Sorry, nothing here

Well, I have a severe case of Blog-unlust, that's why I haven't blogged yet and this post isn't a real post either. Sorry, maybe this saturday, but at the moment I prefer to craft instead of taking photos of FO's and WIP's...

serious addict

I'm addicted, a serious addict! No, I'm not just talking about my yarn addiction, that goes without mentioning, but all my other addictions. Here's a list in no particular order cause I'm addicted to it all equally:

• Coffee: I can't live without it. Numerous attempts have been made to atleast drink less of it and more of the real stuff in contrast to the instant one I drink mostly. All have failed in the end! I need a coffee or two in the morning more than I need a cigarette(which I know is an addiction too). I need one during lectures. I need one when I get back home...
• Craft supplies(not counting yarn+fabric): I hord it. Even if I haven't done anything in that direction for months/years I have to save it for the day I will need it again. I must say that I got rid of some supplies, but regretted it deeply more than just once. Like throwing away those wooden bars for silk painting, little skeins of thread/yarn to knot bracelets...I will never again be able to throw any craft supplies away! And I continue to buy more for new crafts...
• craft books: I have to order most via Amazon cause the german books mostly suck. My wish list grows larger and larger and I already dedicated 50€ from next months money to craft books
• books/reading in general: I will go weeks, yes sometimes even months without reading a book and then I will get in the mood again and read a book within a weekend! And we're not talking about small books, more like LOTR within a week.
• Brooches: As I probably mentioned before on this blog I wear almost no jewellery at all except for brooches. I could buy more and more of them!
• ...to be continued one day...

The perfect flower

I recently got some amazing crochet hooks in a swap and am using one now on my hunt for the perfect crocheted flower. That really sounds easier than it is. Yes, there are a lot of patterns out there for those and I have a bunch of books with patterns too, but it's always not quite what I want. So I decided to make up my own pattern and just try out a few different things.

This must be number 3 or 4 now:

The first two colored rounds are ok, but the yarn I used for the third round isn't stiff enough. Plus the yellow center could be better too.
So the hunt will continue!

And I was tagged by Di. I'm going to just ignore rule number 3, but if you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged!The Rules of the Tagging
1. Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself
2. Then write them on your blog
3. Then choose another 7 people to get tagged and list their names
7 random facts about me:
1.I love the Eurovision contest! And I watched it yesterday of course! Anybody else saw it too? The little knitting clip was way cool.
2.I will throroughly inspect bread before I eat it atleast here at home. Believe me, you would too if you had biten into moldy bread more than once!
3.My finger nails are upper strong, I don't have to do anything to maintain my long nails.
4.I wake up everyday before my alarm goes off. This means even if I don't have to go to campus early, I will be awake by 7am.
5.I own a cell phone, but seldomly use it. Actually most of the time the batteries are dead and my friends know better than to try and call me on that one.
6.I'm a coffee junkie and not even just to the good stuff, I mostly drink instant one.
7.I read all of the Anne Rice books and loved them, my taste in books is as weird as my taste in music sometimes is.

Flash your stash 2007

I totally forgot about flash your stash and so hadn't made any preparations like sorting and getting the yarn from the attic. What I ended up doing was gather all the yarn that is in my room and than see if it all fit on my floor which it surprisingly did:
->

That's amost all of the yarn I have now except for a few balls(my guess is 2-4kg...a few, right...) that are stored up in the attic. I will post a bunch more pictures and descriptions later, but in the meanwhile here's a picture of all the sock yarn I have except for a few undyed balls(my guess is 400-600g...a few, right...):

I think flash your stashis a good oportunity to marvel at your own stash and maybe even realize that you have enough to complete a few projects without buying more.
Edit:
Click to see bigger photos and notes

P.S.: Has anybody else noticed that blogger picture hosting seems to have an upper storage limit now? Honestly I think they should have atleast notified bloggers!

cupcake, sheep and the magic number!

I brought a cute crochet cupcake pattern from purl on saturday and finished my first yummy cupcake yesterday evening. Ok, it took me considerably more time than the 30minutes it takes her to finish one, but then I'm a rather slow crocheter.
I love how it turned out! her instructions are pretty clear and easy to follow. I'm planning on making a bigger cupcake soon.


I also went to a "Kunsthandwerkermarkt"(craft fair) this sunday at an open-air museum(traditional houses etc. like a whole little village). I'm deliberatly not showing any pics of what I brought, but I have to say that I managed not to buy everything I liked...especially this one amazing lapis lazuli brooch...
Anyway, I'm the worst picture taker ever since I always forget to take pictures in the first place, so these are the only two I took: sheep!

