Week 10

This week I'm on time again, and here is this week's topic:

What I thought when I got my first real piece of Lolita

My first real piece of Lolita was actually something that I made myself, a skirt that I sewed from a red fabric with a nice white border embroidery. Looking back it isn't all that beautiful, quite plain and the way I coordinated it was... let's just say "meh", but it still made me feel like a real Lolita. 

One of my first thoughts was: "Wow, skirts that sit at my waist really suit me" :D

And it also got me really excited to go to my first meet-up.

What were your first thoughts?

By the way, here's a picture of my Zelda embroidery. Not even a third is done XD But it's looking better and better, don't you think?

    

Week 7

This week's topic:

Lolitas I have met in real life

Well, there are of course the manatees: Vroni, Mia and Sophie.

Then there's also Kajime, Kitteh, Goldkind, Betty, Mii and a few others of whom I don't know if they have a blog ^^"

It's actually not that much, probably because I've never been to a meet-up outside of Dresden (except maybe once), although I'd love to go to one. 

I'm happy that we're planning the next meet-up here in Dresden, it's going to be in April!

There's already an idea for anoutfit in my head, but I will have to sew something for that and at the moment I just can't seem to be able to do anything good with my sewing machine -.-

I have neglected it for quite sometime and now all I do turns out crappy -.- Ah well, I still have time to make several practice pieces ^^"

Week 5: Parasols

The picture didn't turn out right, so I'll just write the this week's topic down:

Parasols: Vital or frivolous?

I have to admit, I never really had a strong opinion or even thought about a topic like that. I don't have a parasol myself, just one more fancy umbrella, and I don't think I desperately need one. Though I have to admit that they look pretty awesome and give every outfit a nice touch of elegance and class. 

There are some wonderful lace parasols that I wouldn't say no to if someone offered them to me, but I think money could be spent on more urgently needed things.

In summer when it's hot I generally try staying in the shadows or cooler places anyways, because I don't really like heat. But you always have to consider that you have to carry a parasol around all day if you bring it to a meet-up. So if I had one I'd probably only use it for a photoshoot or something like that.

So... I definitely wouldn't say they are vital. Frivolous... maybe ^^

By the way, there has been some progress on my Zelda embroidery:

The left side already has a lot more details ^^

Me and my needlework (and a Valentine)

So, some of you may be wondering if I still sew and embroider.
Well, technically yes, I just lack the time. I haven't sewn in quite some time because that's not something that you can just do while you're relaxing on the couch for example.The last thing that I worked on was my Tartan dress, but it turned out that I made some stupid mistake and have to undo half the seams, which kind of demotivated me.

As for cross-stitching, I finished my last project, but I can't find it right now, so I can't show you a picture of it XD
And I already started the next one, a quite big one actually.
This is the motif:

I'm mainly doing this for my boyfriend. I never got to play Zelda, although I always wanted to :( Ah well, maybe some time I will ^^ Anyways, this is my progress so far:

It's the upper third of the picture with all the colours that I already had in my stock, but new ones are already on their way.

I really wish I had more time and was more motivated to sew :(
In particular because I got some gorgeous teal-coloured tussah silk for my birthday and I don't know what to do with it yet. I'm always open for ideas ;)

Last but not least, I got a wonderful Valentine:

Thank you so, so much! I'm flattered and happy that you like reading my blog! I just wish I knew who you were, so I could give you a huuuge hug!
Thank you so much! *___*

Happy New Year!

Yes, it's already 2013 and there hasn't been a single post on here since August.
How could that happen? Well, I simply had a lot to do.
My new job is fantastic but takes up a lot of my former free time (Well duh, that's what jobs do! :D), so I just didn't find it in me to write a lot.
Maybe just some keynotes to my current situation: I love my job as a dancing and Zumba instructor, I still don't have my driver's license but hopefully will get it this month, I have barely time to do some sewing or embroidering and even less time for Lolita :(
But I had a wonderful birthday and Christmas in december with great presents (such as a foot spa massager from my wonderful boyfriend :) The best gift ever for someone who has to stand and dance all day ^^) and a great New Year's Eve at my dearest Vroni's. Speaking of it:

I wish you all a wonderful and happy new year!

