Stitches and Thrills

"A recent study says 22% of Dutch people think human behaviour has no influence on the climate changes on our planet." My personal environmental battle at the moment is waste. Plastic waste to be precise. I work in a shop. A shop were costumers ask for plastic bags. Even when they already carry a bag were they could carry their purchases in. So I've made myself a badge out of plastic bags. It's Dutch. It means: "I am all for a plastic-bag-free planet." It seems to work. So far I've only had positive responses and I've had to hand out less plastic bags. I found some other eco-friendly ideas on Etsy: KalliaSuppliesland : palepink : yourdoll : and for the next 3 days you can find them and 9 others in a treasury in Etsy.

As a cat you won't get 18 without getting a little streetwise. In human years Droppie would be in her 80s now, so you can imagine her expecting to be treated as such. Two years ago her health was getting worse due to kidney problems and she started to lose a lot of weigth. We tried to make her as comfortable as possible. However in wintertime our livingroom can be a bit chilly. My boyfriend and I usually put on an extra sweater, and personally I love a comfy blanket. Neither of us like the stuffiness and warmth of the air when the heater is on, so we save that for the really cold days. But a blanket wasn't enough for her royal highness Droppie. She would sit on the sofa, meow loudly while staring at the switch for the heater (I told you she is smart). And as we did feel sorry for her feeling so poorly we often gave in. I wasn't happy with the situation though. For one it made our energy bill more expensive, and more importantly I hate wasting energy. Droppie did try helping...

The lovely Kyoko ( Cotton&Cloud ) has featured Charlie and Droppie in the Furry Fridays post on her blog: http://cottonandcloud.com/blog/furry-friday-ama-charlie-and-droppie/ It was a lot of fun to answer the questionaire. Please do check out her website too, it's been restyled and looks really good. * * * * * Storm: Open air booths are no fun when it's stormy. We were very unlucky with the weather on the Open Day at the animal shelter. The rain and wind made me run after my merchandise a couple of times, and kept away visitors (a festival in the city centre did not help us either) . But I managed to get some sales, and saw a very happy little girl shine with her new kitty hat. So it was worth it anyways. On the bright side: I'll have a lot of new hats to add to my shop now. Tomorrow will be photoshooting time and adding new listings. Impression from the booth: My view:

I am preparing for the annual Open Day at the Animal Shelter Stevenshage I support. I have had my own booth there since 2oo6. To sell "Hats for People: Cash for Cats". I usually create some additional items for selling. Cat toys are always a big hit there. And last year I succesfully introduced the gift-bags and envelopes I made of animal calenders. Of course I am always hoping to sell some cat scarves and kitty hats as well. The Open Day is just 10 days away now: October 3rd 2009. As it happens this same day is also a big fiesta in Leiden (in celebration of being liberated from the Spanish 435 years ago) with a fair, a parade and quite a lot of eating and drinking. I'm hoping to see the people who'll want to escape the crowdy city centre of Leiden and come over to visit Animal Shelter Stevenshage.

I love crafty contests. They challenge me to think out of the box and try new things. In a Dutch magazine Handwerken Zonder Grenzen there is a contest to make a design for a yarn called Hoooked zpagetti . This yarn is a tube of jersey made of rest materials from the fabric and fashion industries. Since I didn't have the yarn at hand I made my own version to get a material with similar properties. I cut up 2 t-shirts in two long bands of jersey yarn. With this I knitted my design in dropped stitches on needles sz 10. And here's the result: a " Stads-Kat " (="City-Kitty") It's a cozy for the small poles you find in a lot of Dutch towns. I did it in red and white because many cities, like my own, have those as their town-colours. And the candy stripe effect makes it an original decoration for the upcoming holidays! If you do like it you can vote for it here !

The lovely Annette of Dragon House Of Yuen interviewed me for her blog . You might remember her of an earlier post , when I won one of her Arabella bags. She's a real star, I love how she weaved in the photo's of the rescue animals waiting at the animal shelter Stevenshage for a new home now. Her questions really challenged me to describe the artistic development as well as the animal charity goal of my project. About the latter I am used to talk, but my creative side is less structured and outlined in my head. So it was a real pleasure to talk to Annette. The whole interview can be found HERE .

Last sunday the fashion designers Victor & Rolf were guests on the Dutch tv programme Zomergasten ("Summerguests"). They were invited to show excerpts from movies/television and explain why they wanted to share these. The first film of their choice was a part of "Cinderella" by Lotte Reiniger. The interesting opening scene with scissors and the strong black silhouettes were a clear connection with the work of V&R. For me this was a first introduction to Lotte Reinigers work. Lotte Reiniger made silhouette movies in the early 20th century. She used shadow puppets and a stop motion technique. Truly amazing! I tried to find a fragment of the same Cinderella on YouTube, but unfortunately I could only find a version from 1954. Apparently the folks in the fifties thought a silent movie was "so 1920s" so they decided to add a narrator. I preferred it with just music. However I did find a part of a documentary, and a beautiful movie "Das Lebende Marmo...