Finally, the bunting is finished. It is painfully obvious that I am an absolute beginner as far as sewing is concerned. Things I learned while making this particular thing:

1. It does actually make sense to buy heavy-weight, good quality fabric when any degree of precision is required. Both fabrics used here were of relatively poor quality, unfortunately. I am now very intimately acquainted with my seam ripper.

2. I need to invest in yet another tape maker. I had to use the smaller one of the two that I have. The resulting tape was way too small in width and I had serious trouble folding it around the tops of the triangles to sew. Hence the backside of said triangles looks terrible – I need to see if I can somehow fix that later, but for now it’ll have to do, as I have more sewing projects to take care of before the Munchkin’s birthday.

3. Doing appliques was not as easy as I thought it would be. I found going around the bends inside the letters quite difficult.

Behold, the bunting:

Well, you certainly never cease to learn. I will get started on the Munchkin’s birthday dress tonight. And maybe add repainting our table to my ever growing to do list.

The birds are a co-production between the Lad and myself and turned out somewhat less than perfect. We do think we know where we went wrong, though. First of all, I need to perfect my blind stitching and get a better feel for stuffing animals like this. First I put in too much stuffing, which resulted in the seams pulling apart and now there’s too little in them to make them look nice and plump. Also, stitching around small bends is not as easy as it looks. Anyway, next up on my list are birthday bunting and the Munchkin’s birthday dress, so the birdies will have to wait a little while.

Things are finally slowing down here. After two beautiful days filled with sunshine and chocolate, we’re taking this last quiet (and rainy) day to settle down a bit. In that spirit, here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Works of Art ;)

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Of course, Molly was right. Doing one thing after another, things are getting sewn and finished. I am slowly working through my list.

First came the bags

Then it was time for the Easter basket

Who would have thought I’d have such trouble sewing in a straight line? That’s definitely something I need to work on. For now, though, I do think the basket is usable and cute. Only it turned out much smaller than I anticipated. When I realized how small this basket was going to be, I’d already cut the fabric. I’ll probably make more of those baskets, though slightly bigger, next year.

Somewhere in between all that I managed to paint the Munchkin’s doll bed. I am still missing some Aslan tape and pretty paper to finish the bed base. After that, I’ll need to make the bedding.

I also ordered fabric from the US for the first time – what I wanted was so much cheaper there than it is here, despite the 19% tax I need to add to every shipment.  One of my two parcels arrived yesterday and I am smitten. I’ll most definitely order from that shop again. I’ll post a picture of the fabrics as soon as I get the last parcel in.

In between all that, the studying is going ok. I will need to set myself some deadlines this week – Ideally, I’d like to take one exam every four weeks. I hope that’s manageable.

We have a friend visiting this week, so things are a bit more stressful than usual. Of course it’s lovely to see her and our Munchkin seems to have taken an instant liking to her Auntie J, so all’s well.

Off to study for now, hooray.

Yet again, I find myself slightly overwhelmed by basically anything and everything. I am neglecting my studying, because I keep remembering one million things besides my exams that should to be done very soon, then proceed to start taking care of three things at once and never actually finishing the first one of them.

On my list for the next little while:

An Easter Basket for the Munchkin – I finally found a nice tutorial for that, now I am still missing a few nice fabrics.

The Munchkin’s birthday outfit – I have yet to find a nice pattern for that.

Birthday bunting for the Munchkin – at least I have figured out which fabrics I want to go with. Now I just need to make it.

A snuggly blanket for the Munchkin – the cloth for that has been lying around for ages, I just have not had the nerve to do it so far. I’d like to have it finished by her second birthday, though.

Paint the doll bed for the Munchkin’s baby and make bedding for it – again, this has been standing around here for a while, I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Three more of the bags I showed here recently – two for other people, one for myself. These bags need to be finished this month.

Easter Decorations – I want to sew a few birds and maybe make some fabric eggs somehow. Not quite sure how yet.

I absolutely have to manage to be disciplined about my studying again, though, so I am off to make a quick list of things to do for tomorrow. Which I will then place somewhere visible, safe in the knowledge that these things will still be there for me to take care of AFTER I finish my study period for the day.

Should I ever manage to complete any of this, this here blog will be where you will see the pictures to prove it.

In the past, I haven’t had much luck with baked goods that involved yeast. Some people in my immediate family really love spongy, cinnamony things like Pulla, though, so once again, I set out to conquer the yeasty beast. This time around, I gave a recipe by Cynthia Barcomi, hands down my favorite baker in Berlin, a try. The end result was really, really, incredibly fluffy and oh so yummy – I just have to share some pictures with you!

