Back and fighting

I'm back.  Had a hard time getting used to the cold weather in Switzerland so I was like frozen for at least two weeks.  Now I'm knitting again, that means probably that I'm back to life after a dream and a time to get back from it.

At first I had to do the sorting thing with my needles, because there is lots of people who know I knit.   They keep on giving me their used needles.

Partially finished

The blue velvet dress is finished and the little lady of the house looks precious in it. Because the skirt is very wide there is place enough to move, jump and play and it is still nice and warm.  It is the first time that I sew something that comes out as I actually wanted it and it turned out to be something I would do again blindly (almost).  I just love this dress.  If anybody wants to lend the pattern well...just say so.

And the Cashmere-Tweed sweater for Noah (we actually call him the calf, because he drinks about 3 liters of milk per day, that is if I get to stop him) is finished. It came out a bit big but he will grow (with so much milk I can't be worried about that) in it I guess.  I'm lucky that he wants to put it on in the first place an even likes it!  Yes, as Mason&Dixson in "Knitting outside the lines" would say:  "Kids grow up. Somewhere in the range of 8 to 10, Johnny and Dylan get the idea that what Auntie Knitty is making for them is flat-out the fugliest stuff they have ever seen.  They dig in their heels, and their heels are not wearing handknit slipper socks."  This article and in fact the whole book is absolutely worth the money.  It is tough work to knit for teens, believe me it is!

After all the work came Eliane and friendly asked if he could help me with preparing the big trip to the south so I wished a real american apple pie for dinner and she took this very seriously.  The most delicious help I have ever had.

All things queuing up

There is lots of things I should get to finish soon, some are queuing up for a long time now.

There is the scarf I started knitting with a pattern from Spin off Magazine Number 28.  It is a nice pattern but I'm not a friend of knitting scarfs, so after about 20 cm I decided to make an other piece just like the first (everything with Noro sock-yarn) and let it be turned into the lower part of a round yoke cardi for the little lady of the house.

Then we have the cardi for Noah in Tweedlux from from Schulana, which I must say is a very nice wool but it seams to be an endless source of straw. Most expensive straw I have ever bought!  The basic Model, Bronson comes from last Rowan Magazine an its downloadable for free.  I Could not just leave it and added some little extras to get the fun in the knitting. The photos in general are not soo good, because I did them all at night.  The color is much darker.  I'll make nice photos when finished.

The little lady of the house wants a special dress for the  coming holidays and I found this blue velvet cut and also the perfect pattern as I put some order in my sewing things.  I can show you now the upper part.  I'm very proud to say that the borders in light blue are made from a shirt belonging to my husband that I could not throw away without cutting the best parts of the nice fabric.  Lucky me to have kept the trims for more than two years now.

And when talking about sewing I can say that there is one thing I actually have finished.  I found a long time ago in a flea market an overlock machine.  The name Bambinalock reminds me of the good Baby-lock series.  This must be a copy.  It is 20 years old and comes from a sewing studio.  It is extremely easy to use and very sturdy.  There is no hundreds of extras and it does not make coffee either.  But it does its job perfectly.  Only the electrician part with the cables had to be done first and it took me some time to figure out how.  Now I don't know how could I sew before without an overlock.  It makes the sewing much more fun.  OK, but I would never pay a big sum for one of these. Recycle.

At at last I have to show you what I found in a salvation army shop lately.  You must know first that I'm fascinated by fish figures, pictures, anything.  Well there was this beautiful and complete set of German porcelain to serve fish, all hand painted and just one of a kind.  Every image is different and there is also a big serving platte.  Recycle once again...