we're moving!

Just a heads up that I'm finally taking the plunge and moving my blog to a new website, so I can also have in integrated shop system in the future.

Please be patient while I'm figuring out how to migrate this whole shabang over to a new home.
In the meantime, feel free to check out my instagram account @froggeddesigns to see what I'm making :)

New website:

www.froggeddesigns.de

2016 goals

The beginning of the new year usually involves writing a couple of goals on a sheet of paper and forgetting about them about a month into the year. This year, I'm using the Get To Work Book as my daily planner. I used the first project page to write down my goals so I won't forget about them this year. I also use this page as a goal tracker.

There are three abstract goals and some specific personal and creative goals this year.

This year, I want to let go of things I don't need, unhealthy relationships that held me back and high expectations I set for myself. This sounds dramatic but the past months were tough and instead of doing 'what's right' I need to do what's right for me.
Be happy is my mantra for the new year. I want to focus on the positive things and do what makes me happy. Very abstract as well but I have a blog post planned explaining this one.
Last but not least, I want to create more. Creating is what makes me happy and gives me a creative balance to school / work. But this does not only relate to crafts, but also to friendships. I'm moving from my hometown in Germany to South Carolina soon and I want to make an effort to meet lots of new people there and create many new memories.



Apart from these three main goals, I have six personal goals I want to accomplish.

Visit five new states. I love traveling and living in the states for eight months is a great opportunity to visit some new states. South Carolina will obviously be one of them but I'm also excited to explore some more Southern states. Hawaii would be awesome but for now that's just a dream, not a plan ;)

Use my big camera more often. Photography is one of my passions but having a smartphone and being and instagram addict (@froggeddesigns) does not encourage using a DSLR often. I just got a new lens so in addition to my trusty 50mm prime lens, I now also own a 24-85mm zoom lens. This will justify bringing my camera much more often and it will be great for documenting my travels.

Read / listen to 12 books. I read a couple of pages every evening but the list of books I completed reading last year is small. Listening to audio books when I sew or take a walk has become a habit that will hopefully make this goal an easy one.

Keep up with my 5 year diary. Sam got me hooked on this one and I love it. I use this some lines a day version and I love it. It is a pretty big format but I love that there aren't any lines so you can also draw in it.

Make more money than I spend. My basic goal with this one is to have some savings when I finish school. I'm very lucky to have parents who support me while I'm in school but I want to be able to support myself when I finish school. Running a small business and doing an internship that pays well certainly helps with this one.

70k steps a week. I've had my fitbit for 18 months now and I love it. Walking 10k steps is unrealistic for me because I usually have some very active days and some "stay at home and sew all day" days. But reaching 70k steps per week should be doable.


This year's creative goals are very yarn-heavy because I'll be spending eight months abroad and I'm not sure whether I'll have a sewing machine at my disposal or not.

Knit three sweaters. I love knitting (and wearing) sweaters but I often opt for plain vanilla socks because they're easier to carry in my handbag. There are hundreds of sweater patterns in my revelry favorites and on my pinterest sweater board. There's also plenty of sweater-quantities of yarn in my stash. Now I just need to take the time to cast on a cozy sweater or two.

Make more clothes than I buy. There aren't many clothes that I need to buy (a new pair of jeans and a trench coat have been on my list for years) so this one should be doable. I'm also excited to sew some things that have been on my to-do list for years. 

Sew a quilt or two. Do I really have to explain this one?

Learn more about the textile industry. I'd love to tour a spinning mill and learn about raising sheep / alpacas. Learning about ethically produced clothes and about the fabric industry would be awesome, too. Learning where the fabrics / yarns / fibers we buy come from and how they are produced will hopefully lead to smarter buying decisions and focusing on quality vs. quantity.

Learn three new knitting techniques. I feel like I always use the same techniques I learned years ago. The only new technique I learned last year was brioche knitting (thank you, Stephen West.). I'm excited to try some new techniques - fair isle is on my list. And knitting socks on circular needles, two at a time. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! 

