Watercolor.

Ever since I can remember I painted. I used to go to Art Class every thursday from age 5 to age 14. And I hated it. The teacher was very gifted, but not so much talented dealing with kids. The one sentence I still remember her always saying was "In Art, there are no mistakes!" and whenever she came around looking, she would stop behind me and literally say in the loudest voice she could possibly make without yelling: "Wrong! Everything wrong! Horrible, better you start all over again!" I hated that class. I'd much rather spent my days running around with my friend, climbing up trees and dressing up dolls than sitting in that class and getting told that I made everything wrong. I never stopped painting and drawing and sketching though. I doodled my way through classes in school and I even have some exam papers flying around were teachers commented, that I did great, but it would be nicer if I would invest the last minuted in reading what I've written and correcting a few mistakes than doodling in the corners. Oh well, I guess they never had so pretty exams to check.

I used to be afraid of color. I love color in clothes and rooms and in general, but I was terribly scared of painting in color. I would always use my pencils instead of dipping my brushes in some red or yellow or blue. I guess part of that is because I can still hear my Art Teacher say that I did wrong. But with pencils you can always erase your mistakes. It wasn't until 3 years ago that I gathered the courage to try out real paint again. First I just used black and white and experimented with a few portraits in Acryl. Those experiments only lasted a few months, then I gave up again. It just didn't feel right. 

Last Summer I spotted Sketchbooks in my nearby store. I just put one in my cart without second guessing it. A few days later I went to visit my parents and when I was shopping with my Mom I went ahead right into my favorite craft supply store in my hometown and bought a watercolor travelling kit. I never regretted it once. The first sketches were just some flowers in my mothers garden. It took me a few pages but then I began painting things and scenes that came into my mind, mostly things I related to lyrics from my favorite songs. Usually I would write the lyrics with a sharpie right over the finished page, turning into kind of an art journal.

I grew to love painting with color. Filling one page doesn't take long and it is something, that calms me down after I get upset about something. It empties my head when I listen to a song and there is this certain picture in my mind that wouldn't go away. Art is something beautiful. I always knew it, but for a long time, I was afraid to embrace it the way I wanted to, the way I felt the need to. I love dipping my paint brush into water and after that into color, letting it drip onto paper, watching it bleed together with other ones until there is so much movement that it literally twirls. I love challenging myself to be accurate when drawing a face on that little page. I cherish the gift of Art. And I am glad I have finally overcome my fear of doing so.

News, news, NEWS

Last Thursday was my Birthday. Yepp, I am the lucky one who would receive Birthday presents AND Valentines chocolate, if Valentine's Day would be much of a deal here in good ol' Germany. It becomes more and more popular, but Mr. A and I personally don't get why we should need a special day to show love.

So my Birthday. 21. I feel terribly old. I am still the youngest in every one of my university courses. But 21 doesn't sound cool. I get that being 21 is kind of fancy in America because of all the stuff that becomes legal. In Germany you are officially allowed to drink when you're 18, so being 21 is no big deal for me regarding alcohol or smoking or anything like that. 20, in my opinion, sounds pretty cool. I loved the 20th year of my life. I know 21 will probably be a good year as well (knocking on wood) but I miss being 20. 
I got some nice new "hey you are 21!"-hat though (well, actually five, thanks mom!).

I never had the the opportunity to make wishes for my Birthday presents. My mother was never a fan letting me chose. She gave me things she wanted to give to me. I always ended up with far too many socks. This year I just sent my Mom an E-Mail with three links and descriptions. The links led to a German Quilt-Shop. I kindly asked for one of the three Items, which were either one Salt Air Layer Cake by Moda, or The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt Book or the Dear Jane Book. The next day my Mom called telling me, that I would get all three Items from my Dad, my Grandma and her for my Birthday, Easter and Children's Day and every other Holiday were I would usually receive a gift until Christmas. FINE BY ME.

So those three things were sitting on one of my dining room chairs for nearly 3 weeks now and I didn't touch them, since it wasn't my birthday. God, that was hard. But I did order some fabrics so I could start immediately after my Birthday. 

I plan on making my Farmer's Wife Quilt completely in Red and White. I saw one lovely Quilt Top (well, actually it's just the assembly) on Flickr and fell in love. I had wanted to make it in Red and White but wasn't sure but it wasn't until I spotted this one that I was certain that I don't want my FW Quilt to be in other colors. I have bought 4 prints for now and I will buy some more as I complete the Blocks. So I will probably make my first 5 or 6 Blocks out of those 4 Prints and my white Background fabric and then I will order some other prints to mix it up. 

