted. And since I don´t do paper crafts, I exchanged it to sock yarn yesterday, it´s actually the first time I´ve ever exchanged a gift - it feels kinda bad, even though she said it´s perfectly fine. And my parents send me a gift certificate for flowers, so I bought an aloe vera plant (I had to give away all of my pelargoniums, since I discovered I´m allergic to them - crap!), and a bouquet of white chrysanthemums. They didn´t have many white flowers at the flower shop, chrysanthemums was the best choice, even though they aren´t favourites.



And Jody in Singapore sent my birthday swap package today, hopefully I´ll get it in the end of the week!

My best friend got two kittens the other day, two tiny grey/black girls. They were so cute, but actually too small to leave their mother - I thought about reporting the seller to the police, but I know they won´t do anything about it, and hearing my friend, they will be much better off at hers, than with the seller. I hope she´s right - they shouldn´t have been separated from their mother for another 4-6 weeks.

I cut my hair today - thank goodness for a sister who´s a hairdresser! It was very much about time! Now it only needs some colour - I need to cover up the gray...

I went to Stockholm today, not by myself as planned, but with my sister, and had a lovely day. I came back with pretty much everything I hoped to buy, and bought nothing just because it´s pretty, but I don´t have any actual use for it. I got myself two pairs of shoes for the winter (they are not really winter shoes, but ine size too big and thich socks, and they work perfectly), a t-shirt with long sleeves (in eco-cotton, amazingly soft!), red tea (two kind, I found a wonderful tea shop, which had loads of red tea - usually they have 3, or maybe 5 different kinds, this one had maybe 20, or possibly 30 - amazing!), sock yarn, then I found a very pretty necklace with a couple of birds (for some reason I love jewellery with birds), not necessary, I admit, but since it was perfect - why leave it? Then I found a black, thick cotton cardigan, which my sister bought for me for my birthday, together with more sock yarn. I had a very successful day! Oh, I tried a vegan bakery for the first time, and had very tasty nut- and pear pie - yummy!

Now I´m off home, I´m doing laundry tonight, and tomorrow morning I´m cleaning my apartment, and preparing for my birthday bash - my sisters and best friend are coming over for a quiet celebration. Nice, I hope!

I haven´t shown you any amigurumis for quite a while, but I couldn´t resist these ones - they are so adorable!

I really need to learn how to be a "broader" person -  I get so fixated on one thing, everything else is kinda on the backburner. I just began looking at blogs, ones I haven´t even glanced at for months, and I´ve missed so much! Actually, I shouldn´t divide my interests into different blogs (four!), but keep them all in one place, because when I get focused on one thing (my apartment for the longest time, a bit of knitting (mostly yarn...), veganism on occations, just to mention the other blog topics, kawaii, amigurumis, 50s/pinups, Japanese craft books, knitting books, swaps, if I bring up some of the things that have occupied my mind on this blog), I forget about all other, and therefor I miss out on lots of great things. Now, I only clicked on the first blog on my list (angry chicken), and got stuck there, and with er links, for a couple of hours. On her blog alone. Imagine the time I need to catch up with all of the other blogs I haven´t been reading, because I´ve been out straying! And imagine all of the great ideas I´ve been missing! How about I divide the week into obsessions - each get either one morning, one afternoon or one evening in the week - I would get much broader in my crafting, in my blogging, in my conversations (ok, whenever it goes into craft land, you could call them monologues, since I´m the only one I know  who likes to talk crafts)... Hmmm... I might need a new calendar (oh no, an excuse for shopping!)... And I´ve discovered a consequence of my straying - my readers have abandoned me! Only half as many of you come to read me every day now - I need to do something about that!

On some crafty stuff: I´ve got a swap in December, with Stella in Singapore, who LOVES bunnies, and I´ve got just the bunny for her, but it needs clothes, so when I get home, I´ll try to whip up some bunny clothes. Thanks to the generosity of swappers, I´ve got plenty of cotton fabric with small prints - some even with bunnies on! Perfect!

I have a hard time finding labels I like for the things I make, but now I found this, and will try it out. I really like how the label look like, and how I can make mine look any way I want to.

What a day! I went to work this morning, with no packed lunch, thinking I would only work from 8 - 12, on my way they call, and need me til 3 pm on another ward (right word, yes, no?), and then another call, where they need me until 4 am at a third one. Then I´m needed at the second one at nine, and then they don´t need me, when I go there after lunch it turns out they don´t need me at all, but maybe the third ward does, and yes they in fact they do, and in the end they actually don´t. I feel dragged all over the place today, and I´m not liking it one bit. Bad day!

Yesterday my sister and nephew came to visit. For a while my nephew was very quiet, and when asked he didn´t want to tell what he was doing. Well, when I went to bed I found out - he had found my scissors, and cut holes in my new (one week old!) sheets. Great! I have to admit, I got kinda irritated...

First - Lisa, Jody, thanks for your comforting words! It feels good, knowing I´m not the only one out there!

Second - I´ve got three swap packages coming, and soon I hope. It´s my bday on Friday, and I would love to recieve at least on of the packages by then, so I could pretend it´s a bday present. My package from Jody in Singapore is in fact a bday swap, but I don´t think it will be here in time - she´s waiting for the cutest Mamegoma purse to arrive (trust me, it´s worth the wait!). I don´t think the package from Elise in France will make it either, in the end of last week she said she needed another week to finish it. So my hopes are with Yurippe in Italy and those adorable muffin boxes - I hope it will get here by Friday!

Believe it or not, but I look forward to the end of the year, when I will cut back my swapping to a near nothing (I will go back to a few selected swappers (the best ones out there, I hope you all know who you are!) and do a Secret Pal or Vegan Pal, but that´s it), I have done so much swapping in the last year or so. It has been so much fun, I´ve met so much nice people, and only one package has gone lost in the mail, so it has been a wonderful experience. BUT - I´ve spent way too much money on it (limitations, what´s that?!), and it´s getting harder to make good packages. So I´ll quit while I´m ahead, and while I will thoroughly enjoy the remaining swaps, I still look forward to upcoming months, when I won´t be this swamped. Bu I know I´ll miss it, especially when the only thing coming through my mail slot is bills.

Now, that my apartment is coming together, I can´t help thinking of how different the parts of me really are. My apartment is very white, a bit romantic, shabby, almost country (ok, not that much country). And the way I dress is closer to punk than to anything else (still, I can´t seem to outgrow that period of my life, even though I´m 33 next week - I´m so happy my generation is more open to alternative lifestyles than all the generations before!), maybe with a dash of goth. And not to mention my inside... Sometimes things goes on in my head, that really makes me question my sanity, and it´s not just me - if I mention some of the things I think of to friends/sisters, they look at me like I´m loosing my mind, and sometimes I actually literally freak them out (maybe it´s good that I´m writing some kind of detective novel, it helps to get some things out of my system...). Is it just me, or does all people feel this schizofrenic?