young lynx girl - Pola

young lynx girl, originally uploaded by lalootka.

As I haven't make too much plushie for two months I can only write about my last realizations: this young lynx girlie. Now I know I should chose differnet background for the photo, but it's done, and toy\d reached her destiny in Canada some time ago.
It was made for The Needle swap - and was meant to reflect somehow the country of origin. In Poland we have few species of very special animals but lynx are one of the most special - they are on the best way to be extinct. And recently there is a WWF campaign to save some wild terrains especially for lynx. My beauty has panda - an icon of wildlife campaigns as a memo. Made of grey polar fleece, has a little beard (she's a girl and usually males have beards but I just wanted her to resemble lynx, not a kitty), ear brushes. Dressed in reversible pinafore.
Her name is after Poland, that's obvious, but also after Pola Negri - famous actress and Rudolf Valentino fiance :) (who - but complete coincidence ;) had Polish origin)
She went to weirdbuglady - and I'm glad she's in such a good company.

Sinead, Hildegarde and friends

Sinead, Hildegarde and friends
Originally uploaded by lalootka.

My new flatmates: lamb Sinead, and monkey Hildegarde. They are both young musicians: Hildegarde is composer (nomen omen), Sinead (nomen omen) is studying opera singing - one of her favourite artists is Bianca Casady They are very young so still keep their softies :)
After introducing lamb Amelia into a flickr world I realized that lambs hate to live in solitude - they need a company - the more sheep the merrier. Sinead warned me that few her cousins more are coming soon. And they are not silent for sure. (Her legs and arms are made of pure rustic linen. Next time I'll take thinner linen for this purpose).

We are expecting a concert soon - though Midsummer Night passed but there'll be another occassion soon: the end of term, exams and beginning of the Summer holidays :) - composer and conductor Hildegarde, solo vocal - Sinead. Though I love Hildegarde von Bingen , I hope that our Hildegarde won't imitate her fully.

Another addition to our growing lalootkas' company are vaderas, female wolf pack. I treat them as a modest contribution or rather hommage to the idea of The Mom Pack (it should be such an organization here in Poland).
I love wolfs and their perfect family organization. They are more loyal than musketeers, and more devoted to their children, and their mates than humans (in general). I still remeber wonderful book "Not so terrifing wolf" about researches among Alaskan wolfes by a young Canadian biologist who even ate mice to immitate wolf's diet and proove few of his thesis. Receipe for mice with bacon and cream is still in my memory.
But speaking about wolfs - I have to make some more of them for few sets of finger puppets and two of them will be a couple for custom order: the Noah's Arc.

And good news - Trinlay received Izumi today. At last, I worried a bit about it - it took so long! Trinlay is an expert in Japanese outfits, she has few kimonos and knows perfectly the difference between yukata and kimono. I wonder how she judges my production of kitty, her outfits and packages (I wanted to make it as simple and anasumed as possible - to follow the Japanes art of packaging, of course).

geisha? no, swap

After making another kimono for swap kitty I'm sure - I'm perfectionist. I love to do things right. And when I get a manual of kimono making (I am ethnographer, aren't I? So I searched for it among ethnographic archives - an article about kimonos collection in ethnographical museum)
I decided to make another one - better one, of course. It has double layers, as it should have, both made of cotton - so it's rather summer casual dress, with linen obi, Yukata more than kimono, which we associate rather with silk. I couldn't make a bottom white dress - it would be too much even for me. I was trying to make seams as invisible as possible. I'm quite satisfied now, at last. Poor Sari had to wait so long, I have remorse. I cut a photo of tea house from my favourite Elle Decoration :) to arrange the scenery, though I suppose (or I know) cotton kimono doesn't suit cha ceremony - it should be silk. I picked a black outer cotton with flowers that make an impression of plum blossoms - havin' five petals each, and white bottom cotton with twigs.

