2007

Before I head to the End-of-the-year Party, a quick run-down what happened to me in 2007 - not chronologically, but what I can remember:

• got my big love back - and lost him again after a couple of blissful months
• went to a great vacation on Rhodos wiht my sister
• didn't go to the Oktoberfest
• spent a lot (and I mean a lot) of time at various beergardens in Munich
• fell in love and was let down (remember cute guy?)
• had some great parties at my flat
• used up 10 pens of red ink to grade school papers
• knitted, knitted, knitted
• started this blog
• started to go to the local S'n'B and met a bunch of great people there
• went a last time to "my" disco (which closes today after 10 great years - I will miss you K41!)
• was said to be pregnant two times (not true!!!)
• got my new sofa (love it, love it, love it)
• spent great times with my friensd (D, B, U, F, T - what would I do without you)
• went to the "Wir sind Helden" concert

All in all, a great year - hope 2008 will be as great! See ya then!

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap

Before Christmas i got this truely amazing package from Lacey - she definitely is the best!!! Thank you sooo much!

Packed:



Unpacked:

Seasons Greetings and a contest and an update!

I wish all of you Merry Christmas!!!!
A quick update on the knitting: I made myself as a Christmas present - the Mystery Stole #3. I only have 20 rows to go on the wing then I am finished which will probably be tomorrow. And the person who first guesses the day when I started this project will win 100gr of Regia Silk in your fav colour!

Update on Christmas Eve: I am done and blocked!!!

Insensitive and rude

yep, that's me. Funnily, I never thought I would be called that. If you want to follow the discussion, go here.

Good news: I nearly finished the blue white pullover.

Bad news: I have developed a sort of ear-ache tinnitus thing over the past weeks.
So I will take things slowly and probably not blog anymore this year.

Slow work

Compared to my usual speed of knitting, I have slowed down very much over the last two weeks. It seems like there is no progress. I started this simple turtleneck a couple of weeks ago but I am stuck on the front. The yarn is also courtesy of Amelie and it is a kind of "Bändchengarn" (I don't know the English expression for this) - I hoep it will not stretch too much. The colourway will work nice with a pair of jeans. I use 6mm needles and still it feels like it doesn't grow one bit. I think I need the holidays desperately - I have only energy for the most basic work to get through the day. Only one week to go!

Happy Birthday to me

It was my 29th birthday on Saturday and I got these lovely roses from my parents (I edited this photo myself and am proud of my ever growing skills). Thank you for all the well wishes I received on that day!! my new age didn't start well as I have a cold - again - and my nose is so clogged that I can't sleep :-(

My soul

What color is your soul painted? Red Your soul is painted the color red, which embodies the characteristics of love, strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, excitement, speed, leadership, power, danger, and respect. Red is the color of the element Fire, and is associated with blood, life and death, birth, volcanoes, and intense emotions. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

New Beginnings

First of all, a plain stockinette sock in Regia Nordic Color:



Secondly, a Ganny Square Afghan consisting og one huge Granny Square:



Have to be optimistic, forward looking and have to let go of the past.

Pink Saturday

I don't know what's wrong with me. I am tired, tired, tired. And what's worse, I look it. At the moment I'm grading papers and I feel like my eyes will close any second, even though I slept 11 hours last night. Furthermore, my mood isn't the best. The time before my birthday is always rough - especially when I am unattached as just now. As Bully said in "Der Schuh des Manitu": "Ich bin mit der Gesamtsituation nicht zufrieden". And I am not in the mood for knitting (not in the mood for anything than hanging about actually). Anyways, I got my self to blocking the Hanami Stole and it turned out pretty well I think. The basket side:


And the blossom side:



A week ago I finished the cardigan with the yarn from Amelie's loot I got for free :-). I used Cosmicpluto's pattern. This is a kind of self-striping boucle yarn that came on a cone. I call this my comfort cardigan as it is soft and roomy and cosy - like a hug.

Winter wonderland coffee swap topic of the week

What is the ideal setting for enjoying the perfect cup of coffee? Who would be there - or would you be alone? Inside or out? Morning or night? With food or just the steaming cup of joe?

