Ok, it's the middle of November, so not really growth season. But tell that to our chili plant, which just grew and grew in size during the summer, and started growing chilis in the autumn! I've harvested one chili already, and five more are still growing! I guess it'll be a spicy hot winter for us (at least the one I already harvested was h-o-t!)

Last week a few of regular Essen knitting group "members" met at one knitter's home for some knitting (obviously), chatting and ball winding! One of us has a swift and a ball winder and she was kind enough to bring them with her. I brought half my skeins with me and wound them all to pretty center-pull balls!

Here's a little film I took from the process. Just German audio, but you'll get the point just by looking (and notice the interested cat!)

Happy World Vegan Day! It starts the World Vegan Month, a perfect time to critically look at our eating habits and their effects on our health, our fellow earthlings as well as the environment. I will be cooking a great, vegan pumpkin soup tonight. Here's the recepie if you'd like to join me:

I've actually been one of the biggest fans of Green Day - about 15 years ago. I would say one of the worst things that happened to me in 1995 was that I couldn't go see their concert in Helsinki (Finland). But I was only 12, so I guess my Mum had a point. However, after the album Insomniac I didn't much follow them anymore, anyway. Until this year, when I realised I live in Germany now, a land where big bands come play gigs, and that Green Day is a really big band now.

Nick's (hand printed) shirt shop Shirtsofberlin went organic this week! Plus, there are now generously-sized lovely hoodies for sale as well. Take a look at the knitting line, marvellous yet simple designs (and the prints are limited in number, so really unique too!).

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Sorry to everyone who has commented lately - the comments haven't come through, we had some kind of problem with the system! Nick's fixed it now, but we can't retrieve the lost comments... so please comment again!

So, we've got some more space for the site, and I can upload photos again!

The first thing I'll show you is the packet I sent and received for the Ravelry Studio Ghibli swap, or Totoro swap for me, as Totoro is my favourite Ghibli character and I obviously planned my packet around him.

Just popped in to say that our server is full and I can't load another picture up at the moment! As this is a knitting blog, it's a bit boring to post without any pictures, so things might be a bit slow the next days/weeks till we get the server sorted. I could do book reviews though... keep coming back, I'll have some nice content for you soon!

As part of my 101 in 1001 goals I had taken the goal to start sponsoring a child or an animal. Well, at the end of July I had then finally decided to start sponsoring a girl in Sierra Leone, the poorest country on Earth through Plan International. Very soon after I had contacted Plan though the Internet, I received the details of my sponsired child, the 5-year-old Kadiatu. She looks like a happy child in the photo I received and I'm really happy to be supporting her and her community.