Learn three new spinning techniques. This one will be easy since there is still so much to learn about spinning consist yarn. I'm looking forward to learning new drawing techniques and try different plying methods. 

Take a class. The point here is to learn something new. Maybe woodworking. Or a pottery class. Or calligraphy. Or weaving... so many ideas!

Destash yarn. I'm at a point where I own more yarn than I can use up in the next decade. I want to use yarn I love and find a new home for the yarn I'm not excited about anymore. 

Knit a pair of socks per month. After using up all my sock yarn stash a couple years ago and spending the last two years knitting scrap socks, I bought a bunch of Opal sock yarn off eBay. Time to reduce that sock yarn stash again. 

New website. After paying horrendous DaWanda fees last year, I want to create (with some help of friends / my sister) a website that includes my shop and my blog. This shall be interesting since I don't know much about coding. Maybe I should take a CSS class?

Blog once a week. This goal is supposed to help me accomplish my other goals. Needing to come up with content for this blog at least once a week will encourage me to create something / take pictures to have something to share. Also, I love my little blog and I don't care that it's supposedly a "dying medium". I enjoy reading and writing blogs so I just do what makes me happy :)

2016, here we go!

sewing room tour

Maybe you remember the sewing room post I wrote last year about my biiig basement sewing room. It has plenty of space but very little sunlight and no heating. And let me tell you, it is not very comfortable to sew when you're wearing a winter jacket, fingerless mittens and a scarf.
My roomie moved out last week and I'll have our two-room apartment all to myself until I move to South Carolina in three weeks. Which means I get to use the spare room as a sewing room / guest room.

Luckily, Julia left her furniture when she moved out. I get to use her shelfs and desk to put my sewing stuff. The space is tiny compared to my basement studio but it is warm and sunny. What a luxury! Also, my cat Lina gets to keep me company while I sew. Prepare for lots of cat + sewing pictures if you follow me on instagram (@froggeddesigns)!

Some of the stuff I don't use often is still downstairs but 75% of my sewing stuff fits into this small nook. Yay! Having a clean, fresh and warm sewing space is so inspiring - I want to sew all the things!

I already made some small things that I'll share in the new year because it is a rainy and gray day - not ideal for taking pictures.

And here's an awkward selfie. Because that's what hip bloggers do, right?

Oh and if you're like me and wonder how people manage to keep a clean sewing space - here is what it looked like 10 minutes prior to taking the pictures. #honestcraftroom

Bedford the Second

The first post after a long break from blogging is always awkward so let's just pretend the 3-month break didn't happen.

I was on a one-week vacation in Washington, DC last week to visit my good friend Sam of Fluffyland  (you probably remember the cute alpaca plush she made for me?!) where I finally had time to finish a sweater that has been on my needles since August.

I knitted another 'Bedford' sweater, designed by Michele Wang and published in the Brooklyn Tweed Fall 11 collection. I finished my first Bedford in autumn 2013 and it's one of my favorite sweaters, thus I wanted a second one. So when I saw this gorgeous yarn ("ultra alpaca" by Berroco, colorway "grapefruit mix") in a cute yarn store in Montana last year I couldn't resist and bought a sweater lot.

The majority of the sweater was knitted when Sam visited me in Munich in the summer (yes, I have awesome friends who fly across half the globe to see me - and drink German beer, of course) so it only seemed logical to finish it in her present.

It is very cozy and soft - the alpaca / wool blend is very comfortable and warm to wear; ideal for cold winter days. Another perk of finishing the sweater during my vacation: I had someone who took photos of me wearing it right away! All these pictures were taken by Sam. Being in front of the camera is always uncomfortable for me but Sam made taking these pictures fun - as in I almost enjoyed it ;)

Wollfestival Cologne 2015

Life has been a whirlwind of wonderful experiences lately. My parents came to visit me in Munich for almost a week before we headed to Wollfestival Cologne together. When I came back from Wollfestival my wonderful friend Sam of Fluffyland came to visit me but that deserves its own post.
Right now I'm sitting in between boxes as I'm packing up my sweet little apartment in Munich to move back to my hometown Göttingen. So in between craft show prep and vacationing I didn't get a chance to share my photos with you.

