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Guild and Trade

Last weekend we went to the Zunft- und Handwerkersmarkt in Seligenstadt (guild and trade market).
It was a fantastic showcase for old (as in traditional) arts, like millering, black smithing, spinning, carpeting ... (basically all the stuff that was already known in the middle ages and required a profession to do)

The place for the event was the (now defunct) abby in Seligenstadt. The weather was fantastic and the setting fitted perfectly the event.

There also was some needle crafts, like making bobbin lace.

There was also a very lovely lady, who did a lot of explaining, and if I had time I think I would be tempted to try a hand in it myself.

There was also some entertainment, like this group here, which did a very funny little play.

And there were also some acrobats, like this lady on the trapeze.


It was a very lovely day.

Playing With Dolls

I admit, I'm probably too old to play with dolls anymore - though something like that never did stop me before, so why should I start now?
What I did start with is with MAKING dolls - or rather A doll (singular)
His name is Wictor (yes, with a 'W') and he's based on the character of Pavel Chekov in the new Star Trek movie. There's this scene in the movie where he's trying to enter his pass code, but instead of saying 'Victor, Victor' he ends up saying (with his cute Russian accent) 'Wictor, Wictor'



He's actually more of a test balloon, because I plan on making a Spock, a Kirk and a McCoy doll eventually, though I think not with the above pattern (which actually is based on the Kuschelschaf)

Sightseeing

Last Thursday was a public holiday here in Germany. I did work on that day, though, and swapped it out for Friday. I then used the opportunity to take my time to drive home (usually, it's a 4 1/2 hours drive) and made a stop in Erfurt, which is pretty much on the way.

The first three pics are still from Dresden, though.

The Frauenkirche (The Lady's church), probably one of the most famous churches in Germany. It had been destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1944/45 and only been rebuilt a couple of years ago.

This is the Fürstenzug (or, rather, the beginning of it), a larger than life panorama made up of 25.000 tiles and depicts the parade of 35 lords, princes and kings of Saxony, plus 59 followers. It's about 100 years old and is on the side of the castle's stable. Of the people depicted in in I particularly like Friedrich der Gebissene - Friedrich the bitten one.

Another famous place in Dresden is the Zwinger, which looks like a castle, but is rather a museum (or several museums)
If you should have a Second Life account, you can go to the Old Master's Gallery anytime you like. It's is in fact the first museum in the world that has been completely replicated in the virtual world.

In Erfurt I went to see the Dom.

The Dom was founded about 1250 years ago, though it has changed its look several times over the centuries.

The altar was built originally in the 14th century. A bit on the kitch side of things, but still quite impressive.

Blooming

I took this series a couple of weeks back when the opening of the orchid coincided with me being at home for once.
Pretty cool, eyh?

I've started a short sleeved jacket for myself based on an already existing jacket I saw at a friend's place. Nothing too exciting, really, mostly lots and lots of stockinett knitting. There's making progress (the back and one of the fronts is done), but nothing I've bothered to take pictures of yet.

After the trek dinner yesterday where I brought the Kuschelschaf from last week along and throwing around some ideas sparked by the new Star Trek movie, I'm now working on a star trekified version of the sheep, based on the character of Chekov. I've got the body knitted up and now fighting with the sweater. I've got it almost licked, but am not really satisfied how the back is shaping up, so I guess there will be a second one eventually. I'm running out of stuffing - note to myself: get more.

Kuschelschaf

It's all Birgit's fault. She was the one who gave me the yarn.

When I looked up on Revelry what to do with the super fluffy yarn, I came across the pattern for this: das Kuschelschaf (translated: The cuddle sheep)

Here it is pre-assembly: (is that just me, or does that look like somebody has killed the poor sheep and is now waiting for the crime scene people to find out who did it?)

I did run out of the lighter blue yarn after I made one of the ears, so I decided to rib up the diagonal scarf, which I didn't like anyway, even though it was very soft and warm, and recycle the darker blue yarn for the ears and the tail of the sheep.

