Kindle cover #2

While I have to admit that I could have finished this much earlier if only I didn't dislike the finishing part of crochet projects that much, I am still proud to present to you the second kindle cover I made, this time for Felix. We initially agreed on making the whole thing in black and red stripes and so I chose a pattern that works really well with two different colors, but then his mother saw it and was like 'He's almost a man grown he can't have something with that bright colors' and suddenly he only wanted a little red and I had o do the pattern black on black, which wasn't easy to do. I mostly worked on it in math exercise (where everyone met to ask the teaching assistants questions) because I had a seat near the window and some nice sunlight in my back, just about the only light that makes black on black easy to see. When doing the finishing part, I got my revenge and added a little more red; the button itself is black as well, also the shine makes it look much lighter in the picture.

I'm not quite done yet with kindle covers, because Felix' mum now wants one as well - but before that, there is a smartphone cover to finish, and than some well deserved play time with my pretty new yarn!

I also realized that my last posts sounded a little like there is only learning and a little stitching going on in my life right now, but rest assured that I DO force Felix to take a break every once in a while as well. We even got to see some more of our movie list - so here's what we watches apart from some more NCIS:

• Snow White and the Huntsman - I didn't particulary like this one. Maybe I just didn't get it. The magical forest was pretty, and the dwarfs were funny, but the rest of the story looked quite ridiculous to me. I'm not quite a fan of Kristen Stewart as well, but I think this time it wasn't her fault, the script was just flawed, and not even Thor could save that. Besides, calling someone by the 'name' of 'huntsman' might work in English, but in the German version the might have at least translated that to the proper form of 'Jäger' to make some sense.
• Madagascar 3: Europe's most wanted - That one we really enjoyed. I liked the whole series, and this was a great conclusion to it, I just hope they don't ruin that by making any more sequels (apart from pinguin spin offs, there can never be enough of that!). Admittedly, some scenes were quite stupid (like Dubois singing 'Je ne regrette rien' - what the hell?), but still, quite a great movie with great music and effects.
• Hachi: A dog's Tale - A friend hat recommended this movie to me some years ago, but he also said 'Believe me, you will cry your eyes out' so I never really dared to watch it, until a few days ago when Felix that I should pick a movie to watch and I took the chance so I didn't have to watch it alone. And boy, did I cry! What a lovely movie, what a sad, sad story, what a cute doggie. This is one for the rewatch list!

 I also started rewatching 'The Nanny' because I never really saw all the episodes in the right order, only bits and bites here and there, and some light entertainment is never wrong after all :)

March SFS

There were so many things I wanted to post this week, but somehow life got in the way and there is still a little bit missing for each of them - what a shame, isn't it? So what I will do is to post my Stitch From Stash summary for the month now because the month is almost over and I have to, and try to get some of the other things done over the weekend.

So my finances for this month might be a tad complicated, but I'll try to keep this as simple as possible:

• I finished the two small kits I got last month in time for my grandma's birthday, so I don't have to add them to my stash.
• I have another little gift planned for April (TW's knotwork bookmark freebie, to be exact!) and for that I ordered some hand dyed floss for a total of 2.97£ ($4.94), but hopefully, I'll get it done quickly so  won't have to add these as well.
• I'm also going to make TW's 'Angel of Frost' as a christmas present because my grandma demanded that I make it for her - well she didn't actually demand, off course, but there was a lot of 'oh' and 'ah' and 'how pretty' going on when she saw her, and a good granddaughter knows what do to when she hears such noises from her grandma! Anyway, I spent about $41.73 on floss and 26.88£ ($44.72) on fabric, beads and my very first scroll frame. I probably won't get it done quick enough for the SFS gift rules to apply, but I didn't want to add it to my monthly total as well, so I decided to pay is with some of the money I got for my birthday last week.
• Lastly, I also ordered some floss for two more of the bookmarks (I have this cute little floss box with four compartments so I decided to get the floss for four bookmarks in total), which came to $5.90 that actually will be my monthly total for March.

I actually feel quite fullfilled now with all the projects I have going on, and the urge to start even more stuff is somewhat calmed. I hope I can get by like this for a while, probably interrupted by a few other small gifts I have in my mind to make, but I can't actually post here because they are all for people who know or at least know about my blog. Once those plans get more concrete, I shall just refer to them as mystery project 1, 2, 3 and so on ^_^

March IHSW - Recap

March IHSW is over, and again I had a quite productive weekend. AGAIN, I didn't manage to join Carla's hangout due to persistent Skype-sessions with Felix who needed to be coached for his upcoming math exam, but gladly, that didn't keep me from stitching! The sadder thing is that I won't be able to join in April either (can't people get married on more convenient dates?), but maybe there will be another in-between-hangout some time?

Anyways, as I already mentioned I got quite a bit done, mainly on my two main projects, one of which is a new start. To be honest I added a few more stitches today to make both of them pretty for taking pictures, but most of it was done during the weekend.

