The Bookcover of the Modern Age

I like reading books.
I like reading real books. Like books with read paper.
Still, I also love my Kindle, as it saves me lugging around loads of real books made with real paper.
And because I love my kindle, I made a really nice cover for it.

Not only do I love how it looks (and I could practice my braiding), it's also super practical, as I now never forget to bring my charging cable along.

 

Then, because I have friends who also have a kindle (and - I presume - love it) I made a second book cover for G.

And, of course S. needed one too.

And there will be more ....

The Big Sandwich

My 'Oh My Stars!' quilt has reached the actually quilting stage.
For connecting the three layers (backing, wadding and quilt top) I used a adhisive spray, but to be on the save side I also stitched the three layers loosely together.

Now, for the actual quilting bit, I plan on sewing along all the star outlines. As this is not very practical to do on the machine, I will quilt by hand. I started with the star in the middle and will make my way outward in spirals (more or less).
The first star was pretty painful to make, as all this fabric is constantly getting in the way, so I'm thinking on some more optimal ways to make it a bit easier. Thanks to the internet I found some cheap options that might work, so I'll give you an update as soon as I tested those.

I also made a new shopping bag. I always have a bag or two in my car. Most of the bags I have were some freebies I got at one point or another, which means I'm currently advertising for a beauty shop and for a national energy company. The first one I don't mind, but the second one is about to be replaced with this:

No pattern, simply making two rectangles and connecting them to a stripe of fabric on three of the sides. Repeat that step for the lining (which also got a simple pocket on one side). Sew those two bits together on the top and adding the shoulder strap in the process.
The bag is about 13 x 15 inches (39 x 33 cm) big.

S.A.D.

Steffi, a member of our little group here - and a very good friend to boot - is moving away. Which we all think is very sad.
In order for her to remember us (and to keep her warm in winter - for, well, she is one easy to get cold) we pooled together and knitted her a blanket.
The five of us who took part in the project, each knitted a strip 30cm wide and 130cm long. Then we had a sewing together party (which was actually pretty fun - 4 or us sitting around a table and trying to put the whole thing together without getting in each others way). Then we added a crochet border and yesterday we presented the blanket to her.

While we knitted the stripes we left a space were each of us stitched her name.

Out came a nice blanket, which I hope will remind Steffi of us, far away from us.

 

BTW, S.A.D. stands for Steffis AbschiedesDecke (Steffi's Goodbye Blanket)

Waldschlößchenbrücke

Dresden opened this weekend the Waldschlößchenbrücke for the public (and on Monday for traffic) and they had a big party to go with the grand opening.
There had been a lot of controvery, with a public vote if the bridge should be built or not (the vote was 67.9% pro); discussions on how to protect the hoseshoe bat, which may of may not be disturbed by the traffic on the bridge, and finally did cost the Dresden Elbevalley the world heritage title (Dresden was de-listed 2007 because of this project).

I decided to stay for the weekend to join the party and watch the fireworks. It seems that Dresden just can't celebrate something without having a big firework and according to the interweb one was planned for 10pm on Saturday. As I live closeby, a friend that had come to visit and I decided to wait until 9:45pm and then go to watch the show.
But at 9:30 we already heard some explosions in the distance and saw colorful lights (basically we could see that some kind of fireworks was going on, but not the fireworks itself). We grabbed our stuff and saw maybe the last three minutes of it. Very disappointing *sigh*
When we checked out the bridge, all was quite. Very quite.

At least the next morning, the picture was very different. There were tousands of people who took a change to walk across the Elbe and back.

And, of course, so did we. On the other side, there was food and displays by the fire brigade, the public transportation system in Dresden, Newspapers and so on. Bands were playing and a group was walking around on stilts.

Backsides and Butterflies

For the backside of my 'Oh My Stars!" blanket I've had bought about 3.2m of blue fabric in the assumption that this would be enough. Well, as I turned out, it wasn't, so I had to improvise a little and added some stripes of white at one side.

