22nd January 2015 - It has been a while

Over a year not to say the least. I had too many busy months, getting myself sorted, getting through college and the likes. I have changed cars and careers in the meantime; a very close friend had a baby girl who receives most of knitting now.

I decided today that it was time to revive my blog despite the age of its last post. Friends were already asking me whether anything was ever going to happen again on my blog. So today is the day, a new beginning and the New Year is still young, only 22 days old.

I've planned a couple of things this year:

• Buy my house/apartment - still looking
• Publish at least one knitting pattern that sells at least one copy - in development as the IT world would say
• Loose weight - check! Already lost one size since last November, hehehe
• Knitting up my stash - well, getting there, there are certainly more pairs of socks to be received as presents, all for a good cause - getting rid of stuff
• Publish an e-Book - this is an interesting one. I still have so much crap in my head and the xBox360 has never been fixed, so I spent some of my free time writing and yes, I've managed to start two novels: first one, a science fiction novel, currently about 180 pages long and fantasy novel, about 50 pages long. Depending on the mood I continue writing either of them. I hope to publish via Amazon (by the way: I got a Kindle last year, so I'm reading a lot more than I used to).
• Make new friends! I put this one last cause it's already happening!

My first knitting pattern: I've decided to settle on a baby blanket. I'm pretty creative and had a couple of ideas in my mind. Last weekend I finally settled on pattern. So far I've knitted the border and picked up my stitches for the main part, while at the same time I working on the side borders. It's going to be pretty plain but I like it so far, 100% cotton and it's for my friend's brother who is expecting to become a daddy next month. It's his and his wife's present, so I just hope they like it and I might sell a copy or two. Ravelry will be my platform for this. It has a great community and I may find my test knitters to help me find errors in the pattern. I'm writing out the instructions as I knit the blanket, so far so good.

Right, now I have a novel that calls me and a couple of free knitting patterns left to check out. In the meantime, just have a look at this picture.

Hope to catch you soon again!

By the way: I working from Linux on this little computer and I love it! I also love my Chromecast ... too much stuff to watch on Netflix though, can't make a decision ...

Having a quick read of my old posts. What the f*** ... ?

24th October 2013 - Bad luck

It looks like I am in for some bad luck. My phone is now also acting up. I went to the Pavillions in Swords today to get it checked out and to enquire about upgrades as my contract is up soon. The last time I went in I was told to come around November to look into upgrades. I was hoping today to already start the process of getting a new phone. It turned out that:

1. My phone does not have a two-year warranty- thanks to the company producing it.
2. My phone upgrade would mean spending €200 on a new phone - and I just paid for my motor tax which was for the same amount - new phone = motor tax for 1 year
3. My mobile phone service provider has changed their price bands due to the 4G roll-out, meaning I have to either pay more for the same package or get less service (in this case mobile broadband) for my phone at the current price I am paying.

This p***** me off and I thought it was worth writing a post about it. As the warranty has expired, I decided to go for a repair. I am having problems charging it and I have the bad feeling it's the charger unit in the phone that's broken - which means it's more expensive to get it replaced than a new battery. With my current streak of bad luck (see Xbox post from 20th October) it's both.

I left my office number with the shop, as they promised to give me a call tomorrow.

I've decided to keep my current phone. The upgrade fee is just not worth it at the moment.

So, end of my ranting.

Liebe Oma,

eine Karte ist auf dem Weg zu dir. Ich wünsche dir alles Liebe nachträglich zum Geburtstag.

Habe dich sehr lieb.

Nadine

20th October 2013 - I think she is dying

A couple of minutes ago, my xBox started having issues again after getting her fixed a while back. First I had black spots all over the screen. Thought, I just give her a reboot - did that - Error 74. Had a bit of a google on this. Funnily enough, I left her switched of for a couple of minutes, now she seems back fine again. However, some people say that once these things start, it doesn't stop.

I got her fixed a couple of weeks ago: firstly the graphics chip went last year (which explains the *puff* noise I heart when playing Mass Effect 2 - middle of the Miranda mission, was close to tears). When I got her back, she worked fine through the rest of ME 2. When I was finished I started part III of the Mass Effect triology (wanted to find out what happens with Garrus anyway and half my crew in the game didn't survive part 2). First time I saw these black spots showing up. Gave her back for repair. This time it was something with the main cable connection.

I am just writing this post to more or less remind myself that my beloved xBox 360, almost age 6, bought back around 30th October 2007 (that was about a month prior to the Assassin's Creed 1 release), is indeed on her deathbed. Sounds terrible coming from a human being, sobbing after a piece of hardware, a toy - but still, we shared some good times.

Now that she is back online, I might just give a go again. Only started playing Bioshock and it actually is a quite an interesting game. Still don't want to know what's going on in that creative brain that developed that game.