And here he is in all his glory:

That Stupid Grin

I did go and saw the Star Trek movie last night and still have difficulties to get that stupid grin off my face. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptic about the movie - it's been a long time since anything Star Trek really was any good - but, boy, that movie did deliver. First of all, the chemistry between the actors was great. There were many, many nods to the good old times, enough to made me laugh out several times. The actions was good, too, and the special effects a thing of beauty. And the story didn't suck either. All in all, a very happy old Star Trek fan here.

Well, I've been busy as well.

This top was done within ten days. I used some yarn from an old project which I had not liked how it came out. I could - with about 30cm to spare - have made do with the yarn I had, if I had foregone the little armlets, but as I really like them I'm happy had I made the trip to my favorite yarn store and got another skein of the yarn.


The pattern is a variation of something I saw in a German magazine, but really, all I took was the basic stitch pattern and made up the rest pretty much on the go.
This time I'm happy with the outcome, so I don't think I'm going to rip that up again.

Another thing I finished is a summer scarf I've started last summer in June and was sitting around doing nothing for the longest time.


Pattern is the Lace Ribbon Scarf from the Summer 2008 issue of Knitty. The yarn is some mysterious yarn from Japan (Gokuhoso by Wister) and I knitted it with 3mm needles. I tried to block it, but the yarn just springs back to curling inward, so I guess it's some sort of acrylic. It's soft enough, though, and I really liked how it came out.


Finally, I have two new starts. One is almost done already, so I'll make a post about it when I done. The other is a pair of Monkey socks. It is, by far, the most popular sock pattern on Ravelry and I finally decided to give it a try.


I do like it so far and the only down is that within 3cm of knitting, I managed to break one of my brand new KnitPro wooden needles. Luckily the set came with six (instead of the usual 5) needles, so I could go on without hunting down another needle. But still, it is annoying. I don't even knit that tight, really.

Live long and prosper

Movie Month May

May looks to be good - at least on the movie front and compared to the last four months of the year. I've been to the theater twice since the beginning of the year; once for 'Twilight' (which I, I admit, watched twice) and then for 'Monsters vs. Aliens' (which was cute enough, but didn't blow me away like 'The Incredibles' or some other animation movies I love to pieces)

But May, May looks good.

1) X-Men Origins: Wolverine
I've seen all the other X-Men movies and quite liked them with the exception of X-Men 3, which, honestly, sucked. One of my biggest complains about those movies, though, is that my favorite X-Men character is missing in all of them (though I have to admit, if they had underused him like they did i.e. Angel in the last one, it would have been even worse). Now, Gambit's finally there and, wow, he's so cool (still not enough of him, but at least the part is good, and he's gotta kick ass)


It doesn't hurt either that Mr.-Sexiest-Man-Alive aka Huge Jackman is also in the movie quite a bit (*cough, cough*).
I went to see it on Friday and quite enjoyed it and am going to watch it once more with a friend tomorrow night.

2) Star Trek
I've been a Star Trek fan for a long time now. Much less active in the last 15 years or so, but I've did it all: I had the uniform, the toys, the magazines, I did go to conventions and spent nights on movie marathons. I used Star Trek to learn English and most of my friends I've met through the fandom. I've been through the up and downs that come with being a fan of the franchise and for the last couple of years I've thought it to be over with.
But I'm really excited about the new movie. What I've seen so far does look very, very nice and I'm looking forward to seeing it next weekend.
I even would dig out my old uniform, if I though it would still fit *wink*

3) Angels & Demons
I loved the book, but I am a bit apprehensive if Ron Howard is able to give it justice on the big screen. Davinci Code was already a let down, really, and so I will go into that movie with a good dose of scepticism.
Still I'm planning on going.