The perfect setting for a cup of coffee is an early Saturday morning in November. Misty and cold. I sit on my sofa look out of the window, listen to an audio book, drink the first cup of coffee of the day and knit. This is the most relaxing and most peaceful time of my week. Time to forget work and expect a nice and unstressfulo weekend.

On my free day....

...before I sat down at my desk and graded papers, I finished my pink tomato. I am sorry for the picture but it seems I am unable to take a sharp photo with just one hand. I used my fav yarn for it that I got from my secret pal (huge thanks again!). I think the colour suits me quite well. The pattern is straightforward as always and posed no problem.



Two days ago I did some Kool-Aid dyeing again. This time I used beige sock yarn (the one I also used for the mittens) and as a result the colours got more muted. The effect is really nice i think:




Why don't I get photos like that when I take pictures of myself- it is a mystery!

100th post and gifts

This is my 100th blogpost. I can't belive that I have written so much already!!! No knitting content this time, just some crafting. These are all gifts that I made for my Mum whose birthday it was last Monday. First of all I made this using the napkin technique:



Then I made her the sleeping mask from Amy Butler's "In stitches" that I got from my secret pal. I also used original Amy Butler fabric. It was my first attempt at quilting and I think it turned out ok. This is the front:



This is the back and the bag that I "designed" (too grand a word) to go with it:



Just a short one as I have to head back to school this afternoon. More knitting coming up soon!

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap Topic of the week

The Thursday upcoming is Thanksgiving in the U.S., so let's all - American and not alike! - just share a post with what it is we're thankful for. A wonderful thing to do any time of year, I thought it'd be a nice thing to share for this week with the group!

I am thankful for a lot of things in my life:

• my family who support me in everything I do and drive me everywhere!!
• my best friends (Tanja, Birgit, Ulf) whom I can call with any need at any time of the day and who listen to me patiently for hours
• my American sweetheart who changed my life a great deal and who made me into the person I am today (even though he is - again and alas - absent from my life at the moment)
• my stitch'n'bitch group for sharing a beautiful hobby
• Mr D who likes to eat the christmas cookie from last year and who pays me the most beautiful compliments at the right moment when I need them
• the internet that enables me to be in contact with the most amazing people all over the world

eye candy

I love this and am going to make tons more!!!


I got my last SP 11 package - again it is amazing!!! I want to get to my sewing machine asap!

WIPs

It seems like I'm too stupid to count until 28. I missed 8 rows on the second mitten by Bente B.



Anyhow, I am very pleased how the first one turned out! It fits perfectly. Well, the second one just has to be frogged for a couple of rows. I used plain sock yarn from Butinette and 2.5 mm needles for this project.



Obviously, I am into smocking right know!



And this is what I finished this weekend. A plain stockinette sock in Butinette "Toskana grün". I am not up to big and exciting projects at the moment, as I have a lot to do at school and this week was as crazy as the week before the holidays. I hope for a quieter next week.

back to work

First day of school after one week off - and I had a new pullover to show off. Everyone assked me if I made it myself, and I was proud to say "yes". This one is from this pattern and I used ggh Bel Air for it. I think it fits me better than the model :-)

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap topic of the week

When did you first start drinking coffee? What age were you? Was it about the caffeine, or do you love the taste and smell? Tell us how your passion began!

I started to drink coffee at my first job. From the age of about 16 I worked as a temp (for 10 years on and off) in an office. I did all the jobs whre they needed help. From the second year on I replaced the personal secretary during her summer vacation. Of course, I had to make coffee as well. And as there were no other free beverages around, I started drinking the stuff and have since that day! I love everything about coffe, the smell, the taste, having a mug in your hand....

An anecdote connected with this:
Every time I went to get some coffee at this office there was only a little bit left at the bottom of the pot. After several times of brewing fresh one I came into the kitchen again - hardly any coffee left. My boss was there as well and I said very angrily as I had alot to do that day and already was on the edge: "Who the hell is too lazy to make fresh coffe and just leaves these drops of excuse in the pot?" My boss said with a grin: "Actually, I do that..." Ooooops. Well, I was 17 and I have to admit my coffee was way better than his!

