back to life, back to reality

Hi everybody,

I'm back safe and sound and I'm sooo exhausted altough I slept for 13 hrs from yesterday evening  8 p.m. to 9 a.m. today. The cats are also back at home!

We had a great time! We stayed a week at Annikas place and that was awesome and from there we went on a trip along Oregons coast, thru the redwoods to Napa Valley, from there to Yosemite and at the end we spend some time in San Fransico. There we met Wondermike from Y knit. That was great too.

I'll be posting a couple of looooong posts soon ( as soon as the pictures are developed!) about our trip.

But today I'd like to show you my finished (or unfinished) projects from the tour:

First:
Branching out from Knitty.com for Annika
Yarn: A mohair-blend that I got from my mother-in-laws stash (that she found in her closet...)

The pattern was easy and this was a fun knit. Mostly done on board of the plane and while beeing at Annikas place.
(The socks in the pic are the secret shell socks I also knitted for Annika, I stole the picture from her blog....)
I used 2 balls of the yarn (brand or exact content are not known, since the label is missing) and knitted on size 6 knit-picks harmony needles.

Second:

Plain vanilla socks, that I made during our recent trip to the westcoast of the us. This was my "in-the-car-project" for the days that I wasn't driving. I did started the too earlier at the second sock but I'm going to live with that. The yarn is "essentials" from Knitpicks in the peacoc-multi colourway which pooled weirdly. I have nearly 80% left from the second ball, so I'm going to knit 2 socks on 2 circs (toe up) with the remaining yarn some time soon ( destashing! and a cool project for the bus drive once I have to go back to work). The yarn itself is very soft and was a pleasure to work with!




Third:

Nutkin. These are still a WIP:
This is the first sock but I just casted on for the second (no second sock syndrom)
I did not make the fold over cast-on edge since it seemed not to work for me and Betty stated that the hem is the reason for the twisting, if not done properly, so I just made my ususal 1x1 ribbing but I still got a bit of twisting, but Mike (Wondermike...) thinks it will be o.k. after blocking! As you can see in the second picture I also made my usual heel flap and my usual toe instead of the short row heel!
yarn: some sock yarn, that I got from a co-worker... I do like the colours





Not too bad for 3 weeks ;) but I bought a lot of yarn too! So no destashing here, not really....

And no sewing....

closed for vacation

just a couple of hours before I leave for my 3 weeks vacation in the US :)

We will be in Seattle, Ferndale CA, Klamath, Florence OR, Napa Valley, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and San Francisco. If you are in that area and want to have a coffee, please get in contact.

I'm sooo happy to see Annika again :) AND I checked: I can bring my knitting needles with me onto the plane, so I will have tons of time to knit and that is good so, since there will be a lot of yarn waiting for me at Annikas home ( I hope...)

I finished the Tomten jacket in time!! wooohooo! and it is already packed and I did not take a picture :( but I guess Annika has a digital camera.

I did not get any sewing done the last few days, so I can not write about any progress here... sorry, there will be more sewing in the future! I promise! I need to pack my viva-scandinavia dress though...

I'll be back at the end of may!

Take care of yourself!

Before I go on vacation...

Hi friends,

I’m totally sorry, that I haven’t been writing in a while but Heiko and I are busily preparing our trip to the states We are leaving on Sunday and we’ll be visiting Annika for about a week! I’m so happy to see her again. And then we’ll be travelling for 2 more weeks!

The Tomten-jacket for Rhiannon is nearly done! Just ½ of the buttonband is missing and grafting together the hood. And since that was the only project on my needles I HAD to start 2 new (just for the flight… I checked with SAS and they do allow knitting needles on board).

So on my needles are:

Branching out in a grey mystery mohairy yarn, that my MIL found in one of her cupboards. I have 2,5 skeins and the half skein is already nearly gone and I’m just 4 repeats into the scarf. I have a hard time counting this one although it is an easy lace pattern. I guess it’s due to the fuzzyness of the yarn and due to the fact that the number of stitches changes nearly every single row.

Nutkin: I translated the pattern for Knitzi, so I need to try it out. The yarn is some sock yarn that a colleague of mine destashed to me, since she decided that sock knitting is not for her There are several threads over on ravelry stating that the socks are twisting like mad. Betty herself has made some suggestions over on flickr how to prevent the twisting. I’m just at the top 5 cuff rows and haven’t attached the cast on row to the live stitches yet, so I can’t comment on the twisting part!

I really have to get some knitting done, since there are quiet a few skeins of yarn coming to Annikas house for me. First Heiko gave his o.k. for “Durrow” a pattern once published on Magknits. Jodie, the designer was so kind to send me the pattern via Email as Magknits has closed it’s doors. And I got Stephanie Japels “Fitted Knits” for my birthday and want to knit the textured tunic. I ordered yarn from Elann for both pullovers.

Next Deepika wrote me, that she’ll be going to Webbs and if I need something! Sure! So now there’s also yarn for 3 booga bags (Noro as well as Plymouth which was on sale and did just cost half of what the Noro is costing).

