Merry Christmas

To all I wish a Merry Christmas.

 May your tree (if you had one ... I don't) have many ornaments.

 May you have plenty of jummy stuff to eat (and don't forget to not just eat the sweet stuff, but have a bit of healthy food somewhere in there as well)

 And spent time with you loved ones,or reading a good book, or do some knitting ... or all of the above.

'tis The Season

Yesterday, we went to the medieval christmas market at the Ronneburg. I only brough the smartphone alone, so pretty crappy pictures.
Saint Nicholas went around to hand out small gifts to all the kids.

 And in the inner court a huge christmas tree stood.

Not related to the Christmas market. Already a few weeks ago I made this quilted star table topper for my mom.

Christmas Cookies 2014

Tomorrow is December 1st, so it's high time I start with this years cookie production (also, for a change I have nothing else planned this weekend)
First on the agenda were so called French Rhombi, though basically there are not that different from the Cinnamon Stars I normally make.

One important tip: DO NOT drop the backing tray as it comes out of the oven. This does not end well.

 The 'Gebabbte' make a return.

 Finally I made a double batch of Walnut/Marzipan confection. One batch stays with me, the other half goes to my mom.

  I also made Heidesands with Ginger again, but they are super borring to take photos of, so no picture here.

Sew and Socks

Some updates on the sewing and knittig front.
Socks - those were originally ment to go to my mom, but when I tried the first one on, it was a perfect fit to my foot, so I'm posting this while wearing my mom's socks (don't worry, I've already am planning another pair for her)

 Shawl - this one was my backup project. I ended up with a total of 31 leaves. It already has seen some warming action

Bag - I bought the pattern at the Handarbeitshaus in Gröbern a while back. Over time, I sort of kind of collected the fabric here and there (some of it is left over from two projects from 2012, some of this rescued our of scrap bins, some of it, ... who know where I found it)
I changed the pattern a bit, mostly by adding grommets around the upper edge. The grommets didn't stay at first - the fabric kept slipping out - so I added some fabric glue, and now they stay were they are suppossed to be.
Useful bag, and it's already in use for a new knitting project.

Ticker Tape Lighthouse

A while ago, I did see an amazing quilt on Pinterest of an owl done in ticker tape quilting (just google 'ticker tape owl quilt'; a picture should come up)
Back in June I pulled out some of my scraps (there seems to be no end to my scraps) and gave the technique a try. I originally aimed for a table runner, but then what I came up with clearly wanted to be a wall hanging.
It's probably not a surprise from some readers that I do love light houses, so that's what it turned into. If you remember my first picture of the quilt, the sun I had originally now has turned into a moon.

First, I had laid out my scraps in the shape I wanted (I did mark the edges with an resolvable pen, so they were nice and straight). I fixed them first with pins and later with thread, as I didn't want to become a pin cushion, once I took the thing to my machine. This was a bit extra work, but paid well in reduction of ouches on my side.
I did sew the whole thing with different colors of threat, matching the back to the front, so in the back the mirror image of the lighthouse shows up (and I have no idea why the picture is sideways - sorry about that)

 

The quilt hung for months on my design wall, even though I knew all left to do was to do the binding. Which I finally did last night.

All in all, I'm very happy with the finished product. Now, I only have to decide where to hang it up.

Baby Baby

A friend of mine has become a daddy. Little Judith was born 7th of October and last night we finally had a chance to adore her (which we did - she in turn was sleeping) and bring her her gifts.
I planed for a while to make her a baby quilt, but in the end I made two, simply because I couldn't decide if I should go more modern or more traditional.
The first one is the more traditional, bright colored one with funny animals. The patterns is called jungle path baby quilt and it's free. I quilted little hands all over the place.

The second one is definitely more modern, only uni colors and clear triangular lines. The back, I think, I have shown you before in an earlier state. Quilting was triangles and straight lines. I love how it came out.

 Finally, I also knitted a Baby Surprise Jacket, which is one of my all time favorite pattern (and, for a baby, is very quickly done). The yarn is called Knitcol by Adriafil, which I bought in a yarn store in Cape Cod.

Not planned this way, but I find it matches the first quilt almost perfectly.

Let's Go West

Finally, we headed back West.
We stopped at Mount Washington and took the cog railway up to the peak.

 We had fantastic weather and a view that had to believed

 On the last leg of the trip we enjoyed the foliage ot the Indian Summer.

Even with a cold that took a bit the fun out of Boston, it was a great trip. I did visit a view great quilt shops as well, so I will have to do (and show here) something my all the fabric I've bought.

East Coast

From New York we headed North.
Next stop was Cap Cod, with it's long beaches and lighthouses

 We went to Boston

 And then further up the coast to Maine

 In Acadia NP we spend two nights.

And then back inland (more next time ...)

New York

Three guesses where I have been on my vacation.

New York has been only three days out of a three week vacation, so there's more to come. But I have to sort through about 1.500 pictures, so it will take a bit. Sorry about that.

