change is in the air

Oh my, the last weeks have been a whirlwind. In between studying for finals, writing research papers, going to conferences, job interviews and lots of shop orders, there hasn't been as much time to enjoy the Christmas spirit as I would've liked.

The holiday season and the approach of a new year always makes me think about my life and what I'd like to change about it. New ideas for blog content, new designs for my shop, new knitting/spinning/dyeing techniques. But also questions about what I want to do after school. I'm all set to finish my Bachelor's degree next summer. Then what? I'll take a year off because the graduate schools I want to apply to have very inconvenient application deadlines. I want to work for a big company, grow my small business, travel the world and stay home to cuddle my cat and knit everything that's in my revelry queue. Preferably all at the same time.

Change is good. I can't wait to see what life has to offer after school. Also, here are some shop news:

In celebration of the 100th dawanda shop sale, I offer free shipping on all orders (yes, that includes international orders too!) until Sunday, December 21st with the coupon code Blog100 in my online shop. I also added a sale section to the shop to make room for new designs in the next year.

I'll close the shop from Monday, December 22nd until the new year.

wiwo wednesday vol. 17

I can't wait for Christmas so I can go back to sharing what I'm working on openly. The only knitting I can share with you are two selfish projects:
First, a pair of red socks. Duh, it's Christmas soon. Naturally I need another pair of red socks, right??
I've had the skein in my stash for quite a while now. Originally, I bought it to use it for Julekuler (knitted Christmas balls). But I only used a couple of yards of the yarn so I have plenty left for socks.

Next up is the Levenwick cardigan that I've been knitting on forever. Or so it feels. Progress has been very slow because it's gotten too big to carry. I need the DPNs that I'm using for the sleeve for another project (a Christmas gift), hence I'm in a hurry to finish the sleeve so I can borrow the needles for the next project. Basically that also means that I won't get to knit on this cardigan till after Christmas. Or however long it takes me to finish said Christmas gift - plus all the others I still have on my to knit list.

Also, an alternative title for this post could've been 'daylight abstinence'. I've been putting off taking pictures for this post for days because it's been very gray and rainy around here. Also, it gets dark so early which makes it basically impossible to take pictures using a natural light source. German winter is not the most blogger friendly season ;)

sock monkey christmas quilt

Do you remember the Christmas fabrics I bought in August last year? I made plans to sew a Christmas quilt back then. After sewing these project bags using the same fabrics I started the quilt top. That was October 2013. Fast forward a year and I still only had a couple of odd-sized log cabin blocks. I put it on my November goals list et voilà, it's the beginning of December and I have a finished Christmas quilt!

My mom and I bought a bolt of Kona cotton snow a couple months ago so I added white stripes to each block and cut them down to the same size (9 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches). My mom helped me by cutting all the strips of fabric and ironing the seams while I was speed-sewing everything together. I'm so thankful for having a fast sewing machine!

Deciding on a backing, batting and binding was pretty easy because I simply used what my stash had to offer. The backing is a very cheap fleece fabric that I bought at a German 'fabric market' years ago. The size matched the quilt top perfectly and I was glad to not have it lay around anymore. The binding is one of my current favourite fabrics; it's the perfect striped fabric for drawstrings, bindings, internal pockets, etc. It seems to go with every single fabric I own. I just love it and I regret that I didn't buy more of it. But fabric is heavy and my suitcases were already at their limits. Oh Canadian fabric stores, can't you open a store right next to my house?

I have a very talented longarm quilter in my family who offered her services for free (thanks, mom!). The quilting pattern is a free motion holly leave pattern with loops connecting the leaves. I love that the quilt is still fluffy and not 'quilted to death' yet it is a Christmas themed and fun pattern. Perfection all around!

Here are some random information about the quilt:
I used moda's 'santa's little helpers sock monkeys in squares' fabric in green and red for the centers of the log cabin blocks. Then I just added a variety of green and red fabrics around. The fabrics are a random collection of scraps I found in my mom's scrap bins (some of them are from my childhood) and a mixture of other Christmas fabrics I bought with the sock monkey fabrics (e.g. other fabrics from the collection as well as the cute 'presents all wrapped up' by Aneela Hoey.

So yay, I finally have a Christmas quilt!

wiwo wednesday vol. 16

I have way too many projects to share for this week's 'what I'm working on' installment. Let's start with the newest project (I only started it today): after getting my scrap sock yarn stash under control, my boxes of fabrics scraps need some attention. I've accumulated so many scraps over the past years. We're talking about several pounds of fabric scraps!
I started by sewing some super simple patchwork coasters to use up some of my pink fabric scraps. I'm quite happy with the result (12 cute coasters that I'll be selling at a local craft fair on Saturday!) but it's gonna take many more coasters before there is any visible reduction of my stash.