4) Terminator Salvation
I'll be back!
Who could ever forget Arnie saying those words? It's been 25 years, yes, but this is still one of the most memorable movie quotes there is. I've seen T1 and T2, but skipped out on T3 (I've heard it had been awful ... what is it with those really bad 3rd parts anyway?)
This movie is on my I wouldn't mind watching it, and am willing to fork over the money, but if I should miss out on it, I probably won't be heart broken. Christian Bale is an awesome actor, but I'm a bit afraid the movie will end up to be a little bit too gritty for my taste.

5) Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
The first part of that movie was something that I happened to watch on a plane flight from A to B. Nothing I would have really considered to watch if I had anything else to do, but if you're stuck for hours and hours inside of a big flying tin can, one does get desperate. Surprisingly enough, I liked it, and when it was on TV over Easter I watched it a second time and again, I really enjoyed it.
Hence my willingness to go and see the second part in the theater.


So, in summary, two movies I HAVE TO WATCH, and three I'm more than willing to spend money on, which is way more than what was available over the last four months (or longer)

And, in June there's one more I'm really, really, reallllllllllly looking forward to, and that is Transformers 2. The trailer alone is made of win and it will be so awesome. I've already made a movie date to see it in Reykjavik.

A New Start

I finished the More Stripes shortly after Easter.

It does fit well and the yarn is really nice and soft. I could stroke it all day.
The knitting has been fun, as usual when I work with Noro. Just all those color changes are really pretty cool. I've had about one knot per ball of yarn - the downside of Noro, but I spit-sliced them and it's really hard to tell where they have been.

I was knitting away on an older scarf project (I started knitting on this one on my last trip to Japan, which has been over a year ago), when last week I German knitting magazine fell into my hands with a pattern I really liked. The pattern is using ribbon yarn, and as it happened I still had that semi-finished Bombshell (just scroll down a bit) sitting around. I finished the sweater, but never wore it and eventually decided I don't like it at all.
By now I've ribbed all of it up (with the help of some friends), wrapped the yarn into hanks and washed them, so all the dirt and the crinkle get out.

I started knitting, with some modification to the pattern.

So far so good.

After Easter Lunch

Traditionally, at Easter it's my turn to feed my family (that is my parents and my sister and family) at my place. At least that's the tradition since I finally have a place big enough to do so - meaning for the last three years.
Now, this year my sister and her family went away for Easter (we had the good weather at home, they didn't), so we moved the whole event by one week.

As the asparagus season already has started I decided to make an asparagus salad for the starter. It turned out quite yummy, if I may say so myself.


But the (sadly photoless) lamb with potato gratin and green beans was also very good. And by the time the lemon cream with raspberries (made by my mom) came round, we were all pretty stuffed.

Facing the Facts

I've always known I've got a bit of yarn. I have some in some boxes in my bedroom (mostly the really old stuff that moved with me at least two times), some in my workroom (sock yarn mostly) and some in my living room (sock yarn again and the cotton and some of my odds and ends)

Today I took all the yarn to one place and took a long hard look at it.


Realizations:
- I have a lot of sock yarn (no surprise there, really, I had known that, though I have to ask myself why I keep buying more if I already have plenty?)
- I do like the color blue (again, no surprise)
- I do have a lot of single yarn balls (which would be okay if I'd knew what to do with it)
- I think one of my next projects needs to be a crazy quilt afghan or something along that line in order to get rid of all those single yarn balls
- I may have enough yarn for the short sleeved cardigan I've been thinking about since last weekend (how cool is that?), though the yarn is fairly old and I need to take a good long look at it before I decided I really can use it
- I have a lot of yarn I have no idea why the heck I ever bought it (other than I may have been on sale)
- I really should stop buying more yarn ... at least for a while (who am I kidding? I know I will buy more yarn, though I hope to be more project orientated than before)

Something Really Scary

Happy Easter to everybody!!!

If there's one thing a knitter fears it's putting a scissor to your knitting. It's just not done. It's evil. It's really, really scary.

