Discovery Blanky

Hi, Y'all!

Well, I didn’t really believe I’d ever revive this blog again, but sometimes I manage to surprise even myself! And then my youngest daughter provided an especially lovely surprise of her own when she announced some very happy news right around Mother’s Day 2025. Yep — since November we’ve officially been grandparents, which means we are now formally authorized to sabotage all parental upbringing efforts. :-)

Naturally, I sprang into action and started crafting all sorts of things for the little guy: pacifier chains, rattles, a mobile, a cuddly toy, you name it — that’ll fill a whole separate blog post, promise! And now that the little rascal is starting to explore the world, and since I’ve sewn more than a few quilts in my lifetime, my daughter requested one of those as well — though with some extra features.

Extra features? What kind of features would that be? Well, our grandson is currently absolutely fascinated by textures, surfaces, textiles, materials — touching, looking, licking — and somehow all of that was supposed to be reflected in the quilt; essentially a discovery blanket. (Should I trademark the German name "Entdecker-Decke", I wonder?) I already had a rough idea, because if you’ve ever looked into baby toys, play mats, and the like, you’ve probably seen one or two things heading in that direction. Still, I deliberately avoided tutorials or examples. I didn’t want to copy anything — this was meant to be a completely individual blanket, built around my own ideas.

For about a year now, I’ve rediscovered crochet. It had been neglected for quite some time: during my storm‑and‑stress years I did a lot of knitting, then shifted my focus heavily to sewing. Here in Malta I now spend a good 45 minutes on the bus twice a day — not exactly ideal for sewing‑machine projects — and given the state of the roads, wielding sharp knitting needles isn’t entirely risk‑free either. So it was the perfect opportunity to act as Captain Hook again — with purely peaceful intentions, of course! And that’s when it struck me: why not combine both techniques? In other words, sew a simple blanket, divide it into individual sections, and then fill those with all kinds of crocheted elements that a baby or toddler might (hopefully) find endlessly interesting and exciting.

It goes without saying that everything had to be completely childproof, therefore I had to let go of a few ideas, because the danger of chewing and choking was real. And so it happened that on a sunny Saturday morning I went out for a fabric hunt. 

Well, the hunt was successful, as you can see below:

I chose denim fabric and a thick batting, because it's durable, washable, robust and the perfect background for colorful applications. 'Cause I'm not the biggest fan of soft pastels...

So far, so good. I planned three rows consisting of five squares each. That was pretty handy, because the middle row was designated for the little one's name - completely flat, so he can ly on it comfortably and inspect the other squares while resting in the center. What a coincidence that he is named Jonas, which has exactly five letters - hah! So, in the following days the fellow commuters in the bus could watch me crochet the letters, and you can see it here: 

That was easy, and during my fabric purchase I also bought two giant buttons - and like this the next two sections were done: From sewing a cooler last summer I had some leftover sunscreen material which I cut to the right shape, covered it in crochet and fixed it as some kind of flap on the segments. After that carefully sewing on the two buttens, and the first two activity squares were completed. 

And while we're talking about closures, let me add a belt buckle. I bet in your youth you had the same exact fabric belt you had to weave at first through both rings and then once again only through one of them (I definitely had). I happened to have two untreated birchwood rings and a bit of turquoise cotton yarn et voilá:

If weaving is hard, chewing on it is definitely easy! And moreover I want the blanky to be interesting for quite some time, not only for a few days. As I still had four of these rings, I kept going and fixed them onto the next square with yarn in different colors - so he can grab and turn them as he pleases. 

Since Jonas is growing up with two house tigers, it was only logical that I’d immortalize a kitty on the blanket as well. My original idea was to place the cat in the middle of one panel and let its tail dangle all the way down. (Sounds weird, but trust me.)

However, the hubs — an experienced father — strongly advised against this, arguing that the little guy might put it in his mouth and swallow it. Even tying a knot in the tail to shorten it wasn’t a safe option in his opinion (must be one of those man things :-D). Instead, he came up with the brilliant idea of attaching the cat more toward the side of the panel and fixing the tail along the edge, sort of like a handle or grip. I thought that was a great idea — but the panel still looked a bit empty, so I crocheted an extra paw (with a rattle inside).

