Still no craft pictures and no vaction pictures

So I figured I'd show you what we did on the service day from work:



Before

During


After

Back

I am back, had a lovely time (and was sick on my 40th birthday). I finished my tree, didn't do much other crafting or reading, but enjoyed spending time with MyGuy.

Vacation

I will be off for sometime, going to France for 10 to 14 days, so have fun in the meantime.

Socks and more

I finally finished another pair of socks. Like Fillyonk I enjoy plain socks to relax and these were very relaxing. Simple ribbing made for nice socks and the color is a bit more purply in real life.

This is the progress I have made on my tree. As I am stitching only on this it is now a WIP rather than an UFO once more. As I was home sick Thursday and Friday the tree grew more than expected between bouts of feeling horrible. I am enjoying seeing it grow little by little. Unfortunatelly this makes me look at all my cross stitch magazines and that makes me want to start a whole bunch of new things. So far I just started a little free kit of Popcorn. Slow stitching prevents me from making much progress, but I am having fun.

In the latest edition of World of Cross Stitch was an article on Biscornu, something we just recently discussed on Stitching Fingers. I guess I will have to give it a try.

FO and UFO

This is the finished object. My mother has given me an early birthday present and finished quilting my Carolina Cross Roads quilt. As a matter of fact she enjoyed the pattern so much that she made a baby quilt with it and is thinking about offering it as a mystery in Bonnie's sense to her quilt group.

This is the UFO, the first of my cross stitch projects I want to finish for the UFO challenge at Stitching Fingers. I have finished the ground yesterday, so now the tree can grow. Maybe I can get this finished in time for fall. I have the magazine with the companion fall tree, but will need a break in between. Among other things this is just one of my UFOs.

Week-end

This was a good weekend. We put up an additional bookcase on Saturday and I could empty three more of my book boxes, plus the PCs now have a proper home. In the afternoon we had Stricktreff, but I had forgotten my camera. Betty might have pictures up, go visit her via the sidebar link. It was a nice afternoon and we got to meet Esther. We missed Petra, Eva, Britta and Bianca. It looks like the next meeting will be on the 16th of August at Bettina's place. I started my Boyfriend socks (a pattern we are KAL with our new cable knitters)and am in love with the Trekking. Looks like I got my knitting mojo back. Might therefore eventually end up with my green Bob, the poor thing is currently sidelined.

Sunday I had time to sew as MyGuy was sleeping the morning away. So I managed to sew 8 more blue stars for my Ohio Stars and Railfences quilt. Now I need to add 18 more red stars to the 7 I already have. I layed out a tiny bit of the quilt to see if things looked ok and am happy to report they are. In the afternoon we watched Fomula 1 and then went to the sauna.

I also finished reading Making Money by Terry Pratchett and am already looking forward to seeing Moist as tax man. As usual an enjoyable read.

Liberated Quiltmaking

I would love to be part of the Liberated Quiltmakers web ring but I do too much work from patterns, so I do not qualify. Still I enjoy looking at the blogs in the ring.

Orange Crush and QfaH

This is the Quilt for An Hour from Judy's Sunshine Qilts. I changed the sahes and need to add the borders. I am still thinking aout the borders however. Today I finally sewed together the rows of my OC. I do not reallylike the purple in the album blocks. It looks worse in real life. Maybe some applique... And once again, this quilt has no bordes yet. I am thinking about Bonnie's pieced ones, but might do something different. I still have units left over however.

World Knitting Day

Some one dropped a stitch:Someone else had to pick it up...
Petra and Betty are "saving" Petra's sock by catching the runaway stitch.

My sock was beyond saving, but needed to be documented for the blog:

It would only have fit a stork. Bye-bye, pretty sock.

What I am up to

It seems I am back to reading at the moment and am working my way through a couple of books from my Mount ToBeRead. I have read Secret Country, Death of an Irish Consul and finished Wer bin ich und wenn ja wieviele. Currently I am stuck on 1000 Splendid Suns, because I can just tell something horrible will happen next. Ugh! So I started another mystery: Monsterous Regiment of Women. Very enjoyable commuter reading.

However that means nothing new on the sock front. I thought I would knit during the games of the EM, but no such thing. So Bob is still unfinished.

