A Mad Hatter’s Work

Finally, the note-book is working again. And as my swap parcels have arrived at their destinations as well I may present what I made for the Hats & Headdresses and Alice in Wonderland theme.

Hats & Headdresses

For Cuore.Lacrimante who wished for something a little morbid in black and purple.

Front

"Profile"

Back

Materials: Black felt, purple embroidery yarn, purple trim, white polymer clay, black feathers, black dot tulle.

Swap Card

Alice in Wonderland

This one went all the way north to anti.mensch who likes to see the mad hatter as the key figure of the (filmed *cough* ;) ) story.

Front

Price Tag

Materials: Green & black felt, black trim, white polymer clay, acrylics, old keys, cogwheels, white rocailles, black and white embroidery floss, white organza, black dot tulle.

Well, that’s it for now as I’ve got an x-ray date tomorrow and should definitely sleep more. ^^

Nearly 10 Days

… that I’ve been absent now, but I feel like I should give you a short explanation about this exorbitant lack of posts during the last two weeks.

My laptop committed suicide, that is. It’s rather depressing, and just as my new operating system arrived, it (the notebook) stopped breaking down every time I started a browser. Nah, hell. How ever.

Anyway, I should be at my doctor’s now as I finally decided to let him check my wrist problem. Hopefully I don’t have to wait too long, as if I’m not done until 2 PM I might miss the Old Irish tutorial. And we would not want this to happen, would we?

I hope to be back tomorrow to write about the last swap parcel that finally arrived in Munich, my first Savate lesson and the proceedings of the garden.

Bye then,

Bonnie

Contented Solitude

I really love these moments when I’m all by myself, without the urge to do something for university or the like. Right now, there is such a moment with Bambi and the Satyr being at the Celtic Studies tertulia/ regulars. I thought about going there, too, but I didn’t feel the need to do so.  After I returned from the garden with Teli and we stopped by at the supermarket I got me half a pineapple. That’s quite decadent for a student like me, but sometimes I just have to do something like it. It fits the thought of doing myself something good.

Most of the seminars from another faculty (Ethnology, to be more precisely) I wanted to attend don’t start until the end of April (and I don’t even know if I can attend them as a module and therefore if I can get any credits for them), so my “working week” was pretty much over when I left the Ireland during the Middle Ages course this evening.

The day tomorrow will be spent entirely (harhar) on the making of the re-swap gift for Hats & Headdresses and the start of the real stuff for the Alice in Wonderland- swap. Well, the problem is the usual: *zombieesk countenance* Need… more… YAAAAAARN! Embroidery, that is. I can’t tell too much, as always, but anyway I’ll show the results, I promise.

Admittedly, I’m pretty tired as I didn’t sleep too well during the last nights due to various nightmares and the bad habit of thinking things like “Well, I’m awake now and I’ve got to get up in about forty minutes anyway and falling asleep again would make getting finally out of the bed even more frustrating and insufferable!”. Well, thank you very much, common sense and logical reasoning. Anyway.

Good night unto you all.

5 Favourite Words in April

1. Quadrennial. Matching March’s anniversary, it is something that happens every four years.
2. Circumference. In Evenlyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall there is a Lady Circumference. Weird person, weird name, but all of the book is kind of weird, after all.
3. Verrucht.German for wicked, but that doesn’t really fit if you ask me as verrucht implies a hint of eroticism, long, heavy lashes, smoky boudoirs and silky lace…
4. Cromwell. After all, names are words, too. I like the form of the word, the rolling hills and valleys of the mw combination and the embedded well.
5. Glace. French for ice. I really should learn more french, some of the words are indeed nice (but I’d never call it the “most beautiful language of the world”. That’s silly, most languages have beautiful and ugly parts, and just beacause even quarreling sounds like a declaration of love in French doesn’t make the language perfect).

Book Plates and Hats

Yes, very inspired and original, this title. ^^

It is Sunday forenoon, the sky is overcast with a shimmering cover of clouds and my right hand and especially the wrist hurts with every move. It seems that I overcharged it in the garden yesterday, the ache in the hand itself seems more like a muscle soreness, while the wrist shows the same problems as usual. Well, too much cut-down ivy, I guess. ^^ At least the compost heap is rearranged now and seems way less than before (and Simon and the Historian took great fun in jumping around in the other compost bin). My hands are quite rough when I return from the garden but I got me some hand lotion, sea buckthorn and pomegranate from our local wholefood shop that’s only two streets away. Goth, I love my home. :)

But now I’m sitting here with a cup of hot chocolate, waiting for a carrier pigeon (that will reach me in the afternoon, presumably) with the information of a train arriving to bring a certain scoundrel here – Scoundrel, for he stole my heart.

Some days ago, I received a small package from the wonderful Tilliel containing her splendid, perfect (no overstatement) Hats & Headdresses swap gift for me:

She considered my love for corduroy...

... as well as for small details.

