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Archives for April 2007

So I did yet another project

April 30, 2007 by Susanne 16 Comments

I’ve been quite busy for the last few days. We’re working on some home improvement projects (I’ll probably post about them when they’re finished), we have been de-cluttering insane amounts of books and then I have been rediscovering my passion for bags. It all started with the fact that I bought a couple of new chocolate-brown clothes because of the fashion paradigm-shift. And despite just having bought a new purse in 2005 I had to get out and get another one. A black or brown one. Well, that was easily done though I had to settle for something affordable instead of the most beautiful purse I found. 380 € for a purse did seem a little much. So everything would have been well, I have a new purse which I like very much and I’ll still be able to buy groceries for the next weeks, but then I became hooked on a bag-making blog:

The bags are gorgeous, the blog is cheerful and visually stimulating, and best of all blogger Lisa is offering free tutorials on the blog.

So I went a little crazy and thought, why don’t I make myself a bag. An easy one like the big grocery bag with stuff sack. And she said it would take only one hour!

I went up into the attic and spent about an hour unearthing leftover fabric. I found something green and something purple which told me that the last time I sew must have been about twenty years ago. Apart from curtains and such. The next day I went to the local craft supplies shop. Well, I hope I’ll someday remember that it’s never a good idea to just go out and buy local where I live. What I needed was some fleece for padding and a bolt snap. Ha! There was exactly one snap, golden, ugly, heavy, and expensive and they didn’t have the right fleece. I bought some other lining because I didn’t want to leave the shop empty-handed, went home and decided to use what I had on hand. (Later I found a better snap at the hardware store…)

On my so-called “day off”, which means about 90 minutes of free time, I fetched my ironing board, iron (which hadn’t seen daylight for about two years), and sewing stuff.

Schnittmuster.JPG

I used an old newspaper for the pattern and started cutting the pieces out. Two hours later I was the proud owner of this:

Zuschnitt.JPG

Though I had to cut out one piece twice because I had forgotten to add the seam allowance to the top of one of the pieces, I didn’t dawdle. I think I might be what the Austrian author Christine Nöstlinger calls a “Haushaltsschnecke” (that’s household snail). Everything I do that has to do with housework seems to take ages. (On the other hand I think that having better tools might have helped with speed.) And speaking of seaming allowances, if it says, “Add seaming allowance to all pieces” then just add it. Don’t think you’re so clever and can leave it off. You might end up with a cozy that’s just a little too small. Just saying.)

After that day which I had devoted solely to the sewing project I was deeply frustrated and remembered why I had stopped sewing decades ago. I already knew that sewing projects require a lot more time doing things like ironing and pinning and thinking and then cursing because you just can’t figure out how the pieces are supposed to fit together than sewing time, but this was a little disheartening.

Since I absolutely wanted to finish this, though, I pulled everything out again on Sunday plus the sewing machine, and continued. First I finished the cozy. Well, I thought I had finished the cozy before I found out that I had to rip it up again because I had sewn it together wrong (I didn’t take a picture of this). But then I had this:

cozy.JPG

Progress! Then I tackled the difficult part. This is a picture of the half-finished lining bag (there wasn’t enough of the greenish fabric so I had to make it bi-colored):

liningbag.JPG

And I really should have sewn the lining bag first because now I have an exterior bag with sewn-in folds where there shouldn’t be folds and a lining bag that’s smooth and perfect…

But eventually I was finished. It took about six hours for those of you interested and while having a cheap sewing-machine is better than having none there was a lot of frustration because the machine refuses to sew anything that might be a little thick. It just gets stuck and has to be persuaded by sheer force to transport the fabric. But who cares because now I have this:

finishedbag.JPG

Look at the interior:

insidebag.JPG

And while I learned that sewing is something that needs lots of free time, a clear mind, and a room where you can leave the machine and the ironing board for a while, and more patience than I ever thought I might have, I also might be infected with the bag making bug.

Filed Under: creativity, fashion, projects

Freedom

April 24, 2007 by Susanne 16 Comments

Every time we tell people that we don’t own a car they say, “Oh, I could never give up my freedom like that.” Okay. So for most people having a car equals freedom. They probably have an image in their heads like driving down the highway in a convertible with flowing hair. In summer. Not another car in sight. Like a car commercial. They think of speed and agility and power and strength. Not of being stuck in traffic looking for a parking space when you’re late and everyone wants to go shopping at once.

(Before you think I’m all “holier-than-thou” I have to add that my mother-in-law owns a car. It is sitting in our garage and we share it. But when this one dies (and it’s an old car) there won’t be a new one. For the money it costs to just have it sitting in the garage you can take a taxi to the grocery store every time and buy a piano on top of that.)

