I don't seem to have posted photos of the latest knitting here yet:

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Latest cross-stitching

(The wreath should be a stitch to the left. I miscounted and undid the white boards again, but refused to undo the wreath with its ten million colours.)

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I finished the project I have been knitting on the non-bus part of my morning commute since it got warm - it's a silk yarn I had in my stash for a long time not really knowing what to do with it (blocking myself with thinking it should be super special as I loved the yarn so much), but for summer knitting it was perfect. I admit I had assumed I'd get more out of the yarn, I'm glad I didn't try to make a top like I had first considered, that would have been a bit airy. ;-)





The pattern is improvised, had I known the yarn wouldn't last longer, I would have started the lace part earlier. But I'm okay with it now, particularly since it turned out I like the somewhat ruffled look.

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I finished yet another shawl (I wear one daily in spring and autumn, so there is reason to my mass production ;-) ):



I used the lace pattern from the Holden Shawlette pattern.

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Beach chair
Since I can't travel to the sea this year I've stitched a beach chair. ;-)



The pattern - minus the seagulls, they are my personal addition - is by Küsten-Design, available at Creativhorst. Best order floss and cloth along with it, you need to pay for parcel shipment anyway.

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The joy of having public transportation emptier due to school holidays gets quite diminished by now the construction sites on streets, tracks and platforms popping up like mushrooms...

I finished another cross-stitch picture, with vacation feeling. ;-)



I used this cross stitch set, but I left out the scroll thing because I didn’t feel the slogan was something I needed my wall to proclaim to me (starting with that for someone living so far away from the sea mementos from a stay at the sea are no small treasures ;-) ). I couldn’t think of something more fitting, either, so instead I put in the seagull picture (seagull from Maritimes Stick-Ambiente) and the feather (basic shape, slightly enlarged from 1111 Kreuzstichmotive, the colouring is my improvised attempt to make it seagully).

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On Saturday I visited my Mom, which turned out to be unexpectedly difficult... I've had cancelled trains that distance several times lately, but this time the train I wanted to take was cancelled, the earlier one I had considered taking had been cancelled, the one after the next was cancelled and the very next one was 20 minutes late. Such fun. It would be less infuriating if they'd offer some kind of explanation. Actually, when I finally sat down in a train I was asked if *I* knew what was going on. Apparently, they even had a Deutsche Bahn employee on the platform in the previous station but that person had no idea either. According to newspaper aricles, this is an ongoing issue on that particular route bringing much joy to commuters between towns. I'm just glad this wasn't going on when I was still living with my parents and one of them...

So, yay for now being the age of cell phones, so at least my Mom wasn't waiting in vain. I was more than an hour late when I finally arrived. We were meeting in her town's centre to visit a craft fair. As it was then too late to arrive there early enough to avoid the crowds we first explored a flea market closer by where I found a very nice blue coffee pot for her. :-) The craft fair was as always fun, too, and I may have bought some things *whistles*. I was also pleased to see the cat again that is always exploring this fair (it is in a botanical garden twice per year), definitely enjoying the change and all the people to get petted by. So, despite the rather annoying start, it was a nice day. :-)


In other news, yesterday night I was cross-stitching while mostly lying in my chair and put a strand of embroidery floss I intended to use next on my chest for safekeeping. Then I sneezed. White strand of floss somewhere on off-white carpet. Sigh.

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I had a great time at FedCon with the lovely skybs again. :-) And now I am back at work and have phoned with colleague from sister library and found out things are even far more infuriating than thought and I think I'm just going to leave again. ;-)

As I kind of fell over dead and hermited after the con, I am not yet caught up with reading all the social media and have a backlog of stitching to post. ;-)

I have finished the second teapot from the set right before I left and even photographed it, but had no time for a post anymore:



And as one cannot have enough teapot pictures, I made this one after I returned:



I used this stitching package, but I altered it since my inner Swabian housewife rebelled against having a lemon on a doily without a plate underneath ;-) and the hearts were a bit too cute for my taste. I added the milk jug instead, loosely using a pattern from 1111 Kreuzstichmotive (which has some really nice patterns, one day I must stitch the bar of chocolate. ;-) )

And yesterday, I made new phone cover to have something to alternate the other one with, the pattern came from the book mentioned above:



I hope the pictures actually show up, right now scrapbook seems a bit slow.

