Good-bye for this year

I wish to all my readers and especially to the people with whom there is a deeper contact with me via comment, email or personal meeting a wonderful Christmas time and a very Happy New Year.
I will spent those special weeks down at the very most south-western point of Europe hopefully in the so much needed sun. My days will be filled with climbing, walking on the beaches and in the hills and discovering some of the Andalusian attractions. Hopefully the last will include fabric, special yarn and other craft shops. The nights will be long. Depending on where I will spent them its either time to curl up in my cozy sleeping bag for a lot of reading (if I don't fall asleep) or knitting on a Christmas present. I also take with me a little hand sewing project.



This year my presents were all packed in little modular origami boxes. The pattern is from Tomoko Fuse. Every once in a while my brain wants to solve the riddles of origami patterns and my fingers itch to touch and fold paper.



I filled up the boxes with Roibush Tea and dark chocolade plus something extra depending on the person. Essence for the oil burner, very good soap from France, a tiny knitted swatch as a teaser for fingerless gloves made of Hundertwasser yarn, one Svarowsky bead as a teaser for a bead-ball.



I love the paper from the background. It was the wrapping paper of a present a friend of mine got - and he was throwing it away!!!!



My mother got her box with a matching bouquet of different white flowers.

Again, have a good time, stay or become healthy!

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free of suffering and its causes,
May all sentient beings never be separated from bliss without suffering,
May all sentient beings be in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

This is what my 4th-graders crafted this year for Christmas

poinsettia stars in wood-working class




English poems written on white paper, sewed together with a cover of thick yellow cardboard and an inlay of opac transparent paper in english/art-lesson, embellished with some beads *of course ;-)*

simple window decoration worked with same opal transparent paper


Without photo are the 3-dimensional star pendants made in geometry class, learing to construct triangles with compass and ruler.

Springshawlsurprise

Via Ravelry I found Springshawlsurprise, which is a 3-month-long knitting project. Each week Lul, a danish lady, will sent one part of a very tangy lace pattern. Even some - and I do hope it will be just "some" - backrows will have a pattern.
I registered, well knowing that I might have taken my mouth too full. My idea of knitting away the dark grey time and adding each day a little piece of spring to my life was very tempting so I registered. I also like the international charme that goes with this project.

Now I can't make up my mind about the yarn. I'm in the very lucky position to have the Hamburger Wollfabrik near by. The normal yarnshops don't sell yarn with the required length of 800 m per 100 gr. At least not the one I know. I would have loved to use Zephyr, which many of the participants will take, because I love the colors from their charts.

I went to the Hamburger Wollfabrik 3 times (!) to pick up bits of yarn for swatches. In merino quality there are hundreds of the most beautiful colors to choose from, but the stitches don't turn out as nice as from the other qualitys. On the other hand I didn't fall for any of the many cashmere/silk colors. Although the feeling of cashmere in my hands for manymany days is appealing.

Today I showed all swatches "live" to some people. During the discussions the choices got narrowed down a bit, but I'm still not so very sure.
Please look for yourself.
Any argument is welcome!

50% cashmere 50% silk very light blue


100 % merino lighter greenish


cashmere / silk / merino /viscose mix


50% cashmere 50% silk white with touches of grey/violet


100% merino darker greenish

This is what my students sew for Christmas this year

In our school the students (and I) are happy that there are still lesson in practical things, we call it "Technik". Working with wood, cooking, computer and sewing - each for half a year. I teach sewing and Computer and could teach wood. It's such a shame that those topics get cancelled due to the panic that students are not learning enough any more in the "core" disciplines. That is true, but for sure has a lot to do with the general ambience and the society. In my humble opinion being able to tie a knot definitely is a core discipline - and one that not all my 6th-graders succeed in, when they come into my class.

Anyway, I should mostly teach sewing on machines, but we enjoy very much the hand sewing. In winter time it is of course a Christmas theme and for the summer term Mother's Day or flowers.

This year I have some very creative students who enjoy my ever growing stash of beads and take profit of my ever growing experience teaching this subject in a very busy school life.



Usually we sew felt together with one or the other stich and stuff the star with batting. This year those students were so much into beading that we decided to leave out the stuffing part, because it would put too much stress on their fragile work. Their beading is not perfect = not so very stable, but very pretty. It is such a joy to watch those who really discover something new for them. (Of course there are also students who don't like this subject or just parts of it and just work for the grade.)
To my great pleasure one of my favorite blogs recently gave the perfect tutorial for beaded and stuffed stars.