As I also wasn't super happy with the shade of blue, I decided to dye the backside, binding of some bits of the fabric with rubber bands beforehand. I threw it into the washing machine with a pack of blue color and hoped for the best.

Though I got some pretty circles, the difference in color is not that big (rubber bands worked quite well, but the bits where I used some string didn't work out at all). I knew this would happen from the start, and already bought a second, darker shade op blue for the second round. So there will be a second dying cycle next week when I have a bit of time.

I also did a bit of decoration in my living room where I always had an empty area of sky blue wall. I found the butterflies at Ikea and knew that this was it. I really love my swarm of butterflies.

Tessallations

According to Wikipedia "a tessellation is the tiling of a plane using one or more geometric shapes, called tiles, with no overlaps and no gaps"
M.C. Escher was very famous (among other things) for his tessallations using animals like fish and birds. janukke, a lovely lady at Ravelry, did come up with a knitting pattern (for an afghan) for the fish tessallation a while ago, and finally I gave it a shot and knitted one of the fishies. And another one. And then another one. I'm now at number 6 and can at least lay out the first of the hexagons.

The pattern is not super difficult, but it does require a lot of attention, so it's far from easy, mindless knitting, but one has to admire the sheare brilliance that has gone into designing the fishes.

I've still got a long way to go and I plan this as a background project, so it will be a long time before I actually have something blanket like.

On the sewing front I've put this little etui together using braided stripes for the outside.

 My minons are quite intreagued what it might contain, but, sorry boys, at the moment there's nothing of interest inside.

Slippers

It's too hot to do much, so all I have to show you this week is a new pair of slippers I've made when I realized I needed a second pair. (I have a pair of shawls finished as well, and I also finished the top on the 'Oh my stars!' blanket, but haven't got around to take pictures yet, so maybe later...)

This time I used real leather for the soles. I have to see how this works out.
They fit perfectly!

Büdingen 2013

The renaissance fair in Büdingen takes place every other year. I've been going there for the last two times and, again, this year. I blogged about the fair four years ago.
As usual, there's a camp against the walls of the town.

There are entertainers (some of them of the rather unusual kind)

 I loved that setup for kid's entertainment. The little tykes get to dress up as a knight, with a little horse strapped on and off they are on a kind of obstacle course for little knights. And when not needed, the horses wait patiently for the next little knight to come along (and PETA can't complain either ...)

 And, of course, great food.

Starry Update

Yeah, I finished my 111 stars and I have started to sew them together.
I now have six larger blocks, which still need to be sewn together. Then the border, decide what to use for the back, making the sandwich, quilt the whole thing (I'm thinking about doing that bit by hand!) and finally the binding. I'm practically done!

Schönbusch and Mespelbrunn

I visited two small castles west of Frankfurt.
The first one is Schönbusch, part of a large park area close to Aschaffenburg. The main reason was for a photo shoot for a present for my sister. But as her birthday is in September I can't show you the present yet.

 I'm particular fond of the four sphinxes at the end of a stone Bridge in the park.

Second stop was Castle Mespelbrunn, a smallish castle which is still privately owned and lived in. In Germany it's most famous for being the set for a movie from the 60s (The Spessart Inn - Das Wirtshaus im Spessart)

Ebbelwoifest

In Hessen, my home country, the national drink is Ebbelwoi (Apfelwein, for those who speak proper German, and apple wine for those who don't speak German at all)
So, once a year, the street through my home town is blocked and a carnival is set up.
We have a big Ferris Wheel:

 This ride is called 'Tagada' according to Wikipedia.

And there was also a very nice Merry-Go-Round (though I have to say, the mouths of the horses look like they are wearing very cheap make-up)

 Ebbelwoi was runnig out of the fountain in the center of town and the whole area was dressed up.

Leipzig and Castle Colditz

The old town hall of Leipzig was flagged with signs for the Bachfestival that took place this weekend.

The 'Auerbachs Keller' is the second oldest restaurant/pub in Leipzig and even Goethe has been known to frequent it while studying in Leipzig.