But I didn’t want to write about cars though I could go on and on, I wanted to write about what gives me a feeling of freedom. First it’s this:


It’s not because they are red though it helps. These shoes are a symbol to me. A symbol that I value myself enough to buy myself real comfortable shoes. They tell me that I can walk everywhere. That I am strong and capable. And independent. I’m not dependent on a machine; I can just walk away whenever I choose to. And my feet could carry me to China and back again. It would take a little while, I know; that’s why I’m not walking everywhere. But for my everyday life I can shop, go to preschool and back, go for a walk in the woods and all I need are those shoes. They are special walking shoes. For nordic walking to be precise, though I don’t do this often (haven’t pulled my sticks out in half a year or so). My feet don’t hurt. When I was in my twenties and had moved to the city my feet always hurt. In cities you have to walk a lot more than in the country. Then I discovered walking sneakers. With expensive shock absorbing thingies in the heels. Ha! When I visited a friend in Berlin and we went sight-seeing one day from 9 to 3 we came home and she lay down on the floor with her feet up on a chair saying, “My feet are killing me.” And I stood next to her thinking, “Well, my feet do feel a little uncomfortable, come to think of it.” And that was all.

The next thing that gives me a feeling of freedom is this:


I know, it’s not very pretty. Though it is red which is always good. I bought it when I was at my biggest. Right now I’m waiting for oversized jackets to come into fashion again.

I had wanted a gore-tex jacket since 1990 when I first discovered that there was such a thing. What I love about this jacket is that I can wear it all year round. It has a fleece jacket inside that you can zip out when it gets warmer. It is light, it is rain-proof but you don’t feel like you’re wearing a plastic bag. When I’m out walking and it starts to rain I just pull the hood up and I’m comfy again.

Every day when I’m bringing my son to preschool I have to smile when I see the other parents struggling with finding parking space and fiddling with keys, car seats and safety belts. My son and I just walk there. Quite slowly because he’s only four. Then I say goodbye to him for the day and there’s this feeling of freedom rushing in. I zip my jacket and just go. Often I take a detour for the sheer joy of walking. I move, I can think, I feel the air on my face, the pavement under my cushioned shoes – bliss. It’s even better when I got for a walk in the woods. Unencumbered I just walk and look and think. It makes me happy.

There was a time when I felt guilty about this sudden feeling of bliss and freedom I have at the door of preschool every day but then I remembered the times before my son was away from home five days a week. I remembered the walks I took with him. They were the only form of exercise I did in those days. I put him in the stroller, donned my walking shoes and my trusty jacket and started walking. And I felt the same feeling of elation. Even if he spent most of the walk screaming, it was worth it. When he was a baby I often put him in the sling. Then I could even walk in the woods. Or go to the city. I could laugh at stairs and narrow doors. I would just keep on walking. Stepping over obstacles. Free. Strong. Independent.

So don’t tell me freedom is about convertibles or motorcycles. I’m really not one of those women to whom it’s all about shoes but in this case shoes are very important. Shoes one really can walk in. Free.

Filed Under: fashion, life, parenting

Hear the first song I ever wrote

April 21, 2007 by Susanne 12 Comments

I started dreaming about becoming a singer and writing my own songs at the age of 12 or so. I even did some improvisational attempts but my problem was that by the time I pinned something down on paper it had changed beyond recognition. That’s something I’m still struggling with but years of training have made me a little better and the marvels of modern technology let me record my ideas and then I can take my time.

In my twenties I played with the idea of song writing again. There were one or two ideas, things in my head and that was it. Despite this long history of longing the first song I ever wrote was a started in 1998. At that time I played in a Brazilian band with my husband, I wrote my dissertation and had just spent the whole year working on a paper for a music educator’s conference that should have boosted my academic career. I started teaching freelance only. And I went to one of Rhiannon’s workshops. I think it was my third or so. At the workshop we did an exercise to write lyrics. Then we got homework: to go home and make a song or an improvisation out of those lyrics or part of them. I loved that. I always thrive when presented with homework like that. Having someone external setting the frame frees me from my inner censor, perfectionist and procrastinator. I went home on the train a melody trilling away in my head.

