Aaaaand the winner is...

Thanks for the comments, everyone! I found many new blogs I'll be visiting again. The winner of the contest was drawn with a traditional method (sorry for the blurry pics, it was a bit dark already when I took them):

Rachel O, send me an e-mail to colibridreams[at]gmail.com and leave me your address so I can send the painting for you when it's ready. Tell me also if you want your turtle to be natural coloured or if I make it with your favorite colours.

Just because it's a good day and I got an idea for a polar bear yarn painting, purple-power is going to get hers too! So, send me your address and a small painting might appear (no wishes for this one though, I have the idea very clear already - but it will include your favorite colour too).

I can't tell yet when you will get the paintings, as I still have some (ok, quite a lot) Christmas knitting to do. But I'll try to make and send them soon.

And Perttu (my dear brother), if you really want a yarn painting, I'll make you one... some day. But probably not with Eero in it.

For all those who didn't win this time, you can always check other contests... Alpaca Farmgirl is having many give-aways, including giving away this beautiful yarn. You can win other things too.

Energy!!!

First I wanted to tell you that I have been invited to participate in Mayeh, a blog where a few Mexican designers/artist present their work. I'm very happy about being part of the blog. Hope you like it too! Every month there's a new theme for things we make. I have already lots of plans for October's theme (Autumn), just have to make those plans reality!

The plans for the Mayeh theme aren't the only one I have. I have lots of creative energy going on, and lots of ideas I want to realize using different mediums. I'm in some kin of manic period... I want to knit - I'm usually one knit's woman, but now I have three projects on the needles and want to start more - make yarn paintings, jewelry, paint... and even crochet. I haven't crocheted in years, but now I want to start again. I actually already tried to crochet a bit, here's the result.

It was supposed to be a decoration for my new jacket, but I think it's a bit too big (10 cm). I like hippy flowers, but there's a limit... But that's a good excuse for crocheting more flowers. This model is designed by Vilma.

I haven't been making jewelry for a long time, and yesterday I finally got my beads out. I have so lovely materials, looking at them gave me even more ideas. This necklace is will probably be called "Circus" for its fun colours. It is made of tagua seeds. If you like it, you can soon find it in the shop.

Even though I make jewelry, I almost never make it to myself. Something had to be done about that, so I transformed these reindeer bone amulets I found in Finland...

... to this jewelry set for myself. Very happy with the result.

It seems something with the bones fascinates me rigth now. I bought these today (I have promised myself to use my old materials before buying new ones, but I just couldn't resist):

At least there's a purpose for few of them already - the circles with two stripes could become earrings for Mom.

Luckily all my creative energy hasn't limited to crafting. I have also had lots of energy for studying, and my research is going well too. The only thing I need is more time to study and craft!

Skeletons and trees of life

I'm still alive... I have thought about many things to write about, but I just haven't gotten into it lately. Well, I'll try to get more active again. And I will write about my trip to Finland too, but not now.

On Friday a friend of mine invited me with her to Metepec, a village near Mexico City. It's known for its crafts, mainly pottery. I have never been there before, so it was a nice day trip. As my friend needed to buy things for a restaurant in Finland, we spent the whole day looking for different kinds of ceramics.

We found some very nice places. I especially loved the Ortega family's workshop. The place itself was very beautiful, with pottery all over. They had even decorated the ground with it.

The main themes in the pottery in this village are trees of life and different kinds of skeletons, like the Catrinas (elegant skeleton ladies). Also the Ortegas had there workshop full of them. I liked a lot for example this Noah’s ark tree of life, which was about 75 cm high and had taken them more than a month to make.

I fell in love with this lovely lady, although unfortunately I couldn’t take her home.

Although there were so many lovely things, I only bought two gifts and well… these boxes for myself. You’ll see them in the future here, after I have the time to decorate them.


I have finished some things too, like a cable sweater for myself and a hummingbird themed yarn painting, but you'll see them later.

Vacations?

I'm almost on vacations now. Almost all seminars have ended by now, I only have one more class left. And one tutorial meeting, which I'm not looking forward at all. I tried to change my tutor, but it didn't work out. It seems that I'm stuck with that unpleasant person who really doesn't understand my research theme. It's quite frustrating, but "ni modo", as the Mexicans would say.

Even though I kind of have vacations already, I'm still studying and trying to finish one chapter of my thesis. But don't worry, I'm not working too hard either, I'm crafting too... And in couple of weeks, when I travel to Finland (happy happy, joy joy!) I'll have vacations for real. I just can't wait!