The very last pictures shows part of my tiny little crowded textile room (but at least I have one!) with the left-over of stuffed stars from last years course hanging on the window.
.



Maybe you've found an idea for yourself. Those little pouches are nice to use for putting a small gift into them.
The stars would make present tags, window decoration, Christmas tree decoration; they could be hanging on a long string from the ceiling or being used for a Christmas mobile.

Yoga at home, Yoga in India

Today I started my Yoga winter programm. I really enjoy Yoga since I was sweet little 17, but I do it almost only outside, preferable under blue sky.
Well, that's pretty rare in North Germany and the winter with its short days is long.

I was happy finding this DVD in my mailbox today. Perfect for a blewn climbing date after some very stressful days in work and some personal problems. Instead of just sitting in front of the screen or forcing myself do to some housework, which would not have been very effective I lit some candles, rolled out my mat and put the DVD in the player.
Perfect! Exactly what suits me. David Swenson talked me through a 30-min-routine in a gentle, yet demanding way. I could feel that his heart is into in. My concentration was much better and I was pushing myself more than doing it completely on my own. Without leading I tend to skip the relaxation. Not this time.

It is possible that I might have more time on my own then I prefer and not as many climbing dates as I would like in the near future. I know that sport helps me so much and yoga I like so much. Yoga is the perfect combination between physical exercise and working on the mind.

Besides yoga I definitely have to pick up outdoor activities, even and especially in these winter days. Right nowI spent every rare minute with daylight in my tree surrounded big yard and on the street racking leaves, what I also consider as exercise.
I do miss living near the mountains as always, but this year I will do better with doing the best I can do here where I am.

It was Simon who introduced me to this faster paced AshtangaYoga, which also Davis Swenson teaches. I found Simon, an English/Aussie-guy in Ladakh in summer 2005. He was on a year long trip with Emma, his girlfriend - and soon to become wife during a wedding on the beautiful Goan beach in Southern India. I decided that the validy of my visa was reason enough to follow him for two weeks in October to take some private lessons. It also was a good possibility to discover a new part of the world, to where I otherwise not would have gone to. I have lots of pictures from that trip but unfortunately none from the yoga sessions. Somehow I have it with sunsets or rises these days so I'll post my favorite picture from that vacation.

Is anybody doing yoga as well? What are your sports or mental exercises?
I know from reading her blogs that Ellen goes hiking in the Alps and dances. Kimberly loves to run. How do you tweak your life so you can do it?

November Sunset in Hamburg

November can have bright sides also in Hamburg.

Delicate silk

Now that I have this new camera, with which I'm very satisfied btw, I want to take the pictures of all my recent projects.
This dull November light gave me the opportunity to learn about more about the camera, here especially locking the exposure settings.

The light pink in the background was overexposed when the setting was right for the forground. I can take the exposure from the light part, save it and take the focus from another spot. Pretty smart, isn't it? Does your camera have possibilities like this and have you checked them out?

I bought this beautiful yarn about 5 years ago in Switzerland as a prepacked pack with just some grams of each color. Since it was my rather-seldom-knitting time of my life it actually took me years to finish this simple garter stich peace.

To fancy it up I put some shining beads onto the silk. The way I did it is described in this post.
It was not so much improvement so I just knitted one row with a bead now and then. It's kind of a little secret, because when worn they hardly show.



Probably I'm overdoing with pictures, now that I can take them again with fun. ;-) I'm never good in decision making about what to keep, what to use, what to take. It's noticable all over in my little house, on my hards disks (yes, with a bold "s") and the luggage I'm carrying around the world during traveling.
Anyway, here comes the last one of this set:



This little Buddha came with me from Margo in Goa, India. Makes me very, very happy. I didn't put it up the shelf for decoration, it is always sitting there and I put the scarf on the shelf because it was the only place with at least halfway light.

So, now I did, what I promised myself this early morning while driving in North Germanys November dull No-Light: To take nevertheless some colorful pictures.

Through blog-world I realise much more in a set moment how different the living conditions are all over the world at the same moment. In other parts of the world people are so happy when it's not so hot anymore. I had to smile when I read stuff like that e.g. from the people posting from Arizona. In Australia it's getting summer now.
Yes, and in other, mostly non-blogger parts of the world people can't concern about camera setting, yarn and blogging software. They have to struggle for live.
Sometimes it feels so ridiculous spending my time with the stuff I do. On other times I know and feel that this is my life, the way it is. I can try as best not to hurt anybody, maybe helping if possible and not over-indulging in my little self.