For the rattle to actually be perceived as a rattle, it has to be able to move, so I only stitched it down along the lower edge. Now the paw can wobble up and down like one of those Chinese lucky waving cats.

The next square of activity came about more or less by accident. I had crocheted some shopping nets, then unraveled them again — but the handles survived the process. I promptly put them to new use by crocheting small rings in various colors and threading them onto the handles. I then stitched the whole thing onto the blanket, a bit like those old‑school abacuses where you could slide wooden beads from left to right on a rod — except in my case, they move from top to bottom.

Next up, I crocheted a flower — starting, of course, with the center in sunshine yellow, followed by lots of colorful petals. However, I only attached each petal at a single point so they’d be easier to grab and fiddle with. To make the whole experience even more exciting, I filled the petals with roasting‑in‑a‑bag film so they’d make a nice crinkly sound. (Yes, you read that right! This stuff is brilliant: it tolerates water and heat — as it should, considering it’s meant for the oven — and it makes wonderfully crackly noises, which makes it absolutely perfect.)

I created the next panel in two stages, because I simply wasn’t happy with the first version. I had crocheted a caterpillar — the upper segments were stuffed with soft filling, and the smaller ones at the bottom I filled with wooden beads. Somehow, though, it all felt a bit dull, so I spontaneously added some colorful wings — and just like that, the caterpillar turned into a butterfly.

Which immediately reminds me of that little “metamorphosis” poem:

I am a caterpillar, green and spry,
you are a deer that wanders by.
I’ll be a butterfly, light and free —
you’ll be venison… bon appétit!

The body is attached to the blanket, but the wings are only fastened to the body, so they can flutter around a bit.

Anyone who’s been counting will know that only two panels were still missing at this point. For one of them, I wanted to do something with cars — but unfortunately I couldn’t come up with a completely toddler‑safe way of attaching the wheels so they could actually spin. So I left the wheels static and crocheted a traffic light instead. Educational mission accomplished, I’d say.

And last but not least I wanted to create again something traffic related. As little buddy lives near the Stuttgart 21 area (google it and you will know and shake your head in disbelief). So there had to be a freight train with a trailer - the freight slightly puffy and filled with crackle film as well as the little clouds. 

And this is the discovery blanky in all it's glory:

Admittedly this is easier to grasp when seeing it in action rather just trying to imagine with static pictures and some description. Therefore I made a video - I very much hope you can see and hear it!

Is this fishing for compliments? Maybe. Am I a bit proud? Yes. Does Jonas like it? Definitely!!!

With that being said - enjoy spring and especially the butterflies!

...and what was the result?

Hi, Y'all!

Easter is over now, all the eggs have been searched, found and eaten, and you're probably wondering whether Lent has done me any good? Not primarily spiritually, but perhaps on the scales?

And what can I say? Yup, it worked - 7 pounds in 7 weeks! With Ozempic or Wegovy it might have been more eventually, but that's a whole other book I'd rather not open.

Was it exhausting? No, not really. Was I hungry? Yes, I was, but only for a short while. A sip of water and the stomach growling was history. Did I feel any better? Hm, sometimes I had endless energy at the weekends and did such silly things like sweeping the patio or cleaning the car :-) But I've also had days when I've just gone back to bed after my morning walk with the dog, because I didn't have to make breakfast! 

Will we continue? For the time being, yes! Although I have to say, we're not slaves to the clock now. If we were invited for breakfast, for example, we'd probably eat something. And if we had overnight visitors, we wouldn't force them to wait until one o'clock in the afternoon. But basically we'll carry on, because this intermittent fasting has at least led to us eating smaller portions, and that's not a bad thing in principle. I don't know if we'll lose any more weight now, but I think it's definitely helping us to stop gaining weight drastically. And that's already something, I guess.

With that being said enjoy life to the max!

