An occasional penguin

In my first ever post on this blog I said I would occasionally write about penguins. Well, today is such an occasion: A yeti-penguin!

Following the instructions from the Free Penguin Project, I made a yeti-penguin for my best friend Mike. It's not the first time I made him a penguin but I'll write about that some other time. The fabric was quite difficult to work with but I think I managed it pretty well.

First a foot:

The penguin partially turned inside-out:


An almost finished penguin:


Meet Tux, the yeti-penguin!

Happy 2010!

Uups, I didn't notice this was my first post in 2010. So, happy 2010 to everyone!

I wasn't doing much during the holidays but I did do something. Bake :-) Here you go, some photos:






I don't have to mention that everything is gone by now, do I?

Not a penny more...

...not a penny less by Jeffrey Archer.

I first read it probably twenty years ago (oh, dear!) and loved it! And then I recently watched the BBC documentary the Coast, where they talk about the discovery of oil in the North Sea and that reminded me of the book so I decided to re-read it.

With one sentence - I still love it. It is such an enjoying book and although I knew the final outcome (which is a bit predictable, I must confess), I enjoyed reading it a lot. The end is a bit abrupt though.


What I do not understand, why hasn't Hollywood tuned it into a film? Something like Ocean's 11 or the Italian Job? Surely I'm not the only one who loves the wittiness of con films, right?

PS. Notice my reflection in the cover of the book?

Top of the noughties

Since everybody's doing 'Top of the decade' lists, I might join them. Mainly because I very much love the word noughties...

Top concerts I went to:
1. Leonard Cohen, Munich, 2008
2. Moby, Munich, 2002
3. Nick Cave "solo", Ljubljana, 2005
4. Schiller, Duesseldorf, 2004
5. Jane Birkin, Ljubljana, 2004
6. M'era Luna Festival, 2004: Covenant, Wolfsheim, The Mission, Lacimosa, In Extremo, Within Temptation...
7. Kraftwerk, Munich, 2004

Top TV shows I follow/often watch :
1. House MD
2. Project Runway Canada/OZ/US
3. Planet Earth/The Blue Planet
4. Top Gear
5. Time Warp
6. Long Way Round/Down
7. QI

Top films I watch when I feel lonely (artistic value not important):
1. About a Boy
2. Amelie
3. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
4. Ocean's 11
5. Lost in Translation
6. Under the Tuscan Sun
7. O Brother, Where Art Thou

Top albums I often listen to:
1. Soundtrack to Amelie
2. Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
3. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Boatman's Call
4. Johnny Cash - Unearthed
5. Schiller - Weltreise
6. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
7. VNV Nation - Future Perfect

Top songs that defined the decade not on the top albums:
1. Moby - In My Heart
2. Arcade Fire - Wake Up
3. Nick Cave - Breathless
4. Herbert Grönemeyer - Der Weg
5. Sigur Ros - Glosoli
6. Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
7. Project Pitchfork - Jupiter

Top trips I made:
1. New Zealand, 2005
2. La Reunion Trekking, 2003
3. Morocco Trekking, 2004
4. Norway in winter, 2003
5. Istanbul, 2004
6. UK, 3 months in 2002
7. French Alps cycling and Tour de France (2002, 2003)

Amost there...

I'll just add some detailed photos of the Christmas cards I described in the previous post:

and then move on to this year's cards. I have already written about them .. twice! First when I received the fabric by Michael Miller and the second when I was working on them. But now, the finished product. Well, some of them:




Some of the cards were ironed and some not. And to me, the non-ironed seem almost better: softer, more 3-dimensional...


The fabric was sewn together and sewn onto blank cards. The inner side of the card now looks like this:
I know... the seams are not perfectly straight. But hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Christmas is just around the corner

With Christmas being only a week away I will post about the Christmas Card I made... two years ago!

This year's cards still haven't been sent around and posting about them here would ruin the surprise - so I'm posting some old ones. Which were just as beautiful. But different.

(By the way: Last year's cards with the instructions how to make them could be found here.)

I started with blank coloured cards with matching envelopes and some stiffer white paper. Then I cut circles from the paper and poked holes in them. The main idea is to poke the holes in a circle - but not like a clock but with rather unevenly distributed. Of course you could make more (or less) holes but I found number 12 to be perfect (for symmetry reasons, 12 = 2x2x2x3, which allows for several different periodicities).


Then you find a matching thread and start "sewing". I could probably calculate how many different patterns can be made but let's just say: your imagination is the limit!


You can even combine two different colours in one circle:


Then I glued the circles onto the cards in a triangular shape to resemble a Christmas tree and put a more starry circle on the top of the tree:


Et voilà! Merry Christmas, everyone!

Photography

One of my greatest passions is photography. Unfortunately I don't have enough time to do it as often as I wanted to, but sometimes I find a couple of hours to do it. Like today. First the results:




Then the technical details: Nikon D80, Nikkor Micro 60mm, 2.8, 1/30s, remote flash, SB-800, tripod.

And finally, how I did it:



PS. In loving memory of my Mom. She passed away only four months after my Dad. She adored flowers and here favourite were tulips. Unfortunately, tulips were nowhere to be found in December so I got her some roses instead.