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?