Accountability and such...

Hi Y'all,

The hubs and I have been doing intermittent fasting for exactly one week now. How are we doing? I can only speak for myself, but it's going better than I had hoped. Of course I sometimes feel a little hungry. But as we eat a fairly balanced diet, I don't have any cravings and I don't feel like I'm making any big sacrifices. 

On Saturday, instead of starting breakfast at around nine like we usually do, then staying in bed and scrolling on our cell phones and before you know it, it's lunchtime, we both had a real activity boost. Just get out of bed and do something! OK, for me it was cleaning the windows and sweeping the patio, but that has to be done too. And so we had our well-deserved breakfast at one o'clock. A good feeling, I can say.

Did I do anything differently than planned? Yes, indeed. Firstly, as I just described, we also did it at the weekend, even though we only wanted to limit ourselves to workdays. But we didn't want to completely shake up our metabolisms - a bit of consistency isn't wrong, otherwise the body is constantly busy adjusting. 

In addition, the eating window from 12 noon to 8pm wasn't really practical for us, so we moved it by an hour to 1pm to 9pm. We're fine with that, and even if they say you shouldn't eat dinner that late, the Italians or Spaniards, for example, don't give a flying rat's ass about it :-)

Did it show on the scales? Yessiree - 1.2 kg! I don't expect that streak to continue, but was very pleased anyway.

With that being said - enjoy your spring time big time!

Giving up lentils for lent?

Hi, Y'all!

Although it didn't quite work out with the carnival celebrations in Eschweiler, I was at least able to follow a little thanks to social media. A live stream would have been nice, but only the Aachen parade was broadcast - although the one in Eschweiler is much longer and more spectacular! 

Anyway, as we all know, everything is over on Ash Wednesday (famous German song: Am Aschermittwoch ist alles vorbei...) and Lent begins at the same time. Normally I have as little to do with Lent as I do with New Year's resolutions, but this time I actually want to take part. The spiritual idea behind it is that, after all the partying, you reflect on the essentials and, through self-imposed renunciation, realize what you actually have and how well off you are (and that others may not). 

But if I'm honest, this aspect is secondary, although I'm all for pausing for a moment and realizing how well off I personally am. But what actually prompted me to take part in Lent this year was the fact that I had a health check-up a good year ago in January and was very happy with the number on the scales. Shortly afterwards, a uniform was tailor-made for the receptionists in our office (including me). Since then, I've been going to work dressed as a black and yellow flight attendant - not my first choice, but on the one hand I need fewer new clothes and on the other hand I don't have to think long and hard about what to wear in the morning. 

Recently, however, the costume hasn't been as comfortable as it was at the beginning and I had a vague idea that this wasn't due to material shrinkage... So I wanted to be more disciplined with exercise again, but a nasty cold put a spanner in the works. But if I'm honest with myself, I was lazy, rested on my pillow of contentment and preferred knitting to exercise. And since I love cooking and baking, someone has to eat it after all. So I was desperately seeking (not Susan) but some motivation and a goal to work towards.

Today I had a workshop appointment for the Beetle, and I was supposed to drop it off at 7 a.m. - so there was only time for a coffee, not a normal breakfast. And when I entered the appointment in my calendar, I realized that it coincided with Ash Wednesday. OK, so if I have to give up breakfast - albeit for time reasons - why not give intermittent fasting a try? So yesterday I spontaneously checked it out a bit and decided to give my metabolism a little kick-start during the fasting period. Due to the temporary hunger phases, there should be no yo-yo effect because they are only short-term and the metabolism doesn't go into panic mode. I confronted the hubs with my plan yesterday and he agreed to take part. I think that's good, it's always easier if you are not alone. 

And so this morning I bravely faced a) my demons and b) the scales with the result: in the last 14 months I have actually put on 4 kg and I don't want that! And so now I highly motivated hold out until 12 noon and then I have breakfast with muesli, oat milk and fruit, and after work I cook like usual so that we can eat dinner comfortably and without rushing until 8 pm. We want to keep this up until Easter and see if we can manage it and if it helps us on the scales - ideally 5 kilos, that would be great. Realistic goals and stuff - you know, a St. Bernard won't turn into a greyhound. But a healthy, agile St. Bernard - that's what I want to be!

