I rediscovered it

Ah, my Bloglust has returned to me, only I have little time to blog! I have so many crafty projects and ideas I want to finish this weekend so I will begin this post now and every spare second inbetween waiting for things to cool of, heat up etc I will add something. Let's see how that goes...
...I have a bunch of finished projects to show you, but since they are so many, I thought I would just show you one sample and than let you discover the rest on flickr. If you have any questions about those or want me to write more about a project here, tell me and I will answer...

...OH MY GOD!!!! I didn't realized how many projects I had finished since my last substantial crafty blog post. Ok, I will show you one project that I'm pretty proud of, because it took the longest from idea to FO.

Yes, it's a cross stitch. You might now about subversive cross stitch. I always liked the designs but from the first time I saw them I knew I would want to make my own. Besides all you need is an alphabet, right? Well, yes and a text. Which is half of the problem, cause I didn't wanted anything too vulgare, just something a bit fun and quirky. Finally one day, I had this idea(among others that are not yet stitched): "Angsthase". Which means coward in german, but it's composed of the words Angst=fear and Hase=Bunny. Kind of cute, isn't it?...

...The Scoop de Jour is finished and has already been worn. I'm shocked I haven't posted a pic yet, I was a 100% sure I already did!...

...Just wanted to post the pic and write the info, but there's no pic in my folder! Seems like I didn't take one!?? Too dark to take one now, but I will post about it tomorrow as I did some minor changes to the pattern etc...

...to be continued...

Swaps are fun!!!

I love swaps of any kind, but lately craftster's swaps have just been perfect. Apart from getting nice selfmade things, I also love to craft for others who will appreciate it. Even if your family and friends oh's and ah's about what you make them, unless they craft too, they mostly don't know how much time and thought was put into it. But other crafters do and I just feel a lot more free when sending to one. I also like the themed swaps where you have to craft according to one theme and then see how everyone interpreted it and the ideas they come up with.
The latest swap has been the Hogfather swap which was based on the book "Hogfather" from Terry Pratchett, one of my alltime favorit authors!
Here's what I send minus a knitted hat that I forgot to photograph:

The main item was a tote with a cross stitched Death of Rats.

I'm not going to say much about this in case you want to read the book, but everyone who has already read it will recognize this ;-)

As Death is one of the main characters of the book, a little skull purse is just appropriate. Never ever will I combine metallic thread with my sewing machine again!

And a quote on a pen holder "HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMANS"

hmm...pictureless

So much craftiness has been happening, despite having to learn for the exam. I just didn't had the time to really blog about it.
First dyeing yarn: I love to dye yarn! Unfortunately I ran out of undyed yarn and now will have to wait for more. [side note: still no sign of my student aid #*&*#%&]
But that left time to knit with the dyed yarn. It will be an easy top-down raglan for me with a higher neck. I thought for some time what to knit out of this yarn and couldn't decide on a pattern. Plus I wasn't really in the mood to do much math for it. So an easy raglan it was!
I feared a bit for the yarn to pool or make other funky color patterns, but it actually mixes pretty well.
[imagine gorgeous lambswool dyed in a variety of light blue and green-blue]

I also finished a pair of socks for my aunts birthday which was last saturday.
[imagine plain stockinette, but sophisticated socks out of the yarn on the far left of this pic]

I plan on ordering some undyed sockyarn and dye some for my mum in Reggae colors(red, yellow, green), cause christmas will come faster than you think and reggae-colored gifts for her somehow became tradition.
Speaking of christmas, I really have to come up and begin with making gifts. So, my mum will get socks, my cousins will get cardigans and my brother....wait, I didn't get a birthday gift from him! Yes, brother I remember THAT and will come up with a matching gift for you-thinking about a birch, the historical gift for naughty children...maybe with some preparation papers for his big school exams next year...hehehe

[imagine witty writing to make a better transition to cross stitching]
I love to cross stitch, it's a bit of meditation. But it's soooooo slow. I mean I have all these cool ideas just waiting to be stitched! Let alone I want to start on the big project I got for birthday.