TGIF

Yesterday night was one of those nights. At 11 pm I go to bed, I read, I eat, I turn of the lights....and I stay awake until 4 am. Sometimes sleep isn't my friend. Usually, when I am alone and worked all day and couldn't talk to my friends on the phone. Thank God it happens less often than it did during my studies. It is not nice. At all. Anyways, I got a lot of things done. I cleaned the flat, I ate and read some more. And I made this tissue holder after this tutorial:



As much as I hate plain stockinette, I started another project which will probably drive me nuts sooner or later. It is this sleevless pullover and I use ggh "Bel Air" for it. The yarn has a really nice texture and it knits pretty fast. The pattern doesn't specify the size so I am not exactly sure how this will fit me. Well, we'll see.



Margaret sent me these key covers in my monkey swap package. Isn't it cute? Today I attached them to my keys - how did you know that I desperately needed something like this?

Monkeys and cardigans

I have finished my cardigan and I am sooo proud! I think it turned out very well. I was afraid that I would run out of yarn before I had finished the second arm but I have half a skein left for a belt. But after taking this picture I think don't I need it. This solution looks much better! What do you think? Now I hope for really cold weather to wear this beauty.



Yesterday I got my "Monkey Sock Swap 3" package from Margaret. She sent the most amazing monkey stuff! You can see the socks in all their beauty on her blog. I already wore them to S'n'B last night. Thank you so much Margaret!!

Books

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise that you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The name of the rose*
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair*
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods*
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha*
Middlesex*
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & demons
The inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and sensibility*
The picture of Dorian Gray*
Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels
Les misérables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time*
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere*
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers

I don't know how to underline but there are a lot of books on my reasding list. I couldn't stand all the books I haven't finished.

Progress

As Holly asked me in my last post, I used again Kool-Aid for the yarn I dyed in pink and blue as a lot of Kool-Aid was so generously bestowed on my in the Fall into Autumn Swap. Some progress on my most recent UFOs (I have "some" more - believe me). I finished one arm on the cardigan yesterday and cast on the second one this morning:



I made some progress as well on the Hanami Stole - I am already deep into the Cherry Blossom Pattern:



Bought some new knitting magazines on the weekend (Verena, Vogue's Knit 1) and there are some nice things in there which I am itching to begin. But I promised myself to at least finish the two projects above, before I start with anything new. I noticed that I get bouts of cast-on-itis when I am stressed. Maybe because iI don't have the nerves and the patience to finish what I have already begun?

Winter Wonderland Coffee Swap

Coffee
What are your favorite kinds of coffee? (Brands, Roasts, anything at all you'd like to share!)
I usually drink Dallmayr Prodomo which is a local Munich brand
Do you prefer whole bean or ground coffee?
Ground
This time of year, there are often Holiday Blends available, and many flavored coffees - do you drink flavored coffee?
Haven't really tried it yet but Kelly sent me some which I will definitely drink!
Do you enjoy special blends?
I don't really know what that is supposed to be
How do you take your coffee? Cream and Sugar? Straight up? Decaf?
Cream and sugar, at school i drink decaf to de-stress me
Do you prefer drinking from a nice thick mug, or a matched cup and saucer?
I prefer large mugs (the larger the better)

Winter and Holidays
What is your favorite part of Winter?
The snow and the festive season
Do you celebrate a holiday in December, and if so, which holiday?
First my birthday then Christmas
If you celebrate Christmas, do you put up a tree?
My parents do and I always spend the holidays there, I don't have one in my own flat (yet?)
Would you enjoy items related to the holiday, or would you prefer a Winter themed package?
I don't really care
Do you collect anything?
Nope
Are there any holiday or winter-themed items (Snowmen, Angels, Snoflakes, Santas, etc) that you collect?
No
Do you wear scarves? Mittens? Hats?
Yes, yes, yes
What is your favorite holiday or winter treat?Please share a favorite Winter or Holiday memory.
Visiting the different christmas markets in Munich and Nuremberg. Drinking mulled wine and eating sweets, walking around and look at all thes tuff

Yarn and Crafting
Do you Knit or Crochet?
Yes, both
For how long?
Can't really say, a looong time
Do you like wooden, metal, or plastic needles\hooks?
It depends on the yarn and on the project
Circular or straight?
see above
What sort of projects do you enjoy making?
Everything that challenges me in one way or another
What are your favorite types of yarn to work with?
Cotton blends
Do you spin or dye?
I do some Koll-Aid dyeing
Do you do other crafts such as scrapbooking or needlepoint or anything else?
Needlepoint and sewing

General
When is your birthday?
8th Dec
Do you have any children? (Furry kind count!)
No
What are your favorite colors?
Pinks and violets
Do you have any allergies?
No

Guten Tag, guten Tag, ich will mein Leben zurück

This week has been insane. Meetings, meetings, horrible students, more meetings etcetc. Thank God I have now one week off to correct mountains of testpapers, yay!

