Today started not as good as the title suggests. My walk around the park was nice, but during grocery shopping the bottom fell out of my bag of apples at the counter and after that all kinds of other stuff started just escaping from my hands and falling. Since I overreacted to most happenings (welcome, monthly hormones) I decided that today would be a bad day to spend behind the sewing machine. The thing is buggy at best; not transporting properly at random times and can really get on my nerves.

So, how did this day end up to be a good day? Well, after having breakfast in the back yard in the sun and reading a nice book ('Gnole' by Alan Aldridge, picked up in the 'give-away-shop' a few weeks ago) I picked up my WIP (work in progress) the Fairyhome. It's a wet felted shape, formed around an empty laundry detergent flask. I added roof tiles, a door with knocker/handle and the beginnings of a wistaria (blauwe regen in Dutch) through needle felting. A time consuming process, but rather zen. I didn't even prick my finger once! When I needed to wet felt a piece for the door I also tried my hand at felting around a rubber ball. Which was harder than it sounds. Felting around stones can even be done with children from age 3 (!) and up, but if you don't know the right way to do it it gets a lot harder. However, I managed and after removing the ball I now have a small 'wallet' that is drying in the sun.

Aside from felting I also searched for some inspiration online. Mainly driven by the fact that the felting around the ball went crappy and I needed to know how it should have been done. I just love this pinterest page with all kinds of projects. these fall leaves, these birds, this lovely bracelet, really give me the urge to go make something. There is even a cat cave! I can imagine that this takes up a lot of wool.

When the sun left our table in the garden I moved further back onto a little bench and took another WIP with me: a crocheted top of this pattern. I started the top part with purple cotton yarn and was planning on doing the lace bottom with a fake-wool yarn that changes color. However, today I changed my mind. I'm going to do the lace with a lighter purple cotton yarn and use the color-changing 'wool' to make a new top. In this first try I made some mistakes (the biggest being that the boob part should be higher/bigger) and though I kind of fixed them I want a 'perfect' project with the color changer. I finally arrived at the lace part today and I think that I can take this with me on train trips or during meetings when I get the hang of the pattern.

Though the sun now has totally left the back garden (we want to make a terrace in the front yard to be able to enjoy the evening sun there) there's more goodness to come today: I'm going to bake myself pancakes for dinner and after that watch the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie on DVD. Unfortunately there won't be tea and chocolate because I'm starting to watch my weight again, but the movie in itself should be fun enough. (And I should be stuffed to the brim with pancakes) :-)

Oh my.. has it been nearly two months since my last post already? Well, to be honest I found it hard to start on a blog post; I had the feeling there was not much to tell. There still isn't... but I decided that I can not let this whole blog fall apart. Lots of people stopped blogging and supposedly made the switch to the evil Facebook. However, I can't use that as an excuse since I still do not have a Facebook account. I might get one if I ever get my own business started. It seems to be the way to tell people what you're doing and that it rocks...

I still work parttime for Sandd. It pays shit, but it keeps me in a rythm. The 130-240 euros a month (varying due to amount of postal articles) help a little, for traveling expenses and a bit for my physiotherapy sessions (lower back ache, learning to use inner abdominal muscles for balance). Still I'm munching away my savings for the mortgage and stuff. Whenever I think of this I get really insecure. I want to start my own business, making stuff and selling it. However, once in a while I get a nagging "you won't earn a thing that way, nobody wants your stuff" feeling and get really demotivated and desperate. Yuck. And other times I see what easy-to-make stuff other people sell and I think "if they can do it, so can I. And better!".

I made a few 'test' pieces so far to see how much time they cost me so I can estimate a price for the items. I could conclude 2 things: 1 I'm slow as hell, or 2 those kids in China really get payed nothing. Seeing how long it takes to finish 1 harem pants or 1 stuffed toy and using a fairly low hourly wage (10 euros, quite low for Western notions) I get prices that probably nobody will pay because the stuff from China is 10 times as cheap. Still, I won't know if that's true until I've finally tried to sell something. For now I only made stuff and stored it in a box. I need to decide whether I should start selling via Marktplaats or build a website or go via Etsy or whatever. And dreaded Facebook.

Then there's still the option of trying to become a costume designer. I got some contact info that I haven't used yet from my interviews with costume designers. Perhaps I should just try to talk my way into an exploring internship or something. Just have a taste of it (if they'll have me "Oh hi there, pessimism"). In September I hope to start on a make-up course (grimeercursus). Costs some money, but I want to learn it anyway and it might teach me if becoming a make-up artist would be something for me. The interviews were good to ok-ish, it's just a tiny world in which it is hard to find a place. Alexander told me at Charm that there are a lot of make-up artists but very little body painters (like him). Would that be a way to go? He gave me the url to a website and the body paint foundation is located in Hoogland, part of Amersfoort. They have meetings every now and again, perhaps I could take a look.

Ah, yes, Charm. Charm 28 was my first Charm event ever. I decided to sign up as a NPC (non player character, an 'extra') and see if I still enjoyed this hobby. For quite a while I have been playing at the Vortex only and there you have to make your own game or really like mass battles (guess what; I don't) to have a nice time. Oh, or just want to hang with friends in a weird and overly expensive camping trip. Aside from that I still organize with Evolution Events but as with last Xenophobia there was so much stress up to the event and so little in the sense of reward (i.e. watching other people have fun on 'your' event) that I started to doubt why I even keep up this hobby. So, time for a change. Something new.

I've had some stage fright in the past. I'm learning to overcome this at Vortex by 'studying' to become a ritual leader. Meaning 'performance' in the ritual place, including designing the ritual itself. I've also been a bit scared of being an NPC that has to bring the story to the players. Afraid to screw up while the 'job' is so important. So it was a bit of a guess to sign up as NPC for an event that I had never visited and where I knew only a couple of people. And a great guess it was! I had so much fun that my after larp dip (OMG first one again in years!) lasted nearly a whole week!

I got to play a seelie; a creature from the dreamworld. They're ethereal, dreamy, not so good at focusing on those flighty humans/elves/mortals in general. They are blue-pink and wear purple-ish clothes and don't feel cold. (Fortunately it was a warm weekend and I didn't feel cold either :-p ) This was my role on the Saturday afternoon (less than an hour) and Saturday evening (a bit longer). I was painted blue/pink by two men (one of which was Alexander, whom I mentioned before), which took more than an hour. I wore my own clothes and a funky wig of wool dreads and totally rocked the look! I got a lot of compliments, both on the looks and on the 'performance'. And I had a ton of fun playing her. Between the afternoon and the evening I cleaned up my face, neck and hands and did some other roles. Among which some combat stuff. Not really my thing, but fun to do if you don't have to fear for your character's life. After dinner I was restored to seelie again and had to wait quite a while before I could appear in game again (waiting for a certain plot to happen). So I spent the whole evening/night dressed up as seelie and waiting a lot, but it was so worth it! And the game masters kept checking if I was ok with waiting and telling me that I could hit the showers if I had had it.

The other fun role I had was Juul, a girl scout adolescent. Partner in crime of Menno (OC, Gijs). It was so much fun to be an adolescent again and then play 'truth or dare'. I knew I could cry (i.e. bring forth tears) on command, but I didn't know that feeling embarrassed IC could actually make you blush.

So I had a great weekend and lots of stories to tell when I got home. And kept telling... and I still find myself thinking back to it once a day. Why do we have to wait until October before the next one?