On the other hand I did finish sewing my 40 rail road blocks and tried out 2 of the red stars for my Ohio Stars and Rails quilt from Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville site. I plan on making 25 red stars with hearts in the center and 16 blue ones with Betty Boops in the center. It will then likely be A Heart for Betty or I Heart Betty. Not sure yet, but the little Betty's have been stash for ages and now at least some of them will make it in a quilt.

Waterfall

Since Finn has a waterfall picture, here is one from Tirol, Austria from last fall.

Amazon?

Check out this article about how Amazon treats publishers:
New York Times

QFAH come together

I have finished the center of my quilt for an hour top yesterday and have to say I am happy with it. I have to take a picture yet, but I am now thinking about the border. There will certainly be an inner border that I know what I want to do, but have to calculated how the pieces need to be cut for it to come out correctly. Then... that is open for discussion as I do not want to buy more fabric and think it would actually need a repeat of the dark purple one.

Stitchery Give Away

I really like Lynette Anderson's patterns, even if I have yet to make one. Check out her Give Away of the newest pattern:

http://lynetteandersondesigns.typepad.com/lynette_anderson_designs/2008/06/new-pattern.html

Gas Station Cozy

No joy still with my socks, but have a look:

Gas Station Cozy

This was to raise awareness to gas consumption. I think doubling the gallon prize did that too.

Knitting is not going well

Recently it seems my socks are ganging up on me. The green one I started in March has disappeared, the hourglass one is in another time out until I figure out if I need to rip the second one back to the heel yet again, the beige one I started is so tight that it will only fit a crane not a human being... Argh!!!

At least my sewing is going well, I finished all 24 QFAH blocks on Sunday evening. Now however I keep deliberating on the sashing. I would like mine to be a bit bigger and a triple sashing with nine patch blocks might do that, but I am not sure if it will spoil the effect. Hmmm...

Step 5 finished

Due to a day of the runs (also known as sick leave) I am now caught up on step 5 of the Orange Crush. Luckily you can sew this in small increments and the way to the facilities is short. Now I can get to hour two of Judy's Quilt for an Hour tomorrow. For today I am off to bed.

A peek at step 5 of the OC

This are my first 5 step 5 blocks with some step 4 ones. I have my doubts about the lilac, but on the photo it looks ok, so maybe it will turn out alright. In real life the colors are more subdued. Compared with the riot in the CC (see header) this one is very sedate and with the yardage there just is not that much variety. I think I prefer a CC type quilt, mainly because I just do not have much yardage.

What I am up to

This is the sample block of step for of the OC. They all look pretty much the same. That made it boring for me and I finally sat myself down and did assemby line sewing on the 10 I was missing. Not I have 30 finished ones.
On to step 5.
These are my hour glass socks that I am currently knitting. Let'a hope third time is the charm, as this is the third go at the heel I have.

Turkish Socks finished

I finally finished my "Turkish Socks". This is what the colors for some reason reminded me off. They are fairly tight as the patterning stitch makes it inflexible. But I love how they turned out. The yarn was Drachenwolle.

Quilt for an Hour - 1st step

First step and I am already behind. I did not cut my pieces ahead of time, so yesterday, instead of sewing my 76 HST I was cutting them. Oh well, I will sew them today and just be behind...

Mai Stricktreff

As you can see we knit, studied kintting magazines and finished first socks ever on our May Knitting meeting. It was fun and we thank Petra for having us!

Orange Crush step 4 HST

I have sewn and pressed all the half square triangles for the Spinning Star block in the OC and have sewn 2 blocks. They are turning out nice, but I kept having a bit of trouble with the third row in the star and got fed up. Back to it today... I think I need more of the light purple I bought the other day for Judy's quilt in an hour as an accent to the OC. Oh well, I am not destashing...

Room with a view

Normally I do not talk much about work here, but I am soooo happy to finally have moved in the new office. And look at the views I have. This one is the one straight out (and yes there is a bike in our office).

The other one shows the view when I roll a bit back with my chair and look to the left. Lovely Rhine on both sides.

Quilt for an hour - fabric

It is a good thing I have never said I would reduce my stash of fabric! Since I usually buy fat quarters up to half meter cuts I did not have any "background" fabric stash, so I bought two shades of purple for the background. I will use some of the fun yellows/oranges I have as stars.