New camera

Finally I made the decision and got myself a new toy: the Canon Powershot A650.
My relationship with my old Powershot G3 was rather mixed. I loved the camera for what she was doing, but so many negative personal things happened with it, which I don't want to be reminded of. The latest indicent (this time nothing personal, probably "just" dirt in the electronic, but nevertheless costing many Euros.

These are some random shots I took the first five minutes I had this camera.
Enjoy the fall impressions from my garden!

Brodeuses

I have a cold and not much energy for serious work. So this late afternoon I curled down in bed, a mug of coffee next to me, my brown Shetland Triangle in my hands and watched the French movie Brodeuses - Die Perlenstickerinnen - A Common Thread.

Two women are the main actors: The young one is unwanted pregnant. The older one just lost her adult son in an accident. Both share the love for embroidery. Firstly, there are quite distant because of their unhappyness, but doing embroidery together, touching the fine tissus, indulging in shining beads and sequins they find together and back into a life with all life's beauty.

A very quite film, dispelling beautiful pictures. Exactly right for an afternoon like today. Not recommanded for an afterwork evening being very tired.

I also enjoyed the clothes the young women was wearing. Most of them were hand-knitted style and in my favorite bluegreens. Perfect with the actors red hair and delicate undertop.

The Brodeuses are doing the needlework in a way I've never seen before and have not figured out yet. Instead of a needle they seem to be using a kind of very tiny crochet hook to fix the sequins. One hand is kept under the loop, maybe holding the thread, the other one above, holding the hook. Quite interesting, maybe I can find out more.

Souvenirs from France

Not everybody is happy about a rainy afternoon during vacation and for sure normally I'm not. In late October the hours with daylight are so very precious and I adore the sun for the few couple of beach hours (you must know I'm from Hamburg!), because most of the time is spent on my sports.
This fall the weather in Southern France was nicer (for tourists, for the country side it was much too dry) than normal, so there was no time for hanging around in villages or cities. As soon as some drops hit the little harbour bay we had our breakfast in I decided to go downtown Marseille for finally exploring La Droguerie, this shop for crafting supplys I've seen noticed so often in my favorite magazine Marie Claire Idees.
*P*a*r*a*d*i*e*s* for color-lovers as I am. I didn't go too much for all the embellishments. They are too expensive to stash them. I didn't like too much the pre-finished stuff, but I loved-loved-loved the colors displayed mostly in yarn and also in felt, in ribbons, in buttons.


This is my favorite "souvenir": Delicious yarn made out of bambou. On day I have to run a research on how they do it. It is so soft, the colors are shining and wonderful. No wonder it's called also vegetable silk.
The idea for the scarf I will be knitting I picked up in La Droguerie, but I'm tweaking the pattern and the cast-on so it will take some days till I actually can start knitting.


Because I'm not going to Maroc this year I treated myself with these tiny tassles. I was going for the rainbow and asked the very helpful saleslady to pick the right ones, because I didn't have so much time. Somehow she missed the green and I only discovered it at home. What a pity, but maybe I can catch one next year.
The felt and the velvet buttons were supposed to be future baby boots for a collegue, but I don't know if they not might turn out into something else.


Paperbags to take home the treasures were in nice colors too - of course.
Not so very nice was the bill ;-) .




As you can figure, Hélène, I found the visit to La Droguerie worthful. Hello from Hamburg to Paris!

Ravelry

Instead of writing a post in this blog as planned and needed (yes, I do want to keep it up although I'm not posting frequently) I played with my new toy. Finally I received my invitation to Ravelry, a site for knitter/crocher to communicate and organise.

There are so many possibilities nowadays to connect via Internet, a lot of fun, but also the danger of getting lost. And of neglecting to necessary other things one wants to do. Besides Ravelry I got some invitations for Facebook.

I wonder how other persons are blogging long posts with many pictures almost everyday. If I'm on my notebook in my private time I spent so much time already reading all those beautiful, inspiring blogs and sites that I have hardly anytime writing myself. I bet, I'm not the only one. ;-)

More html

I like to share a bit about what I've learned during working with this blog. Of course it is also a memory for myself, when I'm too lazy to take notes or when I can't find them.

I needed those tags when I wrote the side element about language stuff.

If adding a html-tag you first have to change to "edit Html".

<> gives you a break of lines

< href = "http://link"> Name of the link < /a > This way you can insert a link.

IMPORTANT: You have to remove all spaces before and after the little sideway triangles <> and before and after the = .

