the finished Freiburg t-shirt

flexing some ridiculous muscles/showing off the blarg tag

the original sketch for the Freiburg logo

a look at the completed logo

huzzah!  the Freiburg t shirt is completed!  in case you missed the back story, i decided a few weeks ago that i needed a better souvenir from Freiburg than one of those hideous black totes with the city’s name scrawled across its sides.  something more personal.  something with more artistic flair.  something that wouldn’t hide in the back of my closet like that boxy Disneyland sweatshirt with Mickey’s face on it.  ugh.  extra large tie dye sweatshirts will never make a comeback.  so, those weeks ago, i started sketching.  and sketching.  six pages of brainstorming later, i had a souvenir i was excited to create: a brilliantly-colored t shirt emblazoned with the word “Freiburg”.  during one of my intense doodle sessions in German class, i sketched a Freiburg logo that would swirl down the front of the shirt.

to make the t shirt, i redrew the logo with tailor’s chalk on the center of the shirt.  i then used an obnoxiously lime green brushable fabric paint to fill in the chalk outline.  if you’re in the market for such a paint, i can highly recommend the Tulip brand “soft” fabric paint from that tiny, family-run craft supply store, Michaels.  once the logo had dried, i used grosgrain ribbon and a tiny amount of fabric paint to create a blarg tag for the sleeve.

when i slip on my Freiburg t shirt here in San Diego, flashes of crazy experiences, memories of difficult times, and images of friends’ faces chase each other through my mind.  not everything in Freiburg was easy.  i’m not flooded with a giddy sense of elation when i see the city’s name.  but should anyone ask why “Freiburg” is splashed across my chest, i have plenty of stories worth telling of the challenges i faced there.

studying abroad was, for me, a chance to accumulate as many new experiences as possible.  to visit cities i’d never even heard of.  to give up English for a language i would lovingly describe as “grating”.  to secretly spray dumpsters and fences with the image of a fluorescent pink owl.  whoops.  did i admit to doing that last one?

yes.  add graffiti to my list of dubiously-legal activities in Germany.  my affair with spray paint and stencils began, rather innocently, on a class trip to a local bookstore.  while my friends were checking out postcards and maps of the area, i dove into a book about street art in New York City.  the topic of street art had been dancing on the fringes of my mind ever since i heard Shepard Fairey speak at USC last semester.  but it wasn’t until i thumbed through photographs of the vibrant murals and exceedingly-clever installations in the book that something clicked into place.

i loved the power of street art.  i loved that it spread without the help of gallery owners or museum curators.  i loved that it smashed down the barrier between creator and viewer.  any artist with enough courage could proclaim their point of view.  here was art not trapped on the flat pages of a magazine or enclosed by the walls of a museum.  street art turned dismal alleys, darkened doorsteps, and forgotten stretches of blank cement into private galleries for upcoming artists. and unlike the works displayed in a gallery, street art could be altered, expanded, intensified or even destroyed by its admirers.

as i walked to the cash register of the bookstore, my mind was already humming with possibilities.  monstrous painted teddy bears smirking down at passersby.  tiny stop signs attached to the hoods of parked cars.  crocheted fuzzy doilies tumbling down railings.  ideas raced each other through my mind.

but as it turned out, living in a bare, one-bedroom apartment wasn’t the best creative environment.  like a lazy student turning in a paragraph summary instead of a writing a research paper,  i settled on creating the basic of all basics of street art: a stencil.  oh.  no plastic for a stencil.  interesting.  i’ll take a visit to the trash in the kitchen.  hmmmm.  cardboard?  if i make a stencil out of trash, will my art look like garbage too?  eh.  i’ll give it a try.

the thrill of a new project flooded my brain.  a stencil.  a stencil of an owl.  an owl in the sunlight.  a disoriented owl holding up its wings to hide its face from the sun, which represents the futile pursuit of perfection.  ok.  as you may have guessed by now, my ridiculously philosophical concept turned out looking like a cartoon owl throwing up gang signs.  which i was satisfied with.

i loved the sense of rebellion that came when i would venture stealthily out of my apartment at two in the morning; when the only noise on the street was the faint hiss of spray paint; when bright pink owls slowly popped into existence across the neighborhood.  after four months in Germany, i’m addicted.  i can’t wait to plan a large-scale work to color the city in Los Angeles.

when i first got my car, i realized i needed something (or someone) wonderful to hang from the rearview mirror. so i knit Crystal using some left over yarn scraps on the tiniest needles i could find.

it was a dewy morning four years ago.  i rose, as usual, at ten minutes before seven.  those extra ten minutes, i always told myself, made the difference between getting to read the comics in peace and having to run out the door with a drip of toothpaste still dribbling unpleasantly down my chin).  i hauled myself out of bed.  clothes?  black tank.  red skirt.  gold shoes.  no.  black shoes.  perfect.  breakfast?  waffle with maple syrup.  no.  i don’t think so.  i haven’t had that over-sugared catastrophe of a morning meal since elementary school.  i’ll eat my raisin bran like the grown-up sixteen-year-old i am.  done.  book to read on the bus ride?  waaaaaaaait.  bus ride?  there’s no bus ride this morning.  i have a car now!  I HAVE A CAR!!!

the reality of this change gradually sank in as i wandered stupefied, still chewing my last bites of cereal, to the bathroom.  no more bus rides to school.  no more terrible country music in the mornings.  no bus drivers dishing out seat assignments with malevolent pleasure.  no sticky plastic seats on scorching afternoons.  and, best of all, no more middle school students arguing in high-pitched voices in the seat in front of me, the only high school junior on the bus.

