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.