French dinner

Before I leave for my fall trip to France tommorrow I write about my touchable souveniers from my last trip in August. The non-touchable souveniers are my experiences and the memories.
I also bought some crafty stuff, already turned into summery, simple jewelery, but that part has to wait.

A good part of my vacation I spent in the Hautes-Alpes and did a little bit of shopping in the beautiful situated town Briancon. I love pondering around in french villages and small towns. So relaxing, at least when one is on vacation!


As an inauguration of my new tableware I brought from there last weekend I invited my "Doppelkopf"-friends. (*Doppelkopf is a very German game*). Normally we have a one-course-dish before grabbing the play-cards but this time I wanted to spoil them. Here is our menu:


Soup from sweet potatoes and corn (not a french recipe),
spiced with fresh coriander and ginger.

Accompanied by home-made fougasse (bread a la Provence) spiced with mixed herbs de Provence.










Papeton d'Aubergines - Crown of eggplant consisting of eggplants, zucchini, tomatoes, pepper, garlic, onion spiced with a lot of self-collected thyme (*in Provence of course, not in North Germany :-) *) and some laurel leaves.





Chamignons in creme fraiche
with fresh parsley.












Baked potatoes in olive oil
spiced with self-collected rosemary
- of course again in Provence.

Tarte aux Poires et Chocolat
Cake with pears, chokolade and cream

Hélène, I wonder if I'm not too mistaken with my french cooking. ;-)

In France we plan on going to the Calanques, a beautiful spot near Marseille at the Mediterrean see. White cliffs are raising directly from the blue sea and we are going to climb some of them.
I hope for a lot of sun to take in before returning into the Northern winter season.

See you in November, enjoy your fall!
Hello from Hamburg
:-Tally-:

Very magenta, threading beads and a shoemaker in India

As I wrote in my last post I only wanted to knit easy and small things. And very likely for somebody else a little spark.
So I knitted a very small skarf and used it as a ribbon and tie for wrapping the present for my girlfriends. Looked very nice, picked up the theme of the present, but - no photo.
Next knit where socks for my neighbour friend - no photo.
But the third knit I caught, although I almost threw my camera away, because I thought it's old and broken, because it didn't produce sharp pictures and instead awful colors. After the discovery of blogland I found out that it's not my camera but the colorway itself.

Today I tweaked one of the "best" photos a bit in Photoshop and this is the result:



These fingerless gloves were meant to bring some comfort to a young woman who is helping us selfishless at work.
I used the pattern "fetching" from Knitty.com.

The embellishment made my brain more glowing then the knitting. How to bring the beautiful, shining, small beads onto the yarn? All instructions I found on internet didn't work out. I pondered and tried and pondered even more, till finally I had figured it out:

How to string bead on yarn:
Take some soft wax and treat the tip of your yarn with it. Work it into the fiber till you have a good hard tip, which will do the threatening.

I use this small waxy "points", which one can buy in Germany and Switzerland and probably in others countries as well. They are used for fixing a candle in the holder so it does not fall out. I should guess bee wax will work fine, too.

The story of this idea is rather interesting. Two summers ago I travelled to Ladakh in Northern India. There I met a Tibetean Lady, who runs a shop for Jewelery. Besides some bracelets I bought little precious stones and pearls from her and asked her to teach me stringing in the Tibetean way. They don't have the elaborate stuff that's available here. She told me to go to one of the shoe-polisher, who are working in all streets to gain some money for their familiys and get some polishing wax from him. Exactly this I did. It was a small, very hard ball, but did the job for the time being.

The shoemaker was very proud to be able to help me. We had a good relationship anyway, because I stopped near him almost everyday to lock my bicycle there before going "downtown" Leh. So we always exchanged some nonverbal communication that consisted mainly of smiles.

Burma

I don't know if an action like this will help the people living and hoping in Burma, but maybe it does. Since I'm thinking much of Burma in these days I might as well participate and not miss this chance of helping.
If you want as well follow this link.

I just had a look into the list of participants and that's quite faszinating. People from all over the world are only blogging this banner and link today. Every minute there are more. Look for yourself.

Very brown

As in other aspects of my life I procrastinate. I had many topics in my head, some posts even written mentally. Notice the emphasis on "many". Oh yes, the good part in my life are my many, many interests and the downpart is sometimes the same.
So now I allow myself to hop into one of my many projects without having to write about all.

