baking days // feeling blue

I was asked to make blue muffins for our model united nations society info meeting tonight. First I wanted to make blueberry muffins and dye the dough blue but then I decided to make rocher-chocolate muffins topped with dyed coconut flakes.

A friend came over to help me bake them and we've had a great time. Whenever I use food dyes it reminds me of a kid's birthday party. Dying the coconut flakes was super easy; first we tried to put them in a ziplock bag and shake it well but that didn't work at all. Thankfully my rookie Julia is a paramedic so we always have a big box of disposable gloves. We ended up mixing the coconut flakes and the food dye in a small mixing bowl. It worked great and thanks to the gloves out hands don't look like we're auditioning for the Blue Man Group ;)

We added tiny flags with our club's name (MUNSG = model united nations society Göttingen) to add a fun little detail. Beside the blue coconut flakes, of course…

This was a fun little project (it took us about an hour, including cleaning up our colorful mess) and hopefully our new(& current!) members will like them. Next challenge will be transporting them to campus… on my bike. We'll see how many coconut flakes will be left by the time I get there ;)

busy but good

The first week of the new semester is over and I feel like I could use a vacation already. There's so much going on: catching up with friends I haven't seen all summer, making lots of new friends, founding a knitting club at uni, preparing for a craft fair and trying to manage to fit double the course load any sane person would consider taking into a timetable. Life is busy but good. I'm really thankful to have this cute lady to come home to every day. Coming home to a cat makes all the stress and worries from a long day go away.
Have a great week!

52 craft projects // Bedford sweater

I'm happy to share my latest 'big project' with you - the Bedford sweater by Michele Wang for Brooklyn Tweed. It was a joy to knit once I got past row 20; I frogged the beginning 6 (!!!) times because either my gauge was off, I knitted the wrong size, I managed to twist the whole thing... It was pretty frustrating at first but once I figured out which size to make and which needles to use it was a fun knit.
I love the stitch pattern - isn't it pretty?

When I first saw the pattern in the BT fall '11 collection I knew that I'd knit it... one day. I found the perfect wool for this project in Denmark during our summer vacation and I got started right away before I could change my mind and bury the yarn in my stash. So after just six weeks (three of which were completely knit-free) I've got a new favorite sweater.

The fit couldn't be better - a relaxed body and tight sleeves; just the way I love it!
Yarn information, mods, etc. can be found here.

I've already cast on my next sweater - also a BT design, but this time it's a man's cardigan for my dad for Christmas. Let's hope that I'll finish it before Christmas... along with the 15 or so other Christmas presents I still have to knit.
This is project #29 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013. You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.

52 craft projects // camera strap cover

So my camera strap has been 'naked' for the past months because my old one shrunk quite a bit in the washing machine. Don't worry, my mom's camera strap is smaller than mine so it still fits hers and it didn't go to waste. But I was left with a bare camera strap for months and although I love my Nikon, I have to admit that the color combo black/yellow is not my favorite.

So today I decided to finally make a new camera strap cover. I got out some of my current favorite fabrics and started following this tutorial. I don't need the lens cap pocket because I use this pouch but I wanted a quick project and it looked rather easy and quick to make.

The fabrics I chose are all linen or linen/cotton blends. I LOVE the texture of linen.The two fabrics I used for the ends are kokka fabrics that I bought in Munich last summer. I only bought 20cm of each fabric because it was ridiculously expensive (24€ for one meter of fabric - crazy!?!) but I love them so so much I couldn't walk away from them. They are from Ellen Luckett Baker's 'Stamped' Collection - I love the entire collection. Thankfully they only had three fabrics from the collection, otherwise I would've spent much more...

The inside is just a coordinating, plain, thick cotton fabric. The cover is rather large so I hope it will still fit after the first washing - if not I don't mind making a couple more covers to have an excuse to use some of my favorite fabrics!

ps: sorry I was too lazy to take the camera strap off the camera to take a picture of the entire strap. But you've seen the most exciting parts ;)
This is project #28 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013. You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.

52 craft projects // hedera socks

I started these socks a while ago (sometime this summer...) but I didn't work on them for a couple of weeks and then I was too lazy to look up the lace pattern again so they ended up being a wip for way too long. I finally finished them yesterday when I had 8 hours of undisturbed knitting time on my way to Hamburg and back. Yay for awfully long train rides!

I'm not sure whether the socks just need blocking or whether the yarn wasn't the perfect choice for the pattern yet; they look kind of 'blah'?

The next socks I'm gonna knit will be with cables rather than a lace pattern - I think that's more my style. Also winter is coming so a pair of cabled socks can't hurt :)

Any pattern recommendations?

As always, check the ravelry project page for yarn information etc.

This is project #27 of 52 craft projects I'm attempting to complete in 2013.

You can see all the other projects I've complete so far here.

long-term annoyances

Ever since I moved in over a year ago I had some things that annoyed me but they weren't actual 'problems' and didn't need immediate fixing. Of course I tackled all the high priority items on my to do list first, like installing a kitchen etc.
But 14 months after moving in I finally checked off two of those 'long-term annoyances' from my mental check list:
1) finding a place to put all my school stuff, like binders, books, etc.
and
2) organize & clean the basement.


I got a billy bookshelf at ikea that I put next to my closet. Our vacuum cleaner used to be there but for the time being I put it behind my door; it's less visible but still not perfect.
I dedicated the two lowest shelfs to all my binders. Once classes start these two shelves will be packed, I'm sure!
I used the remaining shelfs to put my books somewhere visible. They used to be all stacked in/on the little tv stand thingy next to it. It was neither pretty nor practical. I'm not sure what to do with the tv stand yet - my dad found it in the trash I 'borrowed' it from him; all my makeup and cosmetics are in the little drawer unit on top so I'll just leave it like that for now.

The basement project took a little bit longer; when we moved in, we just threw all the stuff in there that we didn't have a place for upstairs in the apartment; it was fine for a while but lately it's been hard to even enter it so I decided to finally get it off my list.
We're fortunate to have all the main fuse box and all the cable tv cords in our basement 'room' so we have electricians/cable tv guys having to access our basement from time to time. It doesn't hurt to give them easy access instead of having them crawl over boxes and boots, right?

We're lucky to have some built in shelfs on the one wall. At the other wall we have a small shelf that a previous tenant left here, a drawer unit that I used to have when I was a kid and a large ikea shelf to store moving boxes, etc.
The tiny shelf is filled with Christmas decorations & mugs. The drawers are filled with our shoes(two girls... what can I say?) and the big shelf holds outdoor gear, our smokey joe and moving boxes filled with tools.

We also have a wall cabinet that didn't fit into our kitchen that we use to store groceries like flour, sugar, tea, etc. that we buy in bulks but don't wanna store in our kitchen.

There are still many things on my 'long-term annoyances' list, like

• hang art/photos
• get a wall shelf for the bathroom
• install plinths in the kitchen

but I probably won't worry about them until next year :)

one hell of an apple pie

I love having friends over for coffee and cake. It's always nice to have an excuse to bake something and it's not too much of a time commitment. Another bonus is that I get a clean apartment out of it.
Yesterday, I've had some friends over for some relaxed knitting time and I made an apple pie. I think I pretty much figured out the perfect apple pie. Next time I make it I'll take some notes and post the recipe here. Want a little hint? Rum raisins! Yum!

I'm enjoying the last couple of lazy days before classes start next week. I can't wait! So far I have about 13 classes that I really, really wanna take. Getting this number down to a reasonable 5-6 will be tough. I'm really thankful that I have two more years of uni so I can hopefully take all the classes I'm passionate about.