wiwo wednesday vol. 3

On Monday I started a new project. It's a KAL with Grace from the Knitting Goddess with her cat. We're knitting the Bolt shawl by Veera Välimäki. So far it's a fun and mindless in class knitting project. That's probably gonna change once the short rows begin but I'm enjoying knitting something other than socks in class while I can. Feel free to join in #boltKAL

I also made some progress on the buttercup. So far it's been a rather mindless knit as well. I'm excited to finish the raglan increase section so I can try it on. I was too lazy excited to get started to check my gauge. Let's hope that it's about the right size.

I started a new pair of scrap socks. I'm not sure which colours to use so I didn't get very far yet.

I knitted about one row on the stripe obsession scarf. Nothing to be proud of but one row is better than nothing... right?

an explosion of green

Yesterday, my roommate Julia and I spent the 'golden hour' outside taking pictures. We had so much fun and spending a Friday evening outside in the fields is great to unwind after a long and stressful week.
This weekend I have all kinds of fun things planned - organizing my craft room, cleaning and decorating my bedroom and spending quality time with friends, family and my sewing machine. I also have some not-so-tiny-anymore zucchini and pumpkin plants sitting on my windowsill that are aching to be planted outside.

Happy weekend!

a typical morning

Mornings are my favorite time of the day. The love the quietness, the beginning of something new, getting a fresh start and having all the possibilities of an awesome day. I usually get up at around 7am although my alarm clock doesn't ring until 7:15.

Lina is always the first to have breakfast. Sometimes she wakes me up at around 6:30 because she's hungry but I don't mind an early start.

After getting ready I make or reheat a cup of black tea. I usually make a pot and save a cup for the next day. I know that it's not 'the proper way' but it works for me.

Depending on when my first class starts, I either have breakfast on my couch (while catching up on mails/readings the news online/writing a blog post) or in the kitchen while simultaneously preparing my lunch. I definitely prefer slow mornings on the couch. Another essential routine is writing my daily to do list. Without it I often feel unorganized and since my daily planner is also where I write down my to do lists I also see my appointments for the day.

After breakfast I often make a pot of tea (rooibos or in this case white tea) that I either take to school in a tumbler or enjoy while studying at home.

Are you a morning person, too?

wiwo wednesday vol. 2

I'm almost done with my little wave cardigan. I was determined to finish it last weekend but then I ran out of yarn. Unfortunately the yarn isn't sold in Germany so I got a little panic attack before remembering that there's this great community called ravelry.com out there. I looked through the stash option and found someone in the UK who was willing to sell one skein of the exact color I need(Thanks, Hilary!). I hope that I'll get to knit the pockets and sew on the buttons (which I need to buy first) before next week's wiwo post.

I tried the cardigan on the other day and it fits perfectly. A super cute pattern that I'll probably knit again one day :)

The next project isn't technically a wip yet but I'm listing it here anyway. My knitting group and I placed a huge yarn order(you think I'm exaggerating? Click & stare.) because our favorite drops yarn is currently on sale. Naturally I got a couple skeins for future projects, one of which will be the buttercup. The color is a perfect mix of fray, blue and red. Kind of hard to describe but really beautiful.

The scrap scarf only got a tiny gray stripe added this week.

Since I currently don't have any socks on my needles gasp! I thought I'd share a quick update of my sock yarn stash. #operationsockyarn left quite a dent in my stash but there are still a lot of scraps for future projects.

What are you working on?

echino bike bag

I probably have more bags than I could wear out in the next 50 years. Yet I enjoy making (and buying) new bags. Also, there are a couple of bags that I use all the time. This bag is one of them. I had it with me in Vancouver, so it was pretty much the only bag I used for a whole year. It has the perfect some and the perfect amount of pockets. Plus I have my hands free and I can also use it when riding my bike.

After almost three years of constant use my old echino bag looks very... loved? The strap is basically falling apart and although I still use it, I knew I'd have to replace it eventually. So during a sewing retreat in March I made a new bag. Same pattern, same combination of fabrics yet it's a very different style.
The bag is big enough to hold my laptop and notebooks, textbooks etc I need in school. It's also perfect for grocery shopping. And for going out with friends. Basically I use it for everything, because it doesn't look bulky when empty yet it can easily hold a lot of things.