And *drumroll* we've passed the magic number of 100000!

What next?

So, the kimono dress was a no-no, the vintage dress was ok, but not perfect. Which one should I try next? I've got three more patterns that I could test(click to make bigger):

1. Butterick 3076
Would prefer the A version cause I fear the back of version B would gap when I wear it. It sais it is suitable for light weight broadcloth/linen/denim, so I should have something in my stash for it.
2. Burda young fashion 8174
Here too I would sew the A version since it has straps. Can't wear anything without a bra and don't own a strapless bra anymore( or better to say the one I have is one cup size to big, the downside of loosing weight).
3. Burda 8353
I love the fabric of version A and really like the dress, but I fear I don't have fabric for this dress. I have a black fabric with a black flowery embroidered pattern on it that might work, but it also has holes(lace) in it and I would need to add lining to it.

In the mean time I finally managed to organize my postcards and put some of them up:

Darn, I just realized while looking at the pic, that some of the cards though they have been secured with double tape moved and know you can see some of the brown background!

Kimo-NO

or March madness second try: the Kimono tunic
Two weeks ago I saw a sewing magazine that I just had to have:

I loved the tunic on the cover though back then I thought it was a dress. In case you didn't noticed yet, but the magazine is dutch! Now, I can make out some words in spoken dutch if the person speaks slowly cause it's a bit similare to german. Just a bit though. I had my mum help me read some of it. She would read it out loud and then we both tried to make sense of it. She was pretty good at it probably because she learned plattdeutsch when she was younger.

Anyway, the tunic is so simple I don't think you really need to understand it all. Surprisingly though the tunic is made out of several pieces, on the pattern sheet it was just 4 pieces, front+back plus pieces that needed to be attached to it to make it longer(wouldn't have fit on the sheet otherwise).
You're supposed to cut the several pieces from these two back and front pieces. For my test piece I decided not to cut the several pieces apart. I just wanted to get a general idea of how it would look like, especially since the smallest size is only a EU38 and I wear a EU36.
Here's the test piece:


Ok...hmm, I don't think so. The patterns asks for popelin fabric which is a bit stretchy, but not that much. I don't think that would look to good, I could however imagine it in something more flowingly. My mum already asked if I couldn't make a tunic like that for her....maybe after I find my perfect dress.

P.S.: See the counter to the left? Granted, some of these are my own visits, but still...way cool!
This graph probably shows more the true visitor number(click to make bigger):


P.P.S.: Omg, I love all of these here: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=91219

busy bee

As you probably already guessed, I was quite busy lately trying to finish all my WIPs. Not only did I finished the cotton candy, but also a scarf/shawl and the camisole.
First the scarf: The pattern is a simplification of eunny's print o'the wave stole. Fewer repeats and a simple garter stitch edge instead of the fancy one. It's knit out of Kauni yarn 100% wool, my mum thinks it's too scratchy for a scarf, I think it's perfect! It even smells a faint bit wooly plus it matches my coat!
Unfortunately the picture is not very good, but I hope you get the idea. There's also my fab shawl pin from scottsmountaincrafts, love it! (Have you seen her new bracelets? Wish my arms weren't that skinny and I could wear bracelets, see pictures below for what I mean)


The camisole has been blocked too. I blocked the hell out of it since it ended up beeing much too wide due to my gauge changing while knitting. Well, it definately isn't too wide anymore, but now it's quite lengthy flowing over my hips. I don't mind though, it's rather hip now, isn't it?

(I really, really need to get my hair cut, but I can't decide how...)

I also dyed some roving for a swap and since I couldn't decide what kind of colors I wanted to send I dyed a bunch more and decided afterwards. The rest is going into my fiber stash.

I already spun up one that isn't in the above picture and plied it with some undyed fiber

I love how it turned out! It's light blue with light blue-green. I'm thinking about knitting socks out of this though I probably have to spin the rest of it for that too.

Well, with almost all my projects finished I felt lost. What to knit next? I opted against another pair of socks(though I just brought some more sock yarn...) and tried out Domino knitting instead. I had brought this book recently and it is really nice. The instructions are pretty clear and take you every step. I'm not so fond of the patterns especially the yarn choices made. I think Domino knitting just screams for multicolored yarn.
Anyway I made this potholder for my mum within two hours.