Not much progress on the Elfreide scarf but seeing it grow one inch after another motivates me to finish it within the year :)

Some progress on the socks for my uncle... not much, though. I hope to finish them by the end of the month.

Oh and I almost forgot about these socks... the first one ended up being too big so I have to frog the toe and knit it again half an inch smaller. Oh how I love frogging! Not...

Knitting the body of the Levenwick cardigan was rather quickly and mostly done in class. But progress has been slow since I started knitting on the first sleeve, because the cardigan is getting too big and heavy to take to school. Alas, not much knitting over the past week. But I'll take it to a craft fair on Saturday where I should have a decent amount of knitting time.

I found this shawl in my yarn stash the other day. It's a shawl I cast on during a holiday 2(3?) years ago. And I don't even remember the name of the pattern anymore. The only thing I remember is that there was a mistake a couple rows down and I wasn't motivated enough to knit backwards. Of course I didn't put in a lifeline. Which probably means half an evening of knitting backwards. And then another evening of figuring out which pattern I was attempting to knit. #knitterproblems

I'm still going strong on my 'no store-bought candy' challenge. I'm not home often so I don't bake a lot but I made these awesome chocolate almond clusters the other day.

The Christmas quilt is coming along nicely - the quilting is done! And I have four more days to sew on the binding - doable, right?

I finally figured out a border for the 'summer in the park' quilt that I started at a sewing retreat in March. My plan is to finish the quilt by the end of the year - probably around Christmas when there are no more craft fairs to be organised, Christmas gifts to be made and exams to be taken.

One last thing to share is this paper piecing quilt block I made... sometime in the past. I designed it myself and I'm quite happy with the outcome. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it... Maybe a mug rug? I have a slightly bigger version that I'm turning into a mini quilt to be hung in my kitchen.

Oh my, so many projects! I love having a variety of projects but this is seriously getting out of hand. No more project starting until I finish at least three of these!!

Ps: Check out Sam's blog to see what she's currently working on. I'd love for you to join in so if you share what you're working on, please leave the link in the comment section and I'll link you in my post :)

iPad mini cover

I have an iPad mini that I use as a laptop substitute in school and to store all my knitting patterns. It's a cute and useful gadget and although I've had it for about four months, I didn't get around to sewing a cover for it until last weekend. Before I made the cover, I would just store the iPad in a knitting project bag. It worked for a while but it wasn't very practical in the long run.

I used this tutorial by one shabby chick but modified the measurements for it to fit the iPad mini instead of the original iPad. I've used the tutorial before to make this sleeve for my mom's iPad 2 and the instructions are clear and easy to follow.
I'm madly in love with the echino fabric - I've used it for several projects (e.g. my interchangeable knitting needle case) and it's holding up great, like all the echino fabrics I've used.

The case is big enough to hold the iPad including the Apple smart cover. I'm so happy with how this project turned out. My next personal sewing project might be a sleeve for my smartphone :)

frogged designs studio tour

I have lots of projects in the making but basically no time to photograph any of them. But I have a couple of pictures that I took after cleaning my 'studio' last week. I present you... my sewing room!

Short history of the room:
The room is located in the basement of the apartment building I live in. My grandparents built the building in 1969 and used the room for throwing parties, playing pingpong and it was also my grandpa's workshop where he would store all his tools and repair things that broke.
When my grandparents moved the room was turned into a storage room for old furniture they didn't need anymore. Then my mom & uncle inherited the building and stored even more furniture /unwanted broken items in there. Old furniture former tenants left behind? Just throw it in there and forget it even exists.

So after I got rid off all the trash, sold a lot of stuff on the German equivalent of craigslist and donated lots of furniture, I was finally able to remove the wallpaper.

Instead of adding new paper, I decided to simply paint it white. This is what the room looked like with just the primer painted on the bare walls.

Isn't it amazing how much difference white walls make?
I think my parents thought I was nuts when I told them I wanted to renovate the room. Tearing down wallpaper and painting the room white is rather easy, but what to do about the hideous floor??

Also, the room was very dusty and had the typical basement smell. Removing the wallpaper and all the old stuff helped a lot.

What it looks like today:

When you enter the room, you see a door that leads to a tiny room where the old oil tanks are. The house is heated via gas so the room is no longer needed. I plan to add a curtain to cover the door
The couch is Julia's and it didn't fit into her room so she conveniently 'stored' it in my sewing room :)

The entire wall is one big closet that my grandpa built. It's full of my grandpa's tools, my grandma's old coats, my mom's old toys, cleaning supplies, etc. I was thinking about painting the sliding doors white but it would've been too much work because they're varnished. The ceiling is still on my 'paint white if I ever end up with a lot of free time on my hand' list.
The cabinet is the only piece of furniture I left in the room. I didn't keep it because I think it is pretty but it keeps my packaging supplies dust free. In there I store business cards, envelopes, stamps, tape etc.