I’m still fighting my way through the books. The Lad and I are still both jobless. Our little one is sick (again) and hasn’t been to Kita in a few days. I can’t seem to drag myself away from my self-absorbed whining long enough to make any sense in writing or otherwise.

Technically, there is lots for me to do, though. A bunch of little sewing projects are awaiting completion – hopefully I’ll manage to actually finish some of them at some point. A friend asked me to make one of those for her:

Other than that, I have our Munchkin’s birthday outfit to think of, a snuggly blanket, doll clothes and doll bedding, bedding for the Munchkin, birthday bunting…the list goes on and on. So much to do, so little time!

Speaking of which, I’ll go ahead and write a nice and fresh To Do list for myself now. Maybe that will make me feel more inclined to tackle my various projects and less like I am just turning in terribly dull circles.

It’s midnight and I still have quite a few things to do before I go to bed, so just quickly today, I want to show you our little strawberry. Thanks again, Audrey, for the hat instructions. Yours looks much prettier than mine, but I think it passes.

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After days of fruitless searching for my lost uni notes (the result of two solid weeks of research and studying), a bit of crying and a lot of swearing, some self-pitying whining and general hysteria, I have come to accept the cold, hard facts. My notes are gone, I have no idea where they went, the premises have been searched to no avail and I need to get over it.

This morning, the Lad gave me a good talking to after I had yet again succumbed to the gloomy mood I’ve been in ever since I discovered the disappearance of my research material. While I am by no means the most efficient and organized person in the world, I have never before lost any of my uni stuff. Retracing my steps has proven useless, as I apparently have the memory of a goldfish these days. I remember sitting on the couch in the evening, going over my notes, getting up to deal with some laundry and…that’s it. I have absolutely no recollection of anything after that point.

Well then, it would seem there’s nothing left for me to do than to just start over again. Lovely, can’t imagine anything better than that. Yes, I will of course get right on that. After I have attended to the very important matter at hand.

In the spirit of true procrastination, I have proceeded to make waffles – the German version, of course, sprinkled with powdered sugar. The house smells fantastic and I have two pairs of eyes on me this very minute, imploring me to get a move on and serve up. So, being the good housewife and mother that I am, off I go to fulfill my duty.

I am very seriously mad – mainly at myself. The Lad, the Munchkin and I went to see our neighbour yesterday – said neighbour’s daughter wanted a shot at our Wii, so the Lad set it up at their place and played with her. D,  the neighbour, and I sat on the floor in the adjacent room and talked while the Munchkin played around us.

At some point, our little girl found a hand puppet and put it on her hand. She came over to us and showed off the puppet. Suddenly, she took it off her hand and threw it at D. D proceeded to tell her that one does not throw things at people (after I had said that to the Munchkin already, I might add), took the puppet and threw it at my baby’s head!

Luckily, this thing was a soft toy with no plastic bits that could have potentially physically hurt the Munchkin. But the look on our baby’s face was terrible. I was shocked and said as much to D, telling her that we do not deal with these situations in this manner. When the Munchkin throws things, bites or does anything else like that, we very decidedly tell her that we do not want that, that we do not hurt each other and potentially physically remove her from the situation. If necessary, we will do that again and again and again.

D responded by telling me that she has her own rules and that at least with her own children, but also in her apartment, those are the rules that apply. She said that children like our little one would never learn to defend themselves or be able to realize that what they are doing hurts others, if they don’t experience it themselves. To this I just replied that I find this eye for an eye tactic inappropriate and terrible and that I want our child to experience and find different ways to deal with conflict.

Apart from that, though, our daughter is actually in Kita and does experience how other children treat each other. She does learn to stand up for herself, but I DO NOT WANT this to happen by forcefully retaliating until someone gives in!

So I am really mad at myself now. I did not exactly have to start a fight, but I should have been more clear about the fact that D overstepped a line when she treated MY child that way. I should have stood up for my daughter more. She was so confused, she didn’t even know what to do with herself for a little while after that. My inability to speak up about this is symptomatic for my general treatment of situations like that – I never want to make a fuss, want to avoid disruption or fight. It’s awful, when you think about it. I usually end up feeling sick and develop migraines on a regular basis, because I am unable to just be CLEAR about what I want and what I don’t want.

By now I don’t even expect parents in our immediate vicinity to understand our views on child-rearing, much less to support or even share them. We have been frowned upon for babywearing, co-sleeping, breastfeeding, cooking organic baby food, respectful treatment of our child and who knows what else.

Naturally everybody has their own thoughts and ideas on all of these things. I don’t expect anyone to conform to our views. What I do expect, however, is the same amount of respect and tolerance that I show others. I would never dream of ‘disciplining’ someone else’s child because I think that’s the way to go!

If you’ll excuse me, I will go and look for my voice now.