Miss Surfin' Sophia

Since my coffee-bag-bag died last winter (it just got ripped along the seams, the metallic bags were just too thin to stand the wear and tear) I'm using my O2-bag for carrying around my knitting, when it is too big for my Alma or any of my other smaller bags.

The O2 bag is kind of practial, beeing waterproof and so on but to be honest: it's not cool. This is the reason, why the idea of sewing me a knitting bag was born.
I'm totally in love with madhatters till you drop and Sushis weekender but for dragging around into public transportation, it just seemed to be too big, so I settled for the Sophia-Carry-All.

The fabric you already saw in my last musings (the one, Greebo is sitting on) is from Kris aka bockstark knits, my secret pal 10 or 11 pal.

Cutting out fabric, lining and interfacing and fusing on multiple layers of interfacing to the fabric & the lining took me full 2 long episodes of Lime & Violet. So make that around 3 hrs...
There are A LOT of pieces to cut and fuse: see for yourself


While cutting I made the first alteration, after having read a couple of really good blogposts and reviews on this pattern. I did lengthen the straps. Unintended was the next modification. Instead of using the interfacing to interface the straps, I used the fusible fleece I bought. Now I have some very cushiony handles. Works well for me :)



Since buying the new car I'm kind of on a budget to get some more money into my savings account to have something for unexpected needs (like having the sink repaired in the kitchen as we had to last week. The new appliances costed 160 Euro plus work: OUCH). Therefore I'll try to make do and use the stuff I have. The only things I bought for Miss Surfin' Sophia are the interfacing (Schabrakeneinlage by Freudenberg) and the fusible interfacing (H640 also by Freudenberg). The rest has to come from my stash of things. I happen to still have TimTex in my stash and I'm really happy to use some of it at last.

So here's the outer shell of bag:


Doesn't the fabric look like something you would find in a store selling cool stuff for surfers? (Or am I just getting old and think, that the fabric is cool?)

I really wanted to have purse feet but at 4 p.m. on a saturday afternoon and my resolution to use stash of things prevented me from rushing out and buy stuff. So, what to do? See that pile of buttons in front of the bag?

Here's a close up:



Sew them together et voilá: instant purse feet



I stole this idea from Cidell. I hope she does not mind.

Sewing them on to the bottom and the outer shell is done.


And this is my status quo. I hope to get some sewing done tomorrow too to get the lining started.

cool things

First: Thank you all for your kind words re. our family. I met my sister last weekend and that was great. We watched the Eurovision song contest and drank a lot of vodka. IF only the scientists would believe me, if I tell them that there must be a kind of idiosyncrasy for cancer in general in our family...

Buuut there's some cool stuff happening around here! I had planned to post about that last week but had to postpone that.

First, the coooooolest thing EVAR


That's the dedication-part of this great book:



Written by my friend Annika. She's really talented and the book is great. It makes me want to start Macramé and I grew up in the 70s and 80s and have not so fond memories of owls and fruit baskets but forget all you know about the theme and have a look at the awesome things Annika makes!

And of course I had to cry when Annika send me a picture of the dedications. I'm so touched!

The best birthday gift from the best husband arrived last week. Can you guess what it is?

Any ideas?

o.k. next hint:



Now? No?

O.k. now you got it right? Yes, it's a very cool new ballwinder.
It's a total sturdy piece of handywork, handmade from a small vendor here in Germany. Pricey yes, but totally worth it. The producer is Wollwolff

The yarn I wound for the picture is the yarn, I got at the fleamarket. Handdyed by yours truly of course and I'm thinking of making a vest pour moi.



Last thing: a teaser. This is a gift I'm knitting at the moment :) not telling more...
Parting shot (thus the last picture isn't really "the last")

Greebo with the fabric for my latest project: the Sophia Carry-All bag by Amy Butler. I finished interfacing all the pieces and hope to remember to take pictures on the way, this is the first

on cancer

As many of you know, I'm a breastcancer survivor. I had my latest check up at the beginning of May and all was fine.

Now I got the news, that one of my uncles is diagnosed with prancreatic cancer in final stage. It's just a matter of weeks or months, the cancer has already spread.

My other uncle died 5.5 yrs ago on the day of my first chemo due to gullet cancer.

My grandmother died when my mum was a small child due to cervial cancer and her sister died (although at an old age) of breast cancer.

This means that nearly everybody in my mums family has had cancer of some sort and now, dear doctors, how can you tell me, that these cases are not related? I've been tested negative for the breast cancer genes and I'm very gratefull for that but I'm pretty sure, that in a couple of years the medicine will find a way to proof, that some families are more prone to cancer than others.

I'm going to visit my uncle on sunday. We are not close but he has no family of his own execpt for my mum and her family. It's going to be hard. My Dad is going to visit him tomorrow and be around when he'll get the diagnosis. I'm gratefull that it's not me, who has to share these news.