Ok, there also was a lot of shopping lately, but I will only show you this gigantic fabric stash enhancement. These are over 18m of Ikea fabric! Ikea had a special last Tuesday: 2 for 1! Yes, you got two yards for the price of 1! I went there early in the morning to be there when they open cause I knew the chaos it would be. Of course that was the day a truck lightly hit a car and though nobody seems to have been injured the 15 minutes trip to Ikea took me 1.5 hours!!!
The fabric section had turned into hell by the time I finally arrived! Nevertheless I got everything I had wanted to buy.


You might not believe it, but I'm a pretty stubborn person. Once I set my mind on something there's not much that can distract me from it. I'm very much like my father in that characteristic, though he denies beeing stubborn ;-)
There was a contest on Dawanda , which is kind of like a german etsy. It was a valentines contest where you had to mark your favorits and then you randomly got kissed by valentin, valentina or a frog. For every valentin or valentins you got a point and the three persons with the most points would get something of their favorits list.
That's where my stubbornness set in and I kept on adding to my favorits, must have been hundreds and hundreds of things I marked( you could see the top 8 persons I think). Well, in the end I was indeed number three!
To my surprise I was allowed to make 3 suggestions for the price which I did. And then even more surprising, I did not just get one item, but two!!!
First this really cool felt pillow arrived. It matches my room and is just fab. I'm really thinking about buying a second one. http://dawanda.com/user/berlinerfilz

And today this amazing brooch was in the mail! I'm a sucker for pretty brooches! http://dawanda.com/user/filani

continuiously added Part 2

1. Been knitting like mad the past few days inbetween learning. I learn a bit, knit a bit and then write down or recite what I remember, then check, learn.....
It's a nice method and I have most of the topics covered now, though I still need to memorize a few arguments. That's one of the harder parts if you ask me, not only knowing what, but why and formaly correct!

2. I knit a pair of socks and started some wrist warmers with the self-dyed sock yarn. I made 1,50m hanks and dyed half of it in one color, the other half in another. It makes a nice one row stripe pattern! I also knit a silk scarf out of some Hipknits silk I still had and used the "seafoam" lace pattern for it. It's really soft and will probably be worn all the time now!

3. I already heard from my Knitty SP and she sure sounds nice! This will be so much fun!!! I didn't had much time for my downstream SP yet, but I brought some yarn for her.

4. How can it be, that half of the jobs offered on the university page(from companies outside of the university) are part-time jobs with more than 20hours per week? Which serious student can do them? Also, why are the working hours in the morning to midday? Atleast I have lectures then! The best of all are job offers for full-time!!! If I work full-time, I can't be studing at the same time now can I?

5. Yes, I'm searching for a job at the moment. A small one with not too many hours, preferably not on the other end of town and so not in retail. I'm not allowed to earn more than 350€ per month or else I lose atleast part of my federal student support. Around 100€/month would be just fine with me in order to save some more for the new tuition fees.
So far I haven't found any, there was always a twist, like it was only fee-based and that means a whole lot of paperwork for me at the beginning of the year for the tax office.

6. My dad is back and he brought some present with him! Apart from some black hair shampoo(the best in the world, really!) and a bunch of pyjamas he got me these fabrics:

I see bags and skirts in the near future!
He also got me these three coordinate fabrics, they are black and gold! Three pieces because that's what you would need for a traditional skirt-top-shawl-combo. It's a really nice woven fabric, but I'm not sure what to make out of it(and no, traditional is out of questions!).


7. OMG, I could...I mean my dad could be rich! Ok, let me explain a bit here first. My dad's dad, my grandfather whom I never met cause he died before I was born, owned a lot of land in and around my dad's home town in Indonesia. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot! He never really sold any of it even when money and so food was tight cause you might get money now, but it leaves faster than land(clever man). When my aunts(I had five!) married they all got some of that land to build their own houses and start a family. Nevertheless the bigger part of those lands was passed down to my father as the oldest son of the family. Most of these lands are somewhere in the middle of the island or around(and on top) of a mountain where nobody wants to live anyway. But among the lot is also a small island near to the coast line and a bit of the coast line too! For years now there had been talk about various people wanting to buy it for different reasons among them building a hotel... apparently some of these people offered my dad a whole chunk for the land this time...but he refused!!!
One day when I have more time I'll tell you about the lands that my grandmother passed down to my dad...in singapur!

continously added

I don't have much time to blog, but a lot to blog about, so I thought I would just start a post and add to it whenever I have the time. Starting this now on sunday, we will see when it's really published. Edit: published on monday, so not too long, though no photos, sorry!