So for one, I did another part of PT's border, the third corner block - this time I'll post a close up, because this border is just to pretty to only be looked upon from a distance:

And then it was my birthday on friday and my grandma gave me another one of the Disney Dream Collection kits: Lady and the Tramp is the newest addition to the collection, and I fell in love instantly and just knew that this was the first of the big designs I wanted to do.

The kit is really nice: The floss is much more glossy and easier to work with than in the small Little Mermaid one and also presorted (I just came in three bunches with The Little Mermaid, and wasn't easy to sort out - they can tell me they put similiar colours in different bunches all they want, but putting pale grey and light grey together is NOT fair), and the pattern is only four pages (each of them quite a bit bigger than Little Mermaid) but really easy to use and, to my unspeakable relief, much less noisy and confetti-y than The Little Mermaid was. So even though it's done on 18ct Aida instead of 16ct, it feels much easier and quicker to stitch, and I already got quite a bit done. I think the colours are turning out even more gorgeous than on the picture!

So it seems I have my work cut out for me, but still I just placed some orders for stuff I need for at least two more starts in April, both presents (one is small and due April 30th, one not so much and due for Christmas). With as much as I already have going on I can't decide whether that's a good are a bad thing, but I guess I'll be optismistic and settle for 'good'. And now I'm back off to stitching and crocheting oh and doing some work, probably, that as well.

New toys!

A few days ago I bought a pattern for a really pretty colourful owl tote bag on etsy that I want to make for a close friend of mine, and then I placed an order for some crochet supplies, and today everything arrived already. Yay me! I would have loved to try out the Lily Sugar 'N Cream yarn that was recommended for this but sadly they don't sell it in Germany and I found some appropriate replacments at my favourite yarn dealer, so I didn't have to import. And don't you just get excited seeing all these colourful yarn?!

 

Which reminds me, did I ever show you my awesome crochet hook? It's called 'Swing' from the German brand addi, and since I discovered them about two years ago I don't wanna crochet with a normal hook ever again. I have to admit that I'm a little snobby with my hooks, before that I mostly used ones made from bamboo because of the smooth feeling, but the Swing-hooks are amazing. The got a real 'handle' that looks somewhat like a toothbrush, but it's just sooo comfortable to hold.

I only had a 3.5mm hook until recently because they are somewhat expensive (6-7€), but now I also got a 4mm and 5mm hook that I will need for some of my planned projects - so, no more excuses, with the new yarn and everything a already got, I really should do a lot more crocheting.

But not today, and neither tomorrow, because it's IHSW and I also have a lot of stitching to do! I hope I can get a fair bit done, I hurt my right wrist in karate yesterday, but it's already better, and stitching feels alright at the moment. So happy stitching, everyone!

Peacock Tapestry Border Section 6

And another quick little update to show you that I did, in fact, get the next section of PT's border done - these florals always take a lot longer than I think they will, but here it is - halfway point.

So now every stitch I take will bring me closer to getting the border done - well that has been the case all the time, you might say, but now it will also FEEL like it, hah!

March WIPocalypse

Wait, has it really been another month already? Where is time going? Why I'm I making so little progress in that much time? Oh wait, I know the answer to the last one, that's because I keep being sidetracked by shiny new stuff. But seriously, I need to do some focusing - so she says while already planning ahead for at least two major new starts in March/April, sigh.

Okay, back o topic, it's the 16th of March, which is apperently a full moon and that means: WIPocalypse time! This month's topic is: Show us your favorite places to stitch.  (oh yes… photos, please!!) Well, I'm going to make this one easy for me and just reuse a photo I already posted a while ago, because my favourite place to stitch is exactly here:

Sitting on my bed/couch, preferably with the TV on, stitching happyly away. I also enjoy stitching outside when the weather is warm enough, but I usually don't have the time for it during the day, and in the evenings it get to dark, so bed it is. Once I move out I want to try and make myself a proper stitching/crafting/nerding corner/desk, but this still has to wait a little while.

So, onward to stitching progress! Sadly, I didn't get a lot done on Peacock Tapestry, I was trying to be really good today so I could show you another section on the border, but stuff kept coming in the way and so this is really all I've managed to do since the last WIPocalypse update:

Hopefully I can at least finish this section and maybe the next corner block before my next start pops up. The bright side is that I was sure by this time I'd be quite fed up with the border, but with all the other stuff that keeps coming up it's always a joy to get back to PT.

So, what were these things that kept me away from my soon-to-be-a-beautiful-bird...wll for one, I started the Game of Thrones bookmarks and I started and finished to little guniea pigs for my grandma's birthday.

 

And then, I'm proud to announce the The Little Mermaid is finally finished, thanks to Carly and Ashley who kept me well entertained during our pre-IHSW-hangout yesterday so I got the backstitching donw without ever getting sick of it! Still no luck concerning a meeting of Nancy and me, sadly, but I'm confident we will soon break this curse.