Stay healthy and work hard on your New year's resolutions ;)

Oh, and Hurley says Hi from under the Christmas tree :)

Time for a change

As you can probably see, my blog now has a beautiful new design. It was about time, don't you think?
Many thanks go to Mia, this is practically all her work :D
So tell me what you think, do you like the new design? Is there something you can't read/see?

In other regards, nothing has changed really.... Still a lot to do, still not enough time.
But there is some progress on my stitching:

The picture is not up-to-date though, I'm already a little further.

Actually I still don't have much to tell you... although there is one recommendation for my German readers: If you have a Lidl near you, you should check out the ice-cream section, because they have these two super-delicious flavours:

Bananalicious is so... bananalicious :D And it has walnuts (meh) and chocolate bits (yay!) in it. YUMMY!
Strawberry cheesecake even has some bits of biscuit dough in it <3

Oh, and last weekend there was a rather spontaneous (as in start planning it just a few days before) Lolita meet-up. I don't have all the pictures yet, so I'll show you some later ^^

The driving lessons are going so-so. The last two were not that bad, but after all the ones before I was crying, feeling like a total failure. Today's lessons gave me hope, though. At least parking doesn't seem to be that much of a problem for me. Some girls chimed in when I told you I was going to make my driver's license, so tell me: How are your lessons going? ^^

And now I wish you all a good night, I have to go to bed soon.

... so little time

The situation hasn't really changed: I have a lot to do and not enough time. Which feels weird to say, because in the evenings I just sit there and stitch or do nothing. But that's mainly because I'm just exhausted from the day. -.-

Last week Stefan and I decided to just take a sunny day off and go swimming. For me it was the first time in 4 years and I finally got to wear my new beautiful swimsuit. I can't believe I waited so long to do this again, it was so refreshing and so much fun! I definitely need to do this more often. While we were drying in the sun we took this picture of us and I think it's so cute *___*

As I told you before, I have a new stitching project, but it's just a smaller, abstract one that I need to "collect" colours for a bigger one after it. Here you can see my progress so far:

I haven't worn Lolita these last weeks, so there's no outfit to show you. Unfortunately, there is no meet-up planned in this next month but only in September at the earliest. Which kind of sucks because I don't know if I'll have any time to attend one then, because my apprenticeship starts on the 1st of September and especially the first months will probably be quite demanding. Maybe I'll just dress up on my own, I really miss the frills.

Oh, does anyone of you want to see Stefan and me dance? Stefan made his DTSA (Deutsches Tanzsport-Abzeichen) in silver two weeks ago and my parents taped it. The more I watch it, the more I hate it, because our technique is a catastrophe, but everyone seemed to like it, so it can't have been all that bad:

The first dance is Samba, then ChaCha, then Jive and the last one is a Tango.


That's it for now, I have to go to work soon -.-

So much to do...

Sorry for neglecting my blog, I'm just really busy at the moment.
Between work, internship, driving school, training and being sick (damn it!) I just didn't find the energy to write something, but nothing special happened anyways. Right now I actually just want a day off, without ANYTHING to do, no one visiting, no one calling, just relaxing, I haven't had a day like that in weeks -.-

I finished my stitching though:

But now I have a hard time finding a next motif for stitching. Any suggestions?

I also have an outfit to show you but again, nothing special. It was just for meeting friends:

not even a petti...

At the dancing school, things are going great. The people all seem to like me and I can't wait to work there fulltime. It is a bit frustrating to see everyone dance and not be able to dance myself though. Since I was sick and there was a big football match anyways we didn't have training last week and I just miss it soooo much! We danced a little at home but it's just not the same.
At the moment I'm in a bit of a competitive mood. I really want to have more training and do competitions. Even if we wouldn't win anything, I just want dancing to go beyond this hobby-status. There is going to be a competition in November that I'm thinking about joining, but I don't know what my partner and my trainer think about that.

By the way, I've had this blog-design for over a year now, so I'm thinking about changing it. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated :D

And now I have to go. Work. What else -.-

Good N... No, FANTASTIC News!

