My trip coincided with the first night of Hanukkah (which, for the record, is probably my favourite holiday..there’s fire, fried foods, and chocolate pennies…). Now it wasn’t really feasible to travel with a whole menorah, so we decided to improvise…with a bar of soap and some birthday candles.

We did pretty well I think. (In case you need to do this, keep in mind that the plastic holders that the candles sit in do melt if you let them burn all the way down in the correct manner.)

Earlier that day, we went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, which is worth a trip to Berlin on its own.

The architecture is stunning, the museum interacts with the architecture beautifully, and the storytelling is pretty spectacular. I’m really really picky about museums and how they’re laid out and the only thing I could find wrong with this one was the toilet doors.

It was also not too Holocaust-heavy, which I appreciate a lot. I am all for the preservation of the memory of that particular chapter in history, but personally I don’t need a lot of reminding, I thought it was a bad idea from the beginning.

So after a really thought-provoking entrance to the museum (including an amazing sensory experience which was almost more powerful than the exhibits themselves), we gamboled through the rest of the museum.

There was a lot of interactive stuff, and they did a good job of bringing in aspects of other religions. In the little chill out area which showed short films about ritual, we discovered that Terry Gilliam had a less surreal, cheerier twin working on the graphics.

We must have spent about four hours there, and if I hadn’t been dropping with hunger, I could probably have gone another two.

As we left, this sign reminded me that they probably had the essence of 10,000 bubbes concentrated in the building… the only thing they could have added was ‘Do you need to pee? Do you want a piece of fruit to take with you?’

I’ve foolishly got a full time temp job for the next two weeks, it obviously comes just when I have lots to do… so if it’s a bit quiet in Misericordia Mansions, it’s because I am helpfully redirecting calls, making tea and coffee and arranging biscuits in pleasing patterns.

But I’ll do my best to keep posting…

Welcome to Weekword!

I’m feeling the lack of a deadline quite severely. I keep wandering around the house, starting projects and not finishing them, or researching pointless things on the Internet.

I even made a cushion for Batman’s birthday present from my mum.

It matches the cushions that I made (with his help) for his other birthday present.

Go have a look at everyone who has created something for Weekword, our lovely participants are:

Leenie, Alexandra, Anairam, Cissi, Lotte, Joanne, Aimee and Linda!

For next week, I choose Leenie to select the word, as she was the first person to contact me this week!

Well, not quite…

I’ve been faffing, a lot. But in my travels, I’ve discovered a site called Art Rabbit.

Essentially it’s social networking for art exhibitions, workshops, talks and just about anything else you can think of. You create a profile, pick your favourite venues, browse upcoming events and see what other people are interested in. You can print out a list of all current exhibitions with a map and make a day of it, or you can see what people with similar tastes are interested in. They’ll even email you three days before an exhibition closes so you don’t miss out!

You can tell they’re an arty outfit, they have about 16 different logo options to link to their site… in different colours and background options.

I’ve added a link to my list of favourites to the right, let me know if you’re going to something cool!

I’m making Christmas cake tonight, but as usual I forgot to get the fruit soaking overnight…

So I found myself in the unusual position of licking sherry off my fingers at the breakfast table.

…the way the day is going, I probably should have gone ahead and poured myself a glass.

I’m a little behind on my list of things to do, so just a quick post today. Part of the reason I’m so behind is that the list of blogs I read seems to be expanding rapidly. I’m not complaining, I’m just saying it takes a little time to absorb all the fabulousness.

So here’s a little guide to my updated links (they’re over there on the right.. they may have been accidentally removed for a little while…but they’re back now and everything is as it should be):

In alphabetical order:

Alexandra Hedberg

An artist in Sweden who gives very sensible advice about how to sell your art, and also does amazing drawings like this one.

Alexandra Hedberg: Cheetah

Born Knitty

The lovely (and incorrectly named) rubbishknitter has adventures in wool…and sewing…and jam. She lets me thieve from her allotment and helps drink our endless homebrew, what’s not to like?

Hand Embroidery Network

Promoting hand embroidery and other creative endeavours, a subject of which I heartily approve (plus, they featured a photo of mine)! Plus they do a Stitch a Day with nice clear photographs and beautiful examples.

Hand Embroidery Stitch a Day: Double Chain Stitch

Yarn Harlot

She knits, she teaches, she writes, she’s Canadian. Very funny and terrifying prolific…

So there you have an update. Anyone good I’ve missed? I always need some new blogs to read (it could be worse, my mother reads something like 15 newspapers online).

I seem to have had a lot of pent up energy this weekend, which mostly seems to have resulted in frantic crocheting (better than dropping crockery or screaming, I guess).

My Friday project was this:

It’s a water bottle holder. My new dance bag is fabulous, but has no space for a water bottles. Pointe shoes and water go together like chocolate fountains and children in frilly party frocks, so a solution was necessary.

Happy Together

(The careful observer may notice that my energy doesn’t appear to have extended to actually weaving in ends, but I promise I will get to it by Thursday.)

The remainder of the weekend was taken up with this fetching hat:

I would model it, but it’s sopping wet and wrapped around a dinner plate, which isn’t a good look.

I just managed to finish it with the two skeins I had. I was so pleased, I had to take a cheesy photo to text to Batman, showing  just how much I had left.

This is the pace of our household at the moment…

Kipling got in a fight and took home a souvenir bite on the ear that got infected, so it’s been tablets in the food and ear drops (which is so much fun I can’t even begin to tell you…).

I’ve developed a manky cold which means I mope about the house between coughing fits while Batman heroically ensures I am appropriately medicated and the house is presentable for visitors. He was allowed to escape back to work this morning, leaving me with the following instructions: ‘Get lots done, but stay on the sofa and take it easy.’

He’s a hard man to please, but I’m doing my best!

I also have an exciting announcement, I’ll be teaching an online course through the Hand Embroidery Network in November! The course will be called Sketchbooks for Beginners, and is designed to give you an arsenal of techniques to use when developing your ideas into finished projects.

Although the course is being developed with embroiderers in mind, it will be transferable to other types of media, so feel free to join us!

Details will be appearing on the Hand Embroidery Network site soon, you can sign up to be notified of the course details as they become available. If you have any questions about the course, please don’t hesitate to contact me in the comments section.

The management at Misericordia Mansions would like to announce the cessation of the Conker Experiment with immediate effect.

This decision was taken due to a 500% increase in the number of flies seen in the Mansions, and their persistent flouting of house regulations.

Spiders, please come back, all is forgiven!

We received these lovely squashes (pumpkins? I’m not good at botany) at our party. I sat them on the kitchen table, and one morning as I was blearily munching my way through breakfast, a resemblance suddenly occurred to me.

Anyone?

Here’s a clue…

..and another.