five minutes later i was climbing into the front seat of MY forest green, slightly battered, fully wonderful Honda civic.  i looked up at the rearview mirror and grinned.  the day before i had taken down the air freshener my mother had sworn smelled just like the woods in Connecticut and replaced it with something of my own creation: a minuscule knitted doll in my favorite color, purple.  she smirked down at me as i threw the car into reverse and sped out of our driveway with flair.

that was the first day of school four years ago.  when i got home this summer from germany and unlocked my car for the first time in months, Crystal was still hanging where i had left her, black bead eyes gleaming and a broad grin playing across her stitched mouth.  ”where to now?”  she seemed to ask.  doubts of how i was going to pass my time at home flooded my mind.  seven weeks with no classes, no trips, and no foreign cities to explore.  i looked at her and smiled.  ”Crystal, i have no idea.  i need to answer that question myself.  but first, i desperately need to go get myself a chicken taco.”  her tiny body seemed to shake with laughter as we zoomed backwards out of the driveway and into the blinding sunshine that flooded our turnaround.

the display on the wall as you walk into my kitchen

i made this mini dress form by scrunching up tin foil, covering it in baking clay, and then baking it. once it was cool, i used it to make a tiny sundress.

a minuscule shirt i knit to fit the tiny dress form. i used Lion Brand Microspun yarn and size 1 needles and created the pattern as i went (the shirt is knit in the round)

Meet Jacques, the colorful knit robot who usually hangs on our back door. his beautiful bod is really a combination of differently-sized rectangles, all knit with Lion Brand Microspun yarn on size 3 needles.

it was thursday night at eleven o’clock as i staggered into my bedroom for the first time in four months, weary from 28 hours of battling train rides, flight delays, and excruciatingly boring movies.  i breathed in a sigh of relief.  the walls in my room were still brilliantly blue, the bedspread still polka-dotted.  my teddy bear, kiwi, lay on my pillow with a huge grin across his fuzzy face.  but what stood out to me more was the sheer volume of artwork in this tiny space.  each wall boasted three or four pieces of art: oil pastel cartoons, colored pencil sketches, acrylic still lifes.  the shelves were covered in clay bowls i had thrown in high school and small objects i had knit during my “freeform knitting” phase.  my closet was packed with costumes i had sewn and boxes of craft supplies.  as i walked from my room to the kitchen, i saw my house with new eyes and realized just how many very interesting craft projects i have created throughout the years.  i hope to capture each one in its best light and share it here.  who knows – perhaps someone else has been dying to knit a rainbow-colored robot to guard their doorway and just hasn’t figured out how . . .

today's purchase: two t-shirts of dubious quality, ready to be transformed

i have great aspirations for the pocket on the grey shirt

a look at my sketchbook - one of six pages of brainstorming goodness

one of the Freiburg logos. yesss. this is how i spent my german class yesterday.

Freiburg.  the single word fills my brain with a rush of color and sound.  memories flash before my eyes like pages torn from a forgotten photo album.  light painting beneath the watchful stare of the giant Münster church at midnight.  seeing flashes of sunlight flicker over the smooth water at Seepark.  sloshing through mud and slime on the way to a distant mountaintop in the Black Forest.  for the past four and a half months, Freiburg has been my life.  in this city, i have lived, slept, cooked, explored, loved, painted and discovered.   now that my time here is finally winding to a close, i want to leave Freiburg with a small memento of my experiences.  something better than a tiny teddy bear dressed in Lederhosen.  or an unnecessarily large poster of the Black Forest.  considering my background as a graphic design student and crafting enthusiast, i settled on making a t-shirt.  for the past week, whenever boredom would strike, i would surreptitiously slip out my sketchbook and lose myself in drawing out new logos and plans for the design.  the t-shirts themselves are still in the works, but here is a look at the process so far.  i can only hope that when i crawl from the ocean after a day of surfing in San Diego and slip on my very German t-shirt i’ll feel a little part of the home i have found here in Freiburg.

the “language barrier” that exists between myself and the people around me also functions to blur the strong social boundaries that normally divide us.  i have been forced to rely on people i might normally not have spoken to and become more tightly connected with them as a result.  the twinkling woman who works behind the deli counter at our local supermarket is now like a makeshift aunt, occasionally suggesting a new cheese she’s sure i would enjoy.  one of my best friends here is my thirteen-year-old second cousin, Jakob, who i have shared numerous adventures with.

my two visits to Jakob and his family in tübingen (perhaps three times, keeping my fingahrs crossed!) are some of my most vivid memories of this trip.  on the second of my visits to tübingen, i brought along a slackline, a mother, and a camera to document the entire process.  in those three days in tübingen, i spent more time outside than i had in months.  the mornings were spent jogging in the woods with Jakob, followed by lunch in the backyard.  after clearing the last dishes from the table, we would slackline until our legs shook, then move on to playing soccer.  we’d talk about life in germany, about school in America, about swear words and the best ways to use them.  any and every topic that came to mind was shared with the other, mainly in german with the occasional english word tossed in for clarification.  when darkness set in, we would light a fire, grill everything we could spear on a stick (yesss, that includes gummi bears) and revel in the chance to just be kids again.

a first try at light painting with fire in tübingen

Jakob trying his hand at light painting, whiiiiiiiich unfortunately turned out backwards. . .

delicious grilled gummi bears, anyone?

a portrait of my mum in tübingen. nice to have a piece of home travel around with you for a bit.

slacklining AND soccer?? yes please.