Oh, and if you take a closer look at the calendar, you'll notice that the 40 days to Easter don't quite fit. I did some research and found the following: Sundays have been exempt from fasting as so-called “small resurrection days” since the 5th century. To get to the 40 days, you count from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. But I don't want to overdo it, so our personal fasting period will be from Ash Wednesday to  Maundy Thursday (on Good Friday we have flour dumplings as a traditional fasting dish in our family - more on this in a separate post), and the weekends will be excluded.

Now it's lunch time, I'm looking forward to my brunch, and apart from a slight hunger pang, today was actually fine. I was also well distracted, though, because when I wanted to leave for the garage this morning, the car wouldn't start - how fitting. So I had to have it towed away. And then there was always something to do at work, so no time to feel sorry for myself. Oh, and the battery in the Beetle just died, I didn't use it often enough :-)

That's it for now - I'll keep you posted!

 

'Tis the season already...

Hi Y'all,

Well, Christmas is just around the corner - same procedure as every year, James. And every year we are in total surprise about it. But as I had a week off, I spend that time for d&d - diying and decorating. Obviously I would't pop in the next Depot or IKEA store, because first that would be boring and second it would be impossible, because these shops don't exist here. There is an importer for the Swedish stuff, but I checked prices, not worth it, not at all.

What I did buy this year was coloured string lights for the balcony railing, because the old one died last year, and an artificial Christmas tree, because the little one I used the last two years belonged to the rental we staid. So I grazed Facebook marketplace and got some good deals - like very much. Sure, the tree could be a bit more full, but I fluffed it ferociously and adorned it with every bauble I had, and it looks very okay. And regarding the string light: If Ryanair starts landing on our street, well that's on me, then :-)

So I enjoyed decorating and creating stuff very much last week. As always, it was trial and error, and I started with an error... I thought of using expired wound dressings - ruffle them and glue them around a cardboard cone so it looks like a Christmas tree. Looked like crap, so opened the wound and removed the dressings. Then I cut a nice ribbon into pieces of 10 cm each and folded them like the AIDS or breast cancer awareness bows. Then I glued them to the cone, attached a star on top and used an empty bottle of Iron supplements as a stand - done!

The dressings carried some cushioning pads to protect any wounds. I collected these paddings and removed the outer layer, because it was made from a shiny, non-sticky material for obvious reasons. But underneath it was like cotton wool, soft and fluffy. I cut them into hearts and embroidered them with ornaments and connected them with a blanket stitch - ornament no. 1 näht = Anhänger Nummer eins.

Ornaments no. 2, 3 and 4 I cut from cardboard cereal boxes and embellished them either with embroidery or crochet. 

Ornament no. 5 was also done from a cereal box, but I cut circles, folded them in half and glued them together to form a ball. At the bottom I added little bells or hearts left over from the famous golden Lindt Easter bunnies. 

Last but not least I took curtain rings and some makramee cord which I knotted around the rings so they look like little wreaths. All these ornaments I put on my curtain rod at the kitchen sink, so I can enjoy them while doing the dishes (well, the hubs, actually). Because the window leads to a light shaft without any nice view.) 

This is the view after my holiday treatment: 

Afterwards I took an old paperback and transformed it into these plissee ornaments: 

And of course, Heinrich shall get into the mood as well, therefore his feeding station got a deco upgrade: 

Our current flat has rustic oak cabinets which needed some light decoration as a contrast to the dark wood. And so I produced another round of cardboard cones and covered them in these cotton de-makeup pads. Then I improvised an advent centerpiece with wine corks, candles and mini baubles because I wasn't in the mood for my black basket that I normally use. Weil ich ja in der jetzigen Wohnung so eine rustikale Eiche-Wohnwand mit zwei Vitrinen zu bestücken habe, wollte ich noch was Helles, das sich gut abhebt. Und so habe ich nochmal ne Runde Kegel aus Pappe gebastelt und sie mit diesen runden Abschmink-Wattepads beklebt. Und schließlich hab ich noch schnell einen Adventskranz improvisiert aus Kerzen, Korken und ein paar roten Minikugeln - dieses Jahr war mir irgendwie nicht nach dem schwarzen Drahtkorb, den ich sonst immer verwende.