And that's that for stitching progress...we also watched Rise of the Guardians (I just love this kind of movie) and some more NCIS, and I did some long-overdue reading on Sherlock Holmes AND I red the Great Gatsby. Oh, and some gaming, that too...small wonder I can't get anything done, right? In any case, I'm off to bed now, so enjoy reading, and happy stitching!

Lucky

Just a quick reminder that although learning like crazy (just 18 more hours and I'm free! Free of exams for ever! Hopefully.) I'm still alive and also stitching as fast as I can. It took me another three days to finish Larky Lucky, the second of the two guinea pigs I'm making for my grandma. So have a picture and another progress .gif:

I ordered frames for them two days ago because obviously, our local furniture store has lots and lots of frames, but none of them are square-sized - I really hope the parcel gets here tomorrow so I can give them to my grandma while it's still her birthday. Anyways, guinea pigs finished, back to some border stitching.

On a side note, we also watched Kill Bill Vol. 2 by now, which is like a totally different movie from Vol. 1 but still really awesome. Can't wait to have more time to watch stuff and stitch again.

Tully & Cavy

And I'm back once more - yesterday night we spent at Felix' uncle's house who celebrated his 60th birthday, and then I good deal of today was spent sleeping, but  guess/hope everything will be back to normal now, expect for exams and learning and stuff and okay maybe I will be busy for a while longer.

Anyways, I'm here to tell you about my stitching success, and that's what I'll do! So for once, I started with the Game of Thrones bookmarks which black-lupin published via dA and which I want to make into kind of a 'on the road' project because the patterns are rather small and don't use too much different colours each. Frist up for me is Tully, and while I was at Oldenburg, in breaks and on the train ride there and back again, I got a bit done, at least the words and their background which is about 1080 stitches and not too shabby at all for such a busy week.

It's really fun to work on this, at least the first few I got planned are fairly easy and don't involve that much of counting (I guess that will change at least for Lannister and Stark) and it's quite relaxing to work on them. Also, I just finished reading A Dance with Dragons, and unless Felix finally catches up with reading so we can get on watching the TV version, there will be no more Westeros for me until 'at least 2015' which is when the 6th book is said to be ready - and that with all the cliff hangers this guys uses, sigh.

When I got home, a little suprise parcel was waiting for me - I had all but given up hope that they would arrive in time, but the two little RTO-kits I ordered for my grandma's birthday on friday actually got here before I did. They are two guinea pigs (which my grandma loves ever since I had three of the little critters as a kid) out of a series of four, and I also want to make the remaining two for her eventually.

Both are pretty small, easy to read and fun to make kits, and a little stitching on friday evening, a few hours on saturday morning and some more work today, a total of 761 stitches, already saw the first one finished - tomorrow I'll try to find four matching frames so I can finish this one up, and I'm just about to start the second one.

I was thinking about trying something like a progress video with this one, but this would have been awefully short, so here's a progress gif instead, I hope it gets displayed here correctly. He's called 'Cavy with a Carrot' by the way.

Oh, and of course some stuff was watched again - because we now have amazon Prime Instant Video, we got to start Navy CIS season 9, and we're also taking turns picking movies - my choice for now was Despicable Me (great animation and I regret not having watched it before, although I of course already knew the minions) and Felix' was Kill Bill Vol. 1 (bloody mess, but I had already watched it once and knew what to expect - and it's still quite awesome, I'm looking forward to Vol. 2 which I don't know yet).

Back at home

So...after spending four lovely days in Oldenburg (which is in the very north of Germany, but still suth enough so one doesn't get to see the sea - it's a pretty little town not unlike my home town, but everything is flat, 50 meters above sea level is considered a mountain, and it's windy all the time. Nice for a few days, but I wouldn't want to live there.) where I took part in a project meeting for university. I did manage to get a little stitching in on both the train ride and the one free day we had, but that will have to wait a little - first, I need to tell you about the most awesome hotel room Felix and I got!

We got in on the meeting rather late, and when we called the hotel for a room they said they only had a 'higher class one' left. As it was still well within the budget our university pays for such stays, we said okay,only to learn that 'it might be a themed room as well', but they didn't know yet. As the hotel offers anything from a 'Mini'-room with half a Mini Cooper sticking out of the wall to a 'Vinyl'-room all covered in LPs, we braced ourselves for quite a suprise. This was the first thing we saw when entering the room:

Turned out we had scored ourselves a beautiful Sweden themed room, complete with a sauna and a bucket for ice-cold water in the shower, stylish stone floor and a very...rustical looking, but fully functional bathroom. I had never used a sauna before to be honest, but I took quite a liking of this one.

We also discovered that there was an additional level above the bed - it took as little while to find the ladder, and then it was rather disappointing, though I guess we could have housed a third person up there if we wanted to - one that wasn't afraif of heigths or falling at least...

Oh, and we mustn't forget about Bob, of course. Meet Bob - Hi Bob!

And before you ask, why yes, we WERE there to work, and work we did - but it might have been one of the most fun work trips I'll ever make :D