At home I got the message that the paper I had worked on for nine months and that had been well received at the conference was rejected for publication. I was devastated. I phoned a tutor, I phoned my advisor and I was totally freaked. Then I sat down and wrote a new melody and harmonies. Since this was written for a singer’s workshop it requires a choir. The next day at the workshop I sat down at the piano and taught the other singers the harmony. I was said that I had only part of a song. For the next years it sat in a drawer waiting to be finished. I must have pulled it out from time to time and then put it back. In 2005 I decided to get serious with my music and to record the few songs I had. Since I don’t have a choir I worked again by overdubbing. I’m not entirely happy with the sound, and I’m still not sure if there shouldn’t be other instruments. So this is like a sketch:

I remember

[audio:Iremember.mp3]

The lyrics were inspired by a trip we had made the year before to the Greek island Crete. We went there at the beginning of November when tourist season is over but the weather is still mild. Especially when you’re coming from the beginning of German winter.

[Update: I just listened to the song again and have to warn you, the beginning really is out of tune. See, I said it was a sketch. It is getting better later though.]

Filed Under: creativity, hear me sing, music, Rhiannon

Hear me improvise

April 16, 2007 by Susanne 24 Comments

I have been thinking about putting some of my songs on this blogs. But then I listened to them again and had the feeling that I should do them over before showing them to someone. But then I don’t plan to work on my songs for the near future. Instead of having them gather dust on a shelf (or on the computer) I thought you might be interested in hearing something original by me. Even if it isn’t perfect.

The following is an improvisation that I recorded in 2002. That’s something that’s “finished” as far as an improvisation can be finished. My husband made his first CD at that time and asked me to do vocal improvisation which he wanted to use as “raw material” for a song. Unfortunately you can’t listen to the song he has made of it. It’s called “Elusive Breath” and only features parts of it.

When he asked me to record something I procrastinated so long about it that he threatened to finish the CD without a song based on my singing. Then he showed me how to work the recording equipment so I could do this all alone, and left the room.

I decided to do something I had learned from Rhiannon. She is doing this exercise in her workshops, and it’s called “three faces front”. Everybody is sitting in a semi-circle and three singers stand in it. They are not allowed to look at each other but they are facing the “audience”. One of them starts improvising and the other two are supposed to “follow” it, harmonize or do counterpoint. After a time someone else leads.

Of course I had to change it since I’m only one singer, not three. This is overdubbed. The voice that starts it was recorded first and the other two I sang afterwards. What you’re hearing here is very long, about 8 minutes. It isn’t cut or anything.

After I recorded it I forgot all about it. (this may have been recorded while I was pregnant, I’m not sure.) When I was in the hospital because our son was born my husband gave me a CD of this improvisation for Christmas. He had taken all the time to mix and master it. This gift was his sign that he wanted to support my music even when we just had had a child.

3 faces

[audio:3faces.mp3]

(I have to warn you, it is quite weird.)

Filed Under: creativity, hear me sing, music

Reluctancy

April 15, 2007 by Susanne 22 Comments

Lately I have been a little reluctant to post on this blog. At first I didn’t know why. Was it wrong to stop posting in German too? Was it because my husband started reading it? Was it because I had declared this to be my main creative outlet?

I found the reason only yesterday. It has to do with blogging as my main creative outlet. Following my new principle of acknowledging what is, I had stopped pretending that I wanted nothing but write songs and honored my actual commitment by saying that right now writing words is more important to me than music. My life had reflected on this for months. The blog had been the only thing that I did with any consistency. So why should there be a problem apart from a little hurt pride because I couldn’t fool myself into thinking that I’m really a songwriter underneath all my everyday activities.

But something obviously nagged me. When I started this blog my “mission statement” (I never really had one) was to write about my life, about the struggle to attempt parenting, chores, work and making music. I wanted to inspire other mothers. I wanted to show how one can be creative, be a musician and a songwriter while having a full life on top of that.

It didn’t matter that I failed all the time, at least I tried.

But now I have stepped back from the attempt of having it all, and I’m in the process of rebuilding my life on a new foundation. People first, then one or maybe two other things a day and that’s it. For now.

While this feels exactly right I also feel like I have let everybody down. I’m not wonder woman, I can’t do it all, and I’m feeling much better for it. But somewhere deep inside of me I wondered what I have to offer to the blogosphere.

Don’t fear, I won’t quit but now you know why I have been a little reluctant lately. I think I’ll have to find a new mission statement. You know, this is my blog, I can change my mission if I want to.

How about those of you with blogs, do you have a mission? Or even without a blog, what do you think is the one thing that you can give to the world?

I’ll let you know if I know it myself.

Filed Under: blogging about blogging, creativity

My son wanted pink shoes

April 14, 2007 by Susanne 26 Comments

but I didn’t buy them. And I feel like a bad mother for it.

It isn’t as if he had expressed a liking for pink and girlish things only yesterday when we went to buy new sandals. For weeks he has been saying that he only likes colors like pink and purple and that he wants pink sneakers or pink socks or whatever pinkish clothing caught his eyes in the supermarket.

