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.

Four Stars

While waiting for the game last night, I sewed a kindle cover for a friend.

Somehow it's a good thing the World Cup is over.

I don't know if my nerves could take any more of it.

Welcome to the Familie

After two years of sewing quilts and bags and whatnots, I decided I'm sticking with it. Which means that I decided to spring for a new sewing machine, as the one I have is actually not my sewing machine but belongs to my sister. My birthday plus a nice bonus for this year pushed the decision and since last week I own a new sewing machine.
I decided on the Husqvarna Viking Sapphire 930:

 This is a pretty big step up from my old machine and we are still getting to know each other. Let alone find out what all the bells and whistles are. And how to used them.
 As a quick warm up exercise I've made an organizer with attached scrap bag

So far, so good.

On the food front, a collegue of mine allowed me to raid his garden last week, so I've made jam.

One batch was 25% strawberries, 25% gooseberries, 25% redcurrant and 25% blackcurrant.

The second batch also had sour cherries (circa 35%) plus what I had left of the stawberries and gooseberries, filled up with red- and blackcurrant

I named the last concoction 'Quer durch den Garten' (across the garden)

From the remaining currants I then made sirup.

Divided Tote

It's not like I really need another bag, but, well, there's a new one.
Remember the Quilter's Grid I've worked on last week? Well, that's what came out of it.

 I used exactly 244 2" squares (2 x 110 for the outside and 2 x 12 for some inside pockets.

Pretty, isn't it?
(I think it's even prettier in person, but you'll have to take my word on it)
The pattern I used can be found here. It's free.

Works in Progress

Sorry, nothing finished to show. I'm knitting something (of course), but I'm not sure if I'm happy with it, or if I even will finish it.
There was a sock I was knitting up to yesterday, but then I did rip up as it wouldn't fit over my heel when I tried it on. So another pattern needs to be found.
Patchwork wise I'm not working on any big project, just some playing around with scraps (I still have plenty left)
This here is pre-work for a bag I'm making.

I'm using a product called Quilter's Grid. Basically it's a fusible interface where some clever bloke has printed an inch wide grid. I'm using 2 inch squares and laid out a pattern 11 x 10 squares. Next step is to iron the squares to the interface. As the fabric pieces are attached to the interface, they don't move anymore and that makes sewing super easy. With a few quick seams you end up with every square perfectly aligned.
Easy peasy.
The picture above also shows how much you loose in size. For each 2 inch square I'm loosing 0.5 inch for the seams. So out of originally 22 x 20 inch (55cm x 50cm) I'm ending with only 16.5 x 15 inches (41.2cm x 37.5cm)

I'm also playing around with something called ticker tape quilting. Basically, you grap a little scrap and sew it on top of some other piece of fabric. They you grap another scrap, place it next the the first one and sew it on. And so on. This is a great technique for quilting on the go.
What I've done so far, however, is not to do any sewing yet. I just did some layout and attached all the little piece using pins.
That's what I've come up with:

I do like it a lot, except for the sun, which should be a moon, so I'll need to do some redesigning.
Funny thing is that I acually started out with the sun and it developed from there.

Hauptsache: Bunt!

The next quilt top is done.

The pattern is a modified HST pattern (HST - half square triangles) starting with 5 inch and 2 inch squares. I used a lot of scaps and farbics I usally wouldn't use. Everything was allowed (well, I decided against using any pink and black/white fabirc, but everything else was fair game). I used left-overs from a couple of Kona and batic charm packs a had laying around, as well as lots and lots of 5 inch squares I cut a while ago.

I framed the center in the same basic white I used for the HSTs and used even more sraps for the outer frame. It came out at 170 x 150cm (68 x 60 inches)

One would think I managed to make a dent into the sraps I have.

... nope, not really.

Blue Cloud

Two years ago I made a large wrap / shawl out of Wollmeise Lace yarn. The pattern I used is called 'Nuvem' ('Cloud'). The wrap has seem a lot of use since then and so I decided to make a second one.

 As I had a lot lot different blue lace yarns sitting around (some still on the skein, others left overs from various projects) I've used a blue light-to-dark transision. The yarns I used are:
- Zauberglöckchen Babyalpaka (this I got at a Ravelry meeting)
- Puppy New 2ply (from Japan)
- Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 (bought in San Fransisco)
- Regia Lace (bought in Dresden)
- Wollmeise Lace (I had a bit left from another project, plus I found somebody, who sold me another 100gr)

 I'm very much in love with the finished project, only that with temperatures around 35 °C, I'm not going to need it at the moment.

On Saturday I also had a visitor in my appartement.

