Anarchistelfliege 2

Yesterday a friend came to visit, we wanted to sew some quilt blocks and admire each other's old Bernina sewing machines. The latter is something we didn't quite get to, because we talked so much instead. (which was wonderful)

She gave me this wonderful green printed Soso wax fabric with the yellow and orange abstract wheel designs on it. I shared the fabrics from Senegal with her.
Here are my african fabrics:



I'm also still hand quilting the round robin that we made in our spiritual womyns project:



Lately, my quilting came to a halt because of my knitting obsession, but I'm picking it up again now. What I found when I wanted to put one quilt into my drawer, was a bunch of paintings and drawings I did in 2006. This is a mandala I drawed and copied it in the copy shop and colored the copies:



I reallly would like to do everything at once. Quilting, sewing, knitting, spinning and painting and drawing... *sigh*

On saturday I visited the "Stoffmarkt Holland". Which is a fabric market. Mostly fabric merchants from the Netherlands, but also German sellers are touring through germany and spreading some dutch market culture. They are near Berlin, in Potsdam, once or twice a year, and every time lots and lots of crafty folk, some quilters, but mostly people who sew clothes, travel far to get there.

Though we do have a fabric market in Berlin, where mostly turkish sellers are present (and with the lowest fabric prices ever!!) I was in search of something specific and here in Berlin, it wasn't available on the weekly market.
My boyfriend and my girlfriend both had no time to accompany me, so I went there alone. And I did spend a lot of money. There were two or three sellers of quilting fabrics, and there was an incredible variety of batiks there, and they were 5-7 Euros cheaper than in online shops/brick and mortar stores.

I got 2 meters of batik fabrics, and a fat-quarter-package, 8 FQ's for 10 Euros, and 1 metre of printed cotton from Senegal. There was a binational couple who had imported the fabric themselves.



And besides the quilting fabric, I got some metres of ramie, to make some trousers for me, since the last ones I made are now a bit worn out. Especially where my behind meets the saddle of my bike, they have worn thin.



On my way back on the train, I spun. I'm spinning for a sweater right now, and I finished the first skein and I spin the second one now. Today, the weather was a lot better than on the weekend, and I went to the park and took some pics of my newest handspun yarn:

I looooooove them!!
handdyed wool top with easter egg colors, spun into a single yarn and without any setting of twist knit the socks with the "energized single".

At the moment, I seem to come across online discussions where in public you can knit or spin quite often. The best pic I have seen is by Starathena, here she is blogging about herself knitting on a "Splash Mountain" ride at Disneyland! (Inclucing photo)
I'm quite moderate compared to her, I only spin while going to the grocery store and in the park, in the waiting room.... my knitting isn't that portable at the moment, because the socks I'm making need a lot of chart following and concentration.

People usually turn their heads when I'm spinning in public, especially children think spinning is cool.

My current vision of a relaxing walk is me, with a good or my best friend, walking through the countryside on a sunny day and I've got a spindle in my hand, and I'm spinning some nice yarn while talking and laughing...

Today I met a farmer who I got to know many years ago. He's got sheep and maybe, when he doesn't forget about it, he'll get me some wool of his sheep! He's got some left from last year. This year they didn't shear them yet because of the bad weather. He said, they won't shear them at all this year, probably.
Anyway, I'm curious. I hope he remembers it :)

I love fields full of poppies. This is summer, the real summer!
This pic was taken on a bicycle tour to the garden. 40 km, following the former Berlin Wall.



My bike has been used nearly every day for the past 12 years, and some parts of it just are so worn out. Many parts have already been replaced, but I guess there's a new wave of repairs needed this year. Like any old vehicle. But I like it!



And of course, my new hobby, spinning.



I found that one of the most important things for a smoothly spinning top whorl spindle is a hook tuning. There's also a great Article on how to fix spindle hooks. Since I adjusted the hooks on my homemade spindles, they spin just great.
A wobbling spindle is not just an aesthetic problem. The wobbling slows the spindle down, and for some spinning techniques, especially long draw on the hand spindle, I need them to spin fast. I can really recommend this hook tuning!

I'm so proud! I'm knitting socks from my handspun yarn!



It's a single yarn, and since I did nothing to set the twist, it's also knitting with an "energized single". It worked better than I had expected. This is "Eiderwolle", dyed with easter-egg-colors, And then spun with a worsted short draw into a single.
Noro does it, Schoppel Zauberballs are single sock yarns, so why should I not?
The fiber is rather rough and strong and I think the socks will be durable enough. I reenforced the heel using commercial sock yarn, though.

That was the Revontuli shawl 2 days ago. Or was it 3? precisely this photo was taken on saturday, four days ago. In the meantime the color of the yarn has changed to a dark shade of green. This is my handspun yarn! Yay!
I'm knitting the first ball and spinning the second. I'm nearly done with plying the second ball. After that I can spin the third, and hopefully that will be all I need for the shawl.
The pattern is available for free here in Finnish, there is also a pdf-file in english and german, which can be downloaded from ravelry. But you need to be a ravelry user to see them.

But today, I didn't knit anything. I cleared my cutting table with the cutting mat from all spinning fiber, spindles, knitting patterns and rubbish and made some quilt blocks. On my womens' mailing list we are making blocks for a baby quilt, and I'm a little bit behind, the deadline for sending the finished blocks was beginning of may. But now they are done, just in time and I can still send them out. They are 16'' blocks, after the Midget Blocks I'm really confused, I feel like I'm sewing sails or tents. Those pieces look so big to me.

...I love it!!



That shape on my back is the hood of a hoodie - I don't know why I was too lazy to put on something else before taking photos.



I wore it all day today - so nice and soft.

I've bound off Laminaria today. The result was a bouncy, ugly piece of fabric that felt strange to touch.



Then I blocked - it became so incredibly large, that the frame I wanted to use as a blocking board was too small and I had to construct some spiderweb around the legs of chairs and tables to finish blocking.



I'm really curious how it will look tomorrow, when I try it on!