Now, the More Stripes Vest was asking me to do just that *shiver*
The idea is to keep the continuity of the stripes at the left and right hand side of the neck opening. As the stripes are coming naturally from the yarn and they have really long and fairly random repeats, there's no way to keep the symmetry if you knit the left and the right side separately. So, what you do is to knit the neck opening in one go and then *gasp* cut down the middle of the knitted piece in the end. This, by the way, is called steeking.

Before you cut, you sew two lines on either side of the intended cut with a sewing machine. To illustrate this I drew white lines (for the sewing lines) and one red line (where the cut is being made)
Some people recommend a strong drink before cutting, but I managed without.

(just after the first couple of snips - hmm, could be the picture is a bit out of focus because I'm still shaking so much ;))
Right now the front - with open neck hole is blocking, and then I'm ready to sew everything
together.



I'm also presenting to you the block number 18:
and block number 19 for my Aran Afghan

Spring's Here!

Finally!!!

In the last week, the temperatures have risen by a good 15deg C, there's sunshine and I spent some time on my balcony today and yesterday.


The trees are not really green yet, but they're working very, very hard on it.

On the knitting front I'm back to potholders. After trying to show my friends how the double knit technique works, I got back into the mood and did some more.

First pair is basically a repeat of the pair I made a few months ago (--> link), so only a detail picture this time to show off the colors.

Second pair in the works is the resurrection of the Transformer potholders I've tried to do a while ago, but found a bit confusing at this time.


First the Decepticon symbol and I'm in the middle of the Autobot symbol (doing it red on black). It certainly is fun to do and if I come up with a few more pattern, I will probably give it a try too. I've got a good set of colors now, though I might run low on a few eventually. Finding the black was pure luck last week, as I had not been successful before, but then discovered three skeins in the clear out bin at the Wolle Rödel in Frankfurt. Only, they are discontinuing that yarn, so there won't be any more.

Stripes

I finished the back of my vest, even though I gave it a second start after knitting 4 or 5 inches. It did look a little tight on me, hence the ripping and fresh start.


So far I used two full skeins of the black/brown/grey color and a little less than two skeins of the blue/green/purple one, so I should be set (I have four skeins of each color)
Knitting is fun, especially watching how the colors develop and which color combinations show up. I had a couple of knots though, very typical for Noro yarns. The Silk Garden does feel much nicer than the yarn I used for my Lizard Ridge blanket, though. It's more expensive as well.

All Socked Out

I bought this (Noro Silk Garden, colors 201 and 236):
And want to make this:


And the start to it is this:

I think I'm all socked out, so I decided to do something else for a change. I've had my eyes on that vest for a while and finally decided it's time to give it a shot. My gauge was off though (19 stitches to the 10cm instead of the 22 stitches in the pattern) but I didn't want to change the needle size to something smaller, as I really did like the tension as it is - anything tighter and it would have been too stiff. I did some math and hope it'll work out.

While I was waiting for my chance to get the yarn, I fell back to the Aran Afghan I started ... ehr, a while ago. The first square I tried I didn't like so I ripped it up and did this one instead.


It's the one by Ann McCauley and there are a few tiny mistakes in it, but I decided I don't care and won't rip it up (again!!!).

28 of 64

Last week a fanfic bunny attacked me viciously. I have those attacks once in awhile and usually I can resist. I know I'm a decent, but not a brilliant fanfiction writer (especially, because I write in English, which is, after all, not the language I've grew up with). Usually find the effort to hammer out a story, especially if it's a long one, too tedious to bother, and I'm not exactly a fast writer. I have a couple of rules when I write fiction and one is that I won't start posting a story, unless I've finished it and somebody has betaed it. I do love reviews - who doesn't - but I will not go and hold my readers hostage, by telling them I will only continue writing if I get at least x amount of reviews.