I want my Dear Jane Quilt to be Rainbow-Colored. I don't know why, I just love me some good colorful Block-Quilts. I have ordered one nice pink print so far. I probably just buy 2 to 3 prints per color, I don't want it to be too busy. I want the colors to speak, not the prints.

I made some big progress with my mother's quilt in Black and White. The top is finished, next up are borders. She wants three borders, black, the crown print, and black again. We'll see how that works out.

I started my Irish Chain Quilt last week. I posted at the end of my last Post a Photo showing the strips of one Millie's Closet Jelly Roll and some Dresden Plates I made out of two Charm packs ( Marmalade and Vintage Modern). I want to combine the Dresden Plates and the Irish Chain, but I am still not really sure how. I will figure it out once I have my nine patches for the chain done. For now I have a nice stack already finished, I still need to make around 12 or so.

And, the most exiting news: I finished my Swoon Quilt. WOHOO. It was like the best Birthday Present I could have made myself. I actually squared it up the minute the clock turned midnight and my hand still hurt from cutting when Mr. A made me open my first birthday presents ( I really need to invest in some new blades, otherwise I will probably lose some fingers soon). After that I attached the binding and today after Dinner I buried the last threads. It still needs to visit the washing machine though, but for now it keeps me wonderfully snuggled up and warm while I have my nose stuck into "The Fault In Our Stars" which was the actual present I made myself. Mr. A, who was more excited to have it finally finished than me, didn't have a chance so far to enjoy the giant cuddliness of the quilt since I am constantly bundled up in it. Little does he now that I already make plans in my head for making him a big Yoshi-Quilt for Christmas this year. Gotta feed my Gamer-Boy some nice Gamer-Quilt.

On Monday I will have finished my last exam for this semester, so this weekend there will be no sewing for me ( at least no quilty sewing. I will probably sew up some nice butterfly potholders for a friend whose Birthday is on Sunday). After that I will finally add the borders to my mothers quilt, finish up all those nine patches for the Irish Chain and maybe - MAYBE - cut into the Salt Air Layer Cake to start the Chevron Quilt I plan to make out of it. And of course, I want to start the first blocks both for the Farmer's Wife and the Dearest Jane. So much to sew, sew little time! But till then, I will spent my time learning Japanese Characters in a way it looks like Dexter paid me a visit:

on my way.

How can you not love going to uni, when it looks like this?

Recently

Last weekend Mr. A's parents came visiting us, which was not only a great opportunity to eat a whole lot of yummy stuff, but also a nice chance to finally tidy up every corner of our apartment. Mr. A had work off a little earlier than usual but I started cleaning the living room without him anyway, although he said I should wait for him. I started with the first thing you see when you come from the hallway, which is my yarn-crate.

This thing was a hot mess! No wonder I stopped knitting or crocheting for a few months. Most of the yarns were all messed up, so I spent 2 good hours making this:

into this:

Ah, so much better! But there is one thing that worries me. I have far too many baby hats!!

Like seriously, all the people I know who are expecting a baby right now should better become girls, because I had another pile of boy hats a few months ago for all the people who just recently became parents and they all got little boys. Stock up on girls, people. I have at least 9 little hats to give away and two pairs of little booties.

And I don't think I have mentioned it yet here on the interweb, but I have a serious hat-problem (hint in the baby hats above). I'm addicted to them. I have around 80(!) now, but I won't stop till I have one for every single day of the year. My Mother and Grandmother are knitting like crazy and constantly buying new magazines from which I have to select new patterns whenever I visit them. Ever since I can remember those two have always knitted stuff. I was the only kid in school who would wear homemade knitted sweaters (and at that time it wasn't cool. Wish the hipster-times came earlier, haha) and when I grew out of a pair of jeans my mom would simply crochet some lace to the bottom to make it look longer again. Yeah. I was very stylish back then :D Around 7 or 8 years ago my grandma started knitting for a good cause. Every summer 50 kids from Chernobyl come visiting the village I grew up in, so my Grandma and the members of her knitting group knit one pair of socks, one hat, one scarf, one pair of mittens and one headband for each kid. Every year since then. They also collected stuff from local doctors like coloring books, pencils, toothbrushes, notebooks, little toys etc. 

When my grandma started doing this she put inserts in some local newspapers asking for free yarn for a good cause. Let me say, she received enough yarn to knit 10 pairs of socks everyday for the rest of her life. Every inch of my parents attic is stuffed with yarn, which is good for me, since there will always be enough for a hat or two for me. So my mom and grandma knit a lot. Naturally I started knitting too and even my sister, who has no talent what so ever when it comes to crafting something with her hand started knitting some scarfs for the kids using a loom-knitting-tool. When my grandma heard we both started knitting she was so proud she cried. And she gets excited every time I sent an E-Mail with my newest projects and finishes. 

