Yoga at home, Yoga in India

Today I started my Yoga winter programm. I really enjoy Yoga since I was sweet little 17, but I do it almost only outside, preferable under blue sky.
Well, that's pretty rare in North Germany and the winter with its short days is long.

I was happy finding this DVD in my mailbox today. Perfect for a blewn climbing date after some very stressful days in work and some personal problems. Instead of just sitting in front of the screen or forcing myself do to some housework, which would not have been very effective I lit some candles, rolled out my mat and put the DVD in the player.
Perfect! Exactly what suits me. David Swenson talked me through a 30-min-routine in a gentle, yet demanding way. I could feel that his heart is into in. My concentration was much better and I was pushing myself more than doing it completely on my own. Without leading I tend to skip the relaxation. Not this time.

It is possible that I might have more time on my own then I prefer and not as many climbing dates as I would like in the near future. I know that sport helps me so much and yoga I like so much. Yoga is the perfect combination between physical exercise and working on the mind.

Besides yoga I definitely have to pick up outdoor activities, even and especially in these winter days. Right nowI spent every rare minute with daylight in my tree surrounded big yard and on the street racking leaves, what I also consider as exercise.
I do miss living near the mountains as always, but this year I will do better with doing the best I can do here where I am.

It was Simon who introduced me to this faster paced AshtangaYoga, which also Davis Swenson teaches. I found Simon, an English/Aussie-guy in Ladakh in summer 2005. He was on a year long trip with Emma, his girlfriend - and soon to become wife during a wedding on the beautiful Goan beach in Southern India. I decided that the validy of my visa was reason enough to follow him for two weeks in October to take some private lessons. It also was a good possibility to discover a new part of the world, to where I otherwise not would have gone to. I have lots of pictures from that trip but unfortunately none from the yoga sessions. Somehow I have it with sunsets or rises these days so I'll post my favorite picture from that vacation.

Is anybody doing yoga as well? What are your sports or mental exercises?
I know from reading her blogs that Ellen goes hiking in the Alps and dances. Kimberly loves to run. How do you tweak your life so you can do it?

November Sunset in Hamburg

November can have bright sides also in Hamburg.

Delicate silk

Now that I have this new camera, with which I'm very satisfied btw, I want to take the pictures of all my recent projects.
This dull November light gave me the opportunity to learn about more about the camera, here especially locking the exposure settings.

The light pink in the background was overexposed when the setting was right for the forground. I can take the exposure from the light part, save it and take the focus from another spot. Pretty smart, isn't it? Does your camera have possibilities like this and have you checked them out?

I bought this beautiful yarn about 5 years ago in Switzerland as a prepacked pack with just some grams of each color. Since it was my rather-seldom-knitting time of my life it actually took me years to finish this simple garter stich peace.

To fancy it up I put some shining beads onto the silk. The way I did it is described in this post.
It was not so much improvement so I just knitted one row with a bead now and then. It's kind of a little secret, because when worn they hardly show.



Probably I'm overdoing with pictures, now that I can take them again with fun. ;-) I'm never good in decision making about what to keep, what to use, what to take. It's noticable all over in my little house, on my hards disks (yes, with a bold "s") and the luggage I'm carrying around the world during traveling.
Anyway, here comes the last one of this set:



This little Buddha came with me from Margo in Goa, India. Makes me very, very happy. I didn't put it up the shelf for decoration, it is always sitting there and I put the scarf on the shelf because it was the only place with at least halfway light.

So, now I did, what I promised myself this early morning while driving in North Germanys November dull No-Light: To take nevertheless some colorful pictures.

Through blog-world I realise much more in a set moment how different the living conditions are all over the world at the same moment. In other parts of the world people are so happy when it's not so hot anymore. I had to smile when I read stuff like that e.g. from the people posting from Arizona. In Australia it's getting summer now.
Yes, and in other, mostly non-blogger parts of the world people can't concern about camera setting, yarn and blogging software. They have to struggle for live.
Sometimes it feels so ridiculous spending my time with the stuff I do. On other times I know and feel that this is my life, the way it is. I can try as best not to hurt anybody, maybe helping if possible and not over-indulging in my little self.