1. The Sesam sweater
It's almost finished! I really love the color combo and the pattern is a rather quick knit despise the needle size(3mm). I made a mistake in the sleeve cap where I forgot to change color once and will have to rip back. Of course I noticed this after I already bound off... one should probably not knit after 23.00 after a long learning day.
Even if I manage to reknit the cap the next week, I won't be able to complete the sweater since I have no buttons for it, so I can't knit the button band yet. I want some contrasting buttons in the burgund/red that the yarn is which will probably be a little problem. I'll have to compare buttons and probably visit many stores to find some which is not going to happen before the exam.

2. dyeing yarn+socks
I got my order of Ashford dyes this week and have been dyeing quite a lot even before it arrived. I dyed some beautifull yarn, if I might say so. Already knit a pair of socks out of the first yarn I dyed and they are nice to wear. A bit softer than regular sock yarn.
The second batch of dyeing didn't come out that great and the two different colorways came out quite alike. I might offer one of them up for swap, though I'm not sure yet.

3. Knitty SP
Yes, I'm participating again. I just love the Knitty SP and the nice folks I've met through it. The last one was real fun and I hope this one will be too.
I thought about it for a longer time whether or not to join, because of my exams(of which there will be a number shall I pass the next one, otherwise I'm stuck...), but figured there's always enough time for shopping and sending emails. Might not be able to knit much for my downstream SP as I did for my last, but then that's not really a requirement.

4. exams
I'm worried to say the least. I really have to pass this next one. Granted everyone thinks it's the hardest to pass for your "Vordiplom", but that's not what I'm really worried about. I'm worried that I'll mess up, because I'm too nervous during the exam and will have a black-out again. Or that I don't understand the questions right etc.

5. wanted list
There's a couple of things I really would like to buy including yarns to test. I don't have a strict new years resolution, but I want to knit from my stash for awhile, so I'm not going to buy any of these just now. Still thought it would be a good idea to write them down so I don't forget about it.

• SWTC Karaoke
• Noro Kureyon
• a messenger bag big enough to hold my university folder; I could sew one myself, but I'm not in the mood. On the other hand I can't spend a fortune on it either.
• hand carders
• SWTC Tofutsies
• more spinning fiber
• Hello Kitty cotton fabric

6. needle felting
When I ordered the ashford dyes I got some needles for felting and a foam pad too. I've been wanting to try needle felting for awhile. Well, it takes a lot of time and you have to concentrate on it or you will hurt yourself, but it's fun too!

7. sewing
Awhile ago I brought a bedsheat and pillow case for cheap at ikea. It's all black and white ith swirly motives on it. Back then I had the idea to color it and sew it up into a skirt. Well, it had been laying around since then, but when I saw blog post(can't remember which one) about coloring ikea fabric(though a different one) with fabric markers, I remembered it. Coloring it was a lot of mindless fun, felt like beeing a little kid with a coloring book again! The skirt is almost finished now.

8. podcasts
Ever since I got my Ipod nano for birthday, I've been a podcast addict! They are a lot of fun and it's nice to have something to listen to besides music when knitting or having to clean up etc. My fav knitting podcast are CastOn, limeandviolet and Sticks&Strings(mainly because of his voice ;-) ).

9. blogs
I am subsribed to way too many blogs on bloglines! I found that I'm not really reading every post but mostly just look at pictures... Once I find the time I'm going to seperate the list into blogs I really want to read + follow and other blogs.

10. oh boy, this is really getting long! Anybody still reading?

11. youtube
In the past I sometimes wrote down at the end of a post what music I currently listened to. I don't always do that cause I'm not always listening to music.
Anyway, thought I would share some videos, especially of bands/musicians you probably don't know.
Gentleman-Superior
Farin Urlaub-Zehn
The Staggers-Wild Teen
Bela B. feat. Charlotte Roche-1. 2. 3....
Seeed-Ding
Jan Delay-Klar

need yarn?

I spend two hours yesterday to take pictures and prepare the auctions on Ebay! So much knitting time has been wasted recently, it's quite sad...
Anyway, shameless plug for my auctions: look, yarn! (if this link shouldn't work, look for seller's name cloudpurple on ebay.de)
You know, you want it ;-)

gifts, gifts and spinning

The christmas presents have been a success apart from one. Yes, you might have guessed it, the sweater for my older cousin is too small!(and she said it's scratchy, really kids these days etc...) But since she loved the scarf I'm not going to knit another scratchy sweater for her. But next time I decide to knit her something I'm going to measure her up. Kids are just too different to just pick a size according to age. She's not that tall, but rather roundish. Not fat at all, just the kind of roundishness common for kids.
What did I get for my brother in the end? A sweater. It was just too claustrophobic shopping a day before christmas eve that I decided against searching every shop for something.

