Summer (vacation) has come and gone

Today is already the last day of my 3 weeks summer vacation. Tomorrow little Mr. T’s daycare will open its doors again and Ms. Nike is already attending summer project at her school. How can three weeks be gone so quickly? It feels like we didn’t do anything but at the same time we got around a lot. We visited friends and family, went camping, rode our bicycles, enjoyed hot, hot days in the garden, there’s been crafting going on and just plain enjoying the time without a rigid schedule.

Memorial for theater reformer Caroline Neuber in Zwickau

Bridgewater Triangle

I have to admit, that the Bridgewater pattern from BrooklynTweed has been in my queue for ages now. It’s got everything that I like – garter stitch on the bias, some nice repetitive lace and a cute sideways edging. But I don’t have that much use for square shawls. *sigh* A couple of months ago I found this fairly affordable Alpaca yarn online that only comes in bags of 6 balls. The colours seemed lovely and the burgundy red in particular looked so nice. Suddenly I knew what to do with the Bridgewater shawl. Why not make it into a triangle and see how the nice Alpaca works up. Usually I don’t like knitting with Alpaca and I don’t like to wear it either. It’s usually both too warm and prickly for me. But this yarn was a surprise on all fronts. It shed very little, had practically no knots, was much less prickly than expected and the only expected issue was a lot of bleeding in the wash. > For more details checkout the Ravelry project page >

Bridgewater – triangular shawl

Ms. Nike modeling the shawl for me. Good size reference.

The yarn is FairAlpaka Fingering in the „Weinrot Heather“ color way. Unfortunately they decided not to produce this quality for 2015. They are still selling what’s left in stock and have announced a sport weight quality.

Living simple

Camping. See the cozy stripe blanket there? Lovely companion.

This year we decided to simplify the holiday experience. With the kids still small there always seems so much stress to organized hotel or resort holidays. So, this year it was going to be a campground, a tent, the bicycles and a beach. And what can I say? It worked out nicely. We had great weather – sweltering heat more like it – a lovely sandy beach at a small quarry lake and a few nice destinations for short bike trips.

Seligenstadt at the river Main

Purple pretties.

Finishing touches

It’s been a while since I sat down at the sewing machine for more than just a few short repairs. There’s been this pretty quilt top from a Moda layer cake waiting for completion for way too long now. Using the Jelly Roll Race quilt quite extensively as a beach blanket this summer has giving me the needed motivation to finally sit down and do something about this unfinished quilt.

Double Slice Layer Cake Quilt

The whole construction of the blocks looks kinda confusing and complicated but it actually is quite easy, as is often the case with quilt blocks. Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company has a lovely video up that explains the whole process.

I’m currently working on stitching down the binding. While I shy away from attempting actual hand quilting I love hand stitching the binding. I love the look as well as the process.

So, this is it for today. I’m off to finish some things, to prepare some for Ms. Nike’s upcoming 8th birthday this week and to get my mind back into the work game come tomorrow morning.