An apple for the teacher

Yesterday was my last quilting lesson... We cleaned the closets, organized the fabrics and raffled the friendship quilt. It's going to Korea! Before we had a potluck lunch, everyone got a little 'diploma' including a half yard of New England fabric. Since I am leaving the group I got a goodbye present. 5 fat quarters named 'An apple for the teacher'. I was really surprised and there were some tears involved... I'm really going to miss this group!
I gave the Lily purse to our teacher and think she really liked it.
I think my fabrics call for an Apple Core Quilt... but I do not like curves... So maybe something with some Schoolhouse blocks in the border ... or Boston Common, wouldn't that be appropriate? But it will take a while to decide what project to start with it.

Sock Number One: Done!

I finished my pals first sock. The Kew pattern is a lot of fun. I was really a little sorry, when I had to stop... But there will be sock No.2 which is going to travel with me. Next week a friend from Germany will be visiting, so there won't be much time for knitting and blogging. The following week she and I are going to travel together. (Un)fortunately there will be several hours waiting in airports involved. I intend to make the best of it.

Everything green

If you look at my WIPs, you will think, she likes green! First a green purse, now a green sweater and green socks for my pal. I assure you: I can knit other colours, too!

'Green Gables' by Zephyrstyle is making good progress. For the shaping I did not really stick to the pattern. I really like the construction of the pattern, one piece, no seaming. The stockinette stitch starts to get a little boring now, but you can knit it without having to concentrate. Oh, and how could I knit a sweater with this name in any other colour than green? It's Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in olive. Imagine the little red haired girl from Avonlea wearing this colour... I read all the books. When I first saw the pattern I knew I liked it, when I read the name I had to knit it.
My sock pal's socks are making some progress. I reached the heel flap today. The Kew pattern is very addictive. It was a good choice to change the pattern. And I really like the yarn. It knits up wonderful. I started the heel flap today.
My pal's feet are quite small, much smaller than mine. I decided to CO only 60sts instead of 70sts as asked for in the pattern. One of my husband colleagues was nice and tried to get the cuff over her heels. I was relieved when it worked.
The sock pictures do not really capture the real colour ... may be next time.

I am so thrilled, that my pal takes a look at my blog from time to time and leaves comments. I am so glad, that I have heard from both my pals up and down stream. Poor knitters who are still waiting for contact with their pals...

My first quilt

My blog title tells you I want to write about knitting and quilting. So today some quilting!
During my year in the US I had the great possibility to take a quilting class at the Harvard Neighbors, a great institution for spouses of visiting scholars at Harvard University. They offer different classes, meetings, outings... The quilting teacher is one of the nicest persons I ever met.

We (16 newcomers from Japan, Korea and one from Germany) started to learn the basic techniques by making a baby quilt for donation to a local clinic. A very good idea since our skills were still in development. For my part I know that in my baby quilt there are some toe catchers and the quilting stitches are quite uneven. But hopefully the new moms, who are really in need, will enjoy the quilts anyway.
For my donation quilt I chose some nine patches in various children's prints, shoe flys and a bow tie in every corner combined with some alternating blocks of unbleached muslin. The quilt measures 24''x30''. The backing is one piece of very narrow striped blue and white cotton. The whole quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted, even the bias binding has been made and put on by hand. Okay, this was due to not having a sewing machine at that time. But it was a good feeling to have it done all by myself. The quilting design includes some trucks, a lot of flying things like bees, butterflies, planes and a helicopter. There are also some numbers in the quilting and in the blue bow ties. That's what happens when a math teacher starts quilting...
26 quilts , the oldcomers did their part too, were donated on valentines day this year together with some knitted baby garments. I knitted 3 little hats and two pairs of baby booties.

Second final pattern decision

My first final decision was this german leaf pattern (Hope this link works this time). After having completed 2inch of the leg I still was not able to memorize the pattern, made mistakes, had to frog and was quite unhappy with my pals sock. And I managed to break one of my dpn's while k3tog....
I'm going to travel a lot in the next weeks and until then knitting time will be rare. That's why I really want a pattern I can memorize and knit on the train and on the plane. So I frogged the whole thing and again searched for patterns. I liked the leaf motif because it reminds me of my pal, why will be told later. One of the other sockapaloozers posted a link to 'Kew' on her blog. I tried it and finished about half of the pattern. I think this is my second final decision. The leafs are bigger but I think even better to see than in the first pattern.

I'm getting started!

Okay, the sun is shining in Boston. I have my yarn: Cherry Tree Hill in wonderful greens.
My sockapalooza pal loves hand painted, so I hope she will like it. A cup of tea and a chair are waiting on the deck. I'm about to start my pal's socks now. I haven't yet decided about the pattern. It's either going to be Monkey or a leaf pattern from a german website. I have some rounds of 1x1rib left before I have to make up my mind.

Lily of the Valley

This is my latest felted creation. It's my 'Lily of the Valley' - purse. I 'm going to enter it in a german Spring Knitting Competition: Fruehlingserwachen.

material: Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Bulky (oregano)
The leaf and stem are knitted and felted extra and later appliqued. I felted the purse, stem and leaf in a hot washing machine. It turned our really nice.
The blossoms I knitted from a leftover from my stash and later sewed them on.

Why I finally started my own blog

I spend the last year in the US and a lot of my time working over the internet, or in my free time knitting and learning how to quilt. On my search for patterns I read and discovered wonderful knitting blogs from all over the world. So I started thinking about having my own blog someday, maybe...

Now I signed up for Sockapalooza4, my first swap, and seem to be the only blogless participant. That was the last kick I needed: When all the others have it, I want to have it, too! I hope my secret pal will drop by from time to time.

I will try my very best to keep you updated about my sock knitting and my quilting projects.