So, my internship at the dancing school is over - sadly. It's quite frustrating to go back to "normal" work after being so active and dancing so much for a whole wonderful week *____*
But luckily there will be much more dancing and teaching for me, because - YES - I signed my indenture and will become a dancing instructor!!!
The apprenticeship officially starts on the 1st of September, but I'll already do a little training and working at the dancing school earlier in summer. And I'm even allowed to come to the summer courses! Zumba galore! :D
I can't wait for it to be summer, this is sooooo great! I can't believe my dream is actually coming true *____*
And we even signed the indenture already on Thursday, so only halfway through the week! I guess I made a pretty good impression ^^

So now my next "big project" is getting a driver's license, which seems pretty scary to me at the moment. And expensive -.- But luckily my lovely boyfriend supports me :-*

And there has also been some progress on my stitching, the first corner is done:

Day 3 of my internship...

... and so far it's AWESOME!

Yes, it's exhausting and yes, I have a boatload of aching muscles and YES, at the end of the day my feet hurt like hell but DAMN, it's awesome!

I was sooo nervous on the first day (as you may recall :D) and then I even was a few minutes late because there are road works in Radebeul at the moment that I didn't know of. But I called them from the bus and told them I'd be some minutes late and it was no problem.
When I got there my hopefully future-to-be-boss showed me where everything was and then the first course where I took part was a Bronze-course for adolescents. (Bronze means that they already had a beginners' and an advanced course) Afterwards there was a course for small children age 4-6, which was... ok. Not really my thing because I don't like kids but ironically I'm still actually pretty good with them. But they are so loud and twirly @.@
Unexpectedly, half the amount of 11-14 year old girls are even louder than them, as I experienced afterwards at the Videoclipdancing-course, which was really cool. I was in a course like this when I was younger and I didn't realise how much I actually like and miss it :D
Afterwards came Lady-Power, which is a course for... "middle-aged" women who like to dance ChaCha, Salsa and stuff like that but who don't have any men to dance (or whose men don't want to dance). So basically we do dance routines in a more fitness-based choreography. It's really cool!
And the last course on that day was a Bronze-course for adults.

Yesterday in the forenoon there was a... well, "light Lady-Power"-course for elder people which was also fun.
In the evening there were 3 dance-clubs, first for elderlies and then 2 for adults. Dance-club means that already took part in some or all the "normal" courses and now they come to just dance and improve their dancing.

Today is going to be pretty exhausting. First two courses with adolescents, then one with first- and second-graders, then Zumba, Lady-Power and in the end another course for adults.
I just hope my feet survive this day :D

Oh, and there have already been several hints that I might actually get (or already have?) the apprenticeship place *YAAAAAAY* (by the way, I realised that I called this week "apprenticeship" in the last posts. It's of course only an internship XD)

There has also been some progress on my stitching. That was already at the weekend, though. Now I don't have time work on it :D

You can hardly see it, but there are actually 7 different colours in it XD White, black, and 5 different shades of grey.

I have new dancing shoes - reloaded

How are you all doing? I'm fine, but pretty nervous because on Monday my apprenticeship in Radebeul starts. I just hope everything works out fine, I really, reeeaaally want that job >.<

Yesterday my wonderful boyfriend and I made a trip to Zwickau to finally buy some dancing shoes for him.
Now he has a really good latin pair from Paoul, one of the leading brands for dancing shoes.
And I don't even know how I deserve this, but he also bought me a beautiful pair (also from Paoul)! *_____*

How does Hurley sneak into almost every photo I take? Anyways, Stefan's and my shoes ^^

My new shoes in their incredible beauty *__*

And again, I really need to clean that mirror XD

I've also been a little crafty again. I started a new stitching project:

It's the picture that is also on my favourite necklace, remember?
And I'll hopefully also manage to sew a skirt this weekend, I'll need it next week.

