Little life things. October + November 2023

Mai Quynh on 2. December 2023

October

Friends and I made our own dumplings for the very first time on a Friday evening. It was all about cooking and eating together, enjoying the afterwork time and Friday evening and talking about important and not-so-important things. We bought the dough and made the filling ourselves. We tried out different folding moulds and „perfected“ a folding mould. They all tasted good in the end.

On another day, I indulged in one way of life in this region: onion tart and Federweißer (new wine) at the weekly market.

I picked out the clothes for my vacation and got a few items of clothing back in shape. A curtain was shortened by hand and at some point it was eventually finished and hung up. The curtain pole had been hanging for a month already. So almost no delay 😀

I visited the botanical garden in Mainz. Not just once, but twice – within a week I want to add! Visiting it twice didn’t happen entirely voluntarily and one time in the garden would have been enough. Nevertheless, both days in the botanical garden were very nice.

My notes also tell me that I spent a lot of time with photography in October. I listened to podcasts and watched videos which in turn led me to further questions and observations. Thinking about photography while traveling (ongoing though) and the purchase of a digital camera were topics on my mind as well.

And last but not least, another crochet dino and language learning (What’s the best way to learn a new language?; ongoing) have been keeping me busy. The dino was finished in November and was handed over to the owner.

November

November, on the other hand, can be summarised quite briefly at this point: It was time to go on vacation (which I’ve been talking about the whole time)!

Two thirds of November consisted of my vacation, of Japan. And the last third was getting back to everyday life and looking forward to seeing familiar faces (at work :D). And processing what was experienced during my vacation and indulging in memories and anecdotes and pictures and videos.

I’m still doing that, processing whatever I experienced.

June 2023 | study logbook. Being a scanner

Mai Quynh on 2. July 2023

I was recently reminded by the blog post „Wie erstelle ich einen Handarbeitsblog?" (DeepL translated: how to create a handicraft blog) from the german blog verdrehtemasche.de that I also wanted to share my insights from failures – lessons learned so to speak. To do that, I need a bit more space for words and text, so I’m splitting the monthly review for June to have a try. And then I will see if/how that works. Today’s review will cover the more general / the „Being a scanner“ part; the „Something with photo“ will come separately.

Concert, workshop on how to read out loud, adult education courses

I was at a concert and it was a seated one- which ended up being fine for the artist and his music as the songs were played to piano music and a surprising string quartet (oh, so nice!). But for the previous supporting/opening band it didn’t fit at all as it was very (!) danceable music and just swaying your shoulders isn’t even half the fun. I can imagine that it’s a bit sad for the supporting band when people can’t/won’t dance along at all.

Quite spontaneously I took part in a workshop with the topic „Lust an Büchern wecken" (DeepL translated: „Awakening desire for books“) – it was about how to make books palatable to small children (nursery age). It was very interesting and I learned a lot! Let’s see how and when I can apply it.

My adult education classes came to an end and I have to look elsewhere to bridge the summer break. One course was a language class and I want to keep up the language skills at least into this year’s autumn (planned travel). The second course was a bit of exercise to counteract all the sitting. My weaker self is very strong but sitting a lot remains and I should overcome it. Hopefully I will be motivated to do something in July :‘)

Elderberry syrup

The elderberry syrup which I have set up in May- is ready! The recipe (german) according which I prepared the syrup is this one . Sterilising the bottles was a bit tinkery but making the syrup itself is quite easy. It’s quite good and I like Elderberry syrup most as a spritzer. I offered the syrup also to my colleagues and I think they liked it as well and they enjoy it on the one or other hot summer day. I still remember my colleague’s comment when he smelled the glass for the first time: „It smells like summer“ – isn’t that a wonderful comment?

Darning

At the beginning of the month I did a „darning workshop“ with someone who was interested in darning. Her socks had holes and so we sat down together. She sat down with her socks and I did with my equipment (darning yarn, needles, darning egg) and then I explained the darning technique to her. I used one of my own socks to darn and eventually it made it back to life: Abby. Abby had two small holes but since they were so close to each other, I darned them in one go.

It had been a while since I had used the weave darning method and I didn’t know exactly how to anchor the thread at the end. Abby was darned in two colours, classic black and white, thus the darning looks like a chessboard. The second sock, Ally, continues to be holey since I didn’t find the motivation to work on her after the „workshop“ evening haha.

Showing/teaching someone else is always a small challenge. But it worked out and the „workshop“ was successful, eventually she was able to bring three socks back to life! Half jokingly and half seriously, I wonder if I could set up something real in these regards?

Other handicrafts

At the moment there’s nothing much concerning other handicrafts. Even though I felt like crocheting more animals after I did the dino , nothing has grabbed me. And knitting - nada. I’ve often heard that knitting is more of a winter hobby, and maybe that’s just the way it is with me this year. In contrast, I’m thinking of trying embroidery again. Aren’t shirts with such small prints or embroidery on a chest trendy these days? It’s not that easy to find such things so I thought about making them myself and gifting them to interested people.

Apart from the realisation that nothing happened here, I have nothing to share. I don’t know how useful it is to write that down then.

~

In case your wondering why I’m done with my monthly review so early: Thanks to my holiday week I was able to collect my thoughts earlier this time 😀

May 2023

Mai Quynh on 8. June 2023

Bad news: Soon it will be the longest day of the year and then we will be closer to the next Christmas than the last. Good news: summer has just begun. Summer with its hot-warm temperatures annoys me at some point, too, but I’m still very happy to get the light and warmth.

A lot of free days

But now let’s talk about May. The fifth month with its many long weekends lud zu vielem ein. Meine langen Wochenenden, aber auch die restlichen Maitage, waren gespickt mit Menschen treffen, unterwegs sein und miteinander Zeit verbringen. Die hessische Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden habe ich erstmalig besucht und in Hamburg tanzten wir bis tief in die Nacht. Freund:innen  habe ich im neuen Zuhause willkommen geheißen.

The vines in this region are happily greening up and I have already discovered the first fruits. But I wonder when the plants exploded. The vines were only branches not too long ago?

Besides a little bike ride between the vines and the river, in May I also learned why every few row of vines has a rose planted in front of it: roses serve as an early warning system since they need similar conditions to vines but are more susceptible. If the rose is doing badly then you still have some time to react for the vines, so to speak.

Something with Photo

My battery compartment is intact, again so I was able to get the film completed in May after all *yeah*. In the end, most importantly I wanted to get the film full, so I didn’t want to wait for the subjects to come to me. But finding motifs ad hoc is not yet my strength. I photographed a gummi bear box and my scrunchy; while the gummi bears seem very random, my scrunchy was quite interesting. I was particularly excited about the portrait photos I took of my friends.

I sent off the film and got the scans within a week (I was so happy that the owner of the photo lab had developed and scanned the film before he went on holiday!). I was quite content with the portrait photos, hihi. But I haven’t yet decided (and accordingly haven’t asked) whether I want to show them on the blog.

The next film is already in and I will definitely continue with portrait photos. I’m also thinking about giving my films names so I can tell them apart (haha).

Scanner focus

The dino was finished on time and the friend who the present was for was very happy, which in turn made me very happy. I even got the next order but I have to recover from all the small parts of the dino first (e.g., prongs and such).

There was one spontaneous, intense sock-darning-day (again, I want to give the projects names for identification!) but that’s it, nothing more.

At the end of the month, I was very interested in another topic: Making my own elderflower syrup!I started putting the flowers in the water in May but bottling didn’t happen in June. Therefore: Stay tuned!