State of the Gina

Heya people!

My craft projects have somewhat been hibernation during the summer as I focused on working out quite extensively - up to six times a week - and trying to keep my diet balanced. Now as the days are getting shorter, weather's been changing for my favorite season and I feel a little bit like cocooning at home - plus I'm starting to wear lots of my knitwork - my focus is again shifting. And as a cold has me knocked out at home at the moment I even find time to blog again...

Where did I leave off? I'm still working on the mid-calf length black coat for myself. I started another beaded shawl with a pattern off Boo Knits for my Mom which should have been done by Mother's Day (oooooops) and I have some small things going like a simple cowl which I took with me on the plane as I spent a few days in Berlin for LinuxConf Europe last week, or like some socks for my son.

Speaking of Berlin I met a whole lot of amazing people and one of them (hi Carol!) commented on how she liked my Dragonfly Shawl and if I would make something like this on commission? I was kind of surprised as nobody had asked me such a thing before... We're now in the process of figuring out the pattern and colorways and then I'm off into my first project like this! I'm so much used to making things for myself and my loved ones that I rarely get to think outside the box aka colorways I love - this should be fun!

So, what else... I have advanced into the "don't eat crap" territory enough that I've started to swap ingredients for recipes on the fly and am making up new recipes on the go that fit my needs. A book that has helped me tremendously with understanding nutrition and changing diet accordingly for me was Jillian Michaels' "Master Your Metabolism" - I heartily recommend it if you want to understand how your body works when it comes to hormones and nutrition and how you can best influence your body food-wise.

I have further ventured into US-ian cooking, finally caved in and ordered some proper measuring cups which make life a lot easier. I also acquired "The Joy Of Cooking" and will try to make good use of it - I'm thinking of doing a Thanksgiving menu this year with a few of the usual dishes that go with it - wish me luck! :-)

Last but not least I'm leaving you with a recipe for some muffins I whipped up last night. I had a craving for the typical spices of fall, wanted something a little sweet yet savory and not too unhealthy. It's a recipe heavily modified from one of the muffin cook-books I have so I have no qualms posting it...

Oh, and as I'm no English native speaker and my kitchen vocabulary is still a little sketchy please feel free to send me corrections/hints for improvement - the various ways to contact me can be found here. Thank you!

Healthy Breakfast Muffins

100g dried fruits (dates, figs, apricots)
200g + 1 tbsp flour
100g bran flakes
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg (organic)
100g demerara sugar or maple syrup
80ml neutral oil (e.g. sunflower seed)
250g buttermilk

Caveat - I use wholegrain spelt flour for almost anything these days, as it soaks up fluids roughly as much as regular flour. If you want to use wholegrain wheat flour you might want to reduce the amount to 10% less as the muffins will probably get too dense/dry.

Pre-heat oven to 180°C/360°F (160°C/320°F if you have a convection oven), prepare muffin baking pan accordingly.

Blend the dried fruits and the 1 tbsp of flour and set aside (this went pretty badly at my first try but I managed to save the recipe in the end, see below ;-) ). Lightly crush the bran flakes, mix with flour, baking powder and ground cinnamon in one bowl.

In another bowl combine egg, maple syrup, oil and buttermilk and mix until well blended. Add the dry fruit mixture (this had formed a hard lump so I tossed the fruit into the liquid mixture and used my hand blender to make this work) and then add the flour mixture. Stir until all ingredients are properly mixed and wet but don't over-stir, fill into the muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

 

Yields 12 - nutritional values per piece:

- 200kcal
- 7,7g fat
- 27g carbs
- 4,9g protein

Crafts - A beautiful exchange <3

The last project I did in 2015 was another Boo Knits' pattern called "Temptress". It all started out with some yarn that I bought in this variety by mistake, the Dragonfly Fiber Nautilace. The mistake was that I thought the yarn came as a 4oz/110g skein, instead it was 2oz/56g - oooops. This meant I needed to find a pattern that would only use up this small amount of yarn but still be special and lo, behold - another one of Bev's fit the bill! I finished the shawl right on December 31st while on vacation and blocked it soon after.

While I really liked how it turned out I somehow had the hunch this piece was not for me (slightly too "bright" of a color if you can say so of silver-grey) but had to think of a dear friend of mine who I thought would be a perfect fit. I asked her if my hunch was right and she was very happy to receive the gift :-)

As a "thank you" she sent me a beautiful stitch markers and some wonderful hand-dyed yarns from local stores and with the area she lives in being Seattle this was doubly awesome (Seattle is my not-so-secret love city-wise, even if I have never been there before). Here's the yarn:

The purple one on top is a Huckleberry Knits Merino/Silk/Yak (60/20/20) with 366m/400.0 yd for 99g/3.5oz, so a classic fingering weight yarn. It's extremely soft to the touch and I'm sure it will be a pleasure to work into something beautiful.