New camera

Finally I made the decision and got myself a new toy: the Canon Powershot A650.
My relationship with my old Powershot G3 was rather mixed. I loved the camera for what she was doing, but so many negative personal things happened with it, which I don't want to be reminded of. The latest indicent (this time nothing personal, probably "just" dirt in the electronic, but nevertheless costing many Euros.

These are some random shots I took the first five minutes I had this camera.
Enjoy the fall impressions from my garden!

Brodeuses

I have a cold and not much energy for serious work. So this late afternoon I curled down in bed, a mug of coffee next to me, my brown Shetland Triangle in my hands and watched the French movie Brodeuses - Die Perlenstickerinnen - A Common Thread.

Two women are the main actors: The young one is unwanted pregnant. The older one just lost her adult son in an accident. Both share the love for embroidery. Firstly, there are quite distant because of their unhappyness, but doing embroidery together, touching the fine tissus, indulging in shining beads and sequins they find together and back into a life with all life's beauty.

A very quite film, dispelling beautiful pictures. Exactly right for an afternoon like today. Not recommanded for an afterwork evening being very tired.

I also enjoyed the clothes the young women was wearing. Most of them were hand-knitted style and in my favorite bluegreens. Perfect with the actors red hair and delicate undertop.

The Brodeuses are doing the needlework in a way I've never seen before and have not figured out yet. Instead of a needle they seem to be using a kind of very tiny crochet hook to fix the sequins. One hand is kept under the loop, maybe holding the thread, the other one above, holding the hook. Quite interesting, maybe I can find out more.

Souvenirs from France

Not everybody is happy about a rainy afternoon during vacation and for sure normally I'm not. In late October the hours with daylight are so very precious and I adore the sun for the few couple of beach hours (you must know I'm from Hamburg!), because most of the time is spent on my sports.
This fall the weather in Southern France was nicer (for tourists, for the country side it was much too dry) than normal, so there was no time for hanging around in villages or cities. As soon as some drops hit the little harbour bay we had our breakfast in I decided to go downtown Marseille for finally exploring La Droguerie, this shop for crafting supplys I've seen noticed so often in my favorite magazine Marie Claire Idees.
*P*a*r*a*d*i*e*s* for color-lovers as I am. I didn't go too much for all the embellishments. They are too expensive to stash them. I didn't like too much the pre-finished stuff, but I loved-loved-loved the colors displayed mostly in yarn and also in felt, in ribbons, in buttons.


This is my favorite "souvenir": Delicious yarn made out of bambou. On day I have to run a research on how they do it. It is so soft, the colors are shining and wonderful. No wonder it's called also vegetable silk.
The idea for the scarf I will be knitting I picked up in La Droguerie, but I'm tweaking the pattern and the cast-on so it will take some days till I actually can start knitting.


Because I'm not going to Maroc this year I treated myself with these tiny tassles. I was going for the rainbow and asked the very helpful saleslady to pick the right ones, because I didn't have so much time. Somehow she missed the green and I only discovered it at home. What a pity, but maybe I can catch one next year.
The felt and the velvet buttons were supposed to be future baby boots for a collegue, but I don't know if they not might turn out into something else.


Paperbags to take home the treasures were in nice colors too - of course.
Not so very nice was the bill ;-) .




As you can figure, Hélène, I found the visit to La Droguerie worthful. Hello from Hamburg to Paris!

Ravelry

Instead of writing a post in this blog as planned and needed (yes, I do want to keep it up although I'm not posting frequently) I played with my new toy. Finally I received my invitation to Ravelry, a site for knitter/crocher to communicate and organise.

There are so many possibilities nowadays to connect via Internet, a lot of fun, but also the danger of getting lost. And of neglecting to necessary other things one wants to do. Besides Ravelry I got some invitations for Facebook.

I wonder how other persons are blogging long posts with many pictures almost everyday. If I'm on my notebook in my private time I spent so much time already reading all those beautiful, inspiring blogs and sites that I have hardly anytime writing myself. I bet, I'm not the only one. ;-)

More html

I like to share a bit about what I've learned during working with this blog. Of course it is also a memory for myself, when I'm too lazy to take notes or when I can't find them.

I needed those tags when I wrote the side element about language stuff.

If adding a html-tag you first have to change to "edit Html".

<> gives you a break of lines

< href = "http://link"> Name of the link < /a > This way you can insert a link.

IMPORTANT: You have to remove all spaces before and after the little sideway triangles <> and before and after the = .