By the way, I did get the Lehmus-shawl ready by the wedding. The pictures were taken with boyfriend's camera, that's why I haven't been able to show you anything. But here it is, my very first lace shawl:

I forgot to ask boyfriend to take a pic in the wedding, so this was taken about 2 o'clock in the morning, when we got home. It's also my first hairdo made by a hairdresser.

Here are some more photos o the shawl. I'm pretty happy with it, even though I probably would have made a bigger one, if I had had the time and the yarn necessary. The pattern was quite easy and I noticed that lace knitting is quite addictive! This might be my first shawl, but it won't be the last!

I also made the jewelry for the wedding, but I'll put those photos other day.

Painting with yarn

The very first yarn painting that I have sold, "The meeting", has been ready already from Saturday and was sent today, but I just haven't had time to put any photos here. This very time consuming technique is used by Mexican Huichol Indians. The yarn is pressed to the beeswax to make the painting, that's where the name comes from.

Here's how it all started: Ravyn was looking for things with her totem animals, so I send her this sketch:
And little by little, the painting started to take form...

And finally it was ready! I'm pretty happy about the way it turned out.

Here are some details, you can see more in my Flickr account.

By the way, I decided to allow also anonymous comments, at least for a while, so feel free drop me a line (but no spam, please!)

Lots of things to do...

... and everything at the same time...


Things seems to be accumulating right now. I have to present some research results at the university during the May, finish an article (also during May), try to invent themes for some conference papers (inventing isn't that hard, really, but then some day soon I'll have to write those papers too), start my custom yarn painting in these days too...

And as that wasn't enough to do for a while, I also promised to work as a facilitator in two workshops. The first one will be next week - it was going to start already on this Thursday, but luckily the plans changed. All this came up last Friday, so there really hasn't been much time for planning or preparing things. The materials for the workshop isn't very useful either, so I have to invent a lot on educational management in the schools, which isn't my area at all. The participants will be supervisors and directors of schools, probably mainly elder men. I have worked as a facilitator in workshops, but they were for teenagers and children, so this is going to be quite different. In total the workshop will last three days, ten hour days each. I'll be there all by my own - there are other facilitators in the same city (Chilpancingo) for these workshops, but we are all in different schools. Sooooo.... it will be interesting!


But even though I'm not very well prepared and the participants may not be the easiest audience (though I'm definitively not going to let them minimize me for being a young woman), I'm still happy to be part of these workshops. And not only because they are quite well paid! I think it will be a great - and challenging - learning experience.


Any way, with all these things to be done, I have finished something too. This bracelet was a custom order for Jonna. As she lives by the sea, it's called "A Day on a Beach". I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and hope Jonna will love it too!

Some progress with the fox hoodie

I have now almost finished the front parts of my red and white fox hoodie. It's lovely to knit something so fast! Boyfriend's hoodie took a lot more time to knit, as he's tall and wanted it to be quite loose-fitting. I'm still not sure about the fox though, it might be a bit too big. Any comments?

And now that I remember, I have joined Ravelry too, and you can find me also there with the name "colibridreams".

A special case?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm some kind of special case in my University and in my program. Ok, my department usually messes up with everybody, but I think I still have more problems than some of my friends. Every single procedure I have to do in the University has some problems. Either someone lost one (or few) of my documents, or there are problems with the computer or my name is written wrong and I have to do the whole procedure all over again. I'm still waiting for my official student card, too - most of my study mates got their plastic card about 8 months ago, and I still have my temporal card. And no sign that it's ever going to be changed.

Today we had to do our reinscription to the program. The system kept telling me I couldn't do it because it wasn't the right day. And yes, I was the only one. Finally the problem got solved - they always do here, you just need lots of patience and time - after I got personal help from the Academic Services department's boss. But I just wander do I have some kind of "no smooth transactions for this girl" tag in my data... I can't wait the see the huge problems I will have when I'll try to graduate... I can see it coming already.

Well, the good thing is that the reinscription is done now and I can finally craft! (I promised my self not no make anything before it was over.) Though I still have to send some documents to Finland and edit some texts - yes, I'm editing some articles in Spanish as part of my scholarship work (no, they are not mine) - next weeks, so not too much time for crafting anyway. But I'll buy some materials on Monday, when I'll go to the center to meet the other members of our new Etsy Mexico Street Team. Beeswax! New yarn! Yupii!