The red one is called Hazel Knits "Entice" (70% Merino, 20% Cashmere, 10% Nylon) and again a classic fingering weight, running 366m/400yd for 115g/4oz. The color is very vibrant and slightly variegated and will come out exceptionally well in something with a simple pattern - I'm thinking e.g. Martina Behm's "Hitchhiker".

Crafts - Mustardseed done, Morticia next - beading awesomeness

My knitting/beading hack from last post? Worked like a charm! But first things first...
After working the first beading rows I was hooked ;-) It's fun, it's a challenge (sometimes), it's variety and it's fun! Here's a picture of a lace border repeat, the shawl almost done.

 

Today I managed to actually wash and block the thing. Did I mention that I -hate- blocking? I still hope I did a reasonable job (minor adjustments happened after this picture was taken)...  I love(d) the pattern and I think, apart from the Dragonfly Shawl, this has been the second fastest piece I've worked. Did I mention I'm on vacation next week and have a lot of knitting time on my hands?

 

So, now that I knew how to work beads and stumbling over a pattern I've been wanting to do for quite some time, AND Bev calling out March to be M-KAL month (knit-a-long with one of her patterns that start with M) I finally decided to give the Morticia pattern a go. Seriously, how can a (half-)goth like me resist a piece named after a favorite goth/knitting TV character? *grin*

I actually wanted to use the exceptionally beautiful yarn my friend Betsy sent (see this post) but I had used the Lana Grossa Lace Lux in various other projects before and remembered there was a black variety of the yarn as well. So I decided this will probably be a better fit and went to acquire some at one of my favorite stores, Wedermann. Because... my friend & co-worker Anja, who does lots of beading work, recommended Perlenmix as a source of beads to me so naturally I had to go and check. As they're 5 minutes walk from Wedermann one thing lead to the other... and here's what I came home with - I've been good, I swear! ;-)

 

So, I've cast on my Morticia today and what should I say - it looks way more complicated than it actually is. Bev's directions are meticulous and perfect, everything fits together perfectly (yarn, needle size, beads - thank you, instinct!) and I can't wait to have this beauty finished.The beads are a little bit smaller than I the ones I worked with the Mustardseed shawl above, but as the yarn is a little bit thinner as well they're a perfect match.

Crafts - Knitting/beading hack

My most recent project is a very beautiful crescent-shaped shawl by Boo-Knits called "Mustardseed". It's the third pattern I got from her and it's again exceptionally well written and charted and a dream to follow and knit.

Bev gives you the option of adding beads to the pattern, which I have never done before but decided to try this time. So, off to the crafts supplies store that's closest (which happens to be Hobbykunst Vösendorf, where I also bought the supplies for the stitch markers, see my post about it) and find all required items. Which, after most beading tutorials I found, consist of the actual beads and a very small crochet hook. As I didn't get one that was small enough at this store the helpful young lady working there showed me a hack that she's using for her beading work, so I got the thin silver wire (0.4mm) as well, in case I wouldn't be able to find the crochet hooks (which I later bought in my other favorite crafts store, Neidhart's Nähkistl).

To cut the long story short - beading with this small crochet hook and a fingering weight yarn SUCKS and is a major pain in the ...

I resorted to trying the wire hack and you know what? Works like a charm!!! Here are the step-by-step instructions how to do this:

Cut a small piece off the wire, shape a V out of it. Then, thread the steel wire though the stitch you want to put the bead on, slip the stitch off the needle:

Thread the bead onto both ends of the wire:

Slip the bead down, pulling the wire and the stitch through the bead (like a kind of hook):

 

Return the stitch onto the left hand needle and work it as usual:

That's what the finished row looks like:

Easy and guarantees not losing any strands of yarn or splitting it, as it's likely to happen with the crochet hook. It's a fantastic way to work beads if you have thicker yarns you work with. I'll keep you posted about the final results, I'm really looking forward to finishing this shawl <3

Crafts - Customer service & unintentional yarn

I'm happy to report that I've got my KnitPro Karbonz 4mm tips back! The size is one of the most used ones so I was eager to get my replacements. Kudos to KnitPro - reclamation via the store I bought them at, new ones were there within a week without any problems!