Since my yarn-crate was so messy I haven't knit in a while. But now that all the yarn is rolled up again I pulled out my favorite yarn and casted on some stitches. I found this cute pattern on ravelry called Slouchy. It's free and so far it's great and easy to follow. I love knitting cables and the brim of the hat is full of that. My yarn is a bit thinner that it's recommended. I use Baby Merino yarn which I had left over from the far too many baby hats. It might turn out a bit smaller, but I already figured that and casted on a few more stitches.

Looks nice so far!

My first badge: Sunrise

Lifescouts: Sunrise Badge

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2nd July 2010 was my prom night. And although the day started pretty depressing, it turned out to be one of the most amazing nights of my life so far. That very morning I got into a huge fight with my mother which - looking back - was kind of stupid. Basically we argued about the dress she wanted me to wear for getting my diploma but I thought would make me look overdressed. Actually I'm a pretty easy-going person if I may say so myself and I hate arguing or in general getting into a fight or even raising my voice. In fact, whenever I'm getting angry I burst out into tears. I guess my body can't cope with anger or rage, haha. So when I got into that fight with my mother which was very much a first-time-experiance, the day was basically ruined. After I received my diploma I was still kind of in a bad mood because of that fight and my mother, who can't let go of anything, declared that she didn't want to go to my prom anymore (here in Germany parents usually attend prom with their kids). She screamed, I cried, my dad was disappointed and my poor boyfriend Mr. A. stood between the chairs. Fast forward that night my mother came along and basically sat at the table the whole night with such a gloomy face nobody dared to talk to her. I tried to enjoy the evening, but I was still pretty bummed about the whole fight. So when midnight came around and my best friend and I found out nobody of our friends would get to be prom kind and/or queen we decided to take off. First we drove to my home so I could change out of my dress and Mr. A. out of his tuxedo, then we drove to her place so she and her best friend who was her date for the night could do the same. The boys took a couple of beers and we all decided we wanted to go to the beach. I guess we've never before been so grateful for living so close to the sea, mostly because we knew this would be our last summer in our home-town before we both (my best friend and I) would take of to different cities to go to university. So while the boys were totally crazy and jumped right into the sea, my bestie and I laid there in the darkness, looking at the stars, chatting about anything and everything and from time to time just saying nothing, enjoying the boys making noise. We laid there a couple of hours when we suddenly realized the sky lighting up. And that very moment we saw the most beautiful sunrise ever. And up until now the last one we saw together and it probably will be the last one for at least another couple of years, because she now has a little son (who was born on the date of our prom night 2 years later - sign?).
But I still cherish those memories, this sunrise and the very last day of me being in high school. 

Brilliant Mr. Day

So there is this certain British Youtuber who I adore. Just because he's amazing.
Mr. Alex Day, on Youtube being found under the name nerimon, not only makes wonderful music and the most random vlogs, but also has some brilliant projects in his head that just make me smile. I'm already a passionate player of his cardgame Sopio, which can be purchased here. Anyone into random and funny cardgames will be hooked on this in no time. Pinky Promise.
Just a few minutes ago I saw his latest video where he introduced his newest idea: Lifescouts. Lifescouts is simply said an online version of scouts. You reblog one of the badges he offers on the site you can relate to and tell your story behind it. Being a subscriber to him for quite a while now I just know what a great impact that is going to make all over Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and so on, because it's a great motivation to do something, because you get a badge you can show off, so you literally get a reward for something you do or did. I think it's an amazing idea and I immediately checked out the lifescouts-badges (Alex said there will be released more and more over time) to see which I can earn or which I want to earn by doing something related to a certain badge, for instance the scuba diving badge. For anybody interested you should definitely check out the initial video by clicking here.
So next up, most likely tomorrow, will be the story for my very first lifescout-badge. 

2013 is going to be an awesome year!

2012 was one good year for me. There were struggles and problems, but there were also a lot of good times. But I'm not going to lie. It could have been better. But not in the hey-someone-make-this-better kind of way, but more in the do-something-yourself kind of way. I have to admit, whenever it comes to something I have to do, especially when it comes to homework and such for my Japanese class, I'm Miss Lazypants. And I want to change that. And a few other things. So I will officially write those down as a reminder.

1. Organize yourself, young lady!

Yepp, that's right. Organization is one huge problem for me. Everything I don't want to do, I simply can't be bothered to do until 1-2 hours before it HAS to be done. Which is always kind of nerve-wracking. Procrastination is a sucker. So this means this year I will try to be more organized, which means forgetting less about putting up the laundry (so I don't have to wash the same load again and again), vacuuming more often, learning for exams and tests NOT right before them, putting everything back where it belongs, doing the dishes more frequently (not when there are no dishes left in the cupboards anymore and I have to do one monster wash-up).