Highlights of this week: my new self-dyed yarn (see below) and the concert of "Wir sind Helden" - I absolutely love this band!!! Every songs fits my life in one way or another. Amazing!

I am busily working on the arms of my cardigan - I want to have it finished asap!

I got spoiled

In the past days, two packages arrived. First from my SP11 with beautiful things in it:


The jewellery has been made especially for me and I have already worn it to school, it is just awesome:



Today I received my mystery theme swap package and Kelly had chosen the theme winter. She send me great stuff, I was really spoiled:



Thank you guys so much. This has been a very hectic week for me so far and tomorrow will even be worse, but you sweetened my days!

Hanami Stole

While waiting for the yarn for the cardigan to be delivered I started on the Hanami stole. I like the design 8as all her other designs as well) very much and I had some left over recycled yarn that is hopefully enough for the project. After frogging the MS 3 two times and thinking of buying another yarn for it, I guess I will finish this stole. I have already finished the basket weave part and am now working on the transitional chart to the cherry blossom pattern.

First snow

Today it snowed here in Munich for the first time this year! Well, it melted before it hit the ground, but the stuff was definitely white. I took this weather as (another excuse) to be lazy and do only yarn-related things. First of all, I dyed some more sock yarn. Both of these skeins will be sent out as part of swap packages. So look out ;-) For the first one I used only one pack of Kool-Aid each in Cherry and Pineapple:





For the second one I used two packs of Dark Cherry and Grape each for more intense colours:





I like the outcome of both and I have to admit I am a bit reluctant to let them go.

I made some progress on my smok-pattern cardi. Alas, I ran out of yarn for the arms (which I immediately ordered online), so I have to wait till my nice postman comes again to my doorstep. So far I really like both the outcome of the pattern and the quality of the yarn (Online Linie 130 Champ) and I am impatient to be finally able to wear it. I was a bit afraid of the collar as you start out with a certain number of stitches from the middle and then add 2 more stitches at the end of each row but it turned out quite nicely I think.


Yesterday night I went out to a party with two couples who are friends of mine and it scared me that I didn't feel like the odd one out (even when we met up with a third couple). Have I finally accepted the role of the old maiden? Is it time to buy a cat and a rocking chair?
Connected with this, there was a rumour at school among my colleagues that I was pregnant. When my boss (!!) asked me if this was true, I could only laugh uncontrollably. I mean, who am I, the Virgin Mary? Haven't seen any angles hovering at my flat recently....

Hats and swaps

This week I finished this hat - it's Gretel by Ysolda. It is a bit complicated with all the cables but I think it fits me quite well. I used Schachenmayer's Trachtenwolle.



Last week I received my "Fall into Autumn" swap package from Ariel. She sent me the most amazing stuff! Thank you so much Ariel!!!!

Holly Rocks!

Not only has she nominated me but also tagged me for a MEME 8 Random Things about me. Here it goes:

1) I can recite the prologue from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" by heart. We did that for fun during a very, very, very boring RE lesson.

2) I only have to see a film once to quote it - and I do it all the time! ("Mini me - stop h***ing the laser!")

3) Although being German I eat American style. I cut the meat beforehand, only use the fork and put my left arm under the table. This drives some German people nuts because they think it is rude.

4) More of my friends are male than female. I don't know what that says about me.

5) I absolutely destest it when people call you and not speak on your voicemail - I always wonder for hours what the wanted from me.

6) For years I have been dreaming constantly about trains, planes and airports.

7) I love to be on the telephone. I spend at least 2 hrs daily on the phone with friends.

8) If I were a boy, my name would be Elmar *urgh*

No more Rudolph

Glad to say my cold is over! No news on the knitting front but trying to lessen my number of UFOs :-)

My name!!!