Wollmeile has started to stock Rohrspatz & Wollmeise yarn. I did get some last time and this time - I swear, I was just there to pick up the needles - this beauty called me to take it home:

Purple and grey and almost black? C'mon, there was no other way! ;-)

It's a 80% merino/20% polyamide blend, and this time I'm hard-pressed to find a translation for the name... "Verhext und verratzt" - jinxed and ???
Anyway, I'm sure I'll find a beautiful project to use this for, quite probably something without much texture or complicated pattern as the yarn will be playing out beautifully by its own.

Crafts - New yarn

While I do have quite a stash of yarn at home and a few projects already in the back of my mind (or rather in my queue on Ravelry) there's always new yarn that's begging to be acquired in some way. Here are the newest additions:

Wollmeise "Pure" 100% Merino with the sweet name of "Armer grauer Kater" (which translates to "poor grey tomcat"), a variegated fingering weight. I went to one of my favorite stores, Wollmeile, to make a reclamation for the 4mm carbon tips of my KnitPro set where the screw thread of one of the needles broke. I learned that they just recently stacked some Wollmeise yarn, so I had the hard choice between a few beauties but managed to decide on this one. I see a beautiful shawl in the not to distant future...

The second one came to me as a present from my dear friend Betsy, who asked if she should send along some US-ian yarn as a Christmas present. One of my favorite American stores is Dragonfly Fibers and I opted for a deep purple (if you know me this shouldn't come as a surprise) 100% merino lace yarn with the name of "Arya Squishy Lace". This one also asks to be worked into some kind of shawl, I already worked with a different yarn from this store and the quality is superb:

Yay for new beautiful yarn! :-)

General - Not dead, just very busy

*whooooooosh*

That's the sound that almost 4 months passing by make, it seems. I've been pretty busy, from my kids starting school through crafting quite a lot, following the clean eating and working out trail to lots of things happening work-wise. All summed up, life got busy.

Since my last craft-related blog entry I finished six pieces of work. From the Aurinko shawl to a sweater for myself, some socks and some more shawl and lace work. I will try to write them all up separately soon (hah!).

Food-wise there have been a ton of "kitchen first" adventures! Clean eating is still working out like a charm and while I don't manage to do it -all of the time- I think most of the time counts. Time constraints are a bit different since my kids started school, so... I'm still working out two to three times a week and I've been sticking with Jillian Michael's DVDs - and will probably continue to do so as I just started working on my six-pack proper ;-)

Seriously? My day should have 48 hours, minimum. My "old love" progressive/metal music has been coming back full force, I'd like to be able to read a good book every now and then, so there ain't much time to spare. Oh yes, did I mention I need to catch up on sleep?

Crafts - Utilities and DIY jewellery

I've been writing about the lace shawl I'd started to take with me and work on during my vacation. The yarn I chose and I took some time becoming friends. I'd cast on a few different things but always ended up frogging after a few rows. But as you've seen in my last blog post the Aurinko is coming along nicely. I was eager to properly try out my new Karbonz needles but found out quite soon that for exactly this yarn they are the wrong choice. I reverted to the KnitPro Symfonie wooden needles - which I had to use for getting through airport security anyway - due to the way the transition between carbon and metal is worked. The Lace Ball yarn is just a fraction too thin and keeps getting caught which is a nuisance working on a piece at approximately 300 stitches after the first third. To illustrate what I'm talking about - this is what the transition between wood and metal looks like with the Symfonie needles:

Just right, pretty much no stitch getting caught. Yay!

On to the project I did together with my daughter - custom made stitch markers! When I started the Aurinko shawl I didn't have any within reach so I used a paperclip. The rather bulky plastic stitch markers (e.g. these) are way too thick to properly work around with a lace yarn. Since I remembered seeing small loop-thingie likes being used by a friend/coworker I checked with the lovely ladies at Hobbykunst Vösendorf/SCS who recommended the perfect solution. DIY stitch markers! You need the following things/tools:

• thin nylon filament
• some beautiful beads
• crimp beads
• pincer (flat nose, but I'm actually working with my Swiss Tool)
• scissors
• some creativity ;-)

That's it! Takes little time and you get to make markers that work just for you - if you need some for thin needles or thick needles - it's up to you how you make them! :-) Of course my daughter helped me as she loves to use proper tools (guess where THAT's coming from...):

The purple bead ones are what I made together with her, the "G" bead ones I made today:

Since we found some amazing and beautiful shells on the beach during the vacation I promised to make them into pendants for necklaces for my kids. While at the craft store mentioned earlier I got a little carried away (ahem) and bought accessories to make simple earrings. So here we go - DIY jewellery! The kids are super-happy and so am I :-D

 

 

 

 

 

My daughter's custom necklace with shell

 

Bling... I'm usually not one for sparkly things but I couldn't leave those guys at the store...

