New Year's outfit: sweater

I've found the sweater for my creation. just have to choose color. probably black...

music. maskinen.

Just found a swedish hip&hop(?) group called Maskinen.
Don't know what I think about them yet, still trying them out. They made that horrible song "Alla som inte dansar är våldtäcksmän" (trans: All the people who aren't dancing rape people) but they seem pretty cool. For example, they want to do a concert in a blimp above a square in Stockholm.
crazy....

pärlfiskarna

or Les pêcheurs de perles is the origional title.
it's an opera by Georges Bizet (who also wrote Carmen)
Folkoperan in Stockholm is running it right now and WOW it is wonderful! It might also be because I haven't seen opera in such a long time that any opera at all is wonderful for me, but it really touched me. I cried once over the breaking of the friendship between Nadir and Zurga and I had tears in my eyes the remainder of the time. High D was hit I think and it didn't even sound high. The soprano, Elin Rombo, was great. Not one of the greates singers of all time, but she had amazing feeling. She knew how to manipulate the audience. So did the other main characters, played by Carl Unander-Scharin and Jeremy Carpenter. The tenor Carl was a little weak, but had a great voice. They all had great voices. AND were good actors.
speaking of actors, they had 3 young actors who acted out Zurga, Nadir and Leila when they were young. they were given such small tools, only looks and small small body movements, but they used it well. Names to remember: Sandra Bergman, Viktor Bodelius, and Max Kvissberg. (I could swear I've heard the Kvissberg name before... just don't know from where...)

and the music, the music!!
wow, that I've never heard anything from this opera before. It has it all: climaxes, terror, love, tantalizing melodies, agitating drums, you name it. High C, relatively interesting recitatives, great broad choir sound... wow.

my only problem was the storyline. As in it's a great storyline, but if you read the description that Folkoperan has written I don't really feel that they managed to convey what they wrote that they were going to convey... but they did manage to convey the friendship and the love. Especially the friendship really got to me, and it will stay with me for quite some time.

outfits for new years and christmas

It's soon Christmas, and after that comes New Year's.
Now I don't really mind what I wear. I mean, I like to dive into the world of style and fashion but I'm too poor and actually not interested enough (yet?) to actually wear things like that. With one and a half exceptions: New Year's and a little Christmas. Since Christmas is spent with my family that outfit usually isn't that spaced out, but New Year's. Well up until now I've always spent it with my family, but now...

well I guess it all started with my wonderful clutch i bought before... A new plan has started forming in my mind: I'll use this clutch every New Year's and try to create an outfit to match it.
here is my design for this year:


I'll probably have leg warmers over my heels and not the glitter on. (inspired a little by Jimmy Choo for H&M and Madonna I think...)
the biggest challenge is going to be to find those earrings....

music. michael jackson.

when that dude died everybody "rediscovered" him. i am one of those "untrue" fans, but hey, he really is good! right now i'm writing billie jean for my choir. a lot of good potential! =D

music. is this the world we created?

Is This the World We Created?
Queen.

Just look at all those hungry mouths we have to feed
Take a look at all the suffering we breed
So many lonely faces scattered all around
Searching for what they need

Is this the world we created?
what did we do it for?
Is this the world we invaded?
Against the law?
So it seems in the end
Is this what we're all living for today?
The world that we created.

You know that every day a helpless child is born
Who needs some loving care inside a happy home
Somewhere a wealthy man is sitting on his throne
Waiting for life to go by.

Is this the world we created
we made it on our own
Is this the world we devastated
Right to the bone?
If there's a God in the sky looking down
What can he think of what we've done
To the world that he created?

knitting. more patches.

update: i now have a lot more patches on my overall.

all of them aren't sewn on yet, but I'm working on it...

music. spotify.

I just discovered that you can copy the link from spotify and paste it into text!
wonderful!

shoes. baltzar outfit.

it's party time, baltzar time.
shoe time.

knitting. schmeck.

our traditional swedish engineering hat.

to prevent the tassle from becoming undone I dipped all the tips in nailpolish.

knitting. rättviksmössa finished.

finally finished! =D

knitting. rättviksmössa almost done.

knitting. earrings.

i need to make some earrings for my clutch that i bought last winter. i was thinking something like these, but black.

knitting. a hat is finished.

ok, now my hat is done. the amount of stiches decrease mystically during the making... don't know where they went (in this pattern it is easy to drop stitches without any harm or major changes made to the final product...) the brim is too big, i'm thinking about sewing in a black elastic band. i added a nice little button too. makes it something more than just a black hat.

knitting. free patterns.

i found a new webpage with free patterns. i haven't checked them out in detail yet, but it seems promising. they have sweaters (for all seasons), scarfs, hats, mittens, legwarmers, purses, you name it ;)
here.

knitting. dream sweater.

one day, i will make it to this level. have to finish my hat first before i start d0wn that road.

i found the instructions and picture here.