And this is how it came together - it reminds me of some cabin in the Alps, a vibe I really like! So let's heat up the mulled wine! ...and yes, I know that I definitely have to refill our wine shelf...

Oh, by the way, this blog turned five years old a few days ago - happy birthday to blog! And now I just shower you with some deco pictures to get you in the mood. And two notes: The couch got a well-fitting red cover sewn by me (because the store-bought one did not fit at all), and the cookie jar will definitely contain some real cookies not these cough drops :-)

With that being said - enjoy the festive season to the fullest!

Smashing Pumpkins!

Hello fall, Y'all!

For some of us it is just falling leaves, grey and cold wather, but for me it is also pumpkin time! Last week my employer treated the staff with a round of pumpkin spice lattes. Thus the guys from the coffee shop across the street packed their equipment and carried it into our office. Do finish the ambience, they had a local farmer deliver twenty pumpkins to decorate accordingly. 

These pumpkins were edible, and after the coffee fiesta I managed to get hold of one of the pumpkins. Which means I literally had to schlep it home, because it was humongous!  

So after my weekly grocery shopping on Saturday I was determined to fight the monster pumpkin! To cut it was easier than expected - the usual Hokkaido is much more stubborn than his Maltese colleague, I must say. I saved the seeds and cleaned them from all the fibers, rinsed them thoroughly and distributed them on a baking sheet to dry overnight on the terrace. Sunday they had dried nicely, and I gave them a short but sweet bath in saltwater. Back in the oven to get nice and toasty. Usually you do that for about twenty minutes, but in my gas oven, things are different.  After ten minutes only, my pumpkin seeds identified themselves as popcorn. To prevent them jumping around in my oven I stopped the experiment. But much to my surprise they were really good, already. After they cooled down a bit, we finished them off completely. 

A good third of the pumpkin I left uncut - one piece we will have for dinner tomorrow night and the other piece I cut in slim wedges which I roasted in the oven with bacon and feta cheese. We had Maltese bread with home made garlic butter as a side dish, and it was delish! No vampires were seen in the building that night...

The remaining part of the pumpkin I peeled, because in contrast to your usual Hokkaido you cannot eat the skin of the local one. I diced the pumpkin and cooked it for about twenty minutes in my two largest pots. I then drained them and pureed them with an immersion blender. This pumpkin puree (over three and a half kilo!) I bagged in smaller portions and put in the freezer. 

A part of the puree I used yesterday already - first for simple muffins and then for brownies with a creamcheese topping. The latter weren't too convincing, but the muffins were awesome. 

As we were invited yesterday, I did not want to come empty-handed and tried small pumpkin cheesecakes (made them individually in my muffin tin). First of all they got a bottom of shredded ladyfingers with melted butter and a pinch of cinnamon. I topped them with creamcheese and pumpkin puree spiced with the usual suspects aka cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and allspice. The cream was completed with an egg and a bit of cornstarch to make sure the cream gets firm. After only fifteen minutes they were done and I let them cool in the oven with the door left ajar - normal procedure with all cheesecakes. After that they could rest in the fridge. Btw I used lactosefree creamcheese for the first time, and the little cakes were sensational! No difference to "normal" creamcheese at all.

But I needed something salty as well for yesterday's menu. And because of the time constraint due to our invitation I decided against pumpkin gnocchi, because they take too long with boiling potatoes and all that jazz. Instead Instagram made me do scissors pasta! Basically you prepare a dough with all purpose flour, pumpkin puree and salt and then with a pair of scissors you cut little pieces of that dough directly into a pot of boiling water. It's as simple as that. 