Wollfestival Cologne is an annual knitting meeting / market where people from all over Germany (and the Netherlands.... and I even had French customers!) meet to knit and enhance their stash a little. I had a sweet little booth where I sold project bags, notion pouches, and other cute tidbits and knitters enjoy such as sheep coasters.

It was my first craft show this year so I had lots of time to think about how I wanted to set it up. I invested in some furniture (e.g. the coat stand and the Ivar shelves from IKEA) because just one table clearly would not have been enough to display all my products.

I feel like craft shows are always about trial and error - there is no single rule how to set up a booth to sell successfully. Each craft fair is very different depending on the location, customers, weather, etc.

After a wonderful first day at Wollfestival my awesome mom - who helped me throughout the craft fair and contributed wonderful bags to my product line - and I treated ourselves to some ice cream. Yum!

On day two we rearranged a little bit because we were running low on some products whereas others didn't get much attention because they were hidden behind other products.

On the second day I arranged some products by color - which was a lot of fun to do but did not make a difference in sales. The only thing that did make a difference was the cute plush alpaca Sam made for me; I sat it on a shelf and everything that I put next to it sold immediately. It definitely emanates positive energies :)

And since it would be impossible for me to go to a craft show without buying anything, here is what I brought home: 6 beautiful rovings of spinning fibers. They are mostly merino or merino/silk blends. I can't wait for the weather to cool down so I can finally spin again!

wiwo wednesday vol. 22

Dang I can't believe summer is halfway over - already! Time is just passing too quickly.
There's a personal update at the end of the post. If you're just interested in crafts - great! Enjoy the short projects update and see you next time. If you're wondering what I've been up to scroll down and I'll tell you :)

A new sweater is on my needles! It's the 'gable' sweater by Hannah Fettig and it's a joy to knit. I'm knitting it out of Wollmeise Lace yarn. Knitting a sweater out of lace weight is a tiny bit crazy but I'm enjoying it. It's a great travel knit because it's lightweight and takes up very little space.

And there's another sweater on the needles. This one is pretty tiny though. It's gonna be either a Christmas ornament or a key fob. Because the world obviously needs tiny sweater, duh!

And last but not least (knitting-wise) is a pair of vanilla socks out of Wollmeise Twin. I'm using up all the leftovers from my exploration station shawl (no worries, I'll share it soon! I just have to find someone in Munich who knows how to operate a DSLR) so this is a 'scrap project', although 90 grams of fingering weight might not qualify as scraps...

On my wheel there is a gorgeous hand-painted combed top by raven ridge. I bought the top in Missoula, MT last summer and it was hand dyed in Montana. Yarn and fiber are the best souvenirs, right? It's 85% polwarth and 15% tussah. It feels very fluffy and luxurious, I can't wait to knit it into something beautiful. I'm halfway through spinning the top and I'm still debating whether to make a two ply yarn for a hat or a single for a shawl...

I'm vending at two big craft fairs this year - the Wollfestival Cologne (August 15-16) and Wollfest Regensburg (September 5-6) so looots of project bags, knitting needle cases, etc. are in the making.
I can't wait to share pictures of my craft fair booth with you - it's gonna be amazing if I may say so :)

That's all that I'm currently working on. I'm reading the first book of the outlander series - it is really addictive! I watched the first season in just two weeks and bought the first book just before I finished watching the last episode.

What are you working on?

So on a more personal level, here's why I've been rather quiet around the internet:
I'm working full time. Well, I should rather say I'm internshipping full time. But working sounds more mature. I'm doing an HRM internship at the global assignments department at BMW Munich. It is amazing, to put it in one sentence. I can't believe I only have one more week (and two weeks of paid vacation) left. At the end of the month I'll be moving back to my hometown to write my Bachelor's thesis and then I'll be done with my undergraduate studies in February. Please don't ask what I'll be doing after graduating because I can't answer that question - yet.