30th September 2013 - Long break

Sorry for staying quiet for so long - I even got complaint emails. I started college again last week so it has been busy and the gym takes up a good bit of my time as well. Happy to report though that almost all Christmas presents are done. However, I have decided not come home during the reading week in Trinity College, the way I did last year. There are loads of things going on at the moment, really have to get myself sorted and settled back into college.

Looking forward to tomorrows lectures.

12th July 2013 - Glendalough - An Irish Beauty

I decided to bring my granddad out to Glendalough today. We took the car from Skerries and drove down the M1 and M50 and ended up on a very winding road within the Wicklow National Park. Weather was amazing. The water at the Upper Lake was warm so I dipped my feet in, all happy with myself.

Here are few pictures from Glendalough and surroundings:

The famous ruins in Glendalough, with the Tower of Glendalough in the background.

The Upper Lake, which is a good 30 minutes walk from the car park. We chose the path through the woods so we could enjoy the sun while walking in the shade.

"The Wicklow Heather" - a really cute restaurant/pub we went after our exhausting walk. We had tea and coffee and fresh scones with jam and cream. Amazing service - the waiter even spoke a little German.

We made our preparations for the BBQ tomorrow: German homemade burgers. The potatoes for the potato salad are boiling while my granddad is writing his postcards. We are enjoying the remaining sunshine, it's meant to be a bit colder tomorrow but we will see.

4th July 2013 - Leather!

Or at least that's what it looks and feels like ...

Went into Hickeys today to get a few notions: bought 2 zips for my bag projects and cord string - if that's what it's called. Bags sometimes have handles made from them.

However, when I approached they remnant bin, did I not just find another piece of that lovely violet rose fabric I did my first bag in ... I also found this leather-like material. And it's red!

It looks so pretty and feels so pretty!

The owl oilcloth fabric will be part of another project. I would like to replace my laptop bag with something new the owl fabric was pretty much what was left on the role.

I also started to lay out the material for my mothers beach bag, can't make a decision on the material that has to go inside colour-wise. I have some fabric left from curtains I made for my housemates - okay, I had to shortly ready-made curtains from IKEA but seriously - pushing through that amount of fabric takes it out of you. I sort of understand why people who sew don't like it - or at least some of them don't. It's just a very long line of stitches ...

Here a picture of my mum's beach bag material, hope she likes it:

Background colour is beige so I am thinking I have a look for something plain and bright. The curtain fabric is my way out if I can't find anything I like. The little piece of paper gives me the approximate size of the bag.

Still surprised the notes I took made it back in one piece to Ireland, although slightly creased.

Now, wish me luck. Pattern cutting starts on Saturday and I am still going to make cordial from elderflowers before they are gone but most of the cordial making process happens over night.

1st June 2013 - Exhausting but happy weekend!

Just coming back to terms with myself after an exhausting weekend at Launch48. I had a lot of fun and enjoyed working on a Start-Up idea. Not sure yet where this is taking us (that is me and the nice fellow I worked with) but we have a good feeling this could really become something. I will post more once I have more details - but the general idea is to get a business construct together, a revenue model and going to Launchpad to present it and who knows where it could take us from there.

I am really tired so keeping this post short. I went to college today to meet up with my team for our 2nd year development project and we luckily gained another team member which I believe is good news.

On Thursday I will get some notions for my upcoming sewing project and then I will get started working on my sewing projects before I get too entangled in the Start-Up idea, the college project and my online web development course. I feel bad that I haven't looked at it yet. However, I learnt from the college tonight that the material covered by the online course might be very useful for the project with regard to HTML, CSS and Javascript.

To finish off this post, I found this picture on the German Der Spiegel (sorry, can't find the exact link) today refering to the observation scandal. I was a bit cut off the news over the weekend. In exchange I regained my love for Powerpoint.

So what could go through their heads?

I leave it up to you to come up with something ...

26th June 2013 - Project "Viola"

I've to give another sewing project a try, a bit more difficult than the last one before I start working on my mum's summerbag, my laptop bag and the insane amount of cosmetic bags and clutch bags I am intending to sew for family and friends for birthdays and the upcoming Christmas season.

Thanks to Dropbox, I've uploaded the pictures from the book. While watching Coco Before Chanel  I started to trace the pattern piece from the book. Next step will be picking a fabric - not sure yet - and pinning the pattern piece to get the fabrics ready.

Here is the design for "Viola" by Miriam Dornemann from her book "Tolle Taschen selbst genäht":

Not the greatest picture but I think you can get the idea. I will replace the turquoise pieces of the bag with double-side fabric pieces. Not sure about leather yet.

And my pattern pieces

Have the feeling something is missing though. Will find out during the sewing process. The little arrows indicate the direction they need to be pinned on the farbic to follow the farbic's grain.

Will record my process. Wish me luck!