I prepared an ID of a kitty - her name is Izumi, Izumi Kazawa, and she is half Polish. Kazawa name is not a coincidence - it's my alias, Aloutka Kazawa, after Adam's name which is Kazała - and that sounds exactly the same. But Izumi again: she loves cha celebrations, peonies, midsummer and bluebirds. And red purses. (I decided to add red purses to every toy I make now - when Twinky Winky is suspected by gov. to be gay just because having purse, adding red purse is a joke and statement).And now - just to compare - a photo of Izumi. I called her after friend of ours, lovely girl, half Polish also. I hope that THIS Izumi will be as good kendo fighter, drawer and translator like this human one.

Another thing I made was my "business card" - I enjoyed making it, but actually I'm not sure if it's gonna work out. It's lovely to make handmade business cards but it's wasting time, isn't it? I can keep it also as a tag, or use an illustration. Anyway - drawing makes my day. I love aquarell pencils - and mix technique: some colours wet, some dry, pencil, PILOT V 5, and the result is quite satisfactory.
Few days without Adam here was very busy - Ada wanted my constant care and attention, and cryed loudly "dad" running around the house. And we made a lot of house work. I love my home clean and neat. We visited kindergadens, playing, having fun, building castles, reading books - for Ada pictures mostly. We had an walk to the forrest and saw goats and chickens - Ada was fascinated with feeding goats. While we were working hard, daddy amused himself in Prague - our beloved Prague. Amusement was not complete, he sais, without us, but I suppose he meant his pupils were not that sweet as Ada, though also very nice and intelligent. I'm sure they had had wonderful time together.
Ada still likes turquoise kitty. But she's fair enough to share her underarms and love between her and white teddy bear.

International Children's Day

Another occasion for celebrations - everybody likes to have holiday and lots of fun with children today (o my, what rhymes, hehe). Beautifull weather helps to have outdoors activities. I'm in Torun, at the university, and next few hours will spend in train, travelling to Lodz. Since I just woke up this morning, I've been thinking about Ada and, poor me, children with parents are everywhere, and that's increasing my longing. I just received a sms from Adam with an information that Ada, after awakening, told him (which means she took his hand and lead him) to the kitchen to feed the cat. Charming! He was happy - he loves the cat and believes his daughter is special. But I have a contact with my special child just by a phone... Quite sad, actually.

By the way: the cat. That's an old photo of Kitty in cheongsam. I put it here because I hope to put another kitty's photo very soon. One-of-the-kind black kitty, name Izumi. And I want to have a fresh view for this one. To compare.

To chear up and to comfort myself I made some drawings of baby Ada and me but scanner doesn't function properly and I can not upload them, hrrrr. Well, I will do it later. Now I have to go, but maybe I'll add few words later today (when I get Lodz and a scanner).

crochet, knitting and woven

Today I have to write about the recieved part of swap with Trinlay Khadro (flickr friend, of course). Last Wednesday our postman delivered me a parcel and in this I found such things: beautiful Japanese style piece of fabric, funny trims and yarns for decoration, selectection of vintage buttons - thank you! two gorgeous crochet pins, some yogo sweets.......... amazing origami - it's a griffon!!! I've never seen anything like that. Beautiful, actually for me - awesome. Trinlay is a great admirer of Japanese stuff. And even her cats Japanese names.
The largest parcel was filled with - tra la! The kitty - crochet, turquoise kitty! I saw this kitty once among her photos and liked it very much. When she offered a swap we chose "kitty" theme at once. (I hope she'll like my kitty too).

I love the features of this kitty - it's so cute and funny. Usually I'm not fond of safety eyes - actually do not believe in their safety, but these are big and look stable, and we don't have a dog to bite them. And those eyes give the kitty so bright look! If Ada was not interested in having it, I would keep it for myself - it's soft and cuddly, yum. :)
But I hadn't had much time to enjoy to full those beautiful gifts when the time of my every week trip came. This time I was on my way to Sandomierz, for a conference for change, with a stop for the night in Krakow, at Grazyna Brylewska's place. Ms Brylewska is fantastic person, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, she used to be an assistent of Magdalena Abakanowicz then, and now she has unique collection of toys. Crochet mostly, but she has also some jewels like Peruvian doll representing mother and child, dressed in original Maya woven fabric. Perfect gift for somebody who dedicated one's artistic life to textile, as she does (she was not Abakanowicz' assistant for nothing). As Grazyna told me, it had been a gift, otherwise she wouldn't keep a doll made of such a precious antique fabric. But the doll is beautiful. I like such images of motherhood.
Among her collection of crochet dolls and goods Grazyna has also crochet "wig with pigtails". This "wig" is for her cat! We couldn't stop laughing watching blue Persian lady with a head decorated with pigtails. Cat stood our silly laughter with dignity.