Also, craft fair preparations have kept me quite busy. I've been designing, sewing and packing products and building a proper craft fair booth. A big THANK YOU to my parents who always support me no matter what crazy ideas I come up with. If you're in Germany and looking to buy a new project bag or two (or three... nobody's judging here), I'd love to meet you at Cologne or Regensburg! If you can't make that's a shame, but you can still shop my stuff online. The online shop will be restocked properly in September.

one big capsule wardrobe // summer 2015

Do you remember the winter capsule wardrobe I posted at the beginning of the year?
It was working really great until I got an internship, moved to Munich and my wardrobe needs changed completely.
I went from a very casual student wardrobe to a 'OMG I'm working for a big company and everyone looks so fancy' wardrobe within a matter of weeks. Which meant I traded comfy yoga pants and dresses for blouses and dress pants. My HR department is fairly casual compared to other departments but it's defintiely a different dress code than on campus.

Some notes:

• for this capsule I chose 60 (OMG!) pieces. That sounds like a lot (and it is!) but it covers all my clothing needs. I have fancy pieces for job interviews and business meetings, semi-casual office clothes and casual clothes for the weekends. I should also note that my outfits depend on whether I ride my bike to work or whether I take the subway (which makes wearing maxi skirts manageable). 
• some of these pieces are pretty worn out and I'm looking to replace them. When I find a replacement I'll donate the old piece. There are also a couple classic pieces I'm looking for, like a high-quality trench coat and a white blouse that is not see-through (impossible to find in Germany!). These will be added to the wardrobe if I ever find them.
• some of the basic tops are just for layering and my shirts double as sleep shirts because I usually just but PJ bottoms. If I didn't count them I'd only have about 50 pieces. Doesn't sound as bad anymore, right?
• not pictured: clothes worn exclusively at home like PJ bottoms, rain gear, sportswear and two fancy dresses for special occasions. Oh and I also wear underwear like all normal people ;)
• I marked all the items I wear exclusively at the office with one * and all the pieces that are for job interviews/formal client meetings with two **

TOPS: lightweight gray pullover, 3/4 striped top, striped baseball tee, navy v neck, Roots sweater, sheep t-shirt, Lululemon scuba hoodie, navy 3/4 top*, Life is Good "summer starter kit" tee, loose navy tanktop, navy v neck, loose striped top,  navy tank, purple tank, striped neutral tank.
 
MORE TOPS classic fit blue blouse*, charcoal-gray blazer*/**, gray waterfall neck top*/**, light blue striped shirt*, cable sweater (similar style, different color), 3/4 sleeves top*, plaid shirt, light pink waterfall neck**, gray top*, striped tee, jeans jacket, gray tee, navy striped tee, striped linen shirt, 3/4 sleeves cardigan, lacy cotton pullover*, 3/4 striped blouse, lightweight coral pullover.

There are lots of neutral colors in my wardrobe. It makes matching clothes and getting dressed in the morning super quick. You might also notice that there are lots of stripes in my closet. Having lots of tops makes layering very easy. Although it gets pretty warm during the day it is usually rather cold in the morning (around 11°C/in the low 50's F) when I go to work. Thus my sweaters get lots of wear.

TOPS & BOTTOMS gray merino cardigan*, white tank*, beige maxi skirt, red maxi skirt

These two maxi skirts are kind of my wildcards. I love maxi skirts but I usually just wear them on holidays when I don't need to drive, ride my bike or walk many stairs. I've worn the red one in the office a couple of times and got many compliments for it. And there are so many people out there wearing maxi skirts while driving, chasing toddlers, etc. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to handle long skirts correctly?

BOTTOMS skinny jeans, navy linen pants*, well-loved jeans, natural chinos*, red chinos, navy dress pants**, floral dress, coral skirt, jeans shorts, beige shorts, navy shorts*, gray shorts.