When we’ll be in San Francisco I’ll be meeting up with Wondermike from y-knit. I won some Ravelry-things over at the y-knit podcast, so we decided to exchange stuff in SF Miss B (btw. happy b-day! ) brought some Wollmeise Laceweight at the Sauerlach market for me and I’ll be doing an exchange with Mike in SF AND we are meeting at Imagiknits, I guess I might be doomed (depending on what I’m going to buy during our trip thru Oregon and Northern California)…

I promised you an overlook over my yarny birthday gifts, so here they are:

Fitted knits from Stephanie Japel (from my husband…. I guess it’s love if your husband totally supports your habits )


A Gathering of Lace (from my parents in law)



The yarnlovers book on handdyeing (from my Granny-in-law)

Ralph Rucci book (from Kerstin, Saskia, Karin & Birka)

Knitting rules (from madhatter)

Dominitrix (From Darcy-Kerstin)


The books are all awesome, the dyeingbook does not give so many in-depth-informations as I hoped though. Most of the stuff I already knew… *sigh*

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR CARE!

My sister makes me a label for the “Ostseegarn” shop, so these will look a tad more professional once I’ll be back to dyeing but that will have to wait until after the vacation!

Sewingwise there’s not much to tell. I’m working on a very time consuming gift and the recipient is reading there so no pictures or hints!

april = finishing

O.k. it's just the 13th of april but this week was soooo productive for me (despite having b-day guests on tuesday, yesterday and today. More on my fibre-related gifts in a post to come)! btw. thank you for all the Happy Birthday wishes via Email, Hobbyschneiderin or Ravelry!

Last week on friday the cold I had for some days got worse and I felt just sick, so we cancelled all of our appointments for the weekend and I got to knit on my friday harbor socks!
I'm a member of the GO-WIP-GO group over at ravelry now and this keeps me focused ( not that I'm drowning in WIPs and UFOs anyway but still... the friday harbor were on hibernation for quiet some time now!)

I went to see my doctor on monday and was told to stay home from work until thursday, so lost of knitting/ sewing time!

The friday harbor were finished yesterday evening and since I had good light and a foot model here today, I'm able to show you some pictures!




Pattern: Friday Harbor from "Knitting on the road" by Nancy Bush
Yarn: "Sonniger Oktober" by Ewas Sockenwolle, 59gramm
Size: fits my size 40 feet :)
Modifikations: I just knitted 2 pattern repeats for the leg and I made a different toe since I hadn't read the instructions properly...
*cough*



The yarn was given to me by Sobrina, my SP11 pal from Finnland. It is a yarn that is just 4 singles together without any twist, thus it was pretty hard for me to use, I did catch all of the strands most of the time but one of the singles did not pull out of the ball at the same rate as the others, so I had always some red yarn dangling around.

I haven't made this experience with the untwisted yarn on cones but I have this happen to me every time the yarn is wound into a ball.

Me, I think, I won't buy this yarn for myself again. I like the way it looks but it's just nerverwracking for me.


The other finished project is the Onion 1016 anorak I made for my sister:

Pattern: Anorak 1016 by Onion (Danish)
Size: 42 with a small fba. My sisters upper bust measurement was just 1 cm smaller than the size 42 but her full bust measurement would have been 10 cm more but I just made a 2 cm fba since I knew that the anorak was kind of roomy and I didn't want it to be too boxy. Without the fba and based on the full bust measurement I would have gone up to a size 46 or bigger!
Fabric: Bulky wool knit with a slightly felted look I got when a fabric store closed 2 yrs ago. ( so that was core stash). The colour would have been awefull on me but my sister looks good in it. Since my sister is sensible to wool I lined the hood and the cuffs with a dark green poly velvet, that Karin gave me on last years European PR weekend (from her stash to mine..) The velvet is now all used up but I still have around a meter from the bulky knit. (more on that see below)

For the German amongst you a note on the second picture:

"Deine Handtasche muss leben, Baby"

The little guy on the picture is my newphew Lukas.

I have remnants of both yarn and fabric and I'll be happy to send it to you if you like!
(Stuff for free!!!)

There are 50g of the sock yarn left. That should be o.k. for kids socks since I used just 59gr for my adult sized socks. It is wool/cotton and mashine washable.

There are 82 cm (plus another 80 but not the complete width but suitable for say kids sleeves) of the bulky fabric.

I'll be in the US at the end of the month and will have to ship the yarn that I just ordered at Elann.com so a trip to the post office is still planned :) so if you are in the US, don't hesitate!

If you want any of the stuff just leave a comment, send me an email to tini(dot)schrott(at)freenet(dot)de or pm me via ravelry or the hobbyschneiderin!

Greebo likes my crafts...

I just wanted to take some pictures of my newly finished needle case ala madhatter that I made for some of my needles but somehow Greebo needed to try the needlecase himself:



Even relocating did not keep him from testing...



ooohhh how many needles are in there??



At least closed is the needle case is not so interesting....



