Month: July 2014

BlogTitle_MinipostMittwoch

Ich habe die Idee zwar von einem anderen Blog “geklaut”, aber ich mache den Posten am Mittwoch statt am Sonntag. Ich weiss, “statt” muss man mit Genitiv benutzen, aber ich sag es lieber mit Dativ.
Ich schätze, dass ich diese Woche kaum erledigen würde, weil ich einfach faul und krank bin. Ich hatte gestern Heuschnupfen und das war richtig unangenehm.
Michi hat gesagt, dass ich den nächsten Deutschkurs besuchen solle. Hmm…

Was habe ich vom letzten Mittwoch bis heute gemacht?

Gekauft: Memebox Aloe Vera, Nici Beauty Pferd, Lush No Drought, eine Bommeldekoration von Manor
Gelesen: Dark Secrets von Lara Steel auf Deutsch fertig gelesen
Gehört: No. 13 Danses des Cygnes
Gesehen: viele britische Sendungen (Commonwealth Games, BBC News)
Gespielt: Magic Piano mit dem iPad
Gemacht: noch einen Teddybearpullover
Getan: viele Blythe-Puppendinge organisiert (und gelagert)
Gewünscht: einen Ara Nici Plüschtier und Memeboxen
Gefreut: über die regnerischen Sommertage, auf Bestellungen von Deutschland
Geärgert: über mich, weil ich in letzter Zeit spät aufgestanden bin

Bilder der Woche

Frey Cremetta Another knitted pullover Nici grey horse Beauty
Schokolade der Woche // Der gestrickte Pullover // Nici Pferd Beauty

Dresses from Justine! Pompom decoration from Manor - on sale No Drought
Blythe Anziehsachen von Justine // Bommeldekoration // Trockenshampoo

Spätzli has shown some signs of aging for the past couple of months. He’s now a little over 1 year and 7 months old. He had flaky and slightly scabby skin, so we took him to the vet. The vet insisted it was a bacterial infection and gave him antibiotics, plus an oral probiotic paste. At the same time, he was also treated for parasites even though there was no evidence of it.

After following the course of antibiotics, there was no improvement. I wasn’t convinced that there was anything more the vet could do besides extensive hormonal tests, so I just made little adjustments to his home, such as removing rough hay and sand, and trying to use only soft soil and tissue paper inside his house, where he spends most of his time rubbing against. I am also still feeding him the probiotic paste every other day, which I think is good in any case.

2014-07-24 12.31.222014-07-24 12.31.55His fur is becoming sparse in some areas, like the back of his neck. You can also see his dry ears. He does not look so bad in person, and he’s still quite active. I’ve just started rubbing a tiny bit of aloe vera gel on his ears and flaky areas, and I think it’s helping to relieve the dryness. I get to do this only once a day, so results are slow. I also don’t want to use too much in case he ingests it.

2014-07-19 22.09.02Here he is on my lap. I put him on a tea towel because he sometimes brings soil over from his cage or makes a small mess when he eats fresh corn on my lap. After his snack, he sometimes sleeps on me for an hour, and sometimes only for 10 minutes or less. He tells me when he would like to go home by climbing onto and putting all four feet on my palm. If I put him down, he’ll do it again, and that’s when I’m sure that he wants to go home. I find that too cute. ^-^ It’s definitely something he came up with, and he’s been using it since he first trusted me.

Now that I have more free time (it’s a long story which I will not go into), I started knitting again. I finished up an old loop scarf and now I’m making a few teddy bear sweaters. I was never really a fan of teddy bears, but suddenly, I can’t help myself. It started with Build-a-Bear. I took out my old CamoBear when I started thinking about our move next year, and what I will do with some unloved plushies. I already started clearing out some small unwanted stuff. Anyway, back to topic, I took the teddy out, and I instantly dressed him in what clothes he had. I even checked out the German Build-a-Bear website and found some cute outfits, including the German national football team outfit. Want!

Within a week, I had bought 3 teddy bears (!!) They were from varying brands: One pre-loved purple Build-a-Bear, one white Aurora teddy and another all the way from Australia by Minkplush, called Norman. Here he is:

Norman in his sweater

I really wanted to clothe them, especially the ones from other brands. I straight away knitted a sweater following a pattern from Craftbits.com. It’s meant for a 14” bear, but I only have 13” or 16” bears. Nevertheless, the sweater still more or less fits 13″ Norman bear. I used 4.0 mm needles for the rib stitch and 4.5 mm needles for the stockinette stitch. I followed the pattern exactly, except for the neck band, where I picked up all the live stitches and did one round of stockinette, though I should not have, and then I knitted only 5 rows of rib stitch instead of 6. I used Jeny’s surprisingly stretchy bind-off. This stretchy bind-off is the best I’ve ever tried. It is a bit bulky, but the benefits outweigh that small negative point.

Knitted sweater

The pink knitted portions look quite uneven, because I unravelled the yarn from another project, and I suppose the kinks are to blame. I’m already starting the next sweater in finer yarn, so maybe someone else in my menagerie of plushies will be clothed soon.

Clothed Nici Gustav

Plush toys with clothes are all the rage right now — at least to me! This Nici Jolly Gustav is wearing a set of pyjamas with bedroom slippers from the Nici Dress Your Friends range. I’m hopeless at sewing when I need to make my own patterns. Perhaps I’ll try it one day.