I did get spoiled quite much this year too. Take a look:

There's:

~ 1kg of beautifull I guess you call it pencil roving(???)
~four Terry Pratchett books

~Spin to knit; which is a great book, but more later

~a wool winder; actually got that before christmas

~a cigarette etui from my mum cause it's pink, has bling-bling and "you have a very special place in my heart" written on it

~a brooch for the brooch-obsessed

~tons of choclate and other sweets; only one pictured here as example

mising in the pic:

~a little calendar from my brother which is pink too

~Gilmore Girls DVD second season

~an itunes card

I began flipping through the "Spin to knit" book on christmas eve before leaving for the concert and it's really well written. The first part tells you a lot about spinning, fiber etc and the second part are patterns. I haven't really read through the patterns yet, but the first part is nice.

Since I've been spinning quite much these past days I also had to ply some again. I had spun all of the blue-purple roving and after plying it had a bunch left over on one bobbin, so I spun up the red roving I brought from a fellow knit blogger and plyed them together. I rather like the effect.

And again I had left-overs, now from the red wool. I tried to Navajo ply it and it's ok, though not perfect either. It took some time to get a feeling about what exactly I should do in what order to get it to neatly ply and not produce wobbly yarn-though that would have made some nice designer yarn, if I were into that kind of yarn.

And this is the christmas roving spun. I like it, but it looks a lot different then the roving. The colors are less saturated and a bit greyish.

I guess this post is long enough already, so projects will be posted another time.

5 good things

So, kgoodrow posted "5 Good Things about Yesterday" and I thought I would give it a try too:

1. I didn't wash my hair and wasn't embarrassed to show up at campus at all! It has its ups to study computer science ;-)

2. I wasn't able to complete my homework, but at the end of the 2 hours lab work I almost had it right + I understood what the **** I was doing!(note: nobody had a working solution done and the instructor didn't really care)

3. It didn't rained...or did it? Well, atleast I can't remember that it rained!

4. I finished plying some yarn!

...Hmm, that's harder than I thought! Honestly I can't remember much about yesterday...

5. I had delicious ice cream.

Maybe I should have done a "5 Good Things about Today", not that so much more happened today, but I can remember today better than yesterday. Not a good sign for one so young...

P.S.: If your day so far hasn't been much on the bright side turn on your speakers and listen to number 7 here

Déjà-vu

Tuesday approx. 4pm:
brother(looking out of living room window):"Has it rained mum?".
mum(looking out of kitchen skylight window):"Hmm, no.".
brother:"Than why is the street wet?".

Yupp, this was definately a Déjà-vu moment. Remember this? At 10pm after the workers were finished it looked the same as last time. The only difference is that they didn't continue to work yesterday and today it's heavily raining. I doubt they will finish it any time soon as it's getting colder and will rain more.

Knit-wise I casted on for a wine-colored scarf to match my new coat, which I got to wear for the last week. It really is getting colder! Unfortunately my mum was right, the coat looks gorgeous, but is not warm enough for below zero degree. No, I'm so not going to admit it to her, though I can do so here. And I can't really were bulky sweaters beneath it, it's a tad bit too small for that...
Hey, atleast I look great in it, who cares if I'll be freezing? As long as I don't run around like some girls do in too-low-jeans with too-short-summer-jackets exposing skin at 5°C, everything will be fine.

Sorry, no photos at the moment, my brother has the camera. He's doing an internship at the moment at a company that produces weldingsystems and automating technic. I wonder if kids in other countries do this too? Going to a company for two weeks to have a look into a job or two in order to see if they like it during school time.
My brother has no realistic idea what he wants to do. The only reason he's at that company is that one of my mum's friends works there and he was too lazy to search for something else...
...have I mentioned that he will graduate next year? He will have his "Realschulabschluß" and could if his marks are good enough(I doubt it...) continue to got to school(Abitur/high school diploma). Or he could start an apprenticeship.
His "plan" so far only includes going to the army for his military duty(there's compulsory military service in Germany for nine months). Ah well, he's old enough and can chose for himself...
I wonder why we are so different from each other in this area. When I was in 4th grade I decided I wanted to go to a Gymnasium to make my diploma and study afterwards(my mum wanted me to go to a comprehensive school). I always knew that good marks were essential.