My bottoms are the pieces of my wardrobe that I'm least content about. My favorite pair of jeans is falling apart and I haven't found a worthy pair to replace them yet. The linen pants are super comfy but I can only wear them with high heels - which is the opposite of comfy. So they don't get as much wear as I had hoped they would.
My jeans shorts also need to be replaced by a pair that is more flattering. I bought them right before a vacation 5 (6?) years ago because I was in desperate need of a pair of shorts. But I have failed to replace them with a more flattering pair although I've been looking for several years. Finding affordable jeans shorts that aren't destroyed, faded, high-waisted or having pockets poke out are impossible to find. If you have a recommendation on where to find wearable shorts, please let me know!

SHOES suede pumps*/**, black pumps**, gray suede oxfords*, brown leather flats*, sandals, birkenstock arizona(my slippers that I end up wearing more outside than at home, thus I listed them here), gizeh birks, gray sneakers, toms, minnetonka moccasins, Timberland boat shoes.

I have a confession to make. I love shoes. Especially leather shoes. It's a rather expensive addiction (though I don't remember the last time I bought a pair of shoes that was not on sale) but I just can't help it. When it comes to pretty handbags and shoes I'm a typical woman ;)

Oh speaking of handbags, I'm planning to share my accessories with you once I find the time to take pictures of them.

PS: Please excuse the not-so-perfect photos. I live in a tiny apartment and the only possibility to hang the pieces was in the rather dark hallway, thus the limited amount of daylight and the lack of a wide-angle lens made taking these pictures rather difficult.

life according to instagram

Life has been wonderful and busy lately. If you look at my instagram feed you'll mainly see fiber arts related stuff. But don't be fooled, 95% of my life consists of working, studying and sleeping these days. But that's okay because I'm taking an exam on corporate accounting this Saturday, which means I'll have lots of free time to enjoy the beautiful summer we're having afterwards.

In the meantime, I have started a tacky knitting themed sock collection. Julia found these when she was in South Korea a couple weeks ago and they inspired me to start looking for similar socks. There are so many awesome sheep and alpaca socks out there, I want all of them! It's a perfect timing to start this collection because most of my store-bought cotton socks are falling apart. Don't get me wrong, I love hand knitted wool socks, but they're not very practical in the summer.

If you know of a good place to buy knitting / sheep / alpaca / fiber themed socks, please let me know!

I took a week off to spend time Göttingen with my study buddies. All my friends / acquaintances in Munich work full time and seeing everybody enjoy the beautiful weather while you're spending the weekends at the library is a litt bit frustrating. So I'm enjoying spending the evening on my parents' couch with Lina and knitting on my exploration station shawl.

So this is my life right now according to instagram. What have you been up to?

wiwo wednesday vol. 21

I've been busy these past two weeks with a super secret project that I'm gonna share soon - hopefully. But in the meantime, I have a couple of in-progress shots for you of the major craft projects I have on/under the needle.

Last weekend I finished sewing the quilt top of a triangle quilt. I bought the fabrics in Canada last August so it's been on my to-do list for quite a while. Last Thursday was a public holiday in Germany so I had a four-day weekend to work on this. I finished the entire quilt top - including cutting all the triangles, going to a local quilt shop to buy more fabrics because I needed like 60 more triangles, sewing everything together (quite a challenge in a tiny apartment!) and flooding my IG feed (@froggeddesigns) with pretty pictures of it. Sunday evening I rearranged the furniture in my boyfriend's apartment to baste it. After I was done I realised the backing looked terrible - wrinkles all over! - so I undid everything and I'm sending it off to my mom so she can baste it on her longarm machine.

Over the past 4 years I have accumulated quite a lot of pants that I need to shorten (#shortpeopleproblems). My mom helped me pin them to the correct length three weeks ago when my parents were in town and they've been occupying one of my chairs since then. I'm determined to shorten ALL of them next weekend (another three-day weekend - yay!). Wish me luck.