I know, I sound like a broken record but go to get yourself checked on a regular basis. Most kinds of cancers are curable, when early discovered.
If you are female: do your own checks by doing self examinations once a month and see your ob-gyn once a year!
if you are male: go to see a urologist to get checked

See a dermatologist at least every other year for skin cancer screening.

Be sure, it's a lot of money for those without health insurance but let me tell you, chemo is not nice either and dieing young(ish) isn't either.

*gettingdownfrommysoapbox*

All those small things

Hi there,

thank you all for your nice comment on the elven dress. I really like it too but I still which the sleeves weren't so snug. After sewing the dress, I wanted to sew something really mindless and still did not feel like sewing blocks for the quilt or doing some of the repair work, that is piling (pileling? pilieng? please enlighten me you masters of the English language) up here. Plus I wanted to use some stash fabric. I'm going pretty well with not buying fabric but I think, that is because I'm buying yarn... geesh, need to knit up more of that stash. (I even joined a KAL on ravelry but I'm still buying. To my defence I also gave away some yarn....)

So, here's the result: a new needle case



15 circular needles fit in there:


I'm using this for all my smaller needle sizes and the other I made a while ago for the sizes 4mm and up. I'm pretty embarrassed to say: I still have some circular needles in the case I'm using for my dpn...

After finishing my leyburn socks, I wanted to use up the remaining yarn and here's the result:



Pattern Express lane by Diane Mulholland
yarn: handdyed yarn from Tausendschön, Sivilla by wetterhoff

As you can see, I just had enough yarn for sneakers but I'm still happy with the socks and will knit the pattern again, thus in full length. The pattern is fairly easy and toe-up, so it is great for knitting two socks at a time, which I did.

Next I finished the first sock of a pair I'm knitting for Nimila



Pattern:Milkmaid's Stockings by Cat Bordhi from her "New pathways for sockknitters)

Also a toe-up sock, but this one as 5 freaking charts. It's not blocked yet and looks pretty weird on my sockblocker but it will be awesome on the foot.

Nimila is sewing blocks for the quilt of doom for me and I'm knitting socks for her. Nice deal huh? I made good progress during my recent weekend in DK but now I have to see how fast I will progress since I'll be casting on for a secret project today.

A not so small thing, that is on my needles it Aliénor, that I'm testknitting for Alala, meet Aliénor

Again: not blocked and kind of lumpy looking without me beeing in it, but I'm not really well today and look horrible!



Parting shot(s):

Two new books in my library (both b.day gifts from friends)



and last: Greebo wanting to help sorting the needles into their new home

A weekend full of treasures

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

we are broadcasting directly from Schleswig-Holstein, Germany just to present you the latest addition to tini's ever growing stash of things ;)

O.k. of course it is just me but I'm just back from a great weekend full of knitting, sunshine, laughing and treasurehunting uhm I mean going to a fleamarket in Denmark with Maria.

So DH and I went to Denmark (we can cross the border in an hour...) over Mayday to see Maria, her husband and her son (as well as the two lovely somali cats) and after knitting thru all of Friday (Heiko read a lot ;) ) I wanted to DO something on saturday, so I suggested we would go to a fleamarket. Heiko and I are really fond of fleamarket. We thought of going to Copenhagen but Maria found an add for a scouts fleamarket just 2 villages away and off we went. Maria was a bit sceptical since she did not have the fondes memories of fleamarkets but I really wanted to go.

We arrived there 8 minutes after it opened (really convenient that that was 10.30 am and not 4 a.m. or so) and went thru the "furniture" department. Since the fleamarket was held by the scouts, the boys and girls had collected all the items from the households and were selling them off by category instead of having to scour thru tons of different stalls/booths finding a multitude of stuff but not what you are looking for.

And there she was. An antique hand crank sewing machine from Singer. Maria asked how much it was and the guy said 75 kr (10 Euro) and asked how much Maria wanted to pay. She said 65 kr and the deal was made. The machine is in mint condition and came with a multitude of feet, see for yourself ( lots of pictures!)





Isn't that just a lovely detail?


And this vintage seam ripper is still sharp and just cool!


As for the feet:
there's a ruffler


the right one is for sewing on bias binding but what is the left one?


more interesting feet:


and some feet for rolled hems:


Any ideas what that might be?


After that I did not need more but of course we rummaged thru the big tent that the scouts had set up for the smaller stuff. Maria got some really cool old bottles and than I found the box with yarn. All tangled. One half done islandic sweater but there weren't any lables on the yarn, so I left that alone BUT then my hands touched something that felt like wool. And lo and behold. 2 balls and 2 skeins of undyed sheep wool. All in all 333 gr:



(I skeined it and washed it. It smells like sheep ;)

Plus an extra ball of yarn, that I thought was the same but it's different. This looks like handspun to me but I'm not a spinner. Any ideas you spinning people?



I forgot to mention, that this yarn plus 3 more skeins, that Maria got where 1.25 Euro...

Great deals and we were so happy