All about socks

This month, with Socktoberfest and the Sam2 it will be all about socks. Not that I have any drive to knit something else at the moment. It's horrible if you don't know what to knit next, atleast for me, but socks always fit ;-)
At the moment I'm knitting my first real pair of Jaywalkers. I made an attempt before but when I had finished the first sock I realized it was much too tight to wear comfortable~if there's anyone out there who wants the one sock(I'm a Eu size 40 and it's a 38/39 I would guess) and the remaining sock yarn, just wave my way. But I would only encourage other smokers to do so since it both has been laying around my room in the open. ~
This time I made the smaller size from the pattern and though it's a bit loose, it's ok. Next socks will be the snowflake one.


Lolly asked a few questions to help beginner sock knitters and to fill this post up a bit, I thought I answer them:
When did you start making socks? Did you teach yourself or were you taught by a friend or relative? or in a class?
-Hmmm...wait, I'll check the blog archive...ah, I finished my first pair of socks at the end of september 2005. I taught myself with the help of this wonderfull tutorial.
What was your first pair? How have they "held up" over time?
You can see my first pair here. As you probably can see they were a bit fuzzy to begin with and since then the heel has felted ever so slightly. They also were a bit too big and don't get worn so often anymore.
What would you have done differently?
I should have used better sock yarn, a nicer color and less stitches(a gauge check too).
What yarns have you particularly enjoyed?
Lorna's Lace's!!! It's so much softer than regular sock yarn. Though I can't say how well they hold up since I hadn't had the time/weather to wear them much yet.
Do you like to crochet your socks? or knit them on DPNs, 2 circulars, or using the Magic Loop method?
I knit them on DPNs, really once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard. I must say though that socks weren't my first DPNs projects. I made some hats with thicker yarn before.
Which kind of heel do you prefer? (flap? or short-row?)
I mostly do short-row heels now, but for some patterned socks I prefer the flap heel.
How many pairs have you made?
I have no idea, honestly. More than 15 I think, but how many more I can't tell.

Yesterday my aunt visited and I got a bunch more presents:

There's 1kg of pure undyed lambs wool, that is sooo soft. Unfortunately it's divided in 50g hanks, I thought it would be 100g hanks.
There's also a test package of silk hankies! I got quite intrigued by them from the Knitty article and a blog(can't remember which one it was, but she dyed and spined them). When I read that there's a german store selling them, they went directly on the birthday wishlist.
You can also see the most beautifull bag handle I've ever seen, this is the third present from my parents. Now I only have to come up with a suitable bag pattern!
Also in the package from my aunt was something that made me wear this on today's morning(blue touch added to mask the fact that I hadn't showered yet ;-)) :

Yes, I got some Ashford dyes which I had to test this morning. I'll post the result later, it's still drying. And thanks to my dad for storing(aka hoarding) everything you will ever need to build your own house(current number drill machines: 4; nails: uncountable!).

Also yesterday I found a surprise package in the mail, I opened it and discovered these beads:

I LOVE them! I guess it's about time I make my own necklace! Who was the generous donor? Phizzichicks from craftster, who also send me the wonderfull hairpins and brooches earlier!

Therefore after dyeing the yarn, I headed into town to the craft store to buy some jewelry thread stuff. In the end I came out of the store with this:

What is missing? Yes, the jewelry thread thing(that probably even has a real name...). I should NOT enter this store anymore. I always buy something...

And when I came back home, I found a big letter. It included this:

Thank you very much J.S!!! Sorry, if this is a dumb question and I'm missing something, but who are you? With all those forum/blog names I mostly don't really notice people's real names much(for those scratching their heads for what mine is: Janin:-)).
EDIT: Duh, am I slow sometimes! Can it be that it was jesintexas from craftster, who was organizing the birthday swap?

I don't know if you've seen it, but lately there has been much talk about copyrights etc. in various blogs. I'm not a lawer, so maybe some of my views are totally wrong, but I find most of these discussions just hilarious/absurd. Why? Because in some cases it's about designs that probably have been floating around for quite some time and the one screaming "you copied me" was not the first one to design XYZ. Even funnier(and kind of ironically sad) was the one who made some indie designer very unhappy because she claimed said designer copied her(which she didn't!) and a couple of weeks later seems to be copying the designer herself(quite clearly on that one)! Don't get me wrong, I don't think that someone in general should break copyrights, that's really not acceptable(for that reason I will never ever buy something from NOANOA, not that I could afford that anyway at the moment). But there are things out there, that I think are hard to copyright especially if they are really basic!

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;
}
}