Because the little creatures are done so quickly (you know they are good when they reach the surface - in my case within a few minutes), I did not make an elaborate sauce but just heated some sage and garlic in butter and tossed the pasta into the pan.

Was incredible and definitely worth doing again. Although my cutting technique has room for improvement, I know, I know... :-) 

What else is on my pumpkin-to-do-list? A classic American pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup for sure, a chicken-pumpkin casserole and a pumpkin curry, because curry is an all-time favorite of ours. 

On that note - enjoy fall and all the pumpkins! 

Stay cool

 Hi Y'all,

During his daily Mediterranean meditation Heinrich recently realized: Long time, no see - we have to change that! 

Since four months we have been living in our new flat, and the close proximity to the sea is still exciting. In the meantime we received a key to the garage (just without a garage space, but that's ok) which provides us with a shortcut. Which means our walk to the sea is now a whole 100 meters long! Which means everyday after work we head to the beach and float for half an hour in the lukewarm Mediterranean. Life could be worse, right? 

The last weeks Malta experienced a genuine heatwave. I know, I know - we should have expected something similar when moving to Malta. Yes, you're right. But you know what? I'm at that age where heatwaves collide with hot flushes - and this is no fun, I can tell you! Of course we have A/C in our flat, but we do not want to keep it running all the time. Therefore I was very grateful to cool off naturally.

And can you think of something else which makes you bear the heat? Exactly - ice scream! But to get it from the shop to your very own freezer and keep it in its desired aggregate state might pose a challenge when it's 38 degrees celsius, which is why I either had to buy a cooler or had to come up with an idea. 

Just at that time I laid my grubby little hands on some merch issued by my friendly employer - namely these sun protection shields for the car. And I thought: challenge accepted, let me tinker a cooling bag out of that stuff. 

My first attempt was to recycle an existing shopping bag (also merch, which bears the very fitting tag "fabric instead of flowers", obviously not by my employer), because the cut was plain and simple and the outer material pretty sturdy. And so I only sewed some sort of lining for this shopper from this sun shade foil material, because I wanted to test how you can cut and sew it. To close it I attached some velcro and I turned out pretty well. 

As I had still some leftover sunshade material and the the bag was limited in size, I wanted to try a cooling backpack. The outer material I had to buy, because my Mount Scrapmore is completely used up, but at least I had some webbing and a buckle. Saturday I managed to get hold on some nice curtain fabric - could have beed a bit more sturdy for my liking, but in connection with the sunscreen material I thought it might work. 

So I started cutting the shades - easy peasy using an all purpose scissors.  

My tried and tested sewing machine bravely worked through all of it. To be on the safe side I switched to the highest stitch length, the material needed some support in guiding it under the foot and admittedly the handling was a bit stubborn, but all in all I was pleasantly surprised. 

It was not planned as a highly sophisticated picnic backpack, thus I designed it quite simple and uncomplicated. First I built the inner body:  

Then fitted the outer fabric:

My plan was to stick to a simple foldover version to close the backpack - and if I needed a bit more space I could easily leave it open to accommodate my pistachio ice cream shopping spree :-) Where I attached the buckle and the handles I enforced the fabric with SnapPap: 

I shortly considered a transformer version, which means switch between a backpack with two straps and a shopper with one carrying strap, but the lenght of my webbing did not allow this option. Therefore I added a shorter handle which should do the job just as well.  

After that I simply folded the outer fabric over the brim of the silver material and attached it with the machine and like this outer and inner bag were connected. The buckle straps and the carrying straps I also attached to the silver foil to have them double secured.

And this is how it looks like from the back:

...and front... 

I think I am going to quilt the two layers in a few places, maybe do some hand stitching outlining the pattern of the fabric for example, but that will be it. It might not be stable enough to carry half a cow, but as I like my cows whole, that should be fine. And after all, I prefer ice cream :-) 

On that note I send you this earworm:

Like ice in the sunshine, like ice in the sunshine

I'm melting away on this summer day...

Stay cool and hydrated!