Good thing I discovered the serial podcast to keep me company. If you haven't listened to the first season yet you totally should; it's been accompanying me on my daily walks and it's so addictive. I can't wait for season two to launch in the fall :)

This wouldn't be a wiwo post if I didn't share my progress on at least one knitting project, right?
Here's the current state of the pair of socks that's on my needles. I'm knitting them using Wollmeise twin yarn and 2.5mm needles. It's hilarious that the second sock looks SO DIFFERENT from the first although I'm using the same skein of yarn and I'm knitting from the same end. I might actually knit another pair after this using the same skeins of yarn so I can match up the two socks that look alike the most. I'm sure my mom won't mind taking a pair off my hands :)
I'm not gonna finish them until the beginning of stash dash though - which is in only two days! I'm so excited. There are lots of WIPs in my project bags that are begging for attention which they shell get.

So what have you been working on? Are you participating in stash dash this year?

wiwo wednesday vol. 20

As always I have a bunch of projects in the making but not enough time to finish them. I have about 15 craft projects that are waiting to be completed but instead I dream about new projects. The fabrics above are gonna be turned into a triangle quilt as soon as I can decide what kind of triangles and what size I want :)
They're Kona cotton fabrics that I bought in Canada last summer.

Knit-wise I still have have lots of project bags filled with various projects; hats, sweaters, a shawl, socks... I probably have too many projects on my needles but I enjoy having a variety of stuff to work on. Plus, May 22nd - August 14th is Stash Dash so I'm saving some big WIPs to finish them then so I might have a chance at finishing a 3k or maybe even the 5k!
Anyone else who plans on joining?

Sewing-wise I'm trying out some new designs and fabric/leather combinations like the one above. I'm gonna have a biggish shop update at the end of the month but I'll share more details once the date is set.

Last but not least, I have a new apartment to decorate! I'm planning to share a tour of my tiny apartment here in Munich. All my furniture and 95% of my stuff is still in my old apartment so I don't plan to invest too much into this temporary housing. But some cute Swedish pillows (like the one above) and some homemade decor won't hurt, right?

So what are you working on?
You might also want to check this rad wiwo post my talented friend Sam posted last Wednesday, featuring a day in the life of a table!

project planning

When I moved to Munich last month, I had to leave most of my stash in storage (aka my old apartment's basement) because I have very limited storing capacities at my new apartment. So when I moved I basically had to plan all my sewing and knitting projects for the next half year. Crazy, right?

Here are the knitting projects I have planned for the near future:

An exploration station shawl out of Wollmeise fingering weight yarn. After knitting this one for my mom I knew I'd knit one for myself eventually. When I saw these gorgeous colors of Wollmeise yarn at the spring sale I just couldn't resist buying them.

When I saw the dark pearl cardigan at the Baa Ram Ewe booth at the h+h Cologne in March it was love at first sight. I was lucky enough to buy the yarn right there at a discounted price. The cardigan will be perfect for summer days at the office when it's still cold in the morning on my way to work.

After knitting scrap socks for over a year I rewarded myself with a skein of Wollmeise 80/20 twin yarn to knit a pair of socks for myself. I love the bright colors ('pitahaya' for all those Wollmeise nerds who know each colorway by heart) and it will be nice to only knit from one skein for a change. Having to juggle a dozen small yarn scraps in the subway is no fun.

This beautiful Wollmeise was another spontaneous splurge. I bought enough to knit a sweater but I'm not quite set on the pattern, yet. I'm considering James and Gable. But there are a hundred other patterns I can imagine knitting with this gorgeous yarn so we'll see what I end up using it for.

Last but not least, the only yarn I brought from home: Wollmeise lace yarn that I've had sitting in my stash for over three years. What a shame, right? I'm planning to knit a simple pullover to wear in the summer. I'll probably just come up with my own design because I haven't found anything I really loved online.

Well it's gonna be a pretty busy (knit-wise) summer around here.
Do you have any specific projects planned for the summer?