Well, I'm not going to break my rule this time, but that means I'll be spending a lot of my time the next few weeks behind the keyboard, writing. So not much knitting, not much stitching.
I've already written over 18.000 words and I think there will be about the same amount again before I'm done, which means this will be the longest story I've ever tackled. The fandom is Twilight, which is also not the fandom that I thought would get me back to the keyboard. But it happened, and I'm helpless, so I write on.

How does that quote go? "A true writer is somebody who write because he has to, not because he wants to."


At least I've now got 28 of the 64 squares of the Sampler Game Board finished. That's almost half.

And I also finished another pair of socks. The pattern is the 'Undulating Rib Sock' pattern from the Favorite Socks book, but I inversed it, as I like the inside better than the outside. As the shaft and the foot are knitted inversed from each other (that is, I knitted the shaft following the pattern, then turned it inside out, and then knitted the foot bit with all the purls as knits and all the knits as purls) the foot stitches look a little bit different then the rest. Not too noticeable I hope.


Jutta, if you like then, give me a shout and I put them aside for you. I think they meet your request that they have to match jeans. They're a bit scratchy though.

Another Place Holder

Just to let you know, there's nothing to show this week, really. I've made some progress on the Sampler Game Board, but that was it basically.
Sorry about that.

Wicked

Yesterday my family and I went to see the musical Wicked in Stuttgart.
It was the birthday present from my sister and I for my parents. Even though it was 'only' an afternoon show the theater was packed. I enjoyed it a lot (though I still prefer the English version ... but that's me *shrug*). The cast was fantastic, especially the actress who played Elphaba.



Other than that, I've finished one pair of sock (oh, what a surprise) and started the next already.

Finished pair: Yarn is from the sale at Aldi, the pattern simply plain socks with short row heel and toe.

I'm in a bit query with the second pair, though. The pattern is the 'Undulating Rib Sock' pattern from the 'Favorite Socks' book (which, in itself was a pretty good investment, as this is like the fifth pair or so I'm making from the book)
You see, this is the pattern's right side:

And this is the 'wrong' side:
And, well, I like the wrong side better, so it looks like I'm going to knit this one inside out for a change. I have to see how it works out.

Gloves

I finished a pair of fingerless gloves:

This is the same yarn I used for my hat a while back, so this was actually using up some left over yarn. The pattern is 'Knucks' from Knitty, though I left out the stitching. I do love them and they are surprisingly warm.

I did some more knitting (some simply socks, about 70% done) and also stitched some on the Game Board Sampler, but nothing too exciting, so no photos for now.

I also wrote a short story for the Twilight fandom, but fanfiction.net is acting up and I can't upload it at the moment. *grumpf*

The Castle is Framed

I finally got the frame back for the Castle Sampler. I had it custom ordered, but they never let me know that it was done. So much for customer service....


I wrangled it into the frame last Saturday and am fairly happy with it. It's maybe a smidgen too small, but considering that I don't exactly have fabric to spare on the left hand side, it's okay.
Now, I've already decided where it's going to be hanged, but that means a) I will have to take of the pic already there and b) I'll have to nail in two new nails.
Maybe next weekend.

I'm still fairly distracted by the Twilight saga. I've finished the last book last weekend (I think it's the weakest in the lot, but that's mostly because how some things developed. I still breezed through it) Now I've immersed myself into the fanfiction, giving my old e-book a good work out. Some really, really good stuff, some less so, but that's fanfiction for you. If the story is crap there's always the famous delete button.

Despite the distraction, my first pair of socks for 2009 has been finished.


Some cheapy yarn I've picked up in Dresden last year and the cross rib pattern from the favorite socks book. Love how the colors pool. The orange does pop, that's for sure.

I'm also back on the Sampler Game Board, after I've sorted out a little color problem I've had. The bobbin on the right is what I took of a new skein of 3787 and it should have been the same color as the border. Well, obviously something was incorrectly labeled, as the 'real' 3787 is the one on the left. My thanks goes to a very good friend, who helped me out quickly after I realized the problem, so I could work on.