Filed under: Living with children
… meet Katarina. Born on 6th of October. We’re still sorting out our new life, so I promise to get back to blogging as soon as possible :)
Katarina
Filed under: Living & crafting, Living with children | Tags: birch wood, DIY bed, how to make a bed, simple bed, toddler bed
The bed for Tamara is finished. My husband did major part of the work, so it doesn’t feel right to write too much in detail here. And besides – you can visit his blog from time to time, right? ;))
So, photos and some thoughts about the bed can be found here: Grasswire on Tamara’s bed.
Filed under: Living & crafting | Tags: autumn, b11-27, cardigan for girls, Drops, Eskimo, felt flowers, fingerless mitts, Mirabella yarn, Unitas, Vapour
It’s time for photos. So that you don’t think that I have been sitting around, doing nothing :) Of course I did not.
As said – autumn is here and colder days also. Well, I have been exaggerating a bit in my worries that Tamara doesn’t have nothing warm to wear,because frankly, it’s not that cold…
Luckily, I have some Eskimo yarn in my stash, so this is the result:
Warm autumn cardigan, Drops - model b11-27
I added felt flowers to make it a bit girlier - two flowers in the front, three in the back
Knitting with Eskimo is really a pleasure – it’s soft, warm and thick i.e. – the result is quickly visible. I finished this cardi in two afternoons. The original model also has a hood, which I omitted, because there are too many hoodies in Tamara’s warderobe already. I also did not knit with 9 mm needles, I used 6 mm, because I like a firm(er) consistency of my knitting than most of the knitting that results by using the suggested needles usually are.
Also, I made another pair of fingerless mitts for a friend who cycles to work. It’s autumn and she’ll need them in the foggy, crisp Ljubljana mornings. You remember I made almost the exact version a couple of weeks ago, huh?
Fingerless mitts, this time in red
And on my needles is a cardigan for Seconda. I chose Mirabela yarn (producer: Unitas, Croatia) in red and pink. The body will be pink and the button bands will be red. Also, it is my intention to crochet red border around neckline, bottom of the sleeves and body. I stopped working on it so that I could make the Eskimo cardigan for Tamara and now I cannot get into mood for knitting with this thin yarn ;) Also, the size is for 6 months (Norwegian babies, I assume – this means she’ll probably be wearing it when she’s one year…), so I still have some time to finish it. ;) No, no… I am not doing that. This is the project I am going to finish next, because than I’ll start working on something for me.
This is how far I've come with it
Mirabela tag :)
And you remember Vapour, project “for myself” – here’s a link to post about it. Well, no wonder I wasn’t too satisifed with it! I didn’t know I knit it for pregnant me, not normal me ;)) So, here’s a photo of me, modelling Vapour three weeks and a half before my due date.
Fits perfectly! And it's nicely warm... Just for autumn.
Filed under: Life in general | Tags: Istanbul, Kamnik, old town, Orhan Pamuk
So, we have been looking for a new place to live for quite some time now… We’ve been living here in Kamnik for 11 years now and sincerely, this place has been quite tiresome for us in the last couple of years.
So, we decided, we’d move to another town (have nothing specific in mind, just a list of places with potential), started checking real-estate advertisments regularly – and when we find something interesting we go to check the apartment / house.
However, lately, we were either not very lucky with the choices we made or it may be that we’re to picky – who would know? ;) Or maybe we just got used to living here, have a quite comfortable life and moving to another location would just mean new stress, new discoveries, breaking the illusions about these (currently) appealing cities. For example Radovljica is a lovely small city with an old centre dating to the 16th century, which we love, got married there and visit quite often.
It suffices all the criteria we have set for our new hometown:
• train connection with Ljubljana
• good primary school and a regional center with a selection of secondary schools nearby
• historic old town
• not too many newcomers i.e. newmovers (this is a huge problem in Kamnik)
• it is located in Gorenjska region (Alpine region of Slovenia)
• a living city with shops, bars, cultural happenings etc.- not a sleepy place where if you want to have a decent cup of coffe you have to drive for 30 minutes to get it
• safe place where kids can walk to school
• not too high real-estate prices (not case in Radovljica which is really expensive!).
So, so… After going to see a very interesting apartment in adjoining village, really reasonably priced with a lot of potential to fulfill all our wishes (guest room, craft room, old house, big terrace, yard…) we decided that no. We are not moving. We cannot do that.
But we hate Kamnik, right?
Actually, not hate. There are so many problems with this city, but there are so many aspects of our life here that we like, we recognise it will be really hard to make the move.
After 11 years of living here we:
• actually know (by name) more than 4 people and they greet us on the street and “chat” with us. It took us 8 years to come this far.
