MOTHER`S WORK

Hello from Winterland! It keeps on snowing here since Easter. All the best to keep inside and sew and/or knit.

The quilt is my mother´s work for a new baby boy she knows of.

My mother added some trapunto to some of the quilting and I think it turned out very fine. (well she is not MY mother for nothing!!)

This week I finished the first pullover for me for a long time. It seems that after some socks and 2 Icarus shawls, the knitting bug came back to me!

The sweater is the "cosy V-neck pullover with deep ribbing" from the book "Fitted Knits" by Stefanie Japel.

I like it very much! It is very warm (which is good as I am always cold) and the yarn (organic sheep wool) is very soft, not at all scrachy. Plus it only cost me 25 Euro! It is knitted from the top-down and I love the fact that it has no seam on the side.

Now I am making the next one from the book. As I said the knitting bug is back!

For those of you who like stitchery and patchwork, Jutta has started a kind of mystery stitchery to download. Please enjoy!

I wish you some nice weather to sew.

SPRING SWAP

My 4SSQ is finished. It is quite lush and bright and now I wonder what I will sew then for summer. (In real it is a true rectangle, my photographic capabilities are still to be improved!)


This week I also knitted some Primavera socks. I had the yarn from my spring suscribtion and it looked much lighter unknitted. I would not say that these are my favorite colour combination but they don´t look that bad with denim.



I started a jumper from the "Fitted Knits" book and so far it fits! More pictures next week.

I wish you all a Happy Easter with a lot of chocolate bunnies and ladybirds (what we have in Germany) or chocolate church bells (what we have in France). I will eat them all as long as it is dark chocolate!

SOME PICTURES

Today, I got up at 5.00 AM to go to work and after that I went to the market I was talking about in the last post. But before I go to bed I wanted to show what I bought and some other pictures.

This is my second Icarus shawl. It is plain wool and so a bit scrachier than the first but I like the colour. I wonder if I will keep it or give it away and knit yet another one for me with space dyed yarn. We will see. It is not as if I didn´t have any other project on the go!

The next picture is of the lottery quilt top in my students quilt group.

Monika N. was the very happy (you should have seen her!) winner of it. I gave her enough fabric to add at least two borders.

Then my students made a lot of bag packs! Sorry the picture is blurred. Too many excited women on one spot, I reckon!

From left to right and from top to bottom: Helga, Lisa (made a tote), Lisl, Waltraud, Inge (could not stop and made 2!), Monika and Jutta.

What I liked with that project is that each made her pack out of different fabrics, there are upholstery, corduroy, silk, denim and curtain fabrics here!

Then what I bought at the market. I didn´t buy any fabric! I tried to but they did not seem to have any repro fabric. It seems they are not so popular in Germany.So instead I got some embroidery floss for my Bea´s BOM project and for some future ones.


I also got some ribbons from my favorite ribbon weave mill and some cute buttons (which were reduced!).Finally I purchased some knitting bamboo needles as I could not find any Knit Picks.

This year the hit was pearls, beads and home made juwelery. They were everywhere. But I don´t need to start a new hobby so I avoided them!

That´s all for today. I won´t stay much longer up. I can hear my bed calling me!




I wish you a nice evening and an inspiring week-end.

THIRD BOM

Bea´s third BOM is finished! I have run out of embroidery floss, but fortunately we have next week our yearly CREATIVA where this kind of floss is sold.

I am thinking of a few other items to put on the list like batting, knitting needles, maybe some yarn and of course 2 or 3 (sic!) fat quarters. I can´t spend so much this year because of the last repair on my sewing machine. Still it is usually fun and I can spend a nice day with a dear friend of mine.

At the beginning of the week I received the name of my partner for my 4SQS for spring. As you can see the center of the top is done. I made it with a charm pack from Moda called "chez moi", very fitting for a french woman like me!

Although I would not have bought bigger pieces of those fabrics (not really my usual colour choice) I see now the potential of the design. I think it has something from "Blended Quilts". Maybe my shopping list for the CREATIVA is growing afterall!

I will frame the center with a fresh green fabric and then hand-quilt it with some variegated embroidery floss.

My second Icarus shawl is growing too. I am on the last 25 rows with more than 400 stitches per row. I hope to finish it this week-end.

I am off now going to look at the blogs taking part in the 4SQS and get an idea of spring! Have a nice time!