Crafts - Some lace work, some vacation work

Lace work...
As I promised some time ago there is a finished piece I have yet to write about. It is a lace scarf I made for my mother in law as a birthday present. The first time that I worked with a somewhat fuzzy yarn - Schulana Kid-Seta Lux, which is 71% Super Kid Mohair, 20% Silk, 9% Lurex and interesting to work with. On our last stay at my MIL's house she told me about a (lace) scarf her mother had made for her which sadly was too short for her to wear properly. As it goes the idea instantly came to my mind to make a larger/longer one for her and by browsing through various patterns on ravelry.com I ended up picking the Harlekin Lace Tuch. Simple enough pattern and worked beautifully with the yarn!

The blocking is not 100% perfect but Ursula was super-happy with it and I'm looking forward to seeing her wear it!

Vacation work...
We recently went to vacation to Mallorca and of course I had to take some needle work with me. The snuggly jacket isn't done yet but felt too bulky to take with me. Since I wanted to use the Schoppel Wolle Lace Ball I wrote about anyway I ended up starting a shawl named Aurinko, thanks to the recommendation of the lovely ladies at Wollmeile! I was kind of tempting the fates and put the work on the wooden KnitPro set, packing the Karbonz tips with the regular luggage so I had some fall-back needles in case of airport security deciding that knitting needles were a Real Threat(tm). Everything went like a charm, no inspection of the knitting bag or needles so I could happily knit along during the flight :-)

The vacation week was of course spent partly knitting while lounging at the pool side (and using my new stitch markers which I made together with my lovely daughter - story of which will get its own post)...

Crafts - A few "firsts" & the next finished project...

Ever since I held the first hank of hand dyed yarn in my hands I was eager to start a proper project and make something out of it. Equipped with the right kind of tools and finding a project that appealed to me on the Usual Site(tm) - here comes the purple Dragonfly Wing!

I used the String Theory Caper Sock Yarn, the color is named Elderberry, a beautiful dark purple shade. The yarn itself is very soft to the touch and almost works itself. It normally asks for US 2 (2,75mm) needles but I went with what was suggested in the pattern - US 7-10 (4,5mm - 6mm). While the result turned out a little bit smaller than I would have liked it's perfect as a shawlette and I'm looking forward to wearing it - if my daughter doesn't snatch it away first :-) Blocking went easier than thought and I ended up with a size of 160x40cm (about 63”x16”). There are still some 50g left of the 110g of yarn and I wonder what I'll make out of this...

A big "thumbs-up" to the creator of the pattern, Boo Knits. The instructions are very well and clearly written and there's a chart for the lace part, which is great for a visual person like myself. I'm looking forward to trying more of their patterns!

So, about the "firsts":

• First hank of hand dyed yarn
• First English-only pattern
• First project where I put the KnitPro needles to good use
• First time doing a cable cast-on
• First time doing a cast off other than the usual one

Last but not least, the beauty itself...

Crafts - Choice of Weapons^cwNeedles

For most of my works I use(d) regular metal circular needles, for smaller projects like socks and where it was required, a set of the usual metal double pointed needles. Since I was/am getting sick of storing all those different needles - different cord length combined with the usual variety of needle sizes I remembered having heard of a system of interchangeable circulars. The needle itself in this case, as I looked at KnitPro, can be made out of different materials (wood, bamboo, carbon/metal) and can also have different shapes (round, cubic). I gave something like a "standard package" a try and went for a 100cm cable with 3mm wooden needles as I'm getting into lace shawls at the moment, which felt quite good but a little bit to weak as I work with a higher yarn tension than most people. I saw the Karbonz needles - carbon "body" and nickel plated brass tips - and knew I was in love :-) So guess who ordered a set in different sizes today? Can't wait to pick them up at the store and put them to good use... Especially with the two hanks of hand-dyed yarn I ordered from Dragonfly Fibers last night... *whistling-tunelessly*

Crafts - Yarn porn...

If you live in the German speaking part of Europe and own a TV you're probably familiar with the Zalando ad on TV. For those who aren't - stereotypical ad where you'd see/hear women squee and scream over the delivery from the store, usually shoes. I do have to admit that some things can evoke a similar reaction from me, but that's limited to finding/receiving beautiful yarn! So yes, I have an addiction. To beautiful yarn. Like probably every other prolific knitter...

Since I've started doing lightweight/lace projects a whole new box of yarn choices opened up for me. I do like gradient colors a lot so I couldn't NOT take this beauty home with me last week when dropping into a local store on my way home:

It's called "Lace ball" by Schoppel-Wolle, which is a pretty well known brand but was a novelty for me - lace (2 ply) weight, 100g and 800m (3.5oz/874yds) and waiting for the right project. Probably some kind of shawl?