The colours are perfect, toned down and kind of vintage.

And I simply adore the fact that she added bells. ^^

I already wore the cap on my visit to my grandparents, it perfectly fits my old cotton ex-sari shawl.

Sadly, the package that I gave to the post office didn’t arrive yet and by now I doubt that it will at all. :(
Tomorrow I’ll go shopping for the material that I lack for the substitute as I really don’t want to make an exact copy of the first hat (maybe it will arrive one day, and having two same hats would be somehow boring, wouldn’t it). I also have to get the materials for the Alice swap, with all the events going on in my personal life and the upcoming term I didn’t find any time for it yet! But I’m all an eager beaver for it, so this shouldn’t be a real problem.

What’s about the book plates in the title?, you may ask now. Well, I love book plates. As somebody who loves and collects books, it is sometimes quite difficult to get those back that I lend to somebody (my beloved rebound half linen copy of Discworld’s Maskerade is still lost somewhere in Hamburg, I think, and I’m quite angry about that). Book plates are a great opportunity to avoid that somewhat ugly inscriptions on the title page. The bookshop across the street was selling some last week, and I couldn’t resist:

I clearly prefer toned down classic motives here, too. And now I’ll go and mark my copy of Northanger Abbey as my own and nothing but my own, just to feast on avocado and corn crisps afterwards. Healthy and incredibly tasty. :)

10 Pleasures in April

1. Tear Shaped Glass Beads. My stock of white glass beads went low so I went to get some new and found that terrific beautiful ones that remind me of pixie tears or frog spawn…
   
2. Visits. Jules came over again for some days at the end of March. Sadly we all had our papers to write and were not that useful during the days after that so we couldn’t keep up with our plans, but I really enjoyed the fact of having a guest to care for. I’ll make amends next time, I promise!
   
3. Cinema Seats. When I went to see Sherlock Holmes with Bambi some weeks ago I re-recognized how comfy and luxurious those velvet arm chairs actually are. I’m definitely going to go to the movies more often now, next time will be How to tame Your Dragon.
   
4. Planning Festivals. Summer is a very special time of the year, in this case for the weekends filled with the smell of bonfires and turf, the taste of mead and butter-and-honey bread eaten in front of a tent, the touch of combat boot lacing and new badges from the merchandise stand, the view of thousands of stars in the sky outside your tent when everybody has gone to sleep and of course the music that I love. I’ve decided to go to two festivals this year, excluding the Festival Mediaval as the date collides with the Steampunk Con. Mookychick is featuring an article about festival fashion at the moment, maybe some of you might find it helpful, too.
   
5. Ravioli. The typical student food, but they can be really delicious when refined with fresh herbs like basil or parsley, spices or tomatoes.
   
6. Moss Daughter. A title I found at Rima’s blog in a poem of hers. I liked it instantly as it reminds me of my well in the swamplands, of small beds of green, fluffy plants, of treasure-hunts in the wood and the tree where I could lie down like a panther and watch the toads hopping by.
   
7. A Capella. I’ve always liked barber shop quartets. :)
   
8. Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. When Bambi told me about it, I thought “Goth, not another web comic, as if I had nothing better to do!” and half an hour later I found myself pretty much addicted, browsing through the strips instead of writing my assignment. My favourite character is Cadugan the woodland elf, even though I like Arachne and Gren and Bob quite well, too.
   
9. The Producers. It’s all Simon’s fault. He made me watch the 2005 remake first and I fell for this film. The over-the-top happiness and parody of the musical business is simply magnificent. Well, I’ve seen it thrice so far and my favourite song from is definitely Betrayed. And I think John Barrowman should have kept that light blonde hair. Suited him.
   
10. Dreamcatchers. I used to have some when I was a child, made of willow twigs and embroidery yarn and I’m thinking about making one for my bedroom in my fairy tale town, too. I could use some of my beloved yarn and raw wool as well as the feathers I tend to find on my strolls…
    

Kittens and Catkins

I’ve been absent again, due to my assignment (which is finished, I’ve got my life back, eventually) and the fact that I’ve got no aethernet at my mother’s castle in the marshlands and in the time between the hand-in and my departure I was way too busy with celebrating the end of the term, cooking with and for friends and looking into blue eyes with golden coronas in them.

When I came home at my mother’s on Friday she told me that our neighbor’s cat had kittens, one black and one like a wildcat. They’re absolutely cute and fluffy. The black one has got a new home already when he will be parted from his mother in about two weeks, and the wildcat – well, I don’t want to talk about it too much, but Bambi wanted a cat anyway…

I also took a long walk though the glens with my mother and got some plants for the garden and – maybe the most important thing of all – had a long, hot bath while watching Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Green Gables – The Sequel (the DVDs arrived just in time shortly before the hand-in).

Spring is really coming now and spring fever is likely to break out as I’m definitely not  getting that big, glad, radiant smile off my face. :)