I have been thinking about this for ages. Periodically he wants to be a girl or a woman. He then wants to be called like Leah instead of Leo and pretends that he is a female astronaut or the mother of his teddy who’s then called Kokolishba (he made that name up). Leah by the way is Brazilian. Kokolishba is her son, they are both visiting Germany and Kokolishba is four years old. Sometimes Leah is married to the child’s father whose name is Kokolishba too. Of course Leah wears skirts and dresses and likes to got to the spa, dye her hair and wears make-up. As a mother I can say that this Leah is much easier to bath than Leo. After a few weeks of pretending to be female my son always finds something else to play, reacts to his real name again and that’s it. Until the next time.

Of course at four he is the age when all children are thinking about gender roles and about what things are appropriate or not for men and women. It is the age of conventionality. We meet a man with long hair, my son starts laughing, “But men don’t have long hair!”, how ridiculous. I say, “But of course there are men with long hair. Just like women can have short hair. “But women have long hair!” So what about your grandmother and the kindergarten teacher and …

He come home one day and says that he only likes colors like black and brown nowadays. Because he’s a boy and boy only like dark colors. Like a good feminist mother I say, “But you can like all colors. Whichever you want.” “But only girls like pink and purple.” “But boys can like pink and purple too.” Obviously he took that to heart. When we went to the supermarket two weeks ago there was a display of children’s clothing up front. My son wanted to have pink, um, “Gymnastikschuhe” (the nearest would be ballet slippers I think but in Germany small kids wear those during gymnastics). I said that he already had some. He wanted pink socks. They were too big. I was relieved.

So yesterday I bought him new sandals since the old ones were too small. We entered the shop and looked at sandals in his size. “I want these.” he said, pointing to very, very girlish pink ones with flowers. “Or these.”, he said clutching those:


Well, if they were to be pink those would have been acceptable to me. But then what if the other children in preschool would laugh about him. “Look at Leo”, they’d say, he’s wearing girly shoes!” and then they’d laugh like my son laughed when he saw a man with a ponytail and then he wouldn’t want to wear them again. Shoes for 45 €. I tried to interest him in the same model in blue. No chance. A sales woman came. “But you can’t have pink shoes. You’re a boy.” and then to me “Is he in preschool?” “Yes.” “The other children would make fun of him. Children can be cruel.” In the end us two grown-ups showed him all the advantages of pretty blue and mud-colored sandals. Now he has a pair that is very suitable for jumping into puddles:

He’s very happy with his new shoes and claims that he can jump better and run faster with them. But I feel rotten. I never would have thought that I would discourage my son to follow his taste. Mind you, I wouldn’t want a girl to be dressed all in pink either but I’d tend towards brighter colors, more orange, yellow and red. Have you ever compared the boy and girl section of a clothing department? Well, I suppose you have. Rows and rows of bright and colorful girl’s clothes followed by about half the amount of things for boys. And then you can choose between blue, grey, and mud-colored. With pictures of trucks or skaters.

Why isn’t there more unisex clothing for at least the smaller children? Bright and cheerful colors? Why does everything for girls have to be pink and frilly? Why are horses girlish? Since when? Horses used to be for knights and warriors and work. Now they are girl stuff. Why does there have to be so much gender distinction? Why did my mother-in-law fear that my son would turn out gay when we gave him a doll for his first birthday? (And for his third another one?) Why aren’t there more male dolls?

I don’t know if I should have made a statement. Buy my son pink sandals. They would have looked mud-colored after a few weeks anyway because, seriously, white soles? Very funny. Are they machine-washable?

When I became a feminist at age 13 I never would have thought that 18 years later people would still say things like, “But everybody knows that men can’t iron.” “Men just can’t talk about feelings.” , “You know, I never can figure out computers, but that’s because I’m a woman.” Okay. So women don’t have brains and men don’t have feelings? A boy has to be interested in sports, computers, soccer and fighting and a girl has to be interested in dolls, horses, fashion and housework. Wow, I’m glad I figured that out.

And the other thing I never would have thought would be that nowadays it’s okay for a girl to play soccer but a boy still isn’t supposed to play with dolls. I’m really angry about this. I’d like to live in a world where everybody can wear what he or she wants. Pink, blue, high heels, sneakers, who cares.

But I’m not living in such a world and so I wonder: Should I have bought him pink sandals?

Oh, and later that day I went out and bought him pink socks. With horses. And hearts.

(There’s a follow-up to this post here.)

Technorati Tags: gender, parenting, sandals

Filed Under: fashion, gender, parenting

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