My dear friend and coworker Kristin went to visit the home store of Rohrspatz & Wollmeise and asked if I wanted some yarn from that store as well. Frantic scanning of their website and narrowing down possible choices ensued and I ended up with two beauties, which she thankfully brought today - cue me almost doing The Squeeeee ;-)

While it doesn't look like much this is a 330g/1730m (11.6oz/1894yds) skein of most beautiful pure merino wool in a 2 ply/lace variety. Rather bright for my usual choice but a gorgeous shade of purple. And still looking for a project!

And since I'm a sucker for fitting names and my third favorite color (apart from black and purple) is grey I present - Heavy Metal \m/ :-)

A rich and warm/dark grey, totaling at 2099.5m/600g (2296yds and 21oz) so that should make a nice pullover, cardigan, jacket or something along that line...

I should probably get that third container to properly store my stash? *ahem*

Crafts - A custom made bag

It started out with a simple stripes crochet bag I made for myself as a bag to use for going to concerts, etc. to store just the basics - wallet, keys, phone. My mother was taken with it as she said it would complement one of her favorite short pullovers. As it sometimes happens the idea to make another bag for my Mom for Mother's Day immediately came to my mind. I asked my Dad to take pics of the pullover so I could match the colors (to cut the long story short, I didn't completely succeed but it didn't matter).

I'm doubly proud and super-happy with how this bag turned out as it included a couple of "firsts" for me:

• Crocheting a chevron pattern
• Using felt pieces
• Punching holes in fabric and making them pretty with proper eyelets
• Sewing other than "normal" fabrics on my sewing machine

As usual I went to consult the ladies at my favorite yarn store (Wedermann) about the choice of possible yarns. I ended up with a silver shining variant of Lana Grossa Lace Lux which I already had stashed and used for my Mandalay lace scarf, a light grey Lana Grossa Wakame and a black Lana Grossa Organico.

The crocheting itself went pretty fast and was easy once you understand the principle of decrease/increase around the wave pattern so it ends up a straight piece of work. The assembly of all pieces and finalization was great as I love working with different tools - making things from scratch is FUN!

Here are a few pictures of the result - what do you think?

Crafts - my favorite yarns and yarn stores

Like many people I love natural yarns and fibers - merino, cotton, the more the better. Somehow most of my stack contains Lana Grossa yarns but I have recently - thanks to fellow enablers... oops, I meant knitters ;-) - found some awesome stores and yarns and am trying NOT to spend too much money since my stash is big enough for now.

So in no particular order and mostly for myself as a kind of bookmark...

• Lana Grossa
• Dragonfly Fibers (not ordered yet but got some things on the wishlist)
• Colour Adventures (stashed but not used yet)
• String Theory Yarn (stashed but not used yet - how could I resist, being a geek?)
• Wollmeise - (ordered via a friend)

Look at these beauties... (Colour Adventures and String Theory) <3

Are there any other stores and yarns you think I should know about? Recommendations welcome!

Crafts - Praktischer Link - Begriffe und deren Übersetzung

Nachdem es vor allem auf Ravely einen Haufen von Anleitungen nur auf Englisch gibt - und ich trotz sehr guter Englisch-Kenntnisse und netten native speaking Freundinnen, die mir gern weiterhelfen, trotzdem manchmal wie die Kuh vor dem Tor steh was die Übersetzung angeht... dieser Link liefert die meist gebräuchlichen Bezeichnungen und deren Übersetzung ins Deutsche.

Crafts - My love-hate pixie coat

I've learned to knit, sew and crochet when I was in the single-digit area age-wise and I've been working on things on and off for some time. The big passion for those things came when I was pregnant and started making things for my kids. If you have an account over at Ravelry you can check out my my profile and a few things I have made over time.
So... there are some knitting communities over on Facebook, too, and seeing what was a relatively simple description for something along the lines of a Pixie Coat I decided to make one for myself. Being a half-goth with the favorite colors of black, dark gray and purple (blog colors, anyone?) I went to hunt for the appropriate yarns. I ended up at one of my favorite yarn stores, Wedermann, with the helpful ladies there suggesting I use fiber normally used for knitting machines, two strands of each color:

 

So far so good, I love the color combination and after some mistakes on the way which made me unravel a third of my work and not look at the coat for a few weeks out of frustration it's nearing its completion! I need to decide on which kind of fastening/closing mechanism to use - zip? Buttons? Some kind of clasps? We'll see - I'll keep you posted and will put up pics of the finished thing as soon as I can.