There is a big dining room table in the middle that I found in the half-price section at IKEA. It's super sturdy and perfect as a cutting table.
The green carpet is from one of my mom's friends. He's a booth builder and had tons of carpet that I could choose from. When I saw the green I knew that it would be perfect - easy to keep clean, it's bright and cheerful yet not boring.

The famous IKEA expedit shelf used to be in my bedroom. It hosts (almost) all my fabrics, some sewing books, fabric scraps, etc.

I exchanged the drawer knobs for mismatching ones that I got at anthropology years ago. They were $2 each so it was a rather cheap but very effective makeover.

The room has three windows so there is a decent amount of daylight considering it's in the basement. Unfortunately, I can't use the heating because it would be ridiculously expensive because of the size of the room. I have a small electric heater that I use from time to time. Other than that I just wear thick hand knit sweaters and wool slippers and hope I don't freeze to death ;)
The rocking chair was another great thrift store find - 5€! I want to make a nice cushion for it. One day...

Next to the rocking chair is my desk. My Juki TL 2010 Q is my workhorse that I use 90% of the time.  The Juki HZL F600 is the machine I use for sewing in zippers, zigzagging and it has a very neat quilt guide that I often use for sewing knitting needle cases. The free arm is also very hand for sewing bags. You simply can't live with just one sewing machine... right?

I found the 'aim high and dream big' wall art at a store a couple weeks ago and just had to buy it. Having stuff on the wall makes a room so much more comfortable!

In the middle of my desk I store all the tools I frequently use. Plus the cute alpaca plush my friend Sam made for me. It keeps me company whenever I spend half the night finishing orders ;)

The bulletin board's main purpose is to cover up lots of wholes in the wall. Eventually I'll buy more paint to finish painting it. Until then I just pin whatever I find on it. I imagine that it could be useful to keep track of custom orders. I really need to figure out a better system than writing everything onto post it's and sticking them everywhere...

Last but not least, I have a biiig ikea shelf that my uncle didn't need anymore. It holds everything from unfinished objects to my entire yarn stash, scrapbooking supplies, a printer I need to fix, a vintage sewing machine, my inventory, etc. Several of the boxes in there are empty but empty boxes are prettier than an empty shelf. I'm considering adding a curtain to the shelf because it looks rather messy. Luckily, dust is not an issue in the basement so the curtain would be for purely aesthetical reasons.

And we're back at the door. (I still need to return the remaining carpet...) Thank you for reading and I'd love to see your creative space :)

sweet potato pie

Baking a sweet potato pie was one of my goals for November and I'm happy to report that I baked one last week. Here's a bit of a background story: Until a year or two ago, sweet potatoes were hard to find in Germany. But last year supermarkets all over my city started selling sweet potatoes directly imported from the US. I couldn't be happier because I love them - oven baked sweet potatoes with a hint of butter, sweet potato bread/soup/pie/... sigh. They seem to be fool-proof and almost impossible to prepare in a non-tasty way.

I used this awesome recipe by Joy the baker. I went easy on the sugar but apart from that I followed her instructions blindly. The result is great - the buttermilk crust is perfect and the filling is moist and yummy. It took a while to make but only because there is some waiting time in between the steps (waiting for the dough to cool in the fridge, cooking the sweet potatoes, etc.) and you can use the time to knit or, in my case, study.
So if you've been intimidated by the thought of baking a sweet potato pie from scratch just give it a try! The result is amazing and well worth the effort. Also, it is unlike anything you can buy in Germany (and probably the rest of Europe?) so it's a fun way to impress your tea time guests ;)

very berry muffins

It's the weekend and what better time is there to make muffins? I promise these fruity muffins will only take about 10 minutes to prepare, so baking these won't occupy you the whole afternoon ;)

Here's my recipe of berry muffins that I like to use whenever I have buttermilk leftover from another baking adventure. These muffins are super fluffy and berry and much lighter than chocolate chip muffins.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup (150 gr) white sugar 
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) sunflower oil
• 1 cup (250 ml)  buttermilk
• 3 cups (375 gr) flour
• 3 tsp baking soda
• 1 pound frozen berries

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Using a stand mixer, mix together sugar and eggs. Add the remaining liquid ingredients one after another and keep mixing. In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking soda and add the mixture to the stand mixer bowl. Mix until you get a smooth mixture. Fold in the berries. Fill the mixture into muffin cups. I ended up with 20 muffins.