Side note: Sorry for the discrepancy in posting. I seem to have taking the habit of starting to write a post, stop, write a bit more, notice I forgot to take pics when it was light outside, stop, finish the post without pics.

P.S.: First day of lectures and so far it seems managable, but the real deal will be tomorrow->from 8am to 6pm with only one break from 10 to 12 and later having to change campus inbetween lectures(30min travelling!!!)
P.P.S.: What really annoyed me was that the language test which you have to take if you want to take one of the subject-orientated free language courses at university was today parallel to one of my seminars! Argh! So, no science english course for me...not that there was any space left in my time table anyway...

Ugh! +dyed yarn

Yesterday I decided I should finish my current cross stitch project to make room for the very challenging one I got. So, I took it out of the box I had stuffed all my cross stitch supplies in last week to protect them. As I finally had sorted out which of the many threads actually was light brown(it was night and there really isn't much difference between the browns there) and began to do some half-cross stitches, I saw some movement on the fabric...I looked directly and found "something"! That little something was tinier than a pin's head and white/translucent! A freaking bug-thingy! Got a tissue and removed it into the toilette, but where there is one, there will probably be a bunch more, right? And what exactly was that anyway? OMG, don't tell me it eats fabric!!!
So this morning with more light I opened the box again(it spend the night outside on the balcony ;-) ) and carefully examined everything one by one. I have found this:

Now, I got this in a swap awhile ago and since there are no bugs around it, it could very well have been like that before. When I had emptied the box without a trillion things swarming out of it, I was a bit relieved. Nevertheless on the bottom site, there was indeed a dead tiny something, though admitedly it could just have been fluff:

Well, let's just say that most of my cross stitch supplies are now in the freezer for atleast 24 hours and the box is beeing washed with VERY hot water ;-)

Btw. Do moth balls really work? This little episode reminded me about my wool stash which is not very protected right now...

Anyway, my first ashford dyed yarn is dry. Here's a pic of the hank before winding it:

The colors are a tad bit greyish, but I read on the ashord page that that can happen when mixing some of their colors. Which does sound a bit absurd especially as this was a set of primary colors that are made so you CAN mix every other color?!! Did I get something wrong? Anyway, it can also be partly due to the yarn which is some mystery mix of mohair and ???(the purple is a bit more saturated in the yarn I dyed today). I've already knit two lace shawls out of it, but gifted both to SPs. I still have about 550-600m left-over now for a scarf for me.
Which makes me point out that I really really need a ball winder! Winding 550+m only with the help of my swift is a pain in the a**! It has to go on the christmas wish list though since my student aid still has not arrived(also no sign of the approval letter for it, but atleast not another letter asking for form XYZ or sickness allowance record of my great-grandmothers dog from 2004) and even if I get it I will put it away for the newly established tuition fees due next semester...

winner and gifts

Well, there are 15 people who commented on my previous post. Thanks a bunch for your birthday well-wishes! I entered you all into the drawing[peri, I live in germany, so uk wouldn't be oversea ;-) ]. Beeing a computer science student, I thought I shouldn't do the lame old paper out of a hat thing. So I wrote a tiny java thing(actually I recycled some code I already had and this one is sooo easy anyway).*
I gave every commenter a number according to the order in which they commented.
So, the winner is....
....

Number 7+1(because it returns a number from 0 to 14), which is:
Karen!!!
Congratulations! I'll pm you via the knittyboard tomorrow with a few questions so you won't be sent something you already have or have no use for.

And what did I get for birthday? Well, first of all this cross stitch kit from Mirabilia "Titania, Queen of the fairies" which my mum brought via Ebay...which I "accidently" already found out about.

I got it in the morning after I woke up, but my mum had repeatedly asked over the course of the last two weeks if there was anything else I would like. Something small as my aunt too had brought something for my mum for me(which I'll get on wednesday). Plus, we have the rule(read my mum made the rule) that a grown up(18+) won't get that much gifts anymore since (s)he can work to buy her-/himself big things. Don' t get me wrong, I have nothing against this "rule" I think it only fair and to be honest there are a number of people out there whose parents should probably adopt that rule. I've been working besides school since the age of 16 and it DID made me value money a lot more. At my age both my mum and dad had been living alone(or been on a ship working) for quite some time.
Nevertheless my mum never manages to enforce said rule and yesterday I had to knit this:

No idea what it is? Maybe this photo will help?