Oh My Stars! - Finished

Today I finally finshed my OH My Stars! Quilt, which I started last April (that's April 2013) I may have blogged about the quilt before: here, here, here, or here.
So, it clearly counted as a long term project.
But, finally, it's done:

 The part that took the longest was the actually quilting by hand. I started in September and made reasonable good progress, but then other stuff got in the way. I pulled it out again around Christmas time, but didn't finish it then.
Last Thursday was a holiday, so I decided to tackle it again and do the last ten stars that were left.
I added the binding I already had prepared using all the blues I used for the stars, and this morning I finally, FINALLY, finished the quilt.

It is a great quilt (in more than one sense, as it turned out to be 200 x 175 cm - and that's after I removed one row of stars before the quilting even started)

One thing I totally love about the quilt is when I started making the photos, I noticed how the sun was shining through the quilt. This photo is from the back, which is mostly medium dark blue.

Love it!!!

Knight and Socks

Today's offering are two smallish projects I've finished this week.
First is a needlepoint Knight which I turned (oh the shame) into a coaster.

This was a kit from Millennia Designs, which I bought at Liberty in London. It stitched up very quickly and was a nice little, in-between stitch. In the end I almost ran out of the darker blue used for the background and had to do some fudging in the stitching to make it work. One extra strand would have helped a lot here.

Socks - Earlybird, another Knitty pattern (which means it's free)

 The pattern works well with the yarn (Zitron Trekking Hand Art in the color 'Sumatra'). I really liked how the tow up construction came out. Somthing I have to remember for the next time I do a toe-up.

Though I like how the pattern looks, I didn't exactly enjoy knitting it, as I was rather fiddly to do.

Tree of Stitches

I saw that pattern in another blog a long while ago and it wouldn't let me go. It can be found at Bee's Needleworks. I finally went, bought the pattern and started stitching almost immediately.

I went with different veriagated and solid greens for the different stitches.
It has been super fun to make and try out the different stitches. The original also offers the option to add beads, but I decided against it.

Running With Rotary Cutters

When I re-arranged my living room I pulled out a folding table I normally use when I have guests and placed it behind the sofa so I can place stuff on it (normally it holds my fruit bowl, a little flower pot and a glass of water and juice)

The patterns is improvised (I should have used a bit more contrast, I'm thinking now). The quilting I did using my walking foot, which worked surprisingly well. 

I also started another large scale quilt, using up some of those 5 x 5 inch large charm pack left overs and scraps I've got lying around, plus some of 2 x 2 inch bits I have collected the last two years or so.

The current aim is to make the quilt center 6 x 7 diamonds, plus a white frame, plus a colorful border. Of the 42 patches I need I have made 28 already. Some wild combinations, but so far I like it. 

Red

Who says I can only make stuff in blues or greens?

I can do red, too.

 I've made this project bag as a thankyou for a very nice person, who offered to look for lace yarn for me at the Wollmeise Sale before Easter. In the end, she didn't find what I was looking for, but was willing to part with a regular skein she had picked up a few weeks earlier.
I didn't know her color preferences so I decided that going with knitting sheep never can be wrong.
As she put it to use basically the instance I handed it over, I guess I wasn't too far off.

Second, this is a smallish bag (17 x 12cm) for my rotatry cutter. The material and the pattern came from a kit I bought in Gröbern by Meisen a while back. It it a bit of a tight fit, but I really wanted to make the stripes align.

Lastly, I've started a new pair of socks. The pattern is called Earlybird and is a freeby from Knitty.

The yarn is Trekking Handart in the colorway Sumatra

Plus Quilt

My oldest nephew turned 18 in February. He had mentioned a few times that the old quilt my sister had made for him years back, was too small for him (the young man is close to 1,85m by now) so I decided for his birthday he deserved a new, bigger quilt.

The quilt started out with several black and white farbics I picked up in Canada and US, plus a nice shade of bluish turquoise. The original idea of a 'disappearing 9-patch' pattern didn't work out, as it was way too busy, so I added some more greens and blues in solid and decided to go for a 'Plus' quilt.

My design wall helped tremdeously in laying out the pattern and also in keeping track of which square was to be sewn to which other square. There are 15 x 18 squares, plus the border, and the quilt ended up 175 x 205 cm.

On the back side I used three of the patches I've already made before I decided it was a bad idea, plus a whole bunch of scraps and left overs.

 Quilting itself was straight lines just left and right of each seam.
The finished quilt has been handed over yesterday, and I think it was well received.
(And thanks to Michael for helping with the modeling)

Castle and Blossoms

Yup, spring is here, There's no denying it.

 This wisteria grows at the side of the Pompejanum in Aschaffenburg (or, as we in Hessen call it: Aaaaschebersch ;-))

Aschaffenburg also has a lovely, not really that small castle.

 And the town has some interesting little corners.

Well worth a visit or two.

Butterflies and Flowers

I have some stitching.

I got the kit in Sweden, but swapped out the included Aida against an evenweave. 

The kit is called 'Butterflies on Flowers' and is made by Vervaco.

This got me into the mood for some more stitching ...