Bake for about 25 minutes or until done. You can test whether they're done with a toothpick. Take them out of the muffin pan to cool. 

wiwo wednesday vol. 15

It's getting tricky to take daylight pictures since I'm rarely home before 4:30pm. Don't get me wrong, I love fall/winter but my crazy full time student schedule doesn't quite match my blogger schedule, so I actually took the picture above on Monday when I got home early. As you can imagine, I knit a couple of rows in the meantime. Oh well, I'm still knitting the raglan increases on the Levenwick cardigan. It's a joy to knit and I love the Christmas tree green ;)
I hope to finish this cardigan by Christmas so I get to wear it, paired with a red top or skirt.

There hasn't been a whole lot of progress on my latest sock project, but since most of my current projects are gonna be Christmas presents I'm a little restricted in the choice & amount of projects for this week's 'what I'm working on' post.

I finished reading the last Harry Potter instalment earlier this week. It would be mad to attempt reviewing the whole series in a blog appropriate amount so let me just say that I LOVED every single one of the ~3700 pages. Also, I realized that reading books while staying on top of school work, shop orders and having a sufficient amount of free time is totally doable. Thus no more excuses not to read any books 'just for fun' during the term!
A couple of books have accumulated over the past years that I didn't read yet. I started reading 'Demain j'arrête!' by Gilles Legardinier yesterday. I chose this book solely because of the cute cover. That's a completely natural and normal way of choosing literature, right? Anyway, I'm really enjoying the book and I'm having much less trouble reading French than I thought I would. Apparently all those years of French classes in high school and living among Québécois people for ten months was worth it after all.

hello, november!

Photo was taken almost exactly three years ago in Victoria, BC, Canada.

I love November! The month is usually calm compared to October (exams, start of the new term, lots of birthdays) and December (exams, lots of shop orders, CHRISTMAS). So here are a couple of goals I set myself for the next 30 days:

• finish the Christmas quilt (that I started last year...)
• bake a sweet potato pie
• finish decorating my sewing room
• learn a new spinning technique bought the craftsy class 'drafting from worsted to woolen' by Jacey Boggs Faulkner and learned so much, it's overwhelming!
• finish knitting at least five Christmas presents
• knit a pattern from a book. (done! though I can only share the project after Christmas...)
• publish my first knitting pattern
• walk at least 6k steps each week
• read a book. I cheated and had a CD read it to me, but I finished 'Fall of Giants' by Ken Follet & loved it!!

So many fun things to look forward to!

Do you have any (crafty) plans for November?

wiwo wednesday vol. 14

First of all, thank you so much for your feedback on my last post. I really appreciate your comments and you, my dear readers, are the main reason why I enjoy blogging!
But let's not get all cheesy. What I'm Working On this week is a mix of Christmas presents (most of which are not shown here, duh.), organizing my craft supplies, decorating my studio and some mindless knitting (99% of which is done during lectures).

I've been dreading organizing my knitting supplies because I just have so many! When did I accumulate all those needles?? And how come I have hundreds of stitch markers but whenever I need them I can't find any and have to use scrap yarn?
I've been keeping all my knitting notions and empty project bags in a big box in my closet. Whenever I had to find a needle that would mean rummaging through all that stuff for minutes. Naturally, whatever I was looking for seemed to be at the very bottom.

It's kind of embarrassing so sell needle organizers to others yet have a very unorganized needle situation at home. So this morning I emptied the box on my bed (that's how I usually trick myself into cleaning; if I really really want to procrastinate I simply sleep on the couch and clean the stuff up before going to bed the following day.) and organized everything into little piles on my couch table.
Next, I divided everything up into the little pouches, needle organisers etc as followed(from top left):

• big needle organizer: all my DPNs, notions I don't use often
• bird zipper bag: measuring tapes & buttons
• patchwork 'envelope' bag: T-pins and spare stitch markers
• wooden box: tapestry needles, safety pins, etc.
• sheep pouch: most important tools that I take everywhere (row counter, tapestry needle, scissors, stitch markers, ...)
• interchangeable needles organizer: all my gazillion circular needles

And the biiig We Are Knitters needles that are impossible to fit into any organizer / pouch. Whew, so much better than before! I'm gonna come up with a pattern for a knitting needle organiser for all my DPNs that's a little more... portable than the big one I use right now.

Please tell me I'm not the only knitter with so much stuff.

And since most of my knitting projects right now are rather secretive (less than two months until Christmas!) I'm only gonna show you this Halloween-inspired pair of socks I'm knitting for a relative for Christmas. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know this blog exists so I should be fine showing them on here. I can't wait for Christmas Eve so I can bombard you will all the stuff I'm working on!

What are you working on? Anything Halloween inspired? I really wish it was more of a thing in Germany. The only Halloween stuff I found was red-fleshed apples and purple kohlrabi!