TAGGED AND AN AWARD

Lil and Ila tagged me some time ago to tell 7 things about me. I have already listed 7 weird things about me (see the labels) and so I will tell you 7 random things which come to my with-a-bad-flu-fogged mind!

- I don´t like coffee, I only drink tea (any kind), water and fruit juice.
- I don´t like alcohol either, which restricts my choices of beverage (see first point) .
- I walk very fast. A lot of people have problems keeping up with me (even my DH who is bigger than I) .
- I don´t like big full shopping streets. It is not that I don´t like a crowd, I don´t have any problem at the theater or the cinema. It is just that as I walk fast, I feel like most of the people are blocking my way and I want to push them aside!
- At school, I hated sewing!
- My DH and I met in England. He didn´t speak french, I didn´t speak german so the lingua franca in the first 3 years (as we lived apart) was english.
- I introduced my DM to patchwork and quilting and now she can´t stop!

Britta and Brigitte gave me an award, how nice. Thank you very much.
I give the award to all the people reading my blog and if you feel like telling us 7 things about you, feel tagged by me!

No, this is not my 4SSQ for spring! It is a crib quilt I made some time ago to show how to get curves with folded fabric. And yet another attempt at getting rid of the flowery fabrics!

Last week-end, I had a cold and was feeling very unwell so I spent as much time as I could on the couch and I managed to finish the Icarus shawl. The blocking was a bit of an adventure as it was the first time but I like this first version so much that I have started another one in a grey-blue yarn.

My sewing machine is back! Of course I had to sew something to see how it goes. it is much quieter than before and it is all shiny because of the oil. I hope now that I can sew without problems for at least the next 10 years!
I made a key-holder with a ribbon and a button I had in my stash.



Don´t forget that in 2 days, Bea will post the 3rd stitchery BOM.

I wish you inspiration and a nice week.

FRUSTRATION KNITTING

Yesterday I got a phone from the sewing-machine repairman. The electronic is broken and it will cost about 230 Euro (nearly 350 $) to repair it! GREAT, great, great. Do you see how much fabric or yarn that is?! Apparently it does not happen that often (well that´s nice to hear!) and of course after 5 years my machine is not under warrenty anymore. Zut,zut, zut! (french cursing)


Anyway, on the brighter front I finished my pair of Jaywalker socks with the wonderful wool from Handgefaerbt.com. It is mentioned on few blogs that these socks are not elastic compare to ribbing and I can only agree! Still I like the pattern.








Last week some books arrived from Amazon:


The Virginia Quilt book is very nice, full of wonderful quilts (some with 23 stitches per inch quilting!) and interesting stories. I find only that some of the pictures are a bit small but then if each quilt had been one page, it would have been an very thick book!
I have seen so many inspirational knits from the Fitted Knits on blogs that I had to have that book too and indeed there are two or three projects that I intend to make.
I was lucky too to get the Interweave Knits on Ebay as I wanted to make the Icarus shawl.
After the above-mentioned call I was so frustrated that I had to do some retail therapy and the Icarus shawl was just the right thing to calm me down. I bought some nice merino lace wool for very little (under 4 Euro, under 6$ for 150 g) and I started straight away. It is the first time that I am knitting lace and fortunately the beginning is easy.


A good exercice to calm down was iron-folding the prairie points for my Delectable mountains too! That´s boring and it takes very long. I hope I have enough now. As soon as my Bernina is back ( even better than new I hope) I will sew them to the border.

I wish you a serene time without bad surprises!

4SSQ ARRIVED!

Today was this cuttie in my letter box. It was sent from Melinda. Melinda is a professional long-arm quilter and you can see it! This cheerful quilt is hanging now in my sewing room, beside the other miniquilts I have received and made so far.



Last week-end the weather was wonderful here and I was having some quality time with my sewing machine finishing that top.

I opened the window of my sewing room and went to fetch the camera to take a picture.

Then I sarted sewing again to finish zigzaging the border of the quilt when suddenly my dear Bernina switched itself off!
It is BROKEN. I could not switch it on again.

It doesn´t like an opened window or being taken the picture of or what?!

Of course I went to the repair shop first thing on Monday but still haven´t heard anything.

And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I could hand-quilt, I could knit, I could stitch, well I just have to wait patiently and hope for a not too high bill.

I wish you a nice weather AND a working sewing-machine!