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 ...

Home Decoration

After eight year living in my appartement I thought it's about time I redecorated a bit.
I moved some furniture around, the DVD shelf went to another wall, the dinning table now sits closer to the middle of the living room (and I found a great lamp to illuminate the previously little dark area)
After moving the shelves, the wall they stood against retained their image - or in other words, the light blue wall now showed a bit different blue than the rest of the wall where the shelves had shaded it from the sunlight.

 Luckily, that's what paint is for. I opt for a darker shade of blue (called sea blue) and started painting.
Three layers later I finally had a uniform surface (and let it be said that watching paint dry, can actually be kinda exciting - will it be uniform this time, or not?)
I had quilted the swans in Sweden in February and lastly I added a tunnel in the back for hanging.

 I'm very, very pleased how this turned out.

An Old Promise And A New Start

A while ago I promise a friend to also make her a kindle cover. As she 'named' her kindle 'Hawkeye' (like the character from the Avengers), it was clear early on that the color scheme would be black and purple.
Hawkeye is a sharp shooter, so a crosshair target was the obvious choice for the front side. On the back I applicated the mask he's wearing in the comics.

From her reaction I think it was right on target.

A few years back, on vacation in the US (or maybe Canada, I'm not 100% sure) I bought about 1kg of cheap yarn with the intention of making it into a blanket one day. Yesterday I finally pulled it out of hiding and started making half square triangles. 

A nice, easy, portable project.

I Have Knitting

Finally some finished knitting stuff.

'Off for a walk with Charlotte' was my Olympia project. I did cast while watching the opening ceremony and did cast off at the closing. In between I had a false start, as the pattern I picked originally just didn't work with the yarn.

The yarn, a Blue Faced Leicester by Fleece Artist in the colorway Nova Scotia, had been a birthday present a few years back.

The second project was looooong in the making (I think I started in September). A summer cardigan made from Wollmeise Lace in the colorway Admiral. The pattern is called 'Chance of Shower' is a pretty cool construction and very well written. Still, I made a few changes, mainly in the lower body part, where I ended up making fewer increases than the pattern says.

 As you can see, it's currently blocking and I hope it will fit well once it's dry.

Animals of the West

And as the weather is still spring like and sunny, we went to the 'Alte Fasanerie' (an old park - pheasantry -  with animals close to Hanau)
The wild sows just about had their first bunch of little piglets.

 In the falconry we watched the flight show (always impressive). I always loved the eagles and the eagle-owls (though Athila, the mascot of the Frankfurt Football Club 'Eintracht Frankfurt' was not in today - I think he had to support the team ...)

 There was a group of lynx.

 And finally, the have two groups of wolves. The more local gray wolf (canis lupus)

And a group of arctic wolves (canis lupus arctos)

 Isn't he/she an absolute beauty?

Animals of the East

Last weekend - with wonderful early spring time weather - I went to the zoo in Dresden.
Lions, ...

... koalas, ...

... and giraffes, oh my!

 Following the zoo, I also went to a flower exhibition in the palais in the Great Garden (think New York Central Park, only somewhat smaller and more barock).

Sweden 2014

By now it's almost a tradition that I visit my sister in Sweden during the Olympic Games. A good excuse to spend time with her and my nephew, who, this time, even had a birthday to throw in (and I made a big birthday cake for him ...)
As the first attempt for my mom's table topper ended up a bit on the large side of things, it now went to my sister.

The pattern is called 'Lone Star' and is waaaaaay easier to do than the 'doves in the window'. For one, you start simply by sewing three stripes together and then cut them at an angle. The eight points are identical, so not so much chance to mix things up.
And, if I may say so, the result looks pretty cool.

Swedish weather was pretty mixed, but at least one day was bright and sunny, even if it was rather windy, so I grapped my camera and made a few pics.
The Swedish coast:

 Proof I was in Sweden:

 And the very first spring flowers peaking through.

Doves in the Window

A few weeks ago, my mom asked me to make a table topper for the little table in her room. She also said that I should use scraps (I have plenty, so no problem there)
My first attempt turned out to be waaaaay too big (80 x 80cm for a table 45 x 42cm), so I started attempt number 2 using the 'Doves In The Window' quilt pattern.
This is a fairly traditional pattern (there are actually two different pattern with the same name ...), but I saw a more modern interpretation on a blog I follow, and thought to give it a spin.

I love the finished block, even though the sewing bit was a bit painful. I kept mixing up the order of the little pieces, ALL THE TIME! Then I started using a 1/4 inch (0.75cm) black border, but that didn't look right, so I ripped all the black bits off again and used a 1/2 (1.5cm) border instead. 

Only problem now ....

It's still too big for the table (it ended 50 x 50cm)

This week also saw the completion of a long term project (started March 2013)

The blackwork sampler chess board.

There are 32 different designes, which I pulled from all over the place: books, magazines, the internet, ...

I'm not 100% sure if I call is finished, though.

I'm thinking about adding some gold accents, oooooooor even to mirror all the black fields in gold on the opposide side.

What do you think?

Box-In-Box

On Friday was my friend Steffi's birthday. And as currently EVERYBODY gets something quilted by me, she got a smallish blanket made.

Pattern is sort of kind of my own thing, though I might have seen something similar on the interweb. The final blanket is 125 x 150cm and the backside is fleece, which makes it extra snuggly.

 The whole thing is free motion quilted and I even managed to sneak in my name, Steffi's name and the date. Not sure if you can see it in below picture ...