Already last winter, when I picked up knitting again, my eyes fell on the Shetland Triangle Shawl, like shown here and here and on many other pages as well.
But no, I promised myself that in my second knitting "career" I should only knit small easy things (more on this topic hopefully sometimes later).
Nevertheless somehow I couldn't resist the call of yarn shops and I ended up amongst more yarn with some beautifull cashmere/silk from the Hamburger Wollfabrik for a sleeveless sweater like the very friendly saleslady was wearing.
The yarn is shimmering very beautiful.
It is so nice to touch. I choose
brown.
Last winter I liked brown.

With two strands I started my sweater. Never got very far.
In spring I did not like brown anymore.

Sometime during the year I got hit by the next scarf, due to the blog "The giving flower". Kimberly was asking for company knitting the Peacock Feather Shawl.
You bet I was tempted. The colors! Blue! Bluegreen! Peacock, like I admired in India and on a farm in Namibia so much for their beauty!
No, I stuck to my promise to myself. Only small things - only easy to knit things.

This fall Kimberly and I had some mail discussion on her yarn and afterwards I knew what to do: Frog the never-will-be-anyway-sweater, take apart the two strands and use one.
For the Peacock? Brown?
No, of course not.
The same night I ordered "Scarf style" and started my Shetland Triangle two days later. (I'm going to sell the book, because this is the only pattern I will follow.)

I still can't imagine brown for a shawl but I do have some clothings it might fit with. To cheer it up I could not resist to put it onto one of my favorite colors.
See for yourself.

BTW: I will have a lot of brown left over!

Blogging - html- color

Changing the color of a word in the text is easy with the formating tabs given by blogger when writing a new post.

To change the color of one or more words in the title a little html is necessary:

Put the word you want to change in between < color = "xxxxxxx">

and < /font color >

For the xxxxx you have to choose the code from a chart (here is an example). And leave out all spaces. I can't type without the spaces, because due to web technic you won't see the tag.
The blogger software is translating the html in something else I don't know so far.

Back from the Alps

I've been back quite a while but had problems with my online-connection. Once fixed a couple of days ago I spent time reading and not writing myself.
As soon I got back my job was calling and of course I'm spending time with my sports and actual crafting. I don't know how regular I will post and in which direction this little blog might go. Also kind of a journey........

I spent two lovely weeks in the Alps, lots of climbing, of nature, of art, of inspiration for crafting. Lots of shopping :-), shoes, new dishes, yammy beads.
As I know myself I will write about those activities and impressions in bits now and then and hopefully somebody besides myself is interested ;-)

This post shows some pictures of the last day, literally the highlight of the trip: Above is me joking around in front of the Mont Blanc, the highest mountain of Europe. We climbed a "tiny" mountain opposite of the so very impressive mountain range above the french village of Chamonix. The Mont Blanc is straight 3800 m above the houses! And he is not the only mountain around.
In my humble opinion also not the most beautiful. That label should go to the Dru, the massive "stone" in the background of the next picture. The Dru is featuring a famous very hard climbing route with more than 1000 m. Even the eastiest approach is way above my skill- and wishlevel.
But I do wish I would live near the Alps and not almost 1000 km away.

Tschüs for summer travel

Tschüs is "Hamburgian" for the informal bye-bye. The photo is from my last year's big trip to Africa and I think it symbolise the leaving, going, off to new adventures. I don't know about you, at least for me it does.

In a couple of hours I will hit the road for Switzerland and France for 15 days. Hopefully the conditions will be good for climbing, walking in the Alps and maybe one greater mountain. In between I want to cycle around The Lac Leman, the great lake of Genevre, in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

Thanks for all the touching comments on my last posts. As usual I got lost in blogland, looking at photos and this week also in climbing pages. So when I finally told myself to get off internet I hadn't written a personal note to you.
Besides surfing my days were filled with exercising. My shape is pretty lousy so I spent many hours climbing, due to a lack of rocks inside in a gym. But at least my compagnions there are fun to be around with and because I have vacation I treated myself afterwards with some good time in the sauna.

Many many hours I spent with packing. Although travelling is "my life" and I do travel frequently, I hate packing. I get sick from it, sometimes even physically. It doesn't even matter if I fly to Africa or India, it also can happen just for a weekend camping trip.
Of course I'm working with lists, cheerful self-talk and today I will use my new remedy, the Bach rescue drops.

I'm not ready yet so instead worrying if I have forgotten to mention something to somebody of my cyber acquaintances I should quit here with a hearty

tschüs
:-Tally-:

ps: for my readers in the English speaking countrys: Please tell me if the vowel in the German word is not displayed. I don't know with the lastest html what you can see. If you can't figure it out it should be: tschues