I should be going to sleep early then, so did Grazyna, but we were both talkative and discussed a lot about dolls. I made plenty of shots, and then I got a knitted teddy bear as a gift! Perfect companion for a trip, I must say! Maybe he's not the most handsome teddy bear I've ever seen but he's very curious in everything and open minded enough to make friends. Good for me, I have to refresh my experience with a field work, which means talking to strangers and interviewing. Communication skills are asset in my profession, so Sigfrid can be excellent social anthropologist.
When I woke up the next morning he was sitting on my chest, waiting for my awakening, ready for adventure!
So we went to Sandomierz by bus, took lots of photos, meet some new people, participated in great conference and had wonderful time then. (Sigfrid had even better time than me - longing for my baby girl). But about that - next time. Today I have to upload photos of Trinlay's gifts on flickr.

P.S. The freshest news: I have writen my first html code - to connect BUST's button with a link. I've NEVER did it before but it works! Well - I'm scholar in humanities....
P.P.S. Trinlay sais that this griffon is not a griffon but a dragon. For me it's even more auspicious because I just love dragons and this one is perfect. I can only make cranes - flying or nesting, and hats, but such a creation is beyond my experience. First I wanted to make in my part of swap an origami for her (crane, of course), but I'll better resign - she's too good in making origami herself. Well, when I mention swap: making kimono outfit for kitty for her was a challenge for me, actually. And took long. Trinlay has some kimonos herself - as I could see on her photostream, so will be judge. I hope not too severe.

My sister's birthday

Today is 19th anniversary of my sister - Justyna. She's passing her final exams in high school. Poor her, she had to resign of kendo national team to focus on her maturity exams and next-to-be-studies. Hope, everything will be fine. I'm sure, everything will be fine. She wants to study graphic design and computer science, lol. I prefer humanities, any ingeneering studies are amazing for me :). Actually, 3:30 a.m. when I'm writing these very words is about the time she was born! I could sent her sms if she wasn't asleep already. Happy birthday, sis!!!!! xxx

I learned today about Eduardo Recife, Brazilian designer who designed some astonishing typefaces. Some of them are available for free, some - for commercial use. It's pitty but I couldn't install them on my computer - I need some computer science lessons propably! But fonts are great and I like it very much. I decided to put link to his website on my blog among other very inspiring and creative "cre8ives". I like Max Rhode font inspired by his very own handwriting.

All the moments Ada was with her father I was trying to spend developing my work - about modern design and it's folklore influences. I want to be prepared for conference in Sandomierz. There will be Zbigniew Benedyktowicz who is one of my favourite social anthropologists and ethnographers - I admire his keen eye for modern art and gentle personality as well. Besides being interesting scholar and good writing publisher, he's a wise person and it's not a common thing. Either his gentleness - in our scholar circles especially. I've never heard him speaking ill of anybody. If I will speak at all, I will speak about Piatek - the village which is geographical centre of Poland but in any way can be centre of enything. It's margin of life, province, woop-woop land... - and I know some artists who want to awake this strange neighbourhood by some artistic events and founding Museum of the Middle of Poland. I'm very curious of the results.

Japanese dress for kitty is beautiful. trinlayk - I hope - will like it. Her idea about making black cat with green eyes was good - kitty looks fine. I wonder what she did. For a swap which i s American word for an exchange, heheheh. I want to make some more kitties of that kind (limited edition, of course) to present them at indie babies - as soon as possible. I count on Adam's help in everyday care for Ada during summer vacations - as a teacher he'll have almost two months holidays. And then I can learn for my next semester lectures by days and sew by nights :)