Maybe taking pictures of my finished or unfinished socks will be better:


nope... maybe it is my new pedicure? Let's try a pair of finished socks:

How to book a hotel :)

Hi there,

I nearly finished the needle case I started last week for *some* of my knitting needles. Somehow there are always too many plans for a too short amount of time PLUS since I picked up knitting again, that somehow slips into the time slots for sewing because it is more compatible with DH, tv or audiobooks  (plus commuting time ;) )
Anyhow I did nearly finish the needle case yesterday. I just need to get some ribbon for the closure and add a little handstitching then it will be done and the fabric for my next project is already drying after beeing pre-washed today.

I'll be making onion 1016 for my sister



Picture of Onion 1016 from www.shoponion.com where I get my onion patterns. Maria has English instructions for a lot of patterns!

Advantage is, that I'll be using some of the bulky knit fabric that I have in my stash. It is beige-burned orange heathered. I look horrible in that kind of colour :) For my sister, who's an autumn, it will be great.

Progess has also been made on my friday habor socks (ravelry link!) (already turned the heel)  and on my tomten jacket from last post. The socks had been in hibernation for a while now (after I forgot my knitting at my sisters place I somehow lost interest) but it was the only project I took with me to my sisters place AGAIN to spend the weekend there.

But what I wanted to tell you this time was my attempt on booking a B'nB in San Francisco for the time in May when we will be around.

First try: Golden Gate hotel. I had a really nice chat with the owner John via phone. Funnily his wife is German and from Kiel ;) they have cats and the wife is said to be a knitter (plus they were just around the corner from imagiknits in SF) I booked for 5 nights ( which btw would have been a mistake since we are leaving on the 17th not the 18th...)
Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding and there weren't any rooms available as John wrote me yesterday evening.

Second try: At 10 p.m. I called another BnB the ca. 1870 Inn or so. Completely booked out and as the owner told me: there's a convention in SF at the time *eek*

Third try: Inn on Castro. In the middle of the gay-district. Great reviews on tripadvisor and Heiko and I don't mind to stay in a gay BnB.  They had rooms available. YAY!
David (apparently someone who works there ) was so nice at the telephone. O.k. it was early afternoon for him.

10.30 p.m. Somehow I'm a dumbhead and mixed up the numbers of my visa-card. David was so nice and called me back. So we fixed that.

10.50 p.m Another call. my visa card was denied *eek*. Gave David my master card number.
(I checked with my bank today. They should have gotten the security code too...)

midnight: I was nearly asleep at this time since I get up at 5.30 a.m. David called again. This time his email to me bounced back. Gave him another adress ( it is handy to have a couple ;) )

today:
figured out that I booked one night too much and wrote an email to David. I just hope he does not think that I'm a customer from hell.

I'm just happy that we now have a great BnB in SF :) I offered them to bring some sweets from Germany. I did not dare to ask if I should bring gummibears though ;)

Progress and Plans

Hi everyone,

I hope that those amongst you, who celebrate Easter had a nice holiday (including time for our hobbies!).

Thank you for your nice comments on my plunging neckline ;) Heiko likes the shirt ;) and actually it is nice to wear. I have worn it under cardigans and pullovers though since it is just above 0° here.

Heiko and I went to see Maria in Denmark and since that is 3.5 hrs each direction I had a fair amount of knitting time, since I prefer not to drive when there's snow and it snowed quiet a bit here in the last couple of days.

So my Secret Shell meets Pomatomus sock is coming along quiet well and the first sock is finished. Unfortunately I dropped it into a little pond of melted snow in the car and so I had to wash the sock. The second sock is coming along well too. I just picked up the gusset stitches after turning the heel, so I might actually finish them this month since they are the sock of the month over at
the hobbyschneiderin.

Next months pattern will be Clessidra. I think I might not knit that one. I'm not sure if I want to knit knee-high socks right now and then there is my friday harbor sock that is just 10% done, so a little knitting on those in april will be good. My mantra is "no ufos no ufos no ufos" and I just can't manage more than 2 projects at a time.

Which leads me to my other project, that made good progress on the drive and while beeing at Maria's place. My tomten-jacket by Elisabeth Zimmerman! I'm ready to start the hood next!



But since I'll be in the US next month ( o.k. mostly in may ) I'll think about ordering yarn to Annikas place from Elann for a project for Heiko. We both like Durrow from MagKnits! I thought about the peruvian wool-alpaca blend from Elann. Do you think that this will be too warm?

And I'm thinking about making another lace shawl. If I ever finish the friday harbor socks I'll be making one of my cookie a. pattern next. I have 22 hrs flight-time ahead of me :)

Sewingwise: next on the list is my knitting-needle case that I wanted to make for sooo long now. The fabric is washed and ironed. Next step: cutting and applying the interfacing. Should be an easy project ( but as we all know I tend to ähm loose interest in them as easily :) )

I got some Onion pattern from Maria, so next on my list will be a cozy and hopefully easy cardigan out of some bulky-knit fabric that I have in my stash.

Garnprinzessin wants to see more stash-acquisitions but I have to disappoint you, at the moment I'm on a strict diet. No fabric and yarn until my trip to the US. I could show you my stash though :)

O.k. back to the laundry, than dinner and than cutting that knitting needle case fabric