Stuff

It's been a while I showed here anything I've made in terms of knitting or sewing.
Knitting:
I finished two pairs of socks, though one of them was snatched up by my mom before I could make a photo of the finished socks.
This pair is staying with me, so I had some time to take a pic.

The pattern is called Broken Seed Socks and the yarn I used is Wollmeise in 'Fritzi Frizzante' and 'Sultan'
Currently I'm knitting on the Leftie shawl, again in Wollmeise (though 100% wool, instead of the sock yarn version, which contains some Nylon).

Main color is 'Chim Chim Chimney' and the contrasting colors are 'Schwefel', 'Zarte Knospe', 'Grashüpfer' und 'Olio Vergine'. I have progressed a little bit further than this by now, maybe 30% done.

Sewing:

My new machine is getting quite a workout. I already finished a baby blanket with it. As the baby in question is not here yet, I can't show you the whole thing, only a glimps on the quilting I did. 

Hands! Lot and lots of little hands. All done in free motion using stencils I've made with freezer paper. Took me a while to get into the flow of it, but in the end It went pretty well.

For another quilt I'm working on, I've made this pixel heart for the back side (it's a free pattern and can be found here).

I'm a bit stuck currently how to proceed with the front of this quilt. The center bit is done (just mono chrome triangles), and I had an idea what to do with the border, but the more I think about it, the less I like it, so I'm back to the planning stage there.

If nothing else materializes in my brain within the next couple of days, I might go back to the (very first and) original plan and make another baby blanket with it, leaving the border off.

Stadtfest in Dresden

Once a year Dresden is pulling out all the stops (well, technically they also go pretty far in December for the Christmas markets, but let's not go there) and throws a PARTY.
There is food, there is drink, there are people on stages, there are people everywhere. There's a medieval camp, there is stuff to buy, there is more food. There are people being shot in the air sitting in a round cage affixed to bungee cords. There are people just attached to bungee cords having fun.

 There is music all over the place. There are strange musical instruments (this is called a Martin's trumpet - Martinstrompete - a relative to the signal horns which are used to be used on fire engines and police cars for many, many years around here, and which is incidentally is called a 'Martinshorn')

 There was a beach volley ball tournament and an area to built sand castles.

 

And at the end, at Sunday night, there were fireworks!!!

Barefoot

Both my parents are currently in rehab in Bad Orb, a spa town about 50km East to where I live- my dad for his replacement hip, my mom for the arm she broke three weeks ago.
We (that is my sister, who's visiting from Sweden, my nephew, and I) came to visit yesterday, and, as my sister had heard there's a barefoot path, we tooks off our shoes and started to walk.
I've been to a barefoot path in Bad Sobernheim a couple of month ago, so I kinda knew what to expect.
At first my nephew didn't want his pictures taken (he's 13 - no surprise there), but later he got into the mood and started to 'frolic' through the meddows (his words ...)

 As with Bad Sobernheim, there were stretches in the path where you could get your feet muddy (and plenty of place where you could clean them again, if you didn't mind the cold water)

 In the end we all had our fun and my nephew even consented to pose for a picture - and I mean pose!!!

Handarbeitshaus mit Museum

One of my favorite stores for patchwork fabric is the 'Handarbeitshaus mit Museum' in Gröbern by Meissen.
It's in an old half-timber house and has possibly the most weird opening hours of all stores I know (Thursday and Friday between 10AM and 6PM, and Sunday between 2PM and 5PM)

 It also has the most amazing selection of patchwork fabrics I've seen anywhere. This here is about 2/3 of what they have on Kaffe Fassett fabrics alone and this is only a tiny fraction of all the stuff they have.

It's not the cheapest place to buy - they have the usual German price range, which is about 25 ~ 40% more expensive than the US from what I've seen), but the selection is really impressive.
They also offer Jelly rolls (Rollmöpse), charm packs, kits and many, many patterns, as well a courses (though I never joined one of those)
You can also order online ....

725 Years Lämmerspiel

The town I grew up in celebrated its 725th anniversity this weekend. It is known the area around Lämmerspiel (as the town is called ... and it has nothing to do with lambs - 'Lämmer' - or playing - 'Spiel') has  already been settled in the late stone age, but it was first mentioned by name only in a document in the year 1289.

 To honor the occation, we had a parade.
Starting with romans and celts (both are confirmed to have been in the area)

 Somewhat newer history refered to the burning of our old church when it had been hit by a bomb during WWII

 Interesting what what kind of draft animals were used in the parade. Ox, horses - of course - small and really large. One carriage was even pulled by goats.

 Up to 1900 there has been some gallows between Lämmerspiel and Steinheim, the next town over. Today only the bases of the pillars have survived.

 No idea what those alpacas have to do with my home town, but damn, those were cute (wonder what happened to the wool ....)

Once again we lucked out  - even though thunderstorms have been annouced for the afternoon, it didn't rain. Though, it's been rather hot and humind.