Blue tartan

How are you all? Are you enjoying the fantastic weather? (That is, if there IS fantastic weather where you are :D)
Vroni, her husband, Stefan and I did on Saturday, when we took a blanket and a picnic basket to the Great Garden in Dresden (a huge park). It was a great and relaxing day and it was great for Stefan to finally get out of the house. He was even able to eat some ice cream ^^
And last night was his first night without taking painkillers and he slept through it. Yaaay! The worst part is over :D

Maybe you've already read it over at Sophie's blog, on the Friday of Stefan's operation the Gang wanted to meet at Sophie's to do some sewing/knitting/crafting. In the end it wasonly Sophie and me for most of the time, but still we had a lot of fun together. First I made a simple Vampire Requiem headdress:

The other side is just plain blue so that I can decide which side I want to show ^^

And then I started designing the pattern for the dress that I want to make out of the blue tartan fabric that I showed you earlier. I want the cut to resemble the one of the IW dresses that I love so much.
So here's one of my sketches:

After several calculations, sketches and tests I finally have a pattern that might work, so now onto the fabric. This is what I did yesterday:

This dress includes several difficulties that I haven't dealt with yet: matching patterned fabric, princess seams and sewing a zipper into a dress with a gathered skirt. We'll see how that goes :D

But at the moment I don't spend that much time sewing because I'm at work often and because I have rediscovered my love for Sims 2 :D
And when it's boring at work, this is how I keep myself entertained:

I'm so bad at drawing these XD

What do you do when you're bored at work? And what difficulties do you have to deal with with your recent crafting project? ^^

It is done

Yesterday I finished the project of which I had posted a teaser last time, and here it is:

Hurley tries really hard to be in every single picture I take :D

I didn't sew the skirt, I just painted the golden stripes onto it. It used to be a dress from F+F that I bought two years ago (this one to be exact), but it was too big and looked hideous on me, so I turned it into a skirt, which was also too big. Now I finally made a fitting skirt out of it and decorated it nicely (I am a sucker for black-gold combinations). Just in case someone might ask, I didn't actually make perfectly straight lines myself. If you look closely you can see that there are rows of pintucks and I just painted every second one gold :D
I really love how it turned out and look forward to wearing it. I just hope it doesn't look too weird because my petticoats are actually a little too short for it... we'll see ^^

When it comes to my private/professional life: I'm on a roll :D
When I brought my application to the dancing school the day after my last post, I had a really nice talk with one of the owners and now they'll contact me soon about an internship to check how we work together (at least that's what she told me, but she seemed really confident and I think she liked me ^^).
On the same day I also got two invitations to job interviews, one for a sideline here in Dresden and one from a dancing school in Leipzig that I had sent my application for the apprenticeship to.
The interview for the sideline was today at a callcenter that Vroni also works at and I'll start working there next Tuesday ^^
The interview in Leipzig is on the 9th of march, one day before the meet-up :D I hope it goes well... (though I of course hope to stay in Dresden, but it's always good to have a second option)
And yesterday I brought my application to another dancing school here in Dresden. Unfortunately no one seemed to be there so I just dropped it into the mailbox but I guess it doesn't matter that much, they'll receive it either way :D
And then I discovered another dacning school near Dresden that I'll send an application too.
I just hope everything works out well >.<

Training was really exhausting today @.@ We only did latin dancing today and half the time we just did Samba technique so I guess I'm looking forward to aching muscles in my legs (and basically everything :D) tomorrow. And it's so difficult -.- Samba used to be Stefan's and my favourite dance when he finally started dancing with me but now it has become my least favourite latin dance because there are so many things that you have to pay attention to. Of course there are a lot of things to pay attention to in every dance but they feel more natural to me. Probably because I also practice them at home during the day sometimes, while I always avoid the Samba. But today a woman from another dancing group asked us if we danced in tournaments because we're so good. That really made up for all the hard work :D
(Yeah, maybe this isn't all that interesting to you but I think I'll write some more about dancing in the future because it's such a huge part of my life. I love it just as much (or probably even more than) Lolita or the other things I usually write about, so it's actually quite curious that I write so little about it...)

And to finish this post, have another "Schmankerl" from the amazing Yulia ^^ This might even be my favourite choreography from her and Max.

Good night ^^