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 😀

Mai 2023

Mai Quynh on 8. June 2023

Eine schlechte Nachricht: Bald ist der längste Tag des Jahres und dann sind wir dem nächsten Weihnachten näher dran als dem vergangenen. Die gute Nachricht: Der Sommer fängt erst an. Der Sommer mit seinen warm-heißen Temperaturen nerven auch mich irgendwann, aber das Licht und die Wärme nehme ich trotzdem sehr gerne an.

Viele freie Tage

Aber jetzt zum Mai. Der fünfte Monat mit seinen vielen langen Wochenenden 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.

Die Weinreben in der Region grünen feuchtfröhlich vor sich hin und die ersten Früchtchen habe ich auch schon entdeckt. Bloß frage ich mich, wann die Pflanzen explodiert sind. Eben bestanden die Weinreben nur aus den Ästen?

Neben einer kleinen Fahrradtour zwischen Weinreben und Fluss habe ich im Mai auch gelernt, warum alle paar Weinrebenreihe eine Rose eingepflanzt ist: Rosen dienen als Frühwarnsystem, denn sie brauchen ähnliche Bedingungen wie Weinreben, aber sie sind anfälliger. Wenn es der Rose schlecht geht, dann hat man sozusagen noch etwas Zeit, um für die Weinreben zu reagieren.

Something with Photo

Mein Batteriefach ist wieder heile, sodass ich den Film doch noch im Mai voll schießen konnte *yeah*. Am Ende wollte ich vor allem den Film voll kriegen, sodass ich nicht warten wollte, bis die Motive mich finden. Aber Motive ad hoc zu finden ist noch nicht meine Stärke. Ich habe eine Gummibärchendose und mein Haargummi fotografiert; während die Gummibärchen sehr random wirken, ist mein Haargummi ganz interessant gewesen. Besonders gespannt war ich dann doch auf die Portraitfotos, die ich von meinen Freundinnen gemacht habe.

Film abgegben und innerhalb einer Woche die Scans bekommen (ich war so froh, dass der Inhaber des Fotolabors noch vor seinem Urlaub den Film entwickelt und gescannt hatte!). Die Portraitfotos fand ich fürs Erste zufriedenstellend, hihi. Bloß habe ich mich noch nicht entschlossen (und entsprechend auch noch nicht gefragt), ob ich sie auf dem Blog zeigen möchte.

Der nächste Film wurde nachgelegt und es wird auf jeden Fall weitergehen mit Portraitfotos. Außerdem überlege ich, ob ich meinen Filmen Namen geben soll, um sie auseinanderhalten zu können (haha).

Scanner-Fokus

Der Dino ist pünktlich fertig geworden und die Beschenkte hat sich sehr gefreut, was wiederum mich sehr gefreut hat. Ich habe sogar den nächsten Auftrag bekommen, aber ich muss mich von den ganzen Kleinteilen des Dinos erst mal wieder erholen (Zacken und so) .

Es gab einen spontanen, intensiven Sockenstopftag (auch hier will ich den Projekten Namen zur Identifizierung geben!), aber das war’s auch wieder.

Zum Monatsende hat mich dann ein anderes Thema ganz arg gefesselt: Holunderblütensirup selbst machen! Angesetzt wurde zwar im Mai, aber nicht mehr abgefüllt. Daher: Stay tuned!

 

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