knitting. a hat.

i want to knit a hat (i have only knitted mittens and the occasional socks or legwarmers) but now i want to move on. so i've been keeping my eyes open for a nice pattern.
then, for christmas i got a big ball of yarn (more like a big roll) with a pattern on the label. the instruction is for a poncho, but i found that the pattern was exactly what i wanted for my hat. here it is:

i cast on 58 stiches (just as a rough guess) on a size 8 needle and then i followed the "pattern stich" instructions and adjusted the amount to the pattern..
right now i'm just knitting it like a plain flat piece and i plan on sewing it together later to make the round hat shape. we'll see how it works out.

the mesh.

my idea

knitting. cute kitten.

i could almost buy a kitten, just to be able to knit for it (i want a cat anyway, but still), and i don't think the cat would appreciate it as much as i want it to.
this picture is just too cute.

knitting. sewing on patches.

i've started getting patches and slowly (very slowly) but surely they are covering more and more of my overall. here is a preview of the most impressive part (I have about 6 more patches on other parts of my overall)

patches, left to right: väg & vatten (yellow), lantmäteri (white), uppsala teknologer (blue), ettans fest samhälls (black), mikrobiologi (fish), data (pink/yellow/black)

knitting. problem solved.

i've been trying to fix my name on my overall... and i finally gave up and embroidered it all, almost...

i'm done now anyway, =)

music. nordman.

why does everybody hate him?
his lyrics aren't the best, and his music isn't the best. but it is still good! he has a nice idea: pop music with swedish influences. what's so wrong with that?

knitting. an E.

i finished my E.

i embroidered it with yarn and a tapestry needle. ^^ a very interesting way to do embroidery... now i only have the A left, but it will probably take a while. crocheting is harder than i thought....

music. queen.

i love queen.

freddie mercury's voice is magic.

their best songs:
innuendo
don't stop me now
bohemian rhapsody
the show must go on
another one bites the dust
crazy little thing called love
good old-fashoined lover boy

music. arvo pärt.

i just found him on spotify! so soothing.
arvo pärt is an interesting composer who started out with chaos and then developed into calm. against the laws of nature. ^^ i guess everything tends towards chaos except arvo pärt.

he is finnish (i think, or maybe he's estonian?) and i saw an interview with him done by björk, the islandic singer/song writer. björk is also wonderful btw and it turns out that she also is a big fan of him. anyway, from what i remember about the interview (and some scores that i've read) arvo pärt used to compose with a 12-tone scale. which sounds like hell before you get used to it, but once you know what to expect it is wonderful! he also liked clusters. there was one piece for symphony orchestra (i believe) where he wrote the same melody in all the parts at the same time and the only difference was that they were all on different notes, only sepperated by a half-step. it looked good on the paper, but it sounded like (excuse the word) crap.
then he had a crisis and didn't compose for a while and when he finally emerged again his pieces were so simple you almost start laughing. i would deffinately not appreciate his music at all if it weren't for the pieces he composed before (proving that he actually can compose complex things) and that björk and one of my most musically gifted friends worship him.

when listening to arvo pärt you have to have calm in your soul.
for example, when listening to the song spiegel im spiegel. there are very few pieces in the world that are simpler than this. it's a mantra on the piano of (simple) broken chords (like Fmajor, cminor) that repeats over and over again. and then he adds a simple, yet beautiful melody on the violin or the cello, depending on which version you're listening to. and this just goes on and on for 10 minutes.
he never stresses, he lets the music take it's time. and the result is magical...

knitting. earrings.

i got a "make your own earrings" kit for christmas. so now i'm trying out different designs....

music. spotify.

my brother just introduced me to spotify. so now i can finally get to discover all the music that i never had the time or the energy to download or to buy the cd. spotify looks like itunes (but in black) and it streams the music to you over the internet. it's like deezer or something along that line, but it looks like a music-player. also, it is swedish so... comercials do come once and a while too, but seldom enough to not be annoying.

knitting. an L.

according to tradition i have an overall. in sweden engineering students have an overall that they sew patches onto and then wear to parties. each major at each school has a different color on their overalls too. i have dark green.

anyway, since i'm new i have to sew my name on as well. in my school it is customary to sew the name onto the right leg. and prefferably you should make the letters personal. and the knitting person that i am i have decided to knit my name and then sew it on. right now i just finished an s and i'm working on an L.

music. joshua radin.

one of my best friends from elementary school is now studying in northwestern. when she visited this christmas she introduced me to a singer called joshua radin who used to be a student at northwestern aswell. also, zach braff (from "garden state" and "scrubs") used to go to northwestern and a lot of his stuff has joshua radin as soundtrack.

simple guitar, with accompanying voice (he has a great voice) and nice lyrics. not something that will change your life, but it could definitely make it nicer.
my favorite song right now is "sky".

knitting. anabella scarf.

here's something i would love to knit:

picture and pattern found here.