Just a bit of my vacation

A view of a damed lake in the Black Forest where we went with MyGuy's parents.












A view from Col du Chat in Savoyen where MyGuy spent a fun time taking pictures of mountains including Mont Blanc.













And a couple of grapes photographed near our favorite weekend retreat, Bad Bellingen.

FO

This is my finished tree, the first of my UFOs for the Cross Stitching Fingers. I turned out great and MyGuy kept insisting on me showing it to people. Actually I am pleased with it, but wonder what sort of frame would look good with it...

Saturday was Knitday

Bettina is showing of the photo from the bridal stole she knit for a dear friend. Stole and bride were beautiful!




This is Bettina's new WIP, a mystery shawl. Her jewels for this meeting were the blue beads in it.


Anouschka is studying Esther's Water socks that looked great.


Inspired by Esther's socks Betty decided to try something new and casts on Italian, Anouschka is assisting by keeping the yarn taut.




And here we have our gracious hostess, Esther. We did enjoy
visiting her in Switzerland! Esther, we will be back!

I got my knitting mojo back, at least a bit and am now ready to turn the heel on the melon colored Doedelsock I had going on Saturday.

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.