I also bought grey and black fabric for my Happy Stars quilt and a background fabric for my CC. Now I need to do some washing...

Crazy Goldfish orFinding Nemo

Finally I finished another pair of socks. These ones are for me and they are the first pair of plain socks that I have knit in forever. However I was trying the short row heel and am pleased with how it turned out. I still like the dutch heel and so on better, but at least this means I have concured one of my mental hurtles on toe up socks. This pair can serve as a model for where to put the heel. The color is called crazy goldfish or something with goldfish, but I always think fof it as Finding Nemo.

Orange Crush Step 2 and 3

8 of my step 2 blocks in two arrangements. I am sure they will end up in a totally different way, but as others have discoverred, playing with them is fun.
And 4 of my step 3 blocks, luckily this short step allowed me to catch up.

April Stricktreff am Bodensee

These are the members of my knitting group on my balcony.As you can see most of them are very busy. Bianca on the other hand was getting ready to give the available magazines a good airing.

Von den paar Photos, die ich gemacht habe, war dass das beste. Hat schon seinen Grund warum mein Liebster bei uns die Photos macht... Schön, dass Ihr da wart. Ich freu mich schon aufs nächste Mal.

Orange Crush Step 1 finished

Here are half of my four patches for the Orange Crush Mystery by Bonnie. Mine are fairly unscrappy colorwise, but I wanted to use some of the brown fabrics that were in my stash after the basket quilt I have done ages ago. I have cut all the pieces for step 2 and am on my way through the assembly now. Fun! They too will be light and dark browns, I think of them as "background" but of course I do not know how it will turn out with the yardage added. I really enjoy this however.

Blue Ridge by T.R. Pearson

You might have noticed that I have added the initials challenge to my sidebar. This is the first book I read for this challenge where the author is known by his/her initials rather than the first names. The book was languishing in my tbr piles and it is good to finally have gotten it out.

Two stories of cousins are recounted at the same time, switching back and forth between the two. This I usually enjoy and it certainly did not distract. One plot had Paul go to NYC to identify his son whom he barely knew, the other has Ray trying to solve the mystery of bones found in the State Forest. I was expecting the stories to merge at some point or at least interact, this was not the case until the very end and then sort of tucked on. I read more like two novellas than a unified work which I found regrettable. The book therefore was just so so for me. I don't think I would based on this one read more books of the author even if the language was great.

Carolina Crossroads Top

This is finally a picture of my finished Carolina Crossroads Top. I gave it a small pink border and a two block deep railroad fence border in the same dimension as the original railroad blocks but in a different color combination. MyGuy says it looks very green, but I told him spring is green. Now I need to dig out some stuff for a backing.

I have started the Orange Crush four patches for the next mystery. I found it hard to get started on this as I do not have 1,5 yards of most fabrics, I am more a fat quarter, half yard buyer. I am not sure if mine will work (contrast and one of them is fairly patternd), but this is stash, so I will go with it.

A bit of nuttiness....

You Are a Brazil Nut

To most people, you seem exotic, unusual, and even a bit scary. But you're really quite normal. You're just hard to get to know. If people leave you alone and let you do your thing, you really shine. But you tend to get lost in a crowd, especially if it's filled with big personalities.

What Nut Are You?

Fitness for last week

Not too bad, not too good. I went to the gym on Thursday, but only went walking on the treadmill for 45 min (my first time, not sure I did the programm stuff correctly). Didn't do any weights as I was plain worn out.
I went swimming on Sunday (the pool is a disgrace, but the people are nice) and swam 1000 meters.

Back to the gym today.

Mini Stricktreff

We had a mini knitters' meeting on Saturday and it was fun to get together. I was being destructive rather than constructive and started to frog a sweater in Rowan's All Season Cotton that I am not wearing because it looks like a sack. I managed one sleeve there, then needed to cast on another sock to numb the pain of taking out all my carefully hidden yarn ends and unraveling all those seams.

By now I have both sleeves ribbed and the body pieces seperated. So the unknitting can continue.