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Made a much smaller picture this time. ;-)



It is this cross stitch package. I have another one in this style to stitch, together they will go into my kitchen.

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Done!!!
After almost exactly half a year of working on it the giant cross stitch picture (97x42 cm) finally got finished yesterday:



I remain unimpressed with the cross-stitch set, the colours of the preprint on the cloth that were hard to tell apart *and* shine through if you look closely, the lack of a picture of the actual *stitched* motif, and the rather random seeming amounts of yarn - of some there wasn’t enough and I had to use some of my stash, and of some I now have more than half of it left over. I basically finished out of pure stubbornness. ;-) I don’t think I’ll buy a set with preprint anytime soon again, if it’s this ambiguous I find stitching from a clear chart more relaxing.

Current Mood: accomplished

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A new shawl and some cross-stitch grumbling ;-)




I finished this a few days ago. The pattern is Dew Drops shawl. I did not realize that it involved exactly the ball things I had hated knitting so much previously. Hopefully next time I’ll notice early enough. ;-) The yarn I had won at the Ravelry meeting in Frankfurt last year.


I am also cross-stitching a tree at the moment, which I don’t think will get finished anytime soon and is making me quite grumpy. It is this one. If you think that is a picture of the cross-stitch version of the motif, 1.) I am comforted as I'm not the only one and 2.) you are wrong. Nowhere in this package is a picture of the finished thing. And I wished I had realized early enough how not like in the picture it looks; now I have invested so much time in it that it would be a shame to leave it unfinished, but had I figured it out the first days I was working on it, I'd have thrown the cloth into the waste bin and done something else with the floss. I doubt you can even recognize the tree stem on the left of the tree in the foreground as one, as it is mostly green?! It's also not as easy to stitch as you'd think with the preprinted cloth, as the screamingly bright colours used are hard to tell apart. Often even in daylight directly at the window you have to check the chart luckily delivered along with it, as even though the dot is red or blue or purple you still have three options of yarn this could be. As for the yarn, the instructions are in Asian signs, so I have no idea how many threads to stitch with. I thought I had gathered that you should use three for ... something and two for ... something. However, if you use two, the bright colours from the preprint shine through very very much. If you use three, as I did, it still does more than I'd like, and several times already I ran out of it before finishing and either used some I had left over from other projects or tried to stretch it by using two threads for the last bits after all. All in all, I am only carrying on out of stubbornness.

Current Mood: tired

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Merry Christmas! :-)

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A little birdie I finished last week...


I had to add half a centimetre of pattern on my own at the bottom, as contrary to what the pattern said this is not 19 centimetres high, but only 18, thus not filling any standard frame. I only know that kind of problem from knitting, I had no idea it happenend with stitching, too... ;-)

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Another vacation nostalgia cross-stitch picture ;-)
Another cross-stitch picture in memory of the lovely vacation. :-)



I searched for a cross-stitch kit with a seagull, but didn't really find one. I ended up ordering a small out of print pattern book promising maritime motives on amazon marketplace, and got very lucky, it had those lovely seagull patterns. :-)

Getting the materials was less easy; I had to mail-order the blue cloth via amazon marketplace, too and it alas was also the only one the seller has apparently, I'd love to have more of it. Unexpectedly difficult was also getting the embroidery floss. On Reformation Day I vainly tried to find black of *any* brand in town - I guess one now stitches in black for Halloween? The greys, too were a problem. The stores that had Anchor floss were sold out on them, the stores that had Rico didn't have a proper match, maybe Rico doesn't do a proper non-brownish grey at all. I luckily had just enough of the right shades of Anchor floss left over from the cat pictures to make the picture (and will next time just order the floss ahead of time via amazon marketplace where I belatedly discovered they would have been availabe. Seriously, stores in town!)

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Some finished things...