Yes! It is an Ipod nano!!!!!!!
I never ever expected to get one! I have been joking about one, even putting it on the birthday list fully expecting not to get it as that is very much against above mentioned rule. I've been thinking about saving money for one and even made a plan.
I was totally stunned!

Most of the day was then spent loading music unto it, cursing at the speed of that stupid Itunes software thing and listening to music.

*The code if you're interested:
import java.util.*;
public class randomname
{
public int getthenumber(int commenter)
{
Random rand = new Random();
int winner = rand.nextInt();
int maximalnumber = commenter;
winner = rand.nextInt(maximalnumber);
return winner;
}
}

Another pictureless post...

...yeah, still haven't recharged the batteries and I don't really have time to take pics anyway. I'm supposed to learn math, the emphasize is on supposed there. I tried, but I would need another month and a better book than the one we are using, to really understand this stuff. So I hope the problems in the test will be similare to the ones we did before, so I can combine them. We're allowed to use everything from book to notes to a calculator, so it shouldn't be too dificult even if I don't understand everything(or is it anything?). I'm not the only one though, even the math wiz who is in the same semester than I am and tutored us last semester(!), doesn't understand it all.

SP, those charts are nice. Not exactly what I'm looking for though. But I have found what I want for birthday, now I only need to find a german shop that carries it or convince my mum that using your credit card online is safe ;-). I really like most of the designs from all three companies you can see here. I already have a Mirabilia chart from a swap awhile ago, but the material for stitching it is quite costly and it's probably not something I would hang on the wall(though it would be a nice gift).

Oh, and if you're searching for shawl pins, check out Chris's etsy shop here. Her pins are fabulous! Wish I could buy one right now, but my bank account sais otherwise...

cross stitch hunt

Ok, I've come to terms with my new hair cut. You're all right, it does look good. Except for saturday morning when I very much resembled a japanese Manga girl/boy with my hair literally standing up and sideways ;-) (No, there's no picture of it!)

Anyway, you might remember I started cross stitching. All I've done untill now were test pieces and bookmarks, but I would like to make a big picture one. Really, all it takes is a lot of time and I know it will probably take me ages to complete. As those are quite expensive I thought I would put it on my birthday wish list(30.september).
The problem? I can't find anything I like! Most seem to be too granny-like, you know what I mean. Or there are pets/animals involved. Or it's in pastels.
I would like something with fairies(no baby faces please) or asian or...I don't know. But if I'm going to spend so much time on something I want it to be perfect, something I'm really going to hang on my wall. The fairies and mystical/fantasy kits I found all lacked a certain *insert-word-for-funky-cool-stuff-that-makes-you-say-WOW*. The kits from Pinn go into the direction of what I look for. But there just have to be more like these out there, right? Not sure my mum would be comfortable buying from them online.

Knitwise I've finished the Lorna's socks! I almost wish it were cold enough to wear them, almost. Of course eventhough I knitted them toe-up I still have a bit left-over. I think I've never used all yarn for any project.

I also started knitting the first clue of the Mystery stole and have finished one side. Now I have to ball a second skein in order to start the other side, but it took me way over an hour to ball the last skein even with my skein winder. What I really need is a ball winder...too expensive though even on Ebay, something else to put one my birthday list!

I also got the yarn for my secret SP project! I abandoned my first idea of dyeing ýarn myself with Ashford dyes, it would just have taken too much time and would have cost too much. Plus I was afraid I would mess up with the dye ending with not enough yarn. Can't really blog about this project, cause by now my downstream SP will have guessed I'm going to knit her something.
I must admit that when I brought the yarn for the project online I couldn't resist buying some other yarn for me too...I blame it on my SP ;-)

Sorry for the lack of photos, but I keep forgetting to recharge my batteries.