 

I was pretty impressed by this graffiti (this is actually only about a quarter of the full size of it)

 

On my way back to Dresden I made a little detour to Castle Colditz. The castle itself has been around for 700 ~ 800 years, but it became most famous for being a prisoner-of-war camp of officers of the allied forces during WWII. Supposingly escape-proof, 31 prisoners actually managed a 'Home-Run' (though most escape attempts were foiled)

Today, it houses a youth hostel and also a small museum which shows some of the truely inginious things the prisoners came up with is order to excape.

Quilting Cruise

As I mentioned in my last post, we didn't just go on a cruise, we went on a Quilting Cruise. (*fanfar sounding*!!!)
At our two sea days, we had classes in the on board conference center. Thanks to Pfaff (and Tom and Ian) we had 56 sewing machines set up and Ros and Judy were our teachers.
We started simple with the typical Nordic Eight Pointed Star pattern. It was up to us which technique we used, so I decided to do reverse applique, which I hadn't tried before. I later added the triangles in the corners, sewing them on by hand. I'm not sure at the moment into what to finish this, so it stands like it is for now.

The second class we had was for the New York Beauty Block in Foundation Piecing. I made the basic block first (on the right), then added the little bit more advanced one (on the left)
This has been super fun, and I'm thinking about doing something else in that technique in the near future.

During the week, we had also a few things going on in the evenings, one of them making this pin cushion out of hexagons with the English Paper Piecing method. I finished it at home and stuffed it with scraps too small to use for anything else. It's already been in use.

On the last day we finally had something to really use the machines that had been set up for us. We appliqued this landscape (I made a few mistakes there, but well, it was more for praxis, right) then I went a bit wild on all the stitch pattern the machines had to offer. I especially like the little fishes.

Final class was on Bargello. I did something, but currently I am thinking on making what I have into a little bag, so I'll show you that sometimes later.

I had a lot of fun trying out all those new techniques and certainly found inspiration for new things to do. I would do this again, anytime, anywhere.

Norway

Our cruise took us from Southampton in England through the English Channel across the North Sea to Norway.
First stop way Flåm at the Aurlandsfjord. There we took a trip with the Flåmsbana, a railway line that goes over a distance of 20km to 863m above sea level. It is the steepest standard gauge railway line in Europe and has very beautiful sights to see.
One of the stops is at the Kjosfossen waterfall and just when we stopped there the sun came out and made this beautiful rainbow.

Second stop was Skjolden. We didn't take any of the official trips offered but walked up to a viewing point 120m above sea level. Looking back the Indepences of the Seas doesn't look that big after all.

 We also hiked to a fantastique water fall (there were lots and lots of waterfalls ...)

In Olden, our next stop, our weather luck turned and we had rain. Cold rain! The whole time! Still, we did a trip to one of the side arms of the Jostedalsbreen glacier, the largest glacier in continental Europe.

The next day brought as closer to civilization again and to Ålesund. The weather improved and we had great views.

Next and final stop before returning to England was in Stavanger, where we visited the Sverd i fjell monument, three, 10m tall swords rammed into the rock in memory of the Battle of Hafrsfjord (around 872) when Norway was united for the first time under one king.

Of course, there was much more to this trip, but I just don't have the room here to show you all of my pictures.

Also, this was not just a normal cruise, but this was a Quilting Cruise, so next time I will show you some of the things I made on the two days we had courses.

Independence of the Seas

The 'Independence of the Seas' was the first cruise ship I've been traveling on, and now I might be a bit spoiled for any other possible cruises in the future.
For once, the Independence is big. Really, really big.

With 3600 passengers and 1350 crew there are also a lot of people on board, but thanks to the size of the ship, you normally don't notice.

There's a lot of entertainment, starting with three swimming pool areas, a rock climbing wall, tennis court, mini golf, theater (with very good  shows twice per evening)

 And, of course, there's food. Lots of it and all the time. And most of it also very good (my only complaint would be that there was no decent rolls at breakfast, but that's really nitpicking) 

All in all, a very pleasurable way to spend a vacation.