Finished early in the morning today before I went to work, because I absolutely had to wear it. ;-). The pattern is Tuuletin



A cross stitch picture to remind me of the lovely vacation this year. :-) The shells are of course more exotic, but the mood is right. ;-)



Finished already last month and worn often already instead of an autumn jacket (I currently don't fit into mine). Very warm and snuggly. It started out to become a normal cardigan, but I realized I didn't have enough yarn for it. So, it ended up becoming a shrug and thanks to the lady who made the pattern linked to above shall now be known as "shapeshifter". ;-)

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Cat trio


I have now finished the other two cats from the set. It is suprisingly hard to get a decent picture while photographing the slanted ceiling. ;-) The colours are cheerfuller in the original.

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Photos from Timmendorfer Strand and neighbourhood :-)


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Bird zoo in Niendorf



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Herrmannshöhe walk



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View to sunrise over the ocean from my hotel room :-)

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Our vacation was wonderful. But apparently I am meant to use up all relaxation energy as soon as I am home. :-/

First, I unpacked the medication bag. Apparently, the new joint friendly lids of Voltaren pain gel are really good at unscrewing themselves in bags, too. What a mess.

Then, I discovered I had apparently not closed the fridge *quite* forceful enough. No wonder it has been cooler here than up North where we were. :-P I had no idea that through such a tiny opening so much water can come in to create such an impressive polar landscape. So, I had to move everything out overnight to thaw the ice blocks, and first thing I did yesterday morning was cleaning the fridge.

Today, our suitcases were supposed to arrive via DB-Gepäckservice who delegates to Hermes. We have attached notes with the order numbers and our addresses to the suitcases. I told the luggage person at the hotel to please pay attention that the Hermes person doesn't swap them. We joked how surely they'll swap them anyway.

At 10.30, Hermes rang.

GUESS WHAT.

I'm now waiting for the Hermes hotline to call me back again when we can hope to get the right suitcases delivered. They already told me on Monday earliest. Guess who is back at work on Monday. They can't say at which time of the day either. I payed additional 4 Euros for delivery in a three hour window today.

The person really guilty is of course the Hermes person in Timmendorfer Strand - really, if you have two suitcases for the same last name it must occur to you to look which one is whose?! But I am also somewhat grumpy at the Maritim Clubhotel reception, because they had also forgotten to call our taxi on Wednesday when we left; if we hadn't decided to ask for it to come super early so fifteen minutes later still worked out we would have missed our train. And now that luggage person clearly went lalala about what I told him. Twice sloppiness.

Also, I may have to go buy underpants now.

Current Mood: annoyed

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Finished another cross-stitch picture while trying not to melt yesterday:



It's one of three, there is another one with a cat facing left and a third with one facing right. I'm somewhat unclear why this one has a coffee pot.

I've run out of straight wall space and had to hang it on the slanted ceiling part, hence the thumb tack/border solution.

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Earlier this year I bought a bluray player that died maybe three weeks ago. If you turned it on, it turned itself off. I brought it back to the store, which required being very late for work as it is a small local store which has opening hours that are exactly in the time I am not in the district due to work, had to wait for a week while they sent it to Panasonic, and previous to last Friday I got it back (leaving work early), allegedly fixed by firmware update. I watched a DVD, it worked, then I was away for the weekend, didn't have time during last week, watched a DVD Saturday night, wanted to watch one Sunday afternoon - it didn't transmit a signal to the tv, just a blue screen. I unplugged, replugged, unplugged, replugged, finally it deigned to work for a DVD and I was wondering if I should already bring it back or give it another chance when during the second DVD it stopped sending a signal again, and after the unplugging-replugging-unplugging game we are now back to the bloody thing turning itself off when you turn it on.

I am really really not amused.

So, I told work's answering machine I'll be late this morning since of course I have the vacationing colleague's reference shift this afternoon and leaving early was not an option, went to the store and demanded a new bluray player. The technician couldn't make that decision. They'll call me. No, probably not today.

Maybe I should have insisted on not leaving before I get my money back, but of course I know the situation of decisions being above ones pay grade. Though not with leaving the customer with such a vague info about when they would be called back. I suspect they'll actually first try to make sure Panasonic finances the new one.

I feel cheated and am very grumpy and I think if I had just ordered a bluray player on amazon instead of supporting the small local business I would likely just have mailed it back and gotten a new one and be done without having to take any time off from work.

Current Mood: grumpy

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