• have friends and family who come to visit us and don’t believe any more that we have moved to another planet (those who don’t come are not considered friends)
• know sellers on the Saturday vegetable market (we are buying milk from one lady, eggs from an old man and vegetables from two boots) and also ladies at the post office
• have a good pediatrician (!!)
• know the villages around it by heart and not have to check on the map after we come home to check what somebody was relating to
• can live with only one car
• have two (!!) places to pick where we’ll have our Saturday coffe at :)
• enjoy the changing of seasons in the most perfect park in Slovenia
• have a good mechanic and (looks like!) car-electrician as well (keep your fingers crossed ;))
• know the places where we can go and sleigh alone in the winter or cool down by the water on a hot summer day
• have been drinking the best municipial water in Slovenia.
One of the books I read last year and really think is something special, actually, it’s on the top of my all favourite books, is Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk where he describes his life in Istanbul and the life of the city, its special days, winters, winds that blow by the Bosphorus… It’s a very special work, not only because I love Istanbul (though not possibly in such a way as he does, obviously ;) but mostly because it is an expression of love, affection and respect for his hometown.
I wonder, how do you get to love a city? Is it the same as with loving somebody? My feelings for Kamnik are currently related to loving our life here, not to loving its streets and history hidden in them. Can something bigger grow out of it? Can I love a city at all?
How about you? Do you love your city?
Filed under: Life in general
There are so many things about my fellow citizens that annoy me – and since I have been pregnant the list of complaints I have about them is constantly growing…
One of the issues I have about Slovenes is their willingnes to share their (mostly negative) opinion about any matter that they (may) come across. They love to be smart. They love to preach. They love to share their thoughts and believes about the things that they know nothing of (or have just a tiny bit of (possibly prejudicial) information of). Or haven’t been asked about. OK. I admit – I am generalizing a bit too much here, but I believe that Slovenes are nation with the worst ”express one’s opinion<-> take action” ratio in the whole world.
As we are expecting a new baby very soon we have decided that Tamara is going to get another bed and Seconda is getting the crib.
Our ideas of how our home is supposed to be and work have changed considerably in the last years and we started to put much more effort in decision making about stuff we buy (how is it made, where was it produced, how long will it last, is it ecological, how about sustainability, who profits the most from our purchase choices, is it healthy etc.). After we bought this apartment seven years ago we couldn’t afford to buy any “better” furniture than Ikea (considering the above criteria) – and frankly, for us at that time, Ikea was the best. Our next apartment (or hopefully house) will have very few (if any) items from Ikea.
With our new focus we decided that Tamara is going to get a bed which is made of solid wood and if possible no varnish at all (or at least very little varnish). In my romantic vision I imagined a bed which could be used by my grandchildren, something simple, clean in design, that could be taken easily apart and stored for next use when needed. Since Slovenia is covered by forrests for about 57% of its surface, making it one of the most forested European countries one would assume it shouldn’t be too hard to find a carpenter (and there are many, many, many of those in this country) willing to make a simple toddler bed.
I will not write into detail about Slovenian carpenters, let’s just say that 95% of them don’t reach our criteria (using mostly cheap, formaldehyde filled – plastic covered particle boards as their material of choice) and the 5% which may be worth anything are impossible to locate if you don’t know them personally, by your friends, acquintances or any similar connection.
Since my due date is almost here and there were no carpenters knocking on our door (I admit, I checked some internet sites and asked a couple of friends if they new anybody, didn’t do any extensive research), I decided it was time to activate my social network and started calling friends asking for contacts of potential carpenters. I was appaled by the reaction I was getting, as a number them replied immediately (after I decribed my idea):
“But that doesn’t pay off…”
So they started talking in detail about:
- how Tamara would outgrow the bed very fast,
- how in a couple of years she will not like it and will develop her own taste,
- how it’s stupid to invest in children’s furniture as they break and destroy everyting so quickly,
- how the good carpenters are expensive and reserved for months in advance and you don’t want the bad ones,
- …
I was sooooo tired of these explanatins that I really did not want to hear. All I wanted was a phone / mail / name of a (solid) carpenter. And besides, all the arguments are really lame to me. I believe that by investing my time and energy in buying a good bed for my daughter she will feel my positive attitude (or karma if you will ;)) and will profit from the bed in many more ways than just having a place to sleep. And I will be tuned more with myself and the world (Earth) because I followed my beliefs. And local economy would benefit from my purchase.
These are things that matter to me.
I believe many efforts pay off in lots of different ways... T brought me this 'boquet' three days ago. Maybe it was because I knit a hat for her? (another thing that doesn't pay off to many Slovenes)
Unfortunately, we didn’t find a carpenter until today. So, we are making the bed by ourselves. :)