2. Kick my butt, do it!

Ever since I moved out of my parents home I put on some unwanted pounds. I've never been really skinny anymore since I hit my first growth-spurt when I was around 14, but I never was as fat as I am now. Although fat might not be the right word. I am not heavily overweight, but I am not feeling confident in my skin anymore. It's not that I am eating really unhealthy, but it's not a perfect diet either. This year I want to lose some of those pounds, I want my legs and my tummy back. I guess the biggest problem is that since I am out of school I am not doing any sports anymore. Occasionally I'm playing volleyball with some friends after university in summer, but that's not enough. I have no stamina and I can't walk a flight of stairs without the feeling that I'm going to cough up my lungs. So I hope I can get my butt off the sofa more often. Maybe with some good ol' Bodyrock work-outs?

3. Saving up

Being a student is not the kind of cool job every kid thinks. 2012 has been full of struggles with money mr. A. and I had. Not going into that too much, but our budget is tight. I know 2013 will be a little bit less filled with penny-saving, but still. We plan on going on vacation to Norway in august/september for 3 weeks with his family and we still haven't put anything aside for that. No big splurges until that money has been saved up!

4. Get out

The university in my home town does not offer Japanese studies so I had to move to Germany's capital Berlin to be able to study what I wanted to (there are other university in Germany too that offer Japanese, but Berlin's university was the closest to the town I grew up). I enjoy visiting my parents just because there is nature everywhere. I love the big city now (although it took me nearly a year to love it) but I still miss the fresh air and sticking my naked toes into the grass without worrying about broken glass or old cigarettes. Berlin has some pretty places, but I'm nearly always staying inside. So I seriously need to grab mr. A. and start exploring Berlin and it's surroundings. Maybe visiting the ropes courses more or hunting mushrooms in autumn, going swimming in summer, taking the bike and the train to check out the towns aroung Berlin. There are endless possibilities who don't cost a lot (yay for point number 3.) if we both simply get up and out.

5. End what you started

I'm getting so excited the moment a new idea pops into my head that I often forget to finish up things I already have laying around. I have tons of paintings who need some final touches, some hats I knitted but haven't sewed up the tails yet same with pillowcases I made. And don't get me started on the things that bother me but so much else is more important that I just did the very beginning (like painting over the ugly pink walls in the bedroom). So this year I will try to finish up at least twice as much as I start :D


So yeah, 2013 is going to be a lot of work for me but I don't want it to bea drasting change which only lasts a week. I want it to be a  constant work in progress to be more satisfied and pleased with myself. 

so, from today on you're gonna be a blogger.

So, after a long time of thinking back and forth whether or not to start my own blog, I finally came around to the "heck, why not" moment which ended up right here. Just in case someone might stumble upon it and wonders who this girl is, let me introduce myself the old-fashioned way. I'm Marie, but ever since I was a little girl everybody simply calles me mie. For you english folks: simply pronounce it like "me". I live in Germany, currently studying Japanese in university and trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with this thing called life that was given to me. For over three years now I am happily in love with a boy which shall be called mr. A. here. We live together and share our little apartment with some seriously cute cats named mathilda and elmo. Those two are the ones who make us cuddle more at night, just because they take up all the space in bed. One of them is the most adorable, but kind of dumbest cat I've ever seen, the other one is a little dare-devil and is constantly getting in trouble for stealing food the second nobody's looking or sweeping something of the shelves. 

I love reading blogs. I guess I always wanted to start blogging ever since I created a livejournal-account back then when I was in this teenage-phase where writing fanfictions was cool. lol. 
I would dare to say I am a creative person. I always have the urge to make something. My living room is filled with wool, knitting needles, fabrics, threads, paint, brushes, canvases, quilts, tons of pillows I sewed and there is not a single wall in this apartment that I did not "beautify" by painting on it, may it be a quote, a giant portrait or some trees and bushes. So I started this blog to show off how awesome I am to help me get a hang of what I already did, what I wanna do again, what my WIPs are, what is still on my to-do-list and finally, to simply help me remember, maybe in 5 or 10 years, how my life was back in my very first own apartment and how crazy I was (or maybe how uncrazy I was, you never know how you're gonna be with 25+ ;D ). This blog will be all about me. So it will be about cats, sewing, crafting, failing, finding myself and hopefully growing into the person I am supposed to be.
so yeah, I'm gonna be a blogger from now on.