One of the most important aspect of a bag are the pockets. I always put my purse + keys in the zipper pocket and my cell phone in the bird pocket, so I can reach it easily and don't have to fiddle with a zipper when it rings.

I quilted lines on the straps and top of the bag to give it some more texture. I love how it turned out!

This time around I didn't add adjustable straps because I cut the wrong size of fabric always wore my old bag at the same length anyway so I knew it would be comfortable. I wrote down all the measurements for the bag so I hope to post a tutorial on how to make it eventually.

Ressources:
outer fabrics:
green bikes // echino
strap + top // ikea 'minna'
inner fabrics:
gray // unknown
blue // ikea 'ditto'
bird // echino (from my last bag!)

interfacing // pellon TP971F theromlam plus
magnetic closure // recycled from an old bag
zipper // YKK

wiwo wednesday vol. 1

I'm starting a new weekly feature called 'wiwo wednesday' - wiwo stands for 'what I'm working on'. My aim is to share more work in progress (wip) photos and stories. I love seeing and reading about wips but I often get the impression that people only consider finished projects worth blogging about. But that's about to change.
I like to have a variety of wips - usually at least one big knitting project, like a cardigan, and one big sewing project, like a quilt. Add to that a sock knitting project that I always carry in my purse and you have at least three wips at any given time.

I'm currently working on the Little Wave cardigan by Gudrun Johnston. I love how it looks and I'm in love with the yarn! You can check my ravelry project page for all the details.
I'm done with knitting the body and sleeves. What's left to do is the button band and collar, the pockets, sewing on the buttons and weaving in all the ends. I hope that it won't appear in next week's wiwo post ;)

Next up is a quilt. I started sewing a 'summer in the park' quilt at a sewing retreat back in March. I finished sewing most strips but didn't work on it since then because I was moving all my craft supplies into a dedicated crafting room (SO excited to share it in a couple of weeks. It still looks very unorganised and most of my things are still in boxes and I have to reassemble some furniture but having an entire room for my sewing and scrapbooking stuff feels awesome.). Last weekend I finished sewing and cutting the blocks. All that's left to do is piecing all the blocks together and figuring out what kind of border I want and where I can get it from. And then convincing my mom to quilt it on her longarm machine ;)

Next up is one of those stash bashing projects I stared on a whim. I love the alpaca yarn from Garnstudio Drops because it's cheap and great quality and the colours are awesome. But my love for Drops Alpaca left me with a box full of scraps and even skeins of which I only used a couple of yards. So I decided to knit a striped tube and close it with buttons. That will give me an awesome (and warm!) scarf that I can also close to use as a cowl. My inspiration for this scarf was the Oslo scarf by BT. I'm gonna knit forever on this project but I love how I can use up the scraps I'm creating right away. Click here for all the dirty details.

Last but not least, my current sock project. I'm knitting another pair of scrap socks as part of my #operationsockyarn. Usually I don't like the socks while working on them but once they're done I love them. We'll see if it's the same this time around.

an update.

I took a (involuntary) break from blogging. Sometimes life gets busy - exams, shipping out orders, renovating a new studio, the beginning of a new term and spending time at a hospital to care for a loved one who had an accident - and blogging ends up at the bottom of my to-do list. Which is sad because I love blogging and I missed it. To prevent that sort of involuntary break from happening again I've decided to start scheduling my blog posts. I have a long list of posts I've wanted to write for quite a while now. I'll put the drafts together so I can juts hit publish once life gets too busy to take pictures and write blog posts.
Over the past weeks I've been making a list of things I like/dislike about blogs. I think looking at blogs you enjoy reading gives you a good feedback of what you should change in order to turn your own blog into something you'd love reading. Don't get me wrong, I love my little corner of the internet but the design needs an update and there are so many things I'd love to blog about but haven't because I felt they didn't match my blog.
Just like life this blog is a 'work in progress' - it'll change over time and I'll blog more about what I'm currently doing, instead of just posting finished items. I'm starting a new feature called 'wiwo - what I'm working on'. I'll share progress of the many small and big projects I have on my plate. The yarn you see in the picture above is currently being knitted into a cardigan. If you follow me on instagram(@froggeddesigns) you'll see almost daily updates of my knitting progress.

I hope you're having a great Sunday.