Reading rather than crafting

This days the pendulum has swung back to reading and I am using my commute to finally read some of my Mt. TBR books. I am currently making my way through Quicksilver and that will keep me busy for a bit longer as it is almost 1000 pages. I have read the first quarter by now. It is interesting and challenging and makes me want to dig out biographies on Newton and Leibnitz to see how historically correct the book is.

Some crafting will get done on Saturday when the Bodenseestricker meet at Eva (lakeside's) place. For more information find us on Strickspiration.

Sockenbilder

Finally I got around to taking some pictures of finished socks. First the choclate socks with the madder ribbing from Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush.








Second the Caffee Lichen socks in caffee latte colorway and lichen patterning from the same book.










The third is the first of my finally started Jacobean Socks for the Sock Knitters Penthalon. Luckily we have until end of April to finish them so there is yet hope for me. I managed to do the magic cast on with DPNs and am knitting my second ever toe up socks.





These are slip stitch socks that remind me of Turkey for some reason.

Great Nature Photo

I found this wonderful photo with a bird and a bee on a czech blog:

Bird

What is in a name challenge

A pity I missed this challenge, it sounds like a lot of fun!

Back to the get fit part

I am back to the last bit on my blog description: trying to get fit. This week I was twice in the fitness studio, so at long last I am getting back to this. Now I have to keep up with it. Not always easy when I know MyGuy is home.

Spring Knitty

The new spring knitty is out and I have already one pattern that I will have to knit: Yosemite.

Caffee Lichen

Yesterday during the AS Roma vs Real Madrid game I was able to finish my Lichen Ribbing socks in Caffee Latte, Caffee Lichen. MyGuy said they were good looking, but we didn't take pics yet. I am pleases with them and with the fact, that they are off the needles as this means I can start the Sock Knitters Pentalon with the lovely Jacobean socks. Just need to decide if they should be Löwenzahn bei Wollmeise or Regia Silk in black...

Carolina Crossroads Center

And here we finally have a picture of my quilt center. It is currently about 156 cm square and was a bit of a challenge to take a photo of it. Luckily MyGuy rose to the occasion and took this one while standing on a chair. Now I have to get started on the border...

Sock Production

These are Nancy Bush's Madder Ribbing Socks with Hazelknits choclatier colorway (lovely yarn, found at etsy). This is knit for the Nancy Bush Vintage Socks group. Fun and easy.

Another Nancy Bush pattern: Canal Du Midi. This one is a lot more fiddly, done in Meilenweit Cotton Stretch, I think it will make great summer socks.

These are the socks I knit for a dear collegue who was leaving the company, now she is staying. What to do? I will likely give them to her anyway, as they do not fit anyone in this household. Done in Regia.
These are MyGuy's Country Socks, yet another Nancy Bush pattern, knit to use up the Wollmeise Zenzi I had. They look good with a little brown added.

And finally I have cast on for a pair of Lichen Ribbing Socks with Caffe Latte yarn as my next mindless project.

No Photos - sorry

While the center of my Carolina Crossroads has been sewn together for quite some time there is no photo as I can not find the card reader for the digicam. Grrr. I finally faced the fact that I will need to press the center before I can continue with the borders. I got wildly different measurements yesterday and think I might make things easier by pressing first. At least I have finally decided what I want to do. I will add a small pink (dark) border and then add two rows of railpatches in green and yellos (accent and light). I was thinking about only green borders, but felt that that would look to massive compared to the center. I will bind with pink, too, and think I might make corner stars.

I finished the socks for my collegue who has now decided to stay, yeah! So I have socks that will not fit anyone in my house, hmm, might just give them to her anyway.

I finished a pair of blue socks for MyGuy on Wednesday, too, they were one of the Stanfield patterns in Sensational Socks.

Yesterday I cast on for the second of the Country socks for MyGuy using some solid brown for heel, ribbing and toe and Wollmeise Zenzi leftover from earlier socks for the main part. This is the first time I did calf shaping, I am curious how that will fit.

So lots of projects, no photos. I plan on making Canal di Midi socks for myself next and have cast on for a pair of Madder Rib Socks in Choclatier yesterday. This is my first time using HazelKnits yarns, it seems a bit thicker than the normal yarn.

Step 5 done

As I was taking picures anyway I decided to add some of my step 4 halftriangles.

These are most of my step 5 hourglasses. Why only most? Because I could not resist trying at least one of the blocks in step 6. I was afraid the green hour glasses would not show up as star points, but I think they look okay. I am thinking of making another one with black red and yellow, we willl see. That culd finally be my patriotic quilt.

Step 3 and 4 finished

Well, is't it amazing what 2 sick days can do for you? I finished step 3 (pictured) and step 4 f the Carolina Crossrads mystery. Step 4 was a measly 40 units and deemed not photoworthy as there were too few stacks (excuse me, 40 blocks? This mystery is certainly changing the way I count blocks.). By the way is it me or are we missing counterparts for those? I have also started step 5 and almost boobood that one as I was getting ready to cut dark and light triangles rather than the needed accent and light ones, pooh, just caught that one in time. So back to green and yellow. I have all the unit cut and started on the sewing, but am not yet even done with joining the triangles. But almost caught up now!

Fillyjonk's Horsecrab Socks

I think I never showed my finished Horsecrab Socks, so I will do so now as I am wearing them today. Lovely pattern and fun to knit.

Spring Tree

This is my current project at home: cross stitching a Japanese Spring Tree. As it is a lot of confetti stitching with evenweave I need to count carefully. But at least with the addition of the trunk and a bit of grass it now looks like a tree. Hopefully when spring comes around I will have this finished.

Process on Carolina Crossroads

These are the step 1 and 2 units from the Carolina Crossroads. MyGuy says this makes him wuzzy, just looking at it. I guess I will need to get a photographer...

Christmas Socks

MIL socks: Go with the Flow in Wollmeise.


FIL socks:Spey Valley in Regia

MyGuy Socks: pattern from Sensational Socks in Wollmeise.

Guten Rutsch!

If I can not finally get our internet to work I want at least to wish all of you a happy new year! See you in 2008!

Carolina Crossroads - Step 1 done

I finished the railway blocks over christmas, they look very nice. No pictures yet as internet at home is still giving me the fits. I have sewn my strips together for step 2 and cut 200 bits off, another 100 and I can sew nine patches. I love using up the uglies in my stash. (Of course I also went and bought more fabric...)

Mystery Quilt - Carolina Crossroads

I have just joined the Carolina Crossroads Mystery from Quiltville. I have yesterday hunted down my fabrics and started cutting and sewing the Railroad Blocks for the first step. I will need to get more pink for the dark pieces, but had much more yellow than I thought. This might end up looking slightly different colorwise than I thought, but I am going with it as it looks to use up some "ugly" fabric.

Knitting meeting in Konstanz

Hi,

anyone near Konstanz wanting to join us, we plan on being at the MC Cafe (McDonald's) on the 10th of December from around 5 pm.

Karin

Socks and Sweaters

I finished my Embossed Leaves socks (and I really need to take some pictures) and have worn them. I am not in love with how the star toe feels, even if it does look rather nice. I had to frog the Spey Valleys because I left out a line of instructions that equals 12 rows of knitting. Sigh! But I am back and running and they are now going to be a christmas gift for MyGuy's father. I got some wonderful Wollmeise yarn for his mother's socks and now just need to decide between Mock wave cable, go with the flow and waving lace in Favorite Socks. Fun!

The sweater yarn I bought is really nice, but the sweater I want to make will be done in the new yarn I bought in a blueish purplish color. Interweave Fall 07 has this simple sweater with 3 cables at the front that I want to make. Not so sure about the neck, it seems huge. Might have to fiddle with those numbers a bit.

Socks Finished - still no pictures

I managed to finish MyGuy's socks in time for his birthday, puh, that was tight. Finished sewing in the yarn ends Tuesday evening, with his birthday on Wednesday.

I have also finished the Horsecrab Lace socks from Fillyonk's pattern, they look lovely. I have turned the heel of my embossed leaves second sock and of course I have cast on another pair of socks: Spey Valley in grey yarn, again form MyGuy. I have also cast on a scarf and after knitting with 2-2,5 mm needles sizes 6mm is gigantic. It took me a bit getting used to those "pencils" for knitting needles and the yarn is chenille and not easy to move.

Now I have a really hankering for knitting a